“Oh yes, you know him? Excellent. I’ve known much of your movements as of late.” Haddurah wagged a scolding finger at them. “Trust no one.”
“She’s wrong,” Renn rasped.
“Corbiern wouldn’t do that,” Emmie whispered to Alixa. She refused to go down doubting her friends.
Alixa dismissed Polidan with a sneering sniff. Turned back to Haddurah. “Those vile birds been watching, too? Those your pets? I’ve killed plenty of them.”
“For which you’ll pay dearly, daughter of Chastien.” Haddurah’s mocking expression disappeared. “Your people have been a thorn in my side far too long.”
“The Bandu are stronger than you know.” Alixa stuck out her chin. “They can still best you. Killing me accomplishes nothing.”
“It accomplishes everything!” she shrieked back. “The claw ends with you. The curse ends with you. I end it all—right here—then it is my time!”
“Come get me then!” Alixa’s arms spread wide, her fingers beckoning, that taunting Alixa smirk in full view. “You and me, coward. Let my friends go and we’ll have it out. All your men can watch.”
“You’re in no position to posture or bargain, final daughter of Chastien.” Haddurah flicked her hand. “Wolf, kill the Vale boy. Then, troops, storm their position. Take the females alive. Beaten, broken, whatever. But alive.”
Emmie slid in front of Renn. The evening sun began to burn through the western haze, casting dull, purple shadows across the canyon walls and the mountains behind them. This had always been Emmie’s favorite time of year. This sunset with colors so vivid and hopeful and unflaggingly good.
Alixa rose to her full height. With her long cloak flapping in the wind, she made herself a human shield. She thrust her sword straight at the Wolf, its brilliant steel glimmering with the sunset. Emmie felt she could see the silver claw at the tip of the sword glow purple in the haze. Haddurah’s eyebrows knit together. She knew that blade. And it seemed to know her. Her body clenched at the sudden throb in her gut. The cougar’s claw ripping through her. She grasped her side, grimacing through clenched teeth, willing the pain away. She’d waited centuries for this moment. Pain would not deter her.
“It’s me you want. Come get me!” Outwardly, Alixa screamed defiance. But Emmie could read her friend all too well; Alixa’s entire demeanor bled with despair.
A falcrane screeched overhead, like a vulture circling an execution. A second bird’s loud long cries echoed the first. Haddurah, all her rage focused on Alixa’s vain bravado, waved the birds away. Her ordeal was almost over. She was eager for the finish.
“Wolf, fire.”
The Wolf stepped forward, brandishing his crossbow.
“A crossbow?” Alixa, spittle flecking out with each word, shook her sword. “Come get me yourself, coward!!”
The Wolf ignored her feeble baiting. He slowly raised his crossbow, intent on relishing this moment. Should he maim the obnoxious young woman first? The witch had said broken was fine by her. Or maybe simply send the dart through her flapping cloak; pierce the boy’s heart? And he’d get to keep the small girl, would he? He glanced her way to enjoy the beautiful fear in her eyes. Oh, that would be a treat. He couldn't count how many lives he’d ended for his queen, or how many he'd taken simply for idle pleasure. This one was special, though, and he knew it. He basked in it. He scarcely wanted the moment to end.
Renn threw his arms around Emmie. She grasped onto them. She could sense Alixa's body flexing to throw herself at the woman and her henchmen to buy them. . . but Emmie didn’t know what that could even buy them.
The late autumn sights Emmie loved so well came into sharp focus: quaking aspen fluttering in the wind, big billowy clouds, tall somber mountains purpling as the waning sunlight mixed with the fall haze. Dad would breathe in every last second, repeating how the deep purple cutting through the haze was Lyda’s reminder that love cut through the darkness—promising a hope against hope. Dad was so convinced, Emmie had come to believe in it as well. But the sight in front of her invited no hope whatsoever.
I only hope we all die quickly.
The Wolf raised and cocked his crossbow.
With a click, the trigger pulled back.
Then, the flurry of the sounds of death, all squeezed into a tight but eternal second.
The twang of a bowstring.
The whistle of an arrow through the air.
The crunch as it sunk into human flesh.
The body crumpling to the ground.
