Ganelon dragged the axe off his back. Runes pulsed across the black steel, steady as a heartbeat. “Naw, we’re good.”
Gabe went on. “Some of you—hell, most of you—are too young to remember why we’re famous, so let me give you a few recent examples. We rescued the king of Agria from his wife’s hired assassin. We burned the Riot House to the ground. We brought down a chimera, and took the Maxithon for a spin.” He waited as a spatter of laughter came and went. “We crossed the Heartwyld, though it wasn’t easy. We walked the Cold Road, and we paid its toll.”
The fingers on Clay’s newest hand tingled as the ettin’s lullaby drifted through the echoing corridors of his memory.
“We found a druin keystone,” Gabe was saying, “and opened the Threshold behind me. And oh, yeah, we killed a dragon. Akatung is dead,” Gabe announced, to the audible disbelief of those listening. Which was everyone now, since the very trees were carrying Gabriel’s voice over the hills and beyond. When he sighed, the leaves shivered as though the wind itself had raked its frigid fingers through their boughs. “But I didn’t come here to brag,” he said.
“Could’ve fooled me!” shouted Red Bob, who looked mighty pleased with himself until someone else yelled, “Fuck off, Bob!” to ensuing laughter.
Gabe took no notice of the exchange. “In fact, let me start over. My name is Gabriel, and I need your help.” He pointed through the Threshold. “That there is Castia.”
Dark murmurs arose from the crowd. If any had wondered what it was they were seeing beyond the arch—or where, rather—they knew now.
“Some thirty thousand men and women are trapped within its walls,” said Gabriel. “Once, they hoped for salvation. Now they pray for death. One of them is my daughter, Rose. But that darkness … that shadow you see between us and them … is the Heartwyld Horde.”
The murmurs grew into a fearful babble. The blanketing multitude seemed to wilt like grass on fire. A nearby blade merchant rolled up his sodden carpet with the swords still inside and jogged off through the crowd.
Gabriel pressed on. “Every nightmare you’ve ever had, every monster you feared to find beneath your bed, is right there. And it brought a thousand friends. They’ve already crushed one army, and sooner or later Castia will fall to them as well. The Horde is hungry. It is cruel. Those inside will wish they had died on the battlefield before the end.”
Barret shifted uncomfortably, no doubt afraid that Gabe was unravelling the threadbare glamour his earlier words had wrought, but Clay knew better. He and Gabriel had been friends for thirty-five years, and Gabe had been talking him into doing recklessly stupid shit for damn near all of them. He was a charismatic craftsman: every heart a furnace, every soul a blade.
And here comes the hammer, thought Clay.
At least he hoped there was a hammer, because even Barret’s sons looked as dismal as the weather.
“Why did you come to here, to Kaladar?” Gabe asked. “Was it to show off the paint on your face? Your latest tattoo? The colour of your hair? Or was there something more? Did you come to find a band, or a booker? Did you want to make a name for yourself? Was it glory you were looking for?”
Something about that word stirred the embers in Clay’s gut. It didn’t matter that he was old, or tired, or that he’d drunk deep enough from glory’s cup to slake a lifetime’s thirst. Saying glory to a warrior was like saying walk to a dog—you got its tail wagging, sure as shit.
“Because you don’t find glory at a fair. It isn’t something that just lands in your lap. You need to go after it and take it for yourself. You need to risk everything for it.”
There was a flurry within the Threshold. Ashe and Piglet were tussling with a pair of harpies; Ganelon was squaring off against something that looked like a centipede with tiny wings along the length of its body.
“But glory is a hard currency to earn nowadays. It isn’t just wandering in a forest, or lurking in a cave. You have to breed it, keep it in a cage, and parcel it out so everyone gets their share. I’ve heard it said—and so have you—that all the great bands have come and gone.” There was a smattering of unrest among his audience, and Gabe kept nudging. “People think the world has already been saved, that we don’t need mercenaries anymore. They say heroes are a dying breed!”
That got them going. There was jeering, and shouts of “It’s true!” and “Fuck that noise!” from everywhere at once.
“He’s right,” Clay heard Barret’s younger boy admit to his brother.
“So what can you do?” Gabe asked them. “You tour from city to city fighting whatever sorry thing the local wrangler can drudge up. You dress up and dance while some beer-swilling asshole hopes a goblin gets lucky and slits your throat so that he can see some blood!”
Moog laughed at that. So did a lot of the older mercs. But the younger ones nodded, tight-lipped, or else yelled their agreement.
“Who will remember you?” Gabe asked. “What have you done?” He waved a hand toward the Horde and the city it besieged. “Tell me: does the world look safe to you?”
First there was grumbling, but then someone ventured, “NO!” and hundreds more followed suit.
“Castia needs fighters!” he shouted above the thunder of stamping feet. “It needs great and glorious bands!” he yelled over the percussive crash of sword and shield. “Castia needs heroes!” he roared, and they roared back at him. Barret’s boys were grinning like jackals. Jain’s girls were howling like wolves. “Are there any heroes here?” he screamed.
“YES!” bellowed ten thousand. Twenty.
“I said: Are there any fucking heroes here!?”
“YES!” bellowed thirty thousand. Forty.
The hills seemed to be rolling, rising beneath the back of conjured leviathans. Birds were circling the sky, spooked by the spectre in the trees.
Moog was bouncing excitedly on his toes, and Kit, who’d slipped through the arch sometime during Gabriel’s speech, was peering over the assembly as though committing the sight to memory.
Clay thought of what the ghoul had told them in the mountain cave, about the marvels and horrors he’d seen throughout the course of his extraordinary life, and he wondered if their bard had ever seen anything quite like this.
“This day,” said Gabriel, “this moment, is when you step out from the shadow of the past. Today you make your name. Today your legend is born. Come tomorrow, every tale the bards tell will belong to you, because today we save the world!”
Clay sighed in relief. There’d been a hammer, after all.
Gabriel tore Vellichor from its scabbard and leveled it at the encroaching Horde. “This is not a choice between life and death, but life and immortality! Remain here and die in obscurity, or follow me now and live forever!”
Chapter Fifty
The Battle of the Bands
Barret’s boys were the first ones through. Three other youths (the remaining Wight Nights, presumably) came with them, each sporting the same dark-rimmed eyes and bleached-bone hair.
Jain’s girls were next; the brigand turned bandleader gave Clay a touch with the tip of her bow as she passed.
“Long way from stealing socks on the roadside, eh Slowhand?”
“Long way,” Clay agreed. “Stay safe, Jain.”
She laughed and called over her shoulder, “Little late for that!”