by R Magnusholm
Behind him, the snow crunched, and John ducked. A glancing blow to his head knocked off his woven reed hat. Sparks erupted behind his eyelids. Instead of bolting into the surrounding thickets where more enemies might be lying in wait, John lunged with his spear at the enemy in front. Animal or man, the stranger wasn’t fast enough. The spear point struck his furry chest, gouging a bloody line across his ribs.
With an earsplitting roar, the monster lurched back, slapping his huge palm across the wound.
Without losing momentum, John dashed past the distracted enemy for the safety of their bramble enclosure. Two more attackers—camouflaged so heavily they looked like walking junipers—materialized in front of him suddenly, as if they had sprouted from the ground. Both held clubs raised above their heads.
More enemies erupted from the thickets on both sides of the path, and John felt a moment of vindication. If he’d bolted that way, he’d already be dead.
“John!” Liz’s scream pierced the air. “Get back!”
A sickly cold dread uncoiled in his stomach. What if another gang of the attackers was already going after her? An image of Liz’s torn and bleeding body lying in the snow flashed in his mind. He had to protect her. Her and their baby.
The enemies pouring out of the juniper thickets were some way off and not his immediate concern. He needed to get past the two creatures cutting off his retreat.
John feinted with his spear against the nearest enemy, causing him to slam his club down to parry. Before he could bring the club up again, John dove past him. He was in the clear, and his heart sang with exhilaration. He’d got away.
He’d live. And fight. For Liz. For the baby.
And then, he slipped on a patch of compacted snow, landing awkwardly and knocking the wind out of his chest. Behind him, the ground shook as his pursuers closed in. He gasped for breath. He had a glimpse of the nightmare posse—all snarling teeth, shaggy fur, and raised clubs.
The nearest monster was nearly upon him. John scrambled to his feet, slipped, and fell again. Suddenly a new attacker reared up in front of him. A club swished down. John tried to twist away, but he doubted he’d make it.
A gray shadow flashed across his field of vision. Spot. With one quick leap, he clamped his jaws over the attacker’s club hand, spoiling his aim. The club smashed into the ground inches from John’s head, sending a spray of snow into his face. In a heartbeat, Spot sprang aside, snarling. His ears flat, black lips wrinkled and pulled back to expose the gleaming white fangs, he backed off and began circling for another leap.
John regained his feet and pelted toward the bramble enclosure. Once he was running in the clear, it became obvious he was faster than his pursuers, and it crossed his mind that the bramble fort might not be a sanctuary but a trap. Spot certainly thought so, for he loped past the entrance and into the woods.
As John skidded down the narrow twisting path between bramble stands, Liz lifted her bow, aimed, and let fly. The arrow flashed past his shoulder and struck something with a meaty thump, which was followed by a guttural yelp of surprise and pain.
John squeezed sideways past the barricade and dumped the dry fir tree with its sharpened limbs facing outward across the path.
The leading enemy stumbled to a stop just outside the barrier and stared dumbly at the arrow protruding from his chest. The rest of the gang arrived, surging forward in an unruly mob, and pushed their comrade forward onto the sharpened branches. He took a couple of spikes in his gut and toppled sideways where he lay thrashing and groaning in the brambles.
“Oh my God, they’re giant teddy bears!” Liz cried. She nocked another arrow and lifted her bow.
The path was too narrow to admit more than one attacker at a time, so the posse couldn’t storm their position without widening the path first. And this is what they proceeded to do by beating brambles down with their clubs while the bravest among them charged the barricade. Liz let loose the arrow. From ten paces she couldn’t miss.
A brute wearing a necklace of shriveled animal ears staggered with an arrow stuck in his eye and face-planted in the path amid a dry snap of the arrow shaft breaking.
John hurled a rock at them. “You broke our arrow, assholes!” The rough stone smashed into the shoulder of the nearest attacker with a solid smack, eliciting a surprised yelp.
Liz, pale and grim-faced, readied another arrow. She shot again.
