“Why are you following me?”
Aife had hoped to speak with her under more private circumstances. She saw no other option than ignoring the passersby and asking the most direct question she could. “Do you have a young child who seems behind in speaking and learning? And their father was a mage?”
The woman narrowed her eyes. “Who are you?”
“One of Breasal’s wives.”
“What?”
“I know he has more than one, and I know we all have children who aren’t right.”
Her brow furrowed, the woman turned her back on Aife and strode several paces away. Then she turned around and marched back. She jabbed a finger at Aife again. For a heartbeat, Aife thought she meant to shout, then the woman closed her mouth and frowned.
Aife climbed down from her horse and touched the woman’s arm. “I don’t mean you or your child any harm. Please, hear me out. I can help you.”
“I’m not his wife. I work for him as a maid. The cook and I, we both have little girls who need extra help. He takes care of us.”
Using the horse as a screen against strangers, Aife told the maid everything she knew.
“I don’t want to believe you.” The maid sighed and rubbed her face. “He’s so sweet to us.”
“Because he doesn’t want you to discover the truth. If he was wretched, you’d have a reason to question him.”
The maid slumped her shoulders and nodded. “What will we do without my income?”
Aife thought she’d found a use for Delaney’s coins. She dug out the purse and offered it. “I need to get inside that house without him knowing. Take this and show me the way so I can save our daughters.”
The maid stared at the pouch. She lifted it from Aife’s hand and poured half the coins into her pocket, then handed the pouch back to Aife. “Leave your horse stabled someplace. There’s an alley that runs behind the houses, and they all have back doors. His is number five twenty-seven. That door is always unlocked during the day. Give the rest of the money to Iona, the cook. Tell her you’re Breasal’s wife, there to surprise him from out of town, and she should take the rest of the day off. He’ll come in through the front door about half an hour after dusk.”
Tucking the pouch into a pocket, Aife smiled at her. “Thank you. I hope we all notice the difference immediately.”
They parted ways with a clasp of hands. Aife found a stable and left her horse behind. At the house, she climbed the fence as the maid had told her. Iona accepted both the coins and explanation without question.
With a few hours before dark, Aife drifted through the house until she found his office. She rifled through everything. His records showed he spent a lot of time paying attention to the movements of male mages, and possibly sponsored their exploits and conquests. A ledger revealed he kept ten wives at a time, each referenced by the name of her isolated village.
To her horror, she found documentation suggesting he’d managed all this for at least seven decades. Files held information about woman after woman, each with a daughter fathered by a mage. He’d financed funerals for dozens of girls aged twelve to sixteen.
She found Keric’s name on a file. Her hands shaking, she opened the folder and read everything. According to Breasal’s records, he’d approached Keric after Aife became pregnant. Keric had refused his offer, so Breasal had manipulated him into a job expected to kill him, or at least to keep him away from Aife long enough to swoop in and woo her. He’d planned to convince her to move if needed so Keric couldn’t find her and Moira.
Aife clutched the file to her chest. She wanted to weep and scream at the same time. Fifteen years ago, she should’ve taken Moira and searched for Keric. Instead, she’d let a monster whisper honey into her weary ears. By the time she’d regained her strength from the difficult birthing, he’d owned her.
If Keric hadn’t returned, she never would’ve known. Moira’s death would’ve shattered her.
Dropping the file, she gripped her sword and stalked to the entry. There, she stood where the opening door would hide her. And she waited.
She remembered the soul-crushing despair when she could no longer ignore Moira’s problems. She remembered wondering what she’d done wrong to doom Moira to such a terrible life. She remembered hating herself for wishing she’d never had Moira.
Every day, she woke to face the slow, building horror of what would happen to Moira as she aged.
Breasal had caused it. All of it. Even if destroying him didn’t fix Moira or all the other girls, Aife would still do it to avenge all the stolen lives and to prevent him from stealing more.
Once upon a time, she’d fought for money. Though the causes she’d chosen had been good, never had she fought for this kind of true, pure justice.
