The story goes that Mathias Blood had to do no persuading to get the Sea Wolf fleet to attack the Sunken City. On the contrary, it is told that he had to turn warriors away who wanted to join the armada. Fishermen and blacksmiths; shield maidens and pups, each wanting to be a part of the largest fleet ever assembled. But still, he had tens of thousands of warriors across numerous ships. Why would he think he needed more? Last Port had been attacked by Sunken Men and strange depth barges, and we had to respond.
They set sail from the Severed Hand in 91da – seventy-six years ago – and arrived at the Sunken City a year later. No-one survived the Battle of the Depths and nothing is known for sure about what happened once the fleet left Last Port. Not a plank of wood or a cleaved limb has ever been recovered. It took twenty years for the Sea Wolves to recover. And that’s the end of the story. At least, it’s the end of the commonly known story. We now knew more, but I did not feel any wiser. I felt bound, as if knowledge of the Sunken Men held me in some vice of responsibility.
Arthur had accepted the knowledge, saying that it would stand him in good stead as a future Battle Brand. I let him believe so. It was as good a coping mechanism as any. Certainly better than Jaxon’s method of silently brooding on what might happen when we reached the Bay of Bliss. His mumbling ranged from a village of frogs, to a hundred different kinds of craven altar and a cadre of mad varn. As for me, I tried to keep my focus, letting the Wisp worry about this and that, while I kept my mind calm and my heart as ice.
We were far from the Outer Sea, and north of the Wood of Scars. We’d passed into the Mirralite Reservation a day ago, and seen nothing of note to mark the border of our two worlds. It seemed the Pure Ones didn’t know or care that we had given them a portion of Nibonay. The rugged terrain was dotted with rocks and occasional pinnacles, splitting the earth and jutting upwards. Jaxon believed that they were a remnant of past battles, when the varn used spirit-whistles to drag spirits of the earth into their service against the armies of Duncan Red Claw. Many pinnacles were broken, as if felled by the wyrd of long-dead duellists. Now they were just rocks, covering the landscape like a thin forest of stone. We camped amongst them, our small fire the only light in any direction. It was cold, but not windy, and there were no signs of rain. We would sleep under the sky, using the rocks as cover, and wrapped up in blankets of our wyrd. It was suicidal to enter the void here, as powerful nature spirits prowled beyond the glass, free from the restrictions of being close to the Severed Hand and our spirit-masters.
“If I remember correctly,” said Jaxon, leaning against a rocky pinnacle. “There’s a dead forest to the north of here. We’ll find Dark Wing somewhere around there.”
“How do you know so much, Icicle?” asked Arthur. “I understand that you know how to reach the Reservation, but the dead forest? Did you come here on holiday when you were a pup?”
Jaxon ignored him and drew a line in the mud. “That’s a dry riverbed, the Mirralite believe that it houses dark spirits.” He drew a few triangles next to the line. “That’s the forest. And I know because a spirit told me. Well, showed me. It was an air spirit, drifting around the Wolf House. I think it just wanted a chat, but it had been as far north as the dead forest.”
Arthur chuckled to himself. To my knowledge my brother had never spoken to a spirit in his life. He deemed it beneath him, and thought little of any duellist who disagreed. Such work was for Tomas Red Fang and his spirit-masters.
“You trust the spirit?” I asked.
“Air spirits are flighty,” replied the Wisp. “Though the concept of lying does not occur to them. No, the information is reliable. A Sea Wolf lives near here. A Sea Wolf who scares away any spirits that get too close. It appears that Dark Wing likes the void around his shack to be empty. The air spirit certainly remembered him. The Place Where We Hear The Sea is a distinctive name, hopefully he knows of it.”
“Hopefully,” I said. “Arthur, you have first watch. Eyes to the north and west. Wake me in two hours.”
“Once more for the Severed Hand,” he muttered, standing and securing his cutlass belt.
*
The dead forest began where the pinnacles ended, as if the varn used tree spirits when their earth spirits failed. I could almost see the rampaging duellists, charging into rock and wood, fighting to tame the very land, before the Pure Ones were forced to surrender. Young Green Eyes would no doubt have some poetic description of the Sea Wolves’ campaign. How we crushed their harmony under our steel blades and stone walls. To me, the pinnacles were just old rocks, and the dead forest was only a dead forest.
