Kings of the Wyld

by Nicholas Eames

  Now Gabe sat exactly where he had the night before, chewing slowly on his biscuit and glaring across the fire at Sabbatha. The daeva appeared not to notice. Shadow’s weapon—the scythe he’d called Umbra—lay across her lap. She acted as if it was hers by right, and although Clay found that unsettling for any number of reasons, he wasn’t about to try to take it from her.

  No one said much of anything at all, which suited Clay just fine. He’d been content to merely sit and enjoy his salt cookie in uneasy silence, but then Sabbatha went ahead and ruined everything.

  “Who is Larkspur?” she asked.

  After a stretch of what Clay might have called apocalyptic awkwardness Ganelon, who apparently wasn’t sleeping after all, finally answered. “It’s you,” he told her, rolling onto his back and rubbing at the rough whiskers on his face. “Your last name.”

  Clay watched the daeva’s face carefully, looking for some outward signal of distrust, but she only nodded thoughtfully. “I was wondering why it seemed familiar,” she said. And then, after a moment, she matched gazes with Gabriel. “I’m sorry I killed the druin. I didn’t think you’d want him alive.”

  “Not just a druin,” said Gabe quietly. “One of the few of his kind left in all the world. I killed one myself once, remember? It’s a burden I would have spared you if you’d stopped to listen.”

  “He was too dangerous,” she insisted. “We couldn’t let him go—he would have come after us eventually. Or did you plan on bringing him along? Tell him about Rose and hope that black heart of his was still beating? Be careful making friends out of enemies,” she warned, “lest they remember why they didn’t like you in the first place.”

  Clay felt the appalling weight of irony drag his jaw toward the ground, but Gabriel only smiled placidly.

  “As you say, Sabbatha.” The tone in which he’d said her name sounded like provocation, and Clay saw the feathers on the daeva’s back ruffle in annoyance. She opened her mouth to retort, but was interrupted by the sound of Moog clearing his throat noisily.

  “Um, Gabriel?” asked the wizard. “How would you like to speak to your daughter?”

  Clay and the others sat to one side, as spectators. Matrick insisted he wanted to watch despite looking as though he might fall back asleep at any moment. Using some sort of powdered herb he’d found in one of Shadow’s bags, Moog fashioned two rectangular patches on the ground, six strides apart, one of which had a flagstone at the centre upon which Gabriel was instructed to stand. The wizard sat between them, scratching out runes on a pair of sticks. When he finished he scrambled to the fire and plunged them both into the glowing coals.

  “Shadow was a smoke wizard,” he explained. “An illusionist of sorts, and a very powerful one. Hence those shades we fought earlier, and the magic he used to conceal that scythe of his. Also, did you see his … um … face, after he died?”

  Clay had, briefly. It was strikingly different from what they had seen before: hard angles and jutting cheekbones, pallid flesh crisscrossed with a web of pale scars. The skin beneath his mouth had been stained black, as if he’d eaten a necrotic heart for breakfast and hadn’t bothered to wipe the blood off his chin.

  “Smoke wizardry has any number of uses,” Moog was saying. “Most of them are harmless, though a few, as we saw, are very dangerous indeed. Some are extremely useful. I once knew a young witch who could walk through walls, though unfortunately she could fall through floors as well. Poor lass broke her neck when she—”

  “Moog,” snapped Gabriel impatiently.

  “Ah, sorry. They’re ready, I think.” He withdrew the smouldering sticks from the fire, using one to set the empty patch alight, and the other to ignite the patch beneath Gabriel. A wave of flame licked across either panel and went out, leaving a bed of bright red embers and a scent in the air that smelled faintly of—

  “Cinnamon?” Matrick said, sniffing the air.

  “Cinnamon, yes,” Moog confirmed. “It’s not essential for the ritual—I just thought it might be a nice touch.”

  “It smells delicious!” exclaimed Dane. His hideous smile stretched from ear to deformed ear.

  He didn’t say as much, but Clay agreed. It reminded him of the buns Ginny used to bake and then slather with sweet, sugary icing. His stomach growled despite the salty biscuit he’d fed it half an hour earlier.

  Steam began to rise up around Gabriel. He shifted nervously on his flagstone and pushed a strand of soiled hair from his face. “Will she see me?” he asked.

