Chapter 25 · Frontier Lord - Chapter 25: Those Banners Aren't Help

The banners came up the south road like a funeral procession.

Ava stood on the new foundation stone—still warm under her boots—and counted. Twelve riders. Two supply wagons. And at the front, on a gray gelding that probably cost more than her entire fief, her father.

She didn't move. The refugees behind her had gone quiet, the kind of quiet that came right before people ran or fought. Rain stepped up beside her, close enough she could feel the heat off his shoulder. He didn't say anything. Didn't need to.

"How many soldiers?" she asked.

"Eight. The rest are clerks." His voice stayed level. "Clerks are worse."

Yeah. Soldiers just killed you. Clerks made it legal first.

Her father reined in twenty feet out. He didn't dismount. That was the first message. The second was the way he looked at the new walls—raw timber and mud brick, nothing fancy but standing—and didn't react at all. Like she'd built a children's fort.

"Ava." He didn't raise his voice. He never did. "I received word you survived the winter."

"Surprised?"

"Mildly." He gestured, and one of the clerks rode forward with a scroll case. Leather. Sealed with red wax.