Gudmund sat at a full table, surrounded by full tables.

Hjorvarth and Engli had brought the ale barrels and any food that they could find from Sam’s Tavern.

They had taken wooden plates as well, for the fisherfolk who had meant to prepare a small meal for the small gathering. Those cooks now sweated by a large fire pit, slicing meat from a boar, divvying the cheeses, biscuits, and bread that had been brought.

They filled borrowed cups and mugs with stolen ale. It was not a hopeful gathering, rather dozens of miserable folk that had chosen for one night to mutually enjoy their loss and grief. To drink and eat and be happy, if only for now, and speak not at all of what had happened and who they had lost, but rather to speak of simpler things or of happier times when those who were absent were still among them. It was with that in mind that the Chief of Horvorr rose from his chair, clad-in-black, knowing that what he had to say would please none of them.

“Evening!” Gudmund declared, loudly enough to be heard, but not quite so loud that he was shouting over shared conversation. “I would like to thank you all for coming. And I would like to say some words, if you’re all happy to hear them.”

He gazed out at the crowd, seeing Engli and Hjorvarth farthest back, seeing fisher folk that he didn’t know, barely recognising the remnant dozens that survived his defense of their town.

Gudmund rubbed his hands together. “I’m not sure how many of you know this… but Horvorr was built by goblins. And when I came here ten winters ago, I offered those inside safe passage in exchange for their surrender… and they accepted. I was glad,” he added. “But I was worried, as well, that if I let hundreds of goblins run off into the wild they would only gather together under another banner and come back… and back, making an endless war. So I slaughtered all of the goblins in Horvorr, except for Dalpho, and a few others who escaped. Dalpho being the giant corpse outside of our walls who fought against the giant shaman.”

The gathered people of Horvorr and those of Wymount and the fishing villages stared in confusion, their ponderous eyes glistening with the flames of twin braziers.

“What I mean to say is that I swore to protect Horvorr,” he went on, “and in the end the people here still paid. You paid coin to live here, while others paid to trade. I made Horvorr’s Guard with that… Brikorhaan welcome them with open arms. And I also forged an agreement with the Jarl of Timilir in exchange for a share of your coin. He swore to me, should we ever come under serious threat, that he would help to protect you people. Yet in the end it was not Jarl Thrand that offered aid… it was the giant goblin that I had tried to butcher. Dalpho was a goblin… a simplistic monster. But I cannot shake the anger I feel in knowing that Jarl Thrand took coin from every family in this region, and when the time came he did us no more favours than a goblin.”

Tinder crackled in the braziers and in the fire pit, beyond that there was only stillness in the gathering.

“So in honour of Landing Day, of those that made an undiscovered region their own without help from others, I will write to Jarl Thrand to inform him that his stewardship is no longer valid. I will declare myself Jarl of this region.” Gudmund smiled as if disappointed. “I know that many of you think I was no good as a Chief, so I’ll be no better as a Jarl, but I will make best effort to restore some of what we have lost. The homes that are now unowned will be free for any that wish to live here. And those that wish to stay will only pay a small tax for some men to keep order. In the season to come, this will change nothing. In the winters that follow, I can make decisions to better our region without worrying about the coward Jarl of Timilir.”

Gudmund watched the tired gathering, listened to them mutter dissent about Jarl Thrand. He tried to stand tall and proud in his black clothes, though the truth of it was he had no coin. No real way to do anything beyond let the region wither and die. “And now if you’ll permit him, Hjorvarth of Horvorr would like to speak some words.”

Hjorvarth pushed up from his chair, and weaved through the tables. He realised that Gudmund had spoken from his seat and there was no chosen place to stand, so he stood in the shadow of the many-roofed Ritual House.

Folk spoke amongst themselves, watching the huge man in expectation.

“I mostly wanted—” Hjorvarth shivered despite the fur that covered him and the nearby brazier that painted his face. He could feel a presence behind him, something more than the carved visage of Muradoon. “I mostly wanted to clear up some misunderstandings. Firstly, I took no vow of silence… I was simply in no mood to speak. And those that pressed the matter when they saw me by the Lake will attest that I was all too happy to shout. Secondly, claims have been made that I killed some monstrous goblins, when I have killed none at all… beyond perhaps one when I was on my journey with Engli, and even then I may have dreamed it.”

