Silver Claws: Blood Twins

Chapter 1

My father’s blood soaked through my shirt. His fur was matted with wet redness. The deep fang punctures in his neck had finally done their work. Werewolves have magical powers to heal, but not from the bite of another werewolf. And Father had been running.

“Stay in human form," he whispered.  He collapsed and I held tight, Rhea held his arm, her face pale. His words were half human-speak, half growls. "They can’t track you as easily. They’ll mix your scent up with the humans.  Go and live with humans, as human.” He grabbed my arm, claws digging into me with the last of his strength. “Keep your sister safe. She’s ... got to ...”

His eyes lost light. I had my hand pressed hard against the wounds on his neck, but the blood stopped seeping through. He was suddenly heavy as stone. We lowered him to the ground. His silver claws grew dull.

Rhea and I were both in our human forms, looking down at his body, the wind cold through our tattered clothes.

“He’s not bleeding anymore,” she said.

“I know.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s better.”

I held my twin’s gaze. We didn’t need to speak.

“We have to leave Father here,” I whispered. They were hard words to say. “Go as far as we can and find humans. The Pack will tear us to shreds if we stay.”

Rhea sniffed father’s face, nuzzled him. I swallowed hard. She stood and took my hand. We faced into the trees, trying to keep our emotions still and quiet. They leave a strong scent.

Rhea and I sniffed out the river and followed it. Even with human nostrils, the scent of water fowl and muck was strong. We stayed within the safety of the woods but kept the sound and the smell close. Our legs were strong but the forest seemed to rise against us--branches scratched our backs, roots tripped our clumsy human feet.

We found quickly that we couldn’t mind our father’s demand that we not loop into our wolf shapes. The forest proved too thick and too hard to get through as children. In human form we were almost thirteen, but we were growing tired, too weary to leap fallen logs or avoid becoming entangled in vines. Our human skin was flimsy and it scratched and bled when we fell. We ran too slow and could hear the pack howling in the darkness behind us, with each footstep they sounded nearer. After Rhea fell, tripped by an unseen root, for a third time, I made the decision.

They don’t have to smell us, I talked to her in mindspeak--a gift we werewolves had carried for generations. Human speech was cumbersome. They can hear us and we’re so slow this way!

Let’s change then, Rhea suggested. We can get some distance.

Yes, I shot back. We’ll turn human when we need to hide.

We shed our clothes and tied our shirts and trousers lightly around our necks. It doesn’t hurt to loop. It’s like stretching out stiff muscles after being in one position too long. As wolves, we were strong and agile and full of run. The four footed run is beautiful. It doesn’t jar and pound as the feet hit the ground as the two footed human run does. The feet barely graze the earth and our bodies flow. It is easy and natural. For a wolf it is like prayer.

We went east, ducking through the branches, avoiding the roots and following the river, crossing and crossing it again wherever the water was low, hoping to leave our scent behind. The humans were east, their towns full of prospectors or settlers on the edge of what they called New Mexico. We’d seen some of the villages before. Our parents had taken us there in human form and taught us a little about how to blend with humans.

Of course, my mother was a turned wolf and human all but three days of the month and we knew more than most about humans. We used our human form often for her sake.

After several hours, we felt safe enough to stop. Rhea with her quick hands and keen eyes snatched a fat, lazy fish from the shallows and we munched and crunched him down.  We ate scrawny berries of late fall for dessert.

Only once, late at night while we curled together in our nest of grasses and leaves did Rhea speak of our parents.  “They tore her apart, didn’t they?”

“Yes.”

“It wasn’t a trial at all, she knew what they were going to do.”

“I think so,” I said. “They must have hoped to talk their way out of it. Or for others to rise up and defend them.”

We had received the summons from king Nero when the moon had reached its zenith.  His messenger, a sly, scum of a wolf named Quint, said there was to be a trial. Two Protectors, their massive shoulders bunched with muscles, led us through our half-built town and took us into the large hall. They were the Pack guards and elite hunters. It was rumored they could trace their line back a thousand and some years ago to the werewolves who’d guarded Julius Caesar. Most of us wolves had forgotten our history, forgotten the time when wolf used to run alongside man.

Not my father though. He was a Silver Claw and his bloodline didn’t go so far back. I hadn’t been told the whole story, but a curse or blessing had been given his lineage. His claws were judgement. Any wolf who’d eaten human flesh who was scratched by his claws would die within a few hours. It was the law not to eat human flesh. Had been that way for thousands of years.

When I was old enough, my claws would turn silver and I’d carry on his work.

King Nero’s muzzle showed gray and his middle was soft. He thought himself as Caesar reborn. “Marius.” He absently scratched at his paunch. “You have killed a fellow werewolf.  One of my cousins, no less.”

“You know he was feeding on human flesh,” Father said. “I caught him. It is my right as Silver Claw.”

Nero shook his head. “No. You killed him without cause. The law is clear. You, your mate and your firstborn son are condemned to death.”  

I shivered at this announcement, but neither of my parents moved. The wolves that understood why my father had killed Augy were not in the great hall, they yipped and howled outside. Only a handful of scraggly haired old wolves loyal to Nero sat in attendance, wearing robes over their werewolf forms. Some even wore cowboy hats and six shooters, pretending to be humans. The Protectors blocked the door. They growled and the hair on their hackles bristled.

Nero scratched the back of his ear and his voice was lazy, almost bored. “You will be led to the circle tomorrow, you will show your bellies and throats and perish with dignity or you will be chased into the pit of stakes and die yelping like a dog.”

Mother turned to Father. They locked gazes for less than an eye blink. Just as quick, she looked at Rhea and me. “I love you,” she whispered, then she spun around and snarled, her muzzle wrinkling back, showing her fangs while she leaped into the air and landed on the fat and graying king. We were forgotten as the Protectors leaped to protect Nero.

“Run! Run now!” Father shoved us and we bounded out of the hall, the wolves outside closed behind us and we were able to put a little distance between us and the Pack. But we could hear the ripping and tearing, the howls and triumph from the great hall.

A blur, the snap of twigs, and there in front of us stood a large alpha female. It was Ruga, the mate of the murderous Augy.  “I thought Mya would be the one to run.  You are a coward.”  She charged Father and sank her teeth into his neck. 

Rhea leapt and took a gouging bite out of Ruga’s back leg, tearing her tendon and crippling her. I grabbed the other back leg and did the same. The pain forced her to release Father’s throat before she could tear the flesh.

We left her screaming, but her damage was already done. She had pierced Father’s neck deep and blood streamed out dark and fast. We ran, but after a few minutes he staggered, fell, got up, ran, staggered, fell, crawled, then fell for the last time.