The Silver Claw

by Erik Williamson

  “Suppose I can understand wanting to know.” The guard patted Emmie on the knee. “You kids get back to the consulate. Before dark, eh?”

  Back at the hostel, Emmie beelined to her room without a word. Which left Renn to communicate their disappointment to Leeman, and attempt the small talk the man seemed to revel in. But Emmie was the talker. A bored Leeman let Renn go after an hour of stilted conversation. Straight away, Renn checked on Emmie. He found her in bed, facing the wall, curled into a ball, quietly crying.

  “You okay?” Renn cringed. “Sorry, you’re not. You want to talk?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. I, uh, I guess I’ll go.”

  “Renn, stay?” came her muffled reply. “A few minutes, please?”

  There was nobody else staying the night so Renn sat down in the chair by her bed.

  “I’m so sorry.” Emmie sobbed. “I don’t know what. . . I felt so. . . like I was nailed in that box and. . .”

  “Shhh, Emmie.” Renn reached to pat her back, then balked. “You rest, okay?”

  After sitting with her for several minutes of silence, Renn stood to leave.

  “I’m not ready to be alone. Not yet.”

  Renn sat back in the rickety chair, listening to her sniffling. After a long silence, Renn hoped maybe she’d finally found sleep, but she sobbed when he squeaked his chair to rise.

  “How can I help?”

  “When I was little, I had lots of nightmares. Dad, he’d. . .” a bushed Emmie began, then went flush with embarrassment. She wasn’t going to ask Renn to sing to her, was she?

  “What?” Renn asked.

  Oh my, she almost did. Emmie was too mortified to respond. She began crying even more miserably. Her overwhelming emotions were almost too much for Renn; he heard himself start babbling, almost like it was somebody else. “My Gram, Mom’s Mom, she loved all the northern lore. Your people, yeah?”

  “Ha-ha.”

  Well, Renn decided, maybe there was a little humor there? “There’s this one goddess who was Gram’s favorite. Andara the Guardian, patroness of the hunt, protector of orphans. Gram called her the Goddess of the Underdog; said even though it’s myth, there’s a lot of truth in her stories. Told me her tales all the time.”

  “Yah?” Emmie squeaked.

  Renn cleared his throat, rustled to get comfortable. Emmie could almost hear a comforting storytelling smile on Renn’s face.

  Her bow shoots straight, Her blade cuts strong

  Stands for justice, Avenges wrong

  Eyes of lightning, Pure white hair

  In times of need, Do not despair

  Feeling like a scared little girl, Emmie closed her eyes as Renn repeated the stanza. . . then realized Renn was singing. For her. She began to cry harder, tears of a different sort.

  Renn kept singing softly, forgetting himself. The fourth time around the slow stanzas. . .

  Eyes of lightning, Pure white hair

  In times of need, Do not despair

  It struck Renn suddenly, that he was singing. He stopped, appalled. But Emmie was snoring, soft and rhythmic. Renn reached for the door. Emmie whimpered in her sleep and Renn thought better of leaving her alone. Not wanting to seem improper, he settled onto the hard board of the bunk furthest from hers.

  The moonlight through the window lit up Emmie’s hair with a sparkling, sandy-blonde glow. Renn was captivated. Eyes heavy, Renn sleepily thought her long, yellow hair—sandy in the moonlight, like honey in the sun—was so much prettier than the browns he was accustomed to and probably so soft to the touch. He’d tell her that someday, his half-awake mind said, maybe she’d appreciate that.

  Renn drifted off, to dreams again haunted by the beady-eyed man of his childhood nightmares. On the opposite end of the room, Emmie was tormented by the same dark eyes, her sleep plagued by horrors long past.

  XXV - In and Out of Longardin

  The two spent the next morning lost in their own worlds. Renn was not a little grumpy. The prison visit had been an unmitigated disaster, and the night on a hard bunk had given him a sore neck. As if he didn’t have enough to stew on, his sleepy fascination with his friend’s hair befuddled him.

  Emmie, meanwhile, was beset by shame. While Renn had managed the situation best he could, she’d gone coward and put him in an untenable spot. She couldn’t fathom what had overcome her, and it was too personal, too humiliating, to share with Renn. No matter how desperately she’d fought to hide within her cloak, she felt as though she was behind the bars, naked and on display for that foul man to taunt and leer at. Simply being there was torture. Not only had she squandered her best opportunity to learn about her past, she’d only made it more frightening and mysterious.

