The Silver Claw

by Erik Williamson

  “Gotta sell these, girl. Go away”

  “I’ve cleaned fish all my life.” Emmie stood tall, barely reaching Baerdron’s chest. “No offense, but those are some raggedy fillets you got there. I could cut a proper fillet since I was five. You’d best let a Khuulie fishergirl show you the right way to do it.”

  The pesky girl wasn’t going to be brushed off. Letting her have her way was probably the easiest way to shut her up. Baerdron brusquely gestured permission. She made quick work of her first fish and proudly pushed forward two perfect fillets.

  “Suit yourself.” He preferred baking anyway. “Just, keep your yapper shut, got it?”

  Emmie worked hard and efficiently. And managed to keep her usually busy yapper in line. She chopped and sliced until she’d made an impressive stack of fillets. The sights and smells triggered memories of home, and of Dad, when she was a child and not so alone. She’d done this thousands of times: up before dawn, cleaning fish by torchlight, singing in the dark. With Dad. Always was best with Dad.

  Emmie absent-mindedly shuffled fillets around, arranging and re-arranging by size and shape. Brushing some stray scales off her fingers, oddly enough, was what did it. She hadn’t handled a fish since Dad. . . a lump caught her in a throat. She wiped he eyes. Best go back to her room, hope Renn was still asleep so she could have a proper, private breakdown.

  “You get lost in your head?” Baerdron startled her with a gentle voice.

  She jumped and was surprised to find the kind voice an apt fit on the giant of a man.

  “S’pose a girl your age, alone and far from home; gotta be tough.” He frowned at the dagger strapped to her leg. “That’s a mighty big fillet knife, fishergirl. Don’t need that here.”

  “Alixa said it wasn’t safe, for a girl.” She gripped the hilt. “Men here would, well. . .”

  “Alixa’s trying to scare you.” Baerdron waved her off. “A girl’s plenty safe in my place.”

  “That man last night—” Emmie wrapped her cloak tighter.

  “Thrace is a drunken old fool. Last night, more drunk and more fool even than usual. He wouldn’t have got far with you. I guarantee that.”

  “If it weren’t for Alixa, he’d have—”

  “Ain’t been an assault on a girl this side of town in six, maybe seven years.” Baerdron began chopping pork. He scowled, waving his cleaver. “Course, I’m not proud to admit it happened in my inn. Ain’t happening again, fishergirl.”

  “No?”

  Baerdron fixed Emmie with his black eyes. “I caught ‘em at it, three men ganging up on one girl. I beat ‘em but good. See how they like it, I say. Made sure they wouldn’t do it again.” He slammed the cleaver down, whacking a flank of pork in two. “If you get my drift.”

  Emmie didn’t move a hair.

  “Poor thing was a battered wreck—jumpy as a colt. I tried to do right by that girl. Happened under my roof, I’ll own my share of the blame.” He thumped his chest with two big fingers. “I done what I could to make amends, but how do you restore someone’s peace of mind, dignity? Self-respect?”

  He shook his shaggy head, side to side.

  “Not under my roof, fishergirl. Guarantee.” He cleared his throat. “Fine job on them fillets. If you’d like to keep on, I’d be much obliged.”

  Emmie gave a slight, bewildered nod, and returned to cleaning fish. Baerdron’s rough exterior was merely packaging for a big heart. She wondered if the same could be true of Alixa. Just had to find out what made her tick.

  Baerdron thought it best to get their day started early. Most likely, he didn’t want anyone seeing him treating a couple vagrant kids generously. Emmie didn’t have the heart to wake Renn from his deep sleep before 8. At 8, though, the gloves came off. Bubbling like a five-year old, she rousted Renn out of bed. With sleep in his eyes and his hair an even unrulier brown mop than usual, she tugged him down to the main room.

  Renn was dumbfounded when Baerdron served them a heaping plate of garlicy potatoes, buttered fish, and hot sausages. He was even more shocked when the bear of a man joined them.

  “What do you say, boy? Fine-looking fish, no?” Baerd smiled pleasantly at Emmie, who replied with a giant grin. “And choose your words wisely.”

  “The fish is excellent,” Renn said through a mouthful of food. “Beats goat any day.”

