Kings of the Wyld

by Nicholas Eames

  As if to drive that point home the woman at the door spoke into the lull created by her arrival. “I’m looking for a man,” she announced.

  More than half the men in the room bolted to their feet. Clay, irrationally, felt his own legs urging him to follow suit.

  Ginny, he thought to himself, using his wife’s name as a mantra to clear his addled head. Ginny, Ginny, Ginny …

  “A very specific man,” the woman clarified, and the men who’d stood sat down, abashed. “His name is Matrick Skulldrummer, formerly the king of Agria.”

  Clay spared Jain a quick glance. Whatever spell the newcomer had cast over the denizens of the Back Door—and Clay was certain that was the case—the brigand had managed to shrug it off. In fact she looked positively terrified, and mouthed something to Clay that might have been lock spoor, or maybe look spry—Clay had no idea which.

  If this woman was looking explicitly for Matrick, however, it meant the bounty belonged to Lilith. But if the queen thought a single hunter—even one fearsome enough to unsettle Jain—was capable of reclaiming Matrick from Saga’s grasp then she was seriously underestimating … well, Ganelon. She was underestimating Ganelon.

  The woman at the door went on speaking. “The king was kidnapped by his old bandmates. There is a reward offered to any who provide information on Skulldrummer’s whereabouts, or any other member of the band called Saga.”

  “What sort of reward?” someone asked.

  The bounty hunter fixed her gaze on the speaker, a blond-bearded fellow with swirling tattoos across his forehead. She advanced slowly toward him. Her heavy boots clanked on the wooden floorboards with every step. Reaching out, she placed the tip of one black-taloned finger beneath his chin, lifting his face as she lowered her own, until they were so close it looked as though they might kiss. Absurdly, Clay felt a stab of jealousy at the thought.

  “My eternal gratitude,” she purred, and the man whimpered like a dog. “And, in case that’s not incentive enough, Queen Lilith of Agria has offered the sum of one hundred courtmarks to whosoever helps facilitate his … safe return. My little birds tell me that he and his friends have been spotted here in Conthas.”

  There was a moment of brief chatter, during which Jain whispered across the table at Clay. “Run, you fool.”

  Clay would have loved nothing more than to slip out unnoticed, but he and Ganelon weren’t exactly an unremarkable pair. The moment they stood, they’d be spotted.

  The bounty hunter was listing off the names of Saga’s members as she stalked toward the bar. “Golden Gabe. Ganelon. Clay Cooper, better known as Slowhand …” She was standing with her back to the room, and so didn’t see a dozen men raise their hands, every one of them looking at Clay and salivating at the prospect of whatever they imagined her “eternal gratitude” might entail.

  The bench beneath him creaked as Ganelon shifted his weight, preparing to fight. Or run. But probably fight—this was Ganelon, after all.

  The woman went on. “Arcandius Moog …”

  “Here!”

  Clay looked to the door—everyone did—and there was the wizard, hat in hand, ghoul in tow, smiling and waving at the woman who’d said his name.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Larkspur

  The red-robed monk reacted first. He withdrew a small knife from somewhere and flicked it toward the wizard in the doorway. Kit, who’d drawn his sheet over his head to serve as a hood, lurched into its path.

  The blade punched through the pallid flesh of his chest, and the ghoul glanced down, frowning as though he’d found a stain on his favourite sweater. “Oh, dear. That’s going to leave a hole.”

  Clay and Ganelon launched themselves from the bench. Clay barrelled down the aisle, intent on tackling the monk, who was staring curiously at Kit. Ganelon mounted the table, scattering bowls and spilling cups as he pounded down its length. He ducked under a slanting beam and then leapt at the woman standing by the bar.

  She grinned, turned a half step to her right, and spread her wings.

  They were beautiful, black feathered, and powerful enough to knock Ganelon on his ass. Clay had a moment in which to feel exceptionally stupid for mistaking folded wings for a feathered cloak before he reached the monk, who turned and got a faceful of Blackheart. He sailed backward, unconscious before he hit the floorboards.

  At the door, Kit plucked the knife from his chest and examined it. “Tipped with poison,” he announced. “A paralytic, actually. This wasn’t intended to kill.”