LXIX - The Tablelands Labyrinth
Only after the bouncy twang of a bowstring, came the sharp bark of a crossbow discharge. And that crossbow, which had mercilessly ended countless lives, dropped to the ground with a dull thud, its dart shattering harmlessly into the canyon wall.
The Wolf sunk to the ground, an arrow protruding—back to front—out both ends of his neck. Jugular vein severed, blood poured forth from both ends as he gasped for breaths that would never come. Every other neck in the canyon whipped around, tracking the arrow’s trajectory.
In a low spot along the south lip of the canyon, a pale old monk exhaled. He lowered his simple hand-carved hunting bow, intended only to provide food for his people; his quiver but one arrow short. The vaunted Wolf had been struck down by a gentle, soft-spoken man of peace, who could only bring himself to fight to protect a little girl he knew and loved many years ago.
Bodies surged forward along the top of the canyon. Emmie, Renn, and Alixa could only gape at the sight before them. A startling hope against hope. All the while, the mountains continued to deepen with an increasingly furious purple.
Haddurah scanned those same walls with enraged disbelief.
To the far west, a Lobrid cavalryman and his brigade of scouts arrayed themselves with impeccable precision. Beside them was their virtual opposite, a mass of disorderly, violent Basin-dwellers. Then the bald monk and a handful of his brethren.
The largest group appeared to be Valefolk—a solid platoon of soldiers and a surprisingly not-so-timid-looking gathering of townsfolk. Almost twenty deadly-serious Khuulie fishermen were at their left, locking their big halberds in for a downhill charge.
Then fifteen Bandu soldiers, razor-bladed swords drawn—ceremonial no more—their faces radiating how starved for revenge they had been for thirteen years. Almost directly above the little gulley stood two flanks of grim Paccan archers, and two copper-skinned southern men. At their front, a lanky ancient Paccan leaned on his staff. The old man locked eyes with the witch, his grave smile telling her all she needed to know. She was witnessing the impossible; something most likely only she and this old Paccan understood. He seemed to taste her fear. Yes, old witch, she could all but hear the Paccan thinking, your time has come at last.
Paccans, Bandu, and Khuulies. Valemen, Old Order Monks, Basin-dwellers, and Lobrids. Every member of the old alliance was present.
Chastien’s last heir stood surrounded and hopeless.
A debt that had stood shamefully outstanding for centuries, finally ready to be repaid.
The walls erupted with shouts and the banging of swords on shields. The leader of each group screamed for the charge, and the mish-mash collection of the remnants of the old free west spilled down the hill from all sides.
The Paccan bowmen rained down two volleys of arrows on the Aegorites, creating chaos and cover for their charging allied footmen. Then they dropped their bows, pulled their sabers, and slid down the walls to join the fray. At their lead, Corbiern’s eyes and sword were fixed on one man amongst the Aegorite army. That man saw in Corbierns’s typically serene countenance, the fury of somebody betrayed by one he had trusted and cared for.
The aristocratic Captain Kleehen led the Bandu mourning party on a suicide charge. Whatever their conflicting opinions on the Bandu’s future, or their feelings toward Alixa and who she may or may not be, the massacre of an entire Helm of their people remained an open wound living forever fresh in their memories. With Kleehen and Cutchen at the f
ront of the wedge, the phalanx of Bandu warriors reached the valley floor first, blowing a hole deep into the enemy troops.
Captain Loselle’s platoon of Vale border guards descended in battle formation. The Lobrid brigade—save a puffy little man on horseback who charged raggedly on his own—came with an even greater force. Like the Bandu, they had trained for this moment all their lives. Alixa had thought Lobrids were precise about what they fed their warhorses; that was nothing compared to the precision of hatred they carried for their one-time kin who had fractured their kingdom centuries ago.
The rest of the mass hurled themselves down the hillsides with much less skill and organization. But come they did, spurred on by a small cluster of leaders for whom the battle represented much more than avenging old wrongs. Baerdron, Chargrish, and Berglin led from the front. Jes and Brie, though somewhat chagrinned by the decision of their peers to keep the two small women in back, urged their people on from the rear. They were shocked to find each other—each inexplicably at this canyon, each inexplicably with their own small army—atop the hill. They embraced, drew short swords, and made straight for the little gulley on the far side.
