In the Shadow of the Bear

by David Randall

  “A bear-priest called out inside, and I knew I had been detected. I swore at myself for my clumsiness, and I took a last look into the temple. There I saw—ah, a terrible thing. The last part of the bear-priest to change was his head, and that was still human. The fur was thickening on his body, his claws were lengthening—not the way you change shape, Clovermead, but as if his body were a husk being consumed by fire. The line of fur crept up his neck and over his head—he screamed, and first it was a human scream, but then it was not. Part of him died while I watched, but something else, something monstrous, went on living. And that newborn thing looked at me in the darkness. It screamed again, with terrible joy.

  “I ran from it, Clovermead. I scrambled down the outside wall, scraping my skin in my haste, and let myself fall the last ten feet. Inside I cried my regret to my mother, outside I ran as quickly as I could toward Brown Barley. When I was halfway down the slope of the hill, three bear-priests came out of the gates. At first they cast about, at random, but soon I was on Brown Barley and galloping away. When they heard the hoofbeats, they came after me. Then the lightning bolt came out of the sky, as you said, and I rode unpursued into the darkness. As I fled, I heard the screaming monster come in my direction. I hid in a stream in the underbrush, and thanked Our Lady very much when the beast turned out to be a very bad tracker and raced past my hiding place without detecting me. I slept the remainder of the night in the underbrush, for I was very tired.

  “When I woke, I could hear it screaming still, and it came to me that it must be chasing someone else. I wondered if perhaps my mother had escaped again somehow, and I went chasing after its screams, most cautiously. I was surprised, very surprised, when I came over the ridge and saw it fighting the Yellowjackets, fighting you.” He paused for a moment. “I confess, Clovermead, I was not sure at first whether I wanted to fight at your side. The monster was fearsome, and I have been very angry with you since we parted in the Moors. I hesitated. My anger whispered tempting words to me, telling me that I needed to ride away, to preserve myself from danger until I could save my mother.”

  “And then you remembered you had left your little sister with me,” said Clovermead. “You rode forward to rescue her.”

  “No,” said Sorrel. “I hesitated only for a moment. I have not felt fond of you this last fortnight, but I could not stand aside with that monster coming after you. I am not—” He hesitated.

  “Not like me?” asked Clovermead. For a moment resentment and anger burned in her, and she stifled them only with some effort. “Don’t say it. I’ll get mad at you, whether it’s my fault or not, and I’ll say things to hurt you back. Let it drop awhile. We need to work together long enough to get your mother out of Barleymill.” Slowly, Sorrel nodded in agreement. “Good. And, Sorrel—I’m awfully glad you got away from Bryony Hill alive.”

  “We are agreed there,” said Sorrel, with a ghost of a smile.

  Clovermead laughed a little bit. Then she shivered. “You think Ursus made that bear-priest into a monster? How?”

  “Bryony Hill is sacred. It has always been full of Our Lady’s power, and we Tansyards came to it as a place of healing. Ursus must be perverting it somehow. It is a terrible recipe—combine quicksilver from Barleymill, that black altar on Bryony Hill, and the Bear’s power, and those twisted beings are formed.” He shuddered. “I think I know now why he slaughtered Cyan Cross. He wanted Bryony Hill to make monsters, and he could not have taken it while we were alive to defend the holy ground from him.”

  “How many of those things do you think there are?” asked Clovermead. She could not get those glowing silver bones out of her mind. “There must have been one in the Harrow Moors, that killed those poor people, and there were two chasing us as we rode to the White Star encampment. Snuff told me they were something new, but there could be hundreds, for all we know.”

  “The bear-priests used a great deal of quicksilver in their ceremony,” said Sorrel. “It cannot be easy to bring it all the way from Barleymill. Besides, I saw very few tracks of blackened grass around Bryony Hill, and that seems to be an infallible sign of these monsters. I do not think Ursus has yet made many silver-bears.”

  “When next I see Mother, I’ll tell her we really have to take Bryony Hill this summer. Once it’s a proper fortress, there’ll be no stopping Ursus from making silver-bears forever.”