  Emmie refused to leave off at failure, though, and dragged an objecting Renn back to the prison for another go. All for naught. With the raving state they’d left Kelebis in, the warden told them he wouldn’t readmit them—not that day, probably not ever—and requested they not show their faces at his prison again.

  Slumped on a bench along the bustling Longar River, they had no next move. Leeman was arranging transport back to Drennich. Said he’d book them a boat that was leaving that night.

  “You went back, gave it your best effort,” Renn said, nudging her foot with his boot. “That says something.”

  She shrugged off the compliment. Her best effort was not what she was aiming for.

  “So...” Renn leaned back against the rough bench and stretched. “What’s our next step?”

  He said ‘our,’ not ‘your.’ Emmie hid a smile. “Dunno.”

  “Monastery, maybe?” Renn yawned. “Winnepaca?”

  “Dad said the monk was as perplexed as him but, yah, that’s probably all I’ve got left.” She paused and rubbed her cheeks, feeling her skin stretch tight into a grin. “Maybe once we’re home, we take a few days, let this all settle. Then we head to the lake. You game?” She turned her big grey eyes on him.

  “Sounds like a plan, chief.”

  “Can’t imagine we’ll find anything. But then, I guess, I put it out of my mind.”

  “Sounds like a plan, chief,” Renn repeated, much to Emmie’s amusement. “I’m ready for home but you say the word and I’m in for the lake.”

  Leeman bustled up to them as the sun set over the docks.

  “That man there.” He jerked a thumb at a surly-looking longshoreman. “He’ll get you on the next trip, k? Sorry things didn’t work out, but I enjoyed our little adventures, most certainly did.” Leeman chuckled, briskly shook their hands. “Any time you’re in Longardin, look me up.

  “Name’s Menches, right?” Leeman called to the surly man. “Right. These’re my friends. Get them all taken care of and off to Drennich. Thank you, my man!”

  They shook Leeman’s hand and offered their thanks before Leeman hustled back to work. “Got some paperwork to finish. Sun never sets on paperwork. . .”

  They hopped the thick ropes of the piers and strode across the docks.

  “Excuse me.” Emmie tapped the longshoreman on the arm. “Is that the boat for Drennich?"

  He shook off her touch. “What's it to you, Wheat-head?”

  “Our friend said he arranged passage for us on the boat to Drennich.” Emmie brushed off the insult, tried to stay pleasant.

  “Did he now?” The man turned, scratched his head. “That particular one’s sold out."

  “Sold out?” Renn pointed to the boat. “I can see empty seats.”

  “I ain’t no ticket-taker. And I ain’t no dandy captain. They say it’s sold out: it’s sold out.”

  “Then there’s another ship bound for Drennich tonight?” Emmie asked. “Leeman said he’d secured us passage with you.”

  The man wiped his hands on his pants, eyeing her. “Well. . . this here barge’s heading down river tonight. Not the comfiest ride, but beggars like you can't be too choosy.”

  Emmie and Renn shared uneasy glances. The longshoreman was rude and unfriendly, but longshoremen in
Longarvale were not esteemed for their gracious manners. Leeman said he’d arranged a ride. They were ready to be home. They exchanged unsure nods and accepted.

  The man hauled open the heavy hatch of the ‘floater’—a drab Longar unmanned cargo barge—on the far side of the pier. With a mock-gracious arm-sweep, he gestured them in. As soon as their heads disappeared below deck into the dark, smelly hold, the man clanged the hatch shut. He released the moorings and signaled to men across the docks.

  Longshoremen from across the pier, oblivious to the new cargo, gave it a mighty heave. With a sudden lurch, the hull groaned, and it headed to open water. But not upstream towards the central Longar River. As the barge slapped free of the channel-docks, it caught the rushing current and was whisked away, speeding towards the northern Longarvale border.

  "Filthy wheat-head, thinks she can talk to me, does she?” He slogged away, not giving the matter a second thought.

  Below board, surprised by the sudden embarkation, the unsuspecting passengers hurriedly arranged sacks of grain into two makeshift couches.

