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 master 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.