We approached the hold from the north, breaking the treeline of the Wood of Scars and heading for the Tranquil Gate. Dark Wing had remained in his dead forest, but Tasha and Jaxon walked with me. My friend’s head was bowed, and he barely registered the Severed Hand when it appeared, but Tasha was struck dumb for a moment. I assumed she’d have visited before, but her wide eyes and open mouth showed different.
Four Claw’s Folly, across the Turtle Straits, was half again as big as the hold of the Sea Wolves, but the glass was more solid and the air played no tricks on Eastron eyes. On Nibonay, the distant shimmer of the sea created a thousand illusions, and I could see the Kneeling Wolf processing figures and scenes as they appeared and vanished across the stone silhouette of the hold. I stopped walking and let her look.
“A great wolf,” whispered Tasha. “Leaping from wall to wall.” Her face brightened into a gleeful smile. “A laughing girl, looking to the sky.”
“I always see a pair of green eyes,” I replied, amazed that sight of the hold made me think of one thing above all.
“Frog Killer would tell me stories about it,” she said. “The Wolf House and the Bright Coast, the Bay of Grief and the Laughing Rock. I never thought a humble cook would ever look upon the Severed Hand.” She turned to me and grinned. “What shall we have for dinner?”
“Probably fish,” I replied, dryly. “Let us go to the Wolf House first. Rys Coldfire and the First Fang will need to hear our words.”
I suddenly felt tired. I’d not slept properly since Arthur, Jaxon and I first left. I’d also barely had a change of clothes since Tasha and Lucas rescued me. My leather armour and cutlass were lost somewhere in the Lodge of Dagon. My vest and woollen underclothes had been stuck to my skin for the last few days, and the smell was becoming hard to bear. Perhaps the Wolf’s Bastard could wait until I’d had a bath.
“I see blood,” said Jaxon, suddenly. “Over the Wolf House, the air turns red.”
“Where?” enquired Tasha. “I see no red.”
“The Bright Coast plays games with your eyes,” I replied, putting my arm around the Wisp’s shoulders. “There is no red. You’d be the first to tell me that.”
He looked at me and I feared he would never be the same man. Some spark of life had been extinguished, to be replaced by a permanent shadow across his eyes. We’d pulled his body from the Temple of Dagon, but his mind was still there.
“We’re home,” I said to him, blocking his view of the hold. “We’re safe and we’re home.”
*
Tasha’s eyes remained wide and Jaxon’s remained bowed as we passed through the Tranquil Gate. The northern walls had green algae stains around the base, and jagged castellations at the top. Everything was quiet. Duellists patrolled the battlements, Pure Ones went about their business in the small settlement of Lion’s End, outside the walls, but all activity was slow and sombre, as if the Severed Hand was expecting a storm.
The gates had been opened at our approach, though no significant presence greeted us within. “Ho there!” I shouted to the gate-guard – an old duellist with one glass eye. “Do you know me?”
He looked up from the slab of swordfish he was eating and poked his head out of his guard shed. “I do, Mistress Brand. Hail to you.”
“And to you. We are bound for the Wolf House. How fares the hold?”
“Dark times,” he replied. “The First Fang left for Nowhere. Don’t know why. I expect they’ll tell you.” His manner was laconic and dry, likely the result of a life spent guarding a gate, rather than fighting.
“Very well.” I left him and walked into the hold, taking a deep breath of air.
“Smells horrid,” observed Tasha, screwing up her nose. “Like … rotten fish.”
“Smells like home to me,” I replied.
We turned a corner, between two large buildings, and Tasha stopped walking. Before us was the Wolf House, towering over the northern half of the Severed Hand. Twenty-three storeys – far and away the tallest building on Nibonay.
“It’s … it’s huge,” she muttered. “And those black murals …”
Jaxon, who’d been at least a step behind us the whole way back, suddenly stood next to me and joined Tasha in staring up at the seat of the First Fang. “Looks smaller to me,” he said. “Smaller than when I last saw it.” He looked at me. “Why would Lord Ulric go to Nowhere?”
I smiled, attempting to lighten Jaxon’s mood. “Perhaps young Sharp Tongue has insulted the Grim Wolf and caused an incident. I doubt his father would be surprised. Or perhaps the assassin’s second target has been revealed.”
