The Tiger's Claw
Geraint was late for his daily visit. The Bard briefly wondered what kept him, but then he abandoned interest. It didn’t matter; the Old Warrior would show up when it suited him.
Restless, Brannan roamed unrestrained in the tower chamber. The Warlord allowed him to remain unchained at night, perhaps to compensate for the binding endured in the daytime when his tormentors had come to him. He had not seen them for a Moon now. Brannan didn’t know if it was due to Samir declaring love for him or the Warlord’s anger at the torturers’ disobedience. But in the meantime, he had not been beaten. The Bard waited with some trepidation for events to turn sour. He was unused to the lack of pain.
He approached the deep window embrasure and looked through the bars at the grey morning sky. Rain and mist shrouded the mountainside. Over a Turn ago, there had been no barrier to the opening. The Warlord Samir had imprisoned his second wife in this room, and Brannan realized that neither Samir nor the guards thought she would escape through the window, which overlooked a sheer drop on this side.
The Bard recalled how she had managed with his help—and a wind-suit. It had been a wedding gift from his King, who had only reluctantly granted the marriage under threat of invasion by Samir’s forces. Cyndyllan had perhaps foreseen a day when Mara would need it. Only used in parts of ArMorica, Brannan’s mountainous homeland, no one was familiar with wind-suits in this region, so they attributed her disappearance to sorcery. She had flown into the abyss, and Brannan had fallen, impaled on the Warlord’s sword.
However, those memories constituted a tale for another day. The Bard sighed and turned away from the embrasure. He glanced at the corner of the chamber: it remained empty, as Mavrenn still resided in the Warlord’s apartments. Brannan felt a profound sense of loss. He no longer felt like singing even quietly in the chamber. Since performing at the Warlord’s camp on their journey at Scarfell Mountain, he felt his voice had become frozen within himself.
After their return from Scarfell, Brannan had seen only Geraint and Lord Samir, not counting the guards outside the chamber door. The Warlord now frequently visited the tower, treating the Bard with an odd mix of passion and cruelty as if he could not quite make up his mind. Brannan wondered if Samir’s contradictory behaviour signalled a wish to deny the deep love they had confessed to each other. At times, the Warlord seemed committed to extracting a confession from his prisoner and had promised more severe punishments: the taking of his voice and mind. On other occasions, Samir appeared to act with patience and understanding. It often occurred to the Bard that two opposite personalities dwelt inside his Lord. Only the terrible tale of Samir’s past could explain this inner conflict. Brannan still could not decide if hearing it had been a blessing or a curse.
He needed to convince the Warlord that his love was not a further betrayal. Together, they might overcome the barrier of his Lord’s perception of reality. He knew his own awareness had been skewed by imprisonment, and he found it difficult to conceptualize what freedom would look like again. However, Samir had promised to search for the men who had initially brought the accusations. It was a distant hope, but a hope, nonetheless. Finding them could change everything.
He had to distract himself. The chamber housed the recently constructed binding frame, well-rigged with rings, blocks, hooks, and other fittings. A padded, leather-covered beam at crotch height spanned one side of the construct. Brannan could no longer grasp any rigging with his hands to do pull-ups, but using the bench on the side made it possible for resistance workouts, with allowances for his healing back, to keep his body trim and muscular.
A part of him questioned the value of self-care in the face of his gradual annihilation, but the iron self-discipline of his past training held sway. He swung his legs over the padded beam and hooked his feet under the adjacent cross-piece. Proceeding to do a series of inclined sit-ups and crunches, Brannan worked his core abdominal muscles. From there, he moved on to other bodyweight exercises, pushing himself until sweat trickled down his face and chest, although he wore only a cloth wrapped around his hips. He could feel his muscles burning.
The sound of voices came to Brannan as the chamber door opened, and Geraint walked in, accompanied by a guard who placed a bowl of food and two jugs on the table. The man then left to rejoin his fellow watchman on the landing. In the meantime, Geraint placed the wooden chest he carried onto the other end of the table. Brannan’s heart sank, and he shuddered at the sight, knowing full well what the chest contained.
“Been busy, have you, lad?”
