Ronagog and Junipra helped Jim back to his feet, then realized they were still holding each other’s hands. Remembering their previous breakup, they grudgingly let go. Jim sighed and said, “You know what, guys? I was wrong. This is the best time for a lovefest. Living apart from everyone . . . well, that’s no way to live at all. If you find someone who loves you—no matter what world you come from or what you look like—I say keep ’em.”
Junipra and Ronagog hugged and shared a kiss. Then they went right back to shoving each other again.
“You’re—ugh!—my—oof!—soulmate!” said Junipra.
“No—hgn!—you—gah!—are!” replied Ronagog.
“That . . . that doesn’t even make any sense,” Jim said.
He rolled his eyes and grinned despite himself. But when Sir Barks howled in alarm, Jim’s blood froze. The Trollhunter spun around and saw Angor Rot running toward them, the Creeper’s Sun dagger held in the hand he’d curled around his abdomen.
“If you wish to die with your soul intact, so be it!” shrieked Angor Rot.
He swung the blade at Jim, who feinted to the side, his hybrid reflexes sparing his life. Sir Barks, Ronagog, and Junipra all rushed to Jim’s defense, but he said, “No! Stay back!”
“You think that by saving them, you save what’s left of your humanity?” snapped Angor Rot on his dagger’s return swing. “That part of you is gone forever, hunter! Now there’s enough Troll in you for me to turn to stone! Like I did to AAARRRGGHH!!! To Draal! Like you did to me!”
Jim blocked another of Angor Rot’s stabs and kicked him away. The Moonlight Armor’s cleats scraped his brittle body, yet he was too bloodthirsty to notice. Angor Rot lunged again. This time the Trollhunter was ready for him.
He purposefully fell onto his armored back and held up his legs. As the deranged Troll jumped on him, Jim replaced the treads on his boots with the jumping stilts and said, “You did that to yourself.”
Angor Rot realized too late what the Trollhunter had done. He collided with Jim’s stilts—and bounced right off them. As the assassin ricocheted into a tree, Jim somersaulted forward and fired another arrow from his bow. It knocked away the Creeper’s Sun dagger and skewered Angor Rot’s hand to the tree’s trunk.
The pinned Troll cried out in pain and outrage. He tried desperately to free his hand. Then another silver streak shot past his neck. Angor Rot looked to the side and saw his neck pouch now swinging from the arrow wedged into the branch beside him.
“Bad things happen to all of us, things we didn’t even ask for or expect,” Jim said, feeling the weight of the horns on his own head. “But every bad thing that’s happened since you sold your soul to Morgana . . . well, that’s all on you, Angor Rot.”
The Trollhunter lowered his bow. Angor Rot looked incredulously at him and said, “It is customary to put a hobbled beast out of its misery at the end of a hunt. You . . . you won’t even do me that honor?”
Jim shook his head. No.
“Then you are the better Troll,” accepted Angor Rot. “And hunter.”
With his free hand, he pulled a cloudy crystal sphere from his belt and crushed it. Thick smoke spread around him, blocking Jim’s view. When the haze cleared, Angor Rot and his dagger were gone. The only traces of his presence that he’d left behind were a single arrow in a tree . . . and the pouch full of gems still hanging from it.
Epilogue
FARE THEE WELL
From the remote, misty afterlife known as the Void, two spectral figures looked through their scrying window. The portal offered a glimpse of a forested stretch of the surface world, where a River Troll and a Garden Troll wed in a private ceremony. Ronagog and Junipra beamed with happiness as they exchanged nose rings—which had been fashioned from one of the Moonlight arrows—and inserted them into each other’s snouts.
“Is that how you married Mother?” asked Draal’s spirit in the Void.
The ghost of Kanjigar the Courageous grinned and said, “Ours was a more traditional affair. Ballustra and I first engaged in a trial-by-combat cage match before reciting our vows. It was the happiest day of our lives. That is, until you were born, my son. Why, I can still remember how we used to carry you, feed you, and wipe your little blue—”
“Ugh, Father!” Draal interrupted. “Don’t make it weird. Please.”
If phantoms could blush, Kanjigar would have. Instead, he and his son returned their gaze to the scrying window. There they saw Ronagog and Junipra wave to someone in the distance. Across the woods, Jim waved back, his and Sir Barks’s camouflaged bodies practically hidden in the trees. The Trollhunter and his hound then turned and disappeared into the wild.