  “If we could free the slaves from Barleymill,” said Sorrel slowly, “that would also serve our purpose. No slaves, no quicksilver. No quicksilver, no monsters.” He looked up at Clovermead and smiled sadly. “I have grown ambitious. I no longer wish to free just my mother, but to free whatever remains of Cyan Cross Horde, to free every slave in that ghastly pit. Would that not be lovely?”

  “It would be wonderful,” said Clovermead. “But how could we do it? There’s just a handful of us.”

  “I do not know. But I can dream. And I will pray to Our Lady for ideas.” Sorrel lay down by Mullein’s side. “Enough talking for now. Good night, Clovermead.”

  “Good night, Sorrel,” she said, and then she wrapped herself in a blanket and lay down. She let herself look at Sorrel for a moment—and saw his hurt and angry eyes still glittering at her in the firelight. He saw her looking at him, and abruptly turned his back on her. They were silent a long time. Clovermead’s stomach hurt. After a while, Sorrel began to snore, but Clovermead couldn’t get to sleep until late in the night.

  They rode south the next weeks over ever more of the Steppes’ grasses, poplars, and bluffs. They rode steadily, but not too quickly: Although the land was flat, it was roadless, and sufficiently uneven that the Chandleforters cantered more often than they galloped. Quinch’s wrist and Sergeant Algere’s arm healed slowly; in the meantime, both Yellowjackets practiced wielding their swords left-handed. Hordes passed them by in the distance, distant ants in the Steppes’ immensity: Their warriors rode close enough to see that they were well-enough armed to defend themselves, then rode off again. The days grew warmer as they headed south, and spring turned into summer. The grass grew long and lush, watered by drenching thunderstorms that rolled through the Steppes every few days.

  The Yellowjackets and Sorrel quickly returned to their old friendliness: He was half a deserter, but none of the soldiers could resent him for wanting to rescue his mother from the bear-priests. Clovermead and Sorrel remained civil, but nothing more. Sorrel much preferred to talk with Mullein than with Clovermead, trying to learn in a few short weeks everything of her lifetime apart, trying to share with her what he had done and seen since the destruction of the Cyan Cross Horde. Mullein was no less friendly to Clovermead, but it was only natural that she spent more time with her brother. They mostly talked with each other in Tansyard, and now Mullein’s command of common tongue scarcely improved. Clovermead talked with the Yellowjackets during meals, and in the evenings she slipped into bear-shape and went running into the Steppes while Bergander entertained his comrades with his songs. She slipped back into pleasant memory while she ran—chopping firewood with Waxmelt at Ladyrest Inn while red maple leaves drifted down upon them, racing horseback with Lady Cindertallow in the ruddy sands of the Salt Heath, dancing a gavotte with Saraband in her cousin’s room. Walking companionably with Sorrel through the streets of Chandlefort.

  I’d rather be by myself, thought Clovermead. At least out here I don’t have to see Sorrel and not be able to talk with him, joke with him, laugh with him. It hurts less.

  The silver lines in Mullein grew thicker as they came closer to Barleymill, and she grew thinner, no matter how much she ate. She would not complain during the day, but during the night she moaned in pain and nightmare. She threw herself against Sorrel or Clovermead, and one or the other would cradle her feverish body for long hours during the night.

  “I am not sure you should continue with us,” said Sorrel one morning, frowning unhappily at Mullein. “I do not think you can stand much more of this.”

  “Worse for Shaman-Mother,” Mullein gasped. It was a
hot day, but she was wrapped in Clovermead’s wool sweater. It was enormous on her small frame, yet she shivered. “I stand this. But, please, ride quick, Brother.”

  Far to the west, heading south along the horizon, the Farry Heights rose from the Heath. They were tall enough compared to the flat land of the Steppes, a few thousand feet high, but nowhere near as tall as the great peaks of the Reliquaries. Thick forests covered their slopes all the way to the top. Clouds lingered on the summits of the Heights. In the morning the sun lit their slopes the color of pink rubies; in the evening it silhouetted them as scarlet shadows.

  “They look gentle enough,” said Clovermead to Sorrel. “Why don’t the Tansyards go raiding into Linstock over them instead of through the Harrow Moors?”

