by A. J. Smith
“We fall back,” I shouted, not breaking eye contact with Alexis Wind Claw.
Her grotesque wyrd pulsed, as if in irritation, and the Night Wing looming within her sounded a resonant caw. She flailed in the air, screaming at the void legionnaires to cut us off.
Jack nearly barrelled into me. He was bleeding badly, but still managed to shove me backwards, towards Leofryc and the steps. The commander of Falcon’s Watch had strode from the opening he’d created and was pulling David backwards, creating a smear of blood on the stone. The young duellist’s leg was saturated with blood, and his off-hand was clamped to a wound in his neck.
I made sure Jack could still stand and fight before I summoned a dense shirt of wyrd and moved to cover our retreat. I slapped away a spear, and threw its wielder at a second Brethren. I ripped off a man’s helmet and crushed his skull with it. I used Zephyr in wide sweeps, stopping anyone from reaching my wounded attendants.
Jack was first, darting down the steps and signalling that the way was clear. Leofryc had positioned the wounded duellist against the wall, and had joined me. David was able to edge his way down the steps, keeping his broadsword ready, and pressing wyrd into a bloody wound on his neck. Our retreat was open behind us, and we fell back together, as a flood of void legionnaires descended. In the narrow stairway they couldn’t overwhelm us, but our advantage would only last so long. We couldn’t fight them forever.
“We need to move!” shouted Silver Jack.
“We don’t know who’s behind us,” replied Leofryc, as he and I reached the bottom of the steps.
“We fucking know who’s in front of us,” screeched Jack, dragging David’s hobbling form away from the steps.
Since I first drew Zephyr, this was by far the most men I’d killed. And I’d killed them so easily. I had the strongest wyrd and the best training, and none of the void legionnaires were my match. Then a sliver of wyrd appeared to my left and a blade was stuck in my side. I gasped and grabbed someone’s wrist. Looking up, I saw Yanos Wolf Bane, the commander of the tenth void legion. He’d broken the glass in silence, and appeared next to me. His short sword was stuck in my side before I’d even seen him. I wore no armour, and my silver robe was no protection.
David Falcon’s Fang was the first to see. He pushed against the wall, grunting at the pain in his leg, and diving to reach me. As he landed on the stone, just where my blood was beginning to fall, there was a huge explosion from the Silver Parliament.
From up the steps, towards the First Stone, someone had detonated their own wyrd. It was a terrifying feeling, and a terrifying sound, as if all of an entire person had vented everything they’d ever done, and everything they would ever do, all at the same time. It was wyrd-craft unknown, outside of the Sea Wolves, and it must have killed dozens of people, incapacitating dozens more.
A spray of dust, blood and twisted steel burst from the steps, throwing us all to the floor. The blade twisted in my side, and was ripped free by Yanos Wolf Bane, as we slammed into the opposite wall. I gritted my teeth, dropping Zephyr and clamping both hands to the wound. The commander of the tenth void legion was unconscious, but I struggled to move, let alone attack him. My hands, stomach and shirt were now a deep red. I could barely stand.
David Falcon’s Fang was sprawled across the floor in front of me, his blank, staring eyes fixed on empty air. His arms were limp, and I saw how serious his neck wound had been, with blood now flowing freely from the fatal cut. He must have been close to death when he’d lunged forwards, trying to protect me, yet the young duellist had not cried out or sought help.
Then Silver Jack emerged through the dust. He saw me and David at the same time, and howled in anger at the duellist’s body. Then he grabbed me. My guardian had wide, bloodshot eyes, was covered in blood and dust, and his left shoulder was cut to the bone. He’d lost his sword and he shouted something at me, though the words were indistinct. I thought I was dying, with all sound reduced to a single whisper. I looked around for my own sword, but couldn’t see it. I leant on Jack and painfully pulled myself along the wall, hoping that, if I were to live, Zephyr would somehow find its way back to me. And I hoped that I was worthy of David’s sacrifice.
Whatever was happening in the parliament above, there were no more enemies to fight between us and the atrium. Leofryc led the way down, still holding his greatsword. He was clearly only alive because of his armour. The burnished steel was cracked, punctured, bent and dented, but it had protected its wearer from fatal injury.
