Origins: A Deepwoods Book - a Collection of Deepwoods Short Stories (Deepwoods Series 0) (6 page)

Grae contemplated that for several minutes. “You don’t
believe he’ll turn on us.”

“Nope.”

“Why?”

“Gut feeling.” Beirly let out a low chuckle. “Don’t glare at
me so. Look, lad, if the man had wanted to take advantage of us, he could have
done it a half a dozen times over. He could have stolen all our money—and we
had quite a bit on us in Converse—our guild crests, our weapons, and made off
like a bandit. Even injured as he was, we would have been hard pressed to stop
him. But what does he do? He guards us. He does his best not to scare us. He
treats Siobhan like a precious jewel. It’s not money or freedom he’s after.”

“So what does he want? Safety?”

“And kindness, aye, I think that more or less covers it.”

Safety? Kindness? Erik couldn’t refute the man’s words. That
was indeed what he wanted. That and a deeper connection to these three people who
had allowed him to live as a human being for the first time in seven years. But
he didn’t know how to reach them. Grae he scared just by standing there. Beirly
was a little nervous around him still, in spite of the words he was saying.
Only Siobhan seemed able to take him at face value.

From the depths of the past, he dredged up memories of what
it had been like with his friends and family. And from them, an idea sprouted.
Maybe, instead of waiting for the other three to reach out to him, it was time
he turned the tables and did something first.

Scheming, he silently stood and retreated back to his room,
not leaving behind any sign of his eavesdropping.

Something about the man just felt
off
. Erik couldn’t
put his finger on what, but he didn’t like the overall feel of the man. From
that cautious expression on Siobhan’s face, she felt the same way.

Ranton, as he had introduced himself, looked like a shady
trader. His clothes just this side of respectable, but worn in. One eye
squinted slightly every now and again, and there was a permanent smile etched
into his face no matter what Siobhan said. He sounded like a foghorn, too. The voice
grated on Erik’s ears.

“We’d only have two wagons,” Ranton said, rubbing his hands
together in a habitually nervous habit. “So no need to weigh or measure
anything.”

Erik frowned. He’d only been in the guild two weeks,
granted, and he hardly knew more than the basics of pathmaking. But after
helping Grae build three paths, he knew enough to realize that everything had
to be weighed. Grae had to know the weight of everything in order to properly
use the paths.

Siobhan, of course, knew this as well. A professional smile
pinned to her face, she responded, “I’m sorry, sir. We must weigh everything.
It’s impossible to take you on a path otherwise.” She shifted in her chair,
sitting more upright and on the edge, as if ready to move out of it quickly.
Erik also noted that even though they sat in their own guildhall, she had not
offered any food or drink to their guest. In the time he’d known her, she’d
never failed to offer that courtesy.

After seven years in the dark underworld, Erik knew a bad
situation when he saw one. Siobhan clearly saw the same, as she didn’t trust
this man. Of course, right now, all they had to go on was intuition. Deciding
it was time to make or break, Erik cleared his throat and added, “You said your
name was Ranton. What guild?”

Ranton’s smile flinched. “No guild for this deal. I’m
working with a private trading company.”

“We’ll need a detailed list of the cargo you have.”

“With provenance,” Siobhan said with a deliberately casual
tone. Her eyes watched the man like a hawk, though.

At the word ‘provenance,’ the smile ran away from his face.
He wasn’t sweating, but Ranton looked as nervous as a mouse trapped by three
hungry cats. “Well, these are all handmade products, of course there’s no provenance—”

“Of course there is,” Siobhan corrected gently. “A maker’s
stamp, a history of the making, and a date. That’s all I need.”

Ranton cleared his throat, or tried to, but sounded like a
choking duck. “I’m afraid I don’t have that on me. Well, it looks like we can’t
do business today. I’ll take my leave, contact you later—”

Erik’s patience with the situation broke at that point and
he grabbed the man by the scruff of the neck and slammed his face against the
table’s surface. Of course, the man flailed and tried to push himself away, but
his strength was no match for the Wynngaardian’s and Erik just leaned against
him harder.

Siobhan had leapt out of her chair when he moved, sending it
flying backwards. She had her hand on one of her hilts, ready to draw at a
moment’s notice. Seeing that Erik had the situation well in hand, she slowly
lifted the hand free.

“Ahem. Wolf. He’s a smuggler, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Erik growled.

“I thought so.” Tsking the man, she bent at the waist to
look him in the eye. “Thought to try your luck with a brand new guild, hoping
they didn’t know better? Too bad for you, but the man leaning on you is a former
dark guildsman. He can smell a rat better than I can.”

