Finally, as dark settled, the skies seemed clear. They stretched their cramped limbs and rustled in their packs for food but stayed hidden under the rock outcropping. They chewed on the remains of their rations in silence until the sun had set and Alixa had sorted her thoughts.
“So, Sheep. You’re witch question: if she’s a threat to us? Answer’s yes.” Alixa waved her finger through the air. “I’ve seen these things a couple times. Abominations, crossbreeds, I don’t know precisely what. I reckon they’re her trackers. Not sure but. . . safe bet.”
Wind blew yellow chalky dust around their feet. Birdcall, though clearly sparrows, made them flinch nonetheless.
“Safe bet they’ve tracked us here?” Renn asked.
“Did they see us?” Emmie added.
“Dunno. They stayed a long time. Like. . .” Alixa gnawed some dried meat. “Like they were expecting something, looking for something. But they kept circling, never finding. Gut says they didn’t see us, but I don’t know.”
“But, why, Lix?”
“The witch is hunting Bandu. Just loners and refugees like us, I thought; not this close to the homelands. So why these things are here. . .” Alixa trailed off.
“Following us?” Emmie ventured. “Does she. . . oh Lix, does she know about you?”
“We just found out about me, yeah? How could she?”
“We still entering the labyrinth?” Renn leaned into the rock. “Or does this change our plans?”
“No.” Alixa’s resolve surprised her. But this was her land, her people. These things had no right to be here. “We find Kaisson then do what I was supposed to do 13 years ago. Follow those three towers to Aveon, the Bandu capital.” She swallowed. “This is our home.”
“Guess so.” Emmie looked across the plateaus. “Home’s always been lakes and forest. Peaceful and safe. This is so hopeless, so desolate.”
“It has its own beauty. The longer we walk, the more I see it again.” Alixa picked a thistly flower, twirled it between her fingers, consciously trying to force the tension in her muscles to dissipate. Seeing Renn and Emmie curiously watching, Alixa realized with a start that she had it in her to ease their tension as well. She smiled and gestured out across the plateau. “Shades of rocks, shapes and shadows through the canyons, appreciating the trees and plants we have. And Kaisson. . .”
Gazing towards her old home, Alixa’s eyes took on a faraway look in the moonlight. Emmie squeezed Renn’s hand. Alixa was on the verge of sharing her childhood—both their childhoods.
“The Citadel, the Fortress inside were all carved by our people out of the rock face over centuries. Amazing stone-craftsmen.” Alixa’s finger scribbled along the sandy ground. “I rarely went inside, except my last night there. The rock wall wasn’t home for the little people like me.”
“Even though you were queen?” Renn asked.
“Part of my protection, I suppose. Melkiana, our Helm’s chieftain, checked on me most any time she was in town. I assumed it was to see Barrad, my guardian; father, really. I get it now.”
“If you didn’t live in the rock walls, where was your home?”
“Kaisson was a city; stone houses, wood houses—not that different from Drennich or the Khuul, I imagine.” She smirked at Renn. “Bandu aren’t always the fierce, wild peoples of your old tales. In battle, when aroused? Absolutely. Otherwise, we’re good people wanting little more than quiet, peaceful lives.”
Emmie caught the ‘we’ and the nostalgia. It was as though the old landscape was stirring something inside Alixa.
“Barrad was supposedly a retired soldier. Apparently, he was assigned to me. Younger guys, from his fighting days, stopped in frequently for cider and cards. Swap stories and. . . I’m sure some, the elite commandos from the east, were checking in on me.”
Alixa’s brow furrowed and she snapped the thistle in her hand. Renn started another question, but Alixa waved him off. Something from her story had struck her, but what exactly it was, was eluding her. Minutes passed, Alixa drumming her fingers and scowling. When Alixa’s memory did click, she got so light-headed she had to grasp the rock wall behind her.
“Renn, that dream, you said you met Emmie’s mom?” Alixa’s mouth went cottony. “Her name. . . was it Kaiteen?”
“Yeah. But what—”
“Emmidawn.” Alixa grasped her forehead, her whole world tilting around her. “I knew you, or at least your family.”
