Henry Drax is a harpooner with an insatiable thirst for blood. Both board the Volunteer, a whaling ship setting out from Hull to hunt for blubber in the Arctic Circle. As they head north, the secondary purpose of the expedition unfolds together with the cataclysmic depravity of Drax’s nature. Can Sumner, lost in the grips of a laudanum addiction and feelings of deep emptiness, fight against Drax and find his way through the winter and home?