The wind in the high passes held a different voice than the one that screamed through Blackcliff's valleys. Here, above the tree line, it was a cleaner, sharper thing, singing a single, relentless note over bare rock and scree. It carried the scent of ice and vast, empty distances. To William, riding at the head of two hundred of his best riders, it felt like breathing truth—a cold, unwelcome truth that stripped away the illusion of control.
They had been climbing for three days, leaving the ordered world of keeps and roads behind. The trail to Moon's Tears was a goat path, a series of switchbacks etched into the face of the world by millennia of water and stubborn life. The horses labored, their breath pluming in the thin air. The men, chosen for their endurance and loyalty, spoke little. The scale of the landscape imposed a humbling silence.
William's mind, however, was a churn of calculations. He had left Blackcliff under the joint stewardship of Jonas Hiller and Captain Brann, with strict, secret orders. Hiller was to manage the logistics and continue the political dance with the imprisoned dukes. Brann was to hold the walls and, crucially, to send a fast rider the moment any sign of movement was detected from Ferdinand's promised archers—or from the south. The trust he placed in them was absolute, and therefore terrifying. He had taken the kingdom's brain and its strongest sword with him into the mountains, leaving its heart guarded by a merchant and a soldier.
On the evening of the third day, they reached the rendezvous. Moon's Tears was not a valley, but a colossal gouge in the mountainside, a half-circle amphitheater of jagged black rock that cupped a chain of small, ice-fed lakes. According to legend, a goddess had wept here for a fallen mortal lover, and her tears had frozen into these deep, piercingly blue pools. The air was so clear it felt brittle.
And the wolves were there.
They made no effort to conceal their presence. Fires burned in a dozen scattered clusters along the shores of the lakes, the smoke rising straight up in the still, cold air. There were no tents, only lean-tos of hide and woven branches. The clansmen watched the royal column's approach with a still, predatory quiet. They did not hail their new allies. They assessed them.
Morwen emerged from the largest group by the central lake. She wore a coat of grey wolf pelts, the head of the beast forming a cowl around her fierce face. She looked William's tired, trail-stained company up and down.
"You brought fewer than I expected, Stone King," she said, her voice carrying easily in the thin air. "And you look like men who sleep under roofs."
"Roofs are comfortable," William replied, dismounting. His legs ached. "But they make men soft. We are here to remember how to be hard."
A faint grunt, which might have been approval, came from one of the clansmen behind her. Morwen's flinty eyes flickered. "Come. We will talk. Your men can make camp there," she pointed to a bare, stony flat near the entrance to the amphitheater. It was exposed and windy. A test.
William nodded to his captain, a man named Arlen, who began barking orders. He followed Morwen to her fire. They did not sit on logs, but on folded hides laid upon the rock. A haunch of mountain goat roasted over the flames. Morwen carved a piece with her belt knife and offered it to him, handle first. Another test.
He took it and ate. The meat was tough, gamy, and delicious. He said nothing, waiting.
"Your man Brann spoke of a hunt," Morwen said after a time, wiping grease from her chin. "A hunt for the Norse king in these mountains. This is a different song than raiding fat riverlands."
"It is the same hunt," William said. "Harald is the head of the beast. Cut it off, the body writhes, but dies. He is coming here, into the eastern peaks. He seeks a prize that would make him unassailable."
"The woman. Your sister."
"Yes."
Morwen stared into the fire. "My wolves know these mountains. All of them. But the east… those are the Sunless Peaks. Old places. Angry spirits. The stone is rotten, full of caves that go down to blackness. Men get lost there, even without an enemy hunting them."
"Harald will have a guide. Someone from the lowlands who knows the paths." William thought of Glenshaw's network, shattered but perhaps not destroyed.
"Then we must be the storm that blinds the guide," Morwen said, a fierce light entering her eyes. "We do not meet him on a path. We meet him where there are no paths. We become the mountain itself." She leaned forward. "But you must understand, Stone King. This is not your war of lines on a map. This is a wolf's war. We will not stand in a shield wall on some high pass. We will separate him from his men. We will whisper in the rocks to drive them mad. We will kill his sentries and leave no mark. We will starve his spirit before we break his body."
William felt a profound dislocation. This was a form of warfare utterly alien to him. It was arithmetic of a different order: calculating not the supply of arrows, but the erosion of courage; not the strength of walls, but the weakness of the mind in deep darkness.
