by R Magnusholm
“We could fit two more buckets in there,” he said. He rushed up the ladder.
“Careful, don’t break your leg,” she called after him. “You said we had an hour. Less than fifteen minutes have passed.”
He forced himself to slow down, to relax, but the panic drove him to run all the way to the river. Why was he in such a hurry? It didn’t compute as the ursines were still far away. It took only six minutes to reach the stream. Faster if he ran part of the way. He had enough time to make four trips—maybe five. More than enough time to fill every container. They could even empty the tannin tub of its noxious brew, rinse it, and fill it up too.
So why was he so scared? Had he become a coward suddenly? No, that couldn’t be it. What bugged him was a vague premonition that the enemy was much nearer.
He filled the buckets again and headed home at a rapid pace. Liz stood with her bow on the parapet. She had already pulled in the ramp that Spot used.
She took one bucket from him, smiling tensely. “Doing well. We’ve got thirty minutes.”
They emptied the buckets, filling up the trough to the brim, and he headed after more water. Liz took up position atop the wall with her bow at the ready.
Why, oh why, didn’t I fill up that damned tub earlier, he thought as he ran. A trickle of communications from Spot indicated the bears were over two miles away, moving slowly and cautiously. So why did he feel that the enemy was almost on top of them?
Chapter 61
The Storm
As John squeezed inside the bramble enclosure with full water buckets, Liz cried a warning and lifted her bow. Its string twanged, and an arrow streaked overhead. He heard a thud. A roar of pain. He whipped his head around in time to see an ursine clutching at a feathery shaft protruding from his midriff. The brute stumbled and fell. No more than twenty feet away, a second warrior, a gnarly club raised high, dashed at John.
Liz’s arrow took him in the chest, bringing his charge to an abrupt halt. The attacker dropped his club, turned and slowly headed back to the tree line. Before he got there, he sank to his knees and toppled sideways.
Careful not to spill the precious water, John lowered the buckets to the ground and blocked the entrance to the bramble clearing by piling dry deadwood across the path with sharp tines facing outward.
At the other end of the glade, behind the hazel trees, a dry twig snapped, and ravens began cawing and swooping. A sudden thud of a falling body was followed by a groan of agony and angry roars. An enemy had tried to sneak into the enclosure through the back door and stepped into a foot trap.
John picked up the buckets and hurried to the stockade. Liz stood at the far end of the parapet, leaning out with her bow, trying to get a clear shot at whoever was attempting to get through the barriers in their blind spot.
Her bow sang. “Got one!” she yelled triumphantly.
John climbed the outer ladder, hung the water buckets on the protruding pole ends of the walkway, and picked up his bow and quiver from the weapons rack. Two dozen rocks were stored on the walkway alongside with twenty throwing darts. He scanned the woods surrounding their clearing. The first ursine shot by Liz lay where it fell. The second was crawling away. The bushes hid her third victim from view. Furtive shadows crept between the trees, but he couldn’t tell how many enemies lurked there.
“Liz, watch the front. I’ll check the back.”
“Be careful.”
“Always,” he said, climbing down the outer ladder.
He dashed to the hazels and dove under their spreading branches. In the mottled green gloom, he nocked an arrow to his bow, then advanced at a crouch through the long grass to the inner rim of their bramble atoll that he had reinforced with deadfall, staked pits, and a couple of spring traps made of bent saplings and deadly prongs.
A rustle came from beyond the brambles, and he stood up, pulling the string of his bow back. Twenty feet away, two ursines were trying to dismantle the deadwood barricade. The third one was hobbling painfully away, and the fourth lay with Liz’s arrow in its side. Still alive, it groaned feebly.
John’s arrow took the nearest enemy in the throat. The second brute ducked, as its stricken comrade stared incredulously at John, blood streaming from its open jaws. Its paws flew to its neck, and with a sickening gurgle, the monster dropped out of sight.
The remaining ursine backed away, keeping low. With a fresh arrow nocked and his bowstring drawn back, John tracked him, but the enemy managed to retreat to the trees without exposing himself to a clear shot.
