Angor Reborn

by Richard Ashley Hamilton

  PROLOGUE

  THE MEANTIME

  Angor Rot had nothing left to give.

  He’d traded two fine mules at the port of Alexandria for directions to her last known whereabouts. At first the Egyptian sailors had been hesitant to do business with a Troll. But Angor Rot’s desperation—plus his offer to throw in the second mule—convinced them to divulge the location.

  Next to go were his goats, which Angor Rot bartered away at Cyprus. During previous travels to the island, he’d been captivated by its white sand beaches and towering Mount Olympus. This time, though, the Troll visited with an urgency in his soul. He haggled with a blind woman for what felt like hours, causing the Troll’s anger to rise. Despite his name, Angor Rot had been legendary among his tribe for his calm, even temper. But this old crone sorely tested his patience before she’d revealed the incantation he’d need for the summoning.

  Finally, after weeks of grueling travel across the stormy Aegean Sea, Angor Rot sold the rest of his animals at a night bazaar in Istanbul. Just as his village had been destroyed—another casualty of Gunmar the Black’s conquest of the Troll world—so, too, did Angor Rot know he must also say good-bye to his beloved menagerie. Such was the cost of access to the Black Sea beyond Istanbul . . . and the sorceress Angor Rot sought.

  As his lone oar dipped into its still waters, Angor Rot considered what was left of his raft. It had once been a mighty Troll vessel—an ark he captained across moonlit oceans to explore the surface lands and add their diverse animals to his growing herd. With its Graven Garb sails and crystal masts, the ship outraced pods of Kelpestrum and withstood typhoons. But now, Angor Rot stood on flotsam, on timbers held together with little more than rope and rage. He looked up at the enormous moon above him. He never felt so small, so powerless, so alone.

  Alone, that was, save for his last dove. Angor Rot had found the bird injured on the Barbary Coast after a passing squall. With his delicate stone fingers, he nursed the scrawny, deplumed thing back to health. The Troll watched him grow into a beautiful dove with a dark circlet of feathers around its neck. He may have been able to part with the other birds in his flock, but not this bird.

  The raft scraped against the desolate coast of Bulgaria, and Angor Rot prayed that his long quest was at an end. By the light of his torch, he sidestepped evidence of past shipwrecks and saw the entrance to the cave. It appeared exactly as described by the Egyptian sailors, imposingly dark and forbidden. Angor Rot’s yellow eyes searched the shadows.

  “Bu rah naazga,” said Angor Rot in the way the blind woman taught him. “K’eh hazu.”

  He waited for a response, the torch’s glow flickering across his pockmarked body. Angor Rot’s very soul shone through the wounds he’d acquired during one of Gunmar’s raids. But the inner light dimmed along with his hope when no answer came. Then, the terrible knowledge of what Angor Rot must do next came to him. He had traded his every worldly possession to find this place.

  Why should now be any different? thought Angor Rot, his heart sinking.

  The Troll removed his prized dove from the nest in his belt pouch. On mended wings, the bird flew into the cave. Angor Rot heard him coo for the final time, followed by what sounded like the sickening snap of a twig. Something then moved inside the cave, shadows shifting against shadows. Finding his voice again, Angor Rot said, “I call you forth. Argante.”

  That’s what they called her on the North Sea, where he traded his sails for animal feed.

  “Pale Lady.”

  Another name he heard whispered in the mountain regions, where he sold the crystal masts.

  “Baba Yaga.”

  The name they used for her in the Black Forest, where he surrendered his shepherd staff.

  “Eldritch Queen,” he said, remembering the name from the bedtime fables Troll parents told to frighten their misbehaving younglings.

  Morgana, Angor Rot thought finally.

  No one ever dared to call the sorceress by her true name. For even though she had long since disappeared after the Battle of Killahead Bridge, her specter still haunted the surface world.

  “I have many names,” answered the darkness.

  Morgana’s response snuffed out Angor Rot’s torch and nearly brought him to his knees. Sensing the night sky brighten behind him, he turned and saw that the Black Sea had become purple. Judging by the waves’ unnaturally slow movement, Angor Rot wondered if he had also stepped out of time when he stepped off his raft.