A bear who’d been beating the brambles down with maniacal zeal took an arrow in the side of his head and dropped like a cut tree. His comrades finally took the hint, and when Liz pointed the bow at them again, they ran. She shot again and nailed the slowest between his shoulder blades. He stumbled but kept going, joining his comrades in the tree line. There they stopped, waving their clubs angrily and snarling. After a couple minutes of venting their anger, they gathered into a circle and appeared to be having a discussion that involved much gesticulating, jabbering, and jumping on the spot.
John touched his head gingerly. His fingers came away slick with blood, but he’d live. “That was great shooting, Liz.”
“We only have eleven arrows left.”
He dashed to their hut and returned with his four-foot-long javelin.
Chapter 28
Arrows Versus Urso Sapient Scum
John glanced at the pile of rocks they had prepared for the tiger, so long ago. He could do some damage with those, but nothing as much as Liz could inflict with her well-aimed arrows. He pushed the spiky-limbed fir tree to the side and squeezed past the barrier into the passage. The brute that fell sideways into the brambles was still moving. John drove his spear into the enemy’s throat and wrenched a bloodied arrow from his chest.
He threw it across the barricade to Liz. “You’ve got twelve now.” He knelt by the bear that took an arrow in the eye and worked the broken arrow out. It needed a new shaft, so it would be useless in this fight.
With the enemy band still discussing their future strategy, he went to the third fallen monster. The arrow was lodged so tight in his skull that it wouldn’t come out. John tugged and pulled as hard as he could, but when he got it out the flint point slipped off and remained in the head.
Damn!
“Sixteen teddies,” Liz called. “That includes the one wounded.”
He rejoined her behind the barricade and blocked the entrance.
“The one with the necklace of bird skulls is the leader,” she said. “I wonder if I could hit him from here.”
“Don’t! He might come closer.”
“It’s only sixty paces,” she said. “Good for a full body shot.”
“It’s more like seventy, and he’s partially obscured by bushes.”
He tried not to think of the wider implications of today’s events. They were not alone in the woods. And the Others were vicious and not even human. While he and Liz might defeat this attack, they would have to look over their shoulders from now on. And how are we going to sleep? Only yesterday, they’d slept in blissful peace, certain that as long as their fire burned, they were safe.
The teddies stirred, apparently coming up with a new plan—which was to simply charge the barricade with their clubs raised. Once more they began beating the brambles down. On some level, their simple tactic made sense—if they got into the enclosure, it would be the end.
Liz waited until the first attacker reached the rampart and killed him with a shot to the head. She got the second enemy in the side and the third in the chest, forcing the rest to duck under the five-foot-tall bramble wall. They tried to smash it down while crouching, but it didn’t work too well. When one teddy exposed his head, Liz posted an arrow in his forehead and dropped him.
Two enemies hung back from the fight. One was the leader, and the second was the wounded warrior who was leaning on his club, swaying.
Evidently not satisfied with the progress of the attack, the commander approached closer, using his bleeding comrade as a shield.
“That’s what I call leading from the front,” John r
emarked glibly.
“Forty paces. I can probably nail him. But we only have eight arrows left, and there are twelve of them.”
Thump. Crunch. Thump. Crunch. The attackers were steadily widening the access path. John picked up a rock and climbed the shifting pile of deadfall that formed their barricade. From his vantage point, he could see half a dozen attackers moving forward in a crouch. He hurled the rock, missing the target’s head, but hitting another attacker on the shoulder.
“Liz, pass me another stone.”
His next throw hit a teddy in the elbow, eliciting an angry snarl. With his third stone, he hit the enemy on the fingers clasped around the club. That did some real damage, because the brute dropped the club and crawled off, yelping. For a while, John kept hurling rocks at the enemy, bringing their path-clearing activity to a halt.
A bear held his smashed paw in another and moved off in a crouch toward the leader. He received no sympathy there. His commander roared and barked at the wounded trooper, then kicked him. As he did so, he stepped from behind his cover.
