No One's Chosen (69 page)

She kept to the ground for concern over re-opening a
wound. The chunk of her arm has mostly healed but it still bore a
large scab and her leg, while nearly healed, was not shy in
reminding her of the injury even with light use.

The sun was well into the sky and the room was taking
on a brightness that gave depth to her shadow when the doors
slammed open. A stooped elf with thin blond hair entered, wringing
his hands fretfully. He moved quickly to the center of the room and
thumbed through a roll of papers on his desk, noting down numbers.
He wore a flowing robe of deep blue linen and when he had his
numbers he moved from stack to stack.

Aile snuck her way to the doors he had left open and
pushed them hard enough that the weight would carry them shut. She
moved back to the shadows and when the doors slammed closed the elf
barked a terrified cry and looked at the door. When he saw nothing,
his head jerked from one stack to the next. The frightened bird
went back to his pecking and made for another stack.

It was enough now. When he returned to the desk, Aile
stepped out from the stacks silently.

"I need some documents," she said casually.

The man's eyes shot to her in terror and he turned to
run. He clipped the edge of the table and the gathered stack of
papers fell to the ground. Aile overtook the man before he managed
to reach any of the aisles. She slammed his fat body against the
edge of the stacks and put the point of her dagger to his
stomach.

"My neck is quite sore. You will kneel for our talk
or I will open your belly."

The elf breathed heavy and was sweating profusely.
His eyes flitted from the blade to Aile's face and back. When he
was too his knees, she put the blade at his throat and looked down
at him.

"You are the Keeper of Records, are you not?"

"Y-Yes… I-I-I… I was sent to g-get the papers. The
papers." He pointed to the scattered papers on the floor.

"I do not care why you are here, elf. I have need of
documents about the elf Spárálaí. All his holdings and heirs and
the like."

"T-There. Those are the p-papers you seek. I swear
it." He blubbered the words from his lips, half-crying.

She looked to the papers on the ground and laughed.
"A bad time for jokes."

He moaned a terrible horrified moan and the sound of
liquid spatting against the floor filled the air with an awful
stink of urine. Aile looked down and then back at the elf. He
closed his eyes, sobbing. "I swear it, I swear it, I swear it." He
repeated the words desperately through thick, snotty sobs.

The Drow took a step back from the man and made a
sour face at him. "Where is this Spárálaí now?"

"T-The meeting hall. Above the main… main f-floor."
He could not even look at her as he spoke.

"What a disgusting thing," Aile thought. She kicked
him in the gut and he doubled over, crying more loudly than he had
before. He did not move from the spot he fell, only lay there
sobbing into the floor and moaning.

Aile moved to the papers he had gathered and stacked
them neatly. She shuffled through and found all that mentioned
property. There were none that spoke of an heir or bequeathments.
The bulk of the ownings were in the city and the deeds stated that
they would remit to the possession of the Bastion in the event of
any death with no suitable heir. There were a half dozen that were
outside of the city and so she took those and stuffed them into her
leathers.

The Keeper of Records still lay in a puddle of his
own urine and spittle, weeping. And snoring, from the sound of it.
Had he truly fallen asleep?

She left the room and made for the meeting room. The
Bastion was quiet and she heard not so much as a footfall among the
corridors as she roamed toward the main hall. She knew the
direction well enough. The last of her turns was onto an overwalk
that led to the main hall. Outside there was a great deal of
shouting and in the distance she could hear the sound of fighting.
Smoke rose from several parts of the city.

Aile paid it no mind. Any distraction was so much the
better for her. There was a single guard in the main hall. He did
not see the knife that dug itself into his skull, but it found him
just the same. He guarded a stair that Aile assumed left up to the
meeting room. It was a grand sort of staircase. The sort that
important elves like to build so they felt important even as they
walked.

She climbed the stair and pulled open a pair of
unnecessarily ornate doors. They had been carved with some elf that
was long dead with swirls of this and that. She did not bother to
notice the minutiae of the design. There was an elf she intended to
speak with. The doors swung open and light flooded onto Aile.

"So you have finally come." The familiar voice came
from the silhouette standing at the colonnade at the far end of the
room.

When Aile's eyes had adjusted to the light, she saw
the sharp featured elf turn to face her.

"I suppose it has been—" He stopped suddenly when he
saw her. "Oh. The Drow." His voice was a low growl of disgust.

"I am owed payment, elf. A good deal of it." She
stepped in and closed the doors behind.

"Payment?" He scoffed. "Of course. You Drow and your
love of coin and violence." He walked toward her confidently.

Aile followed him around the side of the table. She
could see him more clearly now. The old elf looked tired. He wore a
long shift of heavy silk that he had cinched around his waist with
a cord of the same fabric over brown trousers.

"I suppose you should not consider it undue if I
withheld some of that coin by way of expenses you have caused in
your work."

Aile smiled as he drew nearer. "I will have every
ounce of what I am owed. I should take nothing less for being
forced to deal with such a queer and repugnant people as you
elves."

"From the mouth of a Drow."

Spárálaí's face flushed red and he drew back an open
hand to slap her. The pampered elf's swing was slow and weak. She
ducked the blow and put a boot into the side of his knee. The
highborn man fell to the ground with a high bark of pain. Aile
moved to his back, pulling a blade, and pushed his head to the
table by the neck. She reached down before he could manage a
struggle and dragged the blade through his linen trousers and into
the meat behind his knees. The scream was loud but cut short when
Aile yanked at the back of his shift, pulling the collar of it up
into his throat.

She dragged the cut elf to the chair at the end of
the table nearest the door and pushed him into it. Still wailing in
pain, Spárálaí made no attempt to flee. She cut the cord from his
waist, looped it over his neck and pulled it down, tying it around
the thick wooden back of the chair. He jerked against it
instinctively and managed only a gag for his efforts. The length of
the cord forced his head upward and so he had to look down to see
Aile as she perched on the large table in front of him.