For a moment, Erik almost felt proud of his bad history. All
of that experience had certainly come in handy.

Shaking her head, she straightened and requested, “Wolf,
keep him here. I’ll call for an enforcer.”

“Sure, sure.”

When Siobhan had left, Ranton tried twisting his way free
again, breathing hard between clenched teeth. He looked like a turned over
turtle, doing that. Erik found it mildly entertaining. When he had exhausted
himself, he gave up and whined, “You’re not really from a dark guild!”

“I really am,” Erik assured him, almost feeling a smidgeon
of pity for the idiot. Or at least, he would try to feel pity for him at some
point. Perhaps in the distant future. Leaning in a little closer, he breathed
into the man’s ear, “That woman saved me from being a slave at a black market.
There is not a thing I wouldn’t do to repay her for that kindness. So if you
try to hurt anyone in this guild again, I will cut your throat and count it as a
good deed.”

Ranton swallowed hard and went about three shades paler.

The would-be smuggler was saved by Beirly, who chose to come
out of his workroom at that moment. He took in the situation with a startled
blink, then asked slowly, “I take it something went wrong?”

Erik went with the short explanation. “Smuggler.”

“Ahhhh,” Beirly intoned in understanding. Then, for some
reason, his face furrowed into a disturbed frown. “Did Shi tell you to do
that?”

Glancing down, Erik looked at the situation from his
perspective, but still didn’t understand the question. “Do what?”

“Pin the man like that. Did she realize what he was?”

“Not at first. But she saw through him quickly enough.”

“Not at first,” Beirly repeated, his frown deepening.
Rounding the table, he came in closer, the wheels spinning in his mind. When he
got to Siobhan’s upturned chair, he flipped it back up to its proper position
and then stared down at it for a long moment. “Wolfinsky.”

The tone alone said that whatever was on Beirly’s mind, it
was weighty. So Erik responded cautiously. “Yes?”

“I see now what you meant before, that it was foolhardy for
us to open for business without having an enforcer. It gives me chills to think
that if not for you, Siobhan would have met this scum alone.”

It gave Erik chills, for that matter.

“So. I’ll offer you a deal.” Beirly pointed a finger at his
new hand. “That’s nothing more than a block of wood that you can attach a
shield to. I can do much better work than that.”

Better than this? It was functional, certainly, but Beirly
was right in that it was little better than a block of wood strapped onto his
arm. Beirly had in essence created a large cap for his stump. It was solid, a
polished dark wood, with one wide notch in it so he could slip a shield’s strap
into it. Aside from its fighting ability and using it to protect his stump, it
had no other merit. “How much better?”

“I can make it so you can grab things and lock onto it.”

How he would manage that, Erik had no idea. But he’d seen
this man’s handiwork throughout the Hall. He had no doubt that if Beirly said
it could be done, the man would pull it off somehow. The smuggler tried to take
advantage of his split attention and squirm free. Erik leaned on him a little
harder, making the man gasp for breath, but otherwise ignored him. “In exchange
for a better hand, what do you want?”

“You stay until we can find a new enforcer.” Beirly said
this straight forwardly.

Was that all? Erik was inclined to stay longer anyway, just
to work off the debt he’d incurred with Siobhan. “Deal.”

Beirly relaxed into a grin. “Didn’t have to think about
that, did you? Well, that’s fine.” Dropping into a chair, he got comfortable.
“Well, while we wait for Shi to return, let’s talk about your new hand. “You
might want to let up on the man first, as I don’t think he’s breathing.”

“That’s fine. He’s a waste of oxygen anyway.”

ӜӜӜ

“How does it feel? Does it chaff?”

Erik twisted his arm in different directions, trying out his
new wooden hand. It fit like a glove over his stump, with a leather strap on the
forearm keeping it in place. Beirly had carved it as if the hand was in a
closed fist, with only the thumb detached and moveable, and for something that
was supposed to be temporary, it had an amazing amount of detail whittled in.
It actually looked like his hand. “No, no chaffing.” Whatever the man had lined
it with on the inside was soft as butter. Lifting it closer to his face, he
studied it in detail. “This is amazing,” he marveled. “Have you thought of
making these for a living?”

“Not until I started on yours,” Beirly admitted frankly,
beaming. He was pleased his work was so well appreciated. “But I’m thinking I
could make a good sideline business out of it. This is just temporary, mind, so
don’t get attached to it. I figured out how to make a metal version with moving
fingers and thumb so you can latch onto things with it.”

So this was nothing more than a mockup of the metal version
he’d make later? It seemed too elaborate for that, but Beirly wasn’t one to do
anything in halfway measures.