Liz’s bow twanged. The arrow flashed across the forty paces separating her from her target and embedded itself in the bear’s ample gut. The brute jerked, stared at the feathered shaft protruding from his midriff, then tore it out and snapped it in half.
Liz’s next arrow nicked his shoulder.
“Shit,” she exclaimed. “I can’t hit moving targets.”
“But you nailed him, Liz.”
“Six arrows left and ten targets.”
“Three are wounded.”
The wounded leader hid behind his troopers, and they retreated some twenty paces, where he stood behind a pine trunk. From there he proceeded to utter a series of barks and growls that were clearly a command.
The beating of the brambles resumed. John threw another rock but only scored a glancing blow on his target’s back.
“Liz, I count only eight teddies. The other two are probably sneaking around the back like that tiger.”
“Much good it did him . . .”
She took off at a run, disappearing behind the hazel trees that blocked the view of the rear of their clearing.
The moment Liz disappeared, the teddy leader barked a new order, and four warriors charged the barricade. The path had been sufficiently widened to let two brutes attack at once. John hurled a rock and hit the one on the right squarely on his snout, causing him to drop to his knees. The teddy on the left brought his club down on the deadfall with inhuman force, breaking off a sharp tine of a dry fir. He proceeded to clobber the barrier in a frenzy.
One of the teddies in the back row pushed his stunned comrade aside, leaped forward and, also began smashing the barricade.
John posted rock after rock at their heads, but the teddies hunkered down. Their skulls must have been incredibly tough, for despite torn and bleeding ears and ripped cheeks they had smashed all of the sharp tines and started climbing over the barrier.
John grabbed his spear and gored the first attacker in the stomach. Before he could jerk the weapon out, the brute brought his club down, snapping the shaft and tearing it out of John’s hands. Then the monster collapsed.
His two comrades used his body as a bridge to clamber over the barricade and drove John back from his pile of rocks. Blood was streaming down their snouts and one had an eye swollen shut. That didn’t stop them from charging at John with their clubs raised. Their third comrade, whom John had hit in the snout with a rock earlier, also crawled over the rampart on all fours, blood flowing from his broken nose. He tottered to his feet.
From the back of their clearing Liz’s bow strummed. “Got one,” she yelled. Her bow went off again. And again. And again. “Oh, shit.”
John grabbed his javelin and hurled it at the nearest bear. “Catch this!”
The enemy dropped his club to clutch at the spear protruding from his chest. He roared, bloody foam flying from his flat black lips, then fell sideways, convulsing in the snow. A crimson puddle began forming around him.
“Liz, they’re inside the enclosure!” John shouted.
The remaining two teddies circled around John, who was now weaponless apart from his stone axe. Three more bears clambered into the enclosure: their wounded leader, blood staining his pelt in two places; the trooper who had taken an arrow in the back; and the one with smashed fingers, who held the club awkwardly in two paws.
“Fuck you!” John yelled at the advancing posse. It’s like a zombie-slaying video game, he thought. They just keep coming at you until you kill them all. But could he kill five of them in close combat? Four of them were wounded, but still . . .
His axe raised, he charged at the last intact monster. The bears were very strong but slow, so he dodged the descending club, slashed the enemy’s arm, and leaped aside. As long as they couldn’t corner him, he’d be fine. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Liz backing away from the hazel tree. A bear with a raised club followed, three arrows sticking out of his chest. He stumbled over a fallen log, fell on his face, and started twitching all over.
“You broke my arrows!” she cried. Then she whirled around and saw the five bloodied teddies closing in on John. Two immediately headed her way. She waited until the nearest was five paces away and dropped him with a shot to the head. “One arrow left.”
The remaining bear began chasing her around the hazel trees. He moved at a stumbling gait, and there was a blood slick on his back.