The sun set, darkening the room. Aife held a hand ready to catch the door. She’d wait for him to close it, take a step, and thrust the blade through his body. No need for all the swordplay she’d forgotten or muscles she’d allowed to wither.
Too soon and not soon enough, the knob turned. The door opened. A silhouette stepped inside.
“Iona?” Breasal called.
He shut the door. Aife took a step and thrust her sword at the center of his back.
Breasal turned. Her blade slashed across his jacket. He sucked in a breath and sidestepped. She swore and raised her sword again.
“Who’s there?” He darted to a shadow and disappeared.
“Your wife,” Aife growled. The vile bastard had turned the darkness against her. She held her sword and focused on the blade. If the lights came on, she wanted to see. Otherwise, she needed to ignore the shadows and listen.
Breasal’s voice echoed around the room as he chuckled. “Aife, I should’ve known it would be you who’d come for me.”
“Why’s that?”
“All your years as a swordswoman gave you strength. It took so much work to lure you at the beginning. Of course, now your daughter is at the end, I have no further need for you. It’s fitting that you should die the same day as she, isn’t it?”
Aife swallowed a surge of panicked grief. Keric had promised he’d keep her safe. She had to trust him. He’d said he could do it. He would do it.
“Not to worry, though. I’ve already found the next one. She’s plump and ripe for the taking.”
Shadows flickered on the edge of her vision to the right. Ignoring them let her hear his breathing. He had slipped to her left.
“Why do you do all this? Why all these children?”
“My dear Aife, no power is free. No matter what you want, someone always pays.”
“And what did my daughter pay for?”
He laughed at her. She heard him slithering closer.
“What do you think? Immortality, of course. Youth. Strength. Riches.”
The darkness writhed to her right and lunged toward her. Trusting herself, she slashed to the left.
Breasal squealed and hissed. Warmth spattered Aife’s face and burned her flesh. His blood stank of corruption and death. Something solid hit the floor near her feet. She stomped it. Bones crunched.
She swiped her face with her sleeve.
“If you were still a pretty young thing, those burns would be a shame.” Breasal sounded pained and tense.
She knew her age. A few wrinkles, extra pounds, and gray hairs made no difference to her heart or soul. His taunt didn’t sting, only the acid in his veins did. “If you were a decent person, that lost arm would be a shame.”
“I can make a new one,” he snapped
The shadows lunged again, this time from the left. Aife didn’t think he’d moved far enough to reach her from the right. She thrust her sword forward and felt the blade hit something.
Breasal gurgled. Though she knew it would hurt, Aife rushed him and shoved her sword deeper. More of his blood sizzled through her shirt and scored her skin. They crashed to the floor together. His acid blood splashed her hands. She screamed as she wrenched her sword to the side, cutting through him.
He whimpered. Tears sprang to Aife’s eyes from the pain in her hands. She lurched to her feet, yanked out her sword, and staggered to find a light. He needed to die, and she needed to see him dead.
She bumped into a table and found an oil lamp. Pawing the surface, she discovered a sparker beside it. With a shaking hand, she scraped the sides together to produce a spark and lit the wick.
Light flared. Breasal lay on the ground in a puddle of black ooze, gasping for breath and staring at her in shock. She’d split open his side, and it oozed more slime. Gray crept over his flesh as if time rushed to claim him.
Aife would take no chances. She locked her gaze with the monster’s and shoved her sword through his heart.
High-pitched wailing wheezed from his mouth. His body darkened and crumbled. The ground shook. Aife stumbled until she hit the wall and slid to the floor. Struggling to wipe her arms on her pants, she watched his form fall apart and her sword hit the floor. Pulses of darkness leaped from the rubble, turning white before winking out.
Everything stopped. He left behind a dark stain on the rug. Her sword lay unspoiled in the center, gleaming in the candlelight.
