Aisley Swiftfoot was on the short and trim side, blonde and blue-eyed, and would have been a rather cute older woman if it weren’t for the harshness of her eyes and grim set of her mouth.
She woke up out of the Deep Slumber when the Mick doused her in the waters of Vesayan Bay, spluttering and shaking and protesting, trying to kick and move.
Her arms wrenched and nearly popped out of their sockets. She screamed and thrashed again, and they bore down until she stopped kicking and just quivered in pain.
The man standing there staring at her with cold dark eyes, waist-deep in the water, made her blood run cold.
“I told ye, Aisley,” he said patiently as she stopped to draw desperate breath. “I told ye what I’d do to ye when I caught ye playing games with the Scouts.” He slowly lifted one hand and reached out, and there was a shimmer in the air as his hand hit something.
The Shoreward. Aisley went stock still.
“Ten feet away and under the water there be a remoran, watching us. I can stick ye under the water an’ shine a light, yell see it straight enough.
“The Ward don’t affect the dead, Aisley. If I slit yer throat an’ shove you through to it, the stinking shark-ray will take its meal an’ flit off to the depths, an’ the only one who’ll know what happened t’ ye is the King when I tell him what I did an’ why.
“So, ye better stop yer screaming, ye haggard bitch, or I’ll bleed you here an’ now, an’ mayhap your chained spirit be giving me the answers I want.”
Aisely shuddered at the sight of the cold, hard man in front of her. He’d always been a rebellious, cantankerous bastard, as quick to draw a knife on you as spin a word, true to his gutter hill clan heritage. He was her subordinate in name only, but she’d never been able to touch him, because he did too fine a job bringing up the next generation of Scouts, protecting and training them with a bloody zeal that caught many by surprise when they ran afoul of it.
Just like his damn uncle, whose leadership of the undead in Hebian-to raised an unspoken umbrella over the one man who could talk to the dead brigand amiably.
“What do you want, Lord Mick?” she finally gasped. Someone with phenomenal strength was twisting her arms and keeping them locked behind her. She wasn’t worried about him raping her, a thought which actually made her blush furiously. The scorn whenever he looked at her assured her that sharing a bed with her was the last thing he ever had in mind, even after his slut of a wife had died in the Fall…
“Ian Foefinder. Ninetoes,” the Mick said coldly, and Aisley flinched. “We found him.”
A dull knife twisted in her guts. “Did you now,” she responded. “And how is he feeling?”
A knife was in his hand, flicker-quick, and was arrested in mid-motion for a cross-strike that would have opened her throat instantly, she knew. He hadn’t even thought about it, it was just a reaction to her response.
Still, defiance was all she had at this point. She raised her chin to make it easier for him.
“Trite, hag.” His voice was as cold as the grave, but the long knife didn’t come down. “Ye know he were murdered, I be seein’ it in yer eyes. An’ his team knew it were done, buried him an’ covered up the truth o’ it. He never even got t’ see his daughter.” The Mick wasn’t blinking, only measuring. “If ye hired the blade what did it, I’ll make it quick an’ clean, an’ inta the Deep you’ll go, never t’ be missed. If ye just covered it up an’ used it t’ yer advantage, then I’ll be seein’ ye thrown out on yer ear an’ word yer a traitor ta the serving Scouts spread, an’ we’ll see what kind o’ revenge ye be takin’ against the undead then.
“Lie t’ me, an’ I’ll know. I’ll cut off yer head, toss yer body to the stink-ray over there, an’ we’ll tear the truth out o’ your screaming soul before we consign it t’ the Hell I be told be waiting for traitors an’ the faithless.”
She tested the grip holding her, and it promptly crushed her arms behind her, making her gasp. “I didn’t order him killed!” she stated, staring at him.
Slowly and deliberately, he lifted his eyes to someone behind her. There was no sign of emotion, nor did his knife come down. “Ye helped.”
She shuddered, wondering how he could have caught that. Her words were absolute truth, she hadn’t ordered the hit. But the one who did the deed needed information on when to strike and where, and someone was going to give it to her.
Payment and removing a competitor to her goals, for a man who was going to die anyway? It was an easy choice to make, as doubtless the assassin had known.
“He was a dead man, regardless of who informed on him!” she stated with certainty.
“Mayhap not, if he were warned. But that would nae been the right thing to do fer ye, aye?” She could tell she was going to die. There wasn’t a jot of mercy in Lord Mick’s voice.
“Was his team paid, as well?” he asked, and she grimaced slightly at the casual leading edge to his voice, as if he already knew the answer.
“Did you know he was dealing with the Fiazhat?” she half-screamed, writhing in the iron grip behind her. She was at least twice as strong as a normal human woman, but all the grip did was get even tighter, her bones starting to crack under the grip. “That worm, selling us out to the undead, again!”
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“Aye, his dead self done went an’ told me a Handmaiden of Xik Ru was using him as a cats-paw, giving him good intelligence he used against the other undead on the mainland. He never asked for the intel, they just gave it to him, an’ so he used it,” the Mick replied coolly, shocking her. “Ye’re too bitter and paranoid a bitch not to have investigated him in depth, an’ ye knew he’d never sold anyone out. Too, ye would have found who wanted him dead, who killed him, an’ why. Speak, Aisley. They be your last words alive, but if I don’t hear what I want, they be not your last words dead.”