  The wizard nodded. “Yes, she will. But not clearly. You’ll be indistinct. Smoky, sort of. Something like those things we fought last night.”

  Gabe nodded. He was hard to see for the haze around him. An hour-long minute ticked by. Matrick’s chin drooped to his chest and Clay nudged him awake with an elbow. All of them watched the air above the empty patch, waiting.

  At last a shape began to materialize in the smoke, then a man’s voice spoke as if from behind a muffling curtain. “—a disaster,” it said. “The roof collapsed, killing everyone inside. Thankfully the tunnel was blocked, so we needn’t worry about the creatures using it to enter the city.”

  “Thankfully? Vail’s bloody cock, Freecloud—that was our best chance to get out of this hellhole.”

  Clay didn’t recognize the voice, but Gabriel did. He gasped as her ghostly apparition formed above the opposite patch. “Rosie!”

  “Rosie!?” The figure whirled. “Who the fuck—”

  “Rose, it’s me! It’s Dad!”

  Vague as her image was, Clay could almost see the incredulity on her face. “Dad? What are you doing here?” She took two steps without moving and extended her hand toward the spectre of Gabe as it appeared to her.

  “Don’t touch it!” blurted Moog, and Rose withdrew her hand.

  “Who is that?” she asked.

  “It’s Uncle Moog, dear. Do you remember me?”

  “Uncle Moog? I … of course I do. You used to sneak me cookies after Mom had gone to bed.”

  The wizard clapped. “Aha, yes! I’d completely forgotten about that! Gods, but Valery was a tyrant when it came to—”

  “Moog,” Gabriel cut him off. “Please. You said we haven’t much time, right?”

  “Right. Sorry.” Moog pretended to lock his mouth closed and ushered Gabe to go on speaking.

  “Rose, are you okay? Are you safe?”

  “Dad …” His daughter bowed her head. The last time Clay had seen Rose she’d been no higher than his waist, brash and chatty, brimming with curiosity. A lot like Tally, except considerably less well behaved. He remembered thinking at the time it was because she was an only child, but had decided since then that Gabe and Val were just shitty parents. “I’m in Castia,” said Rose eventually.

  Gabe swallowed. “I know.”

  She looked up. “It’s awful here. The city’s surrounded. We can’t fight our way out. We tried tunneling, but … well, we’re trapped, Dad. Our food is almost gone, and I think something’s wrong with the water. Half the city is sick with the plague.”

  “We saw,” said Gabriel. “They poisoned the river.”

  “How do you …” she began, and then turned to someone they couldn’t see. “I told them, didn’t I? Go tell Arik to cordon off the reservoir.”

  “What’ll we drink?” a voice asked.

  “Our own piss if it comes to it!” Rose snapped. “Wine, ale—anything but water. Remember those orange trees we saw yesterday? Yeah? Well go make some fucking juice.”

  Gabriel interjected. “Rose, who’s in charge there?”

  “No one,” she said, exasperated, and then chuckled darkly. “Me. Freecloud and I are leading what’s left of the mercs, but the people here resent having more mouths to feed, and the Guard is giving us a hard time. They’re hoarding supplies, and most of our injured died because we couldn’t get them proper care. I’m afraid it might come to blood soon.”

  “Who is Freecloud?” Gabe asked. Clay had been wondering the same thing, actua
lly. Fatherhood was a funny thing.

  Rose glanced to her left. “He’s my … he’s just … someone I met on the way here. He’s a good man, Dad. A great fighter. You’d like him.”

  Gabriel sighed into the smoke. “Listen, Rose. I—”

  “I know,” she broke in. “I should have listened to you. You were right. I wasn’t ready for this. None of us were.” Rose took a deep breath and pulled her hair back from her forehead. It was a gesture Gabe himself might have made. “I’m sorry, Dad, but I don’t think we’re getting out of this. I think …” She looked left again, at Freecloud, presumably. “I think we’re going to die here.”

  “No, you’re not.” Gabe’s voice was hard as stone. “I’m coming for you.”

  A disbelieving pause. “You’re what? You’re coming here? To Castia?”

  “We’re almost there, honey. Just east of the mountains. We’ll be there in two weeks, maybe less. I need you to stay safe until then, okay?”