The alliance held the high ground and outnumbered the Aegorites nearly 3 to 1, but the Aegorite infantry were superior fighters to the vast majority of their attackers. And they held an unquantifiable advantage in their queen, who seemed to stand immune amidst the free-for-all. Despite a multitude of arrows aimed her direction, and the bullseye course straight towards her that the Lobrid captain led his men, she stood unscathed, hacking her black gleaming saber at anyone who came near.
Alixa braced for Haddurah to target their position. And target Alixa she did. Setticus had anticipated as much, though, and ordered his archers to rain a wall of arrows between the witch and Alixa, long enough for the Lobrids to engage her. Haddurah’s attention occupied, Alixa alternated between firing her bow and swinging her sword at anyone who came near their gulley.
The battle quickly descended into a chaotic, brutal mess. Arrows spent, Alixa waded into the fray. She wielded her sword with a graceful deadly artistry and sliced through any unsuspecting man who got too close to the lethal bracelet on her left wrist. Spotting Aegorites chopping at some downed Bandu, something in Alixa broke. She charged with a long-forgotten war cry on her lips and impaled a startled Aegorite with the steel knifetip at the end of her longbow. She didn’t stop swinging, screaming, and cursing until no one was left to attack her wounded people.
Winded and surrounded by bodies, Alixa paused. She heard a man calling to her—Cutchen, bashed and bloodied, not far away. The Bandu had attacked pledging death to their enemy, and to themselves if need be. They seemingly had accomplished both with their suicidal charge.
“Queen Alixa. . .” Cutchen wheezed. Alixa kneeled and accepted his extended hand. “My sword. Been an honor. Long may you reign. . . my Queen. . .”
Cutchen’s grip lost its strength and he slipped away. Every man they’d shared dinner with the evening before—tense and hostile though it was—lay on the battlefield. Alixa felt the weight of more deaths piling at her feet. Eyes stinging, she grasped Cutchen’s serrated sword. She rose from the scattering of Bandu bodies gripping a sword in each hand, rage surpassing grief, and surveyed the battlefield for the one responsible.
Alixa wasn’t the one who found the witch first, though.
Emmie stood guard over Renn—collapsed and woozy from blood loss. She watched, aghast, as Haddurah dispatched attacker after attacker. Emmie was horrified by the woman’s bloodlust, the glee with which she ended life. She was clashing swords with the Lobrid captain, the eighth man to engage her. She easily deflected his stabs and caught him in the shoulder with her long blade. His sword arm maimed, she slammed him into the wall. Haddurah hovered over him, raising her saber like an executioner.
Emmie scrambled up the plain, pulling her knife from her belt. Planting her feet on flat ground, she slung the knife with all the strength she could muster. It sunk three inches into Haddurah’s shoulder. It should’ve all but crippled her sword arm, at the very least staggered her. She turned towards Emmie, appearing casually immune, leaving the struggling Lobrid trying to pull himself up
“You. . .” Her mouth twisted.
Haddurah dislodged the knife with a shake of her shoulder. Flexing her arm, the bleeding stopped as though nothing had happened. Unscathed, she advanced on Emmie, who held nothing but a short sword that looked like a toy compared to the hearty black blade pointed at her.
“You’ve been troublesome far too long. Ritual be damned—I’ll be rid of you now.”
Haddurah pulled throwing stars from her belt, and with her once-again perfect right arm, pitched them with wicked arcs. Emmie ducked away from one, then another. But the third star nicked her leg and she stumbled. The next sliced through her forearm, ripping through sleeve, skin, and muscle like a plow through fallow dirt. Emmie’s eyes went wild with shock. Mouth dropped open in a silent scream, she crumpled down, desperately grasping at her gaping right arm. Renn lugged his body forward and threw himself over the top of her, raggedly holding his sword aloft.
“How valiant,” Haddurah sneered.
She loomed atop the gulley’s ridge, more imposing and frightening than Renn would’ve imagined possible. With her saber glinting high over her head, she poised to rush him. Renn tried to stand, sword in hand, determined to hold his ground over Emmie.
