V - The Northern Wastes
Ten-year-old Alixa dragged her feet across the mashed, soggy field. Her grey eyes flicked across the horizon. Flat. Everything here was flat and ugly. Alixa felt naked and exposed without mountains towering around her on all sides. She hunched her shoulders, looked down, and her frown deepened. Fresh mud stains splattered her ripped green leggings.
“A platoon at the marshalling field?” Her mistress’s voice—sharp as broken glass—made Alixa flinch. “Today of all days. . .”
A breeze caught Alixa in the face, wafting the oily sting of her rank hair into her eyes. She slowed to rub them, falling a step behind the others. For which she received a swift slap on her cheek—a punishment that in barely a couple months’ time, Alixa had become all-too-familiar with.
“Keep up, you little wretch! If you get us all killed. . .”
“You needn’t slap her,” Alixa’s master replied indifferently. “She knows what she is.”
Alixa’s cheeks burned; whether more from the physical or verbal slap, she wasn’t sure. She balled her hands into fists. Oh, she’d like to smack that woman. Alixa could probably knock out a few teeth with a well-aimed punch. She caught their piggy son eyeing her. She released the tension in her body, tried her best to look the part of a whipped scullery urchin.
“I just applied another coat of varnish to her disgusting wheat-head hair two days ago. They’ll know!” She turned and glared at Alixa. “You keep those awful stone-dead eyes down, you hear me?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“We never should’ve taken the worthless girl in.”
“Why don’t we turn her over to the troops today, pop?” the piggy boy asked.
“They discover we’ve been harboring her, they might kill us as well.” He shrugged. “We make it through the hour and we’re fine. Besides, her labor’s worth it.”
“Ha!” Her mistress spat. “Hardly.”
Well, Alixa smiled ruefully; at least there was something the two of them agreed on.
The smattering of wasteland settlement villagers stood in ragged rows at the mustering point. Alixa obediently kept her head down—though it left her otter-oil-pungent hair dangling in front of her nose—trying to look inconspicuous. Which was difficult. Bony as she was from being ill-fed and over-worked, she was notably tall for ten, with a strong frame and innate cockiness to match.
“Slump, you fool girl.” Alixa took a sharp elbow to her ribs. “How often do I. . . now, of all times, look the cowed servant you are.”
Alixa crossed her arms over her chest and bit down on her tongue. A response would earn her another slap, no dinner, or possibly worse. Bearing their insults was nearly as repugnant as the stench of the oil they used to rob her hair of its beautiful whiteness.
“Beneficiaries of the Mountain’s protectorate,” a hooded man on horseback bellowed as dismounted cavalry stalked towards the people. “Pay your respects, pay your allegiance.”
A second horseman rode by the lines of bowed, frightened villagers. Alixa snuck a peek after he passed. Covered in a pelt-cloak, the man’s wolf’s head hood obscured all but a stubbly jaw and flared nostrils twitching like a dog’s below a high table of muttonchops.
“Any wheat-heads pass through this last month?” The man’s scratchy voice grated Alixa’s ears. He wheeled his horse back. Alixa quickly ducked her head. “Search them.”
Soldiers descended on the villagers. Every here and there, they pulled at a woman or prodded a man forward for inspection. Alixa held her breath and kept her eyes averted as a soldier smelling of too much ale stumbled past her without so much as a glance.
“Well?” the wolf-cloaked man rasped.
“We’ve not seen a Bandu around here in years,” the mayor replied.
Alixa glanced at her master. They’d doused her in the foul otter-oil the day she’d arrived. Her mistress said she couldn’t bear to look at her wheat-head hair. As far as the rest of the village was concerned, Alixa surmised, she was an unwanted orphan-servant, beneath contempt and unworthy of the slightest consideration.
“Nothing, sir, in this lot,” an important-looking soldier confirmed. “They’re clean.”
“We’ll be on our way then,” the lead man growled. “But don’t ever forget. . .” As his horse began to trot off behind his troops, the man turned a wolfish smile at the villagers. “To whom you owe your continued existence.”