Tasha gasped. As we walked, her eyes had travelled from the black murals, down the Wolf House, to the open cloisters of the bottom level. The encircling square was usually filled to the brim with Nissalite, conducting business, and Eastron, jockeying to get inside the auction houses on the lower levels. Now it was mostly empty, with a single line of wooden stakes acting as a perimeter. Upon each stake was a dead Pure One, and before each dead Pure One was a duellist, standing guard over the Wolf House.
“There’s been a purge,” muttered Jaxon. “A bad one.”
Tasha averted her eyes, but didn’t make comment on Sea Wolf justice.
“A couple of hundred at least,” I observed. “Someone must have greatly angered the Wolf’s Bastard or the master-at-arms.”
I quickened my pace, eager to get inside. Much needed to be said and much had changed. Jaxon and Tasha followed, both having to jog every other pace to keep up with me. We walked around the building until Jacob’s Tower came into view. Lesser duellists nodded their respect at our passing, and word quickly spread that Adeline Brand and Jaxon Ice had returned to the Severed Hand. There were other whispers as well, things I couldn’t quite hear or put into context. The atmosphere around the Wolf House was tense, with normally relaxed guard patterns tightened up, and duellists clearly on edge.
“Get out of my fucking way,” I barked at the four lesser duellists on guard by the main entrance. They averted their eyes and moved, allowing us entry. One almost thought to stop Tasha, but I snarled at him.
“When was the last time they locked up the Wolf House like this?” mused Jaxon.
“I’ve never seen it locked up like this,” I replied.
“A rather grim place,” observed Tasha. “Grey and cold.” She smiled at me, as if worried she’d cause offence. “But lovely all the same.”
The bottom level was empty, with nothing but a whistling wind coming from vacant auction rooms and duellists’ chambers. I strolled across the empty stone floor. It was a different building with no-one in it, like a giant’s tomb, awaiting its occupant. My breathing echoed and my muscles tensed. I didn’t know why, but I was suddenly on edge. The air was charged. I looked at Jaxon and saw his eyes flickering and his mind whirring.
“What do you see?” I asked him.
He paused before answering, looking to the wide steps that led to the Bloody Halls. “The hold feels sick,” he replied. “The void, it’s ill. I can feel it in the stone and the wood. The teeth and gums of chaos. Chaos spirits, they are bound here. By … something.” His hands shook, as if he was afraid of his own mind. His wyrd sight remained, but he no longer liked what he saw.
“How can those things be here?” I asked. “They’re summoning them at the Bay of Bliss. How can they be bound here? So soon.”
“I don’t know,” replied Jaxon. Though his sight remained, he lacked the clarity to explain what he saw.
I didn’t have time to coddle my friend, we needed to report in, so I rushed towards the stairs, giving Jaxon and Tasha a wave to follow me. Beyond the ground level, duellists guarded every turning and chamber, standing in a solemn vigil, barely nodding at our passing. The Wolf House was like I’d never seen it. It was never a warm building, but it was usually alive with activity, and arriving within felt like coming home. But no longer.
“Adeline! Where the fuck have you been?” shouted Jonas Grief, the master-at-arms. He sat in a map chamber on the first level of the Bloody Halls, clustered with Rys Coldfire and other senior duellists. Lagertha Blood, Lord Ulric’s teenage daughter, was also there.
They scanned the doorway and saw me, Jaxon, a strange Kneeling Wolf, but no Arthur Brand. “We’ve been imprisoned at the Bay of Bliss,” I replied. “Arthur was killed by chaos spirits and we were rescued by this Kneeling Wolf and her companion.”
Telling the story of our journey was harder than I thought. Seeing their faces and reactions made me feel small and weak, as if every look implied judgement. The Wolf’s Bastard didn’t mean to scowl as he asked about the Sunken Men, but I shrank a little under his dark eyes. Jonas Grief was kind as we spoke of chaos spirits and Arthur’s death, but still I felt like a small girl addressing a full-grown man. I struggled through the whole story, paying particular attention to Jaxon’s fragility and the bravery of Tasha and the Kneeling Wolves. I spoke of what we saw in the Temple of Dagon, though I didn’t linger on what they intended for me.
