No One's Chosen (61 page)

The docks appeared before them. There was blood along
the stones marking the boardwalk and its adjacent street, though
there were few signs of an actual fight. It looked more to be a
slaughter. These were fisherman, after all. They would not have
weapons to hand and would use them poorly even when pressed to
battle. The bodies had been removed, but the signs were there.
Socair hoped they had managed to fell at least a few of the
horsefolk but it was impossible for her to guess if that had been
the case.

Doiléir moved to sheath his sword.

"No," Socair called. "I am unconvinced by this play.
Scáthloch was the same. There is—"

Her thoughts were interrupted by a scream from the
eastern side of the city. Doiléir drew his sword and the three
elves made for the sound with all haste.

"Was it elven?" Doiléir asked.

"It was. Male. From the east." Socair led the three.
The scream had come from a fair distance and they would need to
cover it quickly. They did not need more mystery and Socair would
not stand for the loss of an innocent she could hope to save. They
turned a corner off of the boardwalk and made down a thin alley in
single file. In the middle of the alley, another scream ripped
through the air but from the west.

Socair slid to a stop in the alley and turned to look
at Silín and Doiléir behind. They had heard the scream as well.
Two? How many elves were still in the city? It was true they had
been well away from the path Socair had taken, but this was no
good.

"What are your orders?" Silín's voice brought her
back to her wits.

"I will go to the west," Socair said with conviction.
"It will be safer for you both with two. We must help whoever we
can."

The elves nodded and Socair turned to run. At the
first break in the alley, she broke for the west and separated from
Silín and Doiléir. The city had fallen quiet again but the large
elf made more than enough noise for a dozen as she pounded through
the streets. She glanced down as she passed them, and the main
street fell in behind her quickly enough. There were overturned
carts, she saw, but no life. The scream echoed again, closer now,
much closer. She turned back toward the water.

"Where are you, muleborn cowards?" she called angrily
to the empty streets. "Come out and face me proper!"

She heard the clatter of boards from the next street
over and ran to see. The door of a house swung in the wind and
Socair moved to inspect it. As she drew closer to the door, she
could hear her father's voice creep into her mind.

"First, you separate them," he had said when she was
young. She had shown herself more competent with a blade than her
brothers and he'd sent her to the woods to hunt them. She looked
back across the city, her face must have shown the fear in her
mind. She was too far now. They were fine, she told herself. Her
Attendants were clever and skilled.

She turned to the door and kicked it open. The house
was small and made from a single room of greying wood. In the
corner, she found the source of the calls. A woman in her middle
age stood with a knife to her throat. Behind her was a satyr, tall
and thin. He screeched at her when she came in the door and pulled
the blade away from the woman's neck, pushing her forward.

Before the elf could find her balance, the satyr put
a sharp kick into her back. She flew forward with a crunching
sound, screaming as she did. Socair wheeled to the side to miss the
woman, trying her best to maintain a defensive stance. The satyr
took his chance, lurching forward with his roughly hewn knife. She
pulled the sword up in time to catch the satyr by his wrist and
only the bone handle of the blade bit out at her.

The woman wailed on the floor as the satyr clattered
down on top of her. There was a sound at her back and Socair
turned. Another satyr stood at the door. She could not fight them
this way, not from both sides. The tall elf ran forward and chopped
awkwardly at the downed satyr. Her blade cut into his torso and
slid free as she pulled upward, spinning.

The wounded hippocamp flailed on the floor, kicking
wildly with the pain. His partner ducked through the doorway
pulling a sword as he did. The noise in the house was unbearable
between the cries of the elf and the screeching pains of the
satyr.

The sword of the standing foe flew at her awkwardly
as the satyr's body twisted. A kick was to follow the slash so
Socair pressed in and forced the kick to land shallow into her
thigh. The muscle quaked under the strength of the impact, but the
satyr was off balance. She swung the bastard sword around and
cleaved into the chest of her enemy. The tip of the edge of the
sword clunked against his spine and sent a shock into Socair's
arms. She hauled the kicked leg up and forced it into the satyr's
ribs as she twisted the blade. When it pulled free, a wash of blood
and meat fell down the front of the creature.

