The Glass Breaks, page 13
The Old Bitch of the Sea stopped before the old man, and I sensed that she had lowered herself into a crouch on the rocky beach.
“My name is Ten Cuts,” said the Pure One, removing the whistle from his lips. “Your wyrd is powerful, young Invader. We will answer your questions, and those of this Lady of the Quarter.”
With a grumble, and a subtle gnash of her teeth, the spectral wolf told me what to say. “How does the sea rise?” I asked, not understanding the question. “We know it will rise. We have felt it in black tides of the void. Every ebb and flow speaks of an end. And then … nothing but chaos.” I could feel the distress of the totem. She was terrified of something she knew. Something she remembered, from a time long before the Eastron invaded. She feared it had returned. Whatever it was, however the question was answered, she wanted me to know. She wanted me to bear witness.
I gasped and the wolf growled, as a pale spectre passed across our field of vision. The image ghosted behind Ten Cuts, looking at me with indistinct, pink eyes. Whoever he was, he appeared to walk in and out of the moonlight, never staying still long enough for me to get a clear look.
The old man blew his whistle again, holding the note, and my fingertips began to tingle with wyrd. “Tell me, young Invader,” said Ten Cuts. “Know you of the great turtle spirits of the Father? It is said that they see history backwards. The Rykalite have ever revered them as agents of prophecy. Mightier, in their own way, than even the Lords and Ladies of the Quarter.”
The Old Bitch of the Sea curled around me on the rocks, letting me feel her fur against the back of my neck. The ancient sea spirit was impatient, and she made me impatient. “How does the sea rise?” I repeated.
As if prepared to answer my question, the shadowy figure reappeared, moving slower now and allowing me to see the outline of wide shoulders, within a black robe. Ten Cuts didn’t acknowledge him, and slowly returned the spirit-whistle to his lips. “We will show you what we have shown others,” he whispered. “What we have shown Marius Cyclone and Xavyer Ice. Witness what has happened before … and what will happen again.”
The pale man moved his shadowy arms in the air, weaving an irregular circle, and I left the beach. At least my mind did. I was enveloped in a blanket of wyrd. Or was it wyrd? It was certainly power, but not filtered through any recognizable prism. It was raw and unfiltered, and showed me the outline of an enormous sea turtle, perched in the waters of the void. It was three or four times larger than the Old Bitch of the Sea, but there was nothing hostile or war-like in its countenance.
I closed my eyes, knowing that both Twist and the totem were with me. When I opened them, I stood on a high cliff, next to an unfamiliar coastline. On one side was a glittering ocean, as calm as a glass of water; on the other was a sprawling city of impossible construction. Bizarre angles joining strange surfaces and illogical platforms, it was half-submerged in the still water, and crawling with bulbous, frog-like creatures. In the centre, towering over all within sight, was an immense set of grey doors, etched in silvery markings of intertwined spiral designs. Around the doors was a giant, stone edifice, draped in a thick layer of seaweed and dripping with slimy water. The doors were five times taller than the Wolf House, and half of Moon Rock would have fit within the huge building.
“You’ll want to look away,” said Ten Cuts. “Try not to. You may one day have to describe what you saw. Remember, or you’ll have to look again.”
The doors moved outwards. Gradually at first, they creaked and threw forth a mist of fetid air. Then they were flung open and something emerged from the darkness beyond. A mountainous form walked or stumbled forwards, its ankles scratching through seaweed and salty water, to reach the open air. The light of three aligned stars shone across its bulbous form, and I saw flabby arms and legs of immense proportion, dripping with sickly fluids. The head was swept backwards and a mass of pulpy tentacles reached from the face.
As it limped from the door, straightening to its full immensity, the sea rose, forming tidal waves that eclipsed the city and the landscape, yet barely reaching the shins of the enormous creature. Small, polypous creatures fell from its body, as toothy, tentacled amoebas, shrugged off with every movement of its titanic form. Then the earth churned, and chunks of rock and soil fell into the sky. Each of its strides was as wide as the Severed Hand, and whatever its webbed feet touched they destroyed.
“It cannot be fought,” said Ten Cuts. “It cannot be reasoned with. It is an Old One from before time as you understand it. It ruled this world before the mountains rose and the continents formed. It has been dead, but dreaming, in its Sunken City, until the stars are right. For, at the right time, even death can die.”
Then jutting pillars of jagged lava penetrated the surface of the ocean. The water boiled and the forests caught fire, sending waves of smoke and ash into the air. I saw man-made structures shaken to pieces, with chunks of stone and masonry falling into the sky. The land itself fell from the earth and tumbled upwards. Mountains cracked, lakes boiled, mortal creatures were turned into dust, and an era of pure chaos began. All that remained was the sea, rising higher and higher, until it broke as a wave of absolute despair.
Greenfire must let his wyrd shine. Greenfire must honour us all. The Sunken City awakens. I return to my den. Must find Alpha Wolf. She will lead fight back. There is no time. Need time to save Eastron.
The Impurity Wars lasted nine years
And thousands of Pure Ones died.
The great cull of Nibonay lasted three months
And thousands of Pure Ones died.
The Second Battle of Tranquillity lasted two hours
And thousands of Pure Ones died.
If nothing else, the Invaders are getting more efficient.
From “Nine Years, Three Months,
Two Hours: a meditation”
by Heart Song, Speaker of the Nissalite
Part Four
Adeline Brand in the Mirralite Reservation
10
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.”
