The Silver Claw

by Erik Williamson

  Her grey eyes blazing like steel and the dawn sun setting her golden-white hair on fire, Chastien herself held aloft the Snowy Cougar banner; the symbol of Bandu pride and tenacity. Her horsemen, all swords and spears shimmering with sunlight, smashed through the right flank of the Mountain army. Tore that entire legion to shreds. And with that, the Lobrids and Valemen rallied. Haddurah’s elite but unreinforced troops buckled under the pressure of a suddenly three-headed offensive. Her plan of uniting the Westerlunds under her rule, of subjugating those who had spurned her great-grandfather’s vision of dynasty, shattered. All her careful orchestrations ruined by this girl who was barely even a woman.

  Haddurah swung her head to the northeast. She could envision it all still, as though it were yesterday. Could feel the cold wind on her cheeks. Could practically hear the Bandu war cries even now. And at their head, the high-pitched scream of this girl-queen who was unworthy to be so much as Haddurah’s wash maiden.

  Haddurah gripped the railing, her fingers sliding easily into the divots where, over the centuries, her furious grasp on the rails had practically bent the bronze to fit her hands. It was here, she fumed, right here, that she pledged her soul and the souls of her people to have revenge on the girl.

  The second she’d breathed out the dark oath, she’d felt it. A sharp stab in the pit of her stomach, like claws of pure silver raking through her being so intensely it brought her to her knees. She’d turned her inner eye deep inside, only to find to her horror that it wasn’t simply her army that had been defeated. She’d somehow lost something tangible in the shadowy, spiritual realms. A place the practical, un-attuned girl-queen, and the practical, un-attuned western alliance hardly gave a thought to.

  The sensation passed in time, but she knew Chastien’s grip had not. The crippling rips of those silver claws returned whenever she raged over her lost kingdom or filled with desire to see it restored. In defying her, in defeating her, Chastien had gained a power over her that Haddurah could not recoup except by a complete and thorough purge of Chastien’s silver claws.

  Alone atop the blistering cold of the spire, Haddurah closed her eyes, let the old prophecy play through her head as the wind whipped her cloaks behind her.

  THE GOLDEN CHILD AND THE SILVER CLAW

  Should the Silver Claw of Chastien perish,

  the nations of the Westerlunds will perish with her.

  The day Chastien’s heir stands hopeless and alone,

  rally to the Golden Child, the Silver Claw

  Repay your debt, the curse lifts. Deny your debt

  and all the Westerlunds will perish along with she you’ve betrayed.

  In the years following the Great Divide, distrust, isolation, and survivalist self-interest poisoned the goodwill amongst the nations of the old alliance. Haddurah had sown much of that enmity herself. All the while, escaping their self-absorbed attentions, her once-ruined mountain kingdom slowly regained strength as the witch-queen fought and scraped against the claws clasping her being.

  And it was only this obscure prophecy, a prophecy long unheeded and long-since-forgotten by those it was meant to redeem, that now stood in her path. She ravenously repeated it to herself, vowing to never let it come to fruition.

  “My queen?”

  Stirred from her obsessive woolgathering, Haddurah spun, scimitar drawn. She glowered down the spire stairs as if expecting to see Chastien herself. Only a soldier, nervously shifting his feet.

  “What is it?” Haddurah shook off her paranoia. “Come now, man, I don’t bite.”

  The soldier gave a stiff bow and did not look at all convinced his queen would not devour him. Fine, she smiled pleasantly. A little fear of being consumed is good for morale.

  “M’lady, scouts coming, from the east. With word, surely, of the invasion. Wolf estimates three hours off.”

  “Only scouts?” She cocked her head to the side. The man again shifted on his feet. “What word of General Lomuir? My army?”

  “This was the message the Wolf bade me convey.” The soldier bent further, looked even more like he feared becoming a snack. “Your majesty.”

  “Very well. Dismissed.” He began to scurry away. Her hand shot out, pointing at him. “Wait! Summon my chief falconer. Immediately.”

  “Yes, m’lady.”

  Three hours for these scouts to arrive, hmm? She could wait three hours.

  She’d waited 287 years already.