Geraint was not one for elaborate speech or titles, but the Bard appreciated his plain speaking.
“And working up a good sweat, too, I see. You can stop now and drink—fresh water for you and ale for me. Then you can eat something, though that’s all you’re getting ‘till night, maybe. When I wash you, we’ll do a quick clean-out. M’Lord Samir is free this afternoon and wants to visit you.”
Brannan nodded towards the oak chest on the table. “And the collar? Does he intend to use it?”
Geraint looked uncomfortable for a moment, but he answered the Bard. “I don’t know his exact plans, but he wants to speak to you about it. I didn’t get the impression that he would treat you harshly today. In fact, I got the opposite sense. He said these words to me: ‘Geraint, take the collar to the tower chamber. I will speak to the Bard of its use. This is the last time Brannan will see it; I have put him through enough, and the situation is changing.’”
Surprised, Brannan appreciated the Old Warrior’s unusual frankness, as Geraint seldom repeated anything the Warlord told him. He felt a flood of both hope and apprehension. “Did Samir mean he would use it one more time, or has he decided not to use it at all?”
“I don’t know, lad,” Geraint replied. “But why not look on the bright side and trust that his feelings for you restore his good sense? Better than brooding over the alternative.”
“Why not indeed? I thank you, my Keeper. Your words comfort me, and I will choose to hope.”
Geraint laughed. “Speaking of thanking me…”
Brannan knew what Geraint expected of him. Warmed by the Old Warrior’s concern, he knelt to kiss his boot.
Geraint wound his hand in the Bard’s sweat-damp hair. “Eager to greet me, are you?” he murmured.
“I ask leave to show my gratitude for your care,” Brannan said formally.
“Told you not to stand on ceremony with me, lad. But since you mention it—” the Old Warrior grinned and unfastened his breeches.
This service had become a daily ritual between them, at first at the insistence of the Warlord. But Brannan, through his training as the Warlord’s sex slave, had come to find comfort in the act instead of shame. A short time ago, he had exhibited purely heterosexual preferences—he had never submitted to anal sex before the Warlord forced him and only once performed oral sex on a man. But now, his rapidly changing reality wrought a level of acceptance.
Brannan worked skillfully on Geraint’s phallus. His vocal training as a Bard had given him excellent control over his throat muscles, enabling him to take in Geraint’s girthy member entirely. But the Old Warrior pulled back after a while, although he was still rock-hard.
“There, that’ll do for now—m’Lord Samir wants you primed. I should put the cock cage on you, but I’ll give it a miss if you promise to be good. We’ll see to other things first.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the collar: I thought I’d clean and oil it. May as well have it shiny for m’Lord. If the claws come out, it wouldn’t do for them to get stuck while digging into you. These devices are nothing to mess with.”
Brannan fervently agreed with that sentiment, hoping his Lord had no plans to use it today. If you fell while wearing the collar, the claws would extend, piercing the neck tissue depending on the tension applied. The Bard had been wearing the device when the Warlord disciplined him with the bullwhip; though he had not fallen, he had stumbled slightly, and the collar’s claws wounded his neck in several places.
Seating himself on his sleeping pallet, Brannan used the sides of his wrists to lift the bowl of soft-cooked grain and berries to his mouth, watching his keeper as he ate. While the Bard fed himself, Geraint unlocked the chest with a key he wore around his neck and removed the collar. Seeing it, Brannan’s breath became short. He could almost feel its heavy weight around his neck.
The Old Warrior sat on the bench beside the table and picked up a bottle and a rag. “I’ll just extend the claws one at a time and give them some oil.”
Then Brannan heard Geraint curse.
“Well, I’ll be fucked with a stallion’s sex hose! This is no good, no good at all,” the Old Warrior growled, sounding uncharacteristically angry.
Glancing up, the Bard saw Geraint working the complex collar mechanism, causing individual claws to extend out, then down and in, curling like a flexing tiger claw. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked.
“This is the collar m’Lord Samir’s been using on you?”
“Yes”—Brannan was puzzled— “and that means?”