  “I don’t care about its intent.” Moog was frantic. “That thing could have put my eye out!”

  Ganelon, meanwhile, was only halfway to his feet when the woman’s metal boot crunched into his face. She kicked him again in the gut as he lay sprawling. His hand moved mechanically toward the haft of Syrinx, but the woman stamped his arm to the floor and pinned it there.

  “You must be Ganelon,” she said. “I thought you’d be … older.”

  “Who the fuck are you?” he asked through bloodied teeth.

  She drew a sword from her back and lowered its tip to his throat. “My name is Larkspur,” she told him, “and I’m the last woman you’ll ever love.”

  An arrow skimmed past the long feathers at the end of one wing, thudding harmlessly into a keg behind the bar. She and Clay both looked to Jain, who had another arrow already to string.

  Larkspur tsked and shook her head. “You’re a terrible shot, my dear.”

  “Am I?” Jain snarled. “Care to find out?”

  “Jain—” Clay started, but she cut him off.

  “Get out of here, Slowhand. Leave the manhunter to us.” To their credit, the Silk Arrows looked prepared to back Jain up on that. Every one of them had a weapon to hand, even if they looked a little in awe of their opponent.

  “Manhunter …” Larkspur looked as though she was savouring the word. “I’ve always loved that name.” She turned her eyes on Clay and he felt his blood rise. “I only need Matrick. The rest of you are none of my concern.”

  “He’s not here,” Clay said. “And he’s not going back to Agria in any case. Tell Lilith she can choose a new king.”

  Larkspur laughed softly; the sound set butterflies to flight in Clay’s gut. “Oh, she already has. Pretty as Glif, he is. Strong as an ox and just as smart. Matrick’s return is merely a formality. I imagine she’ll charge him with treason and have him killed.”

  Clay didn’t bother pointing out the injustice in that. This woman hardly seemed the sort to concern herself with moral trivialities. “Well, that sure as fuck ain’t happening, so how about we go our way and you go yours. You’re outnumbered anyway.”

  “Am I?” she asked, echoing Jain’s earlier query with the same dangerous implication. “Care to find out?”

  Clay remembered the raised hands when she’d called his name before. A quick look around told him all he needed to know, and the news wasn’t good: smitten grins and mooning eyes adorned the face of every man in the room.

  You know what would come in real handy right now? asked a voice in his head that sounded an awful lot like Matrick. A horn that vomits bees.

  Luckily, Moog came up with something else instead. He produced a glass alchemical globe from his bag and hurled it over Clay’s head. Larkspur ducked aside without letting her foot off Ganelon, and the globe smashed against the bar behind her.

  There was no explosion. No puff of colourful smoke. Clay looked from Moog to the bar and back again. “Uh … thanks?” he murmured.

  The wizard winked slyly. “You’re welcome.”

  Larkspur chuckled. “Tell you what,” she said. “Ganelon and I will stay here and get to know each other while you run and find the king.” She giggled again, then frowned.

  Ganelon gave a throaty laugh. “I’d rather get to know the ass end of an owlbear.”

  “What’s an owlbear?” asked Larkspur, evidently amused, because she was grinning from ear to ear.

  Clay heard a snort, and looked to see Jain tryin
g to keep her bow steady. A few titters escaped the girls behind her, and some of the men on the opposite side of the room laughed as well, for no apparent reason whatsoever.

  Another fit of mirth overcame Larkspur. She managed a bemused glare at the wizard before it consumed her. She threw her head back, cackling wildly. Ganelon rolled free of her boot, but even he was chuckling as he crawled away.

  The broken globe. Clay now understood. This is Moog’s doing. He could smell it now, a scent like raw sugar left to burn on an iron skillet. Clay couldn’t recall the concoction’s name, but he could remember the wizard using it at least twice before: once so the band could escape a Phantran prison, and again to liven up what turned out to be the most hilarious funeral he’d ever attended.

  “Wait by the door,” said Kit, brushing past him. “I’ll grab your friend.”

  Clay nodded. “Jain, get your girls out of here.”

