Silverlady Descends: The White Oak Chronicles, #3

By Roxanna Cordell

The winter has been painfully hard for Silverlady's tribe. Food is scarce, the snow is deep, and the neighboring tribe, led by the Imago, threatens war.

But when Thorn, her closest friend, falls in an attack from the Outcast, Silverlady must fight alone to stop an oncoming war and to save her fellow raccoons. It seems that everything she does goes wrong.

So Silverlady goes to meet the Outcast on her own turf -- in the Underworld, surrounded by the spirits of the dead --to bring an end to this hard winter.

War rages above the ground and below the ground ... and nothing, nothing, nothing is what it seems.

Readers who enjoy Brian Jacques' Redwall series, or Erin Hunter's Warriors and Seekers series will enjoy this mystical journey into winter in a raccoon's world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rosefiend Publishing
• Release date: Mar 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201665753

Book preview

DEDICATION

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To the Fantasyweavers critique group, who read versions of this story over the years and always gave me good advice.

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SUMMONED AGAIN

GOING TO FIGHT THE DEVIL DOG

AN INVISIBLE PRESENCE

SILVERLADY’S GHOST

HARBINGER’S ODD VISIONS

SOMEONE HAS FOUND A WAY TO KILL ALL OF US.

HARBINGER’S STRANGE BEHAVIOR

ARGENT’S STRANGE BEHAVIOR

ARRESTED

I’M IN LOVE AND I’M GOING CRAZY

A TALK WITH SNOWWING

TURNABOUT

INTO THE UNDERWORLD

HE’S BEEN DEAD FOR TWO YEARS

THE BLACK WATER

THE SUN RISES ON BLANKNESS

FACING DOWN THE DEMON

INSURGENTS

RETURN TO THE UNDERWORLD

KING MOUSE

THE CROWN OF LIGHT

LAST STAND

SHOWDOWN

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

All the books i’ve written

so far

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Civil War Books

Courageous Women of the Civil War: Soldiers, Spies, Medics, and More (Chicago Review Press, 2016)

Gentlemen, Accept This Facial Hair Challenge! Epic Beards and Moustaches of the Civil War

Young Adult Novels

Angel in the Whirlwind

Butterfly Chaos

Those Black Wings

Seraphim Changelings

Why Can’t My Life Be a Romance Novel? (a fun little short)

The Easy-Growing Gardening Series

Don’t Throw in the Trowel: Vegetable Gardening Month by Month

Rose to the Occasion: An Easy-Growing Guide to Rose Gardening

If You’re a Tomato, I’ll Ketchup With You: Tomato Gardening Tips and Tricks

Perennial Classics: Planting and Growing Great Perennial Gardens

Petal to the Metal: Growing Gorgeous Houseplants

Gardening Month by Month: Tips for Great Flowers, Vegetables, & Houseplants

Leave Me A Lawn: Lawn Care for Tired Gardeners

Japanese Beetles & Grubs: Trap, Spray, and Control Them

Stay Grounded: Soil Building for the Garden

Middle Grade Novels:

What You Can’t Take Back

The White Oak Chronicles:

Outlander’s Scar

Wandering Stars

Silverlady Descends

The Chieftain

1

SUMMONED AGAIN

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It was the deepest part of winter. The night sky glittered with cold stars, and the barren trees stood black against the snow. It was a night where the cold bites so deep that dens will not stay warm, however many sleeping raccoons are piled in there.

On such a night, near the raccoons' territory, a silvery-pelted female raccoon was trailing a red fox, looking for a change to scavenge off anything it ate. She knew that a fox, being an uncivilized, wild animal, might attack her if she got too close – indeed, it had rushed her a few times, and she’d had to flee. Each time, weak and dizzy, her black paws hurting from the icy snow, she returned. Hunger made her persistent. It was as if some tiny animal was clawing and clawing inside her stomach.

