Gabe and Ganelon were seated in a booth along one wall. The most fervent admirers had said their pieces by then, and the southerner’s glare managed to stave off those who weren’t quite drunk enough to dare his presence just yet. Clay settled onto the bench beside Gabriel.
Maybe because of Ganelon’s uncannily youthful appearance, or because they’d been sitting in a booth just like this, Clay was reminded of the day they’d first met Ganelon. Gabe had lured Clay to Conthas under false pretences, with the undisclosed aim of introducing him to a street thug turned booker named Kallorek. In a tavern called the Loose Moose, the Orc (as Kal was more commonly called back then) had in turn introduced them to a young pickpocket named Matty and a bard whose name Clay couldn’t have recalled now for all the icicles in Hell.
As chance would have it (Clay liked to believe the gods had better things to do than get a band going) Ganelon had also been in the Moose that evening. A few hapless drunks had taken one look at the southerner’s brown skin and vivid green eyes before giving voice to some disparaging remarks about his mother’s taste in men.
Ganelon put a knife in one, and when half the crowd jumped him Gabriel insisted he and Clay leap to the southerner’s defense, if only to make it a fair fight. Matrick joined in as well, and before the night was over Saga had won its first battle and lost—by accident, of course—the first of its many bards.
Clay smiled to think of it, which earned him a curious look from Gabriel as he glanced over. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“I was just filling Ganelon in,” Gabe told him. “About Lastleaf, and Castia, and Rose. He said he’ll help.”
Clay looked across the table. It was so strange to see Ganelon sitting there, twenty years younger than he ought to have been. The warrior scratched at the scar below his left eye. “What?” he asked defensively. “You thought I wouldn’t?”
“No,” Clay started, “I just figured …”
“That I’d be a little bit pissed?” suggested Ganelon. “That I’d wonder where my friends were when the Sultana’s men came to take me down? That I might resent having been turned to stone, sent to the Quarry, and then sold to a gorgon who plans on killing me in the arena?”
Clay took a sip of his beer. “Yeah, that,” he said.
Ganelon made a face and shrugged. “Well, I ain’t pissed. I don’t resent you … much. Way I see it, justice was served. Those who needed killing got killed, and I missed out on twenty years of sweet dick-all.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say—”
“You know what I mean, Slowhand,” Ganelon cut him off. “Wives. Children. Settling down. It ain’t really my scene.” He took a pull from his mug and wiped froth from his lips. “But here I am, and here we are, and Gabe’s little girl needs rescuing, so let’s get it done. Wouldn’t mind seeing Lastleaf, either. Sounds like he needs his ass kicked again.”
So that was that, then. No bitterness. No animosity whatsoever. As far as Ganelon was concerned, things were business as usual. He wouldn’t have called the southerner a simple man—far from it, in fact—but his pragmatism was astounding, even to Clay, for whom it was practically a religion.
Having concluded matters with Clay, Ganelon turned his attention to someone seated at the nearest table. “Somethin’ the matter?”
Glancing over, Clay recognized the platinum-haired youth he’d seen earlier that evening, sitting on the steps of the argosy that was blocking the gate.
“Naw.” The lad’s voice was an affected parody of the southerner’s drawl. “I was just trying to figure out what the big deal is with you guys.”
Gabriel slunk into the corner, and Ganelon stared without speaking, so Clay took it upon himself to respond. “We’re just a band,” he said.
“Just a band?” The youth sneered and shared a mocking laugh with the others at his table. There were two petulant-looking young men and a woman sporting a diamond-studded eye patch. “Well then, why the fuck are you headlining the Maxithon tomorrow instead of us?”
“We supposed to know you?” asked Ganelon.
The white-haired merc looked genuinely shocked. “You mean you don’t?” Ganelon shook his head. “We’re the Screaming Eagles, man. We’re the biggest band east of the Heartwyld.”
“Which means anywhere,” one of the others put in.
“I got that,” Clay said.
The scrawny frontman leaned forward on his seat. “You been under a rock or something?”
Ganelon didn’t quite smile. “Something like that, yeah.”
“We were supposed to fight for the gorgon tomorrow,” said the one with the glittery eye patch, who wasn’t actually a woman, Clay realized. “We came all the way from Drumskeep, and now we’re to sit with our dicks in our hands while some washed-up old-timers bleed on the sand?”
“Now hold on, Parys,” said the other. “Didn’t these guys kill a dragon in its sleep, like, a hundred years ago? Show some bloody respect!”
Derisive laughter followed.
Clay glanced over, afraid Ganelon’s temper would boil over, but the warrior was still holding his beer, so that was a good sign. When he sets it down, I’ll panic, Clay figured. He tacked on an easy smile, hoping to smooth things over before they escalated further.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I think Dinantra has something pretty nasty in mind for us tomorrow.”
White Hair crossed his tattooed arms, looking emphatically unimpressed. “What could she have planned for a bunch of washed-up heroes? A few crippled kobolds? A blind cyclops? Or maybe she intends to make you all just stand around and see how long before one of you dies of old age.”
More laughter. Clay hid his faltering grin behind a sip of beer. “Maybe,” he said.
White Hair wasn’t finished yet, though. “Kings of the Wyld—isn’t that what they used to call you? Where did the gorgon even find you guys? Last I heard you were scattered to the wind.”
“I heard one of you died,” said Eye Patch.
“I heard one of you fancied boys!” crowed another. “Which one prefers the sword to the sheath, eh? The blond one, I’ll bet. He’s the prettiest.”
Clay rubbed at his beard, in danger of misplacing his smile altogether. “Listen, fellas, I’m sorry we stole your show. I really am. I’m sure the Screeching Eagles are a—”
“Screaming,” White Hair snarled.
“Screaming what?”
“It’s the Screaming Eagles. Not the ‘Screeching Eagles.’”
Clay frowned. “Are you sure? Because the sound an eagle makes—”
And quite suddenly the boy was on his feet, sword in hand. “I know what a fucking eagle sounds like!” he screamed, which drew the attention of every table nearby, and in the ensuing silence Clay heard the quiet but ominous thud of Ganelon setting his beer down on the table.
The story of how the Riot House burned to the ground was chronicled by several bards, a few of which were actually present on the night in question. Even those privileged few, however, were accused of distorting the truth, embellishing facts in an attempt to promote their account as the “definitive” version of the events that inevitably led to the all-consuming fire. What is known for certain is that the fight between the Screaming Eagles and the reunited members of Saga, which in turn gave rise to a full-scale brawl, was only the beginning.