by A. J. Smith
“Are you getting enough sleep, Adeline?” she asked, completely ignoring the tense meeting she’d witnessed. It was a habit of hers that I valued.
“Some,” I replied, leaning on the map-table. “Not enough. I keep having strange dreams… but I’m not sure they’re dreams.”
“What was it the Wisp said?” she mused. “That you think clearer when you’re at peace?”
I let the echoing sound of everyone’s footsteps disappear before Tasha and I left the map room, heading for the stairs.
“Adeline, slow down,” snapped the Kneeling Wolf. “You’ll trip. There are no lights down there any more.”
We were on the second level of the Bloody Halls, one of the few sections of the Wolf House not to have been completely emptied. One level down, the huge hall was like a tomb. No tables, chairs, or furniture of any kind had been left. The only sign of the room’s previous importance was the red carpet, which no one had thought to pull up. No torch emplacements remained, and the lack of windows allowed in little natural light. With Tasha scurrying along behind me, I crossed the huge, empty space, and left the Bloody Halls for perhaps the last time.
On the lower levels of the Wolf House, huge baskets of scrolls, and barrels of antique weaponry, were being removed by Nissalite Pure Ones. The relationship with our native friends had changed significantly since the attack, and they were now happily assisting with the evacuation. Previously they’d not even been allowed inside the building, let alone to handle priceless weaponry and old scrolls telling our history. The vaults all had to be emptied, and the Pure Ones seemed to realize that no Sea Wolf could bring themselves to do it.
Then we passed dozens of empty rooms. Some had been private chambers, others were scriptoriums, or store rooms. Much that wasn’t being taken was instead being burned, so little debris remained of the Sea Wolves who’d lived and worked here. Even the low bar, the closest thing we’d had to a duellists’ retreat, was completely empty.
I noticed Tasha was crying, as we descended the last set of steps and emerged onto the ground level. I winced in irritation, realizing I was going to have to attempt sympathy, or at the very least not tell her to pull herself together. This impulse, more than anything else, convinced me that my emotions were not working properly. The Old Bitch of the Sea now had a say in everything I felt, and her thoughts were not always in line with my own.
“Why do you cry?” I asked, coming to a stop in front of the main entrance, and below a huge portcullis.
She spluttered, flapping at me with her hands, and averting her eyes. “No, no, I’m fine. Just… little bit emotional.” She screwed up her face, and looked mournfully around the entrance hall. “This is the Wolf House of the Sea Wolves. Seeing it so empty is worthy of a few tears. Do you not think?”
We were standing close to where I’d fallen, during the initial battle for the Severed Hand. I remembered looking at a wound in my left shoulder, and realizing I’d lost my arm to a chaos spawn. I remembered seeing the stone floor stained red, and a hundred or more cleaved bodies. And yet still I couldn’t cry.
“Adeline, what’s the matter?” asked the Kneeling Wolf. “It’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with being upset.”
“I’m not,” I replied. “I’m not upset. I know I should be, but… perhaps a cold bitch is what the Sea Wolves need right now.” I frowned. “It’s nothing. You don’t need to worry.”
She smiled, wiping tears from her face. “I’ll always worry about you, Adeline. That’s what friends do. And it’s okay if you don’t want to cry.”
She didn’t understand, and I couldn’t find the words to tell her. Every moment I felt myself becoming less and less the duellist I’d been, as if little pieces of human empathy and understanding were falling from me like leaves in the autumn.
“We’ll talk about it another time,” I said, resuming our journey, under the portcullis, and out of the Wolf House. “I’m eager to see what shitty cupboard Tynian Driftwood has given me aboard the Revenge.”
Outside the fading monument of Sea Wolf strength was a broken hold. I could look left and see a ghost town, or right and see families hefting their worldly belongings onto carts. It was the one-hundred-and-sixty-eighth-year of the dark age, and it would be the last. Would the next age have a different name? Marius Cyclone intended to take many thousands of Eastron with him, to rebuild anew in the distant void. Would one of them speak of a new age? Looking at the few remaining citizens of the Severed Hand, I was sad that no Sea Wolves would be a part of the next chapter in our history.
