Clay Cooper and his band were once the best of the best, the most feared and renowned 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 — 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.
I listened to this on audiobook and absolutely loved it!
I’m not super familiar with the various mythologies, but could catch some references like with Medusa. One of the gang was previously turned to stone, and is in a stone garden when they go to collect him for this new mission.
The mission almost didn’t happen. Clay didn’t want to help his friend and former band-mate. He would have to be crazy to help him go get his daughter from the front lines of a war they are sure to loose. There is no way this group of old men, assuming the others join them in this craziness, would make it over the lands, and through a forest where everything wants to kill you. It is actually Clay’s wife and daughter who convince him to go on this journey.
What a journey it is too! The band jokes about how old they are, the sense if impossibility of this mission while also being confident they will make it through this mission. They also meet some new friends, old friends, and make new enemies they now have to avoid. These band-mates will have you chuckling right along with them. The wizard is probably my favorite, as he says and does some things that had me chuckling while also tilting my head wondering what he was thinking.
This is currently the first book of a currently 2 available, but in looking for the books of this series, looks like there may be a third book coming sometime in the future. I found a reddit thread where Nicholas Eames talks about having trouble getting going on the third book, but does give a little of what inspired the story. No idea when we will have a third book, but that also means it should be easy to read the two books already available and be current with this series.
