We’d arrived at Cold Point the previous evening, in a tight convoy of horses and carts. Every hour of travel we’d crept further under the Maelstrom, until the sky disappeared and only the churning black vortex remained. It was a vast cone, cut into the glass, deep enough that I couldn’t see its end. Strange tunnels of black cloud rippled downwards as typhoons, striking the earth a distance away and bridging the gap between the realm of form and the realm of void. I kept expecting to be sucked upwards by some void storm, and pulled into the depthless layers of infinity and wyrd that assaulted my eyes. The undulating rocky landscape was minuscule in comparison, as if the world had broken to show us just how insignificant we were. Even Cold Point, the Grim Wolf’s town, was barely an interesting feature on a tiny canvas. I didn’t even notice it at first. Not until the encircling wall became impossible to ignore.
The town of Ice was well distant from the centre of the Maelstrom, and built predominantly of huge granite blocks. Three rivers plunged towards it, each meeting a sluice gate and a high arched gateway. It looked nothing like the Severed Hand or Moon Rock, both of which were sprawling affairs, plonked within a high wall, designed to keep everything nasty outside. Cold Point had dozens of high walls, criss-crossing its streets and creating small forts at each intersection. Nothing was ramshackle or in need of repair. Simple doors were framed with iron struts and were flush to the granite walls when closed. Every street, every turning, every crossroads could be locked up and defended. It was a town built to make an attacker bleed. But those that lived here were forced forever to look at the Maelstrom.
I certainly struggled to turn away as Loco Death Spell led me through the largest of the three gates. The Brethren dismounted outside the walls, tying their beasts in low granite stables, tended to by Mirralite Pure Ones. The other captives – David Falcon’s Fang, Snake Charmer and William Vane – were held in individual carts, closely guarded by Inigo Night Walker’s duellists.
I had only Twist for company, and the pain spirit was evidently lost in thought. He’d experienced the same things as me, and had just as many questions. Neither of us could recall the vision with any clarity, but the Old Bitch of the Sea and her words were felt as strongly as the death of Lord Vikon. Greenfire must let his wyrd shine. Greenfire must honour us all. I still didn’t know how, but despite my own feelings of inadequacy, I knew that the Old Bitch of the Sea accepted me as a Sea Wolf. For now that was enough, though simpler considerations still plagued my mind. What was Inigo Night Walker doing on Nowhere? And why had the Brethren attacked the Dead Horse?
*
The man was Xymon Ice, called Blade Smile, and he wouldn’t stop staring at me. He was the Grim Wolf’s eldest son and looked at me like I was some kind of strange logic puzzle. That perhaps I needed decoding. He may have been right, but his staring was not making a good first impression. He shared the wild and twitchy eyes of his father, but was much smaller. He verged on the slender, with thin, muscled forearms and tight jaw bones. I’d been delivered to him by Loco, with no explanation as to why we needed to speak. Blade Smile held no sword to my throat, but he gracefully twirled a knife through his fingertips, as if he could bury it in my forehead with a flick of his wrist.
“Do you know who built this town?” asked Blade Smile, after an eternity of silent staring. “Do they teach that at the Severed Hand?”
“No,” I replied, not sure whether I was being tested. “I didn’t even know it existed.”
“A woman called Velya Ice. She came across the sea with Sebastian Dawn Claw, but is not widely remembered. She was lover to David Fast Claw and Maven Bright. But the three of them spoke of peace over war and were exiled. Maven’s people became the Defiants. David’s people became the Sundered Claws. And Velya retreated to Nowhere.” He was being very serious. His angular face and wild eyes made him look like a painting of a mad man, and would not be out of place etched in black stone in the Bloody Halls. “She raised Cold Point in 10da, four years before Duncan Red Claw raised the Severed Hand.”
“That sounds like cow shit to me,” I blurted out. Luckily he didn’t take offence. In fact, he smiled, as if accepting that his statement was hard to believe. The island of Nowhere had its own identity, and it was strange to learn that the People of Ice lived in one small town in the centre.
“Stand, Master Greenfire. Come to the window.”
We were in a grey stone room, towards the top of a high tower, built into a thick granite wall. Like the rest of Cold Point, the tower was not a separate structure, but more like an appendage of a single huge block of stone. Most towns and holds rose up over years – a fort here, a hall there. A market and stable would appear over time, and a defensive wall was added when the settlement got big enough. Not the town of Ice.
