Kings of the Wyld

by Nicholas Eames

  They were on their way out of the compound—Ganelon prodding a shambling and hugely uncooperative Kallorek ahead of them—when Valery emerged from a bedroom and called weakly to Gabriel. Clay saw her voice snag his friend like a hook, slowing him, dragging him round to face her. The air of confidence Gabe had radiated since reclaiming Vellichor slipped for an instant, and there was the coward again, the beaten dog slinking back into its master’s shadow.

  “Valery,” he croaked.

  She took a feeble step toward him. She looked wasted and pale. There were dark hollows beneath her eyes. Her hair was in disarray, and she wore a long white nightgown, as if she’d only just now roused herself from bed. Clay found himself staring at the angry red scars on her bare arms.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been … I’m trying to get clean. I’ve been sleeping.” She looked around in bewilderment at the empty house. “What’s happened? Why are you here?”

  Gabe said nothing, but put his hand on Vellichor’s ornate pommel. Her tired eyes tracked his movement. “Ah, of course,” she said. A hint of bitterness soured her tone. “Did you know, Kal used to say that if he offered to give you back either Vellichor or me, that you would choose the sword? I think maybe he was right.”

  Of course he was right, Clay thought, but opted to stay silent.

  Gabriel didn’t bother responding, but Valery didn’t press the matter. She looked wearily around at all of them, lingering longest on Ganelon, but at last her eyes settled on Clay.

  “You were here before,” she said. “I … remember.” And now her face crumpled, the dread of revelation darkening her gaze. When she spoke again her voice was thick with panic. “Oh. Oh no. Rosie? Is she—”

  “She’s alive,” said Gabriel. “She’s in Castia.” He took a step closer, drawn to her by the hook in his heart.

  “Castia.” She said it first without inflection, and then again, with a dawning horror that drew Gabe another step nearer.

  “I’ll find her, Val,” he promised. “I will find her. And I’ll bring her home.”

  Kallorek scoffed, which earned him a back-handed slap from one of Ganelon’s new gauntlets and a hateful glare from Valery, who looked as though she was torn between screaming and sobbing.

  “Okay,” she said, wringing her hands. “Okay. You’ll bring her home? Good, yes. Please, Gabriel. Please … bring our little girl home.” She reached out with trembling fingers to stroke his cheek. Gabe flinched as though her touch were a burning brand, but he endured it.

  Clay tried to imagine such a rift existing between himself and Ginny. There had been a time when Gabe and Valery had been inseparable, as blissfully happy as two people could be. They’d been lovers, yes, and they’d been friends as well. But now the two of them seemed like strangers, or animals of separate species, neither of whom knew how to act or react around the other.

  “We should go,” said Gabriel. “We’re taking Kal with us so he doesn’t try and stop us from reaching the forest, but we’ll leave him a day or so south at the Heartwyld’s edge.”

  Her expression lapsed deeper into confusion. “The forest? You’re not going to walk all the way to Castia? There’s a skyship—”

  “Bitch!” snarled Kallorek. “Shut your godsdamned mouth!”

  This time it was Matrick who struck, so hard the booker went sprawling. “Shut your mouth,” he said, and then added, “bitch.”

  Gabriel took his ex-wife’s hand in his. “Valery, tell me about the skyship.”

  Valery scratched absently at the scars on one arm. “They found it in the Underground, when they dug for the renovations,” she said. “There’s a brook on the south side of the hill. A cave. It’s in there,” she insisted. “You can take it. You can fly.”

  “We can fly,” said Gabriel, and his face lit up like parchment kissed by a candle’s flame.

  They found the brook, and the cave mouth from which it issued. It was guarded by sentries who they relieved of both duty and consciousness. Inside they discovered a vast cavern housing a massive skyship that was as much a brothel as it was a boat.

  It was huge—near as big as the Sultana’s flagship they’d seen at Lindmoor, and again in Fivecourt—with three ribbed sails slanted to shield the deck from sun and rain. The deck had been restored with darkly varnished wood, and the rails were capped with white moonstone. Leaping from the bowsprit was a solid gold siren with arms outstretched, her bare breasts gleaming in the ruddy light from outside.

  The vessel’s name was carved in florid letters beneath the prow: The Carnal Court.

