No One's Chosen (56 page)

The man sat up screaming and was greeted with a bit
of his own blunt steel across the throat. A thick gulp stifled the
scream and his eyes looked over to Aile.

"Your steel is poorly forged. I need quality blades.
Who is the best in the city?"

The man gritted his teeth against the pain. "Bah. My
steel is the finest—"

Aile plunged a second dagger into his thigh beside
the first. "Who?"

"Gaaah!" The man did his best to keep the pain quiet
lest he invoke the Drow to pull the blade across his throat.
"Buail," he groaned." In the Inner Crescent, Fires take 'im. He has
a shop off the South Road."

She pulled the blade away from his throat and flipped
it over in her hand. "Let me see your tongue."

"What?"

She slapped at the hilts of the blades in the man's
thigh and he yelped and stuck his tongue out. She brought the base
of the dagger she held up against his chin with all of her force
and the bladesmith's teeth sunk deep into his tongue, nearly
shearing it in two. He screamed an awkward, garbled scream as blood
poured down from his face to join the stuff running from his
legs.

Aile left with nothing more than the blades she had
taken. The night was still quite young and Buail was waiting to be
found in the Inner Crescent.

Doiléir had remained quiet for the first few hours of
the ride while the food they had eaten worked its way through him.
When the meal had been digested he perked up and rode his horse to
Socair's side.

"This outpost, how far is it?" His tone was just
short of complaining.

"Near half the ride to Drocham."

He groaned. "Will the beds be as soft as in
Dulsiar?"

Silín piped up. "I am not sure I believe there are
any beds as soft as those elsewhere in the world. And I'm not sure
I'd have them. I could hardly sleep."

"I doubt there will be much in the way of room for
us," Socair said. Outposts of that sort rarely host more than
twenty heads as a base for routine patrols and emergency response
and the like. We'll be lucky if there's a spare shack off the
stables."

Silín rode up from the back to put them all abreast.
The road had just enough room for it.

Doiléir yawned. "So you made the girl an Attendant
and then left her behind?"

"She is no fighter," Socair replied. "A healer some
day, perhaps, but not now. No sense giving ourselves two helpless
mouths to feed."

Silín snickered and Doiléir rolled his eyes. "What
will she do in Dulsiar, then?"

"She will ensure that the Treorai finally has word of
what we have been doing. To this point, Crosta has handled every
missive I have sent to her and I've seen none of her own. It may be
nothing, but I think there is something strange at work here. I
have no proof of it and now we've been sent away from Crosta. I
cannot say if it is for the better or if it means more elves will
fall to ambushes."

Doiléir thought a while. "Then the
hippocamps
have
made their way through the Mire."

"Or they've used boats," Silín added flatly.

Doiléir broke into a laugh but it faded when he
realized he was alone in what he had thought to be a joke. "No," he
said in disbelief. "Where would they have even found boats to ride?
Can hippocamps make boats?"

Silín shrugged and they rode on toward the outpost.
Though they had left before noon, it was nearly sunset when they
arrived. From the far approach it was a fairly standard looking
place. Walls a few dozen feet into the air and a strong stone wall
with a thick wooden door built across the road. It could be passed
around easily enough if the outcroppings at each edge of the
crenelated tops of the walls did not play host to archers.

As they approached the checkpoint, they could see
that the doors were closed and that there were no soldiers along
the wall above them. Even the archers that should have manned the
corners of the towers were nowhere to be seen. She was not the only
one to notice the lack of life.

When they were within a fair few hundred yards of the
place, Doiléir voiced his concerns in a serious tone. "There are no
bodies along that wall. Dinner, perhaps?"

"I shall hope so," Socair said moving a hand to the
hilt of her sword.