The trees were huge, though gnarled and split. Grey veins ran from the rocky earth to the points of skeletal branches, reaching into the air with neither leaves nor fruit. The bark was white, though green mould crept across the trunks in places, and patches were blackened and burned. As we crossed the dry river bed and entered the forest, I saw a subtle mist of fungal spores, clustered around the roots. The trees might be dead, but they provided a home for exotic mushrooms and virulent mould, much of it likely poisonous.
The forest occupied low ground, a day’s walk from the Bay of Bliss. The terrain was too barren to farm, and there was no natural water source. It was practically a desert compared to the lush ground around the Severed Hand. We’d seen no Mirralite and I couldn’t imagine anyone living here.
“Hold!” snapped Jaxon, crouching next to a tree, his hand reaching for his cutlass.
Arthur and I flanked him, drawing weapons and holding position. “What do you hear?” I asked, scanning the thinly spaced trees ahead of us.
“I hear feet coming this way. Maybe ten or more.”
“Cover,” I ordered, and the three of us spread out, standing ready behind trees. Ten Pure Ones were no real danger to three duellists, but I wanted to see them before we struck. I couldn’t break the glass, but a tree was just as good under the right circumstances.
Jaxon’s hearing was exceptionally acute, and it was a minute until I could hear the sound of running feet. Mirralite wore thin, canvas boots, tied around the ankles with leather thongs, and the sound was a dull thud. Along with the footfalls came a series of grunts and coughs, as if the Pure Ones were running from something. I poked my head out from behind the tree.
Appearing from the dead forest, their legs blurring across the ground, were a dozen Mirralite. I saw flashes of red and green across dusty, grey cloth; long, decorated strains of dark hair, and florid tattoos on exposed limbs. They carried spears and hand-axes, with two short bows. Several were wounded, though not severely, and I recognized the snarl of warriors fresh from battle.
“Once more for the Severed Hand,” I muttered, stepping from behind the tree and summoning wyrd into my limbs.
Arthur and Jaxon did the same, and we blocked the path of the fleeing Mirralite. They slowed, shouted at each other, then shouted at us, then hefted their weapons and prepared to fight. Perhaps they had never met duellists before, or perhaps their blood was up from their recent conflict. Either way, they attacked us ferociously.
A man crouched before me and thrust his spear at my head. It was powerful, but ill-disciplined, and I stepped aside, grabbing the wooden shaft in my off-hand. I wrested his spear from his hands and cut off his head with a single swing of my cutlass. Arthur had caught an arrow in mid-air and driven it into the head of another Mirralite. The Wisp had sliced a throat and tripped a man to the rocky ground. We advanced.
My brother took the lead, duelling four Mirralite with contemptuous ease. He barely needed to parry their clumsy attacks, preferring to duck and dodge, while lashing out with fatal darts of movement. All four died in as many blinks of an eye. I advanced right, while Jaxon took the left. We covered Arthur’s back, killing three more Mirralite as the last Pure One was driven to the ground by my brother’s boot.
“Stay still!” barked Arthur, placing his cutlass at the throat of the only survivor. He then turned to me. “I assume you wanted to question one of them?”
I smiled and kicked a dead Pure One out of my way. “You look like you needed that. Is a week without killing anyone too much for you?”
Jaxon cleaned his cutlass and stepped beyond where Arthur held the Pure One. “There’s someone else out there.”
“Should I be scared, Icicle?” mocked Arthur, nodding at the dozen dead Mirralite. “I doubt there’s anything within a hundred leagues that could make me sweat. Even your fucking village of frogs.”
I shoved my brother out of the way and stood next to Jaxon. “Dark Wing?” I asked. “He can’t be that terrifying”
The Wisp looked through the trees with narrow eyes, scanning the white trunks and mouldy roots. I trusted his eyes and ears, but didn’t like being ignored. “Jaxon! What is it?”
“A dog,” he replied. “More than one. I can hear them growling.”
Then a howl sounded through the forest. The dogs did not rush us, like the Pure Ones. They approached slowly, letting us see them gradually. They were of all sizes and breeds, from thick-muzzled hounds to slender terriers. All had matted fur and red eyes, as if they were possessed of some collective power.
