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Lee stared at Mikill and his dune buggy and sed hard, his Ada "If you drop ive you"

I felt bad

It was easy enough to say everyone had high school daht compared to Lee and his friends No one had ever held me upside down in the bathrooiven h, probably more than once And I didn’t doubt that the shadow of that hu anyone in the dunes, Lee," I said to hientle "I prohost, Gared y’s two seats, wishing I’d thought about the logistics earlier "You’ll find a loaf of bread on the floor at your feet That’s the offering to Gar it to hirip on the roll bar--"drive carefully"

As soon as Lee clierly into the front seat and buckled his seat belt, Mikill gunned the engine and headed out of town

A hway, he turned into Pe the stable where the fancy dune schooners were sitting idle for the night and roaring into the path beyond it

I’dQuite the opposite, considering I was squished into a cra on to the roll bar for dear life

And once we departed froure of Yggdrasil II, jouncing over the sand, it got worse I narrowedfro the darkness in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of Garm before he spotted us

No such luck As we entered the sand basin froed, so howl split the darkness

"The hound is nigh," Mikill announced

"Lee!" I shouted "He’s cogled, the folds of his capacious leather duster caught on so "I’m stuck!"

Directly in front of us, Gar the beay and his slavering le bite

"Lee!"

"Why the hell is he attacking us?" he said in a high, panicked voice "Isn’t he on our side?"

"The hound is doing its duty," Mikill said, swerving violently The hellhound snapped as we veered around higest bear trap "Throw the offering now, mortal!"

Lee yanked at his trapped coat "But aren’t we past--"

A fast, heavy tread padded behind us, and then a vast figure darkened the ey, landing with a thud and turning to face us, growling low in his throat and wrinkling his o of the roll bar with one hand, I leaned over to snatch the loaf of bread froed his tail hopefully, strings of drool dangling froo, boy!" I threw the loaf as hard as I could "Go get it!"

The hellhound bounded after his treat In the front seat, Lee turned to give me an incredulous look

"What?" I said to hi a loaf of bread for Garm"

"Umwhy bread?" he asked in a faint voice

"Because that’s the way it is," I replied firmly I’d asked the exact sahly unsatisfying response So on the other side of the equation

Mikill gunned the buggy’s engine again "Be sure to keep your li the descent"

Lee looked around the basin "Descent? Descend where?"

I pointed at Yggdrasil II "There"

The fact that a gap large enough to admit a sives you an idea of the scale of the tree Lee let out a terrified sound as we hurtled toward it, then slu and began spiraling down the path carved into the walls of the hollow interior The te fro, his hair and beard freezing