What happened in Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames - Recaptains

The basics

Title: Kings of the Wyld

Author: Nicholas Eames

Series: the Band #1

- Kings of the Wyld (2017)
- Bloody Rose (2018)
- Outlaw Empire

Add it: Goodreads

Goodreads Summary:

Clay Cooper and his band were once the best of the best -- the meanest, dirtiest, most feared crew of mercenaries this side of the Heartwyld.

Their glory days long past, the mercs have grown apart and grown old, fat, drunk - or a combination of the three. Then an ex-bandmate turns up at Clay's door with a plea for help. His daughter Rose is trapped in a city besieged by an enemy one hundred thousand strong and hungry for blood. Rescuing Rose is the kind of mission that only the very brave or the very stupid would sign up for.

It's time to get the band back together for one last tour across the Wyld.

Read a full summary of Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames below. If you can’t remember what happened in Kings of the Wyld and you need a refresher, then you’re in the right place.

What happened in Kings of the Wyld?

• Clay is a retired mercenary who now lives with his wife and child in a small town called Coverdale. He works as a Watchman, and at the start of the book he is finishing a shift and slowly walking home.
• A fellow Watchman called Pip warns Clay that a centaur has been seen just outside of town. Previously Clay would have gone hunting but as I said, he’s now retired. Instead he and Pip go to the local tavern, where they hear news of a battle between the Republic and a Heartwyld Horde. The mercenaries who were fighting for the Republic had to retreat into Castia, and they’re stuck there.
• A couple of guys ask Clay about his time in the band Saga, and they chat about Saga injuring a dragon called Akatung.
• Clay heads home to find his old bandmate and friend, Gabriel, waiting for him.
• Gabriel tells Clay that his daughter, Rose, is one of the mercenaries trapped in Castia. Gabriel wants Clay to come with him to help save her. Clay initially isn’t interested because he wants to stay at home with his wife, Ginny, and child, Tally.
• Gabriel admits that he no longer has his special sword, Vellichor, because his ex-wife left him and Gabriel felt forced to sell it.
• Clay decides that he’s actually not too old to rejoin the band, and he wants to help Gabriel save his daughter because he realises he would stop at nothing if Tally was in danger.
• Ginny is very supportive as Clay sets off to find where Gabriel went. He finds Gabriel at the tavern, and the two of them set off after Clay grabs a sword and helmet from his boss.
• Clay stops briefly at his childhood home and remembers his parents. His father taught him to use an axe. His mother is buried under a birch tree.
• We learn that Gabriel’s special sword, Vellichor, was given to him by an almost immortal being called a druin called Vespian. Vespian had been injured by his dickhead son, so he gave the sword to Gabriel, who then sold it to Kallorek, an old booker for the band. Gabriel’s ex-wife, Valery, is now married to Kallorek. The situation is a mess.
• Gabriel and Clay are robbed by an all-female band called the Silk Arrows. Their leader, Lady Jain, seems nice enough. She leaves Clay with his shield because she knows of him from the old days. She does take all their money and food though.
• Clay recalls how the Horde was created – by druins who bred monsters for their armies, but the monsters obviously couldn’t be trusted and became the Horde. The monsters were driven into the Heartwyld during the War of Reclamation.
• Gabriel and Clay head to Conthas, where Kallorek and Valery are living. It doesn’t have any leaders, laws, or taxes, so everyone is a bit wild there.
• A bunch of bands parade through the town and make a spectacle of the whole thing.
• The two of them reach Kallorek’s mansion, which is an old temple. He is currently making lots of money by booking lots of mercenaries and taking a high percentage of their pay. Kallorek starts going on about Gabriel and Valery’s break up and the band falling apart. Kallorek says that Rose stole some weapons off him.
• Gabriel asks for Vallichor back. Kallorek says Gabe can have it, if he can pry it off the statue. Gabriel tries his best but is unable to manage it. Kallorek tells Gabe that Rose is now dead, so Clay punches him, and also knocking over Kit the Unkillable’s sarcophagus. Clay snatches the medallion that Kallorek was holding and uses it to control the golems, who take Clay and Gabriel away to safety.
• Gabriel and Clay head off to find Moog, the wizard of the band. Moog has been dead set on finding a cure for the rot, since his husband died of it a while ago. Moog also has it now and things aren’t looking good.
• Moog tells the others that a druin called the Duke of Endland has asked all the kings of Grandual to call a Council of Courts. This is the guy in charge of the Heartwyld Horde.
• Moog agrees to come along to rescue Rose.
