Kings of the Wyld

by Nicholas Eames

  “You’re welcome,” said Moog, though his smile was sad.

  “You should write a book,” Matrick suggested.

  Kit snorted. “Who wants to read the self-pitying lamentations of an old revenant?”

  “There’s your title right there,” said Ganelon. He used one of his Tetrea pieces to knock down one of Sabbatha’s, and the daeva hissed through her teeth.

  “Again?” he asked.

  “Again,” she answered.

  “Have you ever met a ghoul like yourself?” Moog asked.

  Kit shook his head, tugging absently at the scarf that hid the wound on his throat. “Not like me, no. I knew an alchemist once who made himself a golem bride out of flesh and bone, but her brain was a cantaloupe wrapped in bronze wire, so she wasn’t much of a conversationalist.” The revenant sighed. “Alas, it would appear I am the one and only person fool enough to try and pet a phoenix.”

  “Well, I’m glad we found you, Kit.” Matty clapped their bard on his bony shoulder. “Kit the Unkillable—isn’t that what they call you? It’s good to know you’ll survive this. Us, I mean. I mean, even if we don’t. Survive, that is.”

  The ghoul cracked a smile like a coffin’s lid sliding ajar. “I’m glad you found me, too,” he said. “It will be my honour to tell your story. It has been vastly entertaining thus far. I do hope it has a happy ending, though.”

  “It won’t,” Matrick murmured.

  “It will,” Gabe assured them.

  “It might,” Clay said.

  Something woke him. The sound of a scuffle, the scrape of metal on stone. Someone growled, someone gasped, and Clay was fumbling for his weapon before he realized what it was he was hearing.

  It seemed Sabbatha and Ganelon were finished playing games.

  At first, the idea of intimacy developing between those two struck Clay as absurd. They’d said barely a word to each other during the journey and had little in common save an aptitude for violence. They’d tried to kill each other twice now. He thought back to their first encounter in Conthas, when she’d pinned Ganelon to the floor with the heel of her boot and declared she’d be the last woman he would ever love.

  Okay, well, the more he thought on it the more fitting it seemed. And besides, she and Ganelon were young (or youngish in Ganelon’s case), and rushing headlong toward the brink of something terrible. Clay knew the feeling. He’d been there himself in days gone by. There was something about the night before a battle, or the anxious days before a tour of the Wyld, that brought on a feeling of … not despair, but a kind of helpless, hopeless freedom.

  Ganelon’s needs were easy enough to ascertain—the man had been rock hard for nineteen years. And as for Sabbatha? Far be it from Clay to guess the mind of any woman, let alone one as complex as she. He didn’t know her past, but it was very obviously dark. There was an old saying: One look at a bowl and you can guess if a goblin made it. It meant—at least he thought it meant—that beautiful things were not made by an unkind touch, and the daeva was as warped a woman as Clay had ever met.

  His own bowl was a brittle thing and would have broken long ago were it not for Ginny, whom he very suddenly missed with a longing so fierce it burned like an ember in his chest.

  By the time he smothered it, the cave had grown quiet again, but for the restless wind and Matty’s droning snore, along with the occasional rasp of a turning page. Kit had no need of sleep. He sat outside the mouth of the grotto, reading one of Moog’s old books by starlight.

  Clay had nearly slipped back into dream when he heard the low rumble of Ganelon’s voice.

  “Again?” he asked.

  “Again,” she answered.

  Chapter Forty-three

  The Cold Road

  Clay figured that whoever gave the Cold Road its name must have had a particularly sinister sense of humor. That, or they’d been stark raving mad, which would explain why they were taking the Cold Road in the first place. It was cold, sure, but it was most certainly not a road. In fact, it was anything but a road.

  It began as a steep slope of crumbling shale that slipped and slid beneath your boots and just fucking dared you to try to use your hands to help climb. By the time he reached the top Clay’s fingers were sliced near to ribbons. Matrick was limping, having turned an ankle partway up. He would have fallen if not for Ganelon, who’d held him by the collar until the old king found his feet.

  When they topped the rise Matrick straightened his vest and smoothed his hair. “Thanks,” he said. “Hey, how’d you fare on the Tetrea board last night?”