When John returned to Liz, she was studying the tree line from atop the parapet.
She said, “They’re more cautious this time.”
He nodded, reckoning the ursines were waiting for reinforcements, as according to Spot, their main column was still more than a mile away, marching unhurriedly. But why did he have a feeling that the surrounding woods were full of enemies? Did that mean there was more than one band of them?
While Spot tracked one warband at the far approaches, another one had closed in around their camp. If they had struck while he and Liz slept naked in the sun, it would have been the end. John’s scalp prickled. An image of George’s tiny body smashed into red pulp in his broken crib flashed across his mind’s eye, and he suppressed a shiver.
He saw movement in the forest as shadows darted from tree to tree around the path that led to the Fleet. He peered into the woods to the left and right. Everywhere, the ursines hid behind trees, surrounding their camp.
“Why aren’t they attacking?” Liz asked.
Probably waiting for dark, he thought. “They’re scared of us.”
“They should be.”
Her voice remained steady, but there was a slight tightening of her mouth and tension lines appeared around her eyes.
As Liz kept watch, he went to their wigwam and brought out the two bundles of spare arrows—sixty in all. Together with the arrows in his and Liz’s quivers, they had exactly 118. He also gathered every half-finished arrow and throwing dart and slotted them into the weapons racks on the parapet.
He climbed down the external ladder and ran to check the blind spot at the back of their clearing behind the hazel trees. Beyond the thorny barrier of brambles, the ursines were peering at him from around the trunks. When he aimed his bow at the largest brute that seemed to be some kind of leader with its lush salt-and-pepper pelt, the ursine hid behind a thick trunk.
“Come and get me!” John yelled, shaking his bow at them. But none took up his challenge.
“Well, fuck you all!”
He crouched down out of sight and crawled back under the hazel trees. Keeping low, he returned to their stockade. With any luck, the enemy warriors might assume he was still behind the brambles, waiting to jump to his feet and shoot them. And by moving around, he created the illusion that there were more defenders.
He leaned against the external ladder and exchanged a glance with Liz. In the golden glow of the afternoon sun, her loose hair blowing in the warm breeze, she looked like a warrior queen from some movie.
He joined her atop the parapet. Then they waited.
An hour later, with no attack coming, he pulled up the outer ladder, and Liz climbed down to breastfeed their baby and prepare dinner, leaving John to watch the enemy.
Chapter 62
Gnorrk the Siege Master
When the ugly dwarf pointed his killing stick at him, Gnorrk jerked his head behind a pine trunk. He was a wise old bear, not some young hothead, careless, and eager for glory. He’d seen what those killing sticks could do, for two of his stricken warriors lay where they’d fallen right in front of him. One was stone dead, while the other still moved weakly and groaned. A feathered stick protruded from his side, apparently causing him considerable pain.
By what magic means the puny monsters made the sticks fly, Gnorrk couldn’t fathom. Maybe his shaman knew. And if he didn’t, Gnorrk would ask the shamans of the three allied clans who each sent their warbands to help him flush out the dw
arfs from the southern woods.
Gnorrk was pleased there weren’t many of those murderous creatures. So far he’d counted three. Two were guarding the strange jumble of upright logs and another was hiding behind the wall of brambles, periodically popping up to threaten his warriors with his killing stick.
The fact that just three dwarfs held his two hundred warriors at bay infuriated Gnorrk, but it couldn’t be helped. The creatures had powerful magic, and the thorny thickets and sharp deadfall surrounding their village made it impossible for the bears to charge them. The obvious solution was to wait for nightfall and clear a path through the brambles under the cover of darkness.
But what if the dwarfs could see in the dark? What if they never slept?
Only one way to find out—come back after dark and try.