  “They are much steeper when you get close to them. There are only a few decent passes through them—and the land on the other side of the Heights is almost a desert. There is nothing much to raid there, and then it is a long ride north to any place with horses worth stealing. It is easier to go through the Moors.”

  “Where’s Barleymill?”

  “There.” Sorrel pointed far to the southwest. “It is in the crook of the Farry Heights, where the range turns east. We will see the southern range in a few days.” He kicked his horse and they rode on.

  The Farry Heights went on and on, always on their right hand. The hills grew nearer, grew taller, though never as high as the Reliquaries. After a while Clovermead saw the thin gray line of the southern Farry Heights on the horizon. They were very far away, and it took days for them to grow even a little.

  Now they passed wagon ruts through the Steppes, and the black marks of silver-bears’ paws running through the grass. Once they saw a broad, ebony swath through the grasslands, where a whole pack of them had run by. They heard screaming, here and there, scattered over the plains. The party rode along streambeds where they could, to hide their scent, and they turned from the straight route to Barleymill to ride along bluffs and through gulches. Mullein trembled every time she heard a scream.

  One morning Clovermead woke to find that Lewth and Sergeant Algere had disappeared. They came back an hour after dawn, both sporting new bruises. “He tried to run away,” Algere explained to Clovermead as they rode south that morning. “The screaming got to him. He won’t try it again.”

  “He can go if he wants,” said Clovermead. She looked at Lewth and his now-bloody cabbage-nose, and in her mind’s eye she could see earth flying over his cold body. Like Golion. She shuddered. “I won’t keep him here.”

  “I will,” said Algere shortly. “That noodle-head would get caught by a bear-priest patrol inside of a day if he left us. They’d make him talk, and then they’d know who we are and where we are. And where we’re going.” He scowled at Clovermead. “We made a choice, Demoiselle. It’s too dangerous to back out now. Unless we all do.”

  There was an invitation in those words. I can’t turn aside, thought Clovermead. I can’t leave Sorrel to go to Barleymill by himself. She rode on in silence, and that was answer enough. Algere sighed, and fell back from her to talk awhile with Bergander.

  “What’s your mother like?” Clovermead asked Sorrel one cloudy night, as they sat by the fire. “You never did say that much about her when we were in Chandlefort. I’d like to know.”

  Sorrel stared at her a second, then looked back at the fire. “I would prefer not to speak of her with you,” he said.

  “All right,” said Clovermead. “I guess it isn’t my business.” She brought her knees up to her face, clasped her hands around her folded legs, and huddled behind them.

  “I like know too,” said Mullein. She had been asleep, but now she sat up. Her eyes glittered in the firelight as her blanket fell from her shoulders to pool in her lap. “All I know, Mother in mines. She take care me, feed me, protect me from bear-priests, but we not talk much. No time, we both too tired from digging. She tell me little bit, you and Father, Clary and Emlets, before we slaves. Not tell me of her.” She glanced at Clovermead. “Tell us, Brother. Please.”

  Sorrel gazed at Mullein, then at Clovermead. Laughter bubbled out of him for a second. “Since you ask so prettily, little sister, how can I refuse?” He paused a moment to take a drink of water from the flask at his belt. “Mother was the finest hand with a needle in the Horde. She could embroider a wolf or a buffalo onto my clothes in no time at all, and she could patch a rip so expertly that you would never know there had ever been a tear. The Horde Chief himself came every year to our tent to ask her most politely to make him a new jacket, and in return he would give her a pure white foal of the finest pedigree. Father was a fine warrior, and an esteemed healer of horses, but Mother was the most respected woman of her age in the Horde.

  “She sang when she baked or cooked, or when she washed our clothes in the stream. She never remembered the words to songs, but she had the melodies by heart. She warbled, and Emlets or I would sing the words for her. One time Father came back from a long raid against the Tawn Cross Horde with a half-grown beard, and when Mother saw it, she just started laughing and laughing, for it was a scraggly little thing, and then we were all laughing till we cried, and Father went off in a grump to scrape it from his chin. When we were sick, she would bake us a truly strange honey bread strewn with lumps of salt that she swore was medicinal. We all hated the taste, but it did seem to make us better. When I have fallen ill in Chandlefort, I have missed that bread’s taste terribly.