  They’d barely begun eating when Alixa, shouldering a large pack and sporting a longbow and quiver full of arrows slung over her back, banged through the front door. “Baerd, what gives? You’re holding up my day. C’mon kiddos, move it!”

  And that, apparently, was Alixa’s way of saying yes, I’ll take your offer.

  XXIX - Out of the Basin

  “If you’d tell me where you’re going,” Baerdron growled. “I could give you some pointers.”

  “I’m not at liberty to disclose those facts.” Alixa plowed through his kitchen, waving him off and commandeering whatever she desired. “That’s between me and my clients.”

  She stopped at the open-doored pantry, shelves piled high, and ripped open a few containers. She rifled through some hard tack and dried beef, stuffed it into a bag.

  “Clients, hmph. So pious and proper, you are.” Baerd slammed the container, left by Alixa on the floor, back on its shelf. “Which direction you headed?”

  “So nosey, Baerd! Afraid I won’t come back?” She turned a frying pan over in her hands, shrugged, and clipped it to her pack. “I’m always good for room and board, and you know it.”

  “You taking them back to Longardin?”

  Alixa paused her rummaging, stared down the big innkeeper. With a huff and an annoyed head shake, she crossed her arms and leaned back.

  “Fine, to get you off my back. . . we’re going east-ish.” Alixa gave Baerd a wry smirk. “Probably a bit of north-ish, too. Shove off, will you?”

  Running his hand through his shaggy hair, Baerdron sized up the headstrong young woman. She’d been a regular at his inn for years. He knew her as well as she was willing to be known, which wasn’t really saying much. She regularly disappeared for weeks at a time; hunting, guiding, picking up contracted bounty work, God knew what else. While adamantly closed about anything remotely personal, typically she was relatively forthcoming with him about her work. Her behavior this morning was odd.

  “Fine, then.” Baerd pantomimed a map in the air with his hands. “If it’s east or Longarvale, you’ll want to split off south when you leave the basin. Gets hilly, yeah, but there’s the old trail, gone to pot but still decent travelling last I heard. Make your way to the Old Forest but don’t go further south before it. If it’s north, I reckon you got some other means in mind than the old mainway?”

  Alixa stared at him through an expressionless mask.

  “Alixa, you steer clear of there, you hear me?” He wagged a calloused finger. “Nothing but bad rumors from the North Road. You know. . . if you’re heading anywhere true north, or east-ish north, you best take Lamberden Pass. You listening, girl?”

  Alixa’s mind was cataloguing every word but she gave no indication beyond a curt nod as she turned to leave.

  “What’s in this for you?” Baerd called after her. “Those kids got nothing. Don’t you be playing games with them.”

  “Out of the goodness of my heart, for those poor lost kids.” What was in it for her was that map, but she wasn’t even planning on telling the girl that. She bowed in a mock curtsey. “You know me, Baerd. I’m all heart.”

  Done with withstanding his questions, she whirled toward the door.

  “You, uh, look after that girl, hear me?”

  “Yes, Mother.” Alixa waved him off without turning around.

  “You be careful yourself, Alixa,” Baerd muttered quietly. “Stubborn woman. She better not head north again.”

  "You think we can really trust this Alixa?” Renn yawned.

  Renn and Emmie, having gorged themselves on breakfast well past the point of full, lay stretched out in the sun on the inn’s roof. Waitin
g for Alixa’s word to go.

  “Don’t know why, but I do. Gut call, I guess,” Emmie said, patting her painfully full stomach. “I, uh, like her. There’s a lot to that woman.”

  "A lot of mean.”

  “And nasty.” Emmie laughed back.

  "Sullen."

  “Crass. Can’t forget crass.”

  “Oh yes, lots to like. I see that.” But Renn was grinning.

  “She’s all those things, when she’s in control. You notice that? See, I’m betting the real Alixa is the one that was so quick to bail us out last night with zero in it for her. So, yes, I think we can trust her.” Emmie paused and bit her lip. “I hope?”

  “Always analyzing. A lot going on in that noggin of yours, eh?”

  “You’ve no idea.” Emmie tapped the side of her head and laughed again.

  “Looks like it’s all up in the air, just the way I like it.” Renn reached his hands behind his head. “So... Emmidawn, what are you hoping for in all this?”

  Emmie had to pause. What did she want?

