The Silver Claw

by Erik Williamson

  The next morning, Alixa was even moodier and on-edge then normal. They were to follow single file, precisely in her steps. No noise, she said pointedly to Renn, and no chatter, she growled at Emmie. The overcast sky meant a late start to the day, and an early darkness. She hoped to cross in seven hours. If the trek took closer to nine, they may still be in the prairie at dusk. From what she sensed the previous night, she gauged that to be a death sentence. Alixa decided to keep that to herself.

  Emmie directly behind Alixa, with Renn in the rear, they set off. Emmie, with nothing to do all day but silently watch the lean, muscular young woman in front of her, couldn’t help but absorb all Alixa’s coiled energy and angst. On more than one occasion, Alixa’s head jerked sideways, eyes wide with what would amount to real panic in a less rigidly controlled woman. In no short amount of time, Emmie was terrified. Hours crawled by, with no breaks, no stops, no conversation.

  Six or so hours in, Alixa was disturbed that she could see little discernable progress. They’d covered miles, obviously, but the endless grass just waved, the sky kept watch over them with gloomy indifference, and the treetops looked tiny and all too far off.

  Late afternoon, Alixa first smelled it, and was grateful they were upwind. It was the presence from the night before. Without knowing why, Renn and Emmie felt their pace go virtually double-time.

  What followed was one of the longest hours of Alixa’s life. The indistinct calls and more-telling odors wafting in the wind, lost on her two friends, were clearly getting nearer. Alixa accelerated, yet tried to keep her movements rhythmic and graceful, only to find that Emmie couldn’t match her. She’d been content to let Emmie drift along at her own pace in the woods so long as Alixa could see or hear her; but here Alixa was keeping them both glued to her back.

  At last, thankfully, they approached the visible tree line. They were close. But so was darkness. And so was the whatever it was that was out there. A long high-pitched yowl froze them in their tracks.

  “Lix. . .” whispered Emmie. “What was that?”

  “Shhhhh!” Alixa hissed. “Speed up, stay low. Do not run until I give the word. Steady now; we can do this.”

  Alixa could finally gauge some progress. Slowly—all too slowly—the tree line became increasing closer. Alixa tweaked their trajectory for the largest Du-Banyon she could see. 800 yards.

  A bone-chilling screech, not far off, pierced the air. Alixa had never heard anything like it in all her time in the wild, or in her mentally chronicling stories in the inn. These were wanderlions, whatever they may be. Alixa staunched a moment of frenzied panic. She could tell the beasts knew the three of them were there, somewhere, in their prairie. Alixa held out hope their movement was indistinct enough they had yet to be pinpointed. Once they broke into a run, they would lose what little advantage they held. 500 yards.

  Screeches and hoots echoed through the sky. Call and response. Alixa counted five distinct voices. All galloping their way. 300 yards.

  “Lix. . .” Emmie’s voice trembled.

  Alixa held her hand open, low in the air: not yet. 200 yards.

  A blood-curdling yowl split the sky. For one of the very few times in Alixa’s life, she panicked.

  “Run!”

  150 yards. . . maybe. Please let it be less, Alixa pleaded. And let it be enough.

  Flinging off their packs but not their weapons, they bolted for the towering tree in front of them. They’d barely covered 50 yards before they could hear their pursuers’ paws rumbling towards them. Alixa dug deep, discovering a speed she didn’t know she possessed.

  60 yards. 50. 40. Almost there. . .

  Renn was sprinting, not far behind. Emmie, though, a half-foot shorter than the others, feet aching, and thick grass thwacking against her torso, slowly slipped back. The lions, attuned to the prairie grass on their four lithe legs, closed the gap on her.

  All at once, Renn realized Emmie wasn’t keeping up. He glanced back. The lions’ bodies crested and fell easily in the tall grass. They were closing rapidly. She wouldn’t make it, and he could see by the hopelessness in her eyes that she knew it.

  Renn spun around. Heart pounding, he grasped the hilts of his weapons.

  “Go,” he panted as he blew past her. “Emmie, go!”

  Renn unsheathed his sword in his right hand and dagger in his left, heading straight for the beasts. Despite his exhortation, she slowed and turned, bewildered.

