No One's Chosen (17 page)

Aile was nearing the inn now. The porch she meant to
hide under did not wrap around the side of the building so she
would have to make her way to the side of the building and then
under. Such porches were often adorned with latticework covers for
the open spaces below the main deck to keep larger animals from
hiding or dying or shitting underneath.

Around twenty yards from the back of the inn, the
grass had been more well tended. It was no length to hide in and
the open run, while dark, would mean the risk of drunks or tavern
workers exiting the back side of the place. "Well, I can always
just kill them," she thought, giving a shrug. A search party would
be most unwelcome and they were apt to blame something from the
wood.

She stood and sprinted. It was a short run but it
filled her with excitement. She made the edge of the inn and was
back to the shadows. Several houses along the road had windows on
the back side which cast light out onto the grassy cut of land, but
the inn did not. Most like the kitchen was there.

Aile slipped around the side of the inn and toward
the front. Voices! She froze and they passed without so much as a
glance toward the thin, grassy alleyway between the inn and
whatever it was it neighbored. She approached the front, laying
down to keep her silhouette as small and out of eye line as she
could. She was almost to the porch now.

A lattice of thin pine covered the underside of the
porch. "Goddess be damned," she thought, bitter at her luck. "Thin,
at least." She waited a few breaths, listening for any sign that
there was life on the porch. All sound came from inside the inn. It
was time. She pulled at the lattice and the tiny tack nails popped
out with ease. She only needed a few bits loose to make her way
under the thing. Aile moved through the lattice, wriggling and
turning to her side. She slid under and was able to crouch and move
a bit more freely.

To her dismay, the wall leading to the underside of
the inn proper was spackled stone and she could not see an opening
to crawl through. She would have to wait for patrons to bring their
drunken ramblings into the night air.

So she waited. And waited. And waited.

After what seemed like a small age, a pair of men
finally came forth, complaining. "…the Fires damned thing down. No
work means no pay, ya fool."

A deeper voice elf responded. "Ya think I don't know
that? Arse. Poc says it ain't like to be more'n a week. Still
weren't my shift. Heard an old man what was there sayin' it was
ghosts."

"Sabotage, more like. Ain't no ghosts 'round here.
Seen me a couple o' them folk in fancy dress from the mine office
frettin' around the mine entrance. Must be they're tryin' ta get it
fixed quick and cover up the deaths best they can to keep the
Regent from payin' a visit. Auditor from Cnoclean looked well
pissed off."

The men stepped down from the porch and started off
down the street. Aile followed as best she could.

"Ha! Copper's worth more'n our bodies. Ain't it the
way."

"Aye. That's certain as cold in winter."

"Hell, whatever it is I hope it does draw the Regent
down…"

They had walked too far and she could no longer make
out their conversation, but it had been enough as it was. The mine
was shut down and she could do her business, but it was something
else that caught her attention. An auditor working for the regent
lived in town to keep the mine honest. And he had the power to
summon the Regent. Curious thing, that. For all the pains to make
this seem a matter of coin, politics was starting to slide its
knobby fingers back into the pie. Aile was curious. She was beyond
curious. She wanted to be a step ahead of the man who was sending
her on her little errands. And she would get ahead of him, but
without any real knowledge of the city it would have to wait a fair
few hours.

The hours it took were boring indeed. Aile had been
waiting for the inn to close and the streets to quiet. It must have
been after midnight by a fair deal when the inn finally shuttered
its doors and the streets went quiet. Her antics the night before
had drawn a patrol. It consisted of only two guards, most likely
hired hands from the mining company, each starting at opposite ends
of the curved main street of the city and walking to the middle,
crossing, and then back again. Aile made her way around easily
enough and it wasn't long before she found the mining company's
head office. This was going to be good fun.

The windows did not open so she was forced to make
her way in through the front door. It was a cheap enough lock and
the patrol was so lacking in valuable coverage that she made her
way in with little effort. The bottom floor was an office space,
desks, ink, and quill. Nothing useful. She made her way upstairs
and found four doors. A bedroom each, she reckoned. The drunks had
mentioned two company men but the rooms may all be full. She did
not care who, she only needed one. She checked the rooms in
succession and found only two of them were populated. Rooms each on
either side of the floor. It was more than she could ask for.
Perhaps later, she would apologize to the Goddess for her blasphemy
over the lattice.

Arbitrarily, she chose the door on the right side of
the stair. She entered and found a slender, elderly elf snoring
away as he had been when she'd first checked the rooms.

Aile stood and strode silently to the bedside. She
stared down at the old man, his pathetic mouth open, snores roaring
out into the night. In a way, she thought, she was doing the fellow
in the other room something of a favor. She pulled a dagger from
the sheath on her hip and flipped it to be held by the blade. A
sharp flick of the wrist brought the hilt down on the old man's
forehead, cutting his snore off abruptly.

The old man's eyes shot open, he looked right, then
left. There she was, smiling down at him. An evil smile, her white
teeth shining in the light of a moon that had crept out from behind
the clouds.

"It weren't ghosts," Aile said, her voice quivering
with joy.

The wrinkled elf made to scream, but she jammed the
dagger into his throat. A small wound, but it blocked his air well
enough. The elf made to flail, doing anything to make noise but
Aile mounted him, smiling a huge, insane smile.

"You're going to bring me something interesting, elf.
You should be smiling."

She grabbed onto his cheeks and pulled them upward,
wrenching his pained face into a sick smile. He died that way and
Aile climbed down, breathing heavily.

"Good," she whispered to the corpse. "Very good. Now
I need to get you ready to see the people."