  Ganelon shot him a questioning glare.

  “Did you win any?” Matrick asked without any apparent guile.

  Satisfied, Ganelon answered. “All of them.”

  The king blinked. “What?”

  But the southerner was already turning. In a gesture of magnanimity as rare as, well, an owlbear itself, he was carrying Gabe’s old backpack, sparing Moog the burden of the orphaned cubs. The pair had grown mercifully quiet after the wizard fed them breakfast, though it still gave Clay a chill to recall Moog spilling porridge from his own mouth into their open beaks.

  The next leg of the Cold Road was a climbing track that hugged the face of the mountain. Clay spotted a cluster of scraggly-looking goats perched on the incline above. One of them, its beard so long it reached the ground even when it raised its head, bleated to alert the others. Look at these assholes, Clay imagined it saying.

  Several times their path was blocked by landslides, forcing them to stop and clear the way with their hands—a task for which the ettin was especially well suited. Gregor, with a sly wink for the others, sold it to Dane as “digging for treasure,” and though each time the search proved fruitless, Dane’s optimism remained untarnished.

  “I hope we find gold,” he exclaimed. “Or silver. Which is prettier, Gregor?”

  “Oh, they’re both pretty,” said his brother. “But what I really hope we find is duramantium, Emperor of Metals!”

  “Durmadantum!” Dane’s mouth mangled the word, but his shattered smile bloomed as he said it. “The Emperor of Metals!”

  They pressed on, and all at once rounded a corner into a blistering storm. Gabriel called a brief rest while Moog plumbed the depths of his bag for the cloaks and heavy furs that he and Kit had been tasked with buying back in Conthas. The wizard had put some thought into it, apparently. He presented Ganelon with a great black boar skin with pointed tusks sewed up the spine, and Matrick with a hooded fox-fur cloak complete with ears and a snout. “It’s fake,” Moog admitted. “And a bit tacky. And I’m fairly certain it was tailored to fit a woman.”

  Matrick smirked beneath the hood. “I like it.”

  Gabe’s cloak practically had a whole white wolf slung across the shoulders, and Moog himself doffed a heavy sheepskin coat matched by an appropriately ridiculous fur hat.

  The wizard handed Clay a shaggy brown bearskin before looking apologetically at Sabbatha. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know we’d have company.”

  Before Clay could offer up the bearskin she waved him off, enshrouding herself in a cloak of sleek blue-black plumage.

  “How’s the wing?” Clay ventured.

  “Better,” she answered curtly, and stalked off.

  “Excellent,” he muttered at her back. “Good talk.” She and Ganelon together was starting to make a lot more sense to him now.

  When they set out again Gabriel dropped back to fall in step beside Clay, who was bringing up the rear.

  “Hanging in there?” he asked.

  “Hanging in there,” Clay answered, his breath pluming before the chill wind could snatch it away.

  “Listen, I just … wanted to say thank you.”

  “For what?”

  Gabe was about to reply but laughed instead. Ahead of them, Moog glanced back and frowned, as though dismayed at having missed out on a joke. “Where do I begin?” Gabriel wondered aloud. “You came after me back in Coverdale. You pulled me off my knees that first night
at Kal’s place, and again outside Brycliffe. You fought a chimera for me.”

  “Got my ass kicked by one, you mean,” Clay murmured.

  A chuckle, puffing white in the freezing air. “Yeah, well, we all did.”

  “Except Ganelon.”

  “Except Ganelon,” Gabe conceded. “Ah, but you did throw my ex-wife’s new husband off a skyship …”

  Clay shrugged beneath the heavy mantle of his bearskin cloak. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

  “Right.” Another chuckle from Gabriel. He moved a step closer, so their shoulders brushed as they plodded side by side and he could speak without contending against the wind. “I know you didn’t want any part of this, Clay. You had a good thing going back home. When I asked you to come, you had a thousand reasons to say no.”

  Just two, thought Clay, though he didn’t bother pointing that out.

