Gabriel, meanwhile, was gazing up at the night sky in open-mouthed shock.
“What?” Clay asked. He glanced up, saw nothing out of the ordinary, and then asked Gabriel, “What is it? The sky? The stars?”
“Not stars,” Gabe whispered.
“What do you mean—?”
Not stars, Clay grasped. Spiders. Thousands upon thousands of faintly glowing spiders, a scuttling constellation spread across the firmament of an undetectable web. For a moment neither he nor Gabriel moved, each of them rooted where they stood by primal, paralyzing fear.
Would you look at us, Clay thought scathingly. We, who might once have faced down a dragon and only stopped to ask how it preferred to get its ass kicked, baulking at glow-in-the-dark spiders!
A few of the critters came sliding down for a closer look. Clay did his best to ignore them, calling down the stairs behind him. “Moog!?”
“Coming!”
Peering onto the lower floor, he saw the wizard cramming a few last-minute items into his quite-obviously-enchanted bag: a staff, a wand, a rod, a dagger studded with gemstones, an onyx cat statue, half a dozen hats, a few books, a pipe, two bottles of brandy, a pair of ragged slippers—
There was a loud crunch, like the sound of a tree’s back snapping, and the door buckled inward.
At exactly the same time hundreds more spiders began descending to see what all the fuss was about. The effect was unnerving, since a part of Clay’s mind still thought the spiders were stars, and it was shrieking at him that the sky was falling. He supressed the urge to vomit for any number of reasons and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Moog!”
“On my way!” the wizard shouted. He’d been setting his menagerie of rot-infected animals free. As the dog-sized elephant went scampering toward the door, Moog, with a word and a gesture, set a fire beneath the largest glass crucible. He tossed a vial of red liquid inside before taking the stairs two at a time. When he gained the second floor and saw the horrified expression on Gabriel’s face the wizard looked up.
“Ah, you’ve spotted my pets!”
“Pets?” Gabe sounded incredulous. “Moog, they’re spiders.”
The wizard waved off his concern. “They’re harmless! Well, mostly harmless. One took a nip of me once and I turned invisible for a week. Remarkable, yes, but it was bloody hard to buy groceries! Anyway, they eat the bats.” He thrust his bag into Clay’s hands. “Hold this.”
Kneeling beside the bed, he reached beneath it and hauled out a mirror near as long as Clay was tall.
Gabriel pointed at the thing. “Is that—”
“Yes, it is,” Moog confirmed without waiting for Gabe to finish. “I just hope it still works!” He dipped a finger into it, as if testing the temperature of stew. Ripples spread from his touch, distorting the reflection of Clay and Gabriel peering down in concern.
The mirror had a twin, and both were enchanted, so that you could step into one and out of the other, no matter the distance between. The band had used them once before as a means to rescue Matrick’s wife, Lilith, who was then the princess of Agria. She’d been abducted on her eighteenth birthday by a suitor turned kidnapper—a minor lord hell-bent on becoming king. They’d accessed the mirror through the maid’s quarters and appeared in the royal bedchamber barely in time to stop the lord from robbing the young princess of her precious maidenhead.
A lucky thing, too, or she’d have been unable to offer it up to Matrick later that night.
The door to the tower gave in, smashed to splinters as Kallorek’s gang ploughed through, led by the brute with the maul.
Moog shook his head. “Shit, I thought—” There was a flash of light, and the crucible downstairs exploded in a cloud of bright orange smoke. The wizard waved frantically toward the mirror. “In! Get in!” he screamed.
“What was that?” Gabe asked, covering his mouth as the smoke roiled up to envelop them. It stung his eyes and filled their nostrils with a sickening sweetness, like fruit on the cusp of going bad.
“My phylactery! Go!” Moog shouted over a chorus of hacking coughs and glass-shattering chaos below.
Since no one else made a move, Clay did. He shook his head, cursed himself for a fool, and jumped into the mirror as though leaping to his death from a high cliff.
Chapter Eleven
The Cuckold King
He came out sideways, unsure of when he’d begun screaming at the top of his lungs.
A man spun at the sound, and Clay caught a glimpse of widening eyes above a drawn veil before he inadvertently performed what could aptly be described as a flying drop-kick to the poor man’s face.