LXIV - The Kaisson Valley - 13 Years Prior
Korilexx’s eyes stayed fixed on the plumes of smoke emanating from the valley his people had called home. He and his men had been on site three days, but his numb horror remained. From the cliff by his command tent, he could only gape helplessly at the ruins of Kaisson and Baiweer. An oily blackness billowed wildly from the Fortress. Possibly two weeks old now, and still it burned.
Nowhere was as secure as the Kaisson Valley. It was the ideal place to hide her. And it had been his plan! Korilexx struck his shield in anguish.
“Sir?” Kabillard, his second-in-command, approached wearing an uncharacteristic fatigue. Korilexx nodded, unable to find words. “No survivors.”
“None?”
“None, sir.” Kabillard pointed across the valley. “Every escape was cut off. There. There.” His eyes searched. “And right there. The three emergency gates.”
“Secret escapes.”
“Allegedly.” Kabillard’s haunted eyes told the story as much as his words. “We’ve tried to reconstruct the ambush. Chillingly executed. Precious few of our people even escaped the city Those who did, made for the closest gate, as protocol dictates. It appears a flank of Aegorite soldiers was stationed outside each one, waiting for our people.”
“How?” Korilexx asked, though the answer was obvious.
“As you’ve surmised, a Bandu had to have led them in. It’s the only way.” Kabillard wanted to get this report over with. “Sir, our people fought valiantly but only a handful made it past those flanks. Those who did were hunted and slaughtered.”
“Melkiana?”
“Her signet was found on a charred body in the Fortress.”
Korilexx winced as though he’d taken a gut punch. Which, with Melki dead, he had.
“Drammond? Barrad? Any sign of. . .?” Korilexx’s voice wavered. He could not bring himself to say Princess Alixa’s name. He had spent ten years fanatically protecting that name. His life’s mission was crashing down around him. “You know.”
“Sir, there are dead children everywhere. Pulled out of houses, schools. Executed in the streets. They knew. They were searching for her.”
“We need her. We must know.”
“We cannot make proper identification.”
Korilexx’s mind raced. Always trying to stay one step ahead of conspiracy, he had hidden the few remaining royal cousins as well, shortly after he’d taken Alixa from the dying queen-mother. He hadn’t thought he could feel more wretched than that day. Yet Korilexx never could stay ahead of whoever was dogging him. Somehow, those he had hidden in the other districts had been tracked and murdered. Only two other descendants of Chastien remained, each with one child. He’d allowed them all to come here, to Melki’s district. Supposedly impenetrable, but closer than he would have liked to the princess. Yet. . . well, he never could say no to Kaiteen.
“Drellix and his son?”
“Baiweer took it harder than Kaisson. Nobody so much as escaped the city gates.”
Korilexx needed a moment to steel himself for the next question. The last question. As devoted as he was to Alixa, Kaiteen was special. She’d lived under his care for nearly six years. He presented her at her wedding. Kaiteen was like a daughter.
“Atillen’s family?” Korilexx whispered.
“We believe we’ve ID’d the captain and his wife out in the labyrinth.”
“Meaning?”
“We found a mangled, headless body that fits his appearance. And his wife—Kaiteen, yes? —not far away, riddled with crossbow darts. S
o we surmise the nearby man was her husband, was Captain Atillen.”
“With them?” Korilexx forced the words out. “A child? Tiny girl, not yet two.”
Kabillard shook his head, unable to meet Korilexx’s desperate eyes.
“In Kaisson then!” Korilexx banged his shield again. “Any chance Princess—” His voice stuck at saying Alixa’s name aloud. “Any chance the princess could still be hidden somewhere? Or Atillen and Kaiteen’s daughter? Search Kaisson again.”
“Don’t send us back, Governor.” Tears welled in the grizzled soldier’s eyes. “They lined them up in the streets. . . All those little bodies strewn. . .”
Korilexx nodded. It was a massacre. No survivors. Melkiana—gone. Princess Alixa—gone. Kaiteen—a dead body riddled with crossbow darts. He had failed his old Viceroy. He had failed Melki. Most of all, he had failed Princess Alixa, and his Kaiteen. He slumped to his knees, and something deep inside him cracked. He would step down as governor. As the eastern military commander. As. . . everything, really.