Raising her hands, she saw the ooze had vanished, leaving behind raw, numb burns. They would heal. Scars would remain, inside and out.
If she hurried, Aife could reach home before dawn. She’d collapse with weariness when she arrived, but she’d know Moira’s fate. Iona and the maid would tend to the house and everything inside it. Aife had no doubt they would do whatever they could for the other women.
She rushed to pick up her sword and flee the house. The stablehand helped her saddle her horse swiftly. The ride through Cork passed in a blur, then the headlong rush through the countryside. Aife pushed the horse as hard as she dared.
The poor beast frothed at the mouth and heaved for breath when it reached home. Dim light glowed around the edges of the curtains covering her front window. She slid out of the saddle and ran through her wild front garden under starlight. Her heart pounded as she threw her body at the front door to heave it open.
Fire burned in the kitchen hearth. Steam roiled from a pot over it, filling the air with mint and rose musk. Keric and Moira sat at the round table, each holding a clay mug.
Both snapped their heads to see who’d burst inside. Moira’s face lit up. She set aside her mug, leaped to her feet and rushed to hug Aife.
Her strong, sturdy arms squeezed like Moira had never suffered sickness. “Mama! Papa say you save me!”
Aife crumpled, delirious with joy and tears streaking down her cheeks. Even if Moira never caught up, never regained what Breasal had taken from her, she lived. Her little girl lived. They needed nothing more.
~***~
Lee French lives in Olympia, WA with two kids, two bicycles, and too much stuff. She writes across a variety of F/SF subgenres, including epic fantasy, space opera, and cyberpunk. An active member of SFWA, she is best known for her young adult urban fantasy series, Spirit Knights. Her stories appear in numerous anthologies, including the award-winning Merely This and Nothing More: Poe Goes Punk. Her work can be found online at www.authorleefrench.com.
ALIVE
RAVEN OAK
Black hair, blue eyes, tall frame for a girl. Throat slit ear-to-ear. The newest victim could’ve been a younger version of me, a much, much younger version if I ignored the number of silver hairs on my forty-five-year-old head. As King Leon’s sepier, gathering information was what I did best as an all-around spy and problem solver, but a string of deaths—all women—had pulled me back toward Justice and the town of Loughrie.
As I stood outside the Merc’s Guild, my throat throbbed in response to the report in my hands. I could feel the knife against my throat all over again. Had these women known their attacker? Had they struggled, as I had, or had their lives been over in a single gasp? The report sent to the king stated the Merc’s Guild had handled the burning of all four victims, though they hadn’t bothered reporting the murderers to the crown. Curious that they’d covered up their burning, leaving someone else to report it. The decision left me wishing I was back in Alexander rather than staring down my past.
It couldn’t be coincidence that this girl looked like me.
The change in Loughrie was obvious in the line of mercs outside. Not one of ’em a woman, and none of ’em young. I nodded to ’em before glancing over their heads at the newly posted jobs. Caravan guards. One call for an archer at the border. None of it complicated, and none of it local.
I passed through the open door into the Guild itself where a whip of a girl scurried over. “Welcome to the Mercenary Guild. Fair work for fair pay. Are you lost?”
The round man nearly attached to her elbow could’ve been her father by the look he gave her, and she disappeared behind a curtain before I’d done more than open my mouth. “My apologies,” he said, and I sidestepped his attempt to grasp my forearm.
I’d been here before—twenty years ago, not that the man recognized me now—and little had changed. Master Alfred and his three brothers grew fatter on crowns and notches earned by negotiating poor deals for those willing to live by the sword.
“The Guild currently does not have any jobs available.”
Master Alfred’s frown deepened when I smiled. “The line of mercs outside at that new postin’ says otherwise.”
“Well, yes. There are those jobs, but it would not be appropriate for a...woman,” he said.
“And why not?”
His gaze followed along the adornment that curled around my leather armor before finally resting on my polished sword. “A woman of your...age might be better suited to work in a castle or large manor rather than on the dangerous road.”