  The ex-brigand was too overcome by glee to heed his words, but a pair of Silk Arrows braced her between them and escorted her out.

  By now everyone sitting or standing near the bar was laughing uproariously. Kit, who was unaffected by the gaseous content of the broken globe, groaned as he hefted Ganelon to his feet. “Grooms of Tamarat! You’re as heavy as a stone!”

  Ganelon, who had been a statue these last nineteen years, found that remark positively hilarious. He giggled maniacally—a sound as incongruous to Clay as a troll reciting poetry—and slapped the ghoul on the back, which nearly toppled them both.

  Clay stole a last glance at Larkspur before he bolted out the door. The woman was doubled over, bracing herself against the bar as fits of laughter racked her body. Her wings shuddered, loosing a storm of black feathers over the chaos of the common room. Her eyes locked onto him as she raised one arm, leveling the point of her sword at his chest. Despite the absurdity of her condition Clay felt his soul shrink away from the malevolence in her glare.

  Jain was on her knees in the street. “Who ever heard of a fucking owlbear!?” she howled. “What even is that?”

  Moog looked harried. “It’s a real thing,” he muttered, and Kit patted him consolingly on the shoulder.

  It took a few seconds for Clay to notice Gabriel standing among them, a heavy pack over each shoulder. He was gaping at Ganelon as though the man had grown horns.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Gabe asked.

  “I’ll tell you on the way,” said Clay. Glancing up the street he spotted a cluster of men wearing the same red robes as Larkspur’s pet monk. He knelt by Jain and touched her shoulder. The woman who’d robbed him twice and who’d probably just saved his life wiped tears from her eyes. “Thank you,” he told her.

  She snorted and laughed in his face, but she managed a nod.

  Clay stood, wincing at the ache in his lower back. The Silk Arrows were watching him, a few of them beset by snickers of their own. “Get her out of here,” he said. “And good luck with the centaurs up in Coverdale. You girls are gonna make one hell of a band.”

  A few of them accosted Clay for handshakes and brief hugs before melting away, as deft at hiding in city streets as they were in a wooded forest—even better, perhaps, considering their garish attire. When they’d vanished Clay relieved Gabriel of one pack and prodded him toward the western gate. “We need to run,” he insisted.

  Moog, who was already scampering ahead, called back over his shoulder. “Forget running,” he shouted, “it’s time to fly!”

  Kallorek was in a mood when they got back. Matrick had him tied to a chair and was seated opposite, sipping something that wasn’t wine from a wineglass and smiling placidly as the booker raged.

  “I’ll pop your fucking eyes out and eat them with cheese! I’ll have you flayed and salted! I’ll turn your skin to jerky and feed it to dogs. I’ll feed it to rotters and feed them to dogs!”

  Matrick raised his glass as the others entered. “Welcome back. Kal and I were just catching up.” He took one look at Ganelon, still beset by an irrepressible fit of high-pitched giggles, and his jaw dropped. He immediately looked to Moog. “What did you do to him?”

  “He got a lungful of Jackal’s Jest,” the wizard explained. “Things got a little hairy in Conthas.”

  “You’re a wanted man, by the way,” Clay said to Matrick.

  The king paled a shade or two. “Lilith knows I’m alive?”

  “If she didn’t before we wrecked the Maxithon, she does now,” Clay told him. “She’s hired a bounty hunter. A woman named—”

  “Larkspur.”

  Clay blinked. “Yeah, that’s her. She’s … bad news,” he concluded.

  Matrick nodded. “Oh, she’s bad news, all right. I was afraid Lilith might resort to this. We hired Larkspur a few years back to track down a servant who’d stolen some of Lilith’s jewellery. She found him right quick, cut his hands off, and carved thief onto his forehead with a knife. It was almost a mercy when Lilith had him executed.”

  Ganelon sniggered as if Matrick had told a bawdy joke.

  “Moog.” Gabe tilted his head at the warrior. “Would you mind …?”

  “Ah, sure.” The wizard took Ganelon by the shoulder and steered him toward the hallway. “Come on, big guy. Let’s go up top and get some air.”

  When they’d left Clay turned to Matrick. “So what is she, exactly?”

  The old rogue shrugged, perplexed.