  “Ha! Wheat bags for the wheat-head.” Emmie snorted as she pounded down a couple of massive sacks. “Perfect.”

  “How’s that funny to you?” Renn asked.

  “Folks will call me what they want. Might as well make the best of it. Lighten up, Rennwinn. Ready to sleep?”

  “I hope.” Renn was already feeling queasy. “We’re moving fast, though.”

  Renn—from a farming community—should have questioned why wheat was being shipped to farmland. Emmie—from the lakes—should’ve wondered at their speed on the water. But neither felt like questioning much. They quickly allowed themselves to be lulled to sleep by the rocking waves.

  They woke with a start several hours later to canisters and tools raining off the walls down on them. Their barge crashed into something on the left. Then it careened off something to the right, and they toppled off their bags.

  “That’s some heavy rain,” Emmie squeaked from up on her tiptoes, peering out a porthole. “But. . . we hit both shores just now. Isn’t the Longar awfully wide?”

  “Yeah, fairly wide. I feel like we’re—” Renn puked in the corner. “Plummeting fast.”

  “Rennwinn, ugh, try for the portholes at least.”

  “I’m just trying to keep upright.”

  Emmie stumbled over fallen supplies, groping along the wall to the outside hatch.

  “I need you over here.” She grunted as she pushed. “Hatch won’t budge.”

  Renn felt his way towards her voice. He threw up again on the way, and she tutted him disapprovingly. They tried to force the hatch open, but it was locked from the outside.

  “I remember seeing another on the front end, but maybe we should wait until it’s lighter out,” Emmie said, then added uneasily, “Are we even on the Longar?”

  “I don’t see how we can be,” Renn’s voice echoed in the darkness of the hold. “But, if not, then. . .?”

  The boat rocked along, scraping the shore often enough to keep them from ever feeling secure. The rain never stopped pounded the roof and the boat unexpectedly dropped with a huge splash every here and there. They could feel in the pit of their stomachs—literally and figuratively—they were going downhill, dropping elevation fast. Emmie could intuitively make some sense of the river by the boat’s behavior but had no geographic reference points for where they were. She could hear Renn trying to mentally mumble his way around what he could recall of the big map that hung in the Drennich courthouse.

  “There’s a mountain chain just north of Longardin, and rivers. . .” he said tentatively. “But there’s no seaport until the Lobridium.”

  “We’ve left the Vale, haven’t we?” Emmie’s voice betrayed her fear. “What’s north?”

  “Don’t know. Nobody talks about that.”

  Eventually enough light seeped through the portholes to help them grope their way to the front hatch, which remained unlocked. But they couldn’t risk unsealing their so-far relatively watertight craft. They waited out the raging storm in the hold, for hours and hours.

  By mid-afternoon, they’d slowed considerably. By evening, the rain had let up enough that they ventured out. They were drifting listlessly down the middle of a wide river, and it was getting dark again. They hadn’t truly argued up until this point, but the tension finally got the best of them. Snapping at one another, they heatedly debated their dismal options. After the last snatches of daylight disappeared, Renn reminded himself that Emmie grew up on the water; he had no clue. He reluctantly grumbled out a ‘sorry.’ Emmie' apologized with a matching sulky mumble.

  Shaking off the spat, Emmie assured Renn she could beach the barge so they could retain the floating storehouse of goods—possibly necessary for whatever lay ahead of them. Using the ship’s emergency long oars as rudders they fought for hours to maintain control of the barge. Around 2 am, their arms wobbly, they skimmed the shoal. Around 3, they beached, and secured anchor.

  They allowed themselves a brief but exuberant (and not particularly graceful) celebratory dance to commemorate their victory over the river. Then, utterly spent, they retreated into the barge’s stinky, damp hold. They slept hard until the sun finally woke them mid-morning.

  Emerging from the hatch, Renn squinted into the sunlight. They’d managed to practically capsize the boat off a soft, sandy beach surrounded by a forest lush with unfamiliar trees and weathered boulders that must’ve tumbled down the mountains centuries ago. The clearing looked and smelled nothing like Longarvale. Emmie was already on shore removing her soaked wool stockings; her cloak and outer tunic were hanging dripping over a rock.

