No One's Chosen (59 page)

Rianaire adjusted herself in the chair. "I would
deputize your raiders to the service of the province. And yourself,
of course. In return, your band would be named as a fully
sanctioned mercenary group, recognized as such throughout
Spéirbaile."

Gadaí took another puff from the pipe. "There are
those among my band that have no purpose in this world but to do
ill."

"I would yield to your judgment upon who to take or
leave. If they are unfit to be among the living, so be it."
Rianaire's words were cold and businesslike.

"What of compensa—"

Gadaí was interrupted by a slamming at the door. The
angry, gruff voice of a male elf came through it. "Gadaí, open up
you satyr whore." The satyr looked at the door casually and the man
banged on it again. "I got words with that cunt from Spéirbaile. I
warn you, muleborn bitch, I will say my piece."

Inney turned to face the door and Rianaire nodded to
the satyr woman. "Let us see what it is he needs."

Gadaí nodded at Nasc and he stepped aside, pulling
the door open. A squat but well-built elf walked in, pale face
flushed red with rage. Before he could speak Inney stepped to the
side to make herself seen.

"I understand you wish to have words, but I should
ask that you remain well away from Rianaire." Her smile and voice
were the same sickening sweet as ever.

"Little bitch." The man stepped toward Inney with
rage in his face.

Inney did not move but the sound of a deep thunk rang
out and the man stopped where he stood. A trickle of blood ran down
the square iron spike buried in his forehead and he fell to his
knees as the bottom of Inney's cloak rustled back into position.
The small girl turned and placed herself back at Rianaire's
side.

"She is a dangerous one," Gadaí said with a sideways
glance. She motioned Nasc away and he saw to the body.

Rianaire did not wait for the satyr to return to the
conversation. "Compensation. Ten gold each for your raiders and a
small plot of land north of the Bastion City that is theirs to do
with as they wish. It is largely uninhabited. The winters are
harsh, but it is better than they have now."

"That is a high price for thieves and killers." Gadaí
took a drag from the pipe and thought quietly for a time. "You have
lost your city."

Rianaire nodded without hesitation. "I have."

"So you expect to find few enough of us able to
collect." The shrill, accented voice sounded displeased at the
prospect.

Rianaire frowned. "I hope that there is little
bloodshed. But it is beyond my sensibility to believe I can walk to
the gates and have the city back from those who took it. I expect
their forces will be fewer than they imagine. And should I arrive
with a force at my back, only the most loyal should bother to take
up the fight."

Gadaí leaned toward the table and propped her slender
face on a thin hand. "We have no weapons. No steel of any value or
strength. You have a plan for this, I think?"

"I do. A mining city just to our north, Daingean. The
Regent is a friend and their forge is among the best in
Spéirbaile."

"Steel and gold and land," Gadaí said, tapping her
pipe on the table. "This will be acceptable. It will take some time
to call home the lot that are out. And I should think you would
like the unacceptable purged. I expect it will take near a
week."

"It is the fate they'd have met under the law so I
see no reason to spare them if they will be of no use."

Gadaí
stood. "I will go and retrieve paper that we might put ink to
our discussion."

"A prudent idea." Rianaire smiled.

The satyr walked from the room ducking as she passed
through the doorway. The three were alone in the room, Nasc still
dealing with the body Inney had created.

Síocháin leaned down to Rianaire's ear. "Will these
be enough?"

Rianaire sighed. "I wish I could say. Though, with
Mion's support, however it manifests, I am hopeful."

"And if they are not enough? If you fall and a
hundred raiders are scattered to the roads around the city?"
Síocháin's voice was as impassive as always.

Rianaire chuckled. "Then I will be dead. And the
Fires may take the whole damned province for all I care."

There were a pair of city guard members along the
path to the Inner Crescent wall. Aile had been following them for
some time rather than passing them up in the hopes of overhearing
some news of use. The bulk of their conversation had been about the
local brothels and the quality of the whores.

"Wish I had coin to spend a night at one o' them
Inner Crescent brothels. I heard some stories…"

"I been to one," the taller of the two guards
said.

"Horse piss, you have. You don't make no more'n
me."

"Fires take me if I didn't. Weren't no better'n the
brothels here. Softer beds, I reckon, but ain't worth the
cost."

"Don't know as it'll matter soon. Hear tell the Binse
means to push the whores out of the city entirely." The shorter
guard's voice was sullen.

"It's that damn Drow's doin'. Say she lead a band of
raiders against the Treorai and cut 'er down. Now that ol' sour
bastard Spárálaí's claimin' to run things. Seniority, I heard
someone callin' it. Least 'til they can find a new Treorai."

The talk turned to rights of succession and whether
the Treorai had left the names of successors as was customary. Aile
broke off from them and made more directly for the wall and its
tiny drainage ports.

"I am quite ambitious, it seems," Aile thought to
herself as she approached the wall.

She made her way up through the drainage wedge and
down the other side and she found herself back in the splendor of
the Inner Crescent. The area where she entered the district was in
the lowest point of the trough of the wall, the farthest from the
Bastion she could be and still be in the Inner Crescent. She was
not far from the middle gate leading back to the Outer Crescent,
but the area mostly consisted of shops. There were three main roads
through the Bastion City, each led to the square around the Bastion
proper. There was the West Road, which she had come in on; the
South Road, which she was near now; and the Port Road, which lead
out to the shipyards past the edge of the city.

The bladesmith she was searching for was along the
road nearby. The eastern side of the South Road was more brothels,
clothiers, and shops dedicated to comfort. It was not likely that
this smith, Buail, would be there. It would keep her out of open
areas, for which she was thankful. Aile moved to the shadows
surrounding the shops across the cobbled way. The Inner Crescent
was more thoroughly filled with corners and dark alleys than the
Outer Crescent. It was a place that seemed to think little of
nefarious intent. Indeed in her time there, the guard had not only
been lighter along the outer edges of the Inner Crescent than the
other side of the wall, but she had not heard of any real
wrongdoings.