We moved through the dust, along a corridor and down another flight of steps. Leofryc killed two legionnaires, apparently rushing to see what was happening above, but we were otherwise unmolested on our way to the atrium.
I was using my wyrd in small surges, pressing it into my side with both hands. It was enough to stop me bleeding to death, but I couldn’t maintain it for long. Jack was doing something similar to the wound in his shoulder, but kept his arm around my chest, only using one hand and minimal wyrd to stem the blood flow.
“We are likely to die here, highness,” said my guardian, his face pale and his grip around me loosening. “My strength’s going. I always fucking knew I couldn’t protect the prince. And David...”
“Hang onto me,” I said, placing one of my hands on his shoulder. I let my own wound bleed a little, and used wyrd to stop Jack from passing out. He growled, with tears and blood smearing across his face, and we managed to carry each other after Leofryc.
The last flight of steps was painful, and we both bled, but we somehow reached the atrium. The three of us stopped under a black stone archway, with the huge entrance hall of the Silver Parliament stretching left and right. Daylight was visible through multiple open doors and windows, but our path of escape was blocked by clustered mobs of Dark Brethren mercenaries. The void legionnaires had dealt with the parliament, and the hired help were stationed outside. I didn’t want to think about whether Winterlords had been killed at the Golden Keep, or elsewhere in the hold. It was enough to have witnessed the massacre around the First Stone.
“Is there a way?” slurred Silver Jack, slumped against my arm and peering across the atrium.
“Not an obvious one, no,” replied Leofryc, taking the opportunity to catch his breath and wipe blood from his face. He gave his breastplate a quick inspection, and moved to unbuckle it. It was difficult with one hand, and he reluctantly handed me his greatsword. “If you wouldn’t mind, my king.”
I took the blade, nodding at Jack to use both hands on his wounded shoulder. The commander of Falcon’s Watch shrugged off his ruined breastplate, and took a deep breath. Underneath, he wore a thin, linen shirt and he rubbed at numerous shallow wounds across his torso. He composed himself, took back his sword, and used a fistful of his shirt to clean the blade.
“I hate knowing I’m going to die,” said Silver Jack, bowing his head. “I thought it’d be sudden. You’re there one second, you’re gone the next. But this is slow, like elaborate torture.”
“You know what’s worse,” I replied, fighting the desire to close my eyes. “I’m starting to believe Marius Cyclone… Don’t you think this feels like the end of the world might be happening?”
“Now that is a situation,” said Jack, widening his eyes and smiling ever so slightly. “The world ends just after we get dead at the Silver-fucking-Parliament. Oh, and just so we’re clear, I’m starting to believe him as well.”
“The void will be guarded,” mused Leofryc, assessing potential options of escape and oblivious to our gallows humour. “The mercenaries are too many. Legionnaires will pursue. The hold must be considered hostile. Falcon’s Watch would have reached us if they could.”
“Shut up,” said Silver Jack, falling in and out of consciousness. “I don’t know about you two, but I think I’ll just die here. If I’m not going home, I’m not prepared to move any further. And my wyrd is spent.”
“James Silver Born,” snapped Leofryc. “You will stand and you will fight death like it was a
ny other enemy. We are Winterlords of First Port, and we protect the king.”
I grumbled, trying my best to push wyrd into my side and Jack’s shoulder, and suppress an inappropriate smile at Leofryc calling me king. “You’re not going to die,” I snarled at Jack, before turning to the commander of Falcon’s Watch. “And you are going to find us a way out of here.”
Jack’s eyes went wide, as he desperately tried to fight the pain in his shoulder, and stay alert. Leofryc took another look into the atrium, and I could see in his eyes that there was nowhere for us to go. David was dead, two of us carried potentially fatal wounds and no weapons, and the other was nearing exhaustion. We couldn’t fight, we couldn’t run, and surrender would mean certain death.
I coughed, and felt blood coat my throat and fill my mouth. Both my resolve and my strength began to fall away. Yanos Wolf Bane had punctured more than skin and flesh when he’d stabbed me. My wyrd had gone some way to stop the bleeding, at least on the outside, but my breathing was now shallow, as blood filled one of my lungs. I gritted my teeth, trying to find some strength, but there was none left. Even my wyrd was faltering, and I realized that Yanos had killed me. It was merely adrenaline and powerful wyrd that had kept me alive. Sounds became distorted, and I heard a distant whistle, as if every ambient sound was reduced to a single note.