“Well, there are different kinds, see? This one’s what we call a ‘kill collar.’ Look how far the claws can come out. Almost the length of my thumb.”
“Pardon me, Geraint. Musical instruments are what I’m familiar with, not instruments of torture.”
“All right. A regular claw collar’s reach is half that. It can puncture your jugular vein, but not deeply. It’s possible to stop the bleeding if you put enough pressure on it. On the other hand, a kill collar can pierce your carotid artery: you can bleed out enough to die in the space of three breaths. You’d have to have all the Good Spirits on your side to stop the bleeding if that happened, and as far as I know, the Good Spirits are usually too busy to bother with the likes of us.”
Brannan suddenly felt cold. Geraint was a rough-spoken man, but when it came to conditions of life and death on the battlefield and in the arts of war, he was articulate and very knowledgeable. When Brannan stumbled while enduring the bullwhip, he had not realized how close to death he had been.
Geraint shook his head. “I know my Lord Samir cares about you, but once upon a time, he was hell-bent on forcing you to confess that his wife plotted against him—or whatever. Trouble is, he gets trapped by his vows.”
“As do I—I know that circumstance all too well, the Mother-of-All help us!” the Bard said fervently, realizing its truth: his Ruithin vows shaped and defined him.
After oiling the collar mechanism, Geraint polished it and set it aside. Then he rummaged in the wooden chest, fishing out a leather case. Opening it, he laughed grimly. “Look here, my lad, at these pretty treasures!” He held up a set of instruments like long, thin scissors with curved, hooked tips.
Brannan recognized them. He had seen them used in the field after bloody encounters. “Vascular clamps? But why…?”
Geraint shrugged. “It makes a sort of sense, I suppose, and it’s not uncommon to see these. I have ‘em in my medical kit, as do many of us more experienced fighters. On the field, wounds to the inner thigh are not uncommon, and your mate might bleed out unless you can snatch some time to use the clamps. Much more effective than a rag and a stick. But these claw collars puncture or tear the deep blood vessels. Maybe you don’t want your victim to bleed out too fast before he confesses to you. The clamps can slow down blood loss. And I thought this collar was a twisted thing before…” He shook his head. “I thank the Great Mare herself that m’Lord is seeing some sense about all this.” Geraint replaced the clamps in the chest before snapping the lid shut with an air of finality and dropped the collar’s key on top of it.
But the horror of the device persisted in Brannan’s mind, and he turned away.
* * *
Geraint led the Bard down the turret stairs to the bathing chamber, accompanied by the two door guards. These were new ones the Bard had not encountered before, but they seemed professional enough. At a word from the Old Warrior, they remained outside.
He took the cloak from the Bard’s shoulders, and after stripping off his own clothing, Geraint duly bathed and prepared Brannan, who began to relax as hot water streamed over his body. The Old Warrior’s touch with a soaped sponge gently soothed Brannan’s scarred back.
As he rinsed the Bard, Geraint frowned, puzzlement creasing his brow. “That reminds me. . .”
“What?”
“Something I just noticed about one of your guards; he reminds me of someone, but for the life of me, I can’t remember who—”
“It can’t be too important, then,” Brannan said.
“Doubtless not. Much as I deny it, I do tend to be forgetful these days.”
“You? You’re as sharp as a hunter’s arrow!”
“At least my pointy end still works,” the Old Warrior chuckled. “Come on, let me just trim your beard, then I’ll dress you.”
“When will my Lord arrive?” “Soon, so we’d better finish up, lad.”
Despite the uncertain circumstances, Brannan suddenly yearned to see the Warlord. After Geraint left him in the tower chamber, he did not have long to wait.
* * *
As the Warlord strode through the doorway, he turned and addressed one of the guards who stood aside for him. “You‘re new, aren’t you? Who appointed you to this duty?”
“Captain Alanus himself, my Lord. Geoffrey and his partner have caught the ague, and the captain is concerned for your prisoner’s health.”
Samir wasn’t entirely satisfied with the man’s reply. He felt annoyed. It was customary for Alanus to consult with him concerning anything regarding the Bard. “I will speak to the captain. Meantime, carry on with your duties,” Samir said, dismissing the guards.