*
“You know, there is something to be said for not doing this,” said Kieran Greenfire, joining me on the quarterdeck of Halfdan’s Revenge, looking back at the ruined hold.
“Not doing what?” I queried, leaning against the aft rail as I struggled to find my sea-legs. “Evacuating?”
“No, no, the Sea Wolves cannot stay at the Severed Hand,” he replied. “I mean the Bay of Bliss. We’ve only just got back, and even we’ve heard the other crews whispering.”
“Tell me, Master Greenfire, what precisely are the other crews whispering about?” I spoke with slightly too much venom, making several sailors look at me out of the corner of their eyes.
“I spoke out of turn, my lady,” said Kieran. “I’ve annoyed you.”
I nodded. “You have, but answer the question anyway.”
His hair was shaven close, and he scratched the top of his head, apparently trying to find some delicate phrasing. “Well, my father – before he said hello or told me that my brother, Duncan, was dead – was grumbling to Tynian. Apparently you’ve not fully communicated why we must attack this village of frogs before we evacuate to Last Port. He is also concerned by our lack of forces. We are in desperate need of more blades for the war to come. Mathias Blood had a hundred thousand warriors when he attacked the Sunken City… and every single one died.”
I turned away from him and looked at the ten Sea Wolf warships, just making way from Laughing Rock. They were loaded with duellists, pirates and killers. Well over two thousand warriors, all with bubbling wyrd and a serious need for vengeance. Most were looking at the world in front of their eyes, without considering the days to come, but some would be looking to the future, and wondering how few Sea Wolves were left.
Could we wage a war against an unknowable enemy with so few warriors? It had been tried before, almost a hundred years ago, when Mathias Blood led an armada in the Battle of the Depths. It was the first time the Sea Wolves had known defeat… and what a defeat it was. Not only was the fleet massacred, but our conviction was shaken. No one spoke about the Battle of the Depths, or the Sunken God and his minions. It had been excised from our history, until I travelled to the Bay of Bliss and saw the reality we’d tried to forget. We were paper tigers, cowering under a threat our minds could not comprehend. The Sunken Men, only ever rendered in the sculptures of madmen, were real, and they were far closer than the Sea of Stars.
“I have a reason,” I replied. “But no one will want to hear it, so I just make sure they’re too intimidated to question me. Those few who I can’t intimidate know my reason.”
He turned sharply to face me. The shorter man still looked dangerous, but now, perhaps because he was on the deck of the Revenge, there was an added note of confidence. “Well, I am intimidated by you. They say you killed the First Fang with a single thrust. They say you are one with our totem. But I’m still going to need your reason. I didn’t see the things that attacked the Severed Hand, and Duncan died on Nowhere, so I need more than simple vengeance to lead this lot into battle. We’re not a pirate ship.”
“That’s fair,” I replied, bowing my head, looking at the wet, wooden planks of the quarterdeck. The thin layer of sloshing water made me think of a rusty metal cage, a loss of wyrd, and a feeling of absolute helplessness. In the Temple of Dagon I’d been caged next to a woman called Harriet Mud, a young Kneeling Wolf who had been similarly robbed of wyrd. Neither of us, nor Arthur, Jaxon, Tasha
or Lucas Vane had been able to stand against the servants of the Dreaming God. Some of us had survived, but all of us had lost.
“I want to know if we can defeat them,” I stated. “That’s my reason for leading these warriors to the Bay of Bliss. I don’t know how many varn, hybrids and Sunken Men are at the village, but if we can’t defeat them, we may as well flee with Marius Cyclone and make a new home in the distant void.”
The Always King will rule the Kingdom of the Four Claws.
It will ever be so.
But wisdom, honour and courage do not follow from father to son.
The house of Dawn Claw will rule, but it will not always lead.
Sebastian founded everything we know.
Arnulf brought peace, with the Pact of the White Fang.