With a flick of his arm, he levelled his crossbow and lackadaisically buried a dart in the heart of the mayor. A half-second pause, and his lieutenant did likewise, to a woman who had the misfortune of standing too close to the now-former mayor.
“Defy the Mountain and you’ll have the Wolf to answer to.” The Wolf rode off satisfied, holding himself high above the cries of anguish and fear.
Alixa received another slap on the walk home. A harder one at the door of the house. And the heel of her mistress’s hand to her forehead before Alixa, ears ringing, was dismissed for the night to the storage barn with nothing to eat.
“We should never have taken you in!” Her mistress tended to shriek, Alixa had disdainfully noted often. “My husband is far too kind-hearted. You remember, filth, that you owe your life to his good will.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Alixa whispered.
The barn door slammed. Alixa stood alone in the dark. She lit a small candle, making sure to keep it far from the straw that was her bed. She huddled her long body into a crouch, pulled her hair back, out of her face. She loved her white-blonde hair, soft and fair as corn silk, and hated that she was forced to keep it a foul brown. But by accepting the otter oil, bearing the slaps and insults, and enduring painstaking outdoor labor, she’d managed to stay alive. She dug through the floorboards, humming a schoolyard tune—from back when she’d been afforded a childhood—attempting to hold back the darkness around and within her. She pried loose the board she’d hollowed out a hiding place underneath her first day here. She attuned her eyes and ears for anyone about. When she was satisfied there wasn’t, she wedged the board free of its moorings.
In the mucky hole, she pushed aside the bag holding her necklace and a few coins, then past her brilliant sword, though she longed to pull it out and whip it around like she was back in lessons. Maybe slash it at that stupid woman a time or two. Tempting, but. . . Alixa didn’t have a death wish. Though, really, why not?
She tried to whistle but it came out airy and ghostly.
Well, death wish or no, she needed to keep her most valued possessions a secret; hang onto what little she had left that reminded her of home. Maybe she hadn’t been anyone then either, but at least she’d been a person. And she thought she’d been loved.
She yanked free her thick leather bracelet from behind the sword. She pulled it tight as it would go, fastening the clasps along her wrist. It was still too large, but no matter, she’d grow into it. She circled the black stones with her fingers, wiping off the grime, then caressed the long white decorative strips of bone.
“I miss you, Barrad,” she whispered at the bracelet. “So, so much.”
She was on the verge of tears, remembering. But that was gone, and never again could Alixa afford to weep over what she’d lost. Or weep over anything. She staunched her emotions and focused her mind on testing the wristcuff with different angles, flexes, and squeezes of her thumb, palm, and wrist—still trying to find the combination Barrad had said would make the bracelet come alive.
An hour passed, then two. Her candle dimmed to a flicker, but she doggedly kept at it. As her frustration at her failure grew, her determination to master it grew as well. Alixa fumed. That dumb woman thought she could make Alixa believe they let her stay because they were kind-hearted? Alixa scoffed, systematically manipulating the muscles along her left hand and wrist. She knew the truth. She spied and listened and prowled the grounds like a wraith. These stupid people had no idea what she was capable of, what she knew. She’d heard them cut a bargain with a slaver from out near the basin plateaus. Within a y
ear, she was destined for the mines, and her master would receive a fine payment in return. A girl of her beauty and bearing and the exoticness of her Bandu heritage and the hate everyone seemed to have for it, would make her quite the commodity among the open-pit mining communities.
She felt the first click of the combination. Alixa’s lips twitched in a mirthless grin. There it was. The precise angle. The correct flex of her thumb. The wristcuff’s pearly white strips of bone jolted out, her left wrist transforming into a ringlet of sharp, deadly teeth.
Mines? Slavery? Let them try.
Alixa closed her eyes, slowly moving her fingers, committing the finally mastered combination to muscle memory.
They thought they were dealing with a mere ten-year-old? Alixa had been forced to age years over the last few months. When she’d milked all she needed from this foul arrangement, she’d be ready when the time came.
Alixa waved the wristcuff in the air, admiring the play of the flickering candlelight on the embedded black stones, relishing that she could brandish her very arm as a deadly weapon. With a flick of her wrist, the teeth retracted silently. She was wearing but a stunning bracelet once again. Alixa flashed her own wolfish smile.
