The urge to go out and do something to help my brother was strong, but I had to reign myself in. I had laid out a plan and it would help nobody if I now strayed from the path. But my restlessness showed, especially when it came to my training and learning regime.

The Betrayer taught me his cool and controlled fighting style, and it was nigh impossible for me to hold myself back and not lash out. The Betrayer was not only controlled, he was a luring, trap laying son of a bitch, which created openings for himself by feigning the slightest weaknesses in his stance, only to surprise me with a maneuver I had not expected this long a sword to be able to do.

It was all in the tiniest twists and turns of the sword. And I saw the value of fighting without emotional involvement, a concept that so completely was against the way I had fought before, I might as well have never wielded a sword before.

Frustration carried over into the evenings I spent with the tomes of the golem maker, another enterprise requiring a clear mind and a cool approach. No amount of rushing would unveil the mysteries of the creation of Skills for me, quite the contrary.

Where I failed to glean much of any actual information from the writings of the golem maker, I at least learned to handle the Skill [Decipher the Ancient Truth] better, the more I time spent on the impressions and swirling fractals that assaulted my senses.

It was possible to somewhat follow the intent of the author on each given page to a subdued, hazy relating knowledge, that had informed the page I was currently reading. It was like an index of an encyclopedia, only without substance, references, or proper editing. But I could scrounge together little nuggets of knowledge I needed to understand the page I was currently studying, and that was a big help, as I no longer stood in a foreign ocean of information, but could follow q train of thought and understand parts of it.

In a way it might even be a better way to study the tomes than reading it in the language of the writer would have been, because I might have to work more for the information, but there was no chance of misinterpreting the author.

Skills, it turned out, were fixed constructs funneling energy and affecting reality. That much was clear. But the golem maker dissected these constructs and rearranged them, mainly to adapt and integrate them into the golems he had built. I could not imagine that man to be a mortal. Zero was sentient, I was sure of it. No mortal could create life like that, surely.

And yet the creator had been killed by a crumbling ceiling burying him under bricks and rocks. A Twice-Born able to bring metal to life would not have been that vulnerable, would he?

In principle, the fractals that formed a Skill, mortal or not, were a language that described what the energy would do. Only it was not a language but, with the right tools, something tangible. Something a Skillsmith could work on. It was as much knowledge as it was a craft to learn. The golem maker described in detail how important it was to have the right tools, but there had been nothing in his chest that fit the occasion.

I might have not learned enough, but I understood one thing from the thoughts of the writer. The system was bad at handing out Skills. Even the difference between mortals and godlings was the simple ability to choose what to buy. And now I had learned that even the Skills were hit or miss. They could be inefficient or plain useless. True power was hidden in the refining and combining of existing Skills, maybe even creating them yourself.

When I had enough of it, I often traveled to the Fulcrum, browsing the Skilltraders, looking for my acquaintances with no luck. The place had lost some of its magic to me and it felt more natural being there, despite the exotic sights to see.

I had made a few more sales with the secret of the Dragon of Darkness over the last days, but soon the well would dry up when the knowledge had spread enough to not be a secret anymore. I was glad to have made a couple of hundred Shards with the information before it was too late, though.

I could not bring myself to buy more basic Skills from the traders, now that I knew what I knew. No, I needed something else. I paid the price it took to write a notice on the notice board and asked for a meeting with a Skillsmith. I wanted to learn firsthand.

Nothing happened. Until it did.

Torches illuminated the night, flickering in the howling winds hunting over the top of the Needle. The days had passed, as any did, and the moment had finally come. Cold crept under the coats and mantles of those present, not many had made the way up the narrow path, considering the weather and the time of day, but the slim sliver of rock at the top was filled with people.

I stood foremost among them, stemming myself against the wind, leaning on the bare blade of Kingsbane. I watched them come over the rope bridge connecting the Needle with the Broken Lands. They have had time to collect themselves at a small camp on the other side, waiting for nightfall to come, before they were called upon, walking along the way flanked by the torches.

The knights that had made it. Not everyone had returned. Four lost their lives in the Broken Lands, two of which we had no knowledge of what happened. The other two slipped and fell.

Twenty-one had made it. I had not seen them yet, but Grim had told me about a hunted and wild look in their eyes as they had stumbled out of the wilderness to the camps of the [Hunters]. I saw nothing of the look now, as the first one crossed the bridge and stood before me.

Gideon, good old Gideon, his long hair tousled by the wind, knelt down in front of me, but his eyes locked onto mine. Not in a challenge, but in determination, showing no signs of the insecurity I had seen him display before.