“I don’t want to kill any dogs,” said Arthur, his brow furrowed in confusion.
“Nor me,” I replied. “Jaxon, what is this?”
The Wisp sheathed his blade and held out his hands in supplication. “I have no earthly idea.”
The dogs looked at us, a dozen rows of bared teeth forming a line between the dead trees. I couldn’t imagine that they lived here. There was no foliage or game, and the fungus was not edible.
Suddenly, the last surviving Pure One scrambled backwards, trying to flee from the dogs. Even when Arthur kicked him in the ribs, he continued to crawl away. Two of the largest dogs bounded after him, ignoring the three of us and snarling at the terrified Mirralite. They were Yishian Mastiffs – wild hounds with thick, toothy muzzles and broad forelimbs. We stepped away and let them have the man, sheathing our blades as they latched onto him with powerful jaws. Both hounds got a mouthful of flesh and shook vigorously, causing blood and screaming to fill the air.
“I like dogs,” said Arthur, turning away from the dying man. “But that’s a bit strong.”
The screams became gurgles. One of the hounds tore off a chunk of flesh from the man’s shoulder and raked his claws across the man’s face. The other, smaller dogs advanced slowly, surrounding us and the two hounds. When the man was dead they circled us, but no longer bared their teeth.
“Do you have a home?” Jaxon asked one of the red-eyed terriers, letting it sniff his hand. “You can’t be all alone here.”
“They don’t like Pure Ones,” I said with a smile. “Shall we adopt them?”
The terrier nuzzled against Jaxon’s hand, wagging its tail.
Just as the atmosphere lost its tension, and the dogs became more friendly, a slash appeared in the glass and a man stepped from the void. He was close to Arthur in height, and a mane of knotted brown hair fell from his head and face. Extra bulk was added to his huge frame by a wolf-skin cloak, providing a fury mantle on each of his shoulders. He was Eastron, with a wild, unfocused cast to his eyes. Certainly a Sea Wolf, though his cloth was mismatched and poor, and he wore no armour, just layer upon layer of patchwork fabric, hanging in folds to the tops of steel-shod boots.
“Stand down, sir!” I barked, unsure if the wild-man was stable enough to respond, or aware enough not to simply attack us.
He looked at the dead Pure Ones, his left eye twitching and his hairy hands balling into fists. The dogs clustered around him, standing at heel, as if their master had appeared. He didn’t pet them or speak any commands, but his authority was clear.
“Sea Wolves!” he rumbled, his red tongue licking at the air over his bushy beard. “You have made a mess of these men. How can I display their heads now? This one has an arrow through his eye-socket.”
“Yeah, that was me,” offered Arthur.
The wild-man lumbered over to my brother, his dogs still clustered at his feet. He was wider, hairier, and far smellier than Arthur, but he was also unarmed, and moved like an ox rather than a warrior.
“Step back,” said Arthur, gritting his teeth at having so large a man standing so close to him.
The man grunted at him and the dogs growled.
“You are Dark Wing?” I enquired. “We are here to talk to you, not fight you. We are bound for the Bay of Bliss.”
He squinted at me. There was a wily glint in his eyes, but also a madness and much barely contained rage. As our eyes met, I felt a surge of wyrd from him, flowing across his limbs and making him seem even bigger. His power was unfocused and raw, lacking the refinement required of duellists, but profound, nonetheless.
“Who do you wish to test?” I asked, nodding at his now-glowing fists. “Yourself or us?”
“Things are never as simple as they appear,” he replied. “My name is Roland Lahandras, I am called Dark Wing. Now, fuck off out of my forest and I won’t have to feed you to my dogs.” In unison, each one of the beasts bared their teeth at us.
Arthur, without showing much thought, shoved Dark Wing away from him. My brother reacted to the threat in the only way he knew how, but he had no such confidence with a pack of dogs. The wild-man took several steps backwards, but didn’t fall.
“Hold!” I commanded. To my surprise, both Arthur and the dogs obeyed me. They had been ready to pounce, crouching on their back legs, with slavering teeth. But now they all sat, looking quizzically at the strange woman who’d shouted at them. “I said we are not here to fight. However, you cannot expect us to be cowed by a threat. Do not threaten us again!”