“Take me to Kaiteen’s body?” Korilexx asked hoarsely. “I’d like. . .”
He couldn’t bring himself to verbalize it: say goodbye. With one last look, he took in the billowing black smoke that filled the valley, then turned away from the massacre and all he had lost.
LXV - The Northern Tablelands
“You knew my family?” Emmie squeezed Renn’s hand so hard his knuckles cracked.
“How did I not see it?” Alixa mumbled. “Well, I guess I’ve blocked this out for years. But, Emmie, you’re practically her mirror image.”
Emmie felt like the wind had been knocked out of her.
“She moved to Kaisson when I was. . . eight, maybe? She and your dad.” Alixa pressed her eyes shut. “Sorry. Can’t remember his name. He always talked to Barrad. In hushed tones. Probably about me.” Alixa snorted. “But Kaiteen. . .”
Alixa went quiet, hand to her head. When she spoke again, her voice grated.
“Hearing her laugh barging into our house. . . I loved her so much. She always wanted to play with me. I ate it up.”
“And me?” Emmie asked hopefully.
Frowning, Alixa shook her head. Emmie’s grip went limp in Renn’s hand.
“I can’t. . . after a few months, her visits became so infrequent.”
“You said she came when you were eight? That would’ve been two-three years before she died,” Renn said. “Emmie should’ve been there for some of that, at least.”
Alixa covered her eyes, tugging the memory to the fore. . .
Eight years old—no, nearly nine, she’d insist over and over—and wearing her raggedy pajamas, Alixa hid under the stairs of their slim, two-story rowhouse. Alixa loved this spot. Perfect for spying. It was the dead of night. And this was fascinating. Oh, Barrad would be so mad if he caught her eavesdropping. But Kaiteen was here! With her husband. Melkiana, too. And another man—Korilexx or something—who seemed as important as Melki. But Kaiteen was crying.
“It’s too dangerous,” Melkiana said. “You knew that when you moved here.”
“I should never have allowed it,” Korilexx muttered. “You two, this close together.”
“It was the queen’s dying wish,” Kaiteen’s husband stressed. “That when Kaiteen was of age, she could know—”
“I am aware, Captain!” Korilexx snapped him to silence. “I honored that. Yet my preference was for you to remain in the east, safely apart from one another.”
Kaiteen sobbed. Her husband squeezed her shoulder.
“What’s done is done.” Barrad pushed a mug across the table. “Another move, so soon, only invites suspicion.”
“Agreed, but. . .” Melkiana, red in the face, wagged a finger at Kaiteen. “You are to keep your distance. Understood?”
“But. . .” Kaiteen fought for words. “She’s my. . .”
“Not more than once every three months.” Korilexx’s face was tight. “That is final. You break that rule, even once, and I will bring you home. Very next day. That’s an order, Captains.”
Kaiteen’s hands flexed like claws.
“We know it’s unfair.” Melkiana voice softened. “Think of Alixa, though. And soon your own child. We’ll have five—out of only seven—in this valley. Three of you here, in Kaisson. It is too much of a risk.”
“Only seven?” Kaiteen held her stomach. “Oh, no. Who now?”
“Aikila, and your second cousin Vernelix. Don’t know how they got to him.” Korilexx rubbed his face. “We’re not saying never, but you are now casual acquaintances only. Strictly military contacts.”
“Once the baby is born?” Kaiteen’s husband asked. “What then?”
“We’ll make this work, friend.” Barrad patted his back. “Caution now may lead to a chance at real relationships later.”
Alixa peeked around the corner. Her friend sat shaking, her head buried in one hand, her other hand rubbing her rounding little belly. Alixa wanted to run in with a loud ‘boo!’ and hug her. But it was clear those days had passed. And the meeting had been too secret and too serious for Alixa to raise the question later.
“She was pregnant with you, Emmie.” Alixa stared into the dark. “Why would they keep us apart?”
“Oh.” Renn wondered who would smack him hardest.
“Oh, what?” Alixa asked. “You busting out an anxious oh can’t be good.”