Socair had hardly slept, but not from excitement. Her
eyes pained her when she met Silín and Doiléir that morning, both
in brigandines and plate coverings down the front of their legs.
Leading a Vanguard was a matter of directing force where it would
be most effective. It was single combat with a body made up of
tinier parts. She need only know her parts well enough to know
which would do best where. It was without doubt that she knew the
two extra parts of her new body, but there were simply adjustments
that couldn't be made if the situation called for it. A superior
force was not something that could be overcome through a clever
shifting of weight. Six arms would always tire more quickly than
sixty. That left stealth— which was far from her forte— and
fastidious planning as her only options. Planning it would have to
be, but the short amount of time and lack of ability to scout the
position in person meant that much of her planning was apt to fall
apart in the face of an opponent.

That had not been enough to cause her concern on
their trek to the outskirts of Scáthloch, named for the lake which
it bordered. A river fed the lake from the north. It was bridged at
several places, none of which they could afford to use. The scouts
had used a shallow a fair distance up river from the city to cross
unseen and Socair had been forced to do the same. It wouldn't do to
simply ride across in a show of force as she had no force to show.
It had made for an arduous morning, and stressful. Doiléir and
Silín had each been uncharacteristically quiet. Socair had wanted
to brighten the mood but found herself unable to muster the act.
They were nervous. It was new and the situation was unknown.
Without tons of elf flesh and steel at your back, the unknown had a
different flavor.

The tension reached a height with the trio crouched
outside the stucco walls. They were foreign things to Socair.
Stucco was favored by the desert elves as a covering for their
walls of dried clay brick. They were more quickly patched if often
less sturdy than the stone and mortar walls favored by the river
and mountain elves. As Socair and her Attendants neared a wide
breach left in the wall around Scáthloch, she could make out the
splinters of wooden logs covered with rough plaster. Through the
gaping hole she could make out the more traditional housings of a
river elf city. Scáthloch bordered the Fásachbaile province and the
walls were likely a sign of respect to the culture of their regular
trade partners as much as anything.

Socair walked through the breach in the wall first,
Doiléir and Silín keeping a sharp watch on the area around for any
sign of hippocamps. Other than the destruction, there was no sign
of hippocamps along the road to the city. Inside the walls, it was
clear that a horde had been through.

The breach in the wall exited onto a flat of land
behind a row of what had been houses. Socair made her way down a
small hill of rubble and onto the grass. She motioned for Doiléir
and Silín to join her. They did.

Silín spoke first. "Well, they've certainly been
here."

Doiléir nodded his agreement.

Socair began making her way across the rubble, toward
the main street for a better look at what awaited them. The front
wall of the house they had entered the remains of was still
standing as if to spite the attackers. The occupants were not so
well intact, with bits of bodies spread among the wreckage. They
passed through a collapsed edge of the wall and onto the main
street. The smoke they had seen on their approach revealed its
source. Half of the city had been razed, with much of the rest
still aflame, at least on the western half. The path of destruction
burned a path to the eastern side of the city which, curiously, was
still largely intact.

"Why would they leave half a city intact? They
never…" Socair trailed off there, her mind turning in search of a
solution.

"An odd place to retreat," Doiléir agreed. "Perhaps
the city guard gained ground on them?"

"Then where are they now? Listen."

The only sound that filled the air was the slow
crackle of burning buildings. No screams, no groans, no orders
called. It was unduly quiet for an area that could likely have
contained survivors. Socair decided that they would make for the
eastern side of the city. It remained quiet as they approached,
walking plainly in the street now.

"Should we call out?" Silín asked.

Socair thought better of the suggestion. "No, we
still do not know what has happened. Hippocamps have no use for elf
dwellings, most could scarce manage to fit through a door."

"Taken for captives, perhaps?"

"Perhaps." Socair could think of little else to
explain it. Though the hippocamps did not often take prisoners in
numbers so large, there had been tales of entire encampments
disappearing in the White Wastes south of Fásachbaile.

They were making north along the eastern side of the
city. The keep stood at the center of the district, to the north,
and would hopefully hold answers, or at least the survivors Crosta
had mentioned. Socair insisted that they keep tight formations. The
entire city was quiet and it unnerved her, though she could not let
it show. They knew, she suspected, but acting brave was often
enough to convince others to do the same. And what was bravery but
a refusal to let fear guide your actions?

The entirety of the eastern district, at least what
they had seen, was utterly silent and devoid of life. A few shop
doors stood open, the insides ransacked, but not a body to be seen,
elf or otherwise. They could see the spires that flanked the city's
hold now. Socair must've had them wait near a half hour, watching
the square. Nothing so much was twitched in the entire time. Even
the wind seemed reluctant to blow. Finally she made the call. They
would move to the keep.

The hold was more ornate than Rún's and stood at the
head of a verdant park that acted as a square and meeting place.
Stone walls with banners, untouched by fire or arrow, hung from
crenellated battlements. The spires were rich with embrasures and
decorated with the bright tan of stucco spiraling intricately up
their height. Bright red tiled roofs topped the spires and the
large main doors were of bright red cedar, painted with a black
half-sun which was the house sigil of the Regent. It was truly a
beautiful keep. Why it stood in such pristine condition, Socair
could not say. Surely there must have been fighting here.

As they neared the doors, Socair could make out
streaks of blood across the ground and on the edges of the
door.

"Get that open. Quietly," she ordered her
compatriots.

Socair looked out over the square at the half
destroyed city trying to make sense of what might have happened
here. She hoped that there would be answers inside the hold.

"Sisters, NO!" Silín's voice rang out, loud across
the square. Socair turned to see what could provoke such a reaction
from the elf that had seen so many battles.