When they had fully approached the walls of the
outpost and no soul had appeared, Socair shouted up to announce
herself. There was only silence in return. She called several more
times, as loudly as she could manage and the reply came empty and
silent as it had since the beginning. There were no sounds of life
through the wall of wood and stone. No murmur of everyday living,
no shouts of danger or violence. The sun would leave them soon and
the thought of sleeping upon the ground appealed to none among the
party.

"Perhaps the southern gate?" Socair said, almost
wishing for one of her Attendants to complain and bid them return
to Dulsiar.

"May as well," Doiléir said and turned his horse
toward the side of the road.

The outpost was not particularly long or large in
general. Socair could imagine it holding no more than fifteen
soldiers from the size of it. The west had rarely seen any of the
reality of the war even through its fifteen thousand years and
rarely needed much in the way of protection or emergency response.
Outpost soldiers were often poorly trained as a result. Many were
children desiring a change from the lives their parents had decided
for them. Some where those self-same parents after business had
turned sour.

The southern side came into voice and showed no sign
of life as they rounded the corner but the doors were another
matter. They had been taken to with axes and rams from the look of
it, and stood wide open now. Socair drew her sword as soon as she
saw the doors and the others did as well. She rode to the wooden
gate tentatively and looked inside.

The yard of the outpost was a slaughter. She could
see three bodies through the crack in the door. Socair dismounted
and moved into the outpost proper. Silín and Doiléir did the same.
The yard was quiet and motionless. Inside, the proper count of
bodies rose to five, though there were no foes to be seen. Had they
been massacred with no warning? That simply could not be with the
damage on the gate. It would have been loud and slow even if they
lacked the numbers to defend against it. But had they truly killed
none of the attackers? There were no signs of them, or so Socair
had first thought until she looked to her own feet. There were
drags of blood along the road through the outpost. Several that she
could see from where she stood.

"They've taken the dead," she said, pointing to the
ground.

"Raiders, then?" Doiléir suggested.

"I've heard of no band of raiders large or well
equipped enough for something of this sort," Silín said. "Nor would
they have a reason for it. There is precious little coin kept in
these sorts of outposts. They take their shipments directly in food
and goods from the towns they serve to protect. It would be far
easier to attack the shipments themselves."

Socair approached one of the dead and rolled her
over. She knelt to inspect the body. The girl's neck had been
collapsed by some great pressure on it. The shape was wrong for any
sort of elven footwear. It was a hard-line around the edge and
roughly circular.

She stood and turned to her Attendants. "Hippocamps.
The girl's neck was crushed by a hoof. I cannot say if they were
satyr or centaur from the mark alone. There may yet be someone
alive. The wounds are no more than a day old."

There were four buildings. To the eastern side, a
stable and a storehouse for goods. On the western side, there was
what looked to be a mess and quarters for the guards. Socair
directed Silín and Doiléir to the storeroom, promising to join them
after checking the much more open stables. They separated and
Socair walked to the building that ought to have been home to the
sounds of animals shifting and complaining. The stalls were large
and the view inside was not an inspiring one. Blood flowed from all
of the previously inhabited stalls into the center walk. There was
a small saddle house at the far end of the walk. Socair moved
through the sticky, half-dried horse blood toward the saddle house.
The room still held all of its equipment in pristine shape. If
there were any doubt about whether the work here had been raiders,
it was now beyond question. No raider would leave such a boon
behind. And no raider would put the blade to horseflesh except for
the meat. Hippocamps seemed to despise domesticated horses. She had
seen them spit on a riderless horse before cutting it down.

Socair moved from the stable and joined Silín and
Doiléir in the storehouse. It was more a warehouse than anything,
with only one large room. They had nearly finished checking the
place when she arrived.

"None of it has been touched," Silín called from the
back of the storehouse. "Well, save a couple of overturned sacks
near the entrance. There is grain and feed and a dozen other
things."

"The same for the gear, though the horses have all
been cut down."

"Would it be so much to ask for this to be a truly
eccentric groups of raiders?" He sighed.