The other, on the floor, had scrambled to his knees.
He was making for his knife when Socair's blade pushed through the
back of his skull and out through his nose, tearing it from the
skin of his face. She pulled the sword out quickly and turned back
to the door. There was no one. At least not for the moment.

Socair moved to the woman with an awkward limp and
knelt beside her. Her voice was urgent. "Your injuries…"

The woman frowned at her, blood trickling from the
side of her mouth. "They said…" She let go a sound somewhere
between a laugh and a cough. Flecks of blood landed on Socair's leg
and more ran down the woman's chin. "They would spare us… if we
screamed."

"How many?" Socair shouted the words.

The woman seemed to just stare past her. The bleeding
elf looked down at her legs and frowned. She rolled onto her back
and closed her eyes.

"How many?" she screamed, slapping the motionless
body. She shook the corpse and screamed and begged for some number.
Some low number. Doiléir and Silín were clever and skilled.

Socair stood and wheeled. The sound of hooves on
stone rang from outside. She rushed to the door and burst out into
the street to see three satyrs standing at the cut of the alleyway.
Two were carrying something. Bodies. Her heart sank as the shapes
registered in her mind. They threw the bodies to the street in
front of her. Doiléir was cut deep across his chest. He was so limp
and pale looking now. Silín, the girl Socair had thought was so
beautiful. Her chest and face had been crushed in. The skin had
ripped away under the hard edge of hooves.

"No." Socair said the words but they would change
nothing.

The tallest of the horsefolk laughed a jagged laugh.
There was a deep cut sunk into his arm. He pointed to Doiléir and
then to the cut. "The dark one."

Socair pointed to Silín wordlessly.

"Took. One." He held up a finger.

She smiled and readied her sword. "Good girl," she
whispered.

The lead satyr rushed her with no weapon and a lame
arm. He raised a small axe above his head and the pair behind
started to move as well. As the beast reached her, she ducked low
and swung her sword with every bit that her muscles could give. She
felt the muscle in her leg tear as the blade came around. The force
of the blow pulled the blade clean through the satyr's legs. He
hissed and screamed. The stones below washed red with gushing
blood. One of the legs had severed cleanly, the other spun him as
his weight came down on it, twisting.

Socair could not force her leg up before the other
satyrs were on her. She pulled her bastard sword toward the strong
side of her body and pushed away a blow from the female satyr's
sword. Her flank was exposed to the left, however and the smaller
male satyr put a hoof into her ribs. She could feel the bone
collapse, sending a spike into her lung. A coughing groan sent
blood into the street.

The elf swatted with her free hand and bought some
space as her attackers fled away from the strike. She willed
herself to stand and turned to face her two remaining foes. The
tallest of the three was on the ground, screaming something in the
hippocamp tongue. For a second the still standing satyr pair seemed
confused as to what they were meant to do. It was not much, but
Socair would gladly have it.

She rushed the female with the sword and swung up.
The speed of her movement surprised the satyr and Socair's opponent
could only offer a shallow block. Socair pushed in hard and caught
the tip of the satyr's nose with her blade. The horse woman stooped
immediately as the blade cleared her head in reflect to the cut.
Socair grunted noisily, fighting the momentum of her own blade. She
brought it down with thunderous force and the blade ripped the
hippocamp's skull in half.

The remaining male had stooped to take the axe from
the first attacker. He swung quick for her head before she could
steady herself. Socair wrenched her own leg from under her weight
and twisted awkwardly, falling. The axe found her right shoulder
and split the metal plates of her brigandine, biting deep. She felt
the arm go limp as she landed hard on the other shoulder. Her
breathing went ragged as the lung that had been punctured
collapsed. She scrambled to her knees as the satyr drew the axe
back for another blow. She leaned in as the satyr swung forward and
his momentum sent his body tumbling over her own. The axe was sharp
and ripped at the flesh of her thigh as the satyr landed. His head
met the stones first and when he landed flat on his back, he was
motionless.

