“Major.” Corporal Anders repeated, then shook Robert’s shoulder. “Get up. Something’s happening.”

“Yeah.” Robert rolled off the bunk and followed Anders from the barracks. Both men bent to avoid hitting their heads on the low ceiling. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes as Robert exited the barracks to see night had fallen. “What time is it?”

“Near midnight, sir,” one of the Union men spoke.

“You let me sleep for eight hours?” Robert eyed Corporal Anders.

“Nothing was happening,” came the brisk reply as Anders mounted the wall scaffold to peer over the top of sharpened logs. “Where is it?”

“Over there,” the man pointed.

Anders added to the men, pointing southeast as Robert reached the wall. It took some time for his eyes to grow accustomed to the night, then Robert saw a light. It was pale green as it meandered slowly in the scrub pine, as if lost, coasting slowly up and across the slope.

Robert climbed from the platform and moved to the gate, now providing the only access through the wall. “I need a torch,” he accepted a brand.

“This is not the Robber King,” Robert nodded for a guard to open the hastily constructed door. “It is something I need to see.”

“Not alone,” stopped by Robert’s firm grip on Anders’ shoulder.

“Stay here, that’s an order.”

“And it will be the first order I’ve ever disobeyed.”

“It will not harm me, Corporal.” Robert sternly clung to Anders. “It is just a light. Probably just another ghost, and I will not risk both of us. You stay here.”

“Sir,” Anders nodded to the gate guard.

There was a certain amount of satisfaction in the knowledge his men valued Robert’s presence, but there was work to do and a mystery to investigate. The gate closed behind Robert after he passed through the small opening, smaller than the Robber King at any hope.

Turning left, Robert angled up the hill with the torch held high.

“Careful Major.”

“Ready rifles, men. Rest them on the wall, but be ready for anything.” Corporal Anders added his rifle to the wall.

“Well said.” Robert worked his way through the scrub pine. His coat snagged constantly, the torch making the surroundings dance wickedly in the falling snow. There had to be a foot of snow on the ground, likely the reason Pace and his men had made no appearance. It was possible Pace and his people had gotten lost in the storm, or they were dead.

Robert doubted the last possibility. He could not see the Robber King allowing the battle to end so anemically. So much of the creatures’ behavior seemed tied to emotion that Robert suspected it needed the hatred to continue.

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Robert caught sight of the glow near the top of the ridge, then it seemed to descend out of view. Trying to hurry uphill in the snow was hard, and it took several minutes to struggle to the crest of the ridge.

Once there, Robert held a palisade support beam and tried to catch his breath.

The light was downhill and nearing the larger trees. There was a certain lack of wisdom in perusing the light away from the camp. Robert could not help but feel this event was important. Pushing off the barricade sent Robert downhill at a quick pace, crashing between trees in a barely controlled run.

He came to a halt against a large pine tree, the torch almost singing his face and Robert’s hat tumbling from his head. “Damn.” Pain lanced his shoulder from the collision. Lowering the torch, Robert found his hat and placed it on his head.

A weak light lingered in the trees. This close, it seemed to trail wisps of luminescence that made falling snow shine brightly for the moment it touched the fog. Robert followed the light as it meandered into the taller woods, slowly getting closer as he stalked the anomaly.

The vague, wispy face of General Cornell stopped its perusal of the ground and turned up to regard Robert with vacant eyes. The wound still ruptured the general’s ethereal head, perhaps causing the confusion that troubled Cornell.

Robert only felt sadness. He had hoped death would rid them of this damned island, but the general’s spectral presence suggested otherwise.

“You’re dead, sir,” Robert spoke to the ghost.

The ghost looked left, then right, the puzzled expression never leaving its face. Its lips moved without sound while it pointed with a quivering finger to the southwest. A sharp crack stopped Robert. The noise echoed in the woods, then faded away, only to be replaced by the distant sound of branches snapping as something large moved in the woods. The noise receded and silence reclaimed the woods.

Returning his attention to the ghost, Robert expected the spirit to be gone, but was shocked to find it regarding him intently.

The words came on the wind, a sibilant hiss that seemed part of the storm.

We pick our battles.

The creature was returning, a destructive force moving through the trees.

The ghost faded away with no fanfare, returning to the nothingness from which it spawned.

Holding the torch in his left hand and the pistol in his right, he set off to find the source of the noise. There was no element of surprise. The torch ensured the Robber King knew of his presence, but the King was making enough noise to suggest it did not care if Robert saw it.

Again, there was a load thud and groaning of wood.

Leaves rustled and pine boughs parted as the Robber King pushed into the torchlight, then stopped and regarded Robert. It was a dark, hulking figure, if this was its true form? Little detail was visible, but the eyes were the same silver blue seen last night.

The beast stared at Robert for a moment, then huffed and vanished back into the forest, disappearing noiselessly.

Insanity of the moment held Robert. The Robber King had seemed frustrated, as if it had never encountered men willing to resist its efforts to induce fear.

If he was right, Robert knew he would find an atrocity at the palisade, some new attempt to drive fear into these modern men who did not worship the king like a god.

Men who did not worship a creature that was now behaving like a child.

Was it that simple?

At the top of the ridge, corpses now littered the palisade, impaled upon the thick wooden spikes. Even in the cold air, Robert could smell corrupted flesh. Holding his torch close, he saw ice upon the bodies, rancid flesh, and torn clothing. No winter clothes.

Could these men be from the cave?

Robert walked the palisade trying to recognize one of the dead. The Robber King had been busy. There were eight dead men hanging from the battlement. Why had he only heard the last two bodies thrust upon spikes?

It was a ruse. The Robber King, like a good General was directing Robert’s attention away from the king’s true secret.

“Major,” Corporal Anders and several men came up the slope of the ridge from the stockade. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” Robert holstered his pistol. “I’m fine.”

“Are these guards?” One man asked, leaning close to a body with his torch.

“No.” Robert ducked under the palisade and joined his men. “They look like men who died at the quarry. They’ve been dead for a while.”

“What the hell?” Anders spat in disgust.

Nodding at the sentiment, Robert was understanding the Robber King, and disgust was good.