"You do not understand, do you? I am saving this
province." He breathed deep and desperate. "That damnable girl has
led us away from all that made us grand and if you kill me here,
the entire north is like to fall. The hippocamps are marching here
as we speak. She is too weak. She will never—"

He screamed pitifully as Aile tore a thick handful of
hair from his scalp. His breathing became heavy and Aile walked
back in front of him. Her hands took on a soft orange glow in the
light of the room and the hair began to burn and stink.

"Nasty. Drow. Cunt." He spit the words at her and
kicked.

With the last kick Aile grabbed his leg. The
immediate burn sent the Binseman into fits of pained screaming.
"Every ounce."

The bottom of his trouser leg caught fire and the
flames lapped up as the screams were cut by choking gags as the elf
flailed wildly trying to escape the burn. The chair was immensely
heavy, carved from old growth and made larger than it need be. He
shifted it from side to side but it refused to tip. Soon the fire
had burned up his legs and the flame found the fat in his thigh. It
popped and hissed as it poured out from the cracking flesh. The
choked screaming died out here as either the pain or the lack of
air took him to unconsciousness.

Aile sat herself back on the edge of the table and
watched as the source of her recent troubles was taken by the
flames. She sighed and breathed deeply, inhaling the smell of the
elf's burning flesh. It was a beautiful smell. She closed her eyes
and let the breath go into the room.

He burned longer than she expected for such a skinny
old thing. When the elf had turned to char, she poked at his face.
She could still make out those features that had annoyed her even
in the alehouse in Fásachbaile.

Aile smiled at the corpse and stood, preparing to
leave. She had made the first step when she heard the rattle of the
handles at the door in front of her.

Socair dismounted the horse in a thicket of trees not
far from the rising walls of the fort. Shodar had been obedient
across the entire ride and the horse, in spite of its age, never
seemed to tire. Whatever Liath had fed it was doing it some amount
of good, Socair thought. She turned the horse back toward the Mire
as she had been told, doing her best to estimate where Liath's
house might be from the wood. She slapped the horse on its flank
and it chuffed softly and took off into the night.

The fort wasn't more than a few hundred yards away
and the far edge of the thicket she used as cover had been stripped
for use as building material. The structures of the fort were
coming along, as best she could tell from the edge of the trees.
The walls had started to come up on south and east faces of the
fort city. She could see a few barracks had been built around the
large camp but it was hard to say how far along things were apt to
be. She remembered that Crosta had meant to build his own quarters
along the rear side of the fort, near where his tent had been. The
Binseman had some hand in the ambushes she had heard about, she
knew it well enough even without facts. She was here for those
facts, though she doubted he would give them willingly. Even a
bearer was not apt to be trusted over the word of a Binseman.

The tall elf left the wood and moved toward the
fortress grounds, doing her best to be inconspicuous. She had no
good cause to hide from the bulk of the camp's inhabitants. No, in
fact they would be quite happy to see her, surely. But it would
give Crosta time to gather his retinue and hide or destroy anything
she might find that was of use.

She was thankful that the ride had been slow and even
enough. It was the thick of night and there were a spare few hours
before the sun would rise and the camp would bustle with life. The
guard had been kept light when it was only a camp. The nearest
proper city was twenty miles to the northeast and there was little
reason to suspect a night attack from the hippocamps. They did not
favor underhanded tactics. "At least while Crosta was in the camp,"
Socair thought.

Her bastard sword had a tendency to want to clank
against the lamellar armor she had managed to purchase with the
coin the old man had given her. It was an old style of armor made
of woven together squares of steel on leather. It was not worn so
much anymore except among some of the desert elves, but it was the
closest to a brigandine she had found. The shop where she had found
the gear was small and between an inn and a small house. It was not
even an armor shop proper. The place sold goods from around the
continent and both the shop and the inn were run by the same elf
and his daughters. The man had tried to convince her to stay, but
there was no time to entertain the notion. He had also tried to
convince her that the mail would be better if she meant to wear the
stuff in battle, but mail had never suited the large woman.

Forcing herself to remember to hold the sword against
her leg was the least of her problems. She was ill fit for moving
in a crouch and the ache in her thigh from the recently healed
muscle did little to bolster her progress. The camp was more poorly
lit than it had been the last time she was here and for that Socair
counted herself lucky. Without the cookfires at the center of tent
circles being used for warmth and escaping the meals of the mess
hall, she was able to move around much more freely than she had
expected she would be able to.

It felt strange, though, sneaking into a camp where
she had once been welcome. And was likely still welcome. She felt a
criminal in a place she had every right to be. She did not like the
feeling and the sooner it was all done, the better. As she passed
another of the darkened barracks, she cast a glance eastward. The
scouts had been across the way when there were still tents put
down. She did not know if they had moved or not, but she wanted to
pay a visit to Sonraí and see that he had made it through assisting
her. His note had not been well encoded in any way and plainly
stated the intelligence he was passing along. If the Binseman or
his helpers had seen it, they may have punished the man.

Crosta's quarters had been fully built and they were
simple enough. Whatever his motivations, the man had never been
particularly flamboyant in his manner. The building was a simple
square made of finely finished wood and the green banners with red
stripes and his sigil, a hawk with open talons. Socair pressed
herself beside the building and listened. She could scarcely hear
through the wood of the walls, but a pair of voices grew louder and
nearer the front door.

"…find the damn body. Deifir has been nagging me
without end to see to her little Bearer brought to Abhainnbaile for
a hero's rights." It was Crosta. She heard him scoff.