The elves left the storehouse and made for the mess.
The door to the dining area had been kicked through. The hoof
prints were much clearer on the door. Socair pushed it open and
found a snapped wooden bar on the other side. There was a thick
pool of coagulated blood on the floor at the threshold. Socair
stepped in and saw it. Ten elves, maybe more, spread around the
place. All dead. Socair walked the floor, looking over the bodies.
The smell had not yet turned to rot but it would not be long. The
swords of several of the elves nearest the door had blood on the
blade. They had at least wounded the attackers, she thought.

"How many do you think it took?" Silín asked.

Socair picked up one of the blades and turned it over
in her hand. They were poorly made and had not seen much use. Some
of the blades felt quite old, even. "Not more than twelve," she
replied. "A pair of centaur and maybe ten satyr. It would not take
much. Poorly trained soldiers with awkward steel in their hands
would do little to put up a fight. Have either of you seen a bow
since we set foot in this place?"

"Not a one," Doiléir offered. Silín shook her
head.

There was a rustle among from the direction of the
kitchen and Socair readied her sword in the direction of the sound.
She motioned for Silín and Doiléir to follow. The floor was an
awful combination of slick and sticky. There was very little of the
cold stone that was not covered with elf blood. Some of it had to
have been satyr blood, the told herself.

The kitchen looked as though it had not been touched.
There were a pair of large clay stoves and some stations for
preparing the food. At the far end, near a back exit, there was a
pantry door. Socair stopped well enough inside the kitchen proper
to give Silín and Doiléir room to move should the need arise.

"We come from Dulsiar. Is there anyone left here? We
mean you no harm." Socair said the words loud and plain, with as
much authority as she could muster.

There was a shift in the pantry and the door slid
open slowly. A skinny, twitchy young elf came out into the kitchen.
Socair did not drop the ready stance on her sword and neither did
the others.

"Who are you?"

"L-Leagan. I… I fetched things to the larder for Gal
and did the washin' up." The boy clutched the edge of his shirt as
though it might fly away if he let it go. "I think… I think they
took 'er. She made me go in the larder there and hide. It goes
down… beneath."

Socair sheathed her sword. "They're all gone?" The
boy nodded and Socair turned to Doiléir. "Check the larder."

He went to the pantry door and disappeared inside.
Socair turned her attentions back to the boy. "Was it
hippocamps?"

"They… they said it was. Them that made it inside the
mess. I didn't see any of 'em. Gal told me… she said to get down
the ladder soon as she heard the gate break."

"Is there word of Dulsiar?"

The boy shook his head sheepishly. "Not as I know of.
Gal was arguin' about us bein' low on a few things with the
captain. We'd not heard from a soul in the south for more'n a week.
One old man. Captain made Gal fix him some good. She…" The boy
began to tear up and Socair saw him choking back a sob. "They took
her, didn't they? I heard her screamin'."

Doiléir came back up from the larder. "Only food," he
said as he passed by the boy. The small elf was staring down at the
floor, shaggy brown hair hanging around his face. He was doing his
best to seem as though he wasn't crying.

"Leagan." Socair's voice snapped the boy to
attention. "Can you ride?"

He nodded wordlessly. Socair turned to Silín. "We'll
send him to Dulsiar on your horse. Find ink and paper. Doiléir, you
as well."

They departed to search the grounds for the means to
write a note. Socair waved the boy over. He came tentatively and
nervously. He had not been overlong in the larder, but he
understood what had happened well enough.

"Leagan, we are leaving this place," Socair said as
gently as she could manage. She was terrible with young and soft
things. She pretended the boy was Práta. "There are dead among the
mess area. If you do not wish to see them, you must keep your eyes
down."

He nodded and she turned to lead him out. He stayed
close behind her. The walk through the mess was slow so as to make
sure the boy did not fall too far behind and to keep sure footing
amongst the blood. The boy whimpered and she could hear him
shifting uncomfortably.