I joined Blade Smile by the window and saw the tightly organized town, languishing under the eternal black and grey of the Maelstrom. It was larger than it appeared from a distance, and the streets were bustling with men and women of Ice. Further west, outside the town and spreading across the overcast plains, were a hundred pointed buildings of Mirralite design. The army I’d seen on the coast was now camped under the edges of the Maelstrom, a few miles from the vicious tornadoes of void energy. Perhaps Ten Cuts was amongst them, with the pale man still over his shoulder.
“Why here?” I asked. “Seems a stupid place for a town. And who were you fighting that you needed such defences?”
He didn’t turn his wild eyes from the window. “Cold Point was here before the glass fractured. That happened later, under the foolishness of the Sea Wolves. We fought your people for so long.” His wild eyes sparkled, as if he remembered old stories of adventure and loss. “These walls were all that stopped them annihilating every one of us. Well, these walls and the Maelstrom they’d caused by treating the glass as a tool.”
“You speak like you’re a Winterlord or a Brethren,” I replied. “Are you not still a Sea Wolf? We’re all the same, and these bastards killed Lord Vikon. Why don’t you just talk to the First Fang, I’m sure he’d …”
“He’d what?” interrupted Blade Smile. “He’d take our counsel? If that is the case, Ulric Blood must have softened as he’s aged. His father, the Bloody Fang, struck our names and our history from your Wolf House. His son will no sooner hear our words than he will accept us as equals. He is a barbaric fool.”
I shoved him away. It was spontaneous, and had little power, but caused the young man of Ice to pin me against the wall with a blade against my throat. I felt Twist react, poised to defend me if he felt we were in actual danger. My reservoirs of power were still low, but I’d amassed enough to send Blade Smile flying if I so chose. “Careful,” I warned, fighting fear. “I can’t always control my wyrd. But you shouldn’t insult the First Fang like that.”
I could imagine what Arthur Brand or Rys Coldfire would do, though I couldn’t force myself to feel their rage. I was a Sea Wolf, but I wasn’t like them. I didn’t know why the totem had chosen me, but it certainly wasn’t for my strength, or for my sword-arm. Shoving him had been stupid.
Blade Smile removed his knife, and stepped away. I tried to hide my relief, and appear confident, though I doubted how successful I’d been. True confidence took time, and I’d only felt like a Sea Wolf for a day.
“Sorry,” I said, with little humility. “I’ve seen a lot of my people die in the last few days, and I’m a captive of yours and the fucking Dark Brethren. I’ll try to remain calm.” I surprised myself by locking eyes with a man who could probably kill me, or order me killed.
Blade Smile frowned, his angular face turning into a series of creased triangles. “You’re feeling fragile,” he observed, seeing through my fledgling confidence. “It will pass. My father wasn’t right for days after he conversed with Ten Cuts. And he’s Xavyer Ice, the Grim Wolf of Nowhere. You’re just a pup.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“Ten Cuts,” he repeated. “And the great turtle. A spirit of time’s memory. They say Marius Cyclone wouldn’t leave his chambers for two weeks after he saw the sea rise. But he’s a Dark Brethren, they can be soft. I’ve not been honoured with the vision myself, so you must be far more important than you look.”
Twist jabbed at my leg, causing rapid spasms of burning pain. I tried to howl, but I lost my breath and just coughed, doubling over against the windowsill and retching. The pain spirit was angry, and felt like we were part of an eldritch game, the rules of which we’d not been told. I couldn’t fully remember what I’d been shown, just that the sea was rising. I may have joined a select group, but I was still captive and ignorant. Could the spirit-whistle of Ten Cuts truly have made the Grim Wolf ally with the Brethren and betray the First Fang? Marius Cyclone may not have tasked the assassin, but it was difficult not to see all of them – Inigo and the third void legion and Xavyer and the People of Ice – as enemies of the Severed Hand.
Blade Smile made no effort to help me. His wild eyes just changed position, following me as I curled up into a ball beneath the window. “Bad leg?” he asked, unmoved by his own understatement, but apparently glad that he could sheath his knife.
“Just leave me alone,” I wailed, talking to the spirit and the man.