  “Really?” Rose’s excitement was palpable. She glanced around her. “Did you hear that? They’re coming for us! The Courts sent an army to break the siege.”

  Gabriel interrupted a chorus of desultory cheers. “Rose, wait. The Courts didn’t send an army.”

  “What? Who are you with then?”

  “I, uh …” Gabe wrung his hands. “It’s just me and the band, actually.”

  Rose’s ghost wilted visibly. “What, you mean your band? As in Saga? Are you kidding me?”

  “Well … no. But Rose, we’re all here! Even Ganelon.”

  “Even Ganelon?” she echoed. “Oh, well, shit. Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Hey everyone! Everything’s going to be fine! Fucking Ganelon’s on his way to break the siege!”

  There were no cheers this time, but Clay heard Ganelon murmur under his breath, “Sounds about right.”

  Rose squared up to her father. “So what? You and four of your friends are coming to Castia? You know there’s a bloody Horde outside? You won’t even make it near the city. Hell, I’m surprised you made it as far as you have!”

  Clay considered offering up the fact that it wasn’t just Saga coming to her rescue, but a wine-swilling ghoul, an amnesiac daeva, and a half-blind ettin were along for the ride as well. Then again, if something sounded ridiculous in your head, then voicing it aloud rarely did it any favours.

  Gabriel looked about to muster a reply, but his daughter rolled over him. “Dad, seriously, don’t come here. Okay? Just … don’t. There’s nothing you can do. I …” She faltered, and when she spoke again her voice had lost its cutting edge. “I’m grateful you came this far. I really am. It was very brave. But I don’t want you to die because of me.”

  Gabe snapped out of his stupor. “Rose, I—”

  “Dad, go home.”

  The words rocked Clay like a punch. He felt as though he might be sick, and he could only imagine what Gabriel was feeling. He had come so far, through so much, only to hear the one for whom he had done it all demand that he abandon her. Clay heard Sabbatha catch her breath beside him, and Moog, crouched in the space between Gabe and his daughter, looked much as he had in the chieftain’s tent—as though his own heart were breaking all over again.

  “Not long,” urged the wizard quietly. “The spell will end soon.”

  Gabriel straightened. “Rose, listen to me. Do you remember the stories I used to tell when you were little?”

  Rose looked down at her feet. “Of course I do.”

  “You never asked me if they were true. You believed whatever I told you, no matter how incredible it was.”

  The light beneath Rose was beginning to fade. Her apparition flickered as she spoke. “I was a little girl.”

  “And you’re not anymore. I know that. But I need you to believe in one more story, Rose.” If Gabe’s voice had been stone before, now it was harder, colder, the mask of ice on a mountain’s wind-scarred face. “I am coming to Castia,” he said. “I am going to save you.”

  His daughter looked up, took a breath as if to speak, and vanished.

  The light beneath Gabriel went out as well. He remained where he was, a wraith cloaked in a shroud of cinnamon smoke.

  Chapter Forty-one

  Out of the Woods

  They left the ruins shortly after noon. Before doing so, however, Gabriel reached into his pack and withdrew one of the salt-scoured stones from the bottom. Clay recalled learning why he’d brought them in the first place: not as a gift, but an offering, something to lay on Rose’s grave in case the worst should happen. Gabriel peered down at the stone, thumbing a cavity left behind by a fossilized shell. After a moment he sighed and tossed it to the ground, then upended the pack and dumped the rest at his feet.

  Gabe found Clay watching as he looked up. He smiled—the expression for once unburdened by the weight in his eyes. “Those were heavier than they looked,” he said before turning and setting out after the others.

  Clay followed a short time later. Behind him in the empty courtyard, the stones of a distant shore were piled neatly on the druin’s grave. Because even a misspent life, he reasoned, was worth remembering.

  The road vanished, but Gabriel led them unerringly westward. If a bog appeared he waded into it without slowing. If the forest hindered their path he hacked through it with his sword, turning copses to corpses and pressing on. He cut short every stop for rest and roused them each morning while even the sun was snoring.

