Harry Turtledove - Fox and Empire

The ghosts came forth as soon as the sun disappeared from the sky. Gerin had been trying all his life to grasp their shape, trying and failing. Nor could he understand their cries, which dinned in his mind. Grateful for the boon of blood, they tried to give him good advice, but he perceived it only as wind and noise.

"I've heard 'em howl worse," Van remarked.

"I was thinking the same thing," Gerin said. "We've fed 'em well, and we've got good-sized fires going to hold 'em away from us a bit, but I've heard 'em a lot louder and more frightening than they are now. I know what part of the answer is, or I think I do."

Van grunted. "I've seen it myself, around your keep and in the village close by. It's that Ferdulf, isn't it?"

"I think so," Gerin said with a sigh. "The ghosts are just ghostsspirits that never found their way into the five hells. They're stronger than we are-stronger in the nighttime, anyhow-because they haven't got any bodies to worry about. But stack them up against a demigod, and they know they'd better walk-uh, flitter-small."

"Belike you're right." Van made a fist and smacked it into his open palm. "But I tell you this, Captain: there's been plenty of times I wanted to slaughter the nasty little bugger, no matter whose son he is."

"Heh," Gerin said, and then, "You know I don't set much stock in being king, not among friends I don't. This time, though, I'm going to claim my rank. If anybody tries killing him, it'll be me first."

"Wait till after we've fought Aragis," Van said.

"Well, yes, that thought crossed my mind, too," the Fox admitted. "I do wonder why Ferdulf decided to come along, though. What worries me is that he is half a god-"

"The wrong half," Van put in. "The wrong god, too, come to that."

"Maybe. But what does he know that I don't, and how does he know it?"

The outlander's jaw worked, as if he truly were chewing that over. And, as if he didn't like the taste of the answer he got, he spat on the grass. "Bah!" he said. "Best I can tell you is, we're all liable to be better off if we never find out."

"Can't argue with you there," Gerin said. "But my guess is, we're going to find out, one way or the other. I dare hope Ferdulf is here so that, if we do need some strange sort of help against Aragis, he'll be able to give it to us."

"Aye," Van said. "I hope that, too. And if we're wrong, and he's along to let Aragis have some help against us, he'll give it to us then, too, right up the-"

"Yes, I know. I understand that," Gerin broke in hastily. "It's the chance we take, that's all. I've taken a lot of chances, these past twenty years and more. What's another?"

"The one that kills you, could be," Van said.

"Well, yes." The Fox shrugged. "There is that."

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Every time a chariot came up the Elabon Way from the south, Gerin tensed, wondering whether this would be the one that brought him word Aragis had swarmed over the border into Balser's holding-or whether Aragis had swarmed over the border in some other place altogether, in which case he would have to change his line of march in a hurry.

But no such news came. On the fifth day after setting out from Fox Keep, the army reached the castle from which Gerin's son Duren ruled his holding. The pace was slower than the Fox would have liked, but an army on the march, of necessity, moved no faster than its slowest parts.

Holding the keep by descent from his grandfather, as Duren did, he maintained full formal independence from Gerin. Gerin had asked his eldest son's leave before entering his barony at the head of a fighting force. He would have been astonished and dismayed had Duren refused him that leave, but Duren did nothing of the sort. The border guards he still maintained at the frontier between his holding and the lands over which the Fox was suzerain stood aside as the warriors came past them. Their eyes got wide when they saw how many men Gerin had with him.

Gerin could not see the eyes of the sentry on the wall of Duren's keep, but he would have bet they were wide, too. The fellow's voice sounded more than a little awestruck as he hallooed: "Who comes to the castle of Duren Ricolf's grandson?"

He knew perfectly well who came, but the forms had to be observed. A great many men, Gerin had seen over the years, got very upset when jolted out of the smooth routine of their everyday lives. And so, as if he were an unexpected arrival, he answered, "I am Gerin the Fox, king of the north, come to guest with my son, Duren Ricolf's grandson." He didn't blame Duren for using Ricolf's name after his own: on the contrary. He found it a clever touch.

"Enter, lord king, and be welcome as lord Duren's guest-friend, and as his father," the sentry replied. The drawbridge to the keep was already down; with his holding altogether surrounded by the Fox's lands, Duren feared no sudden assault. Gerin tapped Dagref on the shoulder. Duren's half brother drove the chariot across the drawbridge, over the moat, and into the keep.

Duren was waiting in the courtyard, as Gerin had been sure he would be. Coming into this keep, Gerin saw ghosts that had nothing to do with the ones that came forth when the sun went down: Ricolf the Red and Elise and his own younger self. He saw Duren's younger self, too, coming here at about the age Dagref had now to claim this barony and make it his own. That, over these past five years, Duren had done.

He was nineteen now, and looked enough like a young version of the Fox to make Gerin wonder for a crazy instant if he hadn't somehow slipped back across the years to his own early days. Oh, Duren was a little fairer, a little stockier, but the biggest difference between him now and his father at the same age was that his face held not the slightest trace of dreaminess. Gerin had been a second son, able to afford such luxuries as thinking about whatever he chose. With five years as a baron already under his belt, Duren worried about essentials first and everything else afterwards.

That did not mean he wasn't smiling. "Good to see you, Father, by Dyaus and all the gods!" he said, his voice deeper than Gerin's. He folded the Fox into a bear hug when Gerin got down from the car. Then he nodded to Dagref, who still held the reins. "You've got him learning the trade, I see, same as you did with me at the same age. How does it feel, Dagref?"

His half brother weighed that with deliberation he'd probably got from Selatre. "Too much to do, not enough time to do it in," he answered. "Probably would be more if I were better at what I did."

"You will be," Duren told him, then turned back to Gerin. "He's shaping well, seems like." He spoke thoughtfully, in a way Gerin hadn' t heard from him before. The Fox knew what that meant: the succession was in his mind. Well, he would have been a fool if it weren't. The awkward moment passed quickly. Duren went on, "Mother's well, I trust?"

He meant Selatre. He knew she hadn't birthed him, of course, but she was the only mother he remembered; he hadn't been weaned long when Elise ran off with the horseleech. "Yes, she's fine," the Fox said, nodding. "Clotild and Blestar, too."

"And my pair as well," said Van, who had got down to stand beside Gerin and beam at the young man who was as near his nephew as made no difference. "You've grown up, that you have. Beard's thicker than mine was at the same age, I'd say."

"It's darker," Duren said judiciously, "so it will look thicker than a yellow one like yours. Come into the great hall. Drink some ale with me. So you're finally going to war with Aragis, are you, Father?"

"No," Gerin said. "He's going to war with me, or he says he is. Marlanz Raw-Meat told me he'd stopped here, so you'll have heard Aragis' side of the story. He frightened Balser into going over to me, and now he'll try to punish Balser and me both. He's welcome to try."