What she was sure of, was that she hated for Emmie to be alone when the night-howling began ringing over the prairies, or when Renn’s massive blood loss sent him into shock. . . if it didn’t kill him first. That was out of her control, though, so she cast it aside as she hacked at tangled vines, vaulted over massive downed Du-Banyons, and continually reoriented herself towards the fire.
At the first waft of charred wood, she slowed her movements, curtailing her breathing and the impact of her footfalls. She kept moving with graceful speed, silent as smoke, until she spotted the fire, three men around it.
Now what?
She had no plan of how to convince anyone to help her, even if they looked capable or willing; much less if they didn’t. The men looked to be roughly her age, all wearing identical tunics and cloaks. One was small and pale with wisps of a wistful beard. The second was a mountain of a man with shiny black hair, olive skin, and a smooth, content face. The third was the obvious leader, same hair and skin as the big guy, but with a strong jawline and intense eyes. Some kind of monks, perhaps? Monks were a mystery to her. A monk-ish sort of a faith was foreign in the basins.
Should she approach meekly, pleading for help? Demand assistance at sword-point? Shoot one for intimidation and force the others to follow? Alixa squeezed her forehead. You don’t have time for this.
She stepped into the flickering light, imagining she did so confidently but not threateningly.
Had she any inkling of how messy she was, she would’ve realized she was incredibly alarming even by Alixa standards. Her sword drawn, the brilliant steel—the few parts not smeared with congealed blood—glistened in the firelight. Her eyes were wild with urgency, and bits of leaves and twigs clung to her body. And blood—from the wanderlions, Renn, herself, probably even some of Emmie’s—was splattered and splotched all over her face and ripped clothing.
The men recoiled, scooching to the far side of the fire; she was not the sort anybody wanted plunging into their fire ring in the middle of the forest. The leader quickly recovered, rising with arms out, palms up.
“Evening, friend. How may we be of service?”
Alixa blinked, frozen in her barbarous pose.
“Name’s Corbiern,” he said slowly, likely wondering if she was a feral woman devoid of understanding. “This is Omlos and Polidan.”
The two others nodded unsurely.
“Look, no one wants trouble here.” Corbiern stiffened, shifting defensively.
“My friend’s dying,” Alixa blurted, pointing haphazardly behind her. She forced a tight smile, the emotionally exhausting day blurring her thoughts. “I need help.”
Though still eying her skeptically, the men visibly relaxed. Maybe not a dangerous lunatic after all. Maybe just a desperate, traumatized young woman. She still exuded a menacing aura, but at least Alixa had managed to convey some semblance of humanity.
“Okay. . .” Corbiern responded.
“Six-seven miles back.” Still absently pointing behind her, Alixa watched them exchange wary looks. She wouldn’t do it, if their places were reversed. Not a chance. She’d be more apt to slaughter an intruder on sight. Her mind raced. “I can pay.”
Corbiern rubbed his chin.
“Guys?” The big man, Omlos, scowled.
“I, uh, have this.’ She brandished her sword. Her beloved sword. She tried to think of anything else she could offer instead. “Maybe a necklace, or—”
“A minute, Ma’am?” Polidan eyed her as the three circled up, whispering, gesturing; clearly not in agreement.
Alixa dropped her eyes, picked red mud from her nails; waiting. Helpless. Feeling like a commodity on a slave auction block.
“The sword will do nicely.” Polidan turned abruptly.
The other two appear unconvinced. The leader studied her. Likely considering what more he could wring out of her, Alixa guessed.
“I could show you the necklace, but. . .”
“Corbiern, this is—” Omlos crossed his arms.
“Her friend’s dying.” Polidan cut in.
“Exactly!” The big man threw his arms up like an oversized child. “And we—”
“We’ll discuss payment later.” Corbiern halted what sounded like a continuation of their arguing. “Polidan, douse the fire. Omlos, gather our things.”
Alixa nodded, shoulders slumping. She’d prefer to discuss payment now, so she could know what she was getting into, what she was sacrificing.
But Renn was dying. She would pay whatever they asked.
Emmie limped across the huge platform branch, back and forth, back and forth; refusing to sleep. When her battered body wearied of pacing, she sat and hugged her legs, squeezing her throbbing head between her knees to stay alert.