  His friend flashed him a tight grin. “But you came anyway. You’re here, beside me. And because of you the five of us are together again. Because of you I have a chance, however impossible it might seem, of getting my daughter back. Yesterday …” Gabriel shook his head, glanced down at his trudging boots. “The others would never have taken the Cold Road if it wasn’t for you. We’d be skulking through the Defile right now, or knee-deep in the Nightstream, weeks away from reaching Castia.”

  “They would have followed you,” Clay said with a sinner’s conviction. “They’ve followed you this far.”

  Gabriel looked over, squinting against the snow-flecked gale. “Followed me? Gods, you really believe that, don’t you?”

  “Well, yeah.” Clay was trying to keep an eye on the treacherous footing below. The mountain sloped steeply on their left; a single misstep could lead to a dangerously unchecked slide. “You’re the leader,” he said.

  “I’m the frontman,” Gabe corrected.

  Clay had a sudden recollection of huddling around a table in Conthas—what, thirty years ago?—with Gabriel, Matrick, and Kallorek, dreaming of glory and doling out roles in an as-yet-unnamed band. Gabriel was the face, Matty the hands. Clay had been the muscle for roughly half an hour, before Ganelon showed up. “Frontman, leader … same thing,” Clay said.

  “Is it?”

  Clay opened his mouth, closed it, spent a moment considering whether or not what he was about to say made sense before replying, rather ineloquently, “Yeah?”

  “Say we rescue Rose,” proposed Gabriel, and already Clay was beginning to feel like an old, blind dog limping toward a loving hug, a merciful axe, and a shallow grave. Gabe had a point to make, but he was taking the scenic route. “Say we make it safe and sound back to Grandual, and afterward I ask the boys—Moog, Matty, Ganelon—to keep the band going. Maybe take on a few smaller gigs, or hit the arena circuit to warm up first, and then do a proper tour of the Wyld, or the Wastes up north.”

  “Good luck with that,” said Clay, though he knew Gabe wasn’t being serious. At least Clay didn’t think he was being serious. It was hard to tell sometimes, with Gabriel.

  “They wouldn’t come,” Gabe said. “Of course they wouldn’t. And after all this is done I doubt they’d follow me to an outhouse if they had to shit. But if you asked them? If Clay Cooper walked alone into the Heartwyld, or the Brumal Wastes, or the Frost Mother’s Hell itself … they would follow you. You know they would. And so would I.”

  Clay had never considered himself Saga’s leader, and he certainly didn’t now, regardless of what Gabriel said. For the entirety of his mercenary career he had gone where Gabe said they were going, killed what Gabe said needed killing, spent whatever coin Gabe tossed his way, and generally drifted, leaflike and listless, on the shifting current of Gabriel’s bluster.

  Sure, from time to time he’d weighed in on some moral quandary confounding his bandmates, and every so often he’d taken the first step down a hard road when no one else seemed keen on doing so. There were even, admittedly, occasions on which he’d gone ahead and killed who needed killing without asking for Gabriel’s permission. Kallorek, for instance.

  Clay was still mulling over Gabriel’s words a while later when their progress was once again impeded by fallen rock. This time, however, Dane actually did discover a treasure among the stones. “Durmadantum!” he declared, brandishing the ice-encased skull of some hapless adventurer.

  Gregor made the best of it. “Indeed it is, brother! Well done. Let’s take a closer look at it later.” He took the skull from Dane and handed it to Gabriel, who handed it to Moog, who tossed it into the snow behind them.

  The way grew more treacherous still. The path was sloped and broken, slippery with snow and ice. The wind got mean, tugging and prodding like a bully urging you to jump or be called a coward. The peak of Deliverance loomed into cloud on their right. On their left was the canyon known as the Defile. It cut a jagged, mazelike path from one side of the range to the other, and Clay, shivering despite the heavy bearskin, was beginning to wish he’d sided with Matrick before they started the climb. It would be warm down there, and the likelihood of falling to your death was comparatively slim.

  Remember the giants, he told himself. Giants are bad. The thought managed to console him somewhat. Enough to keep his legs moving, anyway.

  But then, through the curtain of swirling snow, he saw it: a span of crystalline ice arcing from one side of the gorge to the other. The last, lethal stretch of the Cold Road.

  And quite suddenly giants didn’t seem so bad.