The three teddies rushed at John, forcing him to back off. As he retreated, he crossed the stream of smoke drifting from the fire. The bears following him cringed and shrank back from the smoke. In a flash of inspiration, he realized they were unfamiliar with fire and feared it. He dove into the three-sided fire shelter. It was a gamble: if the enemy followed, he’d be trapped. He grabbed an armful of dry pine fronds and reeds and flung in on the fire.
A dense cloud of smoke arose almost immediately. The wind carried it toward the teddies, who scrambled away. John waited for the fronds to catch aflame, then grabbed a burning brand and charged at the monsters.
“Have a smoke break, fuckers!”
The three bears vaulted over the remnants of the barricade and ran. He threw the flaming frond after them.
Liz emerged from behind the hazel tree with the hulking bear in tow. “John, he keeps following me, and I don’t want to waste my last arrow.”
John waited for the giant teddy to walk past him, then rushed forward and buried his axe in the back of the monster’s head. The bear fell forward, pulling the weapon from John’s hand. John planted his foot on the furry back of the fallen enemy and grabbed the axe handle. The blade came out with a sickening grind of flint on bone.
He stood over the vanquished brute, his axe dripping and steaming in the frosty air.
Liz lowered her bow. They stared at each other in silence. Her eyes were wide, and there was a lot of white around her irises. She looked gorgeous.
“We must go after them,” he said. “Or they’ll return with reinforcements.”
“You sure?”
He tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. “Yeah, let’s finish off the fuckers.”
Chapter 29
A Hasty Counterattack
John dashed to the dead bear who had been struck with the javelin and pulled the weapon out. Next, he retrieved his broken long-spear. It was now too short for close combat, but still good for hurling.
Liz ran from one fallen bear to another, grumbling about ruined arrows. She managed to find three intact ones, cleaned them with snow, and stuffed them in her quiver.
“Spot,” John called.
A gray shadow loped out of the trees, and together they followed the trail of the escaping teddy warriors.
Tracking them was easy, for their footprints were clearly visible, and crimson droplets spattered the snow at regular intervals.
Half a mile into the woods, they came across the prostrate teddy leader. He lay on his face, still clutching a club. Dark red blotches stained the
pristine snow around him. He lifted his head feebly and growled. Blood was frothing around his fangs with each exhale.
John raised his axe. “Good night, fucker.”
“Wait, don’t spoil the pelt,” Liz said.
He lowered his weapon. Someone who’d tried to kill him and Liz for no reason at all deserved to die slowly.
They ran on, following the trail in silence. The woods were open for about two miles, but eventually the undergrowth thickened.
“They’re ambush predators. You know . . .” he said.
Liz leaned forward with hands planted on her thighs, breathing heavily. She scooped a handful of snow and ate it. “We’ll have to go slowly.”
John stared into the impenetrable dark green wall. An enemy could be standing a step away with a club raised, and he wouldn’t know it until too late.
“Spot,” he thought-spoke. “Where are they?”
“Far.”
“Track them,” he transmitted, a portion of his mind melding with the wolf’s. He sniffed the air, and yes, the sour odor of bears was faint.
With Spot leading, they followed. After another mile, the woods opened up, and they picked up speed. The blood-spotted trail led up the slope of a ridge, then down the other side to a stream running west to east.
Spot loped ahead and disappeared out of sight.
John and Liz ran down the hill in pursuit. From far ahead came the sound of hoarse barking. Spot could bark?
They found the wolf holding two teddies at bay, circling around them and barking like a dog.
The teddy warriors stood back-to-back, brandishing their clubs at Spot, who prudently kept out of reach. The bears were swaying on their feet. One had an eye missing, and the other was gasping for breath with blood streaming down his torso.
Liz slid her bow off her shoulder. “It’s a crying shame we can’t ask them what they wanted from us.”
“They won’t want anything in a minute. Put your bow away. No need to risk your arrows.”
He walked up to the bears, steeling his heart. “Taste my spear, Hector!” he yelled and hurled his two spears one after another.