Renn moaned.
Good, Emmie thought as she scooted next to him; waking was probably a good thing. Blood darkened all his bandaging again. Emmie did her best to clean and re-wrap his wounds. She looked into his one uncovered eye; the tiny pupil intently upon her. She knew the fatigue and fear on her face were impossible for him not to notice now.
“Arm’s numb,” Renn’s ragged voice announced. “Can’t feel m’fingers.”
“Well, that thing took a nasty munch out of your arm.” Emmie inspected his heavily bandaged left arm.
“No. Right side.”
“Oh, no.” Emmie grasped his right hand. Her brow furrowed, she could feel his hand responding just fine. Frowning, she pinched the loose skin between Renn’s fourth and fifth fingers.
“Ow! What—” Renn’s hand flinched back. He grimaced and hacked a liquidy cough.
“You liar. Don’t do that to me!”
Renn laughed, prompting more jarring coughs. Emmie realized it was the sort of thing she would do if it were her lying there, watching him worrying and waiting. Her glare melted into a big free laugh. Just the reaction Renn had hoped for: seeing his gregarious friend reemerge, even if only briefly.
“Had you going, gotta admit.”
“If you wanted to hold my hand,” Emmie huffed as she crossed her arms indignantly. “Maybe try asking, instead of frightening me.”
After a long pause, Renn reached up a shaky hand. “Emmie, would you? I’m scared.”
Emmie enfolded his right hand with hers. As hers disappeared in his much larger one, Renn offered a weak smile. She squeezed his hand. His attempt to reciprocate had little strength in it. They sat silently for several minutes.
“I’m scared,” Renn’s said abruptly.
Emmie nodded in reply.
“Where’s Lixa?” His breathing quickened.
She was stuck for a response to that
“Don’t want to die, Emmie.” His body began shaking. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”
“Course not,” Emmie said with what little confidence she could muster. “She’ll come.”
After gazing into the darkness for quite some time, trying to will Alixa to materialize, Emmie was suddenly struck by how icy Renn’s hand had become.
“Renn?” she asked softly.
He stared, unfocused, through one hazy slit of eye.
“You better not be screwing around!” Emmie yelled. “Renn? Not funny!”
“Huh?” He squinted and coughed.
“Don’t do that!” No, Emmie realized, he wasn’t joking. “Stay with me.”
She covered him with what remained of their clean blankets, then tucked her own cloak around his head. Shivering, she steadied her breathing. If he saw her panicking, he’d panic even more. That morbid refrain again.
“Don’t wanna die. . .”
Emmie slid her hand under the blanket to grasp his icy hand, then began jabbering away. She exhausted a large storehouse of stories. When she couldn’t think of a story, she talked about whatever came to mind: constellations, fishing seasons, net-mending practices, anything to keep going. He seemed somewhat attentive but all-too-often he’d punctuate her monologue with what began to sound like a frightening loss of grip:
“Don�
��t wanna die.”
“Where’s Lixa?”
“Don’t leave me, please.”
As the hours crawled by, and Renn became more incoherent and confused, Emmie’s resolve cracked. She found herself repeating her own version of Renn’s disturbing mantra: Don’t die, Renn. Don’t leave me like that. And more and more frantically: Please don’t have abandoned us, Alixa. I need you.
XLVII - Bersteg Basin
As harrowing as Emmie’s trip over the border had been, Brie may have envied her. Brie and Leeman’s boat crashed down the winding, plummeting river into the northern frontier. Renn and Emmie’s ride had been a rough go, no doubt, and Brie had the advantage that she had chosen to go, was equipped and stocked for the trip. To say nothing of having embarked on a clear day rather than a stormy night, and not locked in a dark, smelly cargo hold.
But actually watching their boat dive down rapids and whip around rocky banks? During their first twenty-four hours in the tough little craft, they experienced a precipitous 5,000-plus foot drop in elevation. Plus, Renn and Emmie’s minds were reasonably free of worry. They thought they were going home. Brie knew she was courting danger.
