Kings of the Wyld

Among them is a renegade king, he who sired five royal heirs without ever unzipping his pants. A man to whom time has imparted great wisdom and an even greater waistline, whose thoughtless courage is rivalled only by his unquenchable thirst. At his shoulder walks a sorcerer, a cosmic conversationalist. Enemy of the incurable rot, absent chairman of combustive sciences at the university in Oddsford, and the only living soul above the age of eight to believe in owlbears. Look here at a warrior born, a scion of power and poverty whose purpose is manifold: to shatter shackles, to murder monarchs, and to demonstrate that even the forces of good must sometimes enlist the service of big, bad motherfuckers. His is an ancient soul destined to die young. And now comes the quiet one, the gentle giant, he who fights his battles with a shield. Stout as the tree that counts its age in aeons, constant as the star that marks true north and shines most brightly on the darkest nights. A step ahead of these four: our hero. He is the candle burnt down to the stump, the cutting blade grown dull with overuse. But see now the spark in his stride. Behold the glint of steel in his gaze. Who dares to stand between a man such as this and that which he holds dear? He will kill, if he must, to protect it. He will die, if that is what it takes. “Go get the boss,” says one guardsman to another. “This bunch looks like trouble.” And they do. They do look like trouble, at least until the wizard trips on the hem of his robe. He stumbles, cursing, and fouls the steps of the others as he falls face-first onto the mud-slick hillside.

But what does a mirror know? What can it show us of ourselves? Oh, it might reveal a few scars, and perhaps a glimpse—there, in the eyes—of our true nature. The spirit beneath the skin. Yet the deepest scars are often hidden, and though a mirror might reveal our weakness, it reflects only a fraction of our strength.

WHEN WE SEEK TO RULE ONLY OURSELVES, WE ARE EACH OF US KINGS.

You should write a book," Matrick suggested. Kit snorted. "Who wants to read the self-pitying lamentations of an old revenant?" "There's your title right there," said Ganelon.

Clay pushed his body off him and mumbled another apology - because, enemy or not, when you hit a man in the nuts with a magic hammer the least you could say was sorry.

Watch this!” he said, and what happened next might have been extraordinarily funny were their lives not at stake. But they were, so it wasn’t.

How do I look?" he asked. Barret grinned. "Old." Moog glanced over appraisingly. "Tired." Gabriel snorted a laugh. "Fuck you guys.

As individuals they were each of them fallible, discordant as notes without harmony. But as a band they were something more, something perfect in its own intangible way

And so it goes, thought Clay. Life was funny, and fickle, and often cruel. Sometimes the unworthy went on living, while those who deserved better was lost. Or not lost, he considered, since they lingered on in the hearts of those who loved them, who love them still, their memory nurtured like a sprig of green in an otherwise desolate soul. Which was, he supposed, a kind of immortality, after all.

A tiger, however fearsome, could be hunted into a corner. It fought alone, so it died alone. But to hunt a wolf was to constantly look over your shoulder, wondering if others were behind you in the dark. “Lost?

Well, you see how big he was. Apparently he broke through a latrine seat and drowned in the sewage below.” A shitty way to go,

Judge them for what they wished to be,” he begged the Father of Gods, “not what the world made of them.

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!

The pool,” said Kallorek, pointing. “The pool, right there.” “You mean the pond?” “I mean the pool,” growled the booker. “Get in. Swim.” He accompanied these words with effusive gestures that set his jewellery ringing. Clay examined the pond. “Swim to where?” he asked. “What do you mean swim to where?” Kallorek’s brow deepened. “Is it a healing spring?” Gabe asked. He flexed his arm, wincing as he extended it fully. “Because I think my elbow—” “Listen, fuck your elbow!” Kallorek blew up. Clay had forgotten how short the booker’s fuse was. That big toothy smile one moment, and the next …“It ain’t a spring, or a pond, or a godsdamned sea nymph’s bathtub. It’s a fucking pool. Just a pool! You swim around in it to relax.

But life, Clay knew, didn’t work that way. It wasn’t a circle; you didn’t go round and round again. It was an arc, its course as inexorable as the sun’s trek across the sky, destined at its highest, brightest moment to begin its fall.

Matrick plied his knives like a parade drummer, his rhythm so fast his enemies didn’t know he’d murdered them until their god asked them if they took milk in their tea

What was it about fathers, Clay wondered, that compelled so many of them to test their children? To insist that a daughter, or a son, prove themselves worthy of a love their mother offered without condition?

Clay smiled like a man who’d won first place in a “Whose Life Sucks the Most

he had long since learned that harbouring regrets was akin to stashing embers in your pockets: it was pointless and bound to hurt.

A battle, as relayed by a poet, is a glorious thing, full of heroic stands, daring charges, and valiant sacrifice. But a battlefield, as experienced by some poor bastard mired in the thick of it, is something different altogether. The word clusterfuck came to mind.

Ganelon sighed. "Slowhand..." "Never again," Clay said. "Where you stand, I stand.

Be careful of making friends out of enemies, lest they remember why they didn't like you in the first place.

What a nice bunch of girls,” declared Matrick, watching her go. “They certainly were,” Gabe agreed. “I mean, they made us breakfast and everything,” said Moog, and the other two nodded. Which left Clay to state the obvious. “Y’all are fucking crazy,” he said.

If it sounds like a sheep but looks like a lion, it's probably a lion.

We were giants once, remember? Kings of the Wyld.

Saying glory to a warrior was like saying walk to a dog—you got its tail wagging, sure as shit. “Because

For a while no one spoke, because in the roundabout course of thirty-some years they had said just about all there was to say to one another, until finally Clay could bear the silence no longer and cleared his throat. “I love you guys,” he said, and gods-be-damned if his voice didn’t sell him out at the end and crack like a boy of twelve summers.

In stories, when a giant was slain, it toppled thunderously to the ground. In reality, a giant died much the same way anything else did: screaming and shitting itself.