“Where do you think he goes now?” asked Draal. “To confront Gunmar in his new suit of armor?”
“I suspect not, my son,” Kanjigar answered. “Jim Lake Junior will need his Sword of Eclipse for that final confrontation. And Dark Trollmarket has other concerns at present.”
The former Trollhunter beckoned another viewing window to open. There, Draal saw the shattered, corrupted remains of the Heartstone he’d known and protected for so long in life. Gunmar the Gold stood amidst the wreckage, ordering his Gumm-Gumms into action.
“Clear this rubble at once!” barked Gunmar. “Morgana shall return from her meditations in short order, and I would have this path swept clean—so that our first steps to the Eternal Night be—”
The Gumm-Gumm king’s voice faded when he saw a small black dot appear in the air before him. It rapidly widened into a vast shadow portal, and out of the vortex flew the only surviving Stalkling from the surface world. The Vulture Troll crashed into a squad of Gumm-Gumms, toppling them. Gunmar saw the blindfold tied around the Stalkling’s chrome eyes before it opened its beak and vomited out a handful of Pixies.
“What trickery is this?” he shouted, seeing his soldiers drop to their knees in paroxysms of imagined terror.
Gunmar wrapped his arms around his face, covering his foul mouth, nose, and ears. But he didn’t account for the last point of entry on his face—the open gouge where his right eye used to be. A Pixie darted into the socket, and the Dark Underlord felt pain sear from his horns to his hooves. He refused to feel fear. He refused to scream. He refused to acknowledge the shape that now stood at his side.
“Greetings, Father,” said the apparition.
Gunmar swiveled his one good eye to look at it, and saw his own son staring back at him.
“Bular?” gasped Gunmar.
“It is I,” Bular said. “For the most part.”
Only now did Gunmar realize that he spoke to Bular’s remains, a collection of stone fragments that were now reanimated. Bular smiled an ugly, toothsome smile at Gunmar, the rest of his incisors visible through the missing chunks of his face.
“Even in death, I have heard your shame, Father,” Bular continued. “I have heard you fault me for falling at the hands of a fleshbag. But it is you who is to blame.”
“Insolent whelp!” roared Gunmar. “I tolerate disrespect from none—not even my own obscene offspring!”
“But I was the best of you, as every child is of the parent that sired them,” said Bular. “And if I died at the human Trollhunter’s hands, then what chance does an old, half-blind Gumm-Gumm like you have against an entire team of them?”
Bular threw back his ruined head and laughed. And for the first time in his long, monstrous life, Gunmar finally felt fear. Gunmar finally screamed.
Back in the Void, a far different father and son closed the scrying window. Neither Kanjigar nor Draal took any satisfaction from the suffering of the Trolls who made them ghosts. Rather, they considered another portal, its surface revealing not enemies, but friends.
For Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!! appeared in the Quagawump Swamps, their bodies bound by the Krubera guard. Queen Usurna stood imperiously before them and said, “Blinkous Galadrigal and Aarghaumont of—it saddens me to say—the Krubera. You have been declared enemies of the new Troll order. My Troll order!”
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“Yours?” retorted Blinky. “Do you not bow before Gunmar and Morgana?”
“Hardly!” spat Usurna. “This queen bows before no others. I only bide my time and refine my strategy, manipulating those around me until my true goals are met!”
“Treat Trolls like pawns,” AAARRRGGHH!!! grumbled at her.
“But of course!” Usurna boasted. “For I and I alone understand what’s best for our kind, even if the rest of you are too stupid to know it!”
Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!! noticed the Krubera around them bristle at their queen’s pronouncement. Usurna dismissed her soldiers’ murmuring and said, “Take that traitor to the tar pit bog. Then tie his six-eyed friend over there so he gets a good view of what comes next!”
“Bye, Blinky,” said AAARRRGGHH!!! as the Trolls pulled him away.
“No, AAARRRGGHH!!!, this is not good-bye!” Blinky said back, ignoring the Kruberas fastening his body to one of the swamp’s trees. “For I shall never leave the side of a friend in need! That is not the way Master Jim’s humanity has shown us!”
