Girl in the Bearskin

by C. L. Stone

  Without Destination

  Despite the cool air of the morning, the new cloak kept me more than a little warm. It was also difficult to walk with, the bulk of it getting in the way of my legs. The hood I kept down and out of my eyes. Everything forced me to make changes in how I walked, and how I carried myself.

  Without a destination, I followed the roads in hopes of finding a village big enough to have an inn. Shaytan joined me, usually walking beside me. His stride was unusual to me, but I realized I continued to march, falling into the habit, and his more leisurely movements threw me off momentum.

  Sometimes, when I thought he was distracted by nature around us, or other people, I looked at him, studying his features. Perhaps it was the foreign tint to his skin, or the way his eyelashes would be of envy of women. The curly, dark hair was long, mostly tied back on his head with a thin black band. Lock of curls hung around his chin, framing his face.

  Interesting. Exotic.

  When I was done walking for the day, Shaytan would make camp. While I hadn’t bought a tent, he created one out of thin air. He never carried anything, but somehow managed to obtain it, wood for a fire, a pot for cooking, and food to eat. I was glad for it all. The magic was a bit strange to me, but what did I care where it all came from, as long as it was there?

  The first night, I sat down on a log he’d placed near the fire. My first instinct was to get close to the warm flames, and I absently started to tug off the cloak.

  Shaytan instantly turned to me and put a patient hand on my shoulder. “Don’t quit on me yet. We just started.”

  Realizing what I was doing, I removed my hands from the clasp at my neck. “Oh, I…”

  “I’ll forgive it this one time,” he said. “I know you humans have habits that are hard to break.”

  “You talk as if you’re not one.”

  His mouth formed a small smirk. He wasn’t laughing at me, but amused at my answer. “It’s odd you think of me as human still.”

  “I’ve no reason to think otherwise. You don’t look like a demon. You’ve some magic, but even some humans have magic.” I pushed the edges of the cloak to get my arms through so I could expose them to the flames. “Is this okay?”

  “Of course.” He sat on the ground next to me, closer to the fire, and poked at the logs with a longer stick. “You can shift it around if you’d like. Wear it backwards while you sleep to make a blanket. Whatever you’d like. Just keep it on.”

  “What of the summer?” I asked. “It’s very thick. I’ll sweat to death.”

  “You’ve got time to consider this,” he said. “But if you’d like my suggestion, perhaps we could journey further north during that time. We’ve been skirting around the south.”

  “I was hoping for a village,” I said. “We’ve passed a couple of collections of houses, but they were farmers with nothing to trade.”

  “If it’s a village you’re looking for, you could have asked me.” He put his stick down and turned to me, looking up at me with dark eyes.

  His gaze made me pause. It was a long moment where he looked at my eyes and then lowered down to my chin and back up to my forehead, as if studying my features. The firefly glow around him intensified when he looked more to my face.

  The intensity of his stare unsettled me.

  “Why don’t you tell me who we’re chasing?” he asked. “You’ve been thinking about it. Mumbling to yourself before you go to sleep. Why don’t you get it off your chest?”

  Did I mumble about it last night? Did he hear me from across the barn? Perhaps that’s how he knew.

  I’d no reason to keep the information from him. Perhaps at first when I was more untrusting of him, but we were going to be together for a long time. I couldn’t hide it from him if I were going to ask in villages about Thorne.

  The sky above us was clear, making the cool autumn night crisp if I wasn’t looking at the fire. The flames warmed my cheeks and nose as I spoke. “His name is Thorne,” I said. “A dwarf.” I told him most of what happened the day he disappeared.

  “Why does the theft bother you so?” he asked once I was done. “You’ve money now. If you want it.”

  “He was a friend of mine, or I thought he was. Perhaps if he’d been a stranger, I’d dismiss it. And maybe even if he’d gone but hadn’t stolen from me, I’d think it an odd dwarf thing. But…I fought alongside him. Tried to protect him. And he just…vanished.”

  Shaytan leaned closer to me, his big eyes gazing at my face again, in the way that made my face heat up, like he was amazed by it. “If you’d just want an answer, perhaps you already know it. What happened that morning, before you left? You said he was awake.”

  My body shook and my heart sped as if I’d been running. “I…he…compared me to water for a man in a dry desert.”

  The curl of the smirk returned to Shaytan. “Was that the only time he ever complimented you?”

  I shrugged. “He…often talked to me about my fighting style…my…cooking perhaps.”

  “But what of your looks? Your personality?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  His smirk softened. “Daughter of Yousef, the answer you’re looking for is in your very face. I can’t say I totally blame him for leaving.”

  My shoulders sank and I leaned over my knees to focus on the flames, hiding my face. I’d talked to Thorne about being vile to look at and perhaps he left because he lied to me. I’d forced him to look at me, and he couldn’t stand the sight of me anymore. He left because…

  Shaytan reached out, capturing my arm, shaking me slightly from my thoughts. “Are you kidding me? Stop it with those stupid ideas.”

  My eyebrows lifted at his touch. His hand was warmer than expected, almost too hot. “You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

  “I know more than you think I do,” he said. “You mean to tell me you think yourself ugly?”