"I understand," he said, and the words felt inadequate. "My men are yours to direct in this. They know discipline. They can hold a position, or charge on command. But they do not know… wolf-craft."
Morwen nodded. "Good. You do not pretend to knowledge you lack. We will teach them what they need. The first lesson is silence." She raised her voice, calling out to the surrounding darkness. "Kael! Bryn!"
Two figures detached themselves from the shadows. One was a young man, barely more than a boy, with eyes that missed nothing. The other was a woman of middle years, her face a web of fine scars, her hands large and capable. "These are two of my best hunters. For the next two days, your men will not see them. Nor will yours. They will move through your camp, among your sentries. If they can touch your commanders without being caught, you fail. If they steal something from your person, Stone King, you fail."
William looked at the two clanspeople. They seemed to melt into the rock even as he watched. "And if we succeed?"
Morwen smiled her wolf-smile. "Then you might survive the Sunless Peaks."
The next forty-eight hours were a humbling ordeal. William's camp, professional and alert, became a place of paranoia. Men jumped at shadows. A perfectly secured water skin would go missing. A guardsman would turn to find a crude charm of woven grass hanging from his belt. William himself awoke from a brief, cold sleep to find a smooth, river-worn stone placed in the palm of his gloved hand. No one had seen or heard a thing.
On the second night, as a bitter wind knifed through the camp, the young hunter, Kael, simply walked into the circle of firelight where William and his captains were reviewing a rough map. He held out the silver clasp that had been securing William's cloak.
A murmur of shock and chagrin rippled through the captains. William took the clasp. "How?"
Kael shrugged. "You watch the dark beyond the fire. You do not watch the dark within it." He pointed to the shifting shadows between the seated men. "You listen for steps on stone. You do not listen for breath held in time with the wind." He looked at William, his young face serious. "The Norse will be louder than you. But their king will have hunters like us. You must be quieter than quiet."
It was a devastating, invaluable lesson. William's respect for Morwen and her people deepened from political necessity to something akin to awe. They were not just savage allies; they were masters of a realm he had only ever visited as an intruder.
On the morning of the third day, as a pale sun tried to warm the frozen stone, a rider arrived from Blackcliff. It was one of Brann's men, lathered with haste. He brought two messages.
The first was from Brann: "Ferdinand's archers have taken position in the southern foothills as promised. No movement from the south. Daerlon is quiet. Maurice requests more books on theology. Hiller reports the merchants are nervous but holding. All is… waiting."
The second was from Jonas Hiller, his script tight and efficient. It contained a copied passage from a report bought from a Greyport spice trader with contacts in Riverton. It was a list of supplies requisitioned by Harald's retinue before they departed the city: "Standard trail rations for fifty men for one month. Extra coils of hempen rope, iron pitons, cold-weather gear. Two local guides, brothers named Hodge and Marl, trappers known to work the Sunless Peaks. And one item of note: a locked chest, small but heavy, carried by Harald's personal skald. The guide, Hodge, was drunk and boasting that the chest contained 'the key to a king's bedchamber.'"
William's blood turned to ice in his veins. The key to a king's bedchamber. It could be a metaphor. Or it could be literal. A key to a specific door. Elyse's safe house, her mountain fastness, was supposedly a secret. But Glenshaw had known of it. Had he provided more than just a warning about a tunnel?
He showed the report to Morwen. She read it, her lips moving silently over the words. "Hodge and Marl," she spat. "Gutless weasels. They will sell their own mother for a silver coin. They know the caves, yes. But they know nothing of the true mountains. They stick to the game trails." She looked up, her eyes gleaming. "This is good. We know his number. Fifty. We know his tools. Rope and pitons mean he plans to climb, not just hike. And we know his guides are cowards. Cowards in the deep dark are dangerous… but they can be turned."
"Can we intercept them? Before they reach… wherever they are going?"
Morwen shook her head."The Sunless Peaks are a maze. They could already be within them. But we know their destination."
"Do we?"
"You said he seeks your sister.Where is she?"
William hesitated.Elyse's last location was her most closely guarded secret. But to wage this war, he had to spend his secrets. "A place called Aerie's Hold. A hunting lodge built into a spire of rock, east and north of here. Accessible only by a single narrow causeway, or by a treacherous climb up the eastern face."