  Inside was a galley stocked like a palace kitchen, a lavish dining hall, several bathrooms, and no less than eight bedchambers, each so gaudily furnished as to make even a spoiled princess cringe.

  A master suite at the stern, likely reserved for the booker himself, was the most garish of all, hung with a series of lurid paintings that ranged from distastefully erotic to disconcertingly vulgar. The worst of these portrayed a shamelessly nude Kallorek and a wild-maned female centaur engaged in what could most safely be termed as “horse play.” The bed was draped in red silk curtains and looked as though it had recently been slept in. The bottom sheet was missing, and Clay shuddered to imagine what depravity this room had borne witness to.

  Near the bow was a commons, complete with plush couches, gaming tables, and a bar that put the Old Glory’s to shame. It was here they found a zombie sitting on a stool, tuning what Clay assumed was a bizarre-looking instrument and nursing a glass of red wine.

  “Oh! Well, this is awkward.” The corpse set aside the instrument—which looked like nothing so much as a spiderweb encased by an eight-sided wooden frame—and stood. “I’m afraid I wasn’t expecting company, or I’d have made the bed. And probably hidden underneath it until you left,” he added.

  “Who are you?” asked Gabriel, his hand straying toward Vellichor’s hilt.

  “Not your enemy,” the zombie cautioned. He had a strangely prim accent, at odds with his ghastly appearance. He was dressed in what looked at first glance like a robe, but was in fact the missing sheet from Kallorek’s bed. He sketched a formal bow, which revealed a savage-looking dent in the back of his skull. “I am Kitagra the Bold,” he introduced himself. “Also known as Kitagra the Reckless, and sometimes as Kitagra the Willfully Suicidal. I am a roving revenant, itinerant poet, and was once, briefly, Court Musician to Exarch Firaga of Teragoth, though I am currently seeking employment. You may call me—”

  “Kit!?”

  The zombie blinked. Well, it didn’t so much blink as one of its withered eyelids twitched in apparent surprise. “Arcandius Moog? Is that you, you incorrigible scallywag?”

  The wizard rushed past Gabriel and threw his arms around the creature. “Kit, you old ghoul! I thought you’d gone west! What the heck are you doing here?”

  Clay’s mind had just now pieced together the fractious puzzle of who this was: “Kit the Unkillable,” who had formerly been trapped inside the sarcophagus in Kallorek’s treasury.

  The zombie pried himself from Moog’s grasp. “Well, I’m hiding out,” he said. “I’ve been daydreaming, and playing cards against myself, and drumming up a few new songs. And also drinking like a Phantran fish. But before all that I was locked in a very dark box for a very long time, courtesy of that piggish-looking man in your company.” He cast a disdainful glance at Kallorek, bound and gagged behind them. “Not a friend of yours, I assume?”

  “Not currently, no,” said Moog.

  The zombie scratched a partially exposed rib with grey fingers. “Glad to hear it. But how about you? Have you discovered your miraculous cure yet?”

  Moog looked down at his feet—or foot, maybe. “For the rot? No. But that potion I made for your, um, condition? It’s been very successful, actually.”

  “The phylactery? As well it should be!” stated Kit. “I had that erection for two weeks, you know. The whores of Conthas thought I was Lusty Lucian back from the dead. Well, to be fair, that’s who I told them I was, and
then I paid them a king’s fortune to believe it. Ah, but don’t worry, my friend—you’ve got the cure in that maze somewhere.” He pointed at the wizard’s head. “Just keep wandering till you find it.” He glanced past Moog at the others. “Am I to assume you are commandeering this skyship?”

  “We are,” said Gabriel.

  “Very well then. If you gentlemen will but give me a few moments to finish my drink and collect my things, I’ll be out of your way.”

  Moog waved dismissively. “Nonsense! Why don’t you come with us? We could use a bard!”

  Clay smirked, finding it somewhat ironic that, after all these years, Saga might actually enlist the services of a bard that was already dead.

  Kit looked intrigued. “Oh? Where is it you’re going?”

  “Uh, well, Castia.”

  “Castia!” the zombie actually sounded pleased. “Jewel of the Republic! A shining bastion of human civilization. I used to sing in a chorus at one of its theatres, oh, sixty years ago? Lovely, lovely city.”

  “Not anymore,” said Ganelon.

