“Unfortunately, I am sure. I have no army, but I am going after them. I’ll do whatever I can.”
“Fine.” Baerd huffed. He wiped his hands on his apron. “You got yourself a guide.”
“I’ll go muster that army!” Geddick took a long slug of beer and swung shakily off his barstool. Brie and Baerd gave him a look of incredulity. “Meet you out front in, oh, couple hours? One army, comin’ up!”
“I’ll take anyone willing, Ged.” Baerd pulled the largest battle-axe Brie had ever seen off the wall. “Don’t get your hopes up, lady. Ain’t no army here. But if he wants to ask around, no harm done.”
Leeman was in a much better mindset when Brie returned. She was relived some of the grit and backbone he exhibited on the Longardin docks had returned as his seasickness wore off. She was counting on that Leeman, not the one she’d seen thus far.
“I needed to get off that boat,” he said as they strode back to the inn. “Walking’s fine. Riding’s better but walking suits me dandy. Should’ve told you, Brie, no boats. I don’t do boats. I don’t like the water and it doesn’t like me.”
“I think you’re safe, but we’ll see what this Baerdron has in mind.”
“Can we trust him?” Leeman wagged a finger too close to Brie’s face. “He’s not simply leading us into the woods to murder us, is he?”
“He’s worried for his friend. I trust him.”
“Hoo-ee!” Leeman exclaimed as the inn came in sight. “And right we should, I reckon. That guy said an army. . . he got us an army!”
Bewildered as Leeman, Baerdron paced before the assembled hodge-podge of humanity. He hadn’t counted on Geddick recruiting anyone whatsoever, certainly not the 50-plus standing before him. Most he knew, a few he did not. No doubt, some had responded out of boredom or with a thirst for blood and brawling. He noted a cluster of younger men and a couple women, hunter-tracker types he knew worked with Alixa on occasion. But Baerd was humbled by the realization most had turned out simply because Geddick said Baerd needed them. Many in this town, more than he would ever suspect, esteemed him highly enough they’d respond simply out of respect. He stopped in front of a big man near the end of the line.
“Thrace? Haven’t seen you since. . .”
“That night you threw me out?” Thrace replied in his scratchy voice.
“You’ve no love for Alixa. And after what you tried on that girl. . .”
“I was clean-soaked-drunk. Ain’t proud of what I done. Figure I owe the li'l girl something for, well. . . I may be a drunken old fool. . .” Thrace leaned in, levelling bloodshot, baggy eyes with Baerd’s. “But even a drunken old fool knows when the time’s come to take a stand.” Grasping his pike, Thrace drew himself up to the best soldier’s posture he could manage, a look of pride in his bearing he probably hadn’t felt in decades. “Hain’t done much commendable in my life, but come on, even I know when there’s things worth fighting for.”
Unnerved by a philosophical epiphany from an old drunk, Baerd exhaled, recalling the soldier’s life he had lived long ago, seemingly a different man.
“I thank y’all for this,” Baerd bellowed. “Ged tell you what’s up, yeah? If those dirty Mountain heretics are looking for trouble, we’ll give ‘em trouble right back. This is our turf. They got no place here. Sides, I’ll be damned if I let them torture and murder some innocent kids without putting up a fight.”
XLVIII - The Wandering Prairies
Alixa’s peerless tracking skills were hardly necessary to find her way back. Just follow the broken branches, crushed undergrowth, and what she surmised was her own rank odor. Corbiern, however, was the only one of the supposed ‘help’ matching her reckless speed.
“Ma’am, could you slow down?” Corbiern panted.
“I’m no Ma’am.” And had no intention of slowing. “Name’s Alixa.”
“Alixa, then. A moment? We got off to a rocky start, I fear. I want to assure you I’ll do everything in my power to—”
“Start by lightning a fire under your pathetic friends. Renn’ll be dead at this crawl. And don’t fret.” Alixa’s throat tightened. “I’ll pay. I’m a woman of my word.”
“I’m not a mercenary,” Corbiern responded defensively, then sighed. “I’m a healer. I want to help. Peace?”
He may have extended his hand. In the dark, Alixa couldn’t tell. And didn’t care. Just sped up. He kept pace, at least, but began probing Alixa with questions, trying to get her story. She wouldn’t share anything remotely personal but did feel compelled to delve into the day’s events.
