Peterson refuses to start a book slowly. You would think that a 500-page book would meander, but no. Not 20 pages in, Janner is blindplopped in the middle of nowhere to find his way home all on his own and he tells you straight away that Janner never makes it home.
Though the Hollows spent all winter preparing to invade Throg, Gnag makes the first move. Kalmar, quickly losing his humanity, rebuffs the first attack and then flees, fearing he will become a fang before the Hollows can take the fight to Throg. On his way, he discovers Janner is in trouble and makes a detour to save him, only it’s Janner that does the saving--meanwhile, Leeli fights for the hills and the hollows with her whistleharp and legion of dogs.
Across the sea, Sarah Cobbler and Maralay Weaver fight against the stranders and fangs seeking to snuff out the resistance shining from across the Mighty River Blapp. Easily the most heartwrenching scenes in the book, Maralay must choose between love and life, and Sarah faces a loneliness that could fill an ocean as Artham Wingfeather falls into madness.
A tale of undying love, unshakable bravery, and the price of healing spins into a whirlwind of emotions and chaos as Gnag the nameless threatens to extinguish the last flames of hope.
As always, DOES THE DOG DIE? While Baxter and Frankle make it to the end of the book alive and well, many dogs die in battle and we see them mourning each other. At the end of the book, we also see handlers cradling their fallen hounds.
That aside, let’s get into a full rundown of The Warden and the Wolf King.
As mentioned above, the book starts with Janner getting thrust into the Durgan right of passage, blindplopping. With only his wits, a sword, and a pack, Janner must find his way home from somewhere across the hollows and the hills. Only, before he does, he saves a troll from nasty ridgerunners and bumps into Kalmar who’s making one last-ditch effort to kill Gnag before he loses his mind to fanghood.
They travel straight into a den of cloven who have maintained a surprising amount of humanity and this is where we see that Kalmar is, in fact, a cloven and not a fang. Despite the clovens’ best efforts, the warden, the wolf king, and sweet Oood descend deeper into the blackwood. The closer they get, the more cloven cluster and attack the trio, killing Oood, well, only mostly. Finding the first well by chance, Kalmar saves Oood who then goes to get more of the water while the boys are asleep. They awake before he returns and, thinking he died, the boys enter the Deeps of Throg, where Kalmar loses the last of his sanity.
On the other side of the Dark Sea of Darkness, Maralay and Sarah Cobbler fight for Skree alongside Gammon and Artham Wingfeather. When Maralay is kidnapped, Gammon will stop at nothing to find her. Even when the Fangs attack, he still rides the rooftops looking for his adopted daughter.
Although her father, now the strander king of every bend, assures Maralay that her only real place is with the stranders, she holds out hope until she has a chance to escape. Only, the terrible strander king follows her into the burrows and threatens to kill her if she doesn’t accept that she is his daughter. She accepts her fate and holds out faith that the peace that comes from love is stronger than the hatred of a man who is supposed to love her.
She breaks free and finds Gammon still looking for her. Along with the temporarily sane Artham, Maralay joins the fray. By the time the battle is over and the Fangs leave Skree for some unknown reason, she and Gammon have become the vigilantes of the night.
This leaves poor Sarah Cobbler with a dwindling number of orphans to care for as their parents come looking and no home to call her own. Artham returns to his madness in the Glipwood forest until Sarah decides enough is enough. She rounds up her remaining orphans and asks Artham to take them to the shining isles.
Ok, back with the Hollows. Leeli does her best to ward off the attacks with her whistleharp and trusty dogs, but the numbers of dead and injured are exceeding the number of living. She dutifully waits for her brothers, until Gnag the nameless finally snatches her from the Hollowsfolk.
Gnag tells Leeli that he is the rightful king of Anniera, proven by his ability to hear the sea dragons speak and that he was cast from the castle because of his ugliness. His goal is to create a beautiful body and attain ultimate power.
When she arrives at the smoldering, shining isles, the boys have been captured and brought to the base of what used to be Castle Rysen. Gnag forces them to open a secret vault where the Maker resides and he steals a magic crystal from the entrance. Gnag uses this crystal and his cunningness to meld himself with a sea dragon and descends upon the hollows once more.
There, the remaining seven sea dragons, the cloven forces, Oood, and the remainder of the Hollows fight with all the fight they have left. The Wingfeather children return in time to tell of Gnag’s past, and in the words of Oskar, Boniffer only fed Gnag the lie that he was unwanted. He was loved and named, but Bonnifer told the Queen that Gnag had died after she passed out. The children force their way into Gnag’s mind and convince him of the truth. They force him to say his name and Gnag finally succumbs to his injuries and returns to dust.
The greatest part, though, is yet to come. King Kalmar rounds up all the cloven and fangs that want healing and ships them to the shining Isles where he begins a chant to reverse the curse. Only, Janner realizes it’s going to kill Kalmar. He steals the stone from Kalmar’s hands and gives his life for the restoration of every tainted soul in the isle.
Sarah Cobbler and Artham arrive just in time to see the beautiful aftermath. With one more move left, the family sets out to the First Well in hopes it will save Janner.
Do you think they bring him back to life?
