Sàmhach, the Silent One
Copyright© 2026 by CaptainPig
Chapter 4
Glossary
sgian achlais (SGE-an AH-klay, a double edged dagger with a blade five or six inches long, the Scottish hideout knife usually worn clipped in the jacket or waistcoat at the armpit, the weapon of last resort. The sgian dubh, SGE-an du, now worn as part of Highland dress was actually used for gralloching and skinning.)
Gralloch (to open the body cavity and remove the internal organs of an animal)
Leannan (le-AN-an, lover)
Sìneag (SHIN-ak, In English it would be Jeanie)
Seanair (SHEN-er, Grandfather)
NicAilean (Nic-AL-an)
October 5, 2030
Detective Sergeant Rolf Frazier reflected as he was driven to the crime scene, ‘In fourteen years as a detective, how many crime scenes have I been too? Hundreds, I suppose. Well, one more now, I guess.’
He walked up to the Constable Sergeant in charge of the crime scene.”What do we have?” he asked.
“Three dead adults, one wounded juvenile,” the Constable Sergeant replied. “One adult female dead of a gunshot to the head, one adult male also dead of a gunshot to the head and one adult male dead with a sgian hilt deep in his left eye. He was our shooter. He had a revolving pistol in his hand with three chambers fired.
We also have one male juvenile. He appears to be in his early teens. He has a gunshot wound to the head. It looks like the bullet just grazed the top of his skull and then hit the wall behind him. He was semi-conscious but too dazed to answer any questions. Concussed, no doubt. He had an empty sheath for a sgian achlais on his belt. He’s been taken to the Three Rivers hospital.”
Sergeant Frazier walked into the house to find the crime evidence technicians busy documenting, measuring and sketching everything. A man with a medical caduceus on the back of his lab coat knelt over the body of the woman examining the clan token on her left shoulder blade. He stood when Sergeant Frazier walked up to him.
“Hello, Seumas, what do we have?” Sergeant Frazier asked.
“She’s an adult female in her mid-twenties. Her clan token is for Clan McKerr. It’s been marked showing that she was expelled from the clan,” Doctor McRandall replied. “I’ll be able to tell you more after I get her back and complete a forensic postmortem examination. I will contact the Clan McKerr Clerk to find out who she was.
“The male gunshot victim is Tàmhas MacSorley. He has a long criminal history for gambling. He’s also been a suspect in a couple of confidence schemes but nothing proven. He was known as an expert swordsman with a reputation as a dangerous duelist. He has killed at least four men in duels. He was expelled from Clan MacSorley in 2022.
When Detective Sergeant Frazier looked at the third dead body, he froze momentarily in surprise, then broke into a smile.
“Well, well, well, look at who we have here,” he said with some satisfaction. “Ewan MacDonell. I always knew that you would come to a bad end. Too bad it didn’t happen sooner.”
He was well acquainted with Ewan MacDonell. He’d been trying to gather enough evidence to arrest him for years. He knew, but hadn’t been able to prove, that Ewan MacDonell had beaten his body servant, a groom and at least two servant girls to death in fits of rage.
His father, Lukas MacDonell, was the clan chief of Clan MacDonell of Kentuck. He’d always protected Ewan, his eighth and youngest son, destroying or covering up evidence and buying off or intimidating witnesses.
“Lukas,” he said, “you won’t be able to bury this under a manure pile.”
MacDonell laid on his back, a pistol in his hand and a sgian hilt-deep in his left eye.
Sergeant Frazier walked over to the gath fada, picked up the handset and pressed the call button. When the operator answered, he asked for the Constabulary switch board. When the Constabulary switch board operator answered, he asked to be connected to Chief Constable Stewart.
After Frazier briefed Chief Constable Stewart, Stewart hurried to the crime scene to personally supervise the investigation, hoping to head off as much of the political repercussions that he knew would be coming as possible.
After the evidence was gathered and the bodies removed, Chief Constable Stewart and Constable Sergeant Frazier traveled to the Three Rivers hospital, intending to question the juvenile male survivor.
When they arrived at the hospital, they met with the attending physician, Doctor Abramovsky. When the Chief Constable asked if they could question the boy, Dr Abramovsky informed them that the boy was unable to speak.
When asked when they could talk to him, Dr Abramovsky explained that the boy could not speak because he was born with no vocal cords and only a short stub of a tongue. His eyes were an unusual brilliant green and his pupils were golden instead of black.
Roentgen’s images of his head were completely opaque and unreadable. The rays either would not penetrate his body or were completely absorbed.
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