Gaspar drank and ate, until he could barely move.
Hector ran away, but grew First Port.
Gustav did nothing, and then went mad.
Christophe fought and won, but listened to no one.
From “The Second Book of Poetics” by Catalina Lark Song, Defiant of First Port.
PART THREE
Oliver Dawn Claw at the Silver Dawn
7
I was not given a chance to speak. It took a few moments for the Silver Parliament to process the death of Trego Cyclone. He had been the first minister for eight years, and had directed the parliament in all things. His bizarre use of wyrd and apparent madness was not a surprise to most people, though Rys Coldfire’s talk of a Sunken God was echoed in a hundred whispers. It made my mind race, as if an enemy had appeared on the horizon. Was this the shadow that scared Elizabeth Defiant?
The black robes shouted, asserting dominance. The silver robes maintained their poise, but replied to challenges with confident words. There was no violence, with void legionnaires keeping the peace, but those few with visible weapons became a focus of attention. Including myself. I had to raise my arms in peace, before I was allowed to ascend the steps and return to Jack, David and Leofryc. No one cared that I’d been silenced. I had to speak… I had to gain the support of the parliament, but I was not permitted. For a moment, I actually thought I’d leave the parliament as king, and everything would make sense, but it was snatched away from me at the last minute. I tried not to let impatience make me angry.
Of all the colours on display, the only one to remain silent was red. Rys Coldfire had killed Trego, spoken his words, and now he calmly took his seat as an envoy. Lagertha Blood, the young daughter of Lord Ulric, stood defiantly to the left of the raised seats, remaining silent and trying her best not to look smug.
Joseph High Heart, the Winterlord Speaker of the parliament, managed to clamber back up to stand on the First Stone. He surveyed the clamouring ministers, the shouting spectators, and the agitated void legionnaires, before appearing to gather himself and grasping his staff in two wrinkled hands. He struck the stone with all his limited strength. Then he struck it again. After the second echoing note, half the clamouring had stopped. When he struck it a third time, the few remaining voices were drowned out by the void legionnaires.
“Hear me,” coughed the Speaker. “Rys Coldfire of the Sea Wolves is named as an envoy, with all privileges of that rank.” He cracked the fingers of his right hand and flexed his back. “These are exceptional circumstances, and the parliament will enter a recess. Prince Oliver will speak when we return. You will all disperse in good order, remembering where you are.”
Several hundred people slumped, as if told off by their father, and from the top down they began to leave the auditorium. I was surprised that tradition and decorum had been enough to stop a near riot.
“My prince, time to go,” said Leofryc Bright Hand. “If someone wanted to slip a knife in your ribs, now would be the ideal time.”
“No, I need to speak,” I shouted, addressing the Speaker. “You must recognize me as king! You must.” Few people heard me in the commotion of hundreds of hasty feet. It was maddening and belittling to be ignored, especially when I was so close to my birthright… to everything making sense.
To my left, Silver Jack put a hand on my shoulder and shepherded me backwards. “Another time,” said my guardian.
David Falcon’s Fang, grasping his sword hilt, moved at the rear, covering me as if we were retreating from battle. I slowly accepted the need to leave, and we entered a dense mob of black and silver robes, all moving in the same direction, through stone corridors and down old steps. The circular auditorium was but a part of the building, with hundreds of other rooms, corridors and chambers used by ministers and their guests. The mob dispersed throughout the rabbit’s warren of black, stone passageways, leaving only those guests with nowhere to go. Even if I’d wanted to return to Elizabeth Defiant’s chambers and wait for her, my attendants wouldn’t have let me. I was closely guarded and ushered down to the expansive vaulted lobby. Other robed figures, with nowhere to go, emerged into the open, like jets of water from the breaking of a dam.
