Now that he would remember, right up to the end.
Gabriel hadn’t rented a room above the King’s Head, but the barkeep, Shep, who was such a permanent fixture behind the wood Clay sometimes wondered if the man even had legs, mentioned he’d offered an empty stable to a shabby old bard in exchange for a few stories. “And bloody good ones,” Shep added, rinsing out pitchers in a sink of cloudy water. “Friends becoming enemies, enemies becoming friends. Described a dragon so real you’d have thought he fought the thing himself! Sad stories, too. Real poignant stuff. Bugger even made himself cry a few times.”
It was Gabe in the stable, sure enough. The once-lauded hero, who had shared wine with kings (and beds with queens), was curled up around his pack on a pile of piss-soaked hay. He cried out when Clay nudged him awake, as though roused from the clutches of some terrible nightmare—which was very probably the case. He dragged his old friend inside and ordered breakfast for both of them. Gabriel fidgeted till it arrived via one of Shep’s mild, dark-haired daughters and then attacked it as ravenously as he had Ginny’s stew the night before.
“I brought you some fresh clothes,” Clay said. “And new boots. And when you’re done eating I’ll have Shep fill the tub for you.”
Gabe grinned crookedly. “That bad, eh?”
“Pretty bad,” said Clay, and Gabriel winced.
After that Clay picked slowly at his meal, wondering if maybe he’d done enough. He might just send Gabe on his way with a full stomach and fresh clothes before wandering back home. He could tell Ginny there’d been no trace of his old friend in town, and she’d say Well, at least you tried, and he’d say, Yep, I sure did, and then he’d slip back into bed alongside her, all cozy and warm, then maybe …
Gabriel was watching him as though Clay’s skull were a fishbowl and his thoughts plain to see swimming round and round. His eyes floated to the heavy-looking pack on the bench across from him, and then to the rim of the great black shield strapped to Clay’s back. Finally he stared down at his empty plate, and after a long silence he sniffed once and swiped a soiled sleeve across his eyes.
“Thank you,” he said.
Clay sighed and thought, So much for home. “Don’t mention it,” he said.
On the way out of Coverdale they stopped by the watch-house so Clay could turn in his greens and inform the Sergeant he was leaving town.
“Where ya headed?” asked the Sergeant. His real name was a mystery to everyone but his wife, who had died some years earlier and taken the secret to her grave. He was a man of high integrity, little imagination, and indeterminate age, with a face like sun-ravaged leather and an iron-shot moustache; its ends, thick as horse tails, drooped halfway to his waist. As far as anyone knew he’d never served in an actual army, or fought as a mercenary, or done anything but stand guard over Coverdale his entire life.
In no mood to explain their quest in all its hopeless detail, Clay simply answered, “Castia.”
The men posted on either side of the gate fairly gasped in surprise, but the Sergeant only stroked his great moustache and stared at Clay through the puckered creases that served him as eyes. “Mmm,” he said. “Long way off.”
Long way off? The old man might have just remarked that the sun was way up high.
“Yeah,” Clay replied.
“I’ll take your greens, then.” The Sergeant held out a callused hand, and Clay passed over his Watchmen’s tunic. He offered up the sword as well, but the old man shook his head. “Keep it.”
“There’s been folk robbed on the road south,” said one of the guards.
“And a centaur spotted out by Tassel’s place,” supplied the other.
“Here.” The Sergeant was thrusting something into Clay’s hands. A brass helmet, shaped like a soup bowl, with a flared nose guard and a leather skullcap sewn inside. The gods knew Clay hated helmets, and this one was uglier than most.
“Thank you,” he said, and tucked it beneath his arm.
“Why don’t you put it on,” said Gabriel.
Clay levelled a baleful glare at his so-called friend. He’d spoken earnestly, but Clay could see the corner of his mouth twitch in wry amusement. Gabriel, too, knew how much Clay despised wearing helmets. “Sorry?” he asked, pretending not to have heard.
“You should try it on right now,” Gabe urged, and this time his voice betrayed him, skirling up at the end with the effort of keeping a straight face.
Clay looked around helplessly, but he and Gabe were the only two in on the joke. The men at the gate watched him expectantly. The Sergeant nodded.
So Clay put the helmet on, shuddering as the sweat-moulded leather settled onto his head. The front guard pressed painfully against his nose, squashing it, and Clay blinked as his eyes adjusted to the bar of black between them.
“Looks good,” said Gabriel, scratching his nose as an excuse to cover his grin.
The Sergeant said nothing, but something—a glint in those crow-sharp eyes of his—made Clay wonder if the old man wasn’t fucking with him after all.
Clay smiled tightly at Gabriel. “Shall we?” he asked.
They passed beyond the gate. About fifty yards out the path curved south behind a stand of dense green fir. There was a gulch on the far side of the road, and the moment they rounded the bend Clay tore the helmet from his head and sent it spinning out into the sky. It bounced twice on the hillside, careening in a long arc on its rim before skidding to rest. There were numerous others littering the ground around it, rusted by rain, overgrown by lichen, or half buried in the muck. A few were home to some critter or another, and even as the bronze bowl settled on the mud-slick grass a wren landed lightly on its wide rim, deciding then and there it had found a perfect spot to nest.
Clay and Gabe walked side by side down the dirt path. A forest of tall white birch and squat green alder hedged either side of the road. Both men remained silent for the first while, each lost in the dismal maze of his own mind. Gabriel bore no weapons at all and carried what appeared to be an empty sack. Clay’s own pack was stuffed near to bursting with spare clothes, a warm cloak, several days’ worth of cloth-wrapped lunches, and enough pairs of socks to keep an army’s feet warm. The Watchmen’s sword was belted on his hip, and Blackheart was slung over his right shoulder.
The shield was named for a rampaging treant who had led a living forest on a monthlong killing spree through southern Agria. Blackheart and his arboreal army had wiped out several villages before laying siege to Hollow Hill. Though a few stalwart defenders remained to protect their homes, Clay and his bandmates had been the only real fighters in town. The ensuing battle, which lasted for almost a week and claimed the life of one of Saga’s numerous unlucky bards, was the subject of more songs than could be sung in a day.
Clay himself had cut down Blackheart, and from the treant’s corpse had hewn the wood from which he’d fashioned his shield. It had saved his life more times than all his bandmates together, and was Clay’s most cherished possession. Its surface told the story of countless trials: here gouged by the razor claws of a harpy broodmother, there mottled by the acid breath of a mechanized bull. Its weight was a familiar comfort, even if the strap was starting to chafe, and the top lip kept scraping the back of his head, and his shoulders ached like a plough horse hitched to a granite wagon.
“Ginny seems well,” said Gabriel, shattering the long silence between them.
“Mmm,” said Clay, doing his best to repair it.
“How old is Tally now?” Gabe pressed. “Seven?”
“Nine.”
“Nine!” Gabriel shook his head. “Where did the time go?”
“Someplace warm,” Clay guessed.