“You’re saying you fought off prairie she-devils?” Corbiern stopped abruptly. “Those are a myth.”
“Don’t tell me these things are myth!” She shook her shredded sleeve at him, congealed blood plastering it into her arm. “Your myth mauled my friend.”
“Never would’ve believed. . .” Corbiern trailed off, then latched onto the first bit of real information she’d volunteered. “Your friend sounds like a courageous man.”
“Boy, really. But good kid. I didn’t even notice till I heard Emmie scream. By then two had gotten him, another was bearing down on her.” Alixa stopped, staring at the sky. “I left them to die, dammit.”
“How many were there?”
“Five. We killed the last three without too much trouble.” She took no pride in that. She waved him off. “But—”
“You killed five she-devils?” He considered her anew. “No trouble?”
“They’re kids!” Grey eyes bulging, she got in Corbiern’s face. “I marched them hard all day. Then left them behind, totally exposed.”
Alixa turned in disgust.
“They’d be dead without you, no?” Corbiern asked. Alixa cast him a hateful glare, beginning to resent this chatty medic-for-hire. “Stop with what you didn’t do. What you did do was save them. What you are doing, you’re doing for them.”
“Your friends are too slow,” Alixa groused.
Corbiern whistled for the others and trotted after her. “One last time, then I’ll drop it.”
“Fine, what?” Alixa barked.
“You let them down. Sure. You also saved them. They’ll be grateful.”
“They shouldn’t have to be, if I’d been thinking of anything but myself.”
“So the boy paid the price for your selfishness.”
Alixa hung her head. It was one thing when she said it, it felt so much more shameful coming from somebody else.
“Then you saved his life. And the girl’s. You went for help and, hey, you found me. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Alixa’s eyes stayed downcast.
“Will this alter your instincts going forward?” He leaned towards her. “Would you leave them behind again?”
“Never.”
“Then let it go.” He spread his arms wide.
“I’m still not proud of myself.”
“Then don’t be.” Corbiern shrugged and picked up his pace. “Leave the boy to me. That girl, though? She’ll need a friend.”
Alixa grimaced. He was right. Emmie would need something Alixa didn’t know how to give. She steeled herself to find a new kind of depth, determined not to fail again today.
“How about this one?” Emmie’s throat burned from hours of keeping her voice in Renn’s head. And she swore the tree was spinning. She hadn’t had water since. . . mid-afternoon maybe? Could it still be the same day? “Deadly personal, this. But I’m running out of talkers. Sides, are you even listening? Renn?”
He didn’t answer. She hadn’t expected him to. He’d been unresponsive for so long. Her lip quavered, fearing this was it. Well, she’d make it one of her favorites.
“I wish you’d known Dad. You’re like him in so many. . .” Emmie sobbed, clutching her chest. “K. Get it together, Emmie. . . I was eleven. Probably the lowest time in my life. At least till a couple years later, after we moved. Ugh.” Emmie dug her nails into her palms. “I’m never sharing that awful story, even if you can’t hear me.
So. People got meaner. Like, maybe until then, I was so little, or they figured I’d die before I grew up or. . . I don’t know.” Emmie wiped her eyes. She still couldn’t understand. “Everywhere I went, I got tormented. I’d tie my cloak tight over my hair and eyes; figured maybe I could hide who I was. Dad’d question me, especially on hot days. I’d say, ‘I got the sniffles’ or ‘too windy;’ whatever. He let it slide for a while, but I reckon he knew. One hot summer day he orders me to leave my cloak home. I refuse. He takes it. Can you believe he’d do that to me, Renn?”
She thought he’d sighed, and her hope surged. But, no, it was the wind. Emmie slumped lower. She cleared her raw throat, forced herself to resume.
“I begged him to let me dye my hair or cut it all off. But no. Dad said I shouldn’t be ashamed of who I was. I was so mad. One day, he finds me under the dock—all cried out, face ugly-splotchy-red—and he’s like, ‘Goldie, what’s wrong?’ He keeps after me until finally I break. I tell him I hate myself. I never meant to tell him that, but I was done. I hated my big round cheeks, scraggly wheat-head hair, stupid stone-eyes. Pretty much everything. I’m puking it all out, all over him. Then Da, staring right into my weepy, hideous eyes, stops me. Says ‘I’ve never truly noticed your eyes, Emmie. . .’ I’m thinking, ‘oh no, he sees it too.’ Somehow, he’d never gotten how ugly and wrong I was. Now he knows.”