  The two leaders, long and sleek, barreled down on him. The others were further back—not far, but he reckoned far enough. He thrust his two blades towards them, unfortunately brandishing them like the goat-herding teenager he was.

  If he could take out these two. . . no, he wouldn’t kid himself. If he could occupy these two, Emmie could make it. It might only buy her a few seconds, but a few seconds was all that separated life from death for her.

  Renn’s world slowed to a crawl through his final few steps, his mind quietly reflecting. He wasn’t nearly as afraid as he expected he’d be, facing death. He was surprisingly satisfied and at peace. Just before he reached them, one last thought buoyed his spirits. She’s worth it. He’d make his life count for something.

  “No!” Emmie screamed. “Come back!

  Alixa, ready to vault for the tree, heard her hysterical cry and whipped around. She gasped in horror, turning right in time to see the two lead cats vault out of the grass at Renn. All fangs and claws, they slammed into him. He dropped like a sapling snapping under their weight. All three disappeared under the cool waving of the deep grass.

  Nothing rose back up.

  XLIII - Drennich

  The flames from the wall sconces, symmetrically spaced throughout the town hall’s great room, cast shadows on the packed house within. Every seat was filled, summoned by the novelty of the sunset emergency bells, which hadn’t sounded for years. The mayor had severe reservations about doing so now. But faced with Jesticka’s pleas and Berglin’s demands, he’d relented. Besides, he’d signed the paperwork for those kids’ trek to Longardin. He didn’t care to face the repercussions if they turned up dead. . . or not at all. He sat at the front of the assembly, sifting through Brie’s preposterous directives that Berglin had relayed. He wouldn’t act on such patchwork intelligence, but neither did he possess the resolve to say that to the frantic Jes. He ceded that heartless responsibility to the masses.

  Cowards. Jes gripped the table, awaiting a response to Brie’s directive to assemble a militia force and march north. For all the times for Urwen to be gone, she lamented, and Dren as well. Urwen hated to leave before Renn and Emmie returned. Jes had been the one to persuade him. The Dungarvale market was vital to their livelihood, and she confessed she was being irrational and emotional.

  Until it turned out she wasn’t.

  These people would think twice before denying Urwen. Or Brie. Let them doubt Brie to her face—see how that would fly. Berg explained the decision Brie was forced to make, to not return, and Jes could not disagree. Brie had shouldered the weightiest burden in finding Renn and Emmie.

  “Jesticka, these are dreams you’re asking us to follow,” somebody said uncomfortably.

  “And the ravings of a lunatic.”

  Murmurings of assent rose from all quarters.

  “Brie was convinced,” Berg urged them, feeling her trust in him sorely ill-placed. “Tell me one time—just one—that Brie has been wrong when she was thoroughly convinced.”

  “Well,” a woman responded. “Brie isn’t here.”

  “What she’s asking is absurd. Marching north, no idea where to go or why.”

  “Crossing the border isn’t even allowed, is it?” All of the voices were beginning to sound the same.

  “You cowards!” Jes seethed, weeks’ worth of fear and anxiety breaking loose. Her sudden outburst hit them like a slap in the face. One, however, they would simply shrug off and shamefully move on from. “I’m going. Berg and I, whether any of you lot do or not.”

  “Be reasonable, Jes.�
��

  “My son is out there!” Jes pounded on the table, tears forming.

  No one met her eyes.

  “I’ll go with you, Ma’am,” a lone voice responded from the back.

  The room went silent. A few hundred heads turned. Far in the back, barely even in the room, Kalderr leaned against the doorframe.

  “Well, he is my friend. Has been my whole life. So, uh. . .” The big loyal boy shifted uneasily on his feet. He’d resolved to go as soon as he’d gauged what Berg was saying but would have preferred to quietly tell Jes alone after everyone left. As he listened to people make self-serving excuses, watched Renn’s mom’s desperation grow, he concluded he owed it to Renn to step up in front of everyone. He cleared his throat and spoke more forcefully. “Why is there even a question of whether we’d search for them?”

  Jes smiled. She’d take him. Just one boy. But he was shaming the rest.

  “Yeah, okay. Me too.” Old Devlin, the unassuming militia captain, rose from his chair, wringing his hat. “I know Urwen would do it for me.”

