“Tonight we have a choice of—”
“I can read it.”
“Oh! Of course, you can.” The woman stood, but did not leave.
“The beef.”
She shifted the paper in her hands, still holding it but now pointed toward the woman. Rather than take it as any sane creature would have, by the edge, the elf closed her two hands on the paper from either side, nearly touching Aile’s hand had she not pulled back at the last moment.
“Right away.”
That was all. The innkeep retreated into the kitchen and stayed there until the food came. The two others more stared at her than glanced. She watched them for a time, but they spoke no words. Not to each other and not to Aile. When the food came, it was placed in front of her. Unassuming, though the steak seemed spiced more than she’d like. The woman did a quick bow and turned to take her leave.
“Wait.”
She stopped, turning slowly to Aile.
“An elf named Socair. Have you heard of her?”
“Oh my! Several, but you must mean the Goddess of Glassruth. The Blackwood has an interest in her, does it? Oh my, how interesting.”
Aile cut the stewed potatoes with a fork and pushed them through a creamed sauce that covered the beef steak. She put it in her mouth while the woman rambled. There was an odd taste to it, but she had eaten horsefolk trash for long enough that it was worth forgiving.
“She is a Binseman now. No doubt well south, seeing to the horsefolk and the war. Oh she’s very impressive, I hear. I’ve not seen her myself…”
The innkeep carried on as Aile cut a piece from the meat. She put it in her mouth and immediately her nose twitched and her eyes watered. She knew this flavor. A poison. Not one meant to kill, not as she knew it. The woman must have known. She spit it to the plate and stood. The men at the far end of the dining room did as well. Aile’s eyes narrowed.
“Oh my! Is— gah— gah— kkrr—”
Her throat came open easily and Aile ran for the stairs. The men chased her, she knew they would. She shook her head, annoyed to have left such valuable ingredients in such a vulnerable place. There was the roof, still. She pulled open her door to find a wall of yellowed smoke. The smell hit her. Poisoned. She turned to see the men at one side of her. She pulled a throwing knife and flung it, but her arm did not do as she wished, not wholly. The knife landed at the man’s leg and she felt her mind shift toward dizziness. There was nothing for it. Aile drew as deep a breath as she could, even with the smoke filling the hall. She ducked into the room. Below she could hear the screams of men and animal both. Her horse. She grabbed the pack she’d left in the room, though her eyes would not tell her what she saw with any hope of accuracy. She knew where the window was at least and the smoke was clearing. She swung her pack into the glass and the screams of her horse were all the louder. It clattered helplessly below, men shouting at one another to put it down. The horse would pay her a final favor if it kept them distracted enough to flee to some hiding place long enough to grind a purging agent.
She was through the glass and a hand took her wrist. Aile forced her mind to swing the blade in her other hand at whatever had taken hold of her. She felt soft and then bone and then soft and bone again. A face with one less eye now. The wrist fell and a woman screamed shrill. Aile fell onto the roof, rolling. Her mind was slipping. The ground found her a half moment later and the wind was knocked from her lungs. The last sight she saw was her horse, bloody and dying, doing all it could to snap at the men who meant to kill it. It was a good animal.
Part Fourteen U
Z
Socair
Práta was still with the healers. They would tell Socair nothing, only that there was much work still to do when one would tire and another would take their place. She had not slept, her eyes were red, and standing still was impossible. There was a battle. She knew it. Scouts came to her regularly at the healing tent where Práta had been taken. The sun was in the sky now, and by noon the hippocamps would be upon them, the hordes having joined fully toward the back side of their lines along the route. Their full force was near what the elves had, though the terrain advantage would at least count for something, provided the militia could hold against the front of the charge. Whatever Práta’s state, if the horsefolk broke through and found their way into the city, it would not matter. The healers would be slaughtered and she would be taken with them.
The last healer she would see came out and another moved in. The woman was old and calm. Socair came to her immediately and the healer held up a patient hand.
“You have heard this before, Binseman. I will say it plain. We may yet save her, but there is much work to be done. Made no easier once the fighting begins. Please… you have your work as we do. I pray of you, do it.”
She said no more and walked away, leaving Socair alone with only the large field tent to stare at. She wished there were more sounds than the mumbled words of healers and the groans of others. She