“I keep forgetting. Emmie, your mom made a crack about me having proved myself to be part of your family, part of royalty. She said Alixa’d be queen—and a good one, too.” Renn gave Alixa a thumbs-up and a weak smile. Neither reciprocated. “Right. But she meant you, Em. She also acted as though she’d ‘accidently’ breached some protocol. She had that mischievous Emmie look in her eye. Then the dream ended.”
They all looked down. Renn was thankful nobody punched him. Having shared similar dreams, they understood how not-quite-right it felt to share.
“So who am I?” Emmie asked. “Not sisters, are we?”
“No. Otherwise Kaiteen would’ve been queen. We’re related, somehow. You’re something, Emmie, just not sure what.”
“Well, you’ve been saying that since the day we met.” Emmie took a long breath, then grasped her hair. “I can’t believe you’ve both met my mom, and I haven’t.”
Within two days of entering the labyrinth, Renn desperately missed the forest. The sights, the sounds, the smells. Most of all, the food. Even the most meager meal of rummaged roots and berries from the woods would be a feast in the labyrinth. Last night’s dinner had been rock rodents. Not rodents at all, Alixa corrected him: plateau squirrels, perfectly acceptable game. And yes, she said with not a little agitation, they were edible, nourishing even.
Edible, sure. Tasty and satisfying, no. They’d always be rock rodents to Renn.
She’d bagged four of them today too. Rock rodents for lunch, again. Renn rotated the two long sticks Emmie had fashioned into spits, and then impaled the nasty little things with a stiff two-handed jab. The sound of the impaling was less than appetizing. Watching, even less so. Renn slowly turned them as their bodies charred. Distastefully, he realized he was hungry enough to eat them as well.
Meanwhile, Alixa and Emmie studied the ox skin map in consternation. They kept winding through these tunnels; Alixa surveying the skies, turning the map around and around, trying to locate one of the paths the map indicated would lead to Kaisson Valley. At times, they could get a view of the landscape over eye-level rock walls, make some kind of stab at where the path was leading. At other times the sides towered over them, thirty feet, maybe more. Alixa was unrivalled as a tracker. That she was so confounded spoke volumes about the complexity of this massive system of valleys and tunnels.
“How did those people ever find it, Lix?” Emmie gave up on the map, ran her fingers along the powdery yellow chalk that clung to the rock walls.
“Some traitor gave them this map, I’d wager.” Alixa jammed the map into her side pocket and sunk into a moody funk.
“Probably led them there themselves.”
“Alright girls, eat up. Rock rodent surprise, hot and ready.” Renn set the smoking spits along a stone to cool. “First to finish theirs, gets the prized fourth animal. Oh, and of course, we have a scrumptious pile of thistleberries.”
Emmie shot him a look and popped two berries in her mouth. Her look turned sour, though not with Renn. Thistleberries, Alixa assured them, were also edible. But they tasted and chewed like overly thick-skinned, over-tart cranberries. Not exactly a sweet, soft fruit itself.
“Thistleberries: the perfect complement to the lovely smell of charred rock rodent,” Emmie deadpanned. “Renn, you are truly a chef.”
“Hey, a chef’s only as good as his ingredients.”
“Well, I’ll do the cooking for us once we’re—” Emmie stopped short. Her ears turned pink. She rammed her rodent into her mouth. When we’re married? She’d almost said it out loud. “Mm, delicious,” she muttered through a chewy strand of muscle.
“Aren’t they, though?” Renn grinned, suddenly finding his lunch more appealing.
Alixa managed a smile as she tore into her unappetizing meal. Emmie’s false start of a statement was a reminder there could be a happy life on the other side of this journey. At least for some of them.
“So Alixa, you got a good read on where—” Renn was cut off by a loud howling.
Alixa dropped her rodent-on-a-stick and scampered to the top of the nearest rock wall. Squinting off in the distance, she spied rows of red and white flags—maybe?—flapping in the wind. The grief-stricken howling erupted again.
“Uh. . .”
“Quiet, Renn.” Alixa motioned them low.
“What is it?” Emmie whispered.
“Dunno. There’s something familiar, though I can’t quite place it.” Alixa traced her fingers along the side of the rumpled map, then came to a decision. “Whatever it is, it’s the direction we want to head. Chow down and grab your stuff. We make for those flags straight away.”
The Silver Claw Page 40