Gnorrk swallowed on a dry mouth. Of course, the dwarfs slept. Everyone slept. He wouldn’t mind a nap himself. And his throat was parched. So thirsty. Not many things in life were better than a gulp of cool water on a hot day like this. And wasn’t there a nice stream nearby? Sure there was. He gazed about himself—just along this small section of the enemy fortification, dozens of Woodlanders hid behind trees, waiting for his orders.
He peered at the bramble enclosure again. How could they charge that? With his fighters entangled in the thorny vines, the dwarfs would emerge from hiding and kill them one by one with flying sticks.
He banged his club against the trunk. “Come out and fight, you cowards!”
A harsh cawing of a crow was his only answer. As it echoed mockingly among the trees, he knew what to do.
Gnorrk left two dozen warriors to watch the enemy camp and pulled back the rest.
As he slaked his thirst from the fast-flowing stream, it occurred to him that no watercourses crossed the bramble patch where the dwarfs dwelled, and indeed, he found numerous signs of the dwarfs coming to drink from this very stream. So, even if the vile creatures could see in the dark and never slept, surely they needed water. And if he kept them away from it, they’d get thirsty and come out into the open. So all he had to do was wait.
With water dripping from his muzzle, he got up and went to supervise the Woodlanders building temporary shelters. Once the team of fire-bearers brought their flaming torches from their last night’s camp, a fire would be lit by the stream, taking advantage of the huge amount of deadwood cut down by beavers. Gnorrk sat in the grass to eat a hunk of dried venison he’d brought on the trail. Other bears began foraging for roots and berries or fishing in the stream. Later, they would honor their fallen comrades by ceremoniously eating them.
The three other clans made their own camps, surrounding the dwarf village on all sides.
The four killing sticks, recovered from the stricken warriors, two of whom still clung to life, had been brought for Gnorrk’s inspection.
And what strange sticks they were. Tipped with dark-gray teeth, they had feathers attached at another end by some arcane means. He examined the feathers. Normal crow plumage. Apart from the peculiar way they adhered to the wooden shaft, there was nothing special about them.
He prodded the palm of his hand with the stick’s point thoughtfully. Sharp. Such a small thing—nothing like a heavy club or sharpened stake—but it inflicted so much damage . . .
He turned the pointy end this way and that, trying to understand where its power came from. The sharp tooth extruding from the wood glinted in the sunlight. No, not a tooth, for teeth were white, but this flake of unknown material gleamed darkly. Dried blood coated the shaft. He tried to wrench the point off, but grazed his palm instead.
That flake was cold to the touch and so much harder and heavier than wood or bone. As he’d never seen a weapon like that, at first it appeared the flake grew out of the wood like a strange bud, but then he noticed a fine binding of some fibrous material coated with pine resin that fixed it to the shaft. The craftsmanship was superb, and Gnorrk couldn’t imagine a bear being able to produce anything like it.
Black sorcery for sure. Had to be.
Chief Moorgs waddled over on his fat legs and stared at the bloodied stick in Gnorrk’s hand. “Art thou planning to attack at night?”
“Yes, no, maybe. I haven’t decided yet.”
“My warriors have certain concerns.”
Gnorrk laughed. “They’re not scared of the dark, are they?”
“No, no, of course not.”
“Good.”
“But da dwarfs . . .” Moorgs mumbled. “Dey eat fire and dey eat tigers and dey kill from afar.”
Gnorrk handed Moorgs one of the killing sticks. “Ask your shaman where its power comes from. But be careful.” He showed fresh blood smearing his palm. “It bit me.”
Moorgs handled the stick as if it were a live snake. “My shaman’s back in da village.”
“So is mine,” Gnorrk said. “Lazy, aren’t they, the shamans?”
Moorgs stared at him in confusion. “Err, not dat lazy. Mine’s jumping up and down all night, growling at da moon.”
“Mine just bangs his head against a tree and sleeps.”
They indulged in small talk for a while, comparing the habits and customs of their respective clans. Now that they had found the dwarfs’ village, they didn’t need such a grand army to besiege just three enemies. Moorgs suggested they send some of their troops home. With most of the males gone, their clan villages were left vulnerable to attacks by tigers and other clans. Gnorrk promised to consider it.