VI - Drennich
“I Never. Want to Hear. That. Again.” Jes forced each word into its own distinct sentence as she leaned into their battered kitchen table. “Is that clear?”
“Yes, Mom,” thirteen-year-old Drenwell muttered to the uneven floorboards.
“Yes, Mom,” eleven-year-old Berglin echoed.
“I mean it. Don’t ever do that to your brother. You know he’s sensitive about. . .” Jes flailed her arms. “Well, about everything. He’s your brother. He looks up to you.”
“Yes, Mom,” Drenwell replied.
“Yes, Mom,” Berglin echoed.
With a jerk of her head, she sent them out the door. They fled off to the goat meadows, eager to obey that command. Jes ran her fingers through her mess of hair. They tormented their little brother all too easily, and her discipline had become all too routine and ineffective. Glancing at the boys’ room, Jes saw Rennwinn’s rucksack was not at his bed. His pressing questions about being unwanted and different than everybody else were coming more frequently.
“I better find Renn.”
But Renn had made himself unfindable. He’d been stewing over his uncle and father’s argument at the Engagement Festival for weeks. Earlier in the day, his brothers told him their parents had sold him to some traders from Sillarvale. They even showed him real coins. Not many—he simply wasn’t worth much—but enough real money to be convincing. Jes discovered him alone by his frayed straw sleeping mat, jamming his stuff into his little pack, weeping. It made Jes’s heart sick, Renn asking through his tears, ‘why does nobody wants me?’ She insisted it had been a cruel joke. But as soon as she turned her back, he was gone. Hiding under the old collapsed footbridge at the edge of their grazing meadows. Safely away from the family that didn’t want him.
Lunch passed. The afternoon hours idled away. Renn didn’t budge.
End of the day, Urwen came in from the fields expecting to find dinner as usual, but instead found his wife sprawled over the table, hands in her hair. She didn’t move when he entered, even when he clattered the door shut and dropped his hat onto the table next to her. She knocked it onto the floor with a sigh. He scratched his head, perplexed.
“Dinner giving you some trouble?” he offered hopefully.
“Renn. Gone.” Her words rose muffled through her enormous hair. “Hours. Can’t find him.”
Urwen shook his head in exasperation. He didn’t understand his sensitive youngest son, but he surely loved him. “He thinks he’s hiding from the world. But I know where. I’ll get him.”
He grabbed his goatherd’s crook and with a wistful glance at the untouched ingredients on the counter that looked like they could be dinner, slipped his hat back onto his head. But before he reached the door, Jes jerked upright.
“Urwen, do something special with him, eh? Something his brothers are not part of.”
Urwen scratched his head, flummoxed. What unique experience did a goatherder have to offer a child? Before Urwen could formulate a response, there was a knock at the door. The neighboring farmer, sporting a hard leather helm and an old halberd that was much too big for him, peeked in.
“Devlin?” Urwen chuckled “Something wrong over your way?”
“Captain’s called to assemble our division.”
Urwen’s smile faded and Jes stood abruptly, her chair tumbling backwards. The militia was almost never summoned.
“Doubt it’s anything to worry over, Jes. Border guard’s passing a prisoner through. Petty trespasser is all, but they want militia on hand. Show of force and such.” Devlin lifted his arms. “Fearsome, ain’t I?”
“You look something. I suppose for us, this passes as high drama.”
“Hey!” Urwen snapped his fingers. “How about I bring Renn?”
Bewildered, Jes shook her head.
“No, really. It’d be a big deal. Keeping an eye on the bad guy.”
“A four-year-old standing guard over a prisoner?” Jes stammered.
“Come on, Jes. No real danger,” Devlin said. “It’ll be fun for the boy.”
And quick as that, Urwen fetched Renn from the fields and they marched towards town for guard duty.
