The Bear is Born

by Remy Morgeson

  II

  Asbjorn awoke just as the light of the sun began to scatter away the nighttime shadows, a thin dew clinging to the trees as a thick fog hung in the air. The woodland birds were just starting to wake to greet the coming dawn with their tranquil song, the young boy enchanted by their melodious chirping and the other sounds of the great forest. He looked over to see his father near the blackened remnants of last night’s fire, Jurgen still clutching the handle of his axe tightly to his chest. The man breathed steadily and evenly as he reclined on his hunting pack with a heavy cloak draped over him, not yet roused from his deep slumber.

  He surely didn’t try to stay awake all night, did he? Asbjorn wondered, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and running his fingers through his sandy hair. No, he thought, he must have dozed off shortly after I did, once he had made sure that the bear was well away from here.

  Asbjorn tugged his own blanket tighter around himself to keep away the morning’s chill, moving on stiff legs to wake his father so that the two of them could start breakfast before packing up their things and heading for home. His hand was almost on Jurgen’s shoulder when he glanced down to notice his father’s bow resting near the bedroll, the boy staying his touch before he could disturb the lightly snoring woodsman, a risky notion coming to play through his head.

  Perhaps there’s still time for one last outing after all, Asbjorn thought with a smile. Besides, how much prouder would father be if I could bring something back that I got all on my own, and how jealous would all the other boys in the village be once they found out.

  As carefully as he could, Asbjorn shrugged off his heavy fur to snatch up his father’s bow and arrows, slinging the quiver over his shoulder as he quietly tiptoed into the waiting tree line. His heart raced as he left the campsite behind and crept through the mist shrouded forest, a feeling of exhilaration and anxiousness running through his blood. He knew that he would have to be more than quick about what he had set out to do, hoping that he could make it back before his father woke up and had a chance to become too angry with him.

  As the boy made his way through the foggy woods, he soon managed to come upon what he was searching for, a wide trail that cut its way through the dense trees. Splintered branches that were crushed and snapped like twigs lay on the forest floor before him, the thick limbs that had been broken off from their trunks littering his way. It looked as if some kind of giant had trampled a path straight through the heart of the wooded landscape, leaving only a beaten trail in its wake before vanishing without a trace.

  “What could have done something like this?” Asbjorn whispered to himself almost in awe, his feet taking him lightly along the decimated path. “This couldn’t be a simple stag, could it? Maybe a whole herd of them? Or perhaps something else?”

  As the boy’s heart continued to pound, he followed the sweeping trail that had been razed through the forest, his breaths quickening as his eyes darted about. Every instinct inside of him screamed to stop and head back toward the safety of his father, but he forced himself to ignore all of his inner protests, spurred along by the irresistible curiosity of youth and a need to prove himself. He followed along for what seemed like hours, finding not a single discernable track within the slew of downed vegetation. At last, he abruptly came to a thick wall of interwoven pines, the twisted branches bringing him to a dejected halt. He was about to turn back when a snapping of twigs on the other side caught his attention, the boy slinking closer with his ears open and his eyes wide. As Asbjorn crept in, he could just begin to make out a lumbering movement through the obscuring pine needles, seeing a large shape that swayed back and forth just on the opposite side of the branches.

  This is it, he thought in a blinding excitement. This is my moment! This is the stag that I’ve been trailing since sunrise!

  Carefully, Asbjorn reached over his shoulder to take an arrow from the quiver that hung across his back, quietly nocking it against the string of his father’s bow as he stalked forward. He pushed his way through the poking pines as silently as he could manage, pulling back the arrow with a nervous hand just as he was about to emerge from the other side. He took a deep breath and held it in as his foot fell for a final time, putting the last bit of tension on the bowstring and then stepping out.

