An undulating mass of deep purple and red scales moved beneath the sea. The mass was gone, disappearing under the ocean surface, almost as quickly as he'd spied it.

"What was it?" Hallekk demanded.

"A monster," someone replied.

"What kind of monster?"

"Big."

Hallekk growled a curse as he prowled the prow. "Big? I knowed it was big. From the way it was a-smashin' up Peggie, why I didn't need to see it to know it was big. What I need to know is how we're a-gonna deal with it."

"We can throw meat in the water. Maybe the beastie will chase the meat to the bottom an' leave us alone."

Juhg stood at the back of the bridge, leaving Hallekk plenty of room to pace. The big dwarf kept the harpoon at the ready.

"Meat won't help," a calm voice said. "That's a bearded hoar-worm. You can throw every morsel of meat aboard this ship into the water and that creature won't go break away from us. It feeds on live prey, and it lives to hunt."

Moving forward to peer around the triangular jib sails straining in the strong winds, Juhg spotted Craugh the wizard on the other side of the bridge.

TOR BOOKS BY MEL ODOM.

The Rover.

The Destruction of the Books.

Hunters of the Dark Sea.

"Just as aged Bilbo Baggins gives way to a new hero, Frodo, at the start of The Lord of the Rings, so does elderly Edgewick "Wick" Lamplighter, now a Grandmagister at Great Library, leave center stage to a youthful progeny, the pint-sized Juhg, in this Tolkienesque sequel, set nearly a century later, to Odom's The Rover (2001). In the tradition of Fritz Leiber's immortal Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Juhg and his burly human friend, Raisho, set out on a series of fantastic adventures ... The narrative moves along at a snappy pace, with much good humor, zest and color,... the magic lies in the details, where books and wizards, both good and evil, glimmer."

-Publishers Weekly.

"The battles are ferocious ... As before, plenty of humor tempers the wild action."

-Booklist.

"Odom's bouncy, funny, cliff-hanger adventure is perfect for the Potter crowd, with enough puns, wry asides, and satirical send-ups to amuse Tolkien fans."

-Kirkus Reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BOOKS.

Copyright 2004 by Mel Odom.

end.