  Years filled with cursing the blonde-haired, grey-eyed young northern queen. Years of isolating the Bandu from their allies—no difficult task—and then stalking the descendants of Chastien, one by one. Ritually purging the Westerlunds of the woman’s accursed blood. With this report, in a mere three hours, she should learn that she had done just that. And then, with the silver claw removed, after 287 long years the witch-queen Haddurah would rise again.

  IV - The Winnepaccan Forest

  After two hours of crashing along the heavily wooded route that wound through the South Winnepaccan forest, Ben came to a stumbling halt in a brushy open area alongside a shallow stream. He plopped the girl onto a patch of mossy heather, and dropped with a controlled tumble, his lungs heaving for air. He was thankful he’d had the foresight on his trek to the lake to chop back bushes and overhanging branches enough to create the semblance of a path.

  In anticipation of a momentous catch. . . there was an understatement.

  While running, he was singularly focused on putting distance between himself and the lake. Though the girl wiggled and whimpered intermittently in her drug-induced state, he was too preoccupied—every bird call and sudden noise spooked him—and he hadn’t had the energy to consider this little life now dependent on him.

  Stopping at last to rest, he studied the fair-haired girl more closely; for the first time really. Hunched into a ball, her eyes squeezed shut and the corners of her mouth turned down into a pouty lower lip, she looked so tiny, so fragile. Two years old? Maybe 1½?

  Her clothes and face were muddy and stained, her wavy, golden hair was wildly everywhere, and she smelled dreadful. He examined the bruises and swelling around her thin ankles and wrists, along her arms, and where the leather strap had rubbed hard on her round cheeks. Ben guessed she’d been bound for days. He hoped her welts and bruises came from tripping and falling, maybe being thrown carelessly in the back of a wagon, nothing worse. But he would put nothing past those people he saw at the lake. The thought was too much for him. He cradled the unconscious child in his arms. She whimpered yet again.

  How could anyone treat this poor little thing so savagely?

  Ben gently wiped dirty tear lines from her round cheeks and began picking debris out of her tangled, filthy hair. Her blonde hair fascinated him. So light and soft, so unlike the thick, bushy hair of the peoples of the Khuul and Vale. She didn’t appear to be anywhere near waking so after a pause, he kissed her bruised forehead then laid her down in the heather, spreading his cloak over top.

  Ben took to sorting through the contents of his two big battered packs, sighing when he came to his nets. What a mess. Not the way you treat the tools of your very livelihood. He hadn’t been this negligent since he was twelve maybe; had his ears boxed that day for it. Deservedly so, Ben nodded to himself. He ran his fingers down the netting, felt the moisture and bits of weeds. The fish were still tangled in the gill nets, their scales and slime dried to the cords. He needed to clean and cook the fish before they went bad.

  The little girl cried out in her sleep. Ben startled and checked on her, wiggling around in the heather. Now thinking practically, he was jarred with the question of what he was going to do with her. He’d acted spontaneously, a drowning child needed help, with no thought to consequences. He was old, a widower, and had barely spoken with a child, let alone cared for one. She would need a home. For now, though, she was his responsibility.

  Ben pondered the problem as he started a fire a few feet from the trickle of stream, then cleaned, salted, and cooked the fish. Professional that
he was, he was soon folding baked fillets into leaf wrappings. He estimated he had adequate food for five-six days, as the waifish girl didn’t look like she would eat much. In a familiar and beloved routine, Ben’s muscles began to relax. The sharpnie bites—on his wrists and ankles, up his arms, a couple big ones along his neck—stung all the more. Sharpnie poison wouldn’t outright kill a human, especially not a man like Ben, with tough, leathery skin from working outdoors all his life. But left untreated, sharpnie venom erodes the body long before its time.

  As he rummaged for his canister of healing balm, he attempted to devise a plan. He needed to keep moving, away from the lake and the mysterious northern people. He couldn’t come back the way he came—travelling the rocky pass with the girl in tow would be a nightmare. The only sensible option was to turn northwest towards a roadway once he got free from the forest. If he remembered correctly, there was an outpost maybe four days out. Merely a trading post, a few homes, and an ancient monastery.