Hjorvarth frowned. “Gudmund killed one of the monstrous goblins, the one covered in gold. The men that followed Asgeir killed the other, who was blind… or had one eye. And my father, Isleif, killed the third with a thrown axe. So by my own account, I did very little to be worthy of praise beyond to find my father dead before I could save him. I do know a man who did a great deal, and that is Engli of Horvorr, who travelled alone to the hunting villages north of Fenkirk, and rallied them to break the siege of the town. Had he not done that, and convinced Fenkirk to come to our aid, then Horvorr would have been destroyed. It was also the hunters he rallied that laid traps in the forest and made best effort to kill the goblins that made for escape as well.”

Those that had watched with admiration and expectation now looked at him in irritation and confusion.

“I raise this for the simple reason that reputation is a fickle thing,” Hjorvarth explained. “My father was a man much disgraced for his whole life, but I believe he would have been very happy dying in an attempt to save people. He was an old man losing his mind, but that does not mean that I didn’t want to save him, or to help him protect this town. I would have liked to have been here to help all those that died in the defense. Fenkirk may have bled for us, but Horvorr suffered the most. Whether that is because Jarl Thrand did not meet his commitments, I do not know. But I have no problem backing Gudmund, a man who risked his life and his daughter to protect this town, over an old and wrinkled coward like Jarl Thrand.” He paused. “Eleven Elders watch over us all.”

***

Engli sat abandoned now the feast took on a more sober mood. He watched Sybille from afar, hoping that she would at least smile at him, thinking she might walk over and explain why it was that she had barred him from seeing her.

Sybille sat with her back to him though. She even wore a hooded cloak. Engli felt all the more frustrated when she went to sit and joke with the fisher folk, though they all seemed in a worse mood after having heard the plans of the new Jarl of Horvorr.

Engli felt no better watching Hjorvarth leave the gathering in the company of Ralf and Gudmund.

Sybille rose from her seat and Engli pushed up from his own.

He watched from the gloomy table as she shook her head at offers of escort, though that didn’t stop the bald, hawk-faced man from following her like a shadow. Engli had an odd thought that this man was probably a much better guard than he ever was or would ever be; even so, he made his best effort of slipping from the feast unnoticed, which he achieved with great success.

Engli followed Sybille from afar, feeling relieved when the bald man departed. He rushed towards the hooded figure of Sybille, but then his view of her was ripped away.

Arfast shoved the blond man into the wall, holding a dagger against his throat. “You want to tell me what you’re about, lad?”

Engli’s eyes widened. “Sybille!”

“If I had meant you any harm that would have been the end of your life. If I have a knife to your neck the last thing you want to do is shout. I can see and feel your throat tense, and I can cut it upon before you ever get to call out. Understood?”

Engli nodded. “I didn’t think—”

“We’ve never met.” Arfast scowled, letting him drop. “Don’t think to know a man’s heart before you know his name.”

“Arfast?” Sybille asked. “Are you all right?” She kept a tight grip on an emerald hilted dagger as she rounded the corner. “Engli?” Her eyes widened, then narrowed. “Engli.”

Arfast stepped back now Sybille swept around and strode away.

“Sybille?” Engli gave chase. “Sybille! What is wrong with you?” He shook his head. “Did I do something to offend you while I was out of town fighting for my life? Why are you running away from me?”

Sybille reluctantly slowed. “I was wounded… and so I look different. I am different. And I had no mind to meet you only to see the disappointment in your eyes.”

“I saw you at the feast, Sybille.” Engli walked around to face her. “You look the same. Beautiful as you always are.” He squinted through the darkness at her cloaked figure. “Would you just lift your hood? Surely after what you’ve been through, you don’t need to make things worse by worrying about your face?”

“It doesn’t matter what I’ve been through, Engli,” she answered, her tone bitter and angry. “I might be someone else, but I don’t want look like someone else. I was my mother’s daughter before, and now what am I? I used to look like a girl with a family, and now I look like the girl who lost everything other than her father. Her father who lost everything as well,” she bitterly added.