AAARRRGGHH!!! smiled at Blinky—before a Krubera fist struck across his face. Blinky winced in sympathy as more punches and kicks came from Usurna’s soldiers. The gentle giant withstood them . . . for now.
Far across time and space, Draal itched to leave the Void and fight for his friends. But Kanjigar, sensing his son’s impatience, placed a translucent hand on Draal’s shoulder and said, “We are forbidden to interfere, as are all Merlin’s fallen champions.”
“But, Father, they face certain doom in that swamp!” cried Draal.
“Do they?” asked Kanjigar. “You and I have both seen Blinkous and AAARRRGGHH!!! emerge unscathed from worse dangers than this, have we not? And even from our remove, I detect Blinky’s plan already at work.”
“ ‘Plan’?” repeated Draal. “What plan?”
“Did you not see the way Usurna’s soldiers reacted when she called them her pawns?” said Kanjigar. “Not all battles are fought with weapons, my son. Some are won with words. And in such wars, Blinky is the undisputed master. All he and AAARRRGGHH!!! need do is keep Usurna talking, and that queen will be the one hoisted over the tar pit bog. Nor will she be the only one to face a comeuppance of her own making. Look hither!”
Kanjigar’s spirit pointed back to the scrying window, its view now shifting to the canals of Arcadia just before dawn. Angor Rot limped through the water, which had receded since the storm ended. Stifling a yell, he wrenched the Trollhunter’s arrow from his hand and cast it aside with the other waste.
“Don’t you know it isn’t nice to litter?” murmured someone from the shadows.
Angor Rot startled when he saw two glowing cat eyes staring back at him from under the bridge. They belonged to Nomura, who stepped out of the shadows in her violet Changeling form. She pulled the scimitars from the scabbards on her back, their bent blades glinting with the last of the moonlight.
“You and I have a score to settle, assassin,” said Nomura.
“You’re mistaken, Impure,” snarled Angor Rot. “Our paths have never crossed.”
“No, but you crossed the path of one I once loved,” she said back. “One who saw the best in me even when I did not.”
Angor Rot’s fingers tightened around his dagger’s handle. Nomura snorted and said, “Would you even remember his face, I wonder? Out of all the lives you’ve taken—out of all the mayhem you’ve caused—which is the one that haunts you most?”
A sound came to Angor Rot, clear and unmistakable in the concrete canal. It was the single, sad coo of a dove. The rotting Troll reacted to the birdcall, but Nomura did not.
“This is a ploy!” said Angor Rot. “A bewitchment! You’ve turned my own Pixies against me, haven’t you? Haven’t you?”
Nomura pointed her scimitars at Angor Rot, and he saw two dead sprites speared upon their tips. The Changeling flicked them off her blades and said, “Your Pixies are dead. And whatever horrors you now hear aren’t some bugs you can squash. They’ll follow you to the end of your days like a prison—a yoke—a leash of your own making.”
Angor Rot dropped to his knees with a splash, the dove’s coo echoing louder and louder in his mind. Sheathing her swords, Nomura turned her back on the pitiful Troll, and walked away whistling Peer Gynt. She knew she could’ve assassinated the assassin right then and there. But first she wanted him to suffer the same way she had . . . ever since she lost Draal.
Little did Nomura realize that the Troll she mourned looked down upon her now from the Void. Draal’s ghost stroked the window to Nomura and said, “Never change, my Changeling. . . .”
“Now who’s making it weird?” chided Kanjigar.
Draal cleared his throat in embarrassment, then joined his smiling father. Kanjigar draped an ethereal arm on his son’s back and, together, they saw a brightening horizon on one last scrying portal. As day threatened to break over Lake Arcadia Oaks, the Trollhunter and Sir Barks-a-Lot sat on its shore, taking in the last of the predawn. Jim twisted off his Amulet, dissipating his Moonlight Armor, as well as the wolf pup’s. Sir Barks groaned in disappointment, making Jim chuckle while opening the device’s rear hatch.
“Sorry,” Jim said. “This suit definitely served its purpose, but there are only so many slots in the Amulet. And I need to load them with the only stones that have even the slimmest shot of stopping Gunmar.”