• Kallorek arrives with a bunch of men. Moog and the others escape through a magic mirror and arrive in a bedchamber.
• Clay is immediately attacked by an assassin. The King of Agria, who is actually an ex-bandmate called Matrick, is still sleeping. There’s a little fight, then Lilith, Matrick’s wife, arrives alongside a half-naked bodyguard.
• The following day the group has breakfast together. The others meet Matrick’s kids, who seem nice enough, but Lilith seems quite awful. She announces that she’s pregnant again and then leaves after dropping that bombshell. Matrick begs Clay to get him out of there because the kids are not his and Lilith has been hiring assassins to try to kill him.
• The Council of Courts meets. Leaders from Phantra, Kaskar, Narmeer, and Cartea arrive, as well as a massive wyvern ridden by the Duke of Endland.
• The Duke turns out to be a druin called Lastleaf, who is the dickhead son of Vespian, the sword guy. The Council want to convince him to disband the Horde, but Lastleaf isn’t interested. He wants Castia to fall so he can take over Endland.
• Lastleaf recognises Gabriel as the guy who got his father’s special sword, and becomes angry. Everyone draws their weapons, the wyvern eats someone, and then Lastleaf flies off.
• The band fake Matrick’s death and float his “body” down the river after the funeral. Matrick gets a bit banged up when he goes down a waterfall but he’s ultimately alright.
• Lady Jain shows up again with her Silk Arrows. She robs the guys, but warns them there’s a bounty out for Clay and Gabriel.
• Moog’s crystal balls shows corpses poisoning the water at Castia.
• A band of mercenaries dressed as clowns attacks the group. They’re here for the bounty. They fight the bad guys off and kill their leader, Raff, with a stick turned into a snake.
• Clay recalls how he decided to not be a monster because of Ginny.
• The group heads to Fivecourt. Gabriel goes to see Fender, a kobold who has been holding onto a bag of coins for him which Gabriel wants to use to buy Ganelon’s freedom.
• Ganelon has been turned to stone by a gorgon called Dinantra, btw.
• Dinantra has been chatting to Lastleaf as she wants him to make her an Exarch in the New Dominion once he takes over.
• Lastleaf waffles on about how he lived in the Heartwyld for centuries and was then imprisoned. He met Ashatan, his wyvern, in the dungeons and they got free and killed everyone.
• Dinantra agrees to free Ganelon if the band all fight in the arena. They agree to this deal. Ganelon is freed, and he doesn’t look any older than he did when Clay last saw him.
• Ganelon seems chill about the whole stone thing, whereas Clay feels guilty about not helping him sooner.
• The band head to a tavern and get into a fight with the Screaming Eagles. The tavern burns.
• The following day, everyone is hungover. They need to fight in the arena though so that’s not good. They step out into the sands, and a chimera appears. They need to kill it.
• Moog gets electrocuted and Clay and Gabriel get paralysed, so Ganelon has to kill the chimera by himself. A skyship arrives and distracts the chimera. The chimera falls from the sky onto Dinantra, and the impact destroys the arena.
• Clay realises that the skyship is being driven by Vanguard, who are bros.
• Moog reveals his infection. Matrick gets upst.
• The band go back to Kallorek’s place and take back the special sword. Valery seems confused and very sad that Gabriel is choosing the sword over her again. Valery asks Gabriel to bring Rose home.
• Valery tells the band where to find Kallorek’s sky ship. They head there and find Kit the Unkillable living in it. He’s chill, so he joins the band, as well as Kallorek who is now their prisoner.
• Clay and Ganelon go to get supplies and bump into Lady Jain again. She doesn’t rob them this time, but she warns them when a bounty hunter called Larkspur enters the tavern looking for Matrick.
• Larkspur is a daeva, so people really like her when she wants them to. Larkspur tells the others that she has been hired by Lilith, who wants Matrick to come back and pay for his treason. Moog helps everyone escape.
• Kit explains that Larkspur used to go by the name Sabbatha, but she didn’t have a good time in school or something so decided to become a horrible manhunter.
• Back on the skyship, Kallorek insults Clay’s wife and child so Clay chucks Kallorek overboard. Hopefully he’s dead.
• Kit sings a song about how the Summer Lord’s wife had two children – the Autumn Son and the Spring Maiden. Their names were Vail and Glif, respectively. The Summer Lady had to be resurrected, but she came back very icy and different.
• There’s a storm, then Larkspur attacks. She is using monks to fight the band. Larkspur takes hold of Matrick, then they get hit by lightning and they fall into the forest.
• Moog lands the skyship in the forest so they can go and find Matrick. The forest is obviously not very nice and filled with creatures, some of which Ganelon scares away.
• Ganelon admits to Clay that he was awake when he was a statue.