“Your father still has his daughter, Sybille.” Engli wrapped his arms around her. “You can keep wearing a hood, but your face is always going to change, by age if not by wound. And when I say you’re beautiful I don’t mean that your face is beautiful. I could meet another woman with your face but it wouldn’t be you. And whether you have nothing you will still be you. Still the same kind, charming girl. Still clever, and witty, and brave enough not to worry about whether your face looks different or whether it looks the same. I look just as I did before I left Horvorr, but that doesn’t make it any easier when I wake knowing that Linden died… because I came too late. Because I didn’t force a march for fear that people would abandoned me,” he added, anger rising. “Because I ran them into a closed gate, and let them get bludgeoned to death by gods-damned stones.”

“I’m sorry,” Engli said, remembering himself. “We are who we are, Sybille. And you are the woman that I love. Whether you like your face or not it will always be beautiful to me… because it is just part of what makes you, you.”

***

Hjorvarth stood where the Sage had once stood in the black-and-silver counsel room. Gudmund sat in the same chair he had, his table of Broknar the Elder now righted. Ralf sat to his left, and all the others seats lay empty.

“I am here as requested.” Hjorvarth appeared out of place wearing tawny furs in a room of black banners, black chairs, and black-clad men. “Say what you have to say.”

Gudmund waved his hand towards the chair opposite. “Would you just take a seat? You’re making me feel uncomfortable. I don’t like how still you are, or how big you look when I’m sat down.”

Hjorvarth raked at his thick beard, then pulled out a chair. He sat down with some care, as if worried the seat would give way under his weight. “Well? What is it you had to speak of that couldn’t be said at the feast?”

Gudmund started to drum his fingers against the table, but stopped when he noticed the huge man’s irritation. “How can I put this?” he asked lightly. “I have no sons, and you have no father.”

“My father is no less my father for having died than is my mother—”

“Let’s not argue over meaning, Hjorvarth.” Gudmund shook his head. “I understand that. You think I don’t grieve my sons or my wife? I do… but in terms of inheritance, I have no sons. So how would you feel about being my son?”

“At a guess?” Hjorvarth asked. “Badly. But then Geirmund didn’t seem to mind it, and I suppose he was a little like me. Though a man becomes accustomed to his burdens, so I would still guess at badly. To be clear though, you do know that you can’t just make a man your son? Even if you found someone that wanted you as a father.”

Ralf chuckled.

Gudmund smiled in uncertainty. “Maybe I need to explain myself more clearly. I have no wife, and I have no sons. And even if I wanted to remarry by the time my son had grown to age, I’d be an old or a dead man. What I need is a man who is already grown, and who can’t be won over by bribes, or sweet words. I need a man, as you say, like Geirmund. Now I’m short of coin, and I’m really not sure how I’m going to make this region any better, or how I’m even going to manage to stop it becoming worse. But I need someone I can rely on, and I need a strong husband for Sybille—who isn’t the son of Jarl Thrand or any other bastard wanting to steal this region out from under me. And I think that man could be you.”

Hjorvarth nodded, his stony face giving no hint towards his confusion. “So you want… so… you want me to marry Sybille?”

Gudmund scowled. “No need to be so enthusiastic, Hjorvarth.”

“I just wanted to be sure,” Hjorvarth offered as apology. “And you think that I would be a good husband because I’m loyal… and not the son of a Jarl?”

Gudmund spread his worn hands across the black tabletop. “Among other things.”

“Then I would suggest you ask Engli, as by my own understanding he has more loyalty to Sybille than I would ever have to you. And I might not be won over by coin or charm, but by the same token I would be no easier a man for you to use. Brolli wanted me to fight for him for years, and in the end it did neither of us any good.”

“Engli?” Gudmund’s answering laugh was disgusted. “And what good is he to me? You’re the best fighter in the region, and he’s close to the worst. You’ve a reputation as the son of Isleif the Bard, and I’ve no clue who his…” He reined in his own rhetoric. “As much as I respected Linden, I also know that the man is not his birth father… and I know as well that Anna is an outlaw.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“As were many people in this town,” Hjorvarth replied. “As was Isleif in some regions. As was your own brother, in every region. As am I myself in Timilir. You want to marry your daughter to an outlaw, whose father is most famous for leading hundreds of men to their deaths with no explanation as to what happened or why it happened? You want to marry your daughter to the man who was the death of your own brother?”