  “I am. I know it. The men used to look at me…”

  “You’re a woman of many qualities,” he said. “Not only beautiful but strong. Men look at you in a way they look at an enchantress, not daring to cross you and too cowardly to approach you.” He paused. “You’re a true testament to your species. Your soul is of fine quality.”

  “What do you know?” I asked, angry suddenly. I wondered if this was a trick.

  “I know what’s in your heart,” he said. He put his hand to his own chest. “When I’m near you, I know what you feel. I suffer the same as you now. And the only thing ugly about you is what your family did to you years ago that you’ve yet to shake off. The ill-confidence you’ve carried. That Thorne you talk of, what sense would it make if you were ugly and for him to run? If he’d no attraction, then what did it matter if he stayed with you? It would have been the same to stay with another man, an ugly one, among your brothers.”

  I didn’t have an answer for him. For years I didn’t even bother to think of myself, because I was so wrapped up in joining the army, earning my position. At some point, when I realized the men looked at me, it was different from how they looked at women in the brothels, or in villages where they’d flirt.

  For reasons I hadn’t understood in those moments, they didn’t come to me, didn’t flirt…I’d made assumptions from it. It was more than just being one of them, one of their army. I’d thought they found me ugly.

  But Shaytan was right. What if I was really ugly? I’d have been ugly the whole time, and Thorne wouldn’t have cared one bit. He wasn’t afraid.

  “So…then why would he leave at all?”

  “Probably the same reason few men dare speak to you and look you directly at your face.” Shaytan pulled away from me, going back to sit by the fire. “You forced him to look at you as a woman and he couldn’t handle it. Why do you think I made such a bet with you? Do you think this would be worthwhile to someone truly ugly?”

  “You think this a worthwhile bet?”

  He turned his head away from me, toward the fire. The edge of his cheek puffed out. I could
tell he was grinning. “If no man will claim you, I will.”

  His words bothered me. “No one will ever…claim me.”

  He said nothing.

  He stayed out in the night when I went into the tent, using the one bedroll I had to sleep in.

  The benefit of the bear cloak was that it was heavy enough, and big enough, to act as its own bedroll. The bedroll itself more made it a little easier to keep the cloak clean.

  I slept hard that first night, probably because I’d not slept much the night before. Following nights, and into a couple of weeks, everything was pretty much the same, with Shaytan creating camp and dismantling it. I had little else to do unless I wanted, and for the moment, I allowed him to do most things for me.

  I wanted to think.

  Did I dare take Shaytan with me to find where the dwarves lived? To find out what happened to Thorne? What would he say when he saw Shaytan with me? I’d have to explain the bet, for sure.

  Eventually we found a main road, and sometimes we were joined by other travelers. I said little to them, but I did purchase lighter linen breeches and a thinner shirt. The cloak was heavy and warm. I also bought thicker boots. I used the money from the pocket of the cloak. New clothing and a few supplies were enough for now until we reached a good town.

  Shaytan said nothing to anyone else. At times, I wondered if the others could even see him. Either that, or they ignored his presence next to me. They addressed only me.

  When we made camp, I slept in my own tent. Shaytan set it up for me but he slept outside. I wondered if he ever actually slept. There was a bedroll next to the fire, but he was always up and making breakfast the moment I emerged from the tent.

  I only realized after a while that he’d taken up the position of a servant. It was an odd thing. I’d waited on the Captain when I was younger, and when I’d joined the fight, there was another young man who did the job.

  However, it wasn’t an exact servant-master relationship. After the first week, the cloak was weighing me down heavily. I was strong, but having something constantly around my shoulders was difficult.

  “May I take it off,” I asked. “Just for a moment? Just while I'm sleeping?”

  “No,” Shaytan said. “It isn't part of the deal.”

  “How long will you follow me?”

  “Forever,” he said.

  I blinked at him. “We made a deal. After seven years...”

  He picked up his head from gazing into the fire and raised an eyebrow. “We did make a deal. I imagine I'll win. You won't survive. You talk now about breaking your word.”

  “I just meant for a moment. My body is tired of the weight.”

  “You're failing already.” He smirked and tilted his head and offered me the knife he was using to cut some bacon to add to the stew he cooked. “Why don't you take this and just get it over with?”

  There was a gleam to the blade of the knife he pointed at me. I pulled back. “Don’t joke with me like that.”

  “The only way out of that cloak now is by giving up. If you take it off, your soul is mine. I'd have the right to end your life. But if you're giving up now, you may as well be the one. I can give you that honor...”

  I shook my head, waved my arms and walked away from him. “Never.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and went back to his prep of the stew. “What's the difference? You'll do it before long anyway. I can wait.”

  It was the only time he was ever so distasteful, pushing me to such crude thoughts. In a way, he seemed unhappy when I complained so much.

  He might be right, though. A short time in and I was already looking to break the rules of the agreement for my own comfort.

  It was a small request, too. I needed to be more vigilant and resolved. Seven years. All I had to do was live. I'd get rid of him then.

  But he said forever. He expected me to die. He wanted to keep my soul.