He and his unintended victim hit the ground together. Clay had barely begun his litany of apology before the man turned on him with hot eyes and a bloody snarl, at which point Clay noticed the wickedly curved knife in his hand.
He tried to scramble backward, but his legs were trapped beneath his assailant. He could hope the first strike didn’t kill him, or that the man concluded in the next half second that Clay meant him no harm, which didn’t seem likely at all.
Gabriel came through the mirror in a head-first roll, as though he’d been pushed. He landed directly on top of Clay, which didn’t improve their chances of not getting stabbed, but then Moog hurtled overhead, hooting like a child on a playground slide. The knife-bearing man took another accidental kick—to the jaw this time—and went out like a candle in a hurricane.
“Oh, my!” The wizard scrambled to his knees. “Sir, I am so—”
“Leave it, Moog. He’s out.” Clay jutted his chin toward the knife still clasped in the man’s limp hand. “Also, he tried to kill me.”
“Oh. How rude.”
“I’d say so,” Clay agreed. Though I did technically kick him first.
Gabriel rolled onto his back, swiping hair from his eyes. “Where are we?”
For a moment they took stock of their surroundings: an expansive room, expensively furnished. The walls were hung with paintings and rich tapestries, the ceiling painted with a mural depicting a scene from the War of Reclamation, when mankind had scattered the Heartwyld Hordes feasting on the carcass of the Old Dominion. Against one wall was a huge bed shrouded by diaphanous white curtains.
“We’re in Brycliffe Castle,” said Moog. “This is the same room as the last time: the king’s bedchamber.”
“Which means …” Clay began.
“Matrick is here,” said Gabriel.
Clay frowned. “What? Why do you say that?”
A shrug. “Because he’s the king of Agria. And because that’s him there.” Gabriel pointed toward the bed. Sure enough, there was Matrick. The king, who had put on considerable weight since Clay had seen him last, was sprawled amidst a tangle of silk sheets, fast asleep and snoring.
Moog whirled. “Matty?” He dashed to the bed and leapt through the gap in the curtains, pouncing on their old bandmate like a boy determined to wake his parents on the morning of his birthday. “Matty, wake up!”
The foul-mouthed, booze-guzzling, whore-mongering, and wholly unscrupulous thief who was now the ruler of one of Grandual’s five great kingdoms awoke with a start.
“What? Who?” He rolled away from the wizard, flailing as he ran out of bed and fell into a heap on the floor. Then he screamed, “Assassins!”
The double doors to the chamber burst open and a pair of guardsmen rushed in, swords drawn. At the same time someone tumbled through the mirror, wreathed in trails of orange smoke. It was one of Kallorek’s thugs—the big brute with the hammer who had smashed Steve’s face to smithereens.
Clay looked despairingly between the guards and the hulking newcomer. His first instinct was to size the man up, but when his gaze flitted downward he froze. “Um, do you … need a sec?”
The big brute scowled, and then followed Clay’s stare to the very obvious bulge in his breeches. He half-turned, suddenly embarrassed, though the side profile did little to help matters.
Clay got as far as opening his mouth
before Moog cut him off.
“It’s the phylactery,” he explained. “I threw it, remember? The explosion, the smoke …” he chuckled, wearing a grin that was equal parts sheepish and smug. “Zero to hero. As advertised.”
“That would explain this then.” Gabe motioned toward the rise in his own trousers.
“Ah, me too, now,” said Moog. “Look here!”
Clay didn’t look. Didn’t need to. He had a fair idea as to what the wizard was referring.
Another silence followed, infinitely more awkward than the last. Finally, one of the guards spoke up. “Sire, what should we … Sire?”
The king was doubled over, clutching his gut as if he’d taken a wound. Clay heard a wheeze, then a snort, and then Matrick threw his head back, howling in laughter. Kallorek’s brute began growling like a threatened dog. His big fists tightened on the haft of his maul.