Ralf cleared his throat, his chubby face quite stern and serious. “He wants to marry his daughter to a man who speaks so openly at his table. Engli may have helped to save this town. He may have even done more than you, Hjorvarth. You might have done nothing at all. But to most folk that doesn’t really matter. What does is that you have the look of a hero… and Engli bears more semblance to a handsome farmhand. If Gudmund marries Sybille to a man like that, he will seen as a joke who has given up all ambition.”

Hjorvarth sighed. “Then it is a fool’s world we live in. And I do thank you for your offer, Gudmund. As it is by my own reckoning the best that I’m likely to have when it comes to making a life for myself… but my answer is no.”

“No?” Gudmund doubtfully asked. “You don’t even want to consider it?”

Hjorvarth shook his head. “If I left here without giving answer, the only thing I would be thinking on is how long I should wait until I come back to say no… which would only be a waste of your time.” He pushed up from his chair, dipped his head in respect.

“I mean to kill Jarl Thrand,” Gudmund said through gritted teeth. “If you accept my offer then we can work together to achieve that. And say what you will about Engli, but it was your father who had cause to hate Jarl Thrand, and it was he who made your father hated times over in Timilir. Jarl Thrand offered a reward of gold for his head. To any man, and directly to me. Had he gotten his way, your father would have been carted off to Timilir and executed in celebration. As you would have, when I received a similar offer for your own thick skull.”

Hjorvarth regarded the stout guard. “Is any of that true?”

Ralf nodded. “All of it.”

“My father was not a man of revenge.” Hjorvarth turned to Gudmund. “If you agree to let Engli marry Sybille then I will help you as best as I can. Beyond—”

“No.” Jarl Gudmund had no doubt in his blue eyes, his unruly red hair seemed only to strengthen the hard defiance of his proud face. “I know the man’s heart. And I will never, not for the want of all the gods, marry my daughter to Engli. He might have earned your loyalty, but in this I will not move. So if your only reason for denying an offer that is, as you say, the best you’re ever likely to get, then you ought to come up with a better reason. Because even if I died, I would rise from the grave and throttle the man before I ever let him wed Sybille.”

Hjorvarth’s hard face grew ponderous. “May I ask why?”

“Why?” Gudmund glared, shaking his head as if he wouldn’t answer. “A winter ago I was of a mind to allow them to marry, Sybille and Engli, if they so chose to. I raised this with Grettir and Geirmund, who both convinced me that she would be better off married to someone else. It would take only one of them to oppose an idea for me to dismiss it entirely, but they both did. And were that not enough, Agnar came to me the morning they left for Timilir. He told me that he had a suspicion the marriage proposal was going to go awry, but he asked me… he made me swear to him that if it did go wrong that I should make sure she married anyone other than Engli. I respected Geirmund the most of my sons, but Agnar has never been wrong about a man. And I won’t break the only oath he ever asked me to make.”

“Oh.” Hjorvarth frowned, and very slowly nodded. He thought of the promise he had sworn to both brothers, that he would do his best to make sure their sister had a happy life. “So Agnar and Geirmund did not want Sybille to marry Engli?”

“Is that not what I just said?” Gudmund asked. “They didn’t mind the man, but they didn’t think him a good match.”

Hjorvarth let out a long sigh. “I will go and consider your offer.”

Gudmund dismissed him with a wave of the hand. “I want your answer before dawn.”

***

Hjorvarth had expected it to take a while to find Engli, but then the blond man stumbled out from a nearby hay shed. “Engli?”

Engli startled, pulling door behind him to a close. He had the look of a man who been sleeping restlessly, his blond hair and his weapon belt eschew, his dark clothes poorly fastened and buttoned. “Hjorvarth!”

Hjorvarth frowned. “Is something wrong with your ears?”

Engli smiled, and glanced to the hay shed. “I was slow to recognise you is all. It took me as a surprise. What are you doing out so late?”

“I need to know whether or not you love, Sybille,” Hjorvarth answered. “And whether you would hope to marry her one day.”

Engli narrowed his eyes. “Why do you need to know all that… exactly?”

“I would ask you to trust that I have good reasons, and that I need to know the answers.” Hjorvarth upturned his heavy palms. “Beyond that, I can offer no real explanation.”

