Life literally stinks for Sam, herding goats on the lonely edges of the kingdom of Valdmark. How he got banished out here is a complete mystery to him, and his uncle Nob isn?t about to give him any answers. Sam feels like the proverbial mushroom: kept totally in the dark and fed copious amounts of manure . . . That is, until the night that a marauding, glow-in-the-dark troll roars out of the icy mountains and tries to rip Sam apart. Suddenly, Sam goes from being a shunned nobody to being the most wanted person in the kingdom, fighting to keep one step ahead of the elves and soldiers who are relentlessly hunting him down. But it?s the trolls who worry him the most: if those foul creatures manage to sink their claws into him, then the entire kingdom will be overrun . . . Aided by an ill-tempered elve and a man who claims to be Sam?s long-lost grandfather, Sam has just days to riddle out the secrets of his mysterious past in order to prevent a ruthless war between trolls, elves and men....