  “Of course!” Ben slapped his fillet knife along his thigh. What better place to take a lost child with no family or history? “Those nuns’ll know what to do with her.”

  Spirit lightening, he resumed rummaging through his pack. His hands brushed past rich, soft velvet. Ben frowned as he pulled out two purple bags; the girl had been clutching them in her coffin. He loosened the drawstrings and dumped the contents onto the ground: a jeweled cat talisman on a necklace, a worn leather scroll, eight cards tied in a pack, and three statuettes.

  Ben sorted through the cards; like playing cards, but covered with gargoyles, demons, and scenes that made his skin crawl and his bites sting. He shoved them back into one of the small velvet bags. As he began to inspect one of the statuettes, a wave of icy fear passed over him. Ben jolted upright, wielding his fillet knife. He glanced side to side, half-expecting someone to burst through the undergrowth.

  “Ridiculous,” Ben scolded, rubbing the stinging bites on his neck, as he jammed the statuettes into the bag with the cards and shoved it in his pack.

  Then he held the necklace aloft in the sunlight and let out a low whistle. The finely hammered necklace was the most exquisitely crafted thing he’d ever laid eyes on. The sparkling white big cat—field leopard maybe? lynx? —pendant hanging from it was magnificent. He slid it into the second bag, and unrolled the scroll, revealing a detailed map. Baiweer, Kaisson, Razor Pass. Nothing remotely familiar.

  A high-pitched scream startled him. The girl bolted upright, thrashing and grasping huge handfuls of heather, attempting to make sense of her surroundings. When her watery grey eyes landed on Ben, she went silent and still as a stone. Then she ducked her head and contracted into a ball in a vain effort to protect herself, peeking out at him from between her elbows.

  That a child so small could look so afraid broke Ben’s heart all over again.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, little girl.” Ben smiled timidly, holding both hands out, palms up. This was how he was taught to show an unknown dog you meant no harm, but maybe it worked with children, too? Ben gestured side to side. “The bad people are gone.”

  Her huge grey eyes stayed riveted to his. Maybe the little northern child couldn’t understand, Ben realized. He knew so little of the north; everyone he knew, really, knew so very little of the north. Her heart-shaped face was so animated now that she was awake. But it was her distinctively grey northern eyes—piercing, beautiful, expressive—that captivated Ben. They stared at each other, both with mouths hanging open. At a loss, Ben began to sing.

  Take me home, take me home. Far ‘cross the waters.

  To my love, to my love. Far ‘cross the waters.

  All is joy, all is joy. Far ‘cross the waters.

  In the end. Joy and love. My new home.

  It was an old favorite of Lyda’s, sung at her funeral; he hadn’t heard it in seven years. His voice broke as he sang, but those big grey eyes stayed on his as he did, so he continued.

  After listening to a couple refrains, the girl began to cry in earnest, leaving new dirt streaks in the tear tracks down her puffy cheeks. Then a loud rumbly noise shook from her tummy. Her mouth clamped shut and she patted her belly. She began to weep harder, her face scrunched in confusion of how to appease her hunger.

  Those horrid people probably hadn’t even bothered to feed the poor thing, Ben realized angrily. He unwrapped one of his salted fish fillets and scooted closer. He took a small bite, then handed it to her. “Yum.”

  Watching the wheels turn in her little brain, weighing her response to the offer, was fascinating. Ben hummed, bobbing his head along to his chewing. She squinted at him suspiciously. As suspicion was a welcome upgrade from abject fear, Ben’s smile widened.

  Tentatively, she accepted the fish. She munched into it, then recoiled with a distasteful grimace. She scowled at Ben as though chastising him for handing her something so disagreeable tasting. Then she stuffed the entire fillet into her mouth, puffing her cheeks out like a human chipmunk.

  “Mmmhh?” She stuck a grubby hand towards Ben, shaking her chubby fingers in anticipation.

  He unwrapped another fillet. She wolfed it down again.

  “Mmmhh-ohhmm?” She fixed her large grey eyes directly into his. Their penetrating depth took him aback. Her eyes ably communicated far more than her mumbly mouth.