“Right… well, that’s fair, I suppose.” Engli nodded more than he needed to. “Can we talk a little down the road?”

Hjorvarth stared without enthusiasm. “I am in a hurry.”

“I do love her,” Engli said. “Without question, I do. As to whether I would hope to marry her, yes. But whether Gudmund would ever allow it… it seems unlikely, though I would make best effort to convince him, or else elope.” He flinched at his own admission. “Only if she wants to, of course. It’s all up to her. But as to my own hopes, yes. Did you need any more answer than that?”

“No.” Hjorvarth shook his head, and clapped Engli on the shoulder. “I’ll meet you at the Lake in the morning, and we can speak of how best to make a brotherhood worthy of Brikorhaan.”

Engli met his solemn gaze with all severity. “I’ll see you then… brother.”

Hjorvarth withdrew his hand. “I think it would best if we stuck to given names.”

“Of course. If I’m honest, I felt a bit silly even—”

Hjorvarth strode away without further word.

Not long after, the door to the hay shed creaked open.

Sybille crept out with her hood up, her black dress covered in hay and dust. “What do you think all that was about?”

“I don’t know.” Engli bent to one knee, sweeping a sleeve down her dress. “But I trust he has good reason.”

***

Gudmund strode into a large dirt courtyard formed by the curved backs of long wooden houses. There were three roads into the place, newly packed with earth that had been dug up to keep goblins at bay.

Those folk who had lived in surrounding houses found their deaths in the battle, and the smell of their blood and bile still lingered in the air. Dust sifted through the fenced yards with a hiss, dragged along by a chill night breeze. The weather whistled eerily in the distance, broken by the rattle of closed shutters. Gudmund thought of folk trapped in their homes, where he had told them to hide, struggling to escape their fates.

His wild hair rippled with the weather. His frustrated breaths misted into darkness. He felt angry for so many things. Hjorvarth had refused him. Brolli lay drowned and dead in the Lake. Geirmund had been half-eaten, likely barred from Brikorhaan’s Band. Agnar had never been found, and were it not for a maddened dream in the night, Gudmund would have thought him lost to the Lady’s Shadow.

He kept his hollow gaze towards his brother’s home, which loomed ahead, enveloped by the night. Shadowed and bleak.

Gudmund set his foot on the middle step of the stair, boot plunging through broken wood. He stumbled over and thumped into the porch. He lay prone on the steps, aching and seething, almost laughing at what a miserly bastard his brother had been.

He let out a long sigh before struggling up from the broken stairs, only to notice the carved archway above the door.

Gudmund had seen it once before, but he now realised that the dead wolf was Grim. He wondered if his younger brother had really envisioned the past years between them as two beasts savaging one another. Gudmund saw it more as two wolfs with a river of blood between them, both being too stubborn or scared to swim.

He swallowed his grief and frustration, and then shoved on the ornate doors, sending them screeching against the floorboards. “You fucking skinflint.”

Gudmund remembered a time when his brother had been rich, pissing his money away on whores, gambling, and anything else he could drink, chew, or smoke. Their father had always said that practice made a man better in all things, save for games of chance, which only made men mad or poor. Brolli had ended up as both.

Gudmund swept his gaze across the vacant taproom, thinking it odd that a thing so cold and lifeless as a chair could help to make a place feel homey and warm. He laughed when he saw the gambling tables, standing abandoned amid the gloom, as if ready for ghosts to come and roll their own bones.

He considered saying his brother’s name three times, but thought better of it.

He might tell himself that he was mad that words went unsaid, but even if he could summon his brother’s ghost there wouldn’t be any speech or phrase to settle all the things between them. And what if Brolli did appear, only to say what he had always said, that he didn’t really care, that the mutual animosity had not been some falsity of life but a truth taken to the grave.

Gudmund made his way up the stairs.

The creaking and the cold made him feel exposed, as if he might attract attention of restless spirits waiting amongst the shadows. He wondered if those three old men sat amongst spectral seats facing a timeless table, whether Arnor tended to a rack of spirits and kept eternal watch at the bar, whether that one-eyed boy rolled dice to himself, reminiscing on the time when he had been let onto Horvorr’s Guard.

“That was all you,” accused a distant whisper.

