by R Magnusholm
Liz nocked an arrow to her bow. “It’s human nature.”
Well, if the ursines are lurking, I would’ve sensed them, he thought. The little birds would have gone quiet. Or the crows would’ve made a racket. He picked up the bundle of arrows, their entire stock.
“Just in case,” he replied to Liz’s worried glance.
They reached Fort Bramble in ten minutes. Birds continued to chirp and twitter, and rabbits hopped about at the far side of the clearing. Crows were squabbling over the sides of spoiled salmon. A herd of deer erupted out of the woods to the north. Although not in full flight, they appeared distressed and streamed past the bramble enclosure, heading southwest.
“I think there’s a forest fire,” he said.
They quickly climbed down into the courtyard. The leather tub was full of rainwater, and it took some effort to tip it out. Empty, it weighed little, and he lugged it to the top of the parapet without difficulty. He gazed for the last time at their wigwam, now bereft of its skin roofing, and his chest tightened. Resolutely, he turned away and started descending the external ladder.
As he hopped off, the ground trembled.
He glanced up at Liz, still atop the wall. “The ground’s shaking.”
“Earthquake?”
And then he heard angry lowing, and branches broke in the woods to the north.
An auroch bull emerged from the forest. Its head held low, it charged, flattening everything in its path. Saplings snapped under the onslaught of its mighty bulk and horns. Behind the first beast came another and yet another. The monster cows turned their heads sideways, as if to glare at John and Liz with their bloodshot eyes, and then tore the brambles with their horns as they rushed at the fort.
“Get back!” Liz cried.
George woke up and started bawling.
John climbed back hurriedly, still dragging the leather tub. Once over the parapet, he pulled the ladder up to stop it from being broken. The aurochs, however, weren’t attacking and simply trudged past. When they reached the south end of the clearing, they inclined their heads again, and without slowing, tore exit paths from the bramble thicket.
Chapter 85
Fire for Effect
The first three bulls were followed by a herd at least a hundred strong, with cows and calves in the middle, and more bulls running along the sides. They flowed in an unending stream of angry beef on both sides of the stockade, mooing eerily, their hooves thundering. Hazel bushes shook and broke and were flattened.
“Bastards!” Liz yelled, waving her bow above her head. “Leave my hazels alone.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re leaving this place.”
Her eyes wild, she glanced at him.
An auroch plowed into the reed hut that had been their first home, and later Spot’s kennel. The structure disintegrated into a pile of reeds and broken sticks.
John sniffed the air. “Definitely a forest fire.”
Liz didn’t reply, her eyes fixed upon something at the north end of the glade. John followed her gaze. An ursine with a flaming torch stood under a pine, staring at the fort.
Liz nocked an arrow, pulled the bowstring back, and let fly, the arrow arcing over the clearing. Direct hit. The enemy jumped, spun around, and dropped out of sight, the torch flying out of his paw.
An auroch slammed into the stockade, a two-ton battering ram, splintering wood, and the whole structure shook, nearly throwing John and Liz off the walkway. And still, the herd flowed past the fort, kicking up dust and destroying the last remnants of the bramble barrier. Somehow, none of them stepped into any of the foot-traps dug by the walls.
Finally, the last beast lumbered past, an old cow with a broken horn, and the ground ceased shaking. A pall of gray smoke rose from where the ursine with a torch had fallen.
“Now we know what’s been burning,” John said.
“I shot one of them, and I look forward to shooting more,” Liz spoke through gritted teeth as she scanned the tree line for more targets.
John pointed to the other side of the clearing where three torch-bearing ursines emerged from the woods. The bastards drove the herd at us, he realized. Oh, what fools we’ve been to come back! If only we sailed away while we still had a chance.
Liz’s lips were white and set in a tight line. She lifted her bow and let loose. The nearest ursine lurched and staggered off with an arrow in its shoulder. The others retreated and took cover.
A large body of the enemy surged from the woods to the north. Some carried torches, but most brought large bundles of branches that they held in front of them as shields.
John looked south and saw movement in the trees as more ursines emerged to cut off their retreat. He glanced at the rocks piled on the walkway and twenty-four throwing darts of sharpened oak resting in their brackets, which he’d forgotten about. They had their entire stock of 203 arrows with them. He allowed himself a grim smile. After spending so many months preparing their arsenal, they’d have the opportunity to put that weaponry to proper use and terminate some urso sapient scum.
George continued to cry insistently. Hungry or wet. Possibly both. Nothing they could do about it now. John considered taking him into the wigwam, but there was no time.
He ruffled the baby’s hair and nocked an arrow to his bow.
“Let them come closer,” Liz said.
“I’ll wait for a sure shot.”
At the side of the clearing where Liz had shot the first torchbearer, the smoke cloud thickened, and orange tongues of flames flickered in the tall dry grass.
When the ursines closed to within forty yards, Liz pulled the bowstring back, lining it up outside