My cheeks grew warm, but I bit my tongue, choosing instead to fetch the scrap of parchment I carried bearin’ the Guild’s crest. He recognized my mercenary name as his green eyes popped against his face’s sudden flush, then his eyes noted the sepier star pinned near my collar bone. “Lady Ida, it’s been a long time since you’ve visited the Guild. Far too long! I meant you no slight, only....”
“Only?”
“Last job you had, you abandoned. Word was you left a comfortable palace job, and well, the Guild has a reputation to uphold.”
While tossing his ample rear across the room was my preference, I forced myself to smile. “Course ya do. But I’m not here about—”
He leaned close and whispered, “Besides, have you heard of the Merc Meister? It’s not safe for women fighters—not in Loughrie anyway. My apologies, but I have nothing for you. Maybe you can check in one of the larger cities or Alesta itself.”
It wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t leaving ‘til I had a clear path to tread. “Tell me more about these murderers,” I said.
His stiffened posture shifted as his hands thrust forward. Perhaps I’d gotten soft as a sepier or perhaps it was my old age. Either way, he’d shoved me out the door before I’d finished speaking. When the door closed in my face, I turned to find a line full of men shuffling their feet as they suppressed laughter. If I couldn’t get answers from him, I’d get ‘em elsewhere. “The nerve of him,” I muttered, only half-way an act. Fools had no idea the dangers of being a sepier. All they saw was an old woman who’d gained a boon from the king. “As if I were some common merc. Damn fool.”
I shoved my way through the crowd to stop before the board where I pretended to study it. Ten minutes in, someone slipped some parchment into the palm I held against my back. I didn’t open it ’til I wandered away. Another ten minutes saw me tucked into the west corner table at a tavern called The Drunken Footsman while I waited on whoever had taken my bait.
Shortly after sundown, a young man with shoulders nearly as broad as the table claimed the seat across from me. He inclined his bushy red beard in the direction of my almost empty cup, and I shook my head. His gaze flitted around the tavern while the din carried on around us. “Lady Ida hasn’t visited Loughrie in over a decade. One might wonder what bring
s her out of her cushy retirement now,” he murmured.
“Maybe she needs a little coin, is all.”
Laughter erupted from the bar, and he glanced over his shoulder at a man attempting to juggle mugs while hopping from one leg to another. “Or maybe it’s the Merc Meister,” he said, and I shrugged. “What have you heard?”
“Four victims, all women. All died the same way.”
When I didn’t elaborate, he said, “Actually, there’ve been five victims so far. Guild only knows of four because the other one wasn’t a merc.” At my raised brow he added, “Commoner. Maybe she saw something.”
It was plausible. If all of ’em had been mercs, that’d explain why the Guild covered their burning. And why it was set on keeping word quiet. “Why only women?” I asked.
“No one’s sure...though I have some ideas.” He pointed to my throat. “The way you fled the Guild for a King’s a famous tale around here. So’s that scar of yours. Though no one knows how you got it. I heard some Amaskan in Sadai gave it to you.”
Bile tickled the back of my throat as my muscles tensed. Who was he to know so much?
Blue eyes, twin to my own starred down at me. His dagger was against my throat as he laughed. “Leave? No one leaves the Order of Amaska. Not even you, sister dear. No one leaves...not alive anyway.” The pinprick, then a sting as sharp as my sword slit my neck from ear to ear.
“Lady Ida?”
I opened my eyes to find the merc’s hand shaking me. “Sorry,” I muttered and downed the last swallow of ale. My gaze sought his jaw line, but no tattoo marked it. “Where’d ya hear this?”
“Around. People talk if you pay. If you did get that scar from them, I don’t blame you for being afraid. Amaskans are born to kill. They may think they’re doing holy work by killing sinners, but my Da always said ‘Bad depends on your point of view.’ Nothing but rotten assassins, they are.”
I nodded, but settled my hands in my lap to hide their trembling. “Why bring up my scar?”
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