Before leaving, he wanted to test his worth against the ghosts. The people told him that their wall had been blessed with an ongoing ritual, a duty of several guards and prisoners. He didn't know the nature of its magic but it did course with some kind of spell. Gingerly he ran his hands along some cracks in the barrier and made the stone parts of it flow back into shape. He didn't dare try more repairs to what he didn't understand.

There were grounded ghosts and flying ones. To the defenders neither was much different since the fliers had to swoop in close and didn't have the wits to avoid the barrier. To Arlen they were more of a problem. He'd learned to fling shards of stone around like arrows, an enhanced version of the common earth-element combat spell, but it was basically a single-target attack and not the kind of mass destruction that'd impress Count Vlad. He made a few stepping stones near the front of the wall and went down into the wilderness.

The Newshore settlement was Thoko's ongoing project to settle a useless island. He'd forced enough people to come here that they'd established a foothold with a wall. Mindless monsters bashed continually on the defenders, killing people by ones and twos. Over time, the hope was to push the frontier back, but in years of work they'd maintained only a small village.

Arlen was alone at the moment. Iron-wielding men stood on the wall, taking bets. He pushed just beyond the cleared area and peered deeper into the foggy woods. Here and there he found a lost weapon from past scouting parties. The land smelled rich and alive, just damp. Mostly from the warm rain drizzle, he judged; the ground was above the ocean's level. While he was thinking about it he created a short road as a landmark. Sixty feet long, twenty wide, two thick. All the while, he watched for trouble, wondering if he was provoking the locals. Nothing yet. He got nervous and began adding a one-story bunker and other prepared spots.

The old inhabitants arrived. The first sign was a stirring of the mist ahead, like breath. Spiderweb shapes emerged and split and swarmed. Arlen gripped the ground some distance away. The swarm came on, overlapping and mumbling. These were vaguely human shapes showing awful wounds and tattered uniforms and bits of armor. A man without a head rushed onward with outstretched arms. A severed leg whirled through the air. Some had a sort of memory of a weapon, sometimes a sword, maybe an axe or a crossbow but indistinct. All had a pale, drowned look. Then there were the flying ones, still humanlike but whipping through the branches like monkeys or merely forgetting to stay on the ground. And all charging at him by the dozen.

Arlen ripped up the ground. His new road exploded in spears, some of them tipped with iron bits he'd placed by transmutation. The ghosts along the path shattered like glass. Others had avoided the strike or were higher than it reached. Floating faster than expected. The swarm ignored the window of his bunker and flowed swiftly around to the doorway. Arlen spun and spiked the entrance, tearing away more of the gossamer flesh. Other ghosts got in, though. The room was full of crazed, deathly-cold jumbles of overlapping limbs and slashing hands and teeth. None quite solid and real, all bent on hurting him.

Stolen novel; please report.

Arlen screamed. He lashed out with bursts of stone and ice while confined in the little room. Ruinous eruptions of sharp rock gashed holes in the poltergeists. He couldn't see what he was hitting. Claw-like strikes cut him, feet kicked and tripped him. He toppled toward one of his own stalagmites and barely swept it aside. Mismatched teeth from three superimposed jaws closed in. He tore free a spike and fed it into the unreal mouth. Rolled to his feet. Collapsed half the ceiling. Spun, slashed with his sword.

Shrieking, the diminished mass of ghosts fled from the ruined bunker, wobbling deeper into the forest. Arlen was bleeding from a dozen cuts including one on his tail. Even his armor had taken a dent, though he recalled the ghost that did it had exploded or something. He staggered and picked his way back out of the building, to head back to the village wall.

Meadow and his guards were up there. "Arlen!" shouted Meadow.

He trudged up his stepping-stone path to get back on the wall, and erased it behind him. "Need bandages." He wobbled and had to be helped back into town.

One of the prison foremen was drinking watered-down rum, trying to look comfortable while disarmed and hoping the exiles wouldn't take revenge on him. "Didn't think you'd be back. Real stupid to go alone."

Arlen's wounds burned, but he'd also seen the glimmer of scarlet light along them, similar to his other magic. Slow self-repair, apparently. He tried to laugh. "Wanted to get a feel for how bad it is. I tore up a lot of them. How many are there?"

"Never seen more than a few hundred at once, if counting them means anything. But they keep coming back. You might've bought us a few days of peace."

"What makes them keep returning?"

"Did you get a good look at them?"

"Old uniforms... clothing of a different people, dressed alike. Armed for war."

The former guard sipped his drink. "I think the land remembers a terrible battle, and relives it."

Arlen said, "Then how do you kill a memory?"

"Over the years we've pushed it away little by little. But anyone who's found where it comes from, hasn't come back to say."

#

Arlen had effectively taken control of Death Island. The few exiles who least wanted to be there had gone, and two men who were... unpopular, had quietly requested to come with Arlen when he left, in return for fighting. Which meant that Arlen couldn't trust them.

He sailed back to Opaline in a hurry with Meadow's help. He turned the two ex-guards over to Opaline's chief to figure out their fate. As soon as they'd been taken away for later questioning, he muttered, "Not my circus."

He worked with Opaline's chief, who'd been building more boats lately. "I'll keep training the troops, but please make a run to Death Island to get more volunteers."

"They're willing to come here?" asked the chief.

"Some of them will come with us to Decim. Because it's almost time to finish the job."