The Price of Silver and a Fugitive

Marking the path on map was easier than forging through the wilderness blindly. Eve was right (as per usual). Faxon didn't want to admit that though. He could hear Eve pushing the ink towards him in an unrelenting manner. The scratching of the table could be heard from the opposite side of Eve. Eiran was busy focusing on grazing letters into the already chipped wood.

"Eiran, please tell me you're not scraping your name into the table. That's the best way for us to get caught. We can't let the others know we're here". Eve spoke. Eiran lifted his head, but continued to carve with his rusty knife.

"Relax. It's not my name. It's just a few symbols I saw on the house". Faxon set his quill down and moved over to where Eiran was sitting. He looked closer at the symbols and recognized them immediately.

"What do they mean Faxon?" Eiran asked.

"They're meaningless". Faxon stated. "Well, they used to mean something. Not anymore". Eiran looked at him knowingly and scratched his jaw with his knife-less hand.

"Okay. Let me rephrase my question then. What did they use to mean?" Faxon resumed marking the map in obvious territories.

"As far as I know, they're symbols for peace," he said verily. After a short pause, Eve chuckled loudly into her hands.

"I can see now why the symbols became meaningless," she said sarcastically. Eiran and Faxon joined her snickering until reality snuck into their space. They went still. For the past six years, war and famine scorned their country. It had become a fixated place of death and corruption. Fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters were called into the ceaseless battle to put their enemies at a standstill. The call for justice and peace killed them. The situation of Eiran and Eve was just another common aftereffect of the war. Both of their parents and their older brother were killed in battle only a few years earlier. They were sent here as orphans, but lived independently in every possible way. Faxon was considered a rare case in their orphanage. Unlike the others, he had a family. Or, he had more of a family than most these days. His father was a disavowed monk who now worked as a keeper of the village orphanage. Faxon was often the one blamed for his father’s plight away from holiness. Despite this, Faxon always considered himself to be one of the orphans. He lived amongst them and ate portions of their food. He wasn’t considered lucky in any way. His father was an outcast by all means. Even his father treated him like the rest.

The silence broke and Faxon remembered why they were there in the first place. The house they had positioned themselves at was an almost abandoned library a mile out of the village. It was less of a library and more of a haunted lodging where travelers stayed before entering the village. It creaked and groaned wherever you moved and the kitchen had been ransacked to a point where every crumb left in the floorboard had been stolen. However, it was the perfect place to hold secret meetings. Their plan was to leave Ankar village and head North. Their reasoning behind this was simple: food. It was no secret that the village was becoming desolate. Most of the farmers were sent away to fight and left their ill-skilled children to parent the farms. The conditions were too harsh to foster any crops worth sharing amongst the villagers and they weren’t enough to trade away. To make matters worse, villagers were demanded to fight in battle. It seemed almost weekly that someone was taken away to fight as a soldier. Even the orphans weren’t withheld from their obligation. One by one, they were taken away to fight in the endless war. It was a matter of time before Faxon, Eve, and Eiran would be called into action. They needed to get away.

“Eve, why does it show Melvaro to be closer to Rightwing than Yenshi? I thought Yenshi was gonna be the third stop”, Faxon questioned. Eve shook her head and pointed again at the map. 

“It looks closer than it actually is. Also, Melvaro is under siege at the moment. The only way we’re getting to Rightwing with all entact body parts is by going to Yenshi for our third stop”. 

Eiran stared at his sister incredulously. “How do you know that Melvaro is under attack? You haven’t been speaking to Viona, have you?” Eve stared naively at him and then winked with an all too well-known smirk.

“What’s your problem with Viona? She’s the only one here who actually knows what’s going on outside this moronic place,” Eve countered. Viona was a deserter soldier, but in the eyes of others, she was a fugitive. She camped around the forest and stayed clear of the villagers. Eve, who regularly stalks for berries and rabbits in the forest, saw her campsite. Eve recounted that Viona tried to kill her at first, but her wit kept her alive. Faxon and Eiran highly doubted that, but they kept to themselves. No one wanted to be affiliated with a fugitive. The price could be hanging in the square.

“She’s been teaching me how to fight, ya know”, Eve said while picking at the scab on her elbow. Faxon imagined her flailing around with a stick in the woods and immediately began to laugh. He locked eyes with Eiran and he too began to chuckle.

Eve glared at Faxon. “It’s not funny. I’m becoming a better fighter than you. Eventually, I’ll be the best fighter in the group and you’ll just be the best idiot” she shot back. Faxon began to laugh louder at that and shrunk down into his wooden seat.

A loud knock on the door made his back straighten and his voice go silent. He shot over to the wood stack near the door and reached for his dagger. He used his other hand to motion for the siblings to find cover. Eiran quickly and silently abandoned his seat and grabbed his carving knife from the table. Eve, however, stood up and walked absent-mindedly towards the door.

“Eve, what are you-” Faxon hissed. Eve looked at him, rolled her eyes and opened the creaky door. Outside, stood the soldier fugitive. Viona. She had chopped black hair tucked into a sack-like farmer’s cap. Her clothes were ill-fitted and torn. She looked like a local farmer. Yet, what made the image skeptical was her muscles and scars. She frowned at Eve.

“I thought you said you would be alone, Eve.” She took a step in and scrutinized the room. “And I thought you said there would be food”. Eve simply smiled back at Viona’s grimace and led her inside towards the table. Faxon and Eiron let their guard down, but didn’t move from their spots.

“Well, I may have lied about being alone, but I promise you there will be food!” Eve chirped. Faxon sheaved his dagger and stared down Viona.

“Why is she here Eve? Why didn’t you tell us that you invited a fugitive?” Faxon said heatedly.

