“I’m the frontman,” Gabe corrected.
Clay had a sudden recollection of huddling around a table in Conthas—what, thirty years ago?—with Gabriel, Matrick, and Kallorek, dreaming of glory and doling out roles in an as-yet-unnamed band. Gabriel was the face, Matty the hands. Clay had been the muscle for roughly half an hour, before Ganelon showed up. “Frontman, leader … same thing,” Clay said.
“Is it?”
Clay opened his mouth, closed it, spent a moment considering whether or not what he was about to say made sense before replying, rather ineloquently, “Yeah?”
“Say we rescue Rose,” proposed Gabriel, and already Clay was beginning to feel like an old, blind dog limping toward a loving hug, a merciful axe, and a shallow grave. Gabe had a point to make, but he was taking the scenic route. “Say we make it safe and sound back to Grandual, and afterward I ask the boys—Moog, Matty, Ganelon—to keep the band going. Maybe take on a few smaller gigs, or hit the arena circuit to warm up first, and then do a proper tour of the Wyld, or the Wastes up north.”
“Good luck with that,” said Clay, though he knew Gabe wasn’t being serious. At least Clay didn’t think he was being serious. It was hard to tell sometimes, with Gabriel.
“They wouldn’t come,” Gabe said. “Of course they wouldn’t. And after all this is done I doubt they’d follow me to an outhouse if they had to shit. But if you asked them? If Clay Cooper walked alone into the Heartwyld, or the Brumal Wastes, or the Frost Mother’s Hell itself … they would follow you. You know they would. And so would I.”
Clay had never considered himself Saga’s leader, and he certainly didn’t now, regardless of what Gabriel said. For the entirety of his mercenary career he had gone where Gabe said they were going, killed what Gabe said needed killing, spent whatever coin Gabe tossed his way, and generally drifted, leaflike and listless, on the shifting current of Gabriel’s bluster.
Sure, from time to time he’d weighed in on some moral quandary confounding his bandmates, and every so often he’d taken the first step down a hard road when no one else seemed keen on doing so. There were even, admittedly, occasions on which he’d gone ahead and killed who needed killing without asking for Gabriel’s permission. Kallorek, for instance.
Clay was still mulling over Gabriel’s words a while later when their progress was once again impeded by fallen rock. This time, however, Dane actually did discover a treasure among the stones. “Durmadantum!” he declared, brandishing the ice-encased skull of some hapless adventurer.
Gregor made the best of it. “Indeed it is, brother! Well done. Let’s take a closer look at it later.” He took the skull from Dane and handed it to Gabriel, who handed it to Moog, who tossed it into the snow behind them.
The way grew more treacherous still. The path was sloped and broken, slippery with snow and ice. The wind got mean, tugging and prodding like a bully urging you to jump or be called a coward. The peak of Deliverance loomed into cloud on their right. On their left was the canyon known as the Defile. It cut a jagged, mazelike path from one side of the range to the other, and Clay, shivering despite the heavy bearskin, was beginning to wish he’d sided with Matrick before they started the climb. It would be warm down there, and the likelihood of falling to your death was comparatively slim.
Remember the giants, he told himself. Giants are bad. The thought managed to console him somewhat. Enough to keep his legs moving, anyway.
But then, through the curtain of swirling snow, he saw it: a span of crystalline ice arcing from one side of the gorge to the other. The last, lethal stretch of the Cold Road.
And quite suddenly giants didn’t seem so bad.
The rasks hit them before they reached the bridge.
Clay was taking a turn at the front, doing his best to keep his eyes from wandering over the sheer drop on his left, when one of the creatures came skidding and shrieking down the steep cliff face on their right. He rushed to meet it, hoping to engage it as far from the chasm’s edge as possible, and pinned it against the stone while the others hurried past.
Clay had never gotten a good look at a rask up close, and now that one was howling into his face he couldn’t have said he was grateful for the opportunity. It was roughly the size of Clay himself, with bedraggled blue-green hair that clung like wet seaweed to its scrawny shoulders. The thing’s eyes were pale as milk, its breath an unsettling mix of blood and peppermint. Its nose was long, sharp as an icicle, and pointed dangerously at his face. Clay had its long arms pinned below his, and he could feel its claws scratching against his chain shirt, without which he would have been disemboweled.
He pushed Blackheart’s rim into the monster’s neck and heard it snap, but still the thing fought him. Clay called out to the wizard as he went by. “Hey, how do I kill it?”
Moog spun, one hand pushing his oversized fur hat from his eyes. “Fuck if I know!”
“Moog, I’m serious!”
“So am I! Fire would do it, but good luck getting—oh, wait!” The wizard went to his knees, frantically plumbing his bottomless bag. He came up clutching a coil of rope, which didn’t explain why he was grinning as though he’d produced something useful, until Clay realized that the rope wasn’t rope. It was firewire.
Clay caught movement to his right. Another rask dropped from the ridge above and was loping toward them. “Moog, hurry,” he growled.
The wizard twisted a short length of firewire from the rest. He darted up beside Clay and touched the two ends together. There was a hiss, and Moog fed the suddenly glowing loop to the monster’s mouth. The pitch of its scream shifted from rage to pain; its head melted like a candle set alight with dragonfire.
Well, there’s one way to kill them, Clay thought.
He danced back as the firewire, now a circle of molten gold, landed on the ground near his feet, then turned as the second rask reached him, a flurry of grasping talons and gnashing teeth. Clay sidestepped, set his shoulder into Blackheart, and knocked the creature off the path and into the abyss below.
He and Moog hurried after the others. They entered a long corridor that Clay remembered as having been more a tunnel and less a terrace, but it had been winter when they’d been here last. Now rasks clambered in from above, slipping like thieves through gaps in the ice. More of the creatures were blocking the way ahead. He saw Gabriel hack through them without slowing. Matrick skulked in his wake, plunging knives into those still thrashing, while Ganelon and Sabbatha dealt with any who came in from outside. Between his axe and her scythe, Clay couldn’t imagine a more dangerous place in all the world than within the deadly circle of their reach.
A snarl tore the air to his left. Clay whirled as a rask came at him feetfirst. He brought his shield up an instant too late. The thing’s talons raked across his face. Pain flared, then fled, chased off by terror and raw adrenaline. Blood ran into his eyes, gummed in his ice-tipped lashes when he tried to blink, and fouled his sight. Clay caught a glimpse of the rask attacking and ducked behind his shield. He was knocked backward, and his head cracked hard against the cold stone wall.
Clay swiped the blood from his eyes, but his vision was still blurred. There were four rasks, then twelve, then one again, lunging toward him with talons that snapped like shears.
Something bright spun past. The rask’s head rolled into Clay’s lap. Its body slumped like a supplicant before him, and he saw that its neck had been neatly cauterized. A few feet to his left another disc of glowing firewire steamed in the snow.