He shook out the six crystals within the Amulet—the very same he’d taken “on loan” from the museum—and replaced them with the gems from Angor Rot’s pouch, including the Triumbric Stones. Sir Barks looked up as Jim stood and said, “You can’t come with me this time, Barks. I have a feeling something seriously bad’s about to go down in Arcadia, and it’s gonna take everything I’ve got to keep myself alive, let alone you. Besides, I think they’d miss you.”
He nodded his horns toward the trees, where his keen Troll eyesight spotted a mother wolf and her three other pups. Sir Barks wagged his tail. He then looked from his family to Jim and back again, torn between them. Jim patted the pup’s head and said, “Fare thee well, Sir Barks-a-Lot. It’s been an honor to hunt alongside you. And who knows? Maybe we’ll live to see each other again someday. . . .”
He watched the puppy reluctantly scamper away and be welcomed back into his pack. Sir Barks took one last look at Jim before he followed his mother and siblings back to their home in the woods.
Seeing the sun start to rise over the mountains, Jim knew he’d better get going. If he kept moving and stuck to the safety of the shadows, he figured he’d be back with his mom, Claire, Toby, and—hopefully—Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!! plus the rest of the gang by dinnertime.
“Do you think he can do it, Father?” Draal’s voice echoed from the Void. “Can he avert disaster and survive the Eternal Night?”
“It’s a daunting destiny indeed that awaits him, my son,” said Kanjigar the Courageous. “But if anyone can save the human and Troll worlds, then it is surely this young hero who now represents the best of those worlds.”
Together, the father and son spirits watched Jim Lake Jr. take a deep, burdened breath. He could tell another round of changes would soon manifest through his evolving body. But Jim would just have to deal with those when they came. For the time being, though, he summoned the Eclipse Armor and made himself as ready as he could be.
The Trollhunter then took his first step toward home and the long, long night to come. . . .
Keep reading for a preview of
The Way of the Wizard
by
Richard Ashley Hamilton
In all his many centuries of life, Kanjigar had never known such happiness. Yes, he had felt thrilled when Rundle, son of Kilfred, father of Vendel, admitted Kanjigar into the select order of Troll scholars. And, of course, Kanjigar had been overjoyed the day he wed his bride, Ballustra. This elation only doubled later, when Kanjigar removed a chip of his own living stone, fit it against one of Ballustra’s, and embedded the matching pieces in
a small crystal. But even that moment paled against the swelling Kanjigar now felt in his heart.
After watching that crystal grow and glow for three decades—the average length of time for Troll development—Kanjigar and Ballustra finally heard the first, faint crack of the Birthstone. They rushed to the splintering crystal just in time to see a little blue foot kick through its opaque surface. Warm, pink light shone from within as Kanjigar broke away more shards of Birthstone and Ballustra breathed, “Husband . . . we have a son.”
Kanjigar knelt before the little Troll staring back at him. Their eyes were the same. Yet Kanjigar recognized tiny versions of Ballustra’s horns protruding from the newborn’s head. Ballustra took their baby into her arms, nuzzled his face, and asked, “What shall we call him?”
“Draal,” said Kanjigar, recalling his favorite Troll scholar.
Young Draal seemed to enjoy the name too. He smiled and gurgled while Ballustra handed him to her husband. And as a father holding his son for the first time, Kanjigar now experienced the most overwhelming sense of pride. Of peace. Of completion.
This was the greatest happiness Kanjigar had ever known.
“Look at his arms,” Ballustra marveled. “He’ll make a fine Monger Troll indeed!”
Kanjigar’s smile faltered. He had just been inspecting Draal’s eight perfect fingers. The thought of those chubby hands holding weapons—which Monger Trolls like Ballustra made exclusively—seemed inconceivable. Kanjigar pushed the image from his mind, ignoring the imaginary war drums he had started to hear . . . only to realize they weren’t quite so imaginary.
“That’s a Gumm-Gumm combat march,” Ballustra said, also hearing the rhythmic beat echo into their cave. “It’s getting louder. Closer.”
“Closer than you might think!” cried a familiar voice.
Kanjigar instinctively held Draal tighter as the Galadrigal brothers, Blinkous and Dictatious, barged into his cave, their dozen eyes bulging in terror. But when he saw the baby Troll, Blinkous clasped his four hands and added, “By Gorgus, your child is born! What a blessed occasion on such an accursed day!”
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