  With a violent flurry, the trees suddenly exploded in a shower of splinters and snapping branches, the impact sending Asbjorn up and off his feet to come slamming down on his back. The great bear burst through the thicket of pines with an unearthly force, the massive animal towering over the boy who now gasped for breath where he lay on the hard ground. The giant beast was unlike any of the natural creatures whose form it bore, with a char black pelt and eyes that blazed with an infernal fire. It lumbered towards the horrified Asbjorn with jagged claws that dug into the earth, a frothing slaver hanging from teeth the length of daggers. The creature had a hellish aura about it, the very air around the thing seeming to grow hot and heavy despite the cold.

  Asbjorn quickly scrambled back to his feet terrified beyond all measure, his panicked breaths coming in rapid succession as the monstrous creature closed in on him. The black beast roared the same deafening cry that he and his father had heard the night before, the thunderous sound nearly bursting his eardrums. With its massive foreleg, the demonic thing took a powerful swing at the young boy, flashing claws that were long and sharp enough to completely rend him in half. Amazingly, the fear shocked Asbjorn had enough sense to throw himself backward at the last instant, sparing himself from being totally torn apart by the bear’s sword like nails. But as swift as his adrenaline-fueled legs were, they were not quite swift enough, the sweeping blow still managing to tear into him to send the boy spinning through the tangled branches to crash to the ground once more.

  Pain greater than any that Asbjorn had ever known before shot through his body as he hit the earth, the blood flowing freely from four deep gashes that had been carved into his left side. He looked up to see the hazy outline of the great bear move over him to blot out the morning light, the forest trees spiraling through his blurred vision. The thing was upon him almost instantly, its eyes like pinpricks of fire and its stinking breath hot on his face. And then there was another shape before the groggy boy as well, and from the surrounding mist, he heard the onrushing battle cry of his father.

  With a furious charge, Jurgen suddenly rammed into the behemoth with all his might, cleaving wildly with his axe as he drove forward. The blade bit into the beast’s thick, muscular hide over and over again, the sharpened edge leaving hardly anything more than scratches in the creature’s flesh. The great bear bellowed in a rage in response to Jurgen’s assault, bringing itself up to its hind legs to utterly dwarf the fierce man that stood between it and his helpless son. The thirst for blood shown in the monster’s searing eyes as bright as hellfire, the taste for fresh meat on its tongue.

  “Run, boy!” Jurgen shouted, firmly standing his ground before the massive thing. “Move dammit, now!”

  Unfortunately, the swooning Asbjorn could only barely make out what his father was trying to scream at him over the pounding in his own head, seeing the big man’s lips move but hearing little more than muted shouts coming out. He managed to struggle to his feet to stumble only a few yards before collapsing back down again, unable to will his shaky legs to take him any further. He looked back to see where his father still fought with the great bear, the burning eyed monster flinging the frantic Jurgen around as if he were nothing more than a child’s toy. The last sounds that he heard were those of his father’s muffled shouts, followed shortly by the bellowing roar of the mighty beast. And then something stinging and warm rolled into his eyes, the blackness of unconsciousness washing over him.

  Asbjorn came to with a violent start to stare into the wide blue eyes that met his, the sweet, curious face behind them framed in honey locks as it oddly regarded him back. He could swear that he knew the young girl that watched him so intently now, or at least he thought he did between the painful bre
aths and the waves of dizziness that washed through his head. He was sure that her name was Magdalena, and that she was the daughter of Jarl Manus, the current head of his village of Brekka.

  “Hello,” said Asbjorn, forcing out the word in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

  His body felt like it must have tumbled down a mountainside, every inch of him sore with a battered stiffness. Magdalena only smiled back at him with a strange little grin and a tilt to her head, hopping down from the bed where he lay to quickly scurry off.

  “Poppa, Poppa!” she called out in excitement as she went running. “Hurry, he’s awake!”