Socair picked up the axe from the ground and slammed
it down into the satyr's skull. It more collapsed the thing than
pierced it. From behind her the screaming of the legless satyr grew
quiet. She turned to him and found the beast staring at her.

She crawled to him, slow and weak. The axe in her off
hand. He did not move or fight or beg. He said nothing, only stared
out from black eyes. Socair lifted the axe over her head and
brought it down between his eyes. She pulled it away again,
screaming. Tears rolled down as she plunged the axe over and over
into what remained of the satyr's head. She did not stop until the
axe hit stone and clattered away from her failing grip. It slid
across the bloody street and came to a stop away from the carnage
it had left behind.

The tall elf turned toward her Attendants. Her
friends, her loves. She sobbed as she dragged herself toward the
bodies. With all that she had left in her failing body, she dragged
Doiléir next to Silín.

Socair looked down at what remained of the two elves
she had loved more than she had ever been able to say. She laid her
head down lightly on Doiléir's still chest and took Silín's cold
hand.

She closed her eyes and imagined how warm they had
been.

Óraithe walked slowly on purpose. If Scaa was annoyed
by the pace, she said nothing. Óraithe was thankful for that. She
did not want to have to see Teas in a such a state any longer than
she already had. She knew if she did, that she would likely break
down crying. It was not something she was ready to do. Especially
not in front of Teas. The girl was kind enough that she was apt to
apologize again.

Or maybe that was not what concerned her. Perhaps it
was the idea that when Teas had returned to her senses, she would
see who was to blame for her pain. Óraithe could picture it easily
enough. Teas might not even yell, just distance herself slowly and
silently. That might be worse than anything. That Teas would still
care enough not to yell at her. She wanted to be yelled at, in
truth. By Teas, by Scaa… by someone. Even Cosain would do, she told
herself. She wanted them to care enough to tell her she was wrong
in what she had done. To force her to apologize for sending Teas to
the markets in the first place.

"Was it wrong to send her?" Óraithe said the words
quietly, half hoping Scaa would not hear.

"No," she said plainly in her rough voice. "You have
the right of it. If we are to burn a place built of marble, we will
need the mixtures as much as we ever have. What happened to Teas is
a terrible thing, but it changes nothing. If there was an error, it
was in entrusting a task to her that did not involve a
cookfire."

Óraithe wanted to be angry. She might have been,
even, for a bright flash, but it faded away. Scaa was right and no
amount of screaming and hitting would change it.

"It was day in the markets," Scaa continued. "I still
struggle to understand how the girl could not make a simple
purchase. It's not as though they would have carted her off from a
shop so easily. She must have followed them by her own leave. Was
she really so innocent as to do such a thing?"

Óraithe shook her head. "Not to follow. But she may
have carried the coin openly. She would likely have given in to
threats, though. She is not a good runner."

She had considered it in length in the sands of the
desert. How, she'd asked over and over again. She played back a
million possibilities in her mind and that was the only of them
that made any amount of sense to her.

Scaa shrugged. "Well, it won't do to ask her about it
and the other two that know for sure are well dead."

The boyish elf clearly wanted to be done with the
discussion entirely. She had seemed uncomfortable with the subject
if the manner of her speech was any indication. Óraithe wondered if
Scaa was not being mindful of her relationship with Teas. She spoke
her mind but did not speak ill of the northern elf outright. Nor
did she press the issue if Óraithe balked.

The Palisade was approaching and they had not turned
from the road approaching it. It was not the main road to the
squares, but a side road on the west side of the city. The towering
spires grew closer and somehow a knot formed in Óraithe's
stomach.