“As you wish,” replied the man of Ice. “I’m just charged with killing you if you summon your wyrd, while my father assembles enough men to get us north. Travelling under the Maelstrom is getting harder. All manner of void beasts have flooded the interior of the island. But that’s where we must go. We need to show you something. Why Nowhere must be protected.”
I panted, willing Twist to understand that I was as confused as him. He’d not felt my renewed confidence from the Old Bitch of the Sea, and our torment was out of sync, like one of us was recovering quicker than the other. When we’d killed Maron Grief, saved Prince Oliver, and fought to defend the Dead Horse, spirit and man had been of a single mind. But captivity and helplessness affected us differently. We’d both been shown something terrible, but neither of us remembered it.
The door opened and a woman of Ice entered. My head was pressed against the stone floor and I could barely move, but I recognized her from Inigo Night Walker’s pavilion. She’d chided the Dark Brethren for his arrogance.
“What did you do to him?” she asked Blade Smile. “No-one told you to hurt him. Apparently, the Old Lady spoke to young Master Greenfire.”
“He just fell over,” was the reply. “His leg started hurting. Duncan, this is Zia Lahandras, my aunt.”
She crouched next to me, flicking a long braid of black hair behind her shoulder. “You have a lot of blood on your hands,” she said, putting a finger under my chin and pulling my face upwards. “I know you’ve suffered, and that your wyrd is strong, but in this moment you need to do what you’re told. Someone may have use for you, but we are well prepared to kill you if your wyrd becomes a problem … or a danger. But my brother says you need to see something.”
I dug fingernails into my left thigh and panted. Gradually, my breathing slowed, and I wrestled the pain into a dull thud. Twist was annoyed, wanting to lash out and make the woman of Ice tell us everything. Who had a use for me? And why had the Grim Wolf conspired with Inigo Night Walker to kill the Second Fang? Was the reality of the rising sea enough? With a deep breath, Twist and I agreed not to waste our small amount of wyrd on Zia Lahandras.
“We’re taking you under the Maelstrom,” continued Zia. “To the very point of the void storm. If you can’t stand, you can’t run … and you’ll need to run.”
She was far more intimidating than Blade Smile, with deep brown eyes and a sharp face. I could barely bend my left leg, but she pulled me to my feet, not appearing to care about my pain. With Blade Smile behind us, I was dragged from the square room. She gave me no chance to ask any questions, or even open my mouth.
Beyond the room were closed steel doors and spiral stairs. The passageways were all of grey granite blocks, mirroring every other building in Cold Point, and making the structure appear as if it had been carved from a mountain. I gritted my teeth and tried to shut out the pain, as we walked down the narrow stairs and emerged on a floor, three storeys below. The tower widened and we continued across a large, circular room, carpeted in black, and adorned with archaic weaponry. Swords and axes; spears and shields; bows and arrows. The People of Ice were reputed to be peaceful until roused, but the large room showed a rich tradition of war. I wondered how much of it had been used fighting other Sea Wolves.
Blade Smile was ambling next to me, looking with curiosity at my leg, as we walked down more stairs and crossed more rooms of black carpet and ceremonial weaponry. Around each room beyond the first were duellists, wearing the same tabard, displaying a chip of blue ice. They stood guard before rooms and corridors, and said nothing as we passed.
At the base of the building, my vision was filled with armed warriors. The courtyard was bounded by four tall towers and the high walls between, and the warriors wore as many different kinds of armour as they did faces. People of Ice, in their blue tabards, stood next to Dark Brethren, wearing the haughty Night Wing on their chests. Mingled amongst them were Mirralite, wearing no armour and carrying fragile-looking spears and blades. The courtyard had been buzzing with conversation a moment before we arrived. Now it was silent.
Twist calmed, allowing me to assess my situation without grabbing my left thigh and wincing. I’d kept from crying, determined at least to appear as a man. They might not yet see me as a Sea Wolf, but they didn’t need to see any more of my weakness. I had an obligation to the Old Bitch of the Sea and to Lord Vikon. Appearing to be a helpless child might make my immediate situation more comfortable, but it no longer reflected who I was. If Twist and I were to penetrate the mysteries around us, we needed to quieten our internal squabbles.
From the press of warriors came three men. Inigo Night Walker and the Grim Wolf caused all warriors to form a channel for their approach, while an elderly Pure One followed. It was Ten Cuts, though his heavily wrinkled face was now painted with blue streaks down each cheek. The speaker of the Rykalite wore red feathers, woven into his long, grey hair, and held a ceremonial spear. Around his neck was the wooden spirit-whistle, and my burgeoning confidence faded, as I struggled to remember what he’d shown me.