After setting pickets to watch over the enemy village and organizing three shifts of guards, most of the bears retired for the night.
Chapter 63
By Jove, it’s a Bonfire
From atop the parapet wall, John watched as twilight thickened. Under the towering fir trees, shadows pooled, inky-black and threatening. The western sky, striated with purple, gold, and magenta, loomed vast and foreboding. In the east, a band of clouds moved in, blotting out the early stars.
It promised to be a dark, starless night, ordinarily perfect for a restful sleep. Would he see another dawn? Would he bounce little George on his knee and hold Liz in his arms? Well, the palisade walls were high and strong. Beyond them lay the ring of brambles and hidden traps. And he had his bow, his axe, his spear, and his wits about him.
A new arrow he’d been working on lay in his lap. He chewed a strip of sinew, then bound it tightly to reinforce the shaft that had been split to slot in a flint flake. Now, he needed to dry out the binding, add a pine resin coating, and the arrow would be ready. There were certain advantages to living in the Stone Age, he mused. Although it took a lot of work, you could make your own ammo.
After settling the baby, Liz climbed up the inner ladder and joined him. “Do you think they’ll attack tonight?”
He put the new arrow aside, stood up, and peered under a particular fir tree where he knew their wolf hid. He couldn’t see Spot in the gloom, but he sensed the wolf looking back at him. Spot reported two dozen ursines watching the camp from all sides, and he’d found four enemy camps further back and out of sight. The bulk of the bears stayed in those camps, but although the wolf could tell where the ursines were and what they were doing, he couldn’t glean their plans.
Liz regarded the lowering clouds advancing from the east and said, “A perfect dark night for the bastards to try something.” She fell silent, before adding, “But it might be too dark for them to find their way.”
“Hmm.”
The western sky faded to a frosty green of glacier ice that John had seen on a trip to Iceland. He thought of the cold void of space, the unimaginable gulfs between the howling stars, the eternity and horrible solitude of the final dissolution. He and Liz would fight tooth and nail for their lives. They must succeed—otherwise, why had they been brought here?
Why?
He sniffed the air; something was burning. Not the fire in their hearth, for the new odor came from far away, drifting on a lazy forest breeze—and it wasn’t with his own nose he perceived it, but with Spot’
s.
A forest fire? Why should there be a forest fire? There’d been no thunder and lightning for weeks.
A light flickered among the trees, moving closer. It passed beyond a holly thicket and vanished.
“What the hell’s that?” Liz cried, her eyes reflecting the last of the dying sunset.
His chest tightened. Surely the ursines didn’t have fire. But if they did . . .
The light emerged from behind the thicket and continued to move along the stream, from north to south.
“A will-o’-wisp or something,” Liz murmured hopefully.
The light passed out of sight into the swale overgrown with junipers where the enemy had tried to ambush him last winter. A short while later, its ruddy glow reemerged, dancing among the trees near the spot where John and Liz got their water. They stared at each other in shocked silence.
“By Jove, they lit a bonfire,” Liz said slowly.
His throat tight, he nodded.
“Doesn’t mean they’re not primitive,” she said. “Humans knew fire for a million years. Homo Erectus likely used it.”
He peered at the shifting orange glow, mulling it over. Obviously, there was no reason why the ursines couldn’t use fire, except something didn’t quite gel here. He thought back to the first battle with the bears, to how they shied away from smoke. Later, a hundred-strong warband of them skedaddled, spooked by a single fire arrow launched at them. Could it be that some ursines used fire while others didn’t? Or had he and Liz witnessed a key event in ursine evolution where they discovered fire?
John yawned, exhausted despite having enjoyed a short midday nap. Amazed that his own adrenaline was not keeping him wired, he hoped that he wasn’t coming down with some bug.
Liz said, “Let me take the first watch.”
“I suppose the ursines won’t attack until full dark,” he said. “Wake me if you hear or see anything.”