She was unfortunately finding her travelling companion to be an additional disadvantage. Leeman was hardly the near-ideal complement for the journey Renn was for Emmie. The dramatic diplomat’s ongoing chattery anxiety grated on her nerves, eroding Brie’s usual sympathetic presence. Leeman’s problems were far from her mind, but he kept trying to place them there.
“I need to get off this thing, and soon,” a queasy Leeman grumbled on their second day on the boat. “I will be sick. When do we get off?”
“We get off when we get somewhere.” Brie gripped the side of the boat.
“What that’s smell? Raspberry? I’m allergic to raspberries!”
“Candy,” Brie responded sadly. “Emmie’s ‘favorite.’ In case, well, in hopes of. . . for when we find her.”
“Makes me swell up. I’ll need an apothecary. They’ll have one where we’re going, yes?”
Brie sighed.
“I’m going to heave.” When she didn’t response, he tapped her shoulder. “Truly, I am.”
“Then do it over the side.”
“You certainly seemed nicer back in the city,” Leeman pouted.
Brie chose to ignore that.
“Take a sip of the water down in the hold,” she offered after a few minutes. “Sips, though, little sips. And look up into the sky. You’re staring at the shore. That’s only going to make it feel choppier. Look at the clouds. Tell me what you see.”
She felt like she was babysitting. That was annoying.
Leeman merely moaned, so she tried another tack. “You hike or swim, get out of your office much?”
“Maybe as a kid, back east like you. Not anymore. I hate the water.”
“Look at the clouds,” Brie responded sourly and left it at that. Sending Berg home was necessary but the goatherder would’ve made for a much better companion at this point. Well, probably at any point.
They rode the pounding river for two full days before levelling out. After floating lazily through wilderness for some time, they passed an open meadow and a bluff with a large jutting rock. Emmie and Renn would’ve stopped for a look, if only to recall the few hours of playful give-and-take they had enjoyed there. Brie and Leeman sailed past the bluff without a thought.
A couple hours later, they drifted by a mishmash of ramshackle housing, smithies, and quarry yards, and finally a big inn. Where else could have they gone to, Brie concluded, if not here. Met with suspicious glances and malevolent stares from the shore, Brie decided to bypass the settlement and anchor at a dilapidated dock under an overhang of tree branches past town.
Brie strapped her sword onto her belt and pulled her hood low. Leeman voiced qualms about her venturing into the wild town alone. Brie frankly agreed with his assessment, but they couldn’t leave their gear lying around unwatched. Brie also couldn’t handle not actively doing something to help Renn and Emmie any longer. This was her job. Besides, she argued, it was daytime not dead of night. How bad could it be?
Focused on where she remembered the big inn to be, Brie strode briskly through town as though it was an everyday occurrence. She kept her eyes set forward, blocking out the catcalls she elicited from men she passed. They’re just people, she chided herself, they won’t hurt me. Unlike Renn and Emmie, she projected an aloof confidence rather than the aroma of fresh meat.
Brie slipped into the inn through a side door. Though it was morning, there was already a man passed out on the far side of the bar and another hunched over a stein near the middle where a burly man stood drying enormous mugs. Pausing to adjust her eyes, she felt a satisfying prickling of sixth sense along her neck as she observed the bartender’s movements and mannerisms. He stiffened when he noticed her. The tavern patron followed the bartender’s curious change of disposition.
“Ooo, not every day a pretty stranger walks into this dump,” the man chuckled. “Once a year, maybe twice at best, eh, Baerd?”
The bartender didn’t appear to share the man’s humor. Brie marched towards them, steeling herself for what looked to be another unpleasant conversation. Her boots clicked along the wood floor, echoing in the cavernous rafters. It made Brie feel distinctly small and alone.
“Hiya, lady.” The man’s grin revealed brown, dirty teeth. “What can we do for you? Or, if you please, what can I do for you?”
"I'm looking for two young friends of mine.” Brie levelled her gaze at the bartender. “Your tavern, sir, is the hub of this town. If my friends passed through, I’d wager they came here, and you would know it.”