  They were nearing the edge of the forest, and the denizens of the Heartwyld said good-bye in their own special way. They were set upon by a gremlin war party whose only aim turned out to be stealing the silver buttons from Moog’s robe. They were ambushed by a clutch of old treants who fled after Ganelon felled the biggest with a single chop. They were attacked one sweltering dawn by something like a bloodred tiger with wings that hummed like a dragonfly’s, prompting Matrick to ask after they’d driven it off, “Does anyone know what the fuck that was?”

  Now and then they heard the surge of tidal engines as the Dark Star sailed overhead, still searching for its fallen mistress.

  At last they stepped clear of the forest’s black eaves. There was a bank of stone-riddled foothills ahead, humped like worshippers before the awesome glory of the Emperor’s Mantle. It was said that four hundred years ago, after he’d led his exiled court through the perilous Wyld, the heir of Grandual’s short-lived Emperor had stood upon the crest of these mountains and looked back, sighing in despair at all his father’s hubris had lost him.

  Clay craned his neck, gazing along the line of peaks from north to south. Whereas most mountains had imposing monikers like Hell’s Talon or Soulreaper, the ones in this range were called things like Vigilance, Patience, and Trust, as if they’d been named by some commune of peace-loving Getalongs. Clay didn’t know which peak was which. He was bad with names, after all.

  Gabriel was glaring at the mountains with an annoyed smirk, as though they were a gang of thugs who’d stopped him in an alley and demanded a toll. “We’re close,” he said.

  “Sure,” Sabbatha quipped. “Just a few thousand feet of snow and stone between us and a Horde big enough to wipe an entire city off the map.”

  Ganelon looked heartened by the prospect of violence. “So how you wanna do this?” he asked of Gabe. “The Nightstream might be fun.” The Nightstream was a shallow river that snaked an arterial path through the heart of the mountains.

  Kit raised his hand. “The Nightstream is infested by goblins. We’d have a thousand of the devils on us the moment we set foot inside.”

  Ganelon bared his teeth. “Sounds fun to me.”

  Sabbatha barked a laugh. She’d grown less timid since claiming Shadow’s scythe for herself. She leaned on Umbra as if it were nothing more than a walking stick, but even still Clay found the weapon unnerving. His mind kept returning to the moment after the druin’s death: The one-winged daeva standing over Shadow’s corpse, clenching his ears in an iron fist.

  “We could take Garric’s Ga
p?” ventured Matrick.

  Clay scratched at his beard. “The Gap closed, I heard. Landslide filled it in a few years back.”

  “Too far south, anyway,” said Ganelon. “What about the Defile?”

  “Giants,” Matrick and Moog spoke in unison.

  Ganelon shook his head, the beads in his braids clattering softly. “You two were a lot more fun twenty years ago, you know that?”

  Gabriel drew his gaze from the mountains. “We’re taking the Cold Road,” he said, and when no one spoke he went on: “It’s the fastest way.”

  “It’s dangerous,” warned Ganelon.

  “Too dangerous,” Moog added. “If it was winter, then maybe—maybe—it might be an option, but now it’s just … it’s crazy, Gabriel. I’m telling you. I’m telling you it’s crazy—that’s how crazy it is!”

  “What’s the Cold Road?” asked Sabbatha.

  “It’s a bridge,” said Clay before either Kit or the wizard could spin their answer into a story. “A bridge made of ice. Wide enough to cross five abreast in winter, but now …” He shrugged. “If you fall off, it’s a long way down.”

  Kit made the wet, gurgling sound that passed for clearing his throat.

  “Also there are rasks,” Clay said. “Ice trolls,” he added, noting Sabbatha’s confusion.

  “Like Taino?” The daeva sounded mildly hopeful.

  Clay shook his head. “I don’t think anyone’s like Taino but Taino.”

  “Rasks don’t speak, or read, or play the drums,” Moog told her. “They kill. And then they eat what they kill. That’s pretty much all they do.”

  Sabbatha frowned. “So the bridge is a bad idea?”

  “A terrible idea,” said the wizard.

  “Reckless,” said Kit. “The Cold Road takes its toll. Always.”

  Matrick groaned and rubbed his face. “So which is it then? The Defile?” He eyed the ettin warily. “Not sure how we’ll sneak these two past the giants …”

  “My vote’s for the Nightstream,” said Ganelon, which earned him a sour look from Kit. “What? They’re only goblins.”