  Kit’s eyelid twitched again, but before Moog could explain Gabriel broke in. “We’re wasting time. If the zombie wants to come, he can come. We should go now and hit up Conthas for supplies.”

  “I’ll come,” Clay said, already anxious to be off this eyesore of a ship.

  “Me too!” said Moog. “I could use some things in town as well. Kit, you wanna tag along?”

  “I suppose I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs,” said Kit, then favoured Gabriel with a grisly smile. “Also, I feel it necessary to point out that I am what is known as a revenant—or a ghoul, if you’d prefer. Either will suffice. But I am most certainly not a zombie.”

  “Ghoul, zombie … what’s the difference?” asked Matrick.

  “There are several, in fact. Most notable, however, is that zombies eat people.”

  “And what do you eat?”

  Kit sipped his wine, looking thoughtful. “Anything but people,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Bounty

  Matrick volunteered to stay behind and watch over Kallorek while the others hit the mud-slick streets of Conthas. Moog and Kit set out to acquire what the wizard referred to as “indispensables,” while Gabriel, despite Moog’s assurance that his magic hat could feed them all the way to Endland, went in search of rations. Clay and Ganelon were tasked with seeking news of Castia, so they picked a tavern on the strip called the Back Door, where Clay hoped they could ask after gossip in relative anonymity.

  The plan went up in smoke the moment they stepped inside. Clay was still blinking in the shadows when a familiar voice piped up.

  “Frost Mother fuck me, it’s Clay Cooper!”

  He saw a hand waving, two pink fingers and a black silk glove. Jain and her gang of overdressed outlaws were seated at a long table littered with empty pitchers and the leftover scraps of a meal. “Have a seat, Slowhand! I owe you a beer, I’d say.”

  You owe me a week’s worth of sandwiches, a dozen pair of socks, a small fortune in jewellery, and two swords, Clay thought ruefully. “I suppose you do,” he told her.

  Ganelon looked dubious. “She a friend of yours?” he asked.

  “We’ve met twice and she robbed me both times,” said Clay, scratching his beard. “But sure.”

  The warrior said nothing, though something like amusement glittered in his green eyes.

  The two of them were given a wide berth as they made their way across the tavern floor, possibly because Jain had said his name so loud, but probably because Ganelon had the look of a killer and a giant axe strapped to his back. The Silk Arrows shuffled to make room on the bench, and by the time Clay and Ganelon settled themselves across from Jain there were full tankards and heaping plates on the table before them.

  Jain was dressed even finer now than she’d been in the forest east of Brycliffe. There were a few more bangles tinkling on her wrists, a few more rings twinkling on her fingers, and a familiar-looking silk scarf piled around her neck.

  “You like?” she asked, mistaking his assessment of her neckwear as keen interest. “I nabbed it off some fancy Phantran lass ’bout a week back. Nice girl, actually.”

  And then Clay knew where he’d seen that scarf before. “Was her name Doshi?”

  Jain fingered the scarf. “You know, I believe it was. Said she was some admiral’s daughter, but she cussed like any old sailor when I relieved her of this.” She jutted her chin at Ganelon. “Who’s this now, eh? You get tired of being robbed by girls and hire some real muscle?”

  Clay shook his head, using a wooden fork to scrape the peas on his plate well wide of a pile of mashed yam. Couldn’t have those two things consorting, now, could he? “Ganelon,” he said, before filling his mouth.

  Jain threw a skeptic look at Ganelon and back. “Try again, Slowhand. I may be a babe compared to you, but I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  “It’s true,” said Ganelon.

  Jain remained unconvinced. “Then why aren’t you … ya know?”

  “Old?” Clay suggested.

  “Yeah, that.”

  “It’s a long story,” he told her, reaching for his cup.

  “Got turned to stone,” said Ganelon. “They turned me back.”

  “Okay, it’s a short story,” Clay admitted.

  “It’s fucking suspect, is what it is,” said Jain. “That said, they say Ganelon’s a dark-skinned southerner with a northman’s eyes, mean as a manticore with its tail up its ass—so you damn sure look the part.”

  Ganelon seemed to be weighing the merits of pressing his claim versus laying into a saucy leg of lamb. He chose the lamb, and so Clay took it upon himself to steer the conversation along. “We’re looking for news out of Castia. Have you heard anything recently?”