  Asbjorn slowly sat up to find himself in a dimly lit room illuminated by a flickering candlelight, resting in a soft bed of warm furs and blankets. He tried to pull the covers off and swing his legs around, but a sudden jolt of pain prevented him from doing so, his left shoulder and upper chest wrapped in heavy bandages that smelled of strong herbs and potent balms. He pressed his hand against his side only for the sharp discomfort to come again, wincing as soon as his fingers touched the linens. Then, from outside the half-open door, he heard the approach of booted footsteps coming his way, not knowing what to expect as they drew near.

  “You really are awake this time, aren’t you?” said a gruff voice as the door creaked the rest of the way open, Jarl Manus coming into the darkened room.

  The jarl was a broad man just a shade over six feet tall, his rough-hewn face framed with a greying beard. His deep brown eyes appeared quite black in the dimness, the man bringing up a chair that rested at the foot of the bed, taking a seat just next to Asbjorn.

  “I do apologize for the overenthusiasm of my daughter,” he said in a deep tone. “But she’s been watching over you night and day for more than a week now, hardly ever leaving your bedside for too long. Every time you so much as twitched she’d come running to fetch one of us. It was hard to tell that she actually meant it this time.”

  “More than a week?” Asbjorn questioned hazily.

  “Yes,” answered Manus, “you’ve been unconscious now for eight days. When you and your father didn’t return when expected, a group of us went out searching for the two of you, not really sure where to start looking. It was only by sheer luck that one of us heard your voice out in those woods. You were delirious with fever when we came upon you, mumbling incoherently about the burning eyes and a great devil bear. We had little hope that you’d actually live through whatever it was that happened to you out there, but it appears that we were wrong.”

  For a moment, all that Asbjorn could do was blankly stare at the jarl, a puzzled expression playing across his young face. Then it all came rushing back to him in an instant, the boy suddenly remembering tracking the stag through the forest, the wall of trees, and then the furious charge of the great bear. It had been a monstrous beast of unbridled rage, with eyes that flared as if from hell itself. The thing would have surely killed him if it had not been for the fierce onrush of his father, the man storming out of the mist shrouded woods at the last possible moment. Jurgen had barreled into the beast with his axe flailing wildly, the blade cleaving into the creature as he screamed. It was only by his hand that Asbjorn had made it out of those woods at all, but then, where was he?

  “Jarl,” asked Asbjorn, “where’s my father?”

  Manus did not answer the boy straight away at first, instead only looking grimly to the floor as he let out a long sigh and rubbed the crown of his smooth head.

  “What’s important is that you’re safe, my boy,” he said at last. “You’re here, and that’s what matters.”

  “Please,” Asbjorn pled, “where’s my father?”

  Jarl Manus let out another long breath as he regarded the distraught boy, a grave look on the man’s already creased face. He got up and walked from the room without saying a word, returning a few moments later with something wrapped in a soft hide, placing it down across Asbjorn’s lap.

  “It’s all we found of him, I’m afraid,” the jarl said somberly.

  The boy pulled back the supple covering to reveal his father’s axe, the heavy blade shining in the flickering candlelight. Tears began to roll down his round cheeks to fall upon the steel that lay before him, his hands tracing over the wooden handle and the etchings on the head.

  “It’s all my fault,” he whimpered meekly. “I thought the bear had gone. It’s all because of me.”

  As Asbjorn wept, Jarl Manus knew that there was nothing that he could say or do to adequately console the poor boy, the sorrow of a child who had just lost his only family being far too great a thing for him to understand. In the end, all that was in the man’s power was to place a comforting hand on Asbjorn’s shoulder to let him know that someone was by his side, sitting with the young boy as he listened to the other’s grieving sobs.