  “Emmidawn!” Renn threw up his arms, gesturing at their surroundings. “Are you fixing to go for a swim? We need to figure out what to do! How to get back!”

  “That won’t change in the time it takes to clean up a smidge.” Emmie shot him an incredulous look. She wrung out her stockings. “You're filthy. I’m sure I’m not much better. Certainly not worse, though, puking boy.”

  Glaring, he jumped off the boat and stalked her way, opening his mouth to object.

  “Ease up, Rennwinn!” She stood, hands raised. “I'm scrubbing my clothes. Then bathing in the river. Then we’ll figure this out, got it?” As she gestured, she glanced at her ankles and calves, and her arms, bare to the shoulders. She was wearing nothing but a ratty sleeveless tunic and knee-length breeches. Her eyes darted to Renn, wondering how much of her state of undress he was taking in. She covered her chest with her arms. “Give me twenty minutes to freshen up, will you? I’m kind of a shy girl. You go. . . someplace else.”

  “I still say we. . . fine.” Renn turned to leave. Then, considered the thick, unknown forest, he turned back to Emmie on the unknown beach. “How about I go sit on the other side of that big rock instead? I’d rather not leave you alone.”

  Emmie narrowed her eyes, studying the giant stone slab Renn indicated, on a flat bluff overlooking the beach. She tried to play it off as a joke about being shy, but she was actually quite private and sensitive and frightfully insecure in some areas.

  “I’ll stay there until you—” Renn registered the fear in her eyes. He held his hands out before her in the sunlight. “Hey, I won’t peep on you or anything. Promise.”

  Emmie chewed her lip, arms still guarding her chest. From what she knew of Renn, she felt reasonably sure he wouldn’t take advantage of her. But now it was just the two of them, alone, in the middle of nowhere. . . Emmie took a ragged breath. Then again, it was just the two of them, alone, in the middle of nowhere. They had to trust each another.

  “Okay. . . hide behind your rock. I'll be over here.” Emmie voice wavered. “But you stay on your side, Rennwinn. You promised.”

  Renn settled in, back to the moist, mossy rock. His eyes tracked up, up, up the mountains to the south of them. He could hear Emmie cleaning her clothes, then sliding into the river to rinse the scum and grime out of her hair.

  “You can cou
nt on me, Emmie, I hope you know that,” he called over his shoulder once she began pleasantly humming to herself in the river. “Your trust, uh, it means a lot to me.”

  “I trust you,” Emmie replied. She submerged herself in the river once more, then scampered naked back onto the beach. She hurriedly pulled her tunic back on. And was pleasantly surprised to discover for certain that she really did trust him.

  “I never want to betray somebody again. For sure not somebody as important to me as. . . yeah. . . thanks.”

  At that, Renn clamped his mouth shut. And didn’t open it again until Emmie popped over the top of the rock and doused him with a bucket of shockingly frigid water.

  “Clean up your pukey self.” Emmie laughed as Renn shook himself off. “Chuck me your clothes. I’ll scrub ‘em while you bathe.”

  “I can clean my own clothes, you know.”

  “Just offering to help, stinky boy.”

  He threw his clothes over the rock to her. “I’m keeping my skivvies, though.”

  “Who said I wanted ‘em?” Emmie snorted as she traipsed away with his tunic and trousers.

  A few minutes later—few enough that she had to wonder how thorough his bathing was—Renn re-emerged at their hiding place behind the rock, pulling on his soaked tunic.

  “Alright, back down to the ship,” Emmie declared. “See what we can rummage up.”

  “Rummage up?” Renn shook off his wet, shaggy hair.

  “We're lost deep in the middle of nowhere, remember!” Emmie yelled, stretching her arms out and letting loose a gregarious laugh. “Nothing has changed, yah? Nice to forget that for a bit, though? Life a little more bearable maybe?”

  Grinning, Emmie turned to head towards the barge. She flicked back her wet hair and dramatically sashayed down the beach, arms upraised in a good-natured I-told-you-so. It was all in innocent fun, yet Renn found himself staring at her golden hair, her small but strong frame. He was lingering. . . He quickly ducked down behind the rock and wiped his sweaty forehead, mind replayed the bounce of her hair, its honey-blonde sheen illuminated brightly by the sun.