The Glass Breaks Read online

  THE GLASS BREAKS

  ALSO BY A.J. SMITH

  The Long War Chronicles

  The Black Guard

  The Dark Blood

  The Red Prince

  The World Raven

  Form and Void

  The Glass Breaks

  THE GLASS BREAKS

  The FORM & VOID Trilogy

  BOOK 1

  A.J. Smith

  www.headofzeus.com

  First published by Head of Zeus in 2019

  Copyright © A.J. Smith, 2019

  The moral right of A.J. Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover design: Estuary English

  Images: Shutterstock / Arcangel

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (HB): 9781786696885

  ISBN (TPB): 9781786696892

  ISBN (E): 9781786696878

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  www.headofzeus.com

  For Carrie

  Maps

  Contents

  Also by A.J. Smith

  Welcome Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Maps

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Part Two

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part Three

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part Four

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part Five

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part Six

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Part Seven

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Part Eight

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Part Nine

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Part Ten

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Appendix

  Acknowledgements

  Appendix

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Prologue

  The man arrived from the distant void, following a dream.

  He turned from the Sunken City and looked again at the Sea of Stars. The battle had finished a few short hours ago, leaving little but the floating remains of countless warships. Thousands upon thousands of bodies bobbed gently in the calm water, waiting to be collected by those beneath. Each time a dead body was pulled below the sea, the man heard a sucking sound, followed by a pop, and the corpse was gone. Sometimes a fishy-crest would break the glassy surface, or a bulbous limb would be visible, but the creatures beneath remained hidden. They collected every sword, axe, shield, piece of armour and plank of wood. They even began disassembling the wrecked boats, though to complete their task would take several days. Eventually, everything would be dragged beneath the Sea of Stars, never again to surface.

  A vast fleet had attacked the Sunken City. That is to say, a vast fleet had tried to attack the Sunken City. They’d been destroyed within sight of it, dying without a single blade being swung. The swift warships had approached at speed, with sails billowing, and ballistae armed and ready. A hundred thousand warriors, maybe more, had sailed a great distance to pick a fight, only to enter a battle they couldn’t win. Those beneath had been waiting, just under the surface. They had strange depth barges of jagged coral and thick, membranous seaweed, able to skewer the hulls of the warships and drag them underwater. Then the sea had boiled, cooking the survivors alive, inside their leather and steel armour. Some had tried to swim ashore, some had clustered together, roaring defiance to quieten the screams, but all had died.

  The man had watched from a cliff, invisible to those below. He didn’t know who they were, or why they’d come south with such ferocity, but he felt the pain of each departing spirit. Despite their defeat, the dead men and women were creatures of power, and they would be missed. Somewhere else in this realm of form was a kingdom to whom this fleet belonged, though that was all the man could sense. He’d arrived only moments before the battle, and was not even sure where he was, only that he’d been pulled to the Sunken City from far away.

  The man stepped back from the cliff and sat against a rock, his eyes flickering between the steaming ocean and the bizarre, cyclopean structures of the Sunken City. The bulk of the metropolis was blessedly obscured beneath the still water, but it was slowly rising, with windowless spires of black stone poking through the water for leagues in every direction. In the centre, dwarfing the surrounding structures, was an immense stone edifice, covered in seaweed and a slick of mouldy green algae. It was a tomb of sorts, though the dead thing within could still dream. It would take decades, perhaps as long as a century, but eventually the Sunken City would be sunken no more. There was certainly enough time for the people of this realm to assemble another fleet. But the man suspected it would meet the same fate as the first. More than that, when the edifice opened, it would unleash primal chaos on the world.

  From along the cliff, he heard footsteps, and turned. He knew nothing of this realm or those that dwelt within it, but he knew he was not in danger, especially not from the old man who approached.

  “I have been waiting for you,” said the old man. He had wrinkled skin of a light brown, and colourful feathers woven into his waist-length grey hair. He belonged to a different order of men to those of the destroyed fleet, with no armour or weaponry. He had nothing but a wooden whistle, tied around his neck. He averted his deep-set eyes, then bowed his head.

  “How did you know I was coming?” was the response. “Does time work differently in this realm?”

  “For some,” said the old man. “For most it begins in the morning and ends in the night. But for the oldest spirits, it works backwards. I have travelled far to greet you, for the great turtle spirits of the Father remember your arrival, and your deeds not yet done.”

  A loud creak sounded from the Sea of Stars. The hull of a warship was split in two and pulled beneath the surface, causing bodies to drift away on the sudden waves.

  “Do your spirits remember this battle?”

  The old man nodded. “In the years to come it will be called the Battle of the Depths, though no tale will recall what truly happened.”

  “Tell me your name.”