She shuddered again at the image he was painting. “You can’t do this! I’m the Royal Scout Commander! The king will-”
“Learn after the fact that ye sold out yer fellow Scouts to an assassin in order to gain yer commission. He’s a royal, a politician. Ye know his main concern will be the face o’ unity an’ makin’ sure all this infighting murder an’ rot will be swept under the rug. His main concern will be finding yer replacement, as I be havin’ a job already.”
Her mouth opened at his cynical assessment of the situation, but she couldn’t say he was wrong. Borelean was a good and noble King, but he’d also proven he could be ruthlessly pragmatic about some matters.
“Ye’re dead, an’ I’m goin’ t’ be killin’ ye fer the backstabbing witch that ye be, as I did promise the last time ye tried to pull shit on me an’ mine,” he stated with unblinking, deathly calm. “Now, ye goin’ wailing an’ spittin’ defiance, ye crone, or ye got some final words that need be said, an’ mayhap something worthy can fall off yer tongue that needs doin’, as ye had only the venom, but not the spine t’ do yerself?”
She sagged as all the fight went out of her. “I, I just wanted revenge for what was done to us, Lord Mick. What was done to all of us...”
“Aye, an’ it were so important that ye nicely killed off a few more o’ us t’ get it, sure enough,” he said with mock understanding. “Especially the nice ones, the committed ones, who might be a threat t’ yer advance up the ladder.
“Now, man up, crone, or go t’ the Deep with nothing. It won’t bother me baby sleep either way. I dream o’ far worse things than yer fate every night, I do.”
Her head bowed, to weak to support herself. “I-I have some files, buried under a board in my cupboard. On the undead I know, what they’ve been doing… and the assassins they’ve been using to do it.”
“There she is, the cold-hearted witch looking for any signs o’ weakness ta exploit. Be right proud of ye, Aisley, revenge right ‘til the end, as were only proper.” Her face twisted at his words, the dry cutting of them truly a knife. “Any last requests? I already passed on Ian’s t’ his woman. She had some words for me t’ say to ye, but I think I can leave t’ yer imagination just what a wife has t’ think o’ the woman who helped kill her man.”
“I… I would ask the Queen to forgive me. I have failed her, failed to gain vengeance for the dead, and for that I am regretful.”
“I’ll pass it along.”
She saw him nod, and was expecting something violent from behind her. Instead a hand laid gently atop her head, there was a soft light, and then there was nothing.
------
Vivus could have taken care of her body, burning it away below the waterline, but Lord Mick was, in the end, a man of his word, something he prized as one of the very few things that he and he alone had control over in his life.
Thus it was that, holding her by the skull, he thrust the corpse of Aisley Swiftfoot, former scout, former officer of the Eldrytch Web, former Commandante of the Royal Scout Legion, up against the Shoreward and held it there.
There was a gentle ripple as the remoran, colored a bloody red, rose quietly from the waters there, its shark-like jaws opening and closing as soulless dark eyes stared at him… and he stared right back.
It glided forwards, and the jaws closed smoothly about the parts of her skull jutting through the Shoreward. The Mick let go, and the remoran retreated, drawing her corpse smoothly after it.
With a muted splash and swirl, the crimson of the creature submerged, turned, and jetted smoothly away underwater.
“No chance she’ll come back as undead?” he asked once.
“None,” the quite voice of Magos al-Ryin stated, softly but grimly.
His eyes turned on the second person there, a young man clad all in black, Gharu’n by the hue of his skin, his eyes bulging as faint green sparkles danced over him, paralyzing him, not allowing him to speak or say anything.
He had been an Invisible watcher on Aisley Swiftfoot. Obviously, her probings hadn’t gone unnoticed, but she’d been too useful a contact to have to just burn immediately.
Magos Ryin had noticed him instantly, overconfident in his magic that no normal person could have, should have been able to wield, and Princess Kristie had taken him out with merciless efficiency. Reapplication of Emerald Shards ensured they didn’t have any problems with him.
“Now, then.” Lord Mick’s eyes were flat and cold as he met the panicking gaze of the young assassin. “I knew Aisley fer damn near thirty years, boy. She’s been me boss, such as it were, for the past five. She got what she earned in this life, an’ now, boy, yer about t’ get yers. If you’ve the blood o’ us or ours on your hands, then yer about t’ follow her into the deep.” He pointed precisely, and there was a short delay before another form, this one purple-blue, hesitantly surfaced in the water there, wide wings spread out for balance, razor-toothed jaw working, hoping for a meal of its own.
“I dinnae care how ye were raised, boy. I’m sure they took ye in, trained ye, conditioned ye, an’ I be fair sure yer a fanatic loyalist t’ their twisted codes of buying an’ selling lives. At one time, I’da respected an adherence t’ that killing code, an’ admitted the necessity o’ it, totally unsurprised that killers like ye were about an’ doin’ the bloody work whats bein’ needed done.
“But that were a time ago. Before I lost me own sweet lady t’ the caprice o’ the gods, an’ too many friends an’ kin t’ those who’d kill all o’ us, treatin’ us all as rats an’ boot scum.
“So, lad, I don’t care about yer moral code, an’ what ye been taught. Ye are smart enough t’ know there’s a better way, an’ there’s nothing noble about ye an’ yer own.
“Living or dead, yer going to tell me exactly everything I need t’ know. If I dinnae like what I hear, yer feedin’ the Deep, an’ another worthless leech o’ the human race be gone, an’ damn ye all fer it. If I do like it, then p’raps ye gets to live, an’ find a better path in life.
“Now, then, let’s start with yer name.”