“I, the Raven, and the people of Ravenport embrace you in warm welcome.“ I said to him, again relying on my Skill [Aura of Authority] and what I had learned from Cogar when it came to speaking with gravitas. “May all your endeavors be as successful as your first foray into the Wyld. By the power given to me by the people of Ravenport and the Wanderer, I Hannibal Raven lay upon your shoulder the burden to protect Ravenport.“ I brandished Kingsbane above him and touched his shoulders with the tip of the blade.

“May this be the last strike you receive unanswered. Arise, Sir Gideon, arise as a Free Knight of the Wyld.“

I smiled at him, genuinely happy to see the lines on his face soften up. Something fell off his shoulders as he straightened before me, trying to contain his grin, as he turned to the people present, receiving his due cheer. He was guided away toward the Wreckage, where we had a feast prepared, the fires loaded heavily with meat and fish for the advent of the knights.

The others came one by one, 21 proud Free Knights of the Wyle arose in front of me after I had knighted them and were taken in by the people of Ravenport. It was a short and sweet ceremony, honestly, torchlight at night was all the atmosphere needed to exalt the moment, but it was also true to what we were.

We had no halls, no bards or musicians, no fanfares or horses, just hardy men and women surviving and braving the Wyld. Everything else would have been wrong.

I hoped I had done right by them, but judging the stupid grins they wore, when they were clapped on the shoulders and dragged to the feast, they would not mind the rustic and short ceremony.

The Feast was a roaring success, as we had plundered every bit of rum scavenged from the wrecked and taken ships, one of those resources that we had plenty of. Looking back, it was the first true night of song and dance, fires, and food in Ravenport. A night to remember.

I found myself sitting across the fire from Sir Gideon, whose cheeks had reddened under the heat of the flame we shuffled closer and closer to in trying to combat the falling temperatures in our backs, and the rum in his tankard, empty more often than not.

Rum was not among my favorite beverages, and I was not keen on alcohol in general, but in a night this windy and cold, there was no warming the belly like drinking the drink of choice of seamen and sailors. They knew best, after all.

“I find myself at a loss of words,“ Gideon said broadly with a heavy mouth, alcohol numbing his tongue, “to describe the night we spent at the Isle of Fate with the Song of the Wyld in our thoughts. There is no way to describe it.“

“I have heard the Song, Sir Gideon, and I almost lost my mind.“

He shook his head. “It was nothing like that, my lord. I don‘t remember much, but in the end, I felt like waking up from a dream. A good one. And, “ he looked at me as if to see if I already was thinking he had lost his mind in truth, regardless, “I felt accepted. We have spoken, the others and I, after the night was over. We all felt the same. And look!“

He pulled back the sleeve of his shirt, and there, on the upper part of his arm, was a somewhat neat circle, broken up by three lines, of different color and texture, like the thick hide of a bigger animal.

“We all are marked like this. Well, similar to this. Marked by the Wyld.“ He mumbled. Then his eyes lit up again. “And after you knighted me tonight, my lord, in fact, all of us, we all received an additional Skill! [Brothers in Spirit] it is called - and I gained the class [Free Knight of the Wyld]! We all received different Skills from the first level in the class, but we all share the [Brothers in Spirit] Skill. I still cannot believe what has happened to me.“

“What you deserve, Gideon. It happened to you because you fought for it. And the Skill is the foundation of the order, a symbol of what you are and how you can take on the world.“

He shook his head. “I gained a class in three days and two Skills. That is just not done. It is impossible.“

“Is it? Or is it just the next impossible thing in the list of impossible things that has happened to you, with you still prevailing at the end, standing proud? A knight even.“

“I don‘t know. Last year I stood next to a wooden gate, collecting taxes and looking for cutpurses. Now I am a knight, a refugee and a survivor in a world I don‘t understand anymore. But I will. That much I have learned. That I will learn...am I making sense?“

I laughed now, clapping his shoulder over the fire. “I am glad you feel this way, Sir Gideon, first among equals. Have I mentioned that you are the first Lord Commander of the Order of the Wyld?“

He groaned, to his credit he quickly hid the sound, but his eyes betrayed him.

“And that, Sir Gideon, is the last time I will meddle with the order. It is free, after all, even from me. The rest is yours to shape. But, from now on till the end of Ravenport, I bequeath the Needle, base and all, to the Order. It is not much now, barely more than a giant rock,“ I forcefully turned him around, so he could see the trail of torches running along the sides of the mountain. “but it will be. It is bridge and border of Ravenport as it stands, and yours to protect and build a home for the Order of the Wyld on.“

I slept like a baby. An anxious baby ready to leave the Wreckage to quest for the mysterious creatures guarding the secrets of the Wyld, but a baby nonetheless.

The next day we left - Kara, Grim, and I - with a small boat rowed by a couple of men bringing us across the mists of the bay, the sun barely having risen up above the horizon.