The buildings she passed were marked with colorful,
intricate signs showing them to be various sorts of metal working
shops. A shieldsmith, a jeweler, a general blacksmith. There were
even a fair few bladesmiths in the row. It seemed to make enough
sense. A town of this size was apt to have a fair need for good
steel and the ports meant exporting was easy enough. The names
below the signs were not the one she sought, however.

She had covered nearly a third of
the distance to the Bastion when she came upon the place. The sign
was a simple square of wood with a sword painted upon it. It was
not ornate as the others had been. There was no beautiful script
lettering or ornately carved inlay of a rapier or a sign in the
shape of a blade. Just a square and the words
Buail's Fine Steel
below the crudely
painted weapon.

The door was latched with an iron lock blocking her
entry. She pulled one of the cheap blades she had taken from the
man in the Outer Crescent. It was a small, thin plunging knife,
meant to be concealed, and she worked it into the keyhole slowly
until it was wedged into the workings of the lock. She slammed the
butt of her hand into the hilt. The sound of metal scraping and
snapping came from inside. Aile pulled the blade back and pointed
it in toward the frame of the door. She forced it in again and
lifted and the door swung open. She stepped inside and closed the
broken door behind her.

The shop was much smaller than the one in the Outer
Crescent. Aile scanned the walls with patient eyes and saw smaller
blades along the wall to her left. She moved to the wall and found
that there were only a few dozen blades of a size she could use.
She leaned in close to inspect them and saw that the steel was
patterned beautifully. Dark lines running through a lighter grey
and a delicate, but substantial feeling red-brown cord wrap around
the grip. The pommel and ferrule were dark steel and attached well.
The ferrule blended elegantly into the quillon. Aile could feel her
heart pounding just to look at the blade. The man had not lied with
the last words his tongue had spoken.

She lifted a blade from the case and held it aloft.
The balance was superb. She spun it in her hands and slashed at the
air to get a feel for it. The custom steel she carried had rarely
been so well forged. She laid the grip across the edge of her hand
an inch below the quillon and the blade balanced there, unmoving
unless her hand willed it. There was a pang of guilt as she slid
the longest of the blades into her torn leathers. They deserved a
better home than she was giving them, but it was a situation she
would rectify soon enough. Aside from the larger blade, she took
three others. She would lack for the variety she preferred, but
certainly she had plenty of what she needed.

Before she left the bladesmith's shop, she moved to
the counter and placed the last of her gold coins upon it. It was
not nearly enough for the quality of the work, but she felt that it
would at least show her respect to the bladesmith when he found his
goods stolen. Perhaps she would even return later to pay in full
and commission the more exotic blades she required.

She moved back into the street with the large cloak
around her. The skin on the wound at her arm was tight, as it had
been. She reached up to rub at it. The scabs reminded her that she
had run desperately low of the poultices and tinctures she tended
to keep. While they would have served little purpose in the forests
she had been forced to call home for the past while, they were more
useful than the blades in the city. Poisoned folk drew a better
sort of attention than an elf with a slit throat. There were
concerned bodies looking to help rather than looking for a dripping
knife edge.

It had been many years since Aile had bothered
visiting an alchemist's shop. She had learned to make the things
she needed and the ingredients tended to be easy enough to procure.
Alchemists tended to wonder what one would need poisons for, as
though it were some sort of mystery. Most of them would sell the
ingredients readily as they were often used in dilutions to kill
pain and slow bleeding. Others were easy enough to find growing
here or there. Before she had learned the arts herself, there was a
shop in Spéirbaile. It had been more than a century since she had
visited it, she was sure, but she remembered the place.

The walk to the alchemist's was quiet and quick
enough. The guards were certainly doing rounds in greater number
but they seemed no more diligent than they had been when she had
arrived. The shop was where she had remembered and looked much as
it did all that time ago. The alchemist was in his middle age then
and apathetic about who he sold to. The sign had been repainted
from the deep blue she remembered to a dull yellow that stood out
from the aging wood a bit better. There were no windows on the
first floor, and only a single, small one on the top floor where he
lived.

The lack of windows reminded her of the strange ways
about the man. He would lecture her on the value of privacy and
chide her for being Drow as though she could change it somehow. She
moved to the door and pulled free the bent plunging knife she had
used on the lock at the bladesmith's. It had snagged the leathers
and torn at them but she was beyond caring. She started to slide
the bent knife into the locked of the door and it swung open with
considerable speed. Orange light flooded into the street.

Aile leapt back and pulled one of her new blades. In
the doorway, looking uninterested in the knife she had drawn, was
an old man in a loose grey robe. His face was wrinkled and as
crooked as his back, but still Aile recognized him. She lowered the
knife and he spoke.

"The Drow girl. You've grown old and ugly." He
turned, moving back into the lit shop. "Come in."

She followed him in, checking a last time for guards,
and shut the door. The room smelled awful. A mix of fetid herbs and
powders with no place to vent them. Aile looked around. It was a
spacious place, though smaller than she remembered. Time has a way
of making things larger and grander.

The alchemist returned to his counter to continue
mixing his ingredients. Across the room on a small stool was a
small, silver-haired girl whose face was half scarred from an old
burn.

"The whelp is my apprentice," the alchemist said in a
gravely voice. "The scar's her own doing. Girl likes fire."

The child smiled wide and looked up at Aile as though
she were a piece of meat.

"I have need of a few items." The Drow moved toward
the counter where the man sat working.

"I expected as much when I heard you readying to cost
me a lock."

"I had hoped you would be asleep."