We’d slowed, moving away from any dense concentrations of black robes, and further across the black, crystalline stone of the lobby. I stopped walking, halfway to the exits and the rest of Falcon’s Watch. I ushered away any insistence that I should keep moving, and tried to take a breath. Everything had happened quickly. One moment I’d been about to claim all that had ever mattered to me, the next I’d been one of several hundred spectators watching Rys Coldfire kill Trego Cyclone and denounce him as a servant of a Sunken God. The envoy’s wyrd had been bizarre, as if rotten, but still immensely powerful, and still the Wolf’s Bastard had beaten him to death.
“Can we just fucking leave?” barked an exasperated Silver Jack.
“James Silver Born,” said Leofryc, “please remember who you are talking to.”
“I came here for a reason,” I replied. “Jack… I will be king.” I took a deep breath, trying to contain my impatience. “The Sea Wolves may have helped us, though I’m sure they didn’t mean to. One of the Cyclone brothers is dead.”
“Eyes up,” offered David Falcon’s Fang. “A black robe approaches.”
The young duellist was somewhat out of his depth, but his eyes were sharper than my other two attendants. We all looked to where he nodded and saw a single woman approach from the parliament steps. Her black robe revealed a slim sabre at her hip, but all other features were obscured. Across the open stone lobby, stealth was largely impossible, and the Dark Brethren appeared to realize that, raising her arms as she approached.
“An assassin,” stated Leofryc.
“Up an eagle’s arse,” sneered Jack. “You’re an idiot.”
“Erm,” said David, tentatively, “I don’t believe an assassin would approach so openly.”
I strode past all three of them and pushed back my hood, facing the woman. She stopped, just out of sword range, and bowed. David, Jack and Leofryc stood either side of me, making the possibility of assassination laughable.
“Who are you?” I asked, keeping my posture relaxed.
When the Dark Brethren replied, she didn’t raise her head, and appeared to be speaking to my boots. “I bring an overture of peace,” she said. “The Stranger wishes to speak to you, Eagle Prince. But he could not risk coming to you himself.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“We just watched his older brother die,” said Silver Jack. “Perhaps Marius Cyclone should grieve for a few days… while we wait for the parliament to reconvene.”
I nodded at his comment and took a step closer to the woman, well within sword range. “Now?” I queried. “His energy is best pointed elsewhere.”
“Marius does not think so,” replied the woman. She’d not identified herself, though she appeared to be a warrior. Her shoulders were poised, and her movements slow and precise. Her blade was a light, slender weapon, requiring speed as much as strength, though, like us, she wore no armour.
“The Stranger also watched Trego die,” continued the Brethren. “From a high gallery. After the Sea Wolf spoke, Marius said to m
e that talking to Prince Oliver Dawn Claw was now more important than ever. If he wept for his brother, I did not see it.”
“You’ve not named yourself,” said Jack. “This does not encourage trust.”
“Neither does the colour of your robe,” offered Leofryc.
She kept her head bowed and her face obscured. “My robe is a formal matter. My name belongs to me. I give it when I choose to, not when it is asked of me.”
Silver Jack coughed, and turned to speak quietly into my right ear. He stood on tiptoes and showed the Dark Brethren his back. “We need to return to the Golden Keep,” he whispered. “I can tell you’re thinking about going with this woman, but what the fuck do you think the Stranger can say that is worth endangering yourself for?”
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, but didn’t respond. I surveyed the faces of David and Leofryc, and saw that they agreed with Silver Jack. I could have gone with the woman out of simple rebellion, but I decided to go out of curiosity. If Marius Cyclone still wished to speak to me, in the moments after his older brother’s death, then whatever he had to say might well be worth listening to.
“Where is the Stranger?” I asked the nameless woman.
“He has a house close by,” she replied. “He’s on his way there now. It’s not safe for him to stay at the parliament.”
“Some good news,” offered Leofryc Bright Hand. “This means that Falcon’s Watch can accompany us. You will be protected, my prince.”
“He can protect himself,” sneered Silver Jack. “But he doesn’t always make the safest decisions.”
“Your guards are welcome,” said the Brethren. “We are no threat to you.”
“Guards?” queried Leofryc. “They are Winterlord knights of Falcon’s Watch, woman.”