Even wearing simple house clothes, with his deep red cloak thrown back from his broad shoulders, the Warlord looked just as imposing as if he’d dressed for war. Pulling off the mantle, he tossed it over the table. He unlocked the chest and removed the claw collar, placing it on the table. Samir regarded the gleaming device.
“Today, we must talk, Bard. But come to me first.”
Brannan stood before the Warlord, looking uncertain. Suddenly overcome with need, Samir seized him in a powerful embrace and kissed him deeply, and the Bard responded with raw passion. When Samir released him, Brannan touched his forehead as if dizzy.
Samir wanted to take him then and there, but he paused and picked up the collar, hefting it in his hand. He had come to a decision, seeing the landscape of his and Brannan’s relationship as if a fog had rolled away from a misty forest, revealing the trees.
He looked at Brannan speculatively. “I have used this device to subdue you and force your compliance with my wishes. You have resisted me, but know that I could have easily pushed you into succumbing had my methods been more extreme. However, since our time on Scarfell Mountain, my love for you has wrought a change inside me, and to that end, I’m investigating certain avenues that may resolve the dilemma I find myself in. I have decided to hold off on your confession until my research bears fruit. That means you are free from the collar.”
Brannan sank onto his pallet, looking stunned. “My Lord, I am struck by your words. Will you really spare me further torture? I feel freedom’s illusion, like a captive falcon bound to the lure, but it gives me hope. I accept your will for me, whichever way it turns out."
“Don’t fret, my Bard. This game has gone on far too long.” The Warlord sighed, suddenly feeling weary of his own cruelty. “I will not destroy you. You touch my soul in ways I am still working to understand. Our love is different from the love a man feels for his woman. You stood beside me through countless conflicts, always seeking resolution whenever possible, comforting the dying and casting a healing balm on my men with your wondrous music for seven Turns. I can’t deny that service. I now feel my debt to you outweighs the desire for revenge.”
“My Lord, we have both been prisoners: myself, a prisoner of my fears and you, a prisoner of your own perceptions. Reality is not what it seems. Each of us perceives the truth as we wish it to be, but there is an eternal Truth that evades many of us. Facing that can be the hardest of all fights. We go through life partly asleep, but now I see you taking steps towards a true awakening.”
“That may be so, my Bard. Let us hope this ‘Truth’ of yours will not burn our souls to extinction; I believe truth is not always a pretty thing.”
Samir beckoned the Bard to him again and placed his hands on Brannan’s shoulders, looking down into his lover’s eyes. “I desired to make love to you, but my duty to the Council has interfered. However, I don’t plan to be away long unless Lord Tangar equivocates and argues every point, as he likes to do.” He smiled in wry amusement. “When I finish my business at the meeting, I will fetch you myself, and we will go to my quarters. There, we will share our bodies and talk further. In the meantime, I’ll send Geraint to retrieve the collar. It will be the last time you have to see it.” Regretfully, the Warlord kissed Brannan again and left the chamber.
Outside the tower room door, he spoke to the guards. “Let no one in except the warrior, Geraint, or myself. I will return in about three hands of the sun.”
* * *
Left to his own devices, the Bard wandered over to the frame. He seated himself on the padded bench on one side. He yearned for Samir’s touch. The Warlord’s words had spun his emotions into a vortex of confusion, hope, and longing. Did his Lord mean it when he said that his torture had ended? He felt suddenly vulnerable again, as if walking on a knife’s edge. Samir had intended to break his spirit with his previous brutal actions, but this time Brannan felt closer than ever to that point, except for the night of the bullwhip. It now seemed the Warlord’s kindness posed the risk, not his cruelty. Brannan remembered the Warlord covering his body with the red cloak. That small, considerate act had nearly undone him; the urge to tell Samir what he wanted to know had been overwhelming.
He did not touch the collar. It seemed truly evil, made with a single, awful purpose in mind. If there had been no bars on the window, and if he could have gripped it, Brannan would have hurled the thing down the steep face of the mountain to be shattered on the rocks below. He sighed and waited, settling into the acceptance of being still in body and spirit as he had been trained. The Bard did not mark the passage of time. When he eventually heard a noise at the chamber door, he looked up in hope. Was it Geraint, or did his Lord come for him?