That was all the warning Clay needed. In one motion he shrugged Blackheart free and caught the grip as it fell. He was already moving as the brute hefted the heavy iron hammer and lurched toward Gabriel, who was preoccupied with trying to adjust himself. The blow pounded the shield with a deep thunk, glancing off. The force of it sent a jolt down Clay’s arms, and pain arced like lightning across his shoulders. It had been months since he’d got into a scrap of any sort, years since he’d fought anything with a legitimate chance of killing him.
Better blow the dust off fast, Slowhand, he told himself. Clay saw the hammer rise again and this time met the swing with strength, driving the weapon wide. He’d just decided to throw a punch when the man’s boot kicked him square in the chest. He hurtled backward, crashing painfully into one of the bed’s thick posts.
The king’s guards hadn’t moved, still unsure who their enemy was—a dilemma Clay could scarcely relate to. The brute had recovered and was hefting his maul like a lumberjack stepping up to the tree. There was no time to reach for anything—a candelabra, or an especially heavy bedside tome—that might constitute a weapon, and he couldn’t simply step clear or he’d leave Gabriel helplessly exposed, so Clay rushed instead.
The hammer came swinging in from the left. Clay put his shoulder into Blackheart, leaning hard into the blow so as to not be thrown to the ground by the immense strength behind it. He ducked a clumsy backhand swing and then launched himself into the air, slamming the warped wooden face of his shield into that of his opponent. The brute stumbled back a step, then another. Clay pressed the advantage and levelled a kick of his own, forcing the man back into the mirror. It rippled like water in his wake.
Clay wheeled on the bed. “Moog, how do I stop him from coming back?”
The wizard spread his hands. “Poke your head through and ask him not to?”
“Moog …” Clay felt his patience rapidly fray; his nine-year-old daughter was easier to manage than this senile old sorcerer.
Thankfully, Gabriel had his wits about him. He stepped forward and tipped the mirror facedown onto the floor.
“Thank you,” said Clay. Gabriel flashed him a tight smile and quickly looked elsewhere.
By now the torrent of Matrick’s mirth had drained to a trickle. He was still giggling as he stepped between his guardsmen, urging them with a touch to sheath their swords.
“Gods of Grandual, what are you guys doing here?” He approached them warily, as if they were a trio of deer he’d caught drinking from a forest pool and any sudden move might startle them to flight.
Clay swiped hair from the sweat beading his forehead. The fight, brief as it was, had left him winded. “It’s complicated,” he said.
Moog was sitting on the bed, hands on his knees. “Gabe’s daughter is trapped in Castia. We’re going to rescue her and we want you to come.”
Clay shrugged. “That about sums it up.”
Matrick paled. “Castia? What was Rose doing in Castia?”
“Now that really is complicated …” Clay began.
“She’s in a band,” said Gabriel. He was wringing his hands again, like a pauper on a chapel doorstep. “When the Republic asked for help in fighting the Horde, she went.”
“Okay, yeah,” Clay agreed. “That’s pretty much it exactly.”
“We’re getting the band back together!” Moog exclaimed. “Think of it, Matty! It’ll be like old times! The five of us reunited, setting out across the Heartwyld!”
Matrick groaned, rubbing at his eyes with the palms of his hands. The years, despite having been spent in obvious luxury, had taken their toll on the king of Agria. His black hair was streaked with grey and receding rapidly; his whiskers were salted white on a jowly chin. He looked tired, but Clay supposed that might have been due to the fact that he’d been fast asleep when four men had burst into his room through a magic mirror and started swinging at one another with shields and hammers and absurdly incongruous erections.
“Matty? Whaddaya say, man?” Moog seemed genuinely confused by the king’s lack of enthusiasm.
“I … can’t, Moog. I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
Moog looked utterly crestfallen. Clay, however, thought that Matrick was the first among Saga’s old crew to show a lick of good sense, and it was a moment before he recognized the cold stone settling in his gut for what it was: dejection.
Clay realized he had been hoping that Matrick would have said yes. A part of him had believed (without any good reason, to be sure) that if he could be convinced to drop everything and follow Gabriel on his mad quest to Castia, then surely the other members of the band would do the same. He had his doubts about Ganelon, of course, but not Matrick, who loved Gabriel like a brother, and had once been the most adventurous of them all.