  I wanted to be angry with him, but he wasn’t the one trying to get out of a promise.

  I reconsidered my position with the cloak. If I were going to be stuck with it, I’d have to learn to live with it.

  I allowed myself only to pull it back when I needed to have access to my arms, but for most of the time, I kept it closed. The log we sat on near the fire was moved back further, until the nights were cold enough sitting close was better.

  I needed to make peace with the bear cloak, and resolved that I would never remove it.

  Wilhelm

  The next morning when I awoke, Shaytan had most of our camp collected, and the fire was low.

  “We’re not as far from a village as you thought,” he said. “If I’d known you were looking for one, I would have told you and brought you to it.”

  “Yesterday you wanted me to die,” I said. “I don’t know how much I should trust you.”

  “With your very life,” he said. “Or you would never have taken up such a bargain with me.”

  I ate a little breakfast of wild berries and some dry bread he’d made from ground up nuts for flour. He dismantled the tent and cleaned the rest up as I ate. When I finished, I got up, stretching. When I turned back to look for Shaytan, everything was gone. It was only him, standing near the empty pit where the fire had been. Even the fire was cold.

  “Is it all just an illusion?” I asked. “When you make camp, is it real?”

  “I make it real in this realm,” he said.

  I’d heard talk of the realm where demons and such walk openly, in their true forms. I didn’t want to dive too deep into it. I had enough to do in this one.

  “Which way is this village?” I asked.

  He pointed and I followed his directions. He had yet to lie to me, so I found no reason not to believe him.

  It turned out we weren’t but three miles from a decent village. It was just off the main road, tucked away amid some hills. If I’d passed by on the main road, I’d have never known it was there. There were no signposts in this part of the country.

  Just a few dozen feet outside the start of homes, children lined up on either side of the road that led into the center. They were standing in two rows, pointing at each other across the street and shouting. Some had sticks. I imagined they were playing army, or something like it.

  As Shaytan and I approached, the children took one look at me and stopped their game to come and stare.

  “A bear!” they cried out. They laughed and ran around me.

  In the cloak, I imagined I did look like a bear. I moved the hood a bit, so they could see my face, laughing. “No bear,” I said, lifting my hands up to ward off their pointy sticks. “Please don’t hurt me.”

  “Be a bear!” one of them cried out.

  I laughed with them. I raised my hands up and roared. I hadn't seen many children while I was in the army, but I did like them.

  The children giggled at my roaring and scurried off around a house to hide from the bear in the road.

  Shaytan shook his head and watched as they left. “Your species starts off so innocent. It’s a shame when they grow up into monsters.”

  “We’re not monsters.”

  “Not you specifically. Meant no offence.”

  I followed the road in, asking for the way to an inn or market square. I was told to continue the main road, it was on the other side of the village.

  At the top of a hill, I slowed. A group of men were standing in the road together, facing another man on the ground. I’d thought the man to have collapsed and they were assisting.

  “Perhaps we should go around,” Shaytan said. “Let’s not get involved.”

  “Don’t be afraid.”

  He spat once at the ground. “Fear has nothing to do with it.”

  When we got closer, I realized the man on the ground had a wooden bowl in front of him. He sat with his knees up. He wore thin clothes, too thin for the cooler weather of autumn. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and features akin to my people, but there was something to his left eye, like it wandered on its own without looking dire
ctly at anything. He also never looked directly at anyone, but more like at their chests. Was he blind?

  The men surrounding him spoke loudly as we approached.

  “You can't stay here in this village,” one of them said. “We've barely enough for all of us here. And you scare the children.”

  “They aren't scared,” the man on the ground said. He tilted his head toward the speaker, but he didn’t look him in the face. “Please. I've traveled for so long. I’ve walked for ages through the wood. I was hoping for work to earn some food and shelter.”

  “You won't find it here,” the man said. “Please move on.”

  The man remained where he sat. Did he defy them? I wondered if it was because of his sight, he didn’t dare get up. Or could he walk at all?

  However, before I could figure out what to think of the situation, the man hovering over him pulled out a sword and pointed it at him. “Be off!” he shouted. “Didn’t you hear me? We don’t want you here.”

  I bolted forward, no thought in my mind other than of someone helpless and unarmed being attacked.

  I crossed in front of the man and faced off the villagers, a hand on the hilt of my sword beneath my cloak. “You be off!” I said. “Back up. Give this man some space.”

  The tall man, brawny and with a plump stomach, spoke to me. “Who are you?” He switched his blade to me. “Where did you come from?”

  I drew mine, but only half unsheathed, showing him the seal of the hilt. “Lower your weapon,” I said. “I am a soldier of our king.”

  He lowered his blade when he recognized the seal. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Truly. I…wasn’t expecting…”

  “Why do you threaten this man? He’s doing nothing.”

  “He's been here for a week, getting the children to bring him half their food or the wives to bring him some. He can’t do any work.”

  “I’ve offered to help,” the man on the ground said. “In whatever way I can.”

  “We can’t afford to keep you on, even if you did.”

  I wondered if that was true. Who couldn’t give up bread for a little work? It looked like there was plenty to do. They all had more than I did.