  Ben gave her a third fillet. Then a fourth. He figured there was no better way to convince her of his good will. His food estimate for their trek, however, was looking way off.

  “Ma?” She licked her lips from her enormous meal, looking around hopefully.

  “I don’t know.” Ben couldn’t meet her eyes.

  “Ma?” she repeated. “Pa?”

  We butchered those people. . .

  “Oh, honey. . .” Ben had a feeling there would be no finding Ma and Pa.

  “Ma?” she yelled. Then, loud and frantic, “Ma!”

  She tried to stand, but her swollen ankles couldn’t bear even her slight weight. She toppled into a miserable heap and crawled towards Ben—a torrent of huge tears rolling down her cheeks. Her big grey eyes begged him for something, anything. Then she rolled herself back into a ball, crying silently. Ben frowned at her purple, puffy wrists and forearms. He pulled salve out of his bag. She quickly rolled away and sat back up. Her eyes slanted instantly into that broiling distrustful look.

  “No, this is good,” Ben said. He dabbed some on his own aching wrists, and rubbed it in. “Aaahh.”

  Ben didn’t need to feign relief, even if he knew it was only temporary. He longed to rub the salve all over his stinging body. For a long minute, the girl studied Ben, her eyes darting from his smile, to the salve, to his wrists. Ben kept smiling and rubbing.

  “Yay,” she exclaimed abruptly, sticking one black-and-blue wrist out. Ben dabbed some balm onto his fingers and reached for her. She flinched away, toppling backwards into the heather.

  “I won’t hurt you, honey. I’ll put it on your wrist and then I’ll go right back over here.” He pointed to a spot a few feet away. “You rub. Okay?”

  Slowly she extended her arms. Ben lightly wiped salve onto her left wrist. He rubbed his own wrist and she mimicked him, cooing at the salve’s instant relief. Ben’s heart filled at seeing the haggard girl’s face light up. Her eyes shone brightly, and a huge grin transformed her puffy cheeks and pointy little chin into the shape of a big heart. Ben gave her more salve. Then some more. Slowly, they negotiated a tentative trust.

  As the girl gradually became more herself, their trek through the woods slowed. Although the remnants of sedatives in her body made her nap frequently, when awake the stubborn thing often insisted on walking, though she was wobbly and unsteady. And Goldie—as Ben took to calling her—wanted to investigate everything she saw, making the wiggly girl a handful to try to carry. To ford a stream, Ben placed her on his shoulders. Her bony legs rubbing on his neck bites felt like murder, but she squealed and clapped her hands all the while. This exacted a painful toll on Ben’s body but the joy i
t brought her was a tonic to both their souls. Goldie became a permanent fixture atop her fisherman-throne.

  Every night, she burst awake screaming and crying. The first couple nights, she thrashed for hours, refusing to let Ben near her. But eventually she sought out his quiet singing, and her terrified episodes grew successively shorter. As her moods slowly gave way, Ben discovered she was quite an energetic, playful little person.

  But after a week of travel and expending enormous amounts of energy caring for her, Ben was worn to exhaustion. As they bedded down in an undergrove of heather on their eighth night, Ben guessed by nightfall the next day—hopefully—they would reach the monastery. He settled Goldie down in her makeshift net-bedding, his cloak spread over top.

  “Mo?” she cooed, smacking her lips. “Mo?”

  Ben had to say no. They were down to their last fillet and could run out of luck in finding edible berries and roots at any time. She crossed her arms, her pouty lower lip on full display. Ben sighed, then held out a chunk of fish. Goldie trundled over to him, a self-satisfied expression on her face, pulling his cloak behind. Her eyes flashed mischievously as she popped the fish in her mouth.

  “Goldie. . .” Ben knew he’d been played.

  She afforded him no opportunity to get upset, though. For the first time, she cuddled down into him, plopped her filthy blonde head on his chest, and pulled the cloak over the both of them.

  “Da.” She thrust her thumb into her mouth and promptly fell asleep.

  “Sweet dreams, little girl. I won’t hurt you,” Ben whispered. He lay still, feeling her peaceful rhythmic breathing against his chest. “I won’t let anybody hurt you. Ever.”

  Curled up together, both slept soundly that night.