  III

  The air was still in the small glade as the wolf crept from the safety of the underbrush, the lean animal slinking low across the ground as it moved out into the open. It sniffed cautiously at the air to take in the irony scent of fresh blood, its nose twitching as the heavy aroma enticed it onwards. Just across the clearing, the animal could see the object of its ravenous desire, the carcass of a deer that had been split down the middle and hung from a low branch. The creature remained tentative in its shaky approach despite what dangled before it, inching only a single leg forward at a time ever so slowly. It had not been an easy few months for the predators of the northern forest, the numbers of their usual prey thinned by the overhunting of the men that lived in the surrounding villages. The scrawny wolf was just pushing the edge of starvation when it picked up the smell of the kill drifting on the winds, following it for nearly two miles in hopes of finding an easy meal. It fought against its own bestial instincts now as it edged in ever closer to the swaying meat, ready to sink in its eager teeth but maintaining a wary distance.

  From above, narrowed eyes observed as the hungry beast neared the suspended deer, the young man behind them watching with a mixture of disdain and disappointment. He scowled as the half-starved creature below him could resist its baser impulses no longer, the thing’s flaring nostrils drawing in the now overpowering smell. With caution no longer a concern, the wolf finally tasted what it had come so far to find, biting into the waiting flesh to lose itself in the long overdue feeding frenzy.

  Asbjorn looked on from his perch in the tall pine as the beast beneath him fed, its gnashing teeth ripping away large strips of venison that it voraciously swallowed down. The hidden Northman pulled back the string of his bow as the animal below him chewed at the dangling deer, taking a careful aim at the creature’s heart with the razor tipped arrow that he held between his fingers. It would be a simple thing to take the animal now, even a boney one such as this able to bring him something for its pelt. But then he hesitated in his course, abruptly staying his hand to spare the beast for a moment longer.

  The young Northerner eased the arrow from the taut string as he lowered the curved weapon, carefully hanging the bow from a broken off tree limb just next to him. He had brought down the deer that the wolf feasted on earlier this morning, cutting it open and hoisting it up in an effort bait in a much bigger prey. He had done this same thing so many times now since his father’s death that the big man had lost count, venturing out season after season in hopes of once more encountering the hulking devil bear. But each time he had to settle for something far less, the constant disappointment beginning to weigh heavy on his heart. He glared down in disgust as the skinny wolf continued to gorge itself, his hand moving over to close around the handle of the old huntsman’s axe that rested in the crook of the tree. This miserable creature was once again not what he had come out here to find, but it was better than nothing, and that would have to do for now.

  Asbjorn gently moved to position himself above the still unaware animal, slinking between the branches with a gentle grace that a belied a man of his size. The wolf below gave pause in its feasting for just an instant as he poised abov
e it, the creature’s head raising and its ears perking as it sensed the hidden danger. Then the big Northman leapt from his place in the tree with a savage cry, bringing his blade down into the hard earth just in front of the animal, deliberately missing his mark. Asbjorn could have taken the surprised thing anytime that he had wished to, but his turbulent spirit yearned for a fight, whether it lasted long or not.

  The sinewy wolf snarled and bared its teeth at the man who had just come between it and its half-eaten supper, its ears laying back and its muscles tensing as it circled around him. In most normal circumstances, the lone animal would have simply retreated back to the forest when confronted by such a threatening foe, taking the quickest route of escape to search for an easier kill elsewhere. But game was just too scarce thanks to the scores of greedy hunters, the creature reluctant to pass up such a ready meal for fear of not being able to find anything else later. Besides, it had already tasted fresh meat, and was not about to back down now.

  The starving animal came at the waiting Asbjorn with a wild lunge, its jaws snapping fiercely at the areas of his exposed flesh. Swiftly, he fell back to stay just out of reach of its yellowed teeth, deftly avoiding the mangy thing’s mad bites. As it continued to charge in, he batted it across the face with the flat of his axe, the arcing swing nearly splitting its head open from the stiff force. The hard steel connected to knock it aside and send it rolling across the ground, Asbjorn pressing in with his advantage as the dazed beast slowly picked itself up. As he moved towards it, the wounded animal came back at him with a lurching pounce, a desperate effort aimed straight at his soft throat. But the young man easily smashed the thing down once again with the butt of his axe handle, driving it headfirst into the forest floor.