“Can you hear that?” grunted Jack, his face now deathly white and saturated in sweat.
“A whistle,” agreed Leofryc, the only one of us not on the brink of death. “Close by. This way.” He pointed away from the atrium, and down a narrow passageway, back into the parliament building. It wasn’t the way we’d come, and would be a likely route for pursuing void legionnaires.
“I’m nearly done,” I whispered, no longer able to stop the bleeding.
“My king,” responded Leofryc, extending his hand and trying to use an empty vessel of wyrd to help me. None of us had anything left.
Then the whistle again. “What the fuck is that?” slurred Silver Jack, slowly sliding down the black, stone wall.
“I think it’s a spirit-whistle,” said Leofryc, discarding his sword and pressing both hands against my side. “Brethren use them. Probably void legionnaires, making sure we’re dead.”
All three of us flinched, as a surge of wyrd and a flash of light came from the narrow passageway. I kept my eyes open and prepared for death. My wound had made my body numb, and I felt strangely calm. Silver Jack was barely conscious on the floor, with blood forming a mantle across his neck and shoulders, and Leofryc struggled to heft his greatsword to meet the new threat.
It was the most helpless I’d ever felt. This was all so very wrong. I was meant to be king. I was meant to prove my father wrong, and finally understand who I was. But I’d been denied. Perhaps the last Always King of the Eastron from across the sea would be my father, Christophe Dawn Claw, called the Shining Sword.
The light flared, and with the high-pitched note of a whistle assaulting our ears, a void path opened. Crackling blue energy framed an opening, beyond which, through a slice in the glass, I could see grey, stone walls. Three figures emerged, all armed with straight swords. Two were armoured in black steel, and the other, standing in the middle, wore a long, leather coat. All three were Dark Brethren, and their wyrd was glowing, as if they expected a fight.
“Prince Oliver,” said Marius Cyclone. “Perhaps we can assist you.”
I tilted my head, and locked eyes with Silver Jack. My guardian was still alive, and managed an ironic smile, before Leofryc moved to help him to his feet. There were two Outrider Knights with the Stranger – the unnamed woman, and a short man, with a thick neck. They sheathed their swords, pulled in their wyrd, and saved our lives.
*
It appeared the Dark Brethren had a better understanding of how to use their wyrd for healing than did the Winterlords. The only training I received focused on stopping blood flow, with no thought given to healing wounds or fixing organs. We were never supposed to lose, or never supposed to get hurt, I forgot which. I was taught everything about killing, but nothing about dying. I’d felt helpless as I waited to die, and now I felt something else, something deeper and perhaps inevitable. I was fragile, and I could be killed like any normal man.
“Are you awake?” asked Silver Jack. “Please be alive. If I survived and you died, I’ll be burned alive by the judges of First Port.”
“I’m alive,” I replied, opening my eyes and sitting up.
We were in a stone room, somewhere in the Silver Dawn. Light shone through several windows, and silhouetted-figures moved in front of me. As my eyes got used to the light, and I rubbed the now-closed wound in my side, I saw Leofryc Bright Hand arguing with Marius Cyclone. The other two Dark Brethren were standing guard – one by the window, one by the door.
“Is it over?” I asked Marius and Leofryc.
They stopped talking and crossed the rectangular room, coming to stand next to a pair of couches, upon which Jack and I had been placed.
“My king, you need rest,” said the commander of Falcon’s Watch. He looked different without his armour, somehow less noble, as if removing the skin of steel had exposed the ordinary man underneath.
“You do,” agreed the Stranger. “You can live with only one lung, but I wouldn’t recommend it. If you don’t rest, you’ll undo our work.” He nodded at Silver Jack. “As for you, that shoulder wound will always be there. You’ll lose some strength in your left arm, and it’ll hurt like a bastard from time to time, but both of you will live.”
“Is it over?” I repeated.
“He means thank you,” offered Silver Jack.
“Yes, yes, sorry,” I said. “Thank you for what you did for us.”