When the fox would stop, Silverlady stopped and would find a place to watch him. She would crouch low under a tangled patch of barren brambles, or peek over a rise, nervously tapping her teeth together. When the cold breeze carried the fox’s sour smell to her, she tried not to sneeze.

Hunger also made Silverlady, the chieftain of the Black Oak tribe, cranky. I’m tired of all the complaints the raccoons of my tribe throw at me. I’m tired of nobody being able to find food. I’m tired of waking with an angry stomach. I’m tired, tired, tired of the Imago acting like such a paranoid nit-brained skink – is it beyond the Lepidoptera tribe to find a better leader?

Just then the red fox froze, one black-stockinged foot poised in mid-air, its tall ears pricked forward. Silverlady froze as well. The fox crouched. It wriggled forward, then stopped and tensed, staring at the smooth, unblemished snow ahead of it. It made a graceful leap into the air, its body curving down to the snow, broke through the snow's crust with its front paws and thrust its head, jaws open, into the gap. In an instant, the fox flipped two brown mice onto the snow’s crust, both dead.

Silverlady's mouth watered. Look at that, she murmured. Mice were about as rare as acorns. Head low, she sniffed, watching the fox.

The fox, eating his first mouse, froze. A snarl started low in his throat.

Silverlady approached it sideways, tail swung out in front of her, walking on tiptoes on all four feet, trying to look larger than she was, even though she'd lost weight since the summer. She was as thin and ragged as the other raccoons in her tribe. The fox was sleek, plump, and healthy.

A muttering growl rose from Silverlady’s throat. Why don't you back away from those mice, she said. Though her heart thudded, hunger drove her forward another slow step, body tense.

The fox swallowed, licked its chops, and bared its teeth, its snarl getting louder.

A brown mouse the fox had missed escaped out of the open hole. It dashed away from the fox, then checked when it saw Silverlady. The mouse didn't have a chance: Silverlady pounced and fled, the mouse in her mouth.

She hurtled through the snow, expecting to feel the fox's teeth biting into her spine any moment. When she reached the bottom of the hill, she shot a glance over her shoulder to see the fox turning away, trotting up the hill. She stopped and ate, watching it walk away.

I can't believe I faced a fox down for food, she thought.

When she finished eating, she raised her head, licking her chops. Black, barren trees stretched hopelessly to an ashen sky, and a cold wind blew. We should have been hibernating by now, she thought. We should be fat and warm from eating acorns. Silverlady shivered and licked the snow until every trace of red from the mouse was gone.

Why was there no food for the raccoons? There had been no drought, and the crop of acorns had been fine. Many raccoons, seeing the green acorns hanging in the oaks they inhabited, had remarked what a fine time they'd have, eating them. Yet the acorns seemed to have vanished as they had fallen. The Oak tribe blamed the mysterious shortage on the neighboring Lepidoptera tribe, while the Leps blamed it on the Oaks.

Silverlady, sniffing, discovered some Queen Anne's Lace roots to eat from their pleasant carrot smell. She ate, specks of soil crunching in her teeth, then dug for more.

Suddenly she heard a far-off whistle from the east. What? Not again! Dread stirred in her gut, and she started digging again. Don't answer, she muttered to herself. "If it's so important, she can come see me about it."

They were not whistles from her tribe, but the neighboring tribe, the Lepidopterae. The only time Silverlady was summoned was when their leader, Imago, wanted to talk to her.

The next sets of whistles came a moment later. Arrgh, Silverlady said, digging deeper as if she'd disappear into the hole. I'm busy! But duty made her raise her head and respond with a whistle of her own. "Hound’s claws, I hate that Imago, she muttered. At least I already ate my mouse."

A little later, the guards, Imago's three personal warriors, appeared and crossed the snow to her. They always managed to startle her, moving so quietly—probably the way mice feel about owls and their silent flight.

