Little Yukka wants nothing more than to be a great Barbarian. Yet he fails at every turn. He's so freakishly different from everyone else that even his own parents believe he's tainted with magic-and magic is what Barbarians hate most. Finally, in the brutal cold of a dismal, wintery evening, he's banished from the clan. With a broken heart he sets off for magical lands where monsters dwell in hopes of discovering the Barbarian within, only to find himself at the center of a desperate plan to save the very people who cast him away.