Marius bowed deeply, and I saw more of the blue tattoo on his neck. It was a rampant horse, rising up on its back legs. “It was our pleasure, Prince Oliver.”
Leofryc coughed, as if Marius had insulted me. “He is the Always King,” he stated, pushing back his shoulders and clenching his fists.
“Err, I don’t believe so,” replied the Stranger. “He may be a man of the Dawn Claw, and he may be the ruler of the Winterlords, but the laws of ascension are very specific, and Prince Oliver has received only one pillar of lordship. Not to mention that an envoy, corrupted into madness by a malevolent god, desperately wants him dead.” He faced Leofryc, showing absolutely no fear of being punched in the face. “If you’re going to strike me, do it now, so we can move on and get the fuck out of the Silver Dawn.”
“So it’s not over?” asked Silver Jack, quickly diffusing the tension.
Marius gave a Leofryc a friendly pat on the shoulder. “I assure you we’re on the same side, commander.” He then turned back to me, leaning over so he could inspect the large wound in my side. “I keep several houses in the hold,” he said. “This one is in the High Eclipse, about as far from the parliament as we can get, but we are being hunted by people who are very good at hunting. We have an hour or two before they find us. Void legionnaires and mercenaries are moving through the hold, killing or imprisoning any Winterlord they find.”
“He proposes we move west,” added Leofryc, “to Snake Guard. I have suggested the harbour.”
“The harbour,” echoed Silver Jack. “We could still go home. Use your void gate.”
Marius straightened, and went to my guardian’s shoulder wound. “Afraid not,” he replied. “We were lucky to get away with that once. They’re called void legionnaires for a reason. Powerful owl spirits now guard the glass. Yanos Wolf Bane wants me far more than he wants you.”
“He stabbed me,” I said, “but was wounded when...”
“Someone detonated all of their wyrd,” said Jack, finishing my thought. “A Sea Wolf. We were dead until that happened.” He closed his eyes, and rubbed a tear from his cheek. He appeared to realize, all at once, how close we’d been to death, and how many people we’d left behind.
Marius used a finger to draw a gentle line of wyrd across Jack’s gruesome shoulder
wound. “I have something to show you, Prince Oliver,” he said. “Come with me to Snake Guard and I will give you purpose… if your mind is strong enough. You can never be the Always King, but you can still be a leader of the Eastron… and help us survive.”
Sebastian Dawn Claw arrived with four claws and formed a kingdom with three of them. The fifth, David Fast Claw, led no rebellion and formed no resistance. He simply left, voicing disappointment with the path of the Eastron, and vowing to remain apart.
He found the Lodge of the Air, and he bowed before the great phoenix. His lovers, Velya Ice and Maven Bright, tried to fight for change in his name, but the Sea Wolves and the Winterlords did their work well.
David Fast Claw, called Wave Dancer, founded the Sundered Wolves, who were Eastron, but never Invaders, and he forever kept his vow.
From “A Lost History” by Michael of the Mountain, of the Starry Sky.
PART FOUR
Adeline Brand aboard Halfdan’s Revenge
10
There was a time when I enjoyed being on a ship. When my brother, Arthur, and I were young duellists, earning our red cloaks, we took to each new quarterdeck as if it were a new battleground, a new place to carve our names. Sleeping in hammocks, learning the roll of the tides, taking a shit next to grunting men and women, all in desperate need of a wash. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was all I’d ever wanted. Now, after a few years at the Severed Hand, the constant movement made my feet twitch, as if I couldn’t find stable footing, no matter how much I tried. We were passing the Gates of the Moon, and I knew that I’d have to leave Halfdan’s Revenge long before I regained my sea-legs.
Kieran Greenfire said the journey would take seven hours, and I’d slept for most of it, hoping I’d dream of a time when Young Green Eyes was still alive. When I awoke, and joined Captain Tynian Driftwood on the quarterdeck, we were just passing the island of Nowhere. Marius Cyclone’s void legionnaires, protecting their void gate, would allow ships to pass, as long as they remained in the southern channel, staying near the Coast of Tranquillity and far from Duncan’s Fall. Their doorway to the distant void, called Utha’s Gate by those who had been there, was meant to save the Eastron from the Sunken God, and even to me the idea was seductive… but the Alpha Wolf would lead the Sea Wolves along a different path.