  The old man tensed his back and stood as upright as he could. He grasped the collar of his thin canvas shirt and ripped it apart, displaying his skeletal chest and the deep scars that covered it. “I am Ten Cuts, speaker of the Rykalite, and I will be your servant. If you will have me.”

  The man considered it. To accept Ten Cuts would be to accept that he would stay, and care about this realm of men. It would
be easier to leave, travelling back to his hall and ignoring the dreams. “Deeds not yet done,” he said. “What deeds? What do your spirits remember me doing?”

  The speaker of the Rykalite moved past the man and looked at the Sunken City. His eyes widened and his hands began to shake, as his mind recoiled from the impossible spectacle. He was a mortal man with a fragile mind, unable to comprehend what he was looking at. “I have walked for twelve years to greet you,” he replied. “I knew of this place, but thought less of it than I did of you. Now I see both, and you give me less pause.”

  “Answer my question. What deeds?”

  “The spirits tell me only what they tell me,” replied Ten Cuts. “That they have not told me. But they told me Mathias Blood and the Sea Wolves would assemble a fleet and attack the Sunken City … and they did. And they told me you would be here … and you are here.”

  “Why did the fleet attack?” asked the man. “Did they know what they faced?”

  Ten Cuts rubbed his eyes vigorously, as if to scratch the image from his mind, and stepped back from the high cliff. He walked on unsteady feet, to bow before the man. “The fleet set sail as an act of retribution. The Sea Wolves and their Eastron kin are intractable, and far mightier than my people, but they are relative newcomers to this realm and ignorant of its true nature. They thought they were sailing to a great and inevitable victory. As they had done when they first invaded, forming their Kingdom of the Four Claws from the corpse of the Pure Lands.”

  The man stood, mumbling to himself. He reached out as best he could, trying to feel the pulse of the world, but it was dim and erratic. He’d not been here long enough to sense anything of depth or texture. To help the mortals of this realm would be the endeavour of decades, and he could not predict the result.

  He looked at Ten Cuts, assessing his age to be at least seventy years. “Twelve years to walk here, twelve years to walk back,” he mused. “Time may catch up to you before you see your home again.” The man smiled and took a breath of air. “But, if you’re to serve me, I can’t have a trivial thing like old age claiming you. Besides, you have much to tell me, and we have much to do.”

  The Invaders came from across the sea

  They claimed our rock, our fire, our tree

  They followed their Always King and his Claws

  Bringing their steel, their ships, their laws

  They had no gods and they had no fate

  They had void and wyrd and they taught us hate

  They invaded the Father and the Sons

  Killing the Pure Ones

  Traditional song of the Mirralite Pure Ones,

  written after the First Battle of Tranquillity

  Part One

  Duncan Greenfire at the Severed Hand

  1

  I was at peace in the void. There was no pain or anxiety, just the gentle caress of the sea, stretching away from me as a blanket of deep blue. It was the world of spirits, beyond the glass of the real world, and the only place I felt no pain. I’d been here for several hours. Soon, my strength would falter and I’d have to leave the realm of void, returning to the realm of form.

  I wanted to stroll away from the coast, kicking my bare feet through the warm sea water and the dancing spirits within, but I couldn’t move. However peaceful I found the void, I couldn’t forget that, in the real world, I was tied to a wooden post by the wrists and ankles, half-submerged in freezing cold water. I’d broken the glass and stepped to the void when the brackish water had reached my chin. The tide would have receded by now, but the temperature would only have gotten worse. I closed my eyes and took a last long breath of pure air, before letting myself slip back through the glass.

  I immediately howled in pain. In the real world, night was turning back to day and I could no longer feel my hands or feet. The black sea water was neither gentle nor warm, and the stinging wind forced my eyes to close. I howled again, as my bare chest and face were enveloped by oncoming waves. The water churned, broken only by the rocks of the Bay of Grief, forming a horseshoe around my wooden pole.

  “I am a Sea Wolf. I am Eastron from across the sea.” It was barely a grunt, but I said it again and again, until my throat was dry and sore. I coughed out sea water and phlegm, retching between heavy breaths.

  The rocks around me were muddy green, mottled with seaweed and algae, and high enough to block my view of the hold. But there was no-one waiting for me above and there had been no sound for hours. A day and a night is a long time to wait, and no-one would return until my time was up. I could have drowned yesterday, and my body would not be retrieved until the proper time. Only a Sea Wolf, with strong wyrd, able to stay in the void for hours at a time, could stop from drowning and survive the ordeal. Though no-one expected me to survive.

  I retched again and shook my head. I could barely open my eyes wide enough to see the air before me, let alone focus sufficiently to break the glass. My strength was gone. I’d used up every ounce of my wyrd to stay alive. I couldn’t stop the water rising and I couldn’t travel to the void. My only option was to hope that they’d release me before I drowned.