Sphinx was the leading guard, second-in-command to Imago. Behind him were the two other guards, with their musky, pungent smell that reminded her of wild mustard. All three were stony-faced, stocky raccoons. They never shambled like other raccoons, oh no. They glided, smooth as a leaf on a stream. Sphinx sat, and the other two sat; he bowed, and the other two bowed. In broken Oldspeak, the language common to both tribes, he said, Chieftain Silverlady. Imago desires to speak to you.

Silverlady bowed back. Please send her my regards, but I cannot. I am seeking food, for this famine has been most cruel.

Sphinx bowed again, and Silverlady caught a noseful of his wild mustard smell. Mine apologies. However, this matter is urgent, and Imago looks to your advice.

Oh, she does, does she?

Allow me to finish, and then I will follow you.

Silverlady ate one last root, and whistled to Harbinger, the patrol boss of the Oak tribe. After a moment, from a great distance, she heard his answering trill, the special one identifying him as leader of the patrol.

Silverlady had been called by Imago so often that she and the patrol chose the first line of one of Harbinger’s songs, to let the rest of the patrol know when she was called. She whistled the first line of the song's refrain, Going To Meet the Devil Dog.

Harbinger whistled back a snippet of his song, She Gives Me Indigestion.

Silverlady raised her head, trying not to smile. Now we can go.

The guards led her far through the forest. Dread stirred in Silverlady. Every time Imago summoned her, it was because she was angry with the Black Oak tribe. Though the tribes had plenty of distance between them, the raccoons of both tribes were foraging farther than before because of the famine. Imago often grumbled about Oaks encroaching on her territory, though there was plenty of space between territories. The truth was, Imago was encroaching on the Oaks' hunting grounds, bringing the scent markers closer and closer every year.

What is Imago playing at this time? Silverlady wondered.

It was well past midnight when she and the guards cut across a north-facing hill. The snow was up to her chest, due to the leaves under it. It was difficult to slosh through. She noticed the guards leading her were grim and perhaps frustrated by the difficult walking. Serves them right.

Ahead was a cut in the hill. They walked toward the bottom of the cut, where a stream flowed out. Its ice glimmered in the backwash of the moon’s light, and Silverlady remembered her thirst. While the guards sat, watching her, she broke the skin of ice at the creek's edge and drank. The freezing water shot pain between her eyes as she lapped, and her teeth ached.

Cold flowed into the valley. It slid down the great hills, over the snow’s surface, like water. Silverlady had to fight not to shiver in front of the guards.

This way, Sphinx said. Not much more distant now.

They followed the stream into a wide ravine. Silverlady balked, for the only way out was the only way in: the sides of the ravine were steep walls of soil and rock. The area at the bottom of the ravine held the creek and a bank on one side. Farther back, the cut widened enough to allow a space for a black cherry tree, leafless and bare. There at the tree's foot Imago sat, glaring at them.

2

GOING TO FIGHT THE DEVIL DOG

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Imago was the leader of the Lepidoptera tribe, a formidable female. Imago wore a mane of dried grass, among which a necklace of mouse skulls and rattlesnake rattles had been hidden. Around her two front ankles she'd strung mussel shells. One always heard her from a long way off – and smelled her, from the stink of death on the skulls and the shells. She was larger than the guards who seated themselves behind her in a triangle. She probably makes them sit behind her to look bigger, Silverlady thought.

Imago raised her head high, eyes glittering with malice at Silverlady. She shook her head so her mane of dried grass flew out, and her rattles hissed and her mouse skulls clinked. Then she sat and curled her tail around herself. Why your tribe prepares itself for the war? No greeting. Only that angry phrase uttered in broken Oldspeak. (Imago had never properly learned Oldspeak, the language common to both tribes.)

Silverlady slowly sat, puzzling out what Imago had said, knowing that she'd better not make any sudden moves. Good Imago, did I hear you correctly? Are you accusing my tribe of training for war?

Imago's tail lashed. Innocent you act, think you fool of me, hide my eyes, but I see. War you make, your patrol fighting and sharpening.

We do no such thing, Silverlady said. We are tired and starving.