  Jain scoffed. “The only news I expect outta Castia is that there ain’t no more Castia,” she said. “I take it you’re headed that way now? Got the whole band back together?”

  “We do. And yeah, we are.”

  The brigand shook her head, smiling sadly. “A proper epic end it will be, then. Here’s to Saga.” She raised her mug, prompting her girls to do the same. “The second best band there ever was.” Laughter and cries of “hear, hear” followed. Jain tapped her cup once on the table and then guzzled it down.

  Clay drained his cup as well, because it would have been rude not to. “Second best?” he enquired. “Don’t tell me you’re a fan of the Screeching Eagles?”

  “It’s the Screaming Eagles, Grandpa. And no—I’m referring to the latest, greatest band in the land: Lady Jain and the Silk Arrows!”

  “Never heard of ’em,” said Ganelon.

  Jain thumbed her chest. “I’m Jain, and these lovely ladies sitting around you are the Silk Arrows. Not long ago we were merely bandits, but Clay Cooper here inspired us to make something more of ourselves.”

  Clay nearly spat out a mouthful of mashed yam. “I did?”

  “Well you put the seed in my head, anyway, back on the day we first met. We’ve booked our first gig, even. Seems there’s a herd of centaurs causing trouble up near Coverdale, and the good people there have hired us to drive ’em out.”

  Clay remembered Pip telling him about the centaur spotted near Tassel’s farm, what seemed an age ago now. He swallowed a surge of concern for his daughter’s safety. Centaurs had a nasty habit of kidnapping children and roasting them on spits. But then again, small-town folk had a nasty habit of making a big deal out of nothing at all.

  Forget about it, Clay told himself. Might just be a clutch of wild deer, or some sickly old scout who got left behind by his hunting party. Tally is fine. Ginny is safe. Rose is not, and she’s the one you’re out to save …

  “After that we’re headed to Kaladar,” Jain was saying. “Kal says the War Fair’s a good place to get our name out there and rub shoulders with other bands. He—”

  “Wait, Kal?” Clay interrupted. “Tell me you don’t mean Kallorek. Big fat booker? Li
ves up the hill?”

  Jain looked annoyed. “Listen, I don’t like him, either. Reminds me a bit o’ my daddy, actually, except he’s a long shot uglier and has more ’n two coins to rub together. Still, he’s the only game in town, and …”

  The brigand (or ex-brigand, Clay supposed) trailed off. She was staring over his shoulder with a look of naked awe on her face. Turning in his seat, Clay saw a pair of new arrivals. The first was a bald monk in a sleeveless red robe. Standing beside him was the most beautiful woman Clay had ever seen.

  No, she’s not, a part of his mind amended. Ginny’s the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen. This woman is … is …

  She was tall, her pale limbs hard with lean muscle. She wore a formfitting black breastplate that seemed to drink in the light, heavy greaves, and a pair of taloned gauntlets that reminded Clay of a falcon’s claws. The collar of her cloak was lined with sleek plumage, and a pair of swords were strapped to her back. Her hair had the blue-black sheen of a raven’s feather; it fell straight to her waist but for her bangs, which cut a razor-sharp line above her finely arched brows and large, long-lashed eyes.

  Okay, Clay’s mind conceded, she’s the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen. Except for … except for …There was someone he was forgetting. Ah, yes. His wife.

  Clay nearly jumped out of his seat when Jain clamped hold of his wrist. “You should go,” she hissed. “Get out of here, now. Out the back, preferably.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Jain’s eyes bulged out of her sockets. “Don’t you know who that is?”

  He didn’t, of course. Unless this woman had stormed the north wall of Coverdale in the last ten years (and she hadn’t, Clay was certain), then how would he? “A mercenary?” he guessed.

  “A bounty hunter,” Jain informed him.

  Ganelon, intrigued, looked over his shoulder. “She’s pretty,” he grumbled.

  “So what?” Clay asked.

  “So you’ve got a bounty on your head, remember?”

  “Sure, but you can’t—” He’d been about to say that you couldn’t claim a bounty inside city limits, but that was the law of the Courts. You’re in the Free City of Conthas, you idiot. The law of the Courts is worth less here than a copper penny dropped down a shithole.