“It may appear strange,” said the Grim Wolf, “to travel under the Maelstrom just for you. But you must see something. You must see why we protect this place. Hundreds of warriors and spirit-masters hold the centre of Nowhere, trying to stem the flow of void beasts. The Maelstrom opens a little more each day. Though I’d not thought to show a Sea Wolf … we didn’t think you were ready. Not until the sea begins to rise.”
“You’ve seen it?” I grunted, trying not to look at Ten Cuts. “The … vision?”
Xavyer Ice nodded and, as his honour-name suggested, his face remained grim. “Marius Cyclone needed my island and he needed the Maelstrom, so Ten Cuts showed me what was at stake. What you call betrayal, I call wisdom, perhaps even survival. Inigo and I agreed that those of the Severed Hand were too … stubborn to recognize that some enemies can’t be fought.”
“Hopefully you are different,” added Inigo Night Walker.
Twist and I were equally confused, and the pain all but disappeared, allowing me a few moments of clear thought. I narrowed my eyes and shrugged off the gently restraining hands of Zia and Blade Smile. “I’m a Sea Wolf,” I stated. “I’m of the Severed Hand. You need me for something. What?”
“Not us,” replied Inigo.
“But someone has a use for you,” said the Grim Wolf, his eyes glazing over, as if he wasn’t in complete control of his words. Similarly blank expressions flowed across everyone within earshot, though they only appeared for an instant. Even Inigo Night Walker slumped, nodding in agreement, before his military bearing returned a moment later. Only Ten Cuts and I were unaffected, and the distant note of a thin whistle sounded in my ears. I wondered if their minds were even their own, or if the strange pale man had woven a spell over them.
“Time to go,” said the Grim Wolf, as if nothing had happened.
“Be gentle,” offered Ten Cuts. “The young Invader has known pain. I think it may be all he has known.”
The Grim Wolf addressed Blade Smile. “Xymon, look after him. It’s a short run to the caves. Carry him if you need to. Watch his wyrd, it might start to misbehave.”
“Yes, father,” replied Blade Smile.
“Loco will assist,” said Inigo, waving behind him to the clean-cut void legionnaire. “You haven’t seen what Duncan can do. There is much power within that feeble frame.”
“That’s what we’re counting on,” replied the Grim Wolf. He glared at me. “If he’s not as powerful as we think, there will be no reason to keep him alive.”
I had no chance to respond. Loco Death Spell and Blade Smile held me between them. They were of a similar age and size, but one was wild and the other stoic. Loco’s humourless glare and Blade Smile’s manic grin clashed in front of me, as I was led from the wide granite steps, to join the mass of warriors. They thought I was powerful, but would kill me if I wasn’t powerful enough. Twist and I wrestled with the strange conundrum, though we remained compliant.
“Form up,” snapped Zia Lahandras, following after us.
A hundred warriors, mostly People of Ice, picked up swords and shields, and assembled into ranks. Inigo and the Brethren stayed at the rear, as Blade Smile and Loco led me to the front of the group, across tight cobbles, to the shadow of a huge gate. We were not at the edge of the town, but the gate formed one end of a well-covered road, leading between tall towers, from the middle of Cold Point to the northern walls. The gate was opened with a woody creak and a groan of metal, and the wide avenue appeared.
“Why do you need to take me under the Maelstrom?” I asked Loco Death Spell.
He didn’t answer right away, but kept his hand balled in a fistful of my shirt, making sure I didn’t stop walking. The resonant snap of metal on stone followed us out of the gate and along the avenue, as a column of armed men and women prepared to leave the safety of Cold Point.
“If I told you we were going to save the Eastron from annihilation, would you think me joking?” replied Loco, as the company increased its pace, enveloping me in marching men and women.
“You told me Death Spells are humourless,” I countered.
“We are,” said the young void legionnaire.
Blade Smile scoffed, staring at me with his wild eyes. “Just do as you’re told, Duncan. The realms of form and void are smashing together out there, it’ll do strange things to your wyrd. It’ll hopefully show us how powerful you actually are.” He twirled one of his knives in front of my face, as if to remind me that many outcomes included my death.