My arms fell limply at my sides, as tiredness assaulted every inch of my body. I had to fight back tears, and was helped into a seat by Lagertha. Near the end, unable to maintain his composure any longer, Jaxon curled up in a ball on the stone floor. Spirit-masters were summoned and the Wisp was taken away, and I finished the story with Tasha’s hand on my shoulder.
“Dark Wing cleared his head for a time, but he’s not been the same.” I watched Jaxon be helped away. “Where’s Tomas Red Fang?”
“In the void,” replied the Wolf’s Bastard, wearing an expression halfway between pity and concern. “It’s become treacherous.” He sat down opposite. “Adeline, look at me. You didn’t kill your brother. I’m truly sorry you had to watch him die, but you didn’t spill his blood. We have much to do and your presence will help. The hold is under threat and we have many warriors absent.”
“She needs to rest,” said Tasha. “She’s not slept properly for weeks.”
Jonas Grief glared at the Kneeling Wolf. “She is a duellist of the Severed Hand and does not need you to mother her.”
“Well, she needs someone to look after her,” snapped Tasha. “Are you going to do it? Or are you just going to ask her questions, before putting a blade in her hand and pointing her at the next fight?”
The master-at-arms lowered his head at the telling-off, but a sly smile flowed across his face. “Very well, Addie can take some rest. The Kneeling Wolf may remain in the Bloody Halls. It’s not safe on the streets at the moment. But if she talks to me like that again, she’ll have to answer for it.”
*
I removed my ragged clothes in a daze. I sat in a soapy bath, unable to feel the water or smell the soap. I scrubbed dirt and dried sweat from my back, and felt blood before pain as I scrubbed too hard. I barely dried myself before falling into bed and dragging a blanket over my head. The warmth of the room, the softness of the bed and the exhaustion in my limbs, quickly lulled me into a deep, deep sleep.
If I had dreams, I didn’t remember them. All I remembered, when I awoke, was that I was back at the Severed Hand. My world had been shaken, but certain anchors of my strength remained. I was not broken, just beaten … for now at least. I was alive and still strong. That was more than could be said for the other two Sea Wolves who travelled to the Bay of Bliss.
I sat up in bed, as a clatter reached my ears. Beyond my bedroom door, someone was grumbling as they attempted to navigate the sparse kitchen. I rubbed my eyes and shielded them against the glaring sunlight, streaming through the window. My chamber was as I remembered it – warm, but barren, containing little but the accoutrements of a duellist. A wardrobe with few clothes; a cabinet of whet stones and blades; a low table, scattered with belts and undergarments.
Another clatter from the kitchen, and a male voice swore. “Fucking hell, Adeline,” grunted the voice, probably unaware I was awake and listening. “Don’t you ever put anything away?” It was a rhetorical question, but I felt like answering.
“I have a system,” I replied, raising my voice to be heard. “And who let you in, Tomas?”
“The charming Kneeling Wolf outside your chambers,” replied Tomas Red Fang, the spirit-master. “I thought to brew a pot of tea, but you have no clean cups. In fact, you have no clean crockery of any kind … actually, no, I just found a clean plate. Just the one, mind.”
I rubbed sleep from my eyes and turned out of bed. The stone floor was freezing. I’d slept naked, going straight from my bath to my bed. As I emerged from beneath my blanket, I balked and pulled it back over my shoulders. It was unusually cold and I went instantly for a thick, woollen robe.
“Why’s it so bloody cold?” I asked, through the door.
“Just get up,” replied Tomas. “I’d rather talk to you face-to-face. I got a second-hand version of what happened from Rys, but he’s lacking in subtlety.”
A shiver travelled up my spine. The prospect of retelling the story of our journey mingled with the cold and made my teeth chatter. I dressed hurriedly, pulling on woollen leggings and a thick tunic. Then a leather overshirt and a cloak, pulling the fabric around my shoulders and letting the warmth travel through my limbs. When my body no longer shivered, I knelt and put on socks and leather boots. My feet were still numb, but I felt vaguely human again.