  “Aye, me as well.” The town blacksmith stood. His wife had been one of Jes’s fast friends before her death.

  Jes’s flagging faith in her people was slowly resurrected one person at a time. Once the first voice had thrown in, old friends, business acquaintances, those with too much pride not to join once others had, began to feel their strength, their responsibility. It was only a small percentage of those assembled but Jes would take it.

  Two days later, armed, equipped, and supplied for a long trek, 73 quiet Vale-folk marched up the old, disused northern road. The handful of appointed leaders mulled over the scant map Brie had drawn, shrugging their shoulders at their lack of knowledge.

  Jes sought out Kal almost immediately once the march began. She hadn’t spoken to him in months. After he and Renn’s bitter falling out, he’d stayed away. Jes longed to speak with him, but Urwen persuaded her to respect his desire for space. Kal and Renn would need to figure it out on their own. But it was one more off-centering absence in her routine, this boy who for years was a regular presence in her home and life.

  Kal trudged up to their mustering point and Jes welcomed him with a bear hug.

  “You did this, Kal. If we have a chance to help Renn and Emmie, it’s thanks to you.”

  “No one’s coming because of me.” He shrugged. “You maybe. Devlin, I suppose. Brie.”

  “No. You shamed these people into taking a hard look at themselves.”

  “I. . . I didn’t mean to,” Kal stammered.

  “That was a compliment. You were the only one man enough to step up.” Jes reached her hands up to his shoulders and appraised him. “You’re a man, Kalderr. When did this happen?”

  The big boy merely shrugged again.

  “I’m proud of you. I know you and Renn. . . Well, it’s horrible how it happened, but he needed that wake-up call. It’d break my heart if Emmie was out there, lost and alone. After what happened between you, Renn knows better. I’d like to think he’d sooner die than see Emmie get hurt.” Jes looked down. “Wherever they are.”

  XLIV - The Wandering Prairies

  Emmie’s frantic ‘Come Back!’ rang despairingly over the prairie. The next wanderlion was bearing straight for her. She stood her ground, sword drawn but visibly trembling. Alixa sprinted towards her, nocking an arrow. The final two lions were charging fast behind this one. Aiming on the fly, Alixa loosed the arrow for the big cat’s throat. It missed the mark but severed the tendons around its front right thigh. That leg crumpling down uselessly, it crashed to the ground mere feet in front of Emmie.

  “Finish it!” Alixa barked, a second arrow already nocked.

  The other lions glanced about as they sped closer, seemingly considering which prey looked the most promisingly helpless. Alixa let out a guttural scream, daring them to come for her, but no: they split up—one for Emmie, the other to where Renn had gone down.

  Nothing had yet stirred from where Renn lay. Alixa raced in that direction but trained her bow on the lion thundering towards Emmie. If she was off the mark even an inch, as she had been with her first shot, Emmie was dead. Alixa’s battle senses heightened to peak awareness. The world around her seemed to slow to a crawl. She slammed full-stop, took but a second to gauge the lion’s gait, steady her aim, and fired. She buried her arrow in the animal’s right eye. It sank into the brain—dead on impact.

  Alixa glanced at Emmie. The wounded wander had caught her. Blood was splattered all down her front, but she had managed to get behind the staggering cat. She leapt for its shoulders, collapsing the front leg that alone supported its upper body. Her expression equal parts fear and fury, Emmie plunged her short sword between the shoulder blades. She grimaced with satisfaction at the crunch as her blade severed its spine.

  The final wander leapt at where Renn must be lying. Alixa couldn’t risk firing blindly. Her hand swung to the hilt of her sword, but again, without knowing where he was, she feared leaping in brandishing a naked blade. She threw herself at the cat.

  The two rolled, one over the top of the other; the force of Alixa’s momentum carrying it away from Renn’s motionless body. Alixa’s left hand sprang into action: the wrist and thumb combination to engage her bracelet now second nature. The wristcuff’s deadly teeth engaged as the lion tumbled over top of her. As they flipped, she dragged her left arm across—and through—the cat’s neck. She bounced free, her own neck and right arm raked with claw marks, but her left side covered in fresh blood that was not her own. The cat writhed on the ground, its neck slit from one end to the other, Alixa’s savage slash quickly emptying it of life.