Curious, he slammed his new hand into the other, testing how
it felt against flesh. A slow smile took over his face as his real hand tingled
in pain. “I could do some damage with this.”

Beirly looked up at him uncertainly. “Come again?”

“It’s a useful weapon you’ve given me.” He tried to explain
it so the man wouldn’t think he’d try the new hand out on
him
next.
“Even without the sword, if danger approaches any of you, I can combat it with
the help of this hand.”

The shorter man sank back onto his work stool and just
stared at Erik for a long moment. No one else was in the workroom and Beirly
seemed to realize he could take advantage of this privacy to probe. (Neither
man seemed brave enough to try it in front of Siobhan.)

“Wolfinsky. You seem dead set on acting as an enforcer for
us. But Siobhan clearly didn’t ask you to do that. So why are you?”

Erik was not a man of words. He fumbled for a moment, trying
to find the right way to explain. “I’m not good at many things. But fighting,
protecting someone, that I excel at. It’s the only way I have of repaying you.”

Beirly lowered his head and stared at the floor for a long
moment. “Is that why.”

“I was standing at the edge of an abyss,” he said softly.
“You and Siobhan and Grae saved me from that. I should be doing something more,
something grander to repay the grace you’ve given me. But I can’t think of
anything else I can do for you.”

After letting out a long breath, Beirly looked back up, his
beard lifted up in a smile. “I’ve misjudged you, Erik Wolfinsky. You are a good
man.”

Erik blinked at him. Had something he said struck a chord in
the man?

“Now, finally, I get it. I understand what Siobhan saw when
she looked at you.” Shaking his head at himself, Beirly muttered under his
breath, “It’s borderline magic, those eyes of hers.”

“Is she truly never wrong?” Erik couldn’t help but ask.

“Not once since we were children. Boggles my mind how she
does it. Gives me grey hairs sometimes, too.” A twinkle appeared in his eyes.
“Like when she insists on buying former dark guildsmen off a black market slave
train.”

Erik snorted, seeing the humor in the situation now. “Aye, I
still think she’s crazy for doing that. Even if it’s me she bought.”

“You set a bad precedent,” Beirly mock complained,
half-seriously. “Since she succeeded with you, now she’ll think she can do it
again.”

His eyes went wide with horror as his imagination conjured
up future scenarios. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m not. I’m dead certain she’ll do this again. It might be
years later, but she will. I’ll bet my beard on it.” Already resigned, Beirly
put his hands against his knees and pushed himself to his feet. “Well,
regardless, the hand fits you well. Now, I suppose I’ll start in on your true
hand.”

Not about to stop the man, Erik waved him on and headed out.
In the doorway, he paused and turned back to ask, “I haven’t seen Siobhan or
Grae all morning. Where are they?”

“Oh, them? They left early this morning. Grae spends his
spare time building paths so we can take on more clients. Siobhan decided to
help him today.”

The blood drained out of Erik’s face as the full meaning of
that sank in. “You mean to tell me that those two are outside of Goldschmidt’s
walls, on their own, building pathways?”

“Right,” Beirly confirmed, puzzled by Erik’s reaction. “Is
there a problem?”

“Wind and stars, man, that’s dangerous work to do without
any protection!” Erik felt like swearing, only couldn’t think of any words
strong enough. “Which way? Which way were they going?”

“Ah?” Beirly looked toward the ceiling as he tried to recall.
“South side. I think Grae wanted to build a path towards Winziane.”

Now knowing everything he needed to, Erik spun on his heel
and sprinted out of the Hall. The street outside was busy with mid-morning
traffic, so he had to pay attention to avoid running into something or
plastering himself against the side of a wagon. As he ran, a steady stream of
curses ran through his head. Seriously, what were those two thinking?! Being
inside of a city was bad enough, but if true danger broke out, the city guild
enforcers would step in. Outside of the city, there were absolutely no rules or
anyone to turn to for safety.

Even as he ran, he knew what had happened. Siobhan was
worried about Grae going out on his own, so to safeguard him, she’d gone along.
And true, two were safer than one. But it probably didn’t occur to her to call
Erik, because he was still too new in her life. Out of sheer habit, she took on
the burden of protecting her friend. He was going to have to break this way of
thinking with her, and with Grae, or they’d get themselves into serious trouble
when he wasn’t around.

It took precious minutes to get out the south gate, and then
another minute for him to find the two. They were several hundred yards out
past the gate, off the beaten highway, kneeling on the ground with their heads
buried in their work. Neither of them paying the slightest bit of attention to their
surroundings.

They did this
regularly?
 The idea terrified him.
“Siobhan! Grae!” he called, not slacking his pace.