  “Oh wow, Renn. I wish I knew. Most of me hopes she leads us straight east. When we hit a southerly road, she points us to the Vale. She can keep the stinkin’ map and find whatever it is interests her about it. We go home, do ‘Paca like we planned, when we’re ready.”

  “Me too.” Renn squinted at Emmie in the sunlight. “But, uh, just ‘most’ of you? What does the rest of you want?”

  “The map was a complete nothing until yesterday, yah? Now it’s real. The more daring side of me wants to know what it’s about. Maybe it’s where I come from, Renn! Not home, so much—that’s the Khuul, maybe Drennich someday—but at the same time, home. I might even have a family.” Emmie rolled onto her side, facing Renn, a huge, awed grin on her face. “A family, can you believe that? There might be somewhere I actually belong. Oh! That kind of makes me want to tie up cautious Emmie and dump her in the nearest stream.”

  “Humph.” Renn was rather fond of cautious Emmie. At the same time, he couldn’t help but feel a little excited for her. And he’d promised he’d stick with her, so he’d better start shifting his mindset, as uncomfortable as that was.

  Emmie flopped back down, took a deep breath.

  “There was fear in Alixa’s eyes when she saw that map. She recovered quickly but something spooked her. And anything that can spook crass ol’ Alixa. . .?” Emmie’s body went limp. “Then. . . then I remember someone tried to kill me, sacrifice me even, whatever that might mean. And that scares the breeches off me. Then I just want to go home.”

  Renn watched stress lines spread over her usually carefree face. He gave her arm a squeeze. “I’ve been thinking how awful this would be, you know, to be out here alone. Knowing we got each other’s backs, though, makes it not so terrible. I know I’m not much, but I promise I’m with you. We’ll get through this. Just got to stick together.”

  Emmie turned to Renn, trying to read what that statement meant to him. And he tried to read her. She still looked on the verge of crying, but her eyes were filling with a glowing warmth as well. He wished he could get a handle on how the look of her eyes could say so much, and with so much emotion.

  “I can’t tell you how much that means to me,” Emmie said shakily. “You know, there’s something we should talk about. Hopefully something good. Uh, yesterday I, uh. . .”

  “Hey! What gives?” Alixa, loaded down with packs and provisions, was looking more than a little annoyed. “Off the roof, kiddos! I want 16 miles between us and this dump before nightfall. It’s not going to be some easy stroll like you’re used to down in your cushy Vale. There’s a perfect encampment after those 16 miles—don’t know how many of those we’ll get. Get your butts moving now.”

  “Lots to like about her, eh?” Renn rose and helped pull Emmie to her feet. “Well, we’ll have plenty of time to talk on the road. Or wherever she’s taking us.”

  Emmie nodded and wiped her brow, heart pounding. There was no way she was broaching this subject with Alixa around. It would have to wait until they were alone again. Even then, it was pretty iffy that Emmie could muster up enough courage, as she had done just now, to try to address what Brie and their fathers had in mind. Until then, she’d have to live with the guilt of not telling Renn and the fear of what would happen when she did.

  XXX - Drennich

  Brie, woken by her own screams, bolted upright from bed. Chest heaving, gasping for breath, she tried to steady her hands enough to light a candle. Brie surveyed her little three-room house. The waning moon shone through the main window, illuminating her simple but inviting kitchen and the stone fireplace with four sitting chairs. Everything, of course, was as it should be.

  “A dream,” she kept repeating. “Just a dream.”

  Her body shaking, she lit the fireplace and every candle and torch she owned. She hesitated as she entered the second bedroom, irrationally hoping to find Emmie serenely asleep in her bed. Emmie, of course, was gone and everything was just as she’d left it weeks ago.

  Her sixth sense, Meggriella had called it. It was a great ally in everyday life, when her heightened senses of empathy and insight helped her find just the right words for people, enriched the lives of the whole town. But these glimpses of premonition, or whatever these dreadful things were, that was another story altogether. It only came in flashes, only every few years, but Brie hated it.

  She paced in front of the crackling fire until she couldn’t withstand the paranoid urge any longer. She returned to Emmie’s room to check again. She knew it was delusional, but an equally delusional compulsion drove her. She yearned to have Emmie back in their little house right now. Just to see her. Asleep. Safe.

