Book excerpt: The long awaited conclusion to the National Book Award-winning THE BOOK OF THE DUN COW trilogy, from Walter Wangerin, Jr. Pertelote, widow of Chauntecleer the Golden Rooster, takes up his mantle as leader of the Animals as they seek safety from the great evil of the Wyrm and his children. Desperate to keep safe those she’s responsible for, Pertelote is travelling blindly, suffering the purposeless, undirected, but insistent journey as the new leader. Two other groups of Creatures are making their own journeys through the perilous land: Eurus the merciless yellow-eyed Wolf and his pack, and the sociable pair Wachanga the Cream-Colored Wolf and her friend Kangi Sapa, the Raven. When Pertelote and her band of Animals meet Wachanga and Kangi, she finds much-needed allies in her travels. Allies that become all the more valuable after cruel Eurus begins following the weary Animals with a murderous intent. When the disparate bands of Creatures converge on a hidden crater high in the dangerous mountains, they make a monumental discovery that may finally mean an end to their trials and tribulations. The epic journey begun in THE BOOK OF THE DUN COW reaches its powerful conclusion in THE THIRD BOOK OF THE DUN COW: PEACE AT THE LAST, proving the sacrifices of Chauntecleer and the Animals were not in vain. Praise for THE BOOK OF THE DUN COW:“Far and away the most literate and intelligent story of the year … Mr. Wangerin’s allegorical fantasy about the age-old struggle between good and evil produces a resonance; it is a taut string plucked that reverberates in memory” —New York Times “Belongs on the shelf with Animal Farm, Watership Down and The Lord of the Rings. It is, like them, an absorbing, fanciful parade of the war between good and evil. A powerful and enjoyable work of the imagination.” —Los Angeles Times Praise for THE SECOND BOOK OF THE DUN COW: LAMENTATIONS “[A] profoundly imagined and beautifully stylized fable of the immemorial war between good and evil.” –The New York Times