  The rasks hit them before they reached the bridge.

  Clay was taking a turn at the front, doing his best to keep his eyes from wandering over the sheer drop on his left, when one of the creatures came skidding and shrieking down the steep cliff face on their right. He rushed to meet it, hoping to engage it as far from the chasm’s edge as possible, and pinned it against the stone while the others hurried past.

  Clay had never gotten a good look at a rask up close, and now that one was howling into his face he couldn’t have said he was grateful for the opportunity. It was roughly the size of Clay himself, with bedraggled blue-green hair that clung like wet seaweed to its scrawny shoulders. The thing’s eyes were pale as milk, its breath an unsettling mix of blood and peppermint. Its nose was long, sharp as an icicle, and pointed dangerously at his face. Clay had its long arms pinned below his, and he could feel its claws scratching against his chain shirt, without which he would have been disemboweled.

  He pushed Blackheart’s rim into the monster’s neck and heard it snap, but still the thing fought him. Clay called out to the wizard as he went by. “Hey, how do I kill it?”

  Moog spun, one hand pushing his oversized fur hat from his eyes. “Fuck if I know!”

  “Moog, I’m serious!”

  “So am I! Fire would do it, but good luck getting—oh, wait!” The wizard went to his knees, frantically plumbing his bottomless bag. He came up clutching a coil of rope, which didn’t explain why he was grinning as though he’d produced something useful, until Clay realized that the rope wasn’t rope. It was firewire.

  Clay caught movement to his right. Another rask dropped from the ridge above and was loping toward them. “Moog, hurry,” he growled.

  The wizard twisted a short length of firewire from the rest. He darted up beside Clay and touched the two ends together. There was a hiss, and Moog fed the suddenly glowing loop to the monster’s mouth. The pitch of its scream shifted from rage to pain; its head melted like a candle set alight with dragonfire.

  Well, there’s one way to kill them, Clay thought.

  He danced back as the firewire, now a circle of molten gold, landed on the ground near his feet, then turned as the second rask reached him, a flurry of grasping talons and gnashing teeth. Clay sidestepped, set his shoulder into Blackheart, and knocked the creature off the path and into the abyss below.

  He and Moog hurried after the others. They entered a long corridor that Clay remembered as having been more a tunnel and less a terrace, but it had been winter when they’d be
en here last. Now rasks clambered in from above, slipping like thieves through gaps in the ice. More of the creatures were blocking the way ahead. He saw Gabriel hack through them without slowing. Matrick skulked in his wake, plunging knives into those still thrashing, while Ganelon and Sabbatha dealt with any who came in from outside. Between his axe and her scythe, Clay couldn’t imagine a more dangerous place in all the world than within the deadly circle of their reach.

  A snarl tore the air to his left. Clay whirled as a rask came at him feetfirst. He brought his shield up an instant too late. The thing’s talons raked across his face. Pain flared, then fled, chased off by terror and raw adrenaline. Blood ran into his eyes, gummed in his ice-tipped lashes when he tried to blink, and fouled his sight. Clay caught a glimpse of the rask attacking and ducked behind his shield. He was knocked backward, and his head cracked hard against the cold stone wall.

  Clay swiped the blood from his eyes, but his vision was still blurred. There were four rasks, then twelve, then one again, lunging toward him with talons that snapped like shears.

  Something bright spun past. The rask’s head rolled into Clay’s lap. Its body slumped like a supplicant before him, and he saw that its neck had been neatly cauterized. A few feet to his left another disc of glowing firewire steamed in the snow.

  “Did you see that throw?” Moog mimicked what looked to Clay like an old man tossing horseshoes with his grandchildren. When the wizard looked over, though, his grin vanished. “Sweet Maiden’s Mercy, are you okay?”

  Clay climbed to his feet. His ears were ringing, and he could feel the wind probing the wounds on his face with frigid fingers. “Sure, why?”

  Moog frowned as he assessed whatever damage the rask’s talons had done to Clay’s face. “No reason. We should hurry.”

  They ran after the others, emerging from the tunnel mouth onto a precipice of bare stone. The storm had died down, but flecks of snow still rode the breeze, spinning like spring blossoms in the air.