Only the guards entered the chamber. The foremost one spoke to him: “The Warlord Samir wishes you escorted to his quarters. I have heard you will go peacefully, but we are new and cannot risk it. Hold out your wrists: we’ll cuff you and take you with us.
“My Lord stated that he would come for me himself,” Brannan answered.
“So he told the messenger,” said the second guard. “But he has been held up. You may choose to disobey if you dare. However, we have our orders.” He held out two iron cuffs connected by a short chain.
Resigned, the Bard presented his wrists. But as the guard locked the cuffs, he felt a terrible sense of misgiving, even as one of the sentries called through the doorway.
“Come on, men. We have him now!”
Six more men piled into the chamber, and four flung themselves onto the Bard, wrestling him to the ground almost before he could act. Nonetheless, Brannan managed to break one man’s nose with a well-aimed elbow before his assailants pinned him. He looked up to find Efan, the torturer whose throat he had damaged, staring at him malevolently with the claw collar in his hands. He locked the device around the Bard’s throat. Brannan, helpless to resist under the ruffians’ restraining forces, immediately ceased his struggles and froze.
“Very good. Move, and you will die.” The guard who had cuffed Brannan spoke with a new authority as he gripped the chain fastened to the collar. He continued, “I’m afraid my brother cannot talk, thanks to you. But now you are at our mercy—not that we have any.” His pitiless laughter followed that remark, but Efan tried to speak, making a growling sound.
“We had better do what we have come to do, Thurstan,” the other chamber guard told Efan’s brother. “We don’t have much time before Lord Samir or that cursed Old Warrior shows up. We must finish our business and be away before then, or we are dead men.”
Brannan recoiled inwardly, with the growing certainty that he would not survive this encounter. He tried to invoke calmness but failed. The assembled ruffians hauled the Bard to his feet, tore off his shirt, and led him to the frame, carefully putting no strain on the collar as they fastened the lead chain to the top beam, forcing him to stand motionless. When Efan stepped forward, Brannan saw, with a sinking heart, that he carried a coiled bullwhip—not as long or as heavy as the one the Warlord possessed, it was nonetheless capable of doing significant harm.
“All right, brother,” said Thurstan, “He’s yours now!”
Brannan didn’t think Efan had time to lash him until he fell, and he was proved correct. The torturer began to move. Then everything exploded into confusion as a sudden commotion sounded, and the Warlord, with Geraint alongside, burst into the chamber, his own personal guardsmen behind him. They fought in that cramped space, but Brannan’s captors had no chance against the Warlord’s incandescent rage. Bodies fell, one of the first being Thurstan.
Efan uttered an inarticulate cry. Before anyone could realize the danger, he stepped towards Brannan and struck with the whip, even as the Warlord’s guardsmen leaped to stop him. In slow motion, the lash unfurled, cutting not into Brannan’s flesh but wrapping around his knees. Just as the guardsmen seized him, Efan jerked the bullwhip with all his might.
The Bard fell, and the claw collar deployed with an awful, resounding click. Claws sank into his neck, and he knew one had punctured an artery. Through pain and profound shock, Brannan watched his own blood spray across the room.
But Samir and Geraint reacted immediately, with the Warlord supporting Brannan to afford slack on the chain and Geraint releasing the collar with the key seized from the table. Amazingly, in the heat of the moment, Geraint did not fumble it but swiftly unlocked and removed the deadly device. Unplugged, the spray of blood increased in pulsing bursts.
Brannan, aware of the blood flow’s sudden increase, knew that death had now approached. Then he felt his consciousness flow away as his body sagged in Samir’s arms. He only had time to think, This is it.
* * *
Samir swiftly lowered the Bard’s body to the floor, pressing his fist to the wound to stem the bleeding while Geraint seized the medical kit from the wooden chest. Anxiety overwhelmed the Warlord as Geraint grabbed the sharp knife, and he shifted to let the Old Warrior slice the flesh open, exposing the punctured artery. In teamwork learned on the battlefield, Samir repositioned his hand just enough to reveal the wound while Geraint, drenched with the Bard’s blood, closed off the lower part of the half-severed artery with a vascular clamp. Although not a man of practicing faith, the Warlord found himself praying to all the gods he knew that it would work.