  “I come to trade,” he said, feeling dwarfed by the cave’s looming mouth. “Gunmar’s war for the surface lands has ravaged my village. I need the power to protect my people.”

  “You seek magic, but what do you bring in return?” asked Morgana.

  What do I bring? What more could she possibly want? Angor Rot thought in disbelief.

  Yet he could not turn away. Not now. Not after taking this painful journey. Not after sacrificing all he’d ever cherished, even his pet dove. Finding courage in his resolve, Angor Rot uncovered his dagger and dug it into his side. He winced as he cut out a piece of his stone flesh. With another spot of his soul now exposed, Angor Rot braved into the cavern.

  “Here, my offering,” Angor Rot said weakly. “Carved from my own living stone.”

  A long, slender arm sheathed in gold reached out of the shadows. Morgana’s gilded fingernails clinked as they curled around the stone skin, claiming it. Her clutched fist shaped the flesh into something new. And when the hand opened, it revealed a ring.

  Angor Rot’s yellow eyes widened as incandescent orbs flew out of the ring and into his palm. They reminded him of the ones he’d once seen emerge from Deya the Deliverer’s Amulet when the Trollhunter summoned her Daylight Sword.

  “Yes!” cried Angor Rot in shock and gratitude. “I can . . . I can feel it! It is so . . . It is so . . .”

  Flames the same color as his eyes spewed from Angor Rot’s hands. In the resulting glow, he thought he actually glimpsed Morgana wearing a barbed headdress.

  At last, thought Angor Rot, feeling a swell of renewed strength. After all this loss, this hunting, I now have that which I need—POWER! The power to avenge my tribe against Gunmar. The power to ensure that no other village suffers as did mine!

  The yellow flames suddenly went out. Angor Rot gaped in surprise at his empty hands before doubling over in agony. Pain wracked his entire body, as if those orbs now burrowed deeper inside him. He vomited them out. When the orbs left his body, they took something else of Angor Rot’s with them. He watched them return to Morgana’s awaiting hand. The ring she had crafted now levitated, filled with whatever force the orbs had stolen from Angor Rot.

  “My soul!” he screamed. “You lied to me!”

  Morgana snickered and said, “You fool. Your flesh is worth nothing.”

  “What have you done to me?” demanded Angor Rot, his voice feeling as hollow as his chest. “Inside, I am so . . . so . . . empty!”

  “I gave you what you wanted,” said the sorceress. “Now your soul is mine!”

  All Angor Rot had to show for this final offering, this ultimate theft, was Morgana’s shrill laughter. That laughter followed him long after he floated away on his raft, regretting that he ever summoned Argante. Pale Lady. Baba Yaga. Eldritch Queen. Morgana. Or as Angor Rot now felt compelled to call her . . . Master.

  You will seek Merlin’s champions and bring death to his Trollhunters, her voice echoed.

  “No!” Angor Rot howled at the moon.

  He cared not about Merlin or his champions. His quarrel had always been with Gunmar the Black. Yet, he could still sense his soul inside that ring—that Inferna Copula. Morgana’s control over him was complete. He had no choice but to obey. But Angor Rot had also seen Deya the Deliverer in a
ction. He knew that to defeat a Trollhunter, he would need an edge.

  Once again the Black Sea turned purple. The raft stopped moving, as if anchored, and Morgana’s golden arm reached out from the depths. The sight reminded Angor Rot of a legend he’d once heard about one of Merlin’s allies. But unlike that Lady in the Lake, Morgana did not offer a sword. Instead, she gave Angor Rot a staff with an end as forked as her tongue.

  Take the Skathe-Hrün, Angor Rot heard Morgana say in his mind.

  The soulless Troll did as he was told, and the Shadow Staff became but the first of his many new possessions. At Izmir Trollmarket, Angor Rot swapped his raft for a Krubera-made digging vehicle known as a Borer. The two-headed Troll vendor didn’t feel it was a fair trade—a battered dinghy for a diamond drill tank—but Angor Rot was long past fairness. Rather than beg or plea or quibble with lesser beings, he simply took what he wanted, just as his soul had been taken.

  He traveled day and night to add to his growing arsenal, tunneling underground on the Borer to avoid deadly sunlight. He surfaced at Mecca and stole a batch of Creeper’s Sun, to polish his dagger with the poison. Then, emerging again in Karachi, he took a hive of Pixies.