Morwen's eyebrows rose."I know of this place. The Eagles' Pillar, we call it. A dead-end for climbers. A good nest for a hawk." She stood, energy coursing through her. "Then we do not intercept. We converge. We let the weasels lead the raven to the nest. And we are there when he arrives, with his ropes stretched thin and his men looking at the heights. We will be the avalanche he does not see coming."
The plan took shape with a speed that disoriented William's methodical mind. Morwen dispatched swift runners—clansmen who could cover ground like ghosts—to scout the likely approaches to the Eagles' Pillar. She integrated William's men into her own bands, not as separate units, but as extra spears and bows under the direction of her clan leaders. The royal soldiers, chastened by their lessons in stealth, adapted with a soldier's pragmatism.
They broke camp at moonrise, moving not as an army, but as a pack. There were no banners, no drums. They flowed into the deeper mountains, following routes known only to the clans. William walked beside Morwen, his world reduced to the next handhold, the next shadowy defile. The arithmetic of kingship was gone. In its place was a simpler, more primal calculus: the burn in his lungs, the grip of his boots on frost-slick rock, the position of the cold, bright stars wheeling overhead.
After two nights of grueling travel, they reached the outskirts of the Sunless Peaks. The name proved apt. Even by day, the light was muted, filtered through a perpetual haze that clung to the sheer, gloomy cliffs. The rock was a somber grey, streaked with black. Gorges dropped away into echoing nothingness. The wind here didn't sing; it moaned through countless fissures and caves.
One of Morwen's scouts, a woman named Anya, appeared soundlessly beside them as they sheltered in a shallow cave. Her report was whispered directly to Morwen, who translated for William.
"Harald's party was sighted. They are on the eastern approach, as predicted. Moving slower than expected. The guides are arguing. The Norse are impatient. They have made camp in the 'Giant's Cup,' a half-day's climb from the base of the Eagles' Pillar."
Morwen's teeth flashed in the gloom. "The Cup is a trap of its own making. One way in, one way out, and the walls have ears. We will be those ears tonight."
That night, William experienced the wolf-war firsthand. He went with Morwen and a handful of her best, including the scarred woman, Bryn. They left their weapons behind, carrying only knives and bags of a fine, grey powder made from crushed rock and ash.
They crept to the rim of the Giant's Cup, a vast, natural bowl in the mountain. Below, the glow of Norse campfires was clearly visible. The figures were small, ant-like. The sound of their voices, deep and foreign, echoed weirdly up the stone walls.
For hours, they did nothing but watch and listen. William learned to distinguish the voices: Harald's, a commanding bass; the skald's, more melodic; the whining complaints of the two trapper guides. He saw the locked chest, placed near Harald's own bedroll.
Then, as the moon reached its zenith, Morwen nodded. They began to move the powder, pouring it in slow, careful streams into specific cracks and chimneys in the rock above the camp. Bryn used a hollow reed to blow gentle puffs of air into other fissures.
At first, nothing happened. Then, a low, groaning whisper seemed to rise from the stone itself, a sound like a mountain sighing in its sleep. It grew, merging with the wind, forming words that were not quite words: "Go baaaaack… Deaaaaath heeeeere… Turn awaaaaay…"
In the camp below, silence fell, then a clamor of alarm. William saw men leap to their feet, peering into the darkness, hands on their weapons. The guides, Hodge and Marl, were visibly terrified, pointing and gibbering. The whispers, amplified and distorted by the natural stone acoustics, swirled around them, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere.
Harald strode to the center of the camp, his head high. He shouted something in Norse, a challenge to the unseen. But his men's nerves were frayed. The psychological assault had found its mark. They would sleep little tonight, and their morale would be gnawed at by ancient fear.
As they retreated from the rim, William looked at Morwen with new understanding. This was her arithmetic: the calculus of fear. It was, in its own way, as precise and devastating as any ledger of grain or gold.
The following day, they stalked Harald's party as it resumed its climb, now visibly more tense and watchful. The clansmen shadowed them from above, dislodging small, careful rockfalls that forced the Norse into more difficult terrain, exhausting them further. By the time Harald's group reached the base of the Eagles' Pillar in the late afternoon, they were weary and jumpy.