  Brie splashed her face with the cold water in the basin then sat down in her favorite chair to comb out her mess of sweaty, tangled hair. It sometimes took her a good hour to regain any sense of coherent thought after these episodes. She had to fight back the ridiculous urge to check Emmie’s room a third time.

  She would wake from these dreams with frighteningly vivid impressions tattooed onto her soul. Tonight, it was a consuming fire and cold jagged mountains. Menacing figures advancing like wisps of solid black smoke. Renn lay glassy eyed in the grass, covered in blood. Emmie screamed a scream that wouldn’t end.

  Brie sobbed.

  Emmie’s terrified scream still echoing in her mind, Brie turned her palms up slowly, half-fearing she would find them dripping with Renn’s blood. This was the second night of this dream. The first night it had been only a nightmare. Only. . . She hadn’t needed to triple-check Emmie’s bed, fear she’d have blood on her hands, cry like an early spring downpour.

  It had been so disturbing as a nightmare, she’d avoided Jes all day. . .

  Urwen had left for an annual gathering of goatherders and buyers in Dungarvale, mere days after Renn and Emmie’s trip began. He would be gone four weeks. He’d been reluctant to do so, fearing for the worry an empty house might bring his wife. But Jes swore she was fine and pushed him to go. He had to; the market was easily their largest source of income every year.

  And Jes had been fine. Until Renn and Emmie’s expected return date passed with no sign of them. Brie sat for countless hours with Jes, listening to her fears over their absence. A week there, a week back. Even if they had stayed an unexpectedly long five days in the city, they should’ve returned. The twentieth day in, consumed by anxiety, Jes planted herself along the capital road. Berglin, her middle son, the one who had not accompanied Urwen to Dungarvale, knocked at Brie’s door well past dark. He couldn’t persuade his mom to go to her home or his. Maybe Brie could talk to her, he asked hopefully?

  Brie dressed at once and helped convince Jes to spend the night at her son and daughter-in-law’s. Brie returned home after midnight, shaken by the fear and anxiety of her good friend. Jes was an emotional woman, certainly, but also one of the most levelheaded, thoughtful people Brie knew. They were late in returning, yes, Brie remembered telling her soothingly, but there were alway
s variables in travel. She was unnecessarily upsetting herself.

  While Jes reluctantly agreed, Brie had not actually managed to convince either one of them. That was the night of her first dream. Nothing but Jes’s fears rubbing off on her, going to bed too late after that emotional scene. That had to be all it was.

  But tonight, the dream was so real, so alarming. She hadn't had one anywhere near this vivid since the night Meggriella died. She wished Megg was here. Megg was the only one who could convince Brie to do anything but despise these episodes.

  The thought arrested Brie.

  The night of that last dream, she’d rushed to Megg's house in the dark of night. Megg died within two hours. The dream’s urgency had been a blessing, or she would’ve lost the chance to say goodbye to her beloved mentor. Brie ran her hands through her sweaty hair. She couldn’t afford to ignore this dream either, could she? Regardless of what it may or may not mean, she found herself sure that Emmie and Renn needed Brie to do something with it.

  She’d best tell Jes. As daunting a prospect revealing this all to Jes would be, she deserved to know. But it was far too early to head to Jes’s. Still trembling with Emmie’s scream echoing in her head, Brie brewed a pot of coffee. She’d get no more sleep anyway. The waning moon hung high over the horizon. So long to wait until morning.

  The same moon hung over Renn and Emmie, wherever they were. She had a hunch wherever was not Longardin anymore. Brie was certain whatever this was hadn’t happened yet. She was equally certain it was coming.

  She had been given a chance. . .

  Brie stood abruptly, hardly noticing her coffee spilling onto the floor. No, they had been given a chance but only if Brie acted wisely and decisively. `

  She hurriedly dressed and packed a small bag. She should be at the market before daybreak. Finagle a horse from the stable master as soon as she finished there. Then convince Devlin to loan her a dagger or short sword. Maybe both. She could be on the road, galloping hard for Longardin, before noon. From there. . . she prayed she would find a lead to follow. And follow it she would. She’d known Renn and Emmie were special from the moment she met each of them—another one of her unexplainable certainties—and she loved them like they were her own.