  My Pixies, Angor Rot thought while strapping their hive to his back.

  As the Borer took him to his next destination, it occurred to Angor Rot that he was no longer collecting animals, but weapons. The humble gamekeeper was gone. In his place now stood Angor Rot, the assassin.

  Time lost all meaning as he navigated the globe, doing Morgana’s bidding, seeking Merlin’s champions. Angor Rot could only quiet the witch’s voice in his head by hiding in the black portals cast by Skathe-Hrün. There, in the Shadow Realm, he was free to think, to plan.

  Is this truly my fate? Angor Rot thought in darkness. To endlessly hunt Morgana’s prey one by one? Might my curse be lifted sooner if I instead hunt her true enemy—Merlin himself?

  And so Angor Rot arrived at the heart of a jungle in Ranthambore, India, and slipped into the Temple of the Pale One. The locals had named the structure after the solitary figure who lived within its walls. Sure enough, Angor Rot found the Pale One inside the temple, bearded and graying, wearing emerald armor similar in design to Morgana’s.

  “Hmm, I don’t recall inviting you in here,” said Merlin the Wizard.

  “Then allow me to invite you into the shadows—for eternity,” Angor Rot answered, opening a swirling black vortex with his staff.

  Merlin sighed wearily and said, “You will suffer for what you’ve done, assassin.”

  “Ah, but to suffer, I would need a soul, wizard,” sneered Angor Rot.

  With Morgana’s power coursing through his body, he lunged at Merlin. The wizard dodged the attack and pointed to his left and right. With two pulling motions, Merlin wrenched heavy chains out of the walls. The iron manacles clamped around Angor Rot’s wrists, knocking the Skathe-Hrün from his grasp. Merlin then brought his hands lower, and the chains dragged the assassin to the temple floor like a trapped animal.

  “Release me, wizard!” Angor Rot shouted. “You cannot keep me captive. I am already indentured to another master!”

  “Yes, I smell Morgana’s horrendous handiwork in this,” Merlin sneered. “Yet here you shall stay. Alone, with not even your miserable soul to keep you company in the meantime.”

  The wizard then reached upward and yanked at the air above him. Angor Rot heard a rumbling noise and looked up in time to see the temple ceiling cave in. Hundreds of tons of solid rock slabs rained down on Angor Rot, burying him under their crushing weight.

  “For eternity,” Merlin added after the last stone settled.

  The exhausted wizard left the temple, never to return. But Angor Rot did not hear Merlin’s departing footsteps, just as he had not heard the avalanche hit him.

  No, for the next several centuries, all Angor Rot heard was Morgana’s bitter laugh and the innocent coo of his dear, departed dove. . . .

  CHAPTER 1

  BAPTISM BY LIAR

  Jim Lake Jr. had the weirdest dream. In it, an old man trapped Jim in a little glass bottle. Jim pushed against the cork stopper with all his might, but his tiny arms and legs were useless, despite the Daylight Armor supporting them. The old man finally popped the cork, poured Jim into a giant Food Magic 3000, and pressed the frappé button. Jim thought he might have been screaming, but it was hard to tell over the whirring of the blender’s oversized blades.

  When the Trollhunter woke up from his dream, it wasn’t a scream that escaped his lips—it was a flurry of bubbles. Jim’s eyes snapped open, and he immediately felt cold pressure around his entire body. The good news was he wasn’t trapped in a giant blender. But the bad news? Jim was trapped at the bottom of a giant body of water instead.

  He yelped in alarm, releasing another shimmering wave of bubbles. The Trollhunter watched the last of his oxygen float to the surface, some fifty feet above. Feeling his emptied lungs burn, Jim tried to swim. But the Daylight Armor encasing his body only weighed him down. He disturbed the muck beneath his leaden boots, kicking up a cloud of silt.

  Great, thought Jim. Now I’m blind and drowning!

  Forcing himself not to panic, he reached for the Amulet on his chest and twisted it off. The metal breastplate to which it had been affixed vanished, as did the rest of the Daylight Armor. Now freed, and considerably lighter, Jim kicked his legs as hard as he could. He swam higher, even as his vision grew darker, and his head lighter. Jim felt the Amulet slip from his fingertips. He watched the device sink away, along with his hopes of survival.