  “She’s a daeva,” said Kit.

  “Which is …?” Gabe prompted.

  The revenant shrugged, which set something—a rib, perhaps—rattling inside him. “Just that. Daevas are daevas. I have no idea where they come from, but aside from their wings—”

  “Wait, she has wings?” asked Gabriel, but then raised his hand. “Never mind. You were saying?”

  “Yes, well, aside from their wings, the daeva also possess a certain … charisma. Compulsion, I think, would be a better term for it.”

  “You mean they can control people?” Clay inquired, relieved to know there’d been a justifiable reason behind his curious infatuation with the woman in the bar.

  “Essentially, yes,” said Kit. “Their mere presence, or so I’ve heard, is enough to induce a mild fascination. Should one of them make a real effort to charm you … I suppose a strong mind might resist, of course, but a weak one …” He scratched at a bloodless gash across his throat. “I’ve heard of daevas commanding small armies of besotted thralls, ready and willing to carry out their bidding.”

  “So what about our daeva?” Gabe wanted to know. “Larkspur, was it?”

  Kallorek grunted a laugh, but a glare from Matrick settled him quick.

  “Larkspur, yes. Although she once went by the name of Sabbatha,” Kit told them. “There are a number of songs about her. Most of them quite dark, as you can imagine. I’d be more than happy to sing a few, if you’d like?”

  “Just tell us,” said Gabe, impatience clouding his tone.

  The ghoul did something that might have been a sigh had there been breath in his body. “Most recount a troubled birth, a tumultuous childhood. A bloody one, even.”

  Reasonable enough, thought Clay. Considering kids would tease one another for something so trivial as a haircut, or a simple stutter, he could only imagine that having a pair of black-feathered wings might draw the ire of other children—and the ire of children could be cruel indeed.

  “At any rate,” said Kit, “she ended up at Taliskard, which was once a fortress and was then a secluded monastery renowned for breaking the spirits of troubled young girls.”

  “Great job, guys,” Matrick scoffed.

  The ghoul adjusted the drape of his bedsheet garment. “Indeed, Larkspur—or Sabbatha, as she was called at that time—proved too tough a nut to crack. There was an incident with the headmaster—something about him castrating himself in the bathtub—and before long she staged a revolt, took control of the fortress, and used it as a staging ground when she became a mercenary.”

  “She was a merc?” asked Clay.

&nbs
p; “Briefly, yes,” Kit affirmed. “And it was around this time she cast off her old name and became Larkspur. But it’s said she grew tired of fighting monsters, and had no desire to enter the arena, so she turned her sights upon a more unpredictable quarry.”

  “People,” said Gabriel.

  “Exactly.”

  “And now she’s hunting us,” Clay muttered.

  Kit grimaced. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Do you think she’ll follow us into the Wyld?”

  Kallorek laughed harshly. “Oh, she’ll follow you. I’d bet my teeth on it. You’re all dead men,” he sneered. “Might as well tip the hourglass and start counting sand. Twenty years ago you guys might have been a match for Larkspur. But now? She’s gonna tear you apart. Maybe Ganelon could take her down—maybe—if she fought him fair. But I’ve heard a couple o’ them songs myself—enough to know she don’t fight fair, oh no. She’ll come at you sideways, rip your fucking heart out, and lick it clean. Frigid bloody hell I wish I could be there to see it.”

  Clay shrugged. “Yeah, well, you can’t always get what you want, eh?”

  The booker’s grin was an ugly thing. “You’d be surprised,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Flight

  The pilot’s cabin was high on the stern, fronted by shuttered glass windows and furnished with a plush chair equipped with mug holders on either arm. Matrick offered to fly, but he’d been drinking since noon and was slurring his words, so Gabe delegated the job to Moog instead.

  The wizard pulled three levers, one after another. The trio of sails fanned open, accompanied by a loud crack as lightning leapt across their metal ribs. The tidal engines—there were two at either end of the ship—whirred into motion. From so close Clay could see the four concentric rings within each spinning faster and faster as The Carnal Court came to life.

  Moog was beaming. “I’ll say one thing for the druins, they sure left us some wonderful toys to play with.”