Bards and Broken Bowls
“I still don’t see why you had to kill it,” said Moog sulkily.
“Oh no?” Matrick asked. “Why don’t you ask the zombie?”
“Zombie? Seriously?” Kit shook his head in disgust, but then proffered his right arm, which had been savaged almost to the bone by the enraged owlbear. “Anyway, I fear killing the beast was our only recourse, Arcandius. The poor creature was … well, it was angry.”
“It was only trying to protect its little ones,” Moog grumbled. He wore Gabriel’s old pack slung over his chest, inside which were the two cubs they’d found on the hillside after the Owlbear was dead. Their beaks were barely big enough to clamp down on a finger, but their eyes were huge, gold as the Summer Lord’s beard, and seemed to ask, Why did you kill my mother? whenever Clay made the mistake of looking their way. They mewled ceaselessly, only growing quiet when Moog stroked the soft white down on their heads, as he did now.
“Well I was trying to protect my little ones,” said Ganelon. He reached over to pet Matrick, who flinched away and self-consciously smoothed his thinning hair.
Gabriel glanced back over his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Moog. It was her or us.”
The wizard sighed and looked down at his whining charges. “I guess so. But at least I can keep these two safe.”
Safe? Clay almost scoffed. We’re going to the most horrible place in the world by the most dangerous route possible, but okay, sure.
“Have you decided what to name them?” asked Gregor. Beside him, Dane giggled for no reason at all.
“Not yet, no.” The wizard winced; Clay could see that bearing the cubs was taking a toll on his stamina. “Can we rest soon, Gabriel? They look hungry …”
“Soon,” said Gabe without turning.
They’d been climbing all day. First the rugged foothills below, then the mountain itself, which Kit informed them was called Deliverance. Clay’s legs were on fire. His right knee had started popping with every step, which might have troubled him more had he not heard Moog’s and Matrick’s knees clicking as well, so instead he just found it darkly amusing. Ganelon was unaffected by anything resembling fatigue. He climbed with the dogged gait of an automaton. Sabbatha appeared tireless as well, despite her heavy black armour. She’d gone quiet over the past few hours, stalking along beside Ganelon while Umbra bounced like a garish fishing pole on her shoulder.
But still Gabriel led the way, fueled by determination alone. Clay saw him falter several times. Once he tripped and went sprawling, but he leapt up as though drawn to his feet by unseen strings, a puppet dancing beneath the hand of its own indomitable will.
Up they went, until the forest resembled an ink-dark sea lapping hungrily at the mountain’s feet. Up, until snow crunched beneath their feet and every breath plumed white before them. Up, until the air grew so crisp and cold that Matrick suggested they might turn the cubs into a pair of warming cloaks, and Moog proposed they slit Matrick open, unspool his guts, and take shelter in his belly for the night.
They found a cave shortly before dusk. It was empty but for a small table and two damp pillows, each of which was occupied by a decrepit skeleton. Between them was a moonstone Tetrea board bristling with beautifully carved figurines. The game was one in which two players waged a war between Grandual’s gods: one controlled the forces of the Summer Lord and his daughter, Glif, while the other played on behalf of the Winter Queen and her son, Vail. It was a game of tactical foresight and cunning strategy—which was to say that Clay Cooper had never won a match in all his life, including an especially embarrassing loss to his nine-year-old daughter.
On the board below, one of the Winter Queen’s pawns had been advanced two squares ahead.
“Brilliant,” said Moog.
“These two were masters,” Kit agreed.
Clay frowned, gleaning nothing of the sort. Stranger still: The skeleton of a cat was curled beside the table, as if the creature had been content to sleep itself to death while one of the so-called masters contemplated a move he would never make.
Ganelon grunted and scratched the whiskers on his chin. After a moment he stooped and slid a pawn on the opposite side forward.
Sabbatha grinned. “You sure about that?”
Ganelon glanced up at her, and if Clay didn’t know better he’d have said the southerner looked intrigued. Ganelon motioned at the board. “Be my guest.”
The daeva’s grin turned feral. She kicked one of the skeletons aside and settled herself in its place. Ganelon grasped the other by the skull and flung it away.
If Clay thought the scene before had been strange, now it was outright bizarre. A notoriously malicious bounty hunter and a peerless killer hunkered down at a Tetrea board, he mused. Now I’ve seen everything.
Someone had brought up bards, which in turn led to a discussion about how they died, since that was what bards did best.
“Which one was William?” asked Matrick. The old king had found a flask somewhere—Clay wasn’t about to hazard a guess—and took a swig, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand. “Was he the one that got gobbled up by a crypt slime?”
“That was Cook,” Clay reminded him. They’d managed to gather a few bare branches from outside the cave, and he fed one now to the waning fire.
“Oh yeah!” Matty slapped his knee. “I remember Cook! Great kid. Terrible cook. Hell of a bard, though, and a decent pickpocket, too.”
Not if that pocket belonged to a crypt slime, Clay mused. The boy had seen something glinting within the cube-shaped gel and plunged his hand right into it. But crypt slimes, not unlike people, rarely reacted kindly when someone jammed a fist inside them. Also, they were extremely corrosive: The young bard had been nothing but a dismayed-looking skeleton by the time they’d killed it, still clutching the worn copper coin that had cost him his life.
“Great kid,” Clay echoed. “Anyway, William was the nobleman’s son. We called him Sir Billy, remember?”
Matrick snorted. “Sir Billy! Gods, he hated that name. Arrogant little shit, wasn’t he? Whatever happened to him?”
Gabriel was scraping his dinner bowl clean with a finger. Tonight’s fare had been a disappointing mix of overcooked sausages and undercooked lentils, but Gabe had devoured it like a prisoner given salted steak after decades of gruel. “Castrated by a nymph,” he said.
Matrick cocked his head. “What? How did I not know that?”
The frontman shrugged. “You drank a lot.”
“Good point,” said Matrick. He tipped his flask again, and afterward smiled wistfully. “Recca was nice.”
Recca had been Saga’s first female bard, and accordingly several of them—Clay included—had been madly in love with her. But Recca, unfortunately for everyone involved, had been in love with a bloodeater. It turned her, eventually, and Gabriel had been forced to drive a silver stake through her heart. They’d gone after the bloodeater next and made damn sure it suffered.
“Well, she was a whole lot better than Catrina, anyway,” Matrick added.
Clay shifted from one elbow to the other on his roll, hoping to relieve the pain creeping into his lower back. It helped, for the moment. “Catrina … was she the moontiger?”
“Raksha,” said Moog. “Not a moontiger.”
“There’s a difference?” asked Ganelon without taking his eyes from the Tetrea board. He and Sabbatha had been at it all night, eating supper where they sat, muttering quietly to one another between finishing one match and beginning another. Clay had no idea how many games they’d played, or who was winning, since they both approached it with the same fierce intensity with which they fought.
“Of course there’s a difference,” Moog was saying. “Moontigers are lycanthropes.”