following the adventures of "the great rumble hunt" in the first volume of the trilogy, the second volume begins with the surviving adventurers' discovery that sam the horse is still alive. in attempting to rescue him the borribles are lured into danger both by the newly established special borrible group (sbg), a branch of the police determined to wipe out the borribles and their way of life, and by one of their own – spiff, whose motives behind the mission to rumbledom are slowly revealed.