The Pillar was a breathtaking sight: a single, slender fist of rock punching a thousand feet into the sky, separated from the main massif by a deep, narrow chasm. The stone causeway connecting them was little more than a natural arch, three feet wide at its narrowest. On the far side, the walls of the Pillar rose sheer, but with ledges and cracks that formed a daunting but climbable route. Partway up, barely visible, was the dark slit of Aerie's Hold's entrance.
Harald's party gathered at the near end of the causeway. William, Morwen, and their combined force watched from concealed positions among the boulders on the main cliff. They were close enough to see Harald's face, a strong, bearded visage etched with determination and impatience. He was conferring with his skald and the two guides, who were pointing at the climb.
"He will send a small group across first," Morwen whispered. "To secure the climb and the entrance. He will stay here with the bulk of his men until the way is clear."
She was right. Harald selected ten of his best climbers. They slung ropes and iron, and with the two trappers leading, began to edge across the terrifying causeway. The wind here was a bully, shoving at their backs. One man froze, his face white, and had to be coaxed across by his comrades.
William's hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. This was the moment. They could rain arrows down on the men on the causeway, slaughter them. But that would alert Harald, who would retreat with the majority of his force. They needed him committed.
The climbers reached the base of the Pillar and began their ascent. They were skilled, moving with a confident, practiced rhythm. They hammered pitons, secured ropes. It was a brutal, physical chess game played against gravity.
As the lead climber was within twenty feet of the entrance slit, a figure appeared in it. A woman. Even at this distance, William knew her posture, the set of her shoulders. Elyse. She held no weapon. She simply looked down at the climbers, her expression unreadable from this distance.
Harald, watching from the far side, took a step forward onto the causeway, drawn by the sight. This was it. The bait was taken.
Morwen touched William's arm and pointed. Following her gesture, he saw Bryn and a dozen other clansmen, who had somehow, impossibly, crossed the chasm further down where it narrowed, and were now like spiders on the far wall of the Pillar itself, above the climbing Norsemen. They had not used ropes. They had simply climbed.
In a synchronized, silent motion, they levered at a large, precariously balanced flake of rock with iron rods. With a crack that echoed like thunder, the entire section of rock sheared away from the face and plunged downward.
It did not hit the climbers directly. It smashed into the cliff face just above them, shattering into a hail of deadly fragments and obliterating the ropes and pitons they had placed. The climbers were sent scrambling, clinging to the rock by their fingertips as debris rained around them. One lost his grip and fell, his scream cut short by the impact far below.
Chaos erupted. On the causeway, Harald roared in fury. On the Pillar, the remaining climbers were stranded, their route destroyed.
And from the entrance, Elyse raised her arm. Not in welcome. In signal.
From hidden openings on the Pillar's face, lower down, a volley of arrows hissed out. Not from clansmen, but from men in the livery of Aerie's Hold. Elyse's own guard. They had been waiting. They targeted the stranded climbers with lethal efficiency.
Harald, realizing the trap was sprung, began to bellow orders to retreat from the causeway. But as he turned, he found his way blocked.
William and Morwen's main force now revealed themselves, rising from the boulders to stand shoulder-to-shoulder at the entrance to the causeway on the main cliff. They held not just swords, but spears and axes, a solid wall of sharpened steel.
Harald was caught. Half his elite climbers were dead or doomed on the Pillar. He and his remaining forty men were trapped on a narrow stone arch with a deadly drop on either side, facing a hostile force that held the only exit.
William stepped forward, to the very edge of the solid ground. The wind tore at his clothes. He looked at Harald, twenty paces away across the dizzying gap. The Norse king's face was a mask of rage and thwarted ambition.
"Harald Blood-Raven!" William called, his voice carried by the wind. "You came for a throne! You found a cliff! Your alliance with fanatics is ash! Your guide to my sister's door is broken! This is where your saga ends! Not in a great hall, but in the cold, on a stone too narrow to stand upon!"
Harald's hand went to the great axe at his belt. His eyes burned with a hatred so pure it was almost beautiful. He saw not just William, but the ruin of his carefully woven plan. The marriage, the legitimacy, the united kingdom—all ending here, in this godforsaken crack in the world.
He drew his axe. He would charge. It was the only move left in his saga.
And William, the Forge King, the calculator turned warlord, raised his own sword. The arithmetic was finally simple. It was not a sum of grain or gold. It was a subtraction of two men on a bridge, with only one result possible. The cold numbers of the mountain had spoken.