Gudmund froze on the landing, reaching for his father’s sword. He put his back to the wall, and glanced from one dark corridor to the other. “If someone is in here, then you ought to step out now and announce yourself.”

He swallowed, straining his ears to hear anything more than the lonely whistle of the wind.

“I am warning you,” Gudmund declared loudly, “step out now, or I will search each of these rooms and find you.”

Wood rattled as four doors swung inward; iron screeched as they stressed their hinges.

Gudmund sniffed, proud face tense with suspicion.

He knew the worst way to deal with a spirit was to call out to it, but could only think of one man who had lived in the place and hadn’t been burned. “Is that you little brother?” He bided the silence. “Brolli… Brolli.”

The shadowed corridor remained silent, four doors outward so that they almost met in pairs.

“Brolli.” Gudmund flinched now the doors slammed shut. “I suppose I should have expected that. Had to deal with those kind of theatrics after you murdered Grim.”

“That was all you,” came a whisper closer to hand.

“Grim must have thought the same, because he tried to throttle me in my sleep.” Gudmund laughed a disappointed laugh. “Whereas I always told myself it was more his fault, or yours at the least.” He gritted his teeth, nauseated by a flood of wrath and disgust. “What kind of man would ever do that to his brother?”

“That was all you,” a calm voice murmured in his ear.

Gudmund shook his head, wondering for the thousandth time whether he could have spared both his brothers by raising their disagreements with his father. He let go of his axe, and upturned his palms. “I regret it often enough. Maybe that’s why I didn’t stop you when I saw you out for revenge. Because you had the right… because you had every right. But what I don’t understand is why you killed a man for his black acts, and then spent the rest of your days making yourself into a man even worse than him. You tried to rape my wife, little brother,” he angrily reminded. “How the fuck could you ever think to do that after what Grim did to you and that girl?”

“The Great Chiefs are back,” Brolli’s voice sounded out like a timeless echo. “Ragadin’s back. And they’re coming for you, for your children, for your town. And they’re coming for me. For everyone.”

“If you were so sure,” Gudmund said, “then you should have convinced me. What good’s a warning after the fact?”

The door beside him creaked open, followed by the wooden scrape of a desk draw.

Gudmund smiled in skepticism. “You know the Mad Men of Muradoon say never to go in a room that a ghost opens for you.”

He startled when the door slammed into its frame, laughed, and opened it for himself.

Gudmund stared into a shadowed room furnished only by a wide desk, then strode forward across bare floorboards. He felt the cold more keenly with each step, shivering as he approached the desk. He glanced back to check he was alone, and opened the shutters to little effect.

Gudmund sniffed, and reached into the opened draw. He plucked up a scrap of parchment, squinting at the ink, and barely recognised his own name. So he walked over to the adjacent room, and opened the shutters; moonlight flooded in to illuminate the straw mattress, mammoth wardrobe, and ornate desk. “You’re no good at writing.”

He held the parchment up to the moon, reading aloud the scrawled message: “Gudmund… a… man maimed? Named. I didn’t catch his name. A fat man came here. Asked me to be a Chief. And wanted to… kill you. Hallstein sent him. Alrik, give to Gudmund if I die. I think I might die. Am I going to die?”

Gudmund closed his eyes, and dragged both hands through his unruly hair. He sighed through gritted teeth, and rubbed at his proud face. “I am sorry, Brolli. Sorry that I was glad when I thought you were dead. That I was disappointed when Isleif the Bard brought you back. I’m sorry that I didn’t leave when our father banished you. And maybe you were right when you said that we should have just accepted Gahr’rul’s duel.”

He opened his eyes, and stumbled back to the open window. He caught himself on the wall to stop from falling. Brolli stood opposite, fine clothes sodden, flesh bruised and swollen, dark eyes glistening with lunar light. He drew his onyx-pommeled sword, and took a squelching step forwards.

Gudmund waited for his brother to swing or to speak, but the drowned man only dropped his weapon and disappeared. “Is that it?” He scrutinised the shadowed corners of the room. “I already have a sword.”

He bent down to one knee, hoping that this wasn’t a trick, and noticed that the blade was pointed towards the mammoth black wardrobe. He gripped the hilt, slick with cold water, and struggled up to his feet. He checked the shadows once more, and strode forward, pulling open the patterned doors of the empty wardrobe.