“Whenever you’re ready, Mistress Brand,” prompted Tomas.
“Yes, yes,” I grumbled, rubbing my hands together before opening the door.
My kitchen was seldom used. It adjoined a small sitting room – also seldom used – and was disorganized in the extreme. Duellists’ lodgings were on the second level of the Wolf House. They were utilitarian, but larger than you might imagine, especially for those deemed senior. I’d never paid much attention to my chambers, using them to sleep and eat, as the need arose, but I found myself strangely embarrassed when I saw Tomas Red Fang sifting through dirty crockery, with a steaming teapot in his hands.
“Seriously, Addie, this is unhealthy,” said the spirit-master, flinging a layer of grime from his hand. “What would your mother say?”
“She wouldn’t say anything,” I replied. “She’d just spend two hours cleaning it. And I’d spend a few days undoing her work.”
“Ah, you’re rebelling against parental expectations,” he said. “That fits your character. Though I wonder if it extends to the expectations of your station. You’re a duellist, Adeline, against that you shouldn’t rebel.”
I sat opposite him, across a circular wooden table in my kitchen. “Doubting my conviction? That’s bold … coming from an old man like yourself. You have no more authority over me than a tree or a rock, so keep your fucking judgements to yourself.”
He set the teapot down and laughed. His face wrinkled up like paper, and his hands clapped together in amusement. “Good,” he chuckled. “Good, good, good. You’re still Adeline Brand. The story I was told made you sound like you were a quivering shadow of your former self.”
I bowed my head. He’d been told that I’d felt fear, that I had seen Arthur die and been captured; and rescued by Kneeling Wolves. “I needed rest,” I replied. “I should have slept before I gave my report. I think I meant to, but everything happened quickly. I saw the master-at-arms before I saw my bed. If it had been the other way around …”
“Well, don’t worry, I can tell you don’t want to tell the tale again. I won’t make you. But of these chaos spawn, we must talk.” He poured tea into two moderately clean cups and set the teapot aside. “Varn Gloom Scribe has been busy in your absence. In truth I believe he was busy long before you left. He’s established quite a following amongst misguided Pure Ones.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “He consorts with Sunken Men and follows their dreaming god. I assume he leaves that out of his preaching?”
“Seems so,” replied Tomas. “Not that it would matter if he didn’t. The Shackles of the Wolf hang heavily, and some would do anything … pledge to anything, just to feel the chains removed. Rys has questioned a hundred and purged a hundred more, and we’re no closer to finding the slippery bastard. We just keep hearing the same thing – he listens to the sea.”
“Why the purge?” I asked. “He was against it before we left.”
“That was before the void … changed.” His eyes darkened, as a film of wyrd caressed his face. Beneath the dark blue shimmer, the old spirit-master had a dozen small wounds across his head and neck. They appeared to be jagged bite marks. “First, the hold spirits began to disappear. A bird here, an elemental there. Then duellists started to go missing, lost somewhere beyond the glass. Then the air began to smell of chaos. It wasn’t a summoning. That would have taken years. It was a binding. More and more arrive each day, no doubt from that charming village at the Bay of Bliss. How many did you see, Adeline?”
I sipped the tea and lost my focus for a moment, staring blankly at the stone wall opposite. I was tired. My body felt heavy and my head rebelled, not wanting to talk or even think.
“Mistress Brand!” snapped Tomas. “I thought we had a problem before. Now I hear that these things can break the glass! That the Mirralite were feeding them Sea Wolf flesh. So, tell me, how many are there?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Too many to count. I only got a good look at them when …”
“When they killed your brother,” offered the spirit-master. “The Adeline Brand I remember would want vengeance, not pity.”
“Fuck off, old man!” I shouted. “You didn’t see them attack. You didn’t see how helpless we were. Against the hybrids, the spirits, and especially the fucking frogs.”
He took a slow sip of tea and stood. “It seems you’ve already accepted defeat. That is disappointing. I’ll see you’re not disturbed until you come to me.” He backed away, allowing his subtle wyrd to again obscure his wounds. “We should probably summon Lord Ulric and his warriors back from Nowhere. Dark Brethren attacked the Dead Horse, you know. The Second Fang is missing.”