Ha! So that why you fight us, kill us, then more food you. Imago tore her claws over the snowy ground, like a badger.

As annoyed as Silverlady was, she would never show it. Blandly, she asked, Tell me, where have you seen this? I swear on Xolimache we do not prepare for war.

Oh, but you speak your goddess's name lightly. I saw with my own eyes, warring at the high ridge. Imago jabbed a muddy claw to the west with a rattle of mussel shells. The carcass smell from the mouse skulls floated to Silverlady. Your patrol, learning abilities of the battle. They seem not hungry. They seem healthy, not like my raccoons. My spies have seen much of this, heard many negotiations by chance. They overthrow to me! You do not even know!

Apparently not, Silverlady said coolly. This is the first time I have heard of it. Tell me, what have your spies seen?

I tell you, so you join to leave with them furtively? Take the latter to strike me with? To take with yourself and with me, do you see being delighted? Imago was getting worked up.

I'm sorry? And could you please learn the language so I can understand what you’re saying?

Sorry should you be! Sorry leader, you! Blind, too!

Silverlady had had enough. These rantings make you look foolish, she said.

Imago grew cold and angry. She stared at Silverlady for a moment. Your eyes shut. It makes you look like fool, to not see this.

Silverlady didn't let herself blink, but met her words with cool courtesy she learned from Acorn, one of the former chieftains of her tribe, ages ago. About my patrol. How were they training? What exercises were they doing if your story is true?

Imago swung at Silverlady, claws out. Silverlady ducked, rolled back. Imago swung again, her face a rigid mask, and Silverlady blocked the blow, blocked the next with a practiced ease. Imago danced back, and Silverlady understood why she met Imago's attack so easily.

Silverlady sprang at Imago, swing and block, swing and block, swing and block, feint with teeth, dance in battle-circle ... and it was a dance Silverlady recognized. These were the training exercises her patrol practiced through the years, the exercises that her dear Raven had taught her long ago, when he was patrol boss.

At the memory of dancing battles with Raven, Silverlady broke away and shook out her pelt. Imago rolled in the snow, then shook the snow out of her pelt with a roar of accessories. She sat next to Silverlady. Silverlady simply began grooming herself.

You fight good, Imago said slyly, at least in these exercises. But when battle come, that is the real test. Then we see you fight how well.

Silverlady ignored the jab, cleaning her forearm, making the short hairs sleek. Imago’s spies had seen her patrol training with these exercises. Were they only keeping fit, or was something else in the air?

If this real battle, I would hurt you, Imago added, pretending not to watch Silverlady. Many of us to hurt you. Few of you to win.

Silverlady raised her head from her arm. I do not declare war, she said. I do not fight. I try to keep my tribe alive.

Yes, yes, by ways to steal from my Lepidopterae. Imago lowered her head like a vulture, trying to make the grass ruff around her neck bigger.

Silverlady turned her head from that hostile stare. What did Imago ever do before our tribe arrived in this forest? Silverlady wondered. All she wants to do is fight.

Silverlady got to her feet. Is there anything else? For I have had little to eat, and I would like to go now and try to find food.

Not on my territory, Imago snapped.

Obviously, no. Imago, I see that you refuse to listen to me. Perhaps you should instead speak with your Psyches. They communicate with Tolimagi's messengers. Surely you can believe the voices of your goddess.

Imago's eyes narrowed, and she flicked an ear. Silverlady tightened her face, trying not to smile. The four holy females had stopped Imago’s battles before.

The Lepidoptera warrior-queen said, Go, her voice strained.

Silverlady left, concentrating on her tail to keep it from lashing, angry at how hard her heart pounded. Talking with that stinking Imago—or being talked at—was like fighting a battle. Did Imago ever sit down and chat with anyone? Did she ever discuss the weather, the sunset, her family? Silverlady couldn't imagine it. So like a male, she is, one of the Psyches had said of Imago, but even males would gossip or talk shop.

And I bet the Psyches