• They bump into Matrick, who has found a troll friend called Taino. Larkspur is there too, and she has a brain injury so is back to going by Sabbatha.
• Sabbatha shares some information about her past, particularly about how her father tried to kill her after she was immaculately conceived. She had been bullied for most of her childhood, so eventually she injured and killed her bullies. The villagers then killed Sabbatha’s parents.
• A Feral cannibal called Jeremy visits Taino to get some medicine for his chieftain.
• The band heads back to the ship, but they’re taken by Ferals after a small skirmish.
• The Ferals take them to their village. There are many other captives there, one is a two headed giant. One of the heads is called Gregor, and the other is Dane, who is blind.
• Kit has also been captured.
• Clay meets the chieftain, who had the rot but has now been cured by Taino’s medicine. Moog is thrilled to learn about the cure.
• The chieftain wants to trade Sabbatha for Kit. Everyone refuses. Moog has to give up his magical hat.
• The band leaves, and takes the ettin along too. 
• Kit tells his backstory – he pet and killed a phoenix and so was turned into a revenant.
• They bump into a druin called Shadow who pretends to be friendly. He tells them that Lastleaf intends to open three portals, which can be opened by a keystone which is being protected by Akatung.
• Shadow tells the story in which Vespian, the druin who gave Gabriel the sword, killed his infant daughter to resurrect his wife. She kept taking her own life again and again, which is how she became very cold. She started to practice necromancy herself. Clay eventually realises that the seasonal gods are based on this family – and so the Autumn Son is Lastleaf.
• Shadow tries to knock the band out with special herbs. He wants the special sword. The band have to fight off shadows and Sabbatha kills Shadow.
• Sabbatha asks about Larkspur.
• Moog uses potions to get Gabriel in contact with Rose. She’s made a friend called Freecloud. Gabriel warns Rose that the water supply is poisoned, and he tells her he’s coming for her. Rose has given up hope.
• Moog spots an owlbear. The band has to kill it, unfortunately, but Moog adopts its cubs. 
• The band takes the Cold Road through the mountains to Castia. Ganelon and Sabbatha get it on.
• Gabriel tells Clay that he is the true leader of the group.
• The band is attacked by rasks on the ice bridge. The ettin falls off the bridge into the crevasse. Larkspur returns, and says she has been around for a while. Clay fights her and she cuts off his hand. Clay falls off the bridge too.
• Clay dreams of his father killing his mother, and then of himself killing his father with his axe.
• Clay wakes up next to the ettin. Gregor is already dead, and Dane is dying. Clay asks Dane to tell him a story while he passes away.
• Clay climbs up the mountain and finds Larkspur and Matrick. Matrick seems pretty chill about his situation – he has been captured and is surrounded by monks. Matrick kills the monks himself once Clay is threatened by them.
• Larkspur shows up and is hit by a crossbow bolt, shot by Vanguard.
• Clay’s hand is regenerated.
• Vanguard grabs the rest of the band and brings them on board.
• Matrick enters the dragon’s lair to steal the keystone. He manages it but the dragon is angered and is chasing him. The band boards the skyship and they lure the dragon into a portal, sending it into the ocean.
• The band travel through the portal to Kaladar and join the War Fair.
• Gabriel convinces the bands who have gathered to help with the Horde problem. The younger ones seem keen. The bands head to Castia through the portal.
• The bands are quickly overwhelmed. Larkspur’s skyship also arrives pretty soon, which seems to be terrible timing. But then Larkspur kills a giant and kisses Ganelon, so I guess she’s nice now.
• Lastleaf shows up and starts going on about his mother. Gabriel tells him to shut up, and the two men fight.
• Clay is attacked by a minotaur. He shoves it at Lastleaf, causing Lastleaf and the minotaur to fall into lava.
• The gates of Castia open, and Rose walks out.
• The band fights through the Horde to get to Rose.
• Larkspur fights with an Infernal, which freezes her. She falls from the sky, and Ganelon goes to help. Gabriel kills the Infernal.
• Gabriel and Rose are reunited.
• Clay notices that Lastleaf has been trampled, and seems to have fallen on his sword.
• The epilogue is Kit telling the story of the Battle and what happened to Saga afterwards. Matrick rebuilt Castia and became Emperor, and was later joined by his children.
• Moog is busy curing people of the rot.
• Ganelon returned to the Quarry by himself. It seems that Larkspur is pregnant with his child.
• Clay returns to Coverdale and is reunited with his family. He learns that Tally killed a centaur while he was gone.

That’s what happened in Kings of the Wyld! Check out our recap list for more recaps. If you can’t find what you need, you can request a recap from us!