  The first cat lay motionless to Renn’s left—his dagger’s hilt barely visible in its chest. The wounded second lion stood over his sword, shaking off a stab wound. It leapt onto Renn’s body, chomping into his left shoulder. Alixa winced at the sickening sound, desperately wishing Renn had as well. But he gave no sign of life.

  Emmie emerged out of the tall grasses screaming. She grasped the lion’s back legs and yanked. It barely budged. Fangs dripping with Renn’s blood, it growled and turned its calculating saucer-eyed gaze on her; a fatal error. Alixa lunged from the other side and buried her tooth-studded left wrist in the lion’s flank. It died seconds later as they hacked at it with their swords.

  “Emmie!” Alixa yelled as Emmie continued furiously stabbing at the dead beast. She had to shake Emmie by the shoulders to make her stop.

  “No, no, no.” Breathless, Emmie dropped to her knees and grabbed Renn’s hand. Sobbing, fresh tears streaked through the blood on her cheeks. “Renn. . .”

  His body was bloody and mangled, face waxen and barely recognizable. Alixa sunk to the ground, exhausted and dazed. Not an option. She forced herself up, crawled to Renn, and placed a hand on his chest. Then her fingers to his neck.

  She waited. Pressed harder.

  Her hope ebbed. Then there is was.

  “He’s alive!”

  With a surge of adrenaline, she jerked Renn off the ground and dumped his limp body onto Emmie’s shoulder.

  “Get him to the tree,” Alixa panted.

  “Lix!” Emmie, still shaking, staggered to support him. “Where’re you going?”

  “For our supplies. Get him out of here.”

  “Lix says you’re not dead.” Emmie dragged him best she could, pleading as she limped along. “Renn? Say something?”

  After a few feet of unsteady progress, her foot caught on a rock and she stumbled to her knees, barely managing to keep them both upright. But with the jolt came the most wonderful sound Emmie had ever heard.

  “Ugh,” Renn grunted. Then possibly, maybe, a slurred, indistinct, “Em?”

  “S’me, Renn!” Emmie replied with a strained, almost maniacal, glee. “I gotcha. Lix’ll fix you. Gotta. . . get you. . . to the tree.”

  She wanted to believe his head nodded slightly, but the right side of his face was such a mess she really couldn’t tell.

  “C
an you walk? Even a little?” A tense laugh escaped her. She kept taking small, labored steps, but all of his weight sagging down onto her already stinging shoulder was beginning to crush her. “You’re bigger than me, yah?”

  She forced herself to believe his feet must be making an effort. After a dozen more dragged steps, Alixa caught up and shouldered his other side. At the base of the immense tree, Alixa flipped Emmie their packs and hoisted Renn onto a shoulder-high platform. He groaned as she plopped him down.

  “He’s alive, Lix! Hear him?”

  Three more hoists and they were close to ten feet off the ground. Alixa’s muscles throbbed from heaving a body heavier than herself. She couldn’t lift him again; this would have to be high enough. Gasping for air, Alixa found herself overwhelmed by the triage. He seemed to be bleeding everywhere. Where was she supposed to start? Emmie, soaked in blood, stared at her, her unfocused pupils looking wild. Better start there. She cupped Emmie’s cheeks in her hands and titled her face up.

  “I need you, Sheep. He needs you.”

  “Yah.” Emmie, shaking and slick with blood—Renn’s, her own, the wanders—was too winded to say more.

  “He comes to and sees you panicking? He panics. Alright?”

  Emmie nodded her head weakly in Alixa’s hands.

  “Go through our bags for anything we can use as bandaging. Rip it into strips.” Alixa swallowed to steady her voice. “We got this.”

  Emmie numbly did as Alixa said, but she was reliving the afternoon Dad collapsed. Urwen had given her almost identical instructions to appear calm. Same as now, Emmie quenched her panic, tried to be strong. But Dad had died anyway.

  She retched over the side of the big cupped branch. Alixa’s words. The lost look on Renn’s face. The suffocating feeling of helplessness. Having to hope someone else had the answer. Please, Emmie pleaded, not again.