  The Trollhunter focused his last bit of willpower and reached out toward the Amulet. A bright blue glow appeared below and shot toward Jim like a rocket. He grabbed onto the Amulet as it passed, and the magic disc dragged him up and out of the water with a splash.

  Now flying over the surface, Jim gasped for air. His daze lifted, and he thought he saw a pine forest backlit by the dusk—right before the Amulet reached the top of its arc. With another yelp, Jim started to fall. He crashed into the water again, only this part was much shallower. The Trollhunter trudged out of the lake and collapsed on its shore. Still catching his breath, he looked at the Amulet in his hand and said, “Would it have killed you to let me down gently?”

  Ting! the Amulet chimed in response.

  Jim shook the water from his ears. He looked at the canopy of silhouetted trees before recognizing the manmade dam at the opposite end of the lake.

  I know this place! Jim thought. Lake Arcadia Oaks. Tobes and I used to go camping here back when we were Junior Mole Scouts.

  A breeze blew through the pines, making Jim shiver. He wrapped his arms around his soaked body and lamented how this wasn’t the first watery grave he’d avoided this week. But such narrow escapes were all too common for Jim lately. Ever since Merlin’s Amulet transformed him into the first human Trollhunter, Jim’s world had flipped from ordinary to extraordinary—not necessarily in a good way. Nothing but madness, misery, and mayhem followed. And that was just at high school. Jim didn’t even want to think about all the near-beheadings, trials by combat, and exiles to infernal dimensions that came with his part-time job.

  As he wrung out his sopping wet sweater, he tried to recall how he wound up at the bottom of a lake in the first place. The last thing the Trollhunter remembered was how Merlin prepared some potion in the Food Magic 3000 blender Jim’s mom got him for his last birthday.

  Well, hopefully not my last birthday, Jim mentally corrected himself. Maybe I should just call it my most recent one. I’d like to live past my teens, if possible!

  But the thought did little to cheer Jim. Because it then made him think of the whole reason behind Merlin’s elixir: the Eternal Night. Jim’s Troll friends, Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!!, had gone over the bullet points of this prophesied end of the world: If Gunmar used Merlin’s Staff of Avalon to restore Morgana to life, the crazy witch would bring about an everlasting eclipse. With no sunlight to turn them to stone, the evil Gumm-Gumms woul
d dominate the entire planet, above and below. And the good Trolls and humans—humans like Jim’s mom and best friends, Toby and Claire—well, they’d be hunted to extinction.

  “If they’re even alive now,” Jim muttered, draining the water from his sneakers.

  His memory gradually came back, and Jim felt a surge of worry for his loved ones. His mom, Barbara, had gone missing earlier that day, and Toby and Claire set out to search for her. But Jim still hadn’t heard back from them, and that was hours ago—before the sun went down and Merlin cornered his latest Trollhunter with the strange brew he’d concocted.

  Jim reached for his phone to check for any texts or voicemails. But his pockets were empty. He slapped his forehead in frustration, and the jolt jogged the missing bits of his recollection. Jim had left his cell by the bathroom sink, after he’d filled the tub with water and poured in the elixir. After he’d donned the Daylight Armor and submerged himself in the bath. After Merlin had told him that, to stop the Eternal Night, Jim would have to become both Troll and Hunter. . . .

  “Whatever that means,” Jim mumbled with another shiver.

  He considered the darkening woods around him. Lake Arcadia Oaks was only a few miles outside town. Jim figured he could walk it. Especially since he couldn’t use his ride-sharing app without a phone. But if Jim hustled, he might even make it back in time to whip up breakfast for his mom and friends—because they had to be okay, they just had to—and call out Merlin for the liar he was. After all, that elixir was supposed to transform Jim into something bigger and better, not teleport him way out to the boonies.

  Jim soon heard a whining that was not his own. This one came from between a few of the tall, black pines. He walked over and peered into the woods. Jim heard another whine and spotted its source just a few feet ahead.

  A small wolf pup with floppy ears and a gray-and-white coat lay between two fallen logs. Some old fishing line was tangled around his paws like a plastic net. And the more the puppy struggled, the more it constricted around him.