  The sun was rising, but only slowly. They’d be back soon. They’d pull me out and I’d be a Sea Wolf. Like my brother, my father, my grandfather and grandmother, like every Greenfire since the Years of Ice. Perhaps everything would be better. Perhaps my pain would end and I’d be free.

  “You alive down there?” asked Taymund Grief, appearing on the rocks above me, just as I began to contemplate my death.

  “Please, help me,” I spluttered. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m so tired.”

  Two more shapes appeared, creating three silhouettes. There was a nasty chuckle from Arthur Brand, but a warm smile from the pup-master. They’d have both reckoned on my death, but had different reactions to my survival.

  “You’re alive, young Duncan,” said Mefford, the pup-master. “Your wyrd is strong, even if your body’s weak. Taymund, pull him out. Try to be gentle.”

  The young duellist was over six feet tall and his shoulders were almost twice as wide as mine. He crouched and sliced his cutlass down through my restraints, making me fall, weakly, into the ice-cold water. His hairy hands then roughly grabbed me by the arms and hefted me backwards. I wore loose woollen leggings, tucked into heavy sailing boots, but was bare-chested and freezing cold. Leaving the water, to cough pathetically on the stone shore, was a massive shock to the system, making my muscles tighten and my lungs empty of air.

  “The last man of your age to take the rite drowned the first evening,” said Mefford. “Seventeen is too young. Though, for certain families, tradition disagrees. Now, put a blanket over him.”

  I was too tired to respond. I rocked into a foetal position on the cold rocks, as Arthur Brand reluctantly covered me with a thick, woollen blanket. I grasped it with shivering hands, letting the fabric hug my wet skin. I panted, then coughed, then whimpered. I had no dignity left, and to pretend so would accomplish nothing. But I was still alive. I’d proven my father wrong, and I would be a Sea Wolf after all. I’d proven everyone wrong.

  I clenched my fists, slowed my breathing, and started to laugh. I wanted to raise my head and shout fuck you all to the world, but I just laughed. It was enough for now.

  “If you can laugh, you can stand,” said the pup-master. “There is one more thing to do.”

  They gathered around me. “Your wyrd is strong, boy,” said Arthur Brand, a seasoned duellist of the Severed Hand. “Do you have enough left to break the glass? Or do you need me to carry you?”

  I stopped laughing and rubbed my eyes. I wasn’t strong enough. I didn’t want him to know it, but I’d used all my wyrd. For at least the next few hours, until I’d had a chance to rest, I would be just a normal man, with no wellspring of spiritual energy to set me apart.

  Mefford grunted. “Did you have enough when we fished you out? Duncan survived the rite. He’s not a pup anymore. He’s a Sea Wolf, and he’ll be tested no more today. You can take him thr
ough the glass, Master Brand.”

  Arthur Brand straightened his stained sea cloak and crouched next to me. He was in his late twenties, perhaps thirty, with black hair and a hard face. He and his twin sister, Adeline, were senior duellists and children of the Battle Brand, elder of Last Port. They’d most recently returned from pillaging Dark Brethren merchants in the Inner Sea. Like most Sea Wolves, he was much larger than me and wore ship-leathers, bonded with steel plates and fitted to the contours of his body.

  I sat up on the rocks and faced him, extending my arms and letting him help me to my feet. “How old were you when you took the rite?” I asked him, already knowing the answer.

  “Nineteen,” he replied. “My surname is not Greenfire, Blood, or Red Claw, so I have to wait my turn. Only privileged little pricks like you get to die at seventeen.”

  “Too young,” repeated Mefford, with a shake of his head. “But still, he survived the rite. Now, let’s bind him to the Severed Hand.”

  Mefford and Taymund took a step towards the water, with Arthur moving me into line, facing the Bay of Grief. Each head went back, and each set of eyes turned a crisp white as we broke the glass. Arthur’s hand on my shoulder pulled me with him, and an intense feeling of dislocation followed as we stepped to the void.

  The four of us stood on shimmering blue rock. The void-air was clear, and caressed my throat as I took deep breaths. The hazy vista of the Bay of Grief now seemed benign, as if I’d survived its torments and was now immune. Even the Outer Sea, flowing away over the horizon, was calm and flowed only gently.

  Everything was crisper in the void. The colours were more vibrant, the sounds more acute. The rocks and waves appeared alive, dancing in the glassy air, somehow larger and more defined than in the real world. Nothing dead or artificial existed beyond the glass, just life and the endless tide of spirit and wyrd. Buildings disappeared, roads and walls were nothing but subtle veins of form. It took practice to interpret the language of the void, to read the signs from the real world and orient yourself. But, above all, it was treacherous, and we were taught never to wander far from what we knew.