“We are duellists of the Severed Hand,” announced Arthur, standing in a wrestlers’ stance with his legs wide and his fists ready.
“I know what you are, boy,” said Dark Wing. “I know more of what you are than you do. I know what you are and I rage for what you are … you and your wolves, cowering behind stone walls like those who kneel. Only ever seeing half a world. Not even that. And all that you do see is given to you by arrogant old men, sitting safely in tall, stone towers.” He growled at the three of us, clenching and unclenching his fists as he tried to control his anger. “Just leave me to my dogs.” He shook his head and marched off, followed closely by each one of his animals.
I watched the thick folds of raggedy fabric flow and move in the wind as he left, striding between white trees like an angry cart horse or some kind of rabid oxen. He had been a duellist once, but if there was a story behind his solitude I had not heard it. His name, Lahandras, marked his ancestors as Sea Wolves who’d interbred with Pure Ones. Eastron blood was always dominant and there was little discrimination, but these days it was uncommon. Most Sea Wolves with his name had allied with the People of Ice, and now lived on Yish or Nowhere.
“Strange fellow,” said Jaxon.
“Addie, let me subdue him,” said Arthur. “He’s big, but slow.”
“And the dogs?” I replied. “How will you subdue them? No, we’ll follow, but there’ll be no subduing.” An errant Sea Wolf and a pack of wild dogs was not enough to turn me around, nor sufficiently intimidating to make me fear for my life. The three of us, if the situation demanded it, were more than a match for any wild duellist and any pack of dogs. His manner and his lack of respect were more concerning.
We kept our blades sheathed as we walked, following in his wake, though keeping our distance. “Is he as tough as I think?” I asked Jaxon.
He considered it. “He was. Maybe twenty years ago. I think he’s spent too much time alone, his wyrd is all over the place. Not to say he’s helpless … I certainly wouldn’t want to bet on the outcome if Arthur went for him.”
“Fuck you, Icicle,” spat my brother. “He’s a fat old man.”
“But he’s not a frog,” I barked. “So we aren’t here to hurt him, spy on him or kill him. He’s a side-trip. Hopefully an informative side-trip.”
We had no sight of Dark Wing, but the sound of dogs barking kept us in the right direction. North west, deeper into both the dead forest and the Mirralite Reservation, but away from the Bay of Bliss. I’d hoped that our blind wandering would get direction from Dark Wing, perhaps a way of sneaking up on the village, or intelligence on what we would find. However, since meeting the wild-man, I feared we’d get little more than pissed on by a pack of dogs; perhaps a brief fight before our wandering continued. But I had to pursue him to find out.
“Addie, I smell blood here,” said Jaxon, coming to a stop before an unusually large tree. “Up there.” His eyes rose, focusing on a high branch, upon which were hung a cluster of severed heads. Their hair was long and braided, with seashells and stones woven into the strands.
“They’re Pure Ones,” I observed. “Dark Wing doesn’t believe in subtlety.”
“More over here,” said Arthur, a little way ahead.
We joined him, where a line of skulls were staked into the hard ground. Beyond, nailed to more wooden stakes, were dozens of rotting heads. Some were barely more than skeletons. Others were fresh, with blood still pooled in the eye sockets and upon the lips. It seemed wrong to display death in such a fashion, and butchery of this kind was no longer practised at the Severed Hand. Many years past, Lord Ulric’s father, the Bloody Fang, displayed two thousand heads from Brand’s Tower, leaving them to rot so that the Nissalite knew their place. Such brutality had not been necessary for a long time.
“Sign of weakness,” said Arthur. “Strength speaks for itself. It doesn’t need such … crutches.”
Jaxon looked at me, shaking his head as if to condemn Dark Wing. The Wisp disliked the severed heads for a more prosaic reason than my brother. He simply didn’t think that any man, Pure One or Eastron, should be degraded so.
“He must live somewhere,” I said. “Let’s find it.”
Neither of my companions replied. Nor did they nod or remove their eyes from the dead Pure Ones, but they followed me as I moved deeper into the forest, past more severed heads, and fence-lines made of bone. It appeared that Dark Wing was a craftsman as well as a butcher. The macabre structures must have been the work of decades, costing more life and labour than I could imagine. The fences became arches, and the arches became tunnels, each one rendered skilfully out of bone and sinew.