Captain Petz had commanded the northeast border guard for three long, uneventful years. He was the rare Longar with a thirst for battle and glory. The northern border was about all that passed for action for the Longar military. But that was in the west, near the Basins, where restless enclaves of the disaffected were becoming larger and more dangerous. Out east, the small clusters of settlements along the old north road made for scant action. The zealous captain fanatically patrolled his men anyway. He finally had a catch to show for it.
Three farms reported missing animals. A skittish weaselly man, apprehended skulking about the area, said he was lost, nothing more. Though his crimes could hardly be more than petty theft and trespassing, his vague explanations and discomfiting foreignness convinced the captain to haul the man back to the capital city of Longardin.
Urwen’s militia division of meek farmers and herders lazily assembled at the courthouse. Torches lined the walls of the old wooden building that served as courtroom, jail, and town hall—as impressive a structure as Drennich had to offer. Though rarely needed for anything beyond tedious meetings and locking up the occasional disorderly drunk, it was kept in immaculate shape. The pine furniture was waxed and shined, the floors swept clean, the pictures and maps on the walls meticulously hung and straightened. Padding along behind his dad, Renn was in awe.
“Who let the kid in?” Renn jumped as a soldier approached. “What hack militia is this?”
“Oh, come,” a woman’s voice responded. “What harm is there?”
From behind the soldier, Brie ambled up casually, bringing a smile to Renn’s face. Brie cared for him like nobody besides his own mom. Renn could never get enough of Brie.
“What. . . who’re you? We’ve got a woman now too?”
“I’m an advisor to the mayor, Sergeant,” Brie answered with a serene smile. “The boy’s fine. His father is militia.” She leaned in confidentially. “One of our better militiamen, really. Renn won’t hurt anything. May even notice something we’d miss.”
The sergeant glowered at her but was not a little flattered by an attractive young woman speaking to him conspiratorially. So close, he could smell her minty breath. “Fine, but. . . I’ll need to inform the captain. He won’t like this.”
“You’re okay, Renny.” Brie winked as she walked away. “Stay by this table, eh? I’ll expect a full report of your findings.”
Renn’s countenance beamed with a sudden importance. He surveyed the militia, slouching and disinterested; the knot of soldiers, staying aloof from the townspeople. The prisoner. . . behind bars, docile, left to himself. The man rolled his shaggy head from
side to side, wringing his hands. His lips were moving, seemingly repeating the same mumbly words over and over, but Renn couldn’t hear.
Hmmm. . . Brie told him to stay at the table. Yet Brie also told the soldier Renn might notice something they’d miss. She wanted a report. She was counting on him! Renn slunk along the walls to the table closest to the cell and huddled himself in the shadows, a skill he’d honed to evade his brothers’ bullying.
“Be merciful, great Queen of the Mountain, to your servant, Kelebis,” the prisoner mumbled. Did your bidding. At the lake. I did.”
The man’s voice dropped into a litany of gibberish, mostly about food and an empty stomach. Renn frowned. Brie was always so kind to him. When did he get a chance to do anything for her? For Brie and Brie only, Renn would be brave and creep closer. He squeezed his eyes shut and strained to listen.
“Cursed Danzius. T’was his fault. T’was Lomuir—her fault! General. . . puh. Me? I pleased m’lady. Killed the cursed little wretch.” He made a throaty gurgling noise before spitting out, “Make her go away! Now.”
Everything went still. Renn peeked from behind the table, peering towards the cell. He stared straight into a pair of dark, seething pinprick pupils. Renn froze.
“Don’t wanna see no kids!” The man grabbed the cell bars, rattling them forcefully. “Hate her, do you hear? I can’t get that face out of my mind!”
Soldiers scurried to the cell, rapped the man’s white knuckles with their sword hilts. Brie swooped over and steered Renn’s shaking body away. Captain Petz crashed into the room moments later, followed by the sergeant and two other guards.
The captain barked at the prisoner, now cringing in a heap on the jail floor. Then he turned on his heel and marched on Brie, holding Renn as he clung to her skirts. “Woman! This is no place for children. I don’t care one whit who you think you are, this is my jurisdiction now.”
“Yeah, the kid goes!” The prisoner sprang to the bars again. “Get him out!”
The Silver Claw Page 4