Emmie paused. A smile split her face. `
“He’s like, all full of wonder, ‘your eyes—I’ve never seen such a brilliant silver.’ He tilts my pointy chin up and in this voice of awe, goes ‘not much more precious than silver. But you know what is?’ He runs his fingers through my dirty hair, all the way, front to back. ’Gold,’ he says, ‘gold’s the most precious thing in the world. You are flowing with waves and waves of pure gold. My beautiful Goldie. I wouldn’t change a thing’.”
Big tears rolled past the smile engulfing Emmie’s face.
“After that, anytime he’d catch me down, he’d go ‘you know what one of the most precious things in the world is?’” Emmie laughed so hard, her raw throat burned. “And, geez, I’d roll my eyes, always knew what was coming. I never let on, but I loved it so much.” Emmie looked up into the branches, rubbed her pained neck. “Maybe a year ago, he says, ‘if anyone can convince people to change, it’s you. And if I know you, you’ll convince the whole world.’ He’d never said that bit before. Kind of weird. I bet he knew he was dying already.”
Renn groaned and his right arm rolled out from under the blanket. Emmie took his hand with both hers, held it tightly to her body. She closed her eyes, her fingers on Renn’s wrist, trying to sooth her frayed nerves with Renn’s faintly beating pulse.
“I’m back” a voice whispered in her ear sometime later. “Told you so.”
Emmie‘s crusty lashes blinked open to Alixa’s face inches away, illuminated by torchlight from two men pulling themselves onto the platform. Emmie stared vacantly.
“Emmie, right? Corbiern.” Corbiern gave a little salute. “We got your friend, okay?”
“You there, Sheep?” Alixa asked. She had to forcibly unclasp Emmie’s hands from Renn’s.
“Yah.”
Alixa leaned Emmie back into the tree trunk, then eased herself down beside her.
“Polidan, start a fire, mix the sedative. You know the one.” Corbiern’s confident voice rolled through Emmie’s foggy mind. “Omlos, let’s get him down.”
“Gonna be okay.” The big smiley man picked Renn up, then he and Corbiern lowered Renn out of the tree.
The platform went quiet and dark, except for the flicker of torches from the ground. At a loss, Alixa tugged Emmie—much too roughly—in against her body. Emmie threw her arms around Alixa and squeezed desperately. Alixa stiffened at the needy grasping, had to consciously force her muscles to relax.
“Don’t want to die. Don’t leave me. He repeated that over and over and over and over. ”
“Shhh, it’s okay.”
“No. He hasn’t said a word in forever. This is it.” Emmie, fresh tears streaking through the dried blood on her cheeks, flinched when, below them, Renn gasped.
Alixa recognized the sick sound of coagulated blood tearing loose with the sticky bandaging. She tried to tune it out. “They can do more for Renn than us, k? You rest.”
“Um, water boiling?” Corbiern’s voice rose muffled through the branches. “Polidan, the salve. Yellow tube.”
Renn gave a shrill intake of air.
“Salve’s cold, ladies. That’s all.” Corbiern sounded calm and confident, but Alixa could tell he was putting on a show. “Seen much worse.”
“They got this, Sheep.” At what cost, Alixa wondered. She tried to dismiss that anxiety. It’s stuff, just stuff. . .
“He sacrificed himself for me,” Emmie mumbled and rubbed her nose.
“He certainly meant to.”
“Chlorimide, Polidan?” Corbiern called from below. “Don’t be alarmed. It’ll sound worse than it is.”
Renn’s scream pierced the air, followed by a string of anguished, half-coherent words.
“Wow. Language, Renn,” Alixa said dryly. “Here I thought your boyfriend was a nice Longar kid.”
Alixa winced. She was supposed to be comforting, not needling, the girl.
“Not my boyfriend,” Emmie replied mechanically.
“Really?” Alixa asked. Emmie confounded her. Truthfully, most people confounded her. She’d just never cared enough to question them. “He knew what was most important to him today. What—who—he’d give his life for.”
Emmie bit her lip, staring into the darkness.
