Gail Martin - The Sworn

Asmarr pointed to the trees, and brought his hands down through the air, fingers moving.

“He’s coming back when the leaves fall,” Cam said. “Damn! I wish Tris Drayke were here to interpret. I hate guessing games.” He bit his lip as he thought. “Maybe we can make it expensive for him.”

He looked up to see Asmarr watching him. “Will you let me pass now that I’ve seen what you wanted to show me?”

Asmarr nodded. Cam shouldered past the ghost, and then stopped. He turned back. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “I don’t imagine you’re pleased that I came back. I suppose you showed me this because, despite throwing Carina and me out of the manor, you were always loyal to Donelan. But whether you like it or not, I won’t be run out of Brunnfen again. I’ll stay or leave on my terms this time.” He grinned. “And I just might be able to get Tris to visit and send you to the Lady if you don’t agree to cooperate. Understand?”

Asmarr did not move, but his eyes gave Cam to believe that the ghost did hear him. “Good. Now you can go back to haunting the bay if you’d like. I’ve got work to do.”

Cam sprinted back up the trail toward Brunnfen. His head was spinning, both from the encounter with his father’s ghost and from the new evidence of Alvior’s further treachery. Brunnfen loomed high above him, dark and forbidding on its perch above the Northern Sea.

Asmarr’s ghost wasn’t the first to haunt Brunnfen, and it wasn’t likely to be the last. Cam slowed as he crossed the threshold. Portraits of long-dead-but not really departed-ancestors seemed to glare down at him, sharing his father’s disapproval. It had taken him years to understand that not everyone’s family history was quite as tragic or blood-soaked as the tales of the lords of Brunnfen.

Grandfather Gierolf, who had gone mad and murdered a dozen servants and his own wife believing himself beset by dimonns. Great-grandmother Nessa, who had immolated herself and her children in a rage over her husband’s infidelity. Asmarr’s brother, Raynor, who murdered his eldest son in a blind rage over spoiled wine. A great-uncle who had locked an unfaithful wife away in an oubliette beneath the lowest wine cellar. Insanity and violence were the heritage of Brunnfen’s heirs. Cam had never felt the weight of his heritage so oppressively as he did now.

“M’lord, breakfast is ready.” Haulden, the steward, was one of the servants Renn had cajoled into returning to the manor.

“Where’s Renn?”

“He ate quickly and said he needed to see to accounts in town. Said to tell you he’d probably spend the night at the inn and be back late tomorrow.” Haulden took in Cam’s disheveled appearance. “Is there something wrong?”

“How many able-bodied men do we have on the manor grounds? Men who could do hard work.”

Haulden thought for a moment. “Not so many as when your father ran the holding. Counting the men who are in the fields, about three dozen. A few more, if you take the older boys from the stable.”

“Unless you want Alvior back in charge, get me every man with a strong back you can find. Tell them to bring chains and axes.”

Haulden’s eyes widened. “You intend to fight?”

“I intend to change the rules of Alvior’s game. When he comes back with his ships, we’ll have a surprise waiting for him.”

“What in the name of the Eight Faces do you think you’re doing?” Renn’s voice carried across the water. Cam and three other men were shirtless in the late-summer heat, putting their combined strength into shoving a huge tree stump from a raft into the harbor.

“Stopping Alvior from coming back,” Cam grunted.

Renn ran out on the pier until he was across from where the raft floated. “Who told you he was coming back?”

“Father-or at least, his ghost.”

Renn looked from Cam to the flurry of activity. Along the forest’s edge, men felled trees and loaded them into wagons. Near the water’s edge, teams of men bound the trunks together into spiked balls, with as many limbs as possible protruding to snag unwary navigators. Horses and a brace of oxen dragged the snares to the water. From the end of the pier, two men fed a heavy chain down to others who dove into the inlet’s chilly waters. Along the beach, the stablehands were busy fashioning barricades from smaller trees and thorned bushes. There were even men on the roof of Brunnfen, hauling logs by pulleys up to a flat area. Barely visible at the edge of the beach stood Asmarr’s ghost, watching.

“What are you building on the roof of the manor house?” Renn shouted to Cam.

“A watchtower. We’ll keep it manned at all times, change it out in shifts. If boats approach, whoever’s up there will show a lantern and ring a bell. We’ll send a rider out to Captain Lange. He’s based at the outpost about a candlemark’s ride from here. They’ll be the first reinforcements.”

“And you know Lange will come-why?”

“Because Cam asked me.” The voice came from behind Renn, who turned sharply to see a broad-shouldered man with a fighter’s build coming up behind him.

Cam’s raft drew up alongside the pier and Cam hopped off. “Renn, meet Captain Lange. Lange, this is my brother, Renn.”

Lange extended his hand to Renn, who shook it dubiously. “Dammit, Cam. I leave for a day and you tear the place apart,” Renn said.

“I sent a rider down to warn Lange yesterday morning, as soon as I realized what Alvior had done,” Cam said, using a rag to mop the sweat that matted his hair against his head. “We’ve been on a campaign or two together in the past.”

“Or three or four,” Lange added dryly. “It’s not every day the King’s Champion sends a rider to see if you can free up a few men to keep a foreign navy from landing in your own backyard.”

Cam grinned. “So Lange came, and he brought a couple dozen of his men with him. Together with the servants, we’ve done a decent job of snaring the harbor and making the beach unfriendly. Which means that if Alvior and his friends do come back, they’ll be hung up on the snares or stuck at the mouth to the bay, where we can hammer away at him with the trebuchets Captain Lange is so helpfully going to provide.”

“Damn,” Renn said again. He paused and looked back at Cam. “Wait a second… Father told you about Alvior?”

Both Renn and Lange listened intently as Cam recounted his struggle with the ghost. When he was done, Renn shook his head.

“I’d meant to warn you not to come down to the beach alone. I’d seen Father’s ghost once, but I got my ass out of here before he had the chance to get closer, and I’ve been wearing an amulet ever since then to keep ghosts away.” Renn pulled a silver pendant from beneath his shirt. “Knowing Father, I figured that he wouldn’t let being dead get in the way of a good beating. I’m sorry. If I’d been braver, I might have had the warning sooner.”

Cam snorted. “I’d have run for it myself if he hadn’t been throwing so many damn rocks at my head. Don’t blame yourself. Father was his usual, charming self. He’s angry that Alvior betrayed him, and maybe that Alvior betrayed the king. That doesn’t mean Father’s sorry about what he did to either of us.” He gave an unpleasant smile. “But if Alvior does come back, I hope he gets close enough for Father to throw a couple of big rocks at his head, just for good measure.” He paused. “What do you know about the posts sunk into the rock?”

Renn shrugged. “Don’t know for sure, but I’ll tell you my suspicions. They weren’t here when Father was alive. They suddenly appeared about the time Alvior started to get his ‘visitors.’ At first, there were just a few, and I figured they were for those ships. All the others were put in while I was locked in the dungeon. I’ve asked among the servants, but the men who sank the posts for Alvior either fled or disappeared.”