“And here I thought you were going to show me where Isleif hid his treasure,” Gudmund mused. “I’m ruined, you know. I’ve barely got enough to keep Ralf and Arfast paid, and I’ve no coin for anymore oxen to pull my leftover carts.”

He searched the darkness, turning the onyx-pommeled sword over in his hands.

“So it’s really just the sword, then?” Gudmund drew his father’s sword, and placed it at the bottom of the wardrobe. “I’m not sure how I feel about taking a cursed blade.” He sheathed his brother’s sword, closed the wardrobe, and turned to face the moonlit room. “I’m tempted to burn this place to the ground, but I’m worried it might just let you walk about the open streets.” He sniffed. “I’ll see if there’s some way to drag your body out of the Lake, or ask Lovrin if he knows how to put all the bodies in there to rest.” He waited for an answer that didn’t arrive.

Gudmund dipped his head to the shadows, and walked to the door. “You know I never did understand why Hilda was so set on me forgiving you.”

The patterned doors rattled.

Gudmund frowned, and listened to the silence. “Hilda?”

A sound like paper rasping began at the shadowed writing desk.

Gudmund felt a sudden sweep of nausea, but he swallowed to settle his stomach. He glanced into the gloomy corridor, making sure that the door opposite was still closed. “I’m not sure exactly what you’re trying to say. But I think I’ve pushed my luck enough without calling the dead twice in one night.”

He turned to leave, but his drowned brother blocked the corridor. Brolli smirked, and dipped his swollen head in invitation.

“You’re the gambler, Brolli, not me,” Gudmund countered. “And as much I might want to take the chance, I don’t know what happens when I say the name thrice. I don’t even know why her name would mean enough to you for it to have any power at all.” He stared at his brother. “Unless you loved her?”

“Who?” Brolli whispered, his blackened lips unmoving. He gripped the hilt at his belt, and drew the sword of their father.

“I’m not scared of illusions, little brother. And you’ve not been dead so long that you’ve got strength to strike me.”

Brolli narrowed his dark eyes, sweeping their father’s sword through the air.

Gudmund leapt back before his brother thrust mid-sweep, but the blade still sliced through his chest. He reached for the sword at his belt, only to find it missing.

Gudmund tried to step back into Isleif’s room, but the door slammed shut. He raised his palms in surrender, backing towards closed shutters at the end of the corridor. “And here I thought we were bonding!” he chided. “I trusted you, Brolli. I said I was sorry. And now you’re going to murder with my own sword?”

Brolli charged down the narrow corridor.

Gudmund tried to pry the shutters open, but they refused to move. He dived to the floor and a sword hewed through the wood above, showering him in debris.

A cold point pressed into the back of his neck.

“Who?”

“Hilda!” Gudmund roared into the floorboards, wondering why he had been so fool as to come here, challenge a ghost, and pick up a cursed sword. He felt furious that his own, dead, brother was going to murder him, his anger quelled by the guilt and regret of leaving his last child an orphan. “You—”

A cacophony of wood, weapons, paper and jewelry drowned his words, thumping and clanking, rasping and clinking, as if a treasure horde had been poured out from a massive sack. Gudmund probed behind his neck as the noise worsened, then waved his hand in the open air. He glanced back to see an abandoned corridor, then struggled to his feet.

Gudmund looked down at his chest. He found no wound, but did notice his brother’s sword hung back at his belt. He glanced back at unbroken shutters, and laughed.

He very nearly strode by the open door, too relieved to notice the lessening din, but caught sight of something shining.

The straw mattress had been buried in gleaming weaponry, piled upon in turn by coins, jewelry, and gems. An extensive collection of ink pots lay arrayed atop the writing desk and the floor beneath, around several bowls of pristine quills; all of it walled by stacks of expensive paper, most appearing well used, written upon in smooth script.

The materials stood surrounded by a scattering of broken quills and cracked glass, by the torn and blotted discards of barely used pages.

Gudmund had never seen so much wealth in his life, so he closed the door and strode away, knowing full well that he was being baited into giving his brother’s spirit even more power than it already had over him. He had almost made it half way down the stairs before he turned back and started pocketing the treasure.