Zia Lahandras bellowed a command to the gate-guards, and the huge outer doors began to move. They were larger and thicker than all the interior gates, and were covered by dozens of murder-holes across the two adjacent towers. I felt as if I was witnessing the unveiling of a new world. Certainly the Maelstrom had been obscured by the walls, and was now all I could see.
The column of warriors didn’t slow, and we were smoothly swept up in their marching, out of the gate into the northern half of the island. Beyond the curtain wall, the terrain was rugged grassland, much the same as the rest of Nowhere, but the grass, trees and shrubs were all low to the ground, or withered, as if the Maelstrom robbed the land of life-giving nutrients.
Then my senses were assaulted by a broken landscape. We crossed a rocky outcropping, and the air became a shimmering blue, with black veins crossing the scrubland, like lines of spider silk. Chunks of earth and rock hung at impossible angles, and trees danced in the air like insane creatures. It was as if the pieces of the world had all been mixed up and put back together in the wrong order. Form and void were smashing against each other, as the Maelstrom churned overhead, too deep and layered to see with any clarity. The painting of it in my father’s hall at Moon Rock was impressive, but did it no justice. I had no idea the glass could fracture in such a way.
I wondered why tales of the void storm were not told at the Severed Hand. But most of all I wondered again why we needed to travel under it. As I wondered, Twist stirred against my leg. The pain spirit flexed, and I felt a rush of wyrd. Nowhere was a strange place. One moment I’d been banging my head against a stone wall, the next I was diving into a warm, blue ocean. Every inch of my skin tingled, sending a warm blanket across my body. I suddenly felt powerful again, as if my reservoirs went from half-empty to overflowing, but Twist and I agreed not to lash out … for the time being.
“Stand ready,” boomed the Grim Wolf. All around me, Dark Brethren and People of Ice pulsed with wyrd, as their might returned. The glass was barely a membrane, and every Eastron summoned their full power, appearing as a mass of flame-handed warriors.
Blade Smile grabbed me around the neck. “Don’t do anything stupid, boy. You should be feeling pretty strong, but I can break your neck before you kill anyone. Keep it under control.”
The company fanned out, approaching a pit of craggy low ground, directly under the point of the Maelstrom, and I saw why everyone was so wary about travelling into the interior of Nowhere. The immense, rumbling void storm crackled through tones of black, grey and blue, sending forth wave after wave of potent spiritual energy. There was no solid barrier between form and void, and massed spirits tumbled to the ground, appearing as twisted distortions of nature. Swarms of brightly-coloured insects, bizarre many-legged balls of flesh, and huge, scaled serpents. Spirits of the wild void infested the low plains, kept back from the approaching cave system by a perimeter of wooden bulwarks. I’d never seen anything like it. The void I knew was a place of calm, but all I saw, thrown downwards by the Maelstrom, was chaos.
As we got closer, the warriors of Ice broke into loose formation, tackling any spirits that clustered across our path. Duellists and void legionnaires summoned torrents of wyrd into their limbs and hacked at the spirits with methodical ferocity, clearing our way to the caves.
Loco and Blade Smile kept me tightly between them, as if expecting me to erupt at any moment. But they needn’t have worried. Seeing the wild void flow, like abominable waves, was enough to keep me and Twist compliant. I could feel immense, pulsing wyrd, but kept it all internal, and was the only Eastron present not to shine with spiritual energy. I’d not been trained how to marshal such strength, and if it weren’t for the pain spirit, I feared I’d literally erupt.
As the company ran towards the barricades and the caves beyond, I saw a swarm of grotesque, segmented wasp spirits consume a squad of void legionnaires. I saw a rampaging rage spirit – made up of a thousand mismatched arms, legs, torsos and heads – barrel a dozen Pure Ones out of its way. But the company reached the low ground more or less intact.
By the time we’d crossed the barricades, and hurriedly entered the largest of a dozen cave mouths, I’d seen at least ten warriors die to get me under the Maelstrom. And I still didn’t know why or what they wanted me to see. My wyrd had returned, and was stronger than ever, but I had nowhere to point it. My customary tactic of lashing out seemed infantile, as if Twist and I had gained a modicum of maturity … and control. If there was a way to honour Vikon Blood and the Old Bitch of the Sea, I was determined to find it. If that meant hiding my power and remaining a captive, so be it.