“C’mon, be honest with me. Be honest with yourself.” Alixa simply couldn’t do warm and cuddly. She’d comfort in her own way. “You know why he did that.”
“Maybe.”
“There’s no maybe, Sheep.” Alixa elbowed her. “It’s obvious what he thinks of you. You feel the same, just can’t admit it.”
“Yeah, I suppose.” Emmie’s head rocked side-to-side. “I should.” Big sigh. “I dunno.”
“I don’t get it. The Emmie I first met would’ve eaten this kind of attention up. Give it right back. What—”
Emmie buried herself into her confused friend's chest. She turned sad grey eyes up into Alixa's. “No one could really love me, Lix.”
“How could nobody love you, of all people?”
Emmie hid her face again.
“There’s no one else up here.” Alixa gestured around, then tugged on a strand of Emmie’s hair. “What have you got to lose?”
Emmie had vowed to never talk about this. But she was spent, her inhibitions frazzled. She found herself vomiting up an ugly mess of humiliations all over the bewildered Alixa.
“He destroyed me, Lix. They all did,” Emmie concluded. “I learned to live with it, accept who I am. Then Renn dredged it all back again. I hear that. . . voice every time Renn tries. It poisons everything he does.”
Emmie averted her eyes. Did she just reveal all that to. . . Alixa? It felt good to have it off her chest, sure, but where had she landed it? With each passing second of silence, Emmie’s mortification grew.
Renn cried out. The men murmured to one another. Emmie’s gut ached, knowing Renn’s life still hung in the balance. And then, the soothing feel of her hair being stroked, slowly and gently. By. . . Alixa?
“That’s just wrong, Sheep.”
Emmie peered up to see Alixa frowning. She wiped her face on Alixa’s tunic and snuggled in tighter.
“You really think that’s true, about you?” Curiously, Alixa found that consoling her friend felt vaguely satisfying. “About Renn?”
“I can't find my way out of this. I’ve tried.”
“Tell me this.” Alixa collected her thoughts. “What possesses a boy—average farm kid, awful fighter—to plow headlong into five lions? When he himself was already safe?” Alixa continued, her passion growing. “He’s either a delusional fool, or he already knew, without hesitation, that he’d rather die
himself than save his own life but lose you.”
There’s worse things than dying. How often had Renn repeated that over the last who-knew-how-many hours? Emmie’s eyes widened and a few skewed beliefs slowly began realigning themselves.
“He’d never betray you. He’d rather die than let you down. And, actually, yeah; that is literally true. Proven fact.”
Alixa leaned Emmie’s body to see down the side of their platform. Renn lay next to a blazing fire. Corbiern cleaned and bandaged his wounds, a pile of drenched cloths heaped to one side. His forehead and left eye were covered in fresh, new wraps—crisper and tighter than Alixa and Emmie’s hurried job. Corbiern was now concentrating on binding up his gory left shoulder.
"They’re really cleaning him up, yah? But that shoulder looks awful."
“Maybe. But that ‘awful’ says everything about him, and about you.” Alixa tapped Emmie’s blood-caked forehead. “If that voice up here tries to tell you you’re unworthy of being loved, or that he might betray or shame you, you remind it how awful Renn looks right now.”
Alixa leaned their bodies back over the edge again. Corbiern was forcefully setting Renn’s mauled shoulder. Renn let out an agonized semi-conscious cry that petered away into short gulped breaths.
“I don’t want to see anymore.” Emmie pushed against Alixa.
“Okay. But don’t forget what you saw. Or what how awful he looks says about him, and about you. You’ve got something good in that boy, a good far better than that old memory is bad.”
“Alright, ladies,” Corbiern called. “We’re wrapping it up soon. I say he’ll live.”
“Thank you.” Alixa leaned back and groaned, finally acknowledged her own body’s throbbing aches and wounds.
Emmie lay so quietly, Alixa wondered if she’d escaped into sleep. Alixa would welcome sleep. But she understood now: she bore responsibility here. Only after Renn and Emmie were taken care of, would it be her turn to rest. The old hermit was right, this was an opportunity for her to become a more complete person. What she’d exhibited earlier in the day were time-honed skills she’d more than mastered. Looking out for someone else’s well-being, and doing so without question or bitterness, was novel and unfamiliar. And even though she’d never admit it to anybody else, felt more satisfying.
The Silver Claw Page 30