Slowly drying a stein, Baerdron stoically considered the woman. Two young friends, eh? Obvious who that was. Baerd studied her: late 30s maybe, dark hair pulled back tight, the muscles of her angular face tensed even tighter. Minus the simmering intensity of her demeanor and the obvious bulge of a sword on her belt, she otherwise appeared to be inoffensive enough. But her unreadable eyes never seemed to cease scrutinizing. Not a psychic or a witch, Baerd pondered, but a woman with an uncanny ability to read another person.
“Can't be expected to remember everyone who passes through here.”
“Oh, but you do remember these kids.” Before Baerdron had slid on a blank mask, he’d clearly registered a match to her question. “The boy’s seventeen. Not your typical Vale kid—floppy mess of brown hair, yes, but a quiet, thoughtful boy. He was here with a teenage girl. Honey-blonde hair. Big grey eyes, big wide smile. The boy was undoubtedly protective of her, if I know him. And I have, since the day he was born.”
She paused. The big man was still slowly drying the same beer stein and sizing her up with a distrustful glower. Brie spread her arms wide. “A Vale boy and a ‘wheat-haired’ girl, travelling alone together? Hardly a forgettable pair.”
“Suppose a pair like that was here, oh, few weeks back.” Baerd could tell she was too sharp to lie to. “Hired a guide of sorts to take them to who-knows-where. And who knows where they’ve gone.”
“You know this guide?” Brie rapped impatiently on the bar. “Is the man trustworthy? Reliable?”
“Suppose so.” Having given it the care of its life, Baerd set the stein down. “Nothing special, though.”
“Come off it! Impeccable guide,” the other man said. “Not a man, though. Gal named Alixa. Baerd’s favorite, she is. Mean as a boar but exceptional at her, ah, trade.”
“Shut up, Geddick,” Baerdron growled, then turned to Brie. “Drunken old sod. Geddick don’t know nothing. He’s lucky I let him in to drown himself before noon every day.”
“My friends are in real trouble. I have to find them.” Brie pushed herself onto the bar. “You should feel the same about your friend, this Alixa.”
“Alixa’s merely a boarder. Pays her tab, nothing more.”
“Boarder, my hoo-ha.” Geddick hiccupped. “You’d give that girl pert near anything.”
“She p
ays room and board, same as everyone else. I’d throw her cocky ass out if she didn’t walk a straight line.”
“Seems her payment often finds its way back to her pockets, one way or another. Always gets the best beef, the cleanest bedding.” Geddick coughed a wheezy laugh. “Oh, he thinks we don’t notice, but you spend enough time around here and you’d know. This dump’s Alixa’s home. No man with half his wits who’s spent any time here would even think of touching her. Baerd couldn’t dote on her more attentively if she were his own daughter.”
“So I make sure she’s taken care of.” Baerdron glared at Geddick. “Not many young women around these parts. Somebody has to look after her with a lot like you around.”
“Too true.” Geddick laughed, then nudged Brie conspiratorially. She backed away. “Alixa do need some looking after, yes, but she don’t need no protecting. Tough as yak leather. Smart and skilled. And, yeah, mean as a boar. Nary a man in town she couldn’t snap in half if she felt so inclined.”
“Good for her.” Brie nodded, then added almost pleadingly. “Only now, I’m afraid she does need protecting. They have no clue what they’ve gotten themselves into.”
Baerdron looked down at the bar. He sighed, and when he looked up his countenance had fully changed. “You’d better explain yourself, lady.”
“Of course. Where are my manners?” With a warm smile, Brie extended her hand. “Baerdron, is it? Briesana. I’m the girl’s—Emmie’s—guardian. The boy—”
“Ooh-hoo! Guardian, you say?” Geddick chuckled. “Not doing such a good job guardian-ing, are you?”
“Things haven’t gone as planned.” Brie cast him a baleful look, not sharing the drunk’s amusement. “As I was saying, the boy—Renn—is my best friend’s son. So you understand my urgency. Let me explain. . .”
Brie recounted what she’d discovered in Longardin. When she finished, Baerdron gripped the bar, stroking his beard for almost a full minute. Brie clasped and unclasped her cloak buckle, a futile attempt at patience.
“You’re sure?” Baerdron finally asked. “I mean, absolutely sure? If you are, we should leave immediately. With a small army, if you hope to give them any chance. Otherwise. . .”
The Silver Claw Page 29