Two slow breaths had passed, and there were only moments left to act. The third breath was expelled, but Geraint clamped the upper part of the arterial wound. The blood flow diminished to the barest trickle and then stopped. Tentatively, Samir removed his fist, and both clamps held.
Geraint checked the opposite side of the neck for a pulse. “Nothing,” he reported, his voice gruff.
Hearing these words, a sinking feeling cramped Samir’s gut and his heart raced in unaccustomed fear. He extended Brannan’s jaw to open the breathing passage. Putting his face close, he checked for breath.
“Nothing, also.” Come on, breathe for me, my Bard. You cannot be dead now after all that has happened to us. “Give him your breath,” he said to Geraint. “I will pump the heart.”
The Old Warrior promptly leaned over and started to breathe for the Bard while Samir endeavoured to compress his heart manually, kneeling beside Brannan’s chest, arms straight and locked together. He pressed down abruptly and repeated the thrusts, keeping count of each one. Although experienced in the procedure, the Warlord found himself trembling and fought to steady his hands. Past instances were nothing compared to what he faced now. A tide of desolation threatened, but Samir forced himself to concentrate on the practical. He had no time for feelings!
“BRING THE HEAD SURGEON!” he roared, leaning over the Bard to compress his chest again.
“I have already sent Konnor to summon Healer Dane, Lord!” Captain Alanus replied.
Samir kept up their established rhythm, with Geraint working alongside him. He was concerned that the Old Warrior would soon tire. They only paused to check for a pulse, which continued to elude them, but the Warlord refused to acknowledge that the Bard could be dead.
“Keep going,” he said to Geraint. “We can switch out if you need to.” But Geraint just grunted and shook his head.
There was a moment when Samir felt a snap beneath his hands. I have broken a rib, but it doesn’t matter. Only breathe for me, my lover.
Time seemed to pass too slowly before Dane arrived with his daughter, who carried a bag.
“Your man told me what happened. Has he had a pulse at all?” the Healer asked, moving quickly to the Bard’s side.
“We can’t find one, although he might just be alive,” Geraint said in a pause between breaths, but hopelessness shaded his voice.
Samir shook his head, unable to deny what he knew to be true. “He’s lost too much blood!” However, he continued to count as he manually pumped the heart, refusing to stop.
“Talitha, spreader and suture kit!” Dane ordered the young woman.
The Healer reached for his tools, using the surgical spreader to expose the artery. He took out a wrapped packet containing a fragile curved needle with a hair-fine length of fibre attached.
“Hold!” the Healer called.
Samir and Geraint ceased their ministrations as Dane attempted to stitch the torn blood vessel.
Exhausted by emotion as much as strain, Samir took the opportunity to rest briefly. He felt short of breath himself, as if he had endured an intense sword fight. He could only imagine its toll on his friend, the Old Warrior.
“Go!” Dane called again, and Samir bent to his task, hoping Geraint could keep up. At one point, his Captain, Alanus, offered to step in and take his place, but the Warlord wouldn’t hear of it. Brannan’s life had suddenly become precious to him.
Dane repeated this stitching sequence several times between pauses until he had closed the punctured blood vessel. “Hold off now, my Lords,” he instructed as he carefully removed the
clamps.
“Look!” cried Samir, barely daring to hope. “Blood is seeping from the wound!”
The Healer smiled grimly before checking for a pulse. “I do believe his heart is beating.”
“The Great Mare and all the Good Spirits be praised!” Geraint’s relief was audible in his voice.
But Samir, kneeling beside the Bard’s body, bent forward, resting his forehead lightly on Brannan’s shoulder. He whispered, “I have been a great fool. Keep living, my lover.”
To be continued...
Thank you for reading! Visit the author's website, voronforestauthor.com, for links to the book, The Shadow Lord's Son - Part 1: "To Take Away His Voice."
