K.V. Johansen

Roussan, 1997. Cover and interior illustrations by Dean Bloomfield.

On a moonlit night the Old Things of the forest gather to revel by a bonfire.

At the urging of his friends, the creature Torrie begins to tell the story of an adventure he took part in long ago, in the days when humans and the magical Old Things believed in one another.

Torrie's beautiful friend Cossypha is the daughter of Sporryl, an evil enchanter who lives in a castle in the mountains. There isn't much to do, living in Sporryl's castle with only the Enchanter and his wolf-headed guards for company, so Cossypha, who is an Enchantress herself, spends a lot of her time hunting goblins in the mountains. One day, though, the wolf- guards catch a trespasser and throw him in the dungeons, and Torrie decides it's time he and Cossypha find something more exciting to do than hunt goblins.

With Cossypha's magic and Torrie's cleverness they steal the prisoner and escape with him into the Wild Forest. Sporryl sends the wolf-headed guards to recapture his daughter and his prisoner, but that's only the beginning of their problems, because the prisoner is in truth a hero, Crown Prince Rufik James Augustus of Erythroth, and he's on a mission to kill the dragon that's destroying his father's kingdom. Torrie and Cossypha join Prince Rufik as he seeks the magic sword Wormbane which, it has been prophesied, will enable him to kill the dragon. On their quest for the sword they meet a very bad (and furry) poet, a lot more goblins, and find themselves confronting Sporryl the Enchanter and the wolf-guards again. And after that they still have to find the dragon.