“How many Mirralite has he killed, do you think?” mused Jaxon, as we entered a tunnel of bone.
From ahead of us, echoing through the structure, came a response. “Four thousand. A few more, a few less. I lose count.”
Ahead of us was a low spire, built in the fashion of a Pure One house. Several tunnels led to it, and the pointed, circular roof was equal parts bone, wood and mud.
“Shall I welcome you as old friends?” mused the wild-man. “Invite you in and pour us each a mug of ale?” We still couldn’t see him, and his voice appeared to come from several directions at once. “No, I think not. I have asked you to leave, you have chosen not to.”
We reached the central chamber and saw where Dark Wing lived. The interior room was lined with animal skins and furs, with a stone fireplace against the far wall. A dozen baskets, woven from twigs, provided homes for his dogs, and the huge man himself sat cross-legged before his hearth. The whole room stunk of death, and skulls were being boiled in a huge cauldron.
“You’re right, we ignored your request. We chose to follow you,” I said. “If you wish to fight us, I invite you to do so now. If not, may we sit and speak?”
He grunted at me, then looked around at his dogs. All of the animals were slumped in their baskets, though many now wagged their tails at him. They did not appear aggressive.
“You’re lucky my dogs like you,” said Dark Wing. “If it was just your men, they’d have already attacked. But you’re a proper bitch and they know it.”
“Thank you, what a lovely sentiment. May I sit?”
Arthur scoffed. “You’re gonna let this fat old bastard insult you, Addie?”
I patted my brother on the back. “I think it was meant as a compliment.”
“Sit,” said Dark Wing. “Just you. Those two can stand.”
There were no chairs, just layered animal skins; some deeply furred, others no more than tanned leather. I selected a moderately clean skin, and pulled it under me, sitting opposite the wild-man. “The Bay of Bliss,” I began. “You have been there?”
“I have,” he replied.
“There is a village there. They call it The Place Where We Hear The Sea. Do you know it?”
“I do,” he responded.
“Good. Thank you for your candour. Now, tell me of this place.”
He scratched at his wiry beard, pulling a twig from the mass of hair. Even seated, the layers of his clothing made him look anything but human. Perhaps an enormous toad, squatting on its hind legs. He swallowed, though his throat sounded dry, and his eyes had suddenly narrowed. He reached under one of his larger rugs, to where several wooden boxes were placed in a rocky hole. The dogs began to whine as he reached for the largest box. It was made of dark wood and brass, with dusty hinges and a strange, circular latch. He placed it on the floor between us.
“And this is?” I asked.
“Careful, Addie,” warned Jaxon. “Whatever it is, he’s afraid of it.”
I looked down at the box. Upon the latch was a macabre engraving. A face, wreathed in tentacles, with glowing green gems for eyes.
“Press the eyes to open it,” said Dark Wing.
I considered Jaxon’s warning, but could not imagine anything within a box to be of genuine concern to me. I pressed against the green gems, surprised to feel they were warm, and the latch clicked open. Inside, the box was lined with green quilted fabric, and a small, black statue lay on its side within.
The two Yishian Mastiffs began to bark. Not as if warning of danger, but as if afraid. Each bark ended with a mournful whine, picked up by the smaller dogs and rising to a cacophony.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Look at it!”
I reached into the box and removed the statue. It was warm in my hands, and made of some unknown black rock, chiselled along a silvery grain to resemble a creature, sitting atop a crude altar. The creature brought to mind an octopus, a frog, and a man. A pulpy head, somehow iridescent, even through the black rock, was framed by a beard of tentacles, creeping across a grotesque, scaly body, with stumpy reptilian wings. Its form was unnatural and made the hairs on my arms tingle.
“What is this?” I repeated.
“That is the Dreaming God,” replied Dark Wing. “When you listen to the sea, you hear his dreams. The village you seek has been listening for a long time. No Pure Ones go there, and I have only seen it from afar.”
I dropped the statue back into its box and contemptuously kicked the lid closed. “Fascinating as that is, I need to know more temporal matters. For a start you could tell me where the fuck we find this village. And then you could tell me who the fuck lives there.”