It was to Gabriel that the king now spoke. “I really am sorry, Gabe. There’s just a lot on my plate here. I’ve got Lilith and the kids to think about, you know. Not to mention a kingdom to run, a border war that seems inevitable, and this damnable council tomorrow. If I wasn’t—”
“The Council of Courts is tomorrow?” Gabe asked, suddenly alert.
Matrick ran a hand back over his vanishing hairline. “It is, yes. At Lindmoor. And that horse fucker Obolon Han will be there. He and I came nearly came to blows the last time we met, and tensions with Cartea have been higher than a scratch addict ever since. I’ll tell you, this ‘Duke of Endland’ chose an orc-shit time to stage this … well, whatever the fuck it is he’s up to.”
Gabriel listened, gnawing anxiously on a knuckle and peering at nothing in particular. When the king finished griping, he asked, “Can we come? I’d like to get a look at this duke myself. Maybe we can convince him to release Grandual’s mercenaries.”
“Um … well, sure,” said Matrick. “I don’t see why not. I mean, I’ll have to run it by Lilith first, obviously.”
As though she were some malevolent spirit conjured by the utterance of her name, the queen of Agria stormed into the room. She wore nothing but a bare slip of a nightgown, and although she’d aged many years and given birth to several children since Clay had seen her last, neither had done a damn thing to diminish her stunning—if severe—beauty. Nor did the fact that she looked extremely pissed off at the moment. She was trailed by a tall, heavily muscled man who was, somewhat curiously, not wearing a shirt. He was, however, wearing a protective frown and carrying a very large sword.
“What in Vail’s name is going on here?” Lilith demanded to know.
“Lilith!” Matrick took a step toward his wife, but drew up short when the queen’s shirtless guardsman stepped between them. “There was an assassin, but the boys here—well, you remember the boys?”
She cast an icy glare at the three men who had risked their lives to rescue her some twenty-five years ago. “What are they doing here?”
The king wrung his hands in much the same way Gabe had earlier. “Uh, they came through the mirror there, actually.” Matty’s voice had found a tone that balanced on the blade’s edge between pleading and placating. Clay imagined it was what a talking dog might sound like while explaining to its m
aster why it had shit all over the rug.
“I didn’t ask how they arrived, dear,” said Lilith, sweet as poisoned honey. “I asked what they were doing here.”
“Of course, yes. Well, they’re on their way to Castia.”
“Castia?” The very word seemed repellent to her. “Why?”
“Oh, um …” The king threw a nervous glance at Clay.
“It’s complicated,” Clay said.
At the pub in Coverdale there was a dish known as the King’s Breakfast. It consisted of two watery eggs burnt to the bottom of a cast-iron skillet, doused heavily with black pepper and a thick red sauce Shep referred to as tomato blood. It was served with a slice of blackened toast and, if you were lucky, a few slices of pear more bruised than a bad bard’s ego.
Unsurprisingly, when it came to what a king actually ate for breakfast, Shep had missed the mark by a fair margin. Highlights from Matrick’s table the next morning included tottering columns of fluffy gold pancakes drenched in maple syrup, steaming loaves of mouth-watering bread alongside delicate porcelain dishes of salted butter, perfectly browned toast served with a staggering variety of jam—blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, apricot, grape, fig, and something called marmalade that Moog couldn’t pronounce regardless of how many attempts he made to do so. There were slabs of pork belly, plump sausages, and eggs so airy and fresh Clay swore he could hear hens in labor beyond the kitchen door.
To drink there was fresh-squeezed juice—apple, orange, cranberry—and crisp white wine; a tea made of fragrant, flowery leaves; cool water flavoured with tart southern limes; and even strong Phantran coffee that Matrick gulped down as if it were the antidote to a poison burning through his veins.
Clay might have dubbed it one of the very best breakfasts of his life—or it had been, anyway, until Lilith, who was seated opposite the king at the far end of the long table, went ahead and spoiled it all by announcing she was pregnant.
The king, caught entirely by surprise, had a mouthful of pancake at the moment and Clay had to wonder whether the timing of the queen’s confession had been artfully planned. Around the table drinks froze on their way to lips and clattering forks fell silent, excepting those of Matrick’s five children, all of whom continued eating and talking with one another, as children did when adults said whatever it was adults said.
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