Né pour nuire

Björn the Beautiful’s march through the North with his band of slaves continues. As payment for protection and passage through Svartalfheim, some slaves have been given to the ruthless Skanes. With their family now separated, the surviving members of Harald’s clan must now find ways to endure and eventually escape their servitude. Family crises, sword-play, a slave-driving poet, and sacrifices to a giant: from the intrigues of Charlemagne’s court to the non-human tribes of Europe’s Far North, Hammerfall follows both the expansion of a religious empire and the suffering its violent spread inflicts upon the people of the conquered territories.

The pressure is on and the clock is ticking in Book 3! As his team prepares for the big, fateful match against the mighty Condors, Louca is having his usual hard time concentrating. What can he do to impress Julie? How can he make sure not to let his little brother down? And… how could Nathan the friendly ghost have dumped him at this critical juncture, when he knows very well that Louca can’t actually play soccer? But Nathan has more pressing matters to attend to, and as memories of the day he died start coming back, he can feel his past rushing towards his present in a terrifying, ominous way…

Soda’s day is off to rather a bad start. First he had that damn dream, then there was the problem with the lift. And then he left his gun on top of the fridge. It wouldn’t take much for his mother to find it, and then promptly go into cardiac arrest. The poor lady still believes her son’s a pastor. Oh and then he was in that car chase, all because of that good-for-nothing Jason Flea. Why does he do it? God only knows.

John Chinaman seems to have turned over a new leaf with schoolmistress Ada in the small town of Blue Hill. But his troubled past keeps him from trusting this peaceful new life, and his worst fears come true when the US government passes the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, further inflaming already simmering resentments among townsfolk. John’s life is further complicated when his blood brother Chow turns up again, an advance scout for a Triad concern seeking to buy up land along the planned railroad route. Will a reunion between these two old friends ever be anything but bittersweet?