“Relax. I didn’t tell you both because I knew you’d be upset. But trust me, she wouldn’t hurt a fly”. Viona stared back at Faxon, testing his every move. She looked like she had hurt more than a fly in her life.

“Eve. This is wrong. If someone caught us here, with her, we’d be strung up tomorrow”, Eiron spoke. Suddenly, Viona stood abruptly from her seat and turned to Eve in a heated gaze. An inch away from her, Eve didn’t even break a sweat. Or her smile for that matter.

“What do you want?” Viona spat. Eve confidently grabbed the map off the table and showed it to Viona. Confused, Viona examined it.

“You’re gonna take us North, all the way up to Ironwick.” Eiran and Faxon looked at each other in bewilderment.  Ironwick wasn’t a part of their plan. They had worked out the idea of venturing to Rightwing. It was a bigger population that hadn’t been devastated by the famine just yet. Ironwick, however, was the central trade center of the country. It was known for its vicious imbalance in crime and wealth. It was a nightmare to live there, but an even worse fever dream to move there. Not to mention, any young and able-bodied person would be called in for military assignment. Rightwing was the capital of corruption in comparison to a small village like the one they lived in.

“Now why on earth would I do that?” Viona hissed.

“Simple. You need the money. And I guarantee you all that and more if you take us there as our guide”, Eve said calmly. Faxon couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It wasn’t anything they had discussed before. He had no idea what money Eve was talking about. Eiron, however, peered at Faxon with a look of guilt.

“When did she tell you?” Faxon said slowly to Eiran. Eiran shuffled over towards the table and sat down at Eve’s chair. He looked more sorrowful than guilty.

“It’s complicated...I would’ve told you, it’s just that...” Eiran paused. Faxon rolled his eyes. Eiran was strange. A good, likable, strange, but nonetheless strange. His reasoning behind his actions didn’t often make sense. 

“Tell me what’s going on right now or I’m leaving. You’ll never see me again after this” Viona threatened. She stormed past Eve towards the door. Faxon stepped out of her way.

“Wait. I’m not lying...I have a plan. If you’d just sit down for a second, I can explain myself” Eve pleaded. Viona crossed her arms and turned to Eve again. She stood in silence and motioned to Eve to explain herself. Faxon wanted to hear what this was about too. Why had she kept all this to herself? Eve sighed and placed the map back on the table.

“It’s no lie that there is wealth in Ironwick. The exchange of goods is different there than here. A person can actually trade away goods such as silver and jewels for money. Here, all people can trade with is coin and food. And unfortunately, there’s none of that to exchange”. Eve bent down to the floor and pounded her fist against one of the foundation boards. It was hollow. She lifted it from the end with a grunt. Underneath laid a traveler’s bag. Faxon’s eyes widened. She laid the bag onto the table and opened it. Silver communion cups and spoons were arranged inside. But the silver cross is what caught Faxon’s attention the most.

“Those are from the church,” he tumulted. His father would have slit his throat if he had seen them here with sacred objects affiliated with the church.

“They are not from the church. Well, they were originally from the church. They were in your father’s bedchamber. I assumed that he had stolen them when he was excommunicated” Eve retorted. Faxon’s ears rang. His father preached his innocence and righteousness every chance he had. At one point, he had even gone as far as to proclaim that Faxon wasn’t in fact his biological son. To hear that his father had stolen from the church, made Faxon hate him even more, but he didn’t understand why Eve or Eiron hadn’t told him of their findings.

Viona unfolded her arms and examined the silver objects. She looked almost pleased.

“If I do this... If I participate as your guide, I don’t just want a portion of the profit, I want a majority of it” she said. Eve nodded her head in agreement.

“Trust me. It will be worth your while”, Eve smiled. Viona set the communion cup she was holding back on the table.

“We leave in two days time. Pack the necessaries and leave no notice of your leaving. We meet here at dawn”.

Swiftly, Viona left from her position and out the door. Once she was out of earshot, Faxon let Eve have it.

“Why on God’s earth would you not tell me about this?” he said in a provoking manner. Eiron was about to speak before Eve interrupted him.

“Look, this plan didn’t come into form until yesterday. I was doing my daily chores in the orphanage when I came upon these findings”. Faxon didn’t believe her for a second.

“You’re a liar and a thief. Tell me what really happened” Faxon demanded.

Eve sighed. “Well, I wasn’t doing chores, but I was being honest about my plan. That’s the truth. It really only had come into form yesterday. I was searching your father’s chambers for food when I came across the silver stash. I only told Eiron because he saw me carrying the silver into our room”.

Faxon wasn’t finished. “Why go through all the trouble for this? For all we know, Viona will be caught as a fugitive and we will be hung for harboring her. The money isn’t worth that in the slightest” he fumed.

“I understand that, but the reward will be greater than some meager coinage for old silver”. Eiron and Faxon looked at her in confusion.

“Trading silver isn’t the main mission on this trip” she sighed. The desperateness for them to catch on leaked into her voice.

“However, detaining and turning in a fugitive up North is a reward that could pay for our meals for an entire year and so forth. Faxon’s confusion turned into astonishment. Eve was smarter than she looked.

“How much is she worth?” Eiron whispered in shock.

Eve chuckled at this. The suspense was killing them and she knew it.

“For a war criminal who participated in the killing of a general, I’d say over a million schillings…”

Faxon couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How’d Eve get this information. Did Viona tell her? The three of them passed looks of understanding. Chances like this don’t come often for people of their stature. If they were going to do this, they had to go all in.

Turning in a criminal was the right thing to do. Especially one who committed a war crime. In time, the three orphans were going to be wealthy heroes of the North… So why did Faxon feel this was going to ruin their lives in the worst way possible?

Faxon and Eiron gathered closer to Eve at the table. They had plans to discuss.