  “She was a little bossy, no gentle flower shy of offering her opinion, and once I had my warrior’s tattoos I began to itch for a tent of my own, where I could manage my own affairs, no matter how badly. We quarreled from time to time, though never too severely. And when the bear-priests came for the Horde, she kept her head when I was in a daze, while Dapple and Emlets and Clary were slaughtered, and she pulled and pushed me to freedom. I was not worthy of her sacrifice.” He swallowed hard, and looked at Mullein. “May I stop?”

  “For now,” said Mullein. “Thank you, Brother.” She smiled at Sorrel, winked at Clovermead, and lay down again. She pulled her blanket up, and in a minute she was asleep.

  “You have made Mullein a pander for your curiosity,” Sorrel said quietly. Bitterness laced his voice. “Are you satisfied?”

  “Do you think I wanted to hurt you?” asked Clovermead. Her voice was breaking. “Do you think I didn’t know how much you love Roan? I wanted to come with you—”

  “And yet you didn’t.” Sorrel looked at her for a moment, then twisted away, as if his eyes burned. “I have thought about your arguments, Clovermead. I have tried to translate them into terms an ignorant Tansyard such as I can understand. A Horde Chief must sacrifice a straggling child, to keep the Horde safe from pursuing enemies, and I should understand that the Horde Chief may grieve even as he orders the Horde to abandon the weeping infant. I should be an adult who accepts these dark necessities, and not a child who wails his complaints. I know that here”—he tapped the side of his head—”but not here.” He put his hand to his heart. “I am sure it is a failing of mine, that my mother is bigger to me than all the world, and that I would rather sacrifice it than her. I am cruel and stupid, seen with the Horde Chief’s eyes, but I am so. I cannot change.”

  “You just seem stupid,” said Clovermead, and she wasn’t sorry any longer, just angry. “You know, I said you could ride off after Roan yourself. I needed you with me, too—Chandlefort needed you—but I didn’t force you to come. And I’d understand if you were just disappointed and hurt that I wouldn’t come with you. But you’ve been angry at me, and blaming me, because I wouldn’t drop everything and come after you. And that isn’t fair of you. I have a responsibility as Demoiselle. And if I fail, everyone dies—including Mother and Father, and Saraband, and everyone I love, just as much as you love Roan. I know you abandoned your duty to help me save Father, and I’ll always be grateful to you for that, but that doesn’t give you the right to make me drop everything and come trotting whenever you call, or to be al
l self-satisfied about how much you despise me when I say no to you. I’m still sorry I couldn’t come help you, but when you say ‘I cannot change,’ I know that just means you’re determined to be petty and small-minded.” She lifted up her chin, and stared at him in angry defiance.

  Answering anger flickered in Sorrel’s eyes. “How dare you,” he began—and then his anger abruptly died down. He gazed at Clovermead for a long minute, and his face had become a mask. “I must think about what you have said, Clovermead,” he said at last.

  They lapsed into silence. Only a fire separated them, but it could have been a thousand miles. After a while Clovermead pulled her blanket over her and lay down on the grass. Quietly, without fuss, she cried herself to sleep.

  When they were within a week of Barleymill, Clovermead looked toward the Heights, and now she could see their dense underbrush and sheer cliffs. I see why the Tansyards don’t go over them much, she thought. I’d hate to have to clamber over those rocks! Then she lifted her nose, turned it into a snout, and sniffed at the Heights. I smell bears up there! she thought dreamily. It’s a good place for them. I think they must be free of Lord Ursus—they don’t have his stench. But she didn’t call to them in her mind, in case she was wrong.

  More days passed, and now hills on the southern Heights looked as high as the ones on the western Heights. Clovermead wrinkled her nose. It smells acrid, she thought. And then, as she looked around, she thought, No wonder. Half the grass is charred black, and there’s silver everywhere. I don’t think I’ve seen a bird for miles. A gust of wind blew a cloud of silver dust into her face, and she coughed, trying to hack the bitter grit out of her lungs.