With a loud fleshy crunch, a blade suddenly plunged through the witch’s midsection. Haddurah looked down in shock to see a silver paw, two claws jutted out, at the point of a brilliant sword, pushing out of her abdomen. The old claw of her hated nemesis, piercing her again. Haddurah coughed, blood flecking out.
With a jolting twist, the sword rotated 90 degrees, slicing as it turned. Alixa yanked her sword back out, employing all her strength to angle it and create a new path through the muscle and organs of the witch as it left. Haddurah sunk to her knees, blood spurting from both sides. Alixa stalked around to face her, a bloodied sword—primed to strike—in each hand.
“Same as your backstabbing old grandmother, little claw?” Haddurah sputtered. “How honorable, daughter of Chastien.”
“I can only hope to be anything like her.”
“Tell me, Queen, you think you can defeat me? Kill me? You’re nothing next to me.”
“Empty words,” Alixa spat back, pulling her sword back to strike again.
“Stabbed in the back. . .” Haddurah’s lulling voice cut through Alixa’s emotional defenses. “Your people never did have any honor.”
“Honor?” Alixa froze with one sword up. “Like how you slaughtered men and women in their sleep? Executed children in the streets? I had to see it all!”
“Yet you did nothing.” The witch filled each word with disdainful power.
“I—” Alix’s eyes stung. What had she done? What could’ve she done?
“Tell me, daughter of Chastien, did you hear the shrieking of all the girls who died in your place? Perishing one by one as you fled like a coward, leaving them to die defenseless? Shrieking like that little wretch dying below us now?”
Alixa’s vision blurred and her breath caught. Yes, she still heard the screaming in the streets of Kaisson. She did most every night. But she’d never known until recently the children crying and dying in her nightmares had been because of her. She glanced down to Emmie, howling in agony, blood everywhere.
“Backstabbing cheat. You’re no queen.”
Alixa, rattled and unfocused, looked back at Haddurah.
Holding a pained expression on her face and subtly shifting her legs, the witch’s lip curled in a sneer. She’d wagered stalling for time, drawing on her wits and sorcery, playing on this fool’s many weaknesses, would work. And of course, it had. When was she wrong?
“You’re that same cowardly girl even now.”
No. . . I’m not.
Alixa finally took a breath, returned to her own body. This woman had destroyed the little girl w
ho’d been Alixa. Alixa blinked away tears, and that was when she caught it. The massive wound had stopped bleeding. Through the giant tear in Haddurah’s tunic, Alixa could see it shrinking. Somehow healing itself. Alixa recoiled, appalled at the power radiating from the woman. If she even was a woman. . .
Haddurah surged upward with unnatural force and, sword thrust out, pounced on Alixa, forcing her to stagger backwards. Alixa was barely able to get her swords up, her feet planted, or she would’ve been overwhelmed. As it was, she’d only been able to halt Haddurah’s blade before it sliced through her.
Yet while Alixa hadn’t reacted quickly enough to stop the witch from rising, her instincts had kicked in. Much more shrewdly than her opponent could have fathomed. Alixa crossed her two blades so when Haddurah struck, Alixa cushioned her parry precisely, allowing the strike to come within a few inches of her, placing the witch’s right sword arm parallel to Alixa’s own left. Eye to eye with Haddurah—inches from Alixa’s own face—was like staring into the sun. There was a heartbeat pause as two sets of royal muscles and wills engaged. Haddurah pushed closer, knowing Alixa’s strength was no match for her own.
And Alixa let her.
With a cocky smirk, Alixa engaged her wristcuff as she slid her left sword along the back of the right, like a violin bow. The bracelet’s wicked teeth sprang forth, slicing through the witch’s forearm like butter.
Haddurah reeled backwards. In that split second of shock, Alixa’s feet pushed off the rock behind her, knocking the witch back. Chastien’s sword in one hand and the ceremonial razor-sword in the other, Alixa leapt in the air. The two swords swung straight at the witch’s neck. They struck simultaneously, from opposite sides, an inch apart—exactly as Alixa intended. Haddurah’s severed head fell backwards and onto the ground, her body pitched forward lifelessly, and what was left of her neck flapped down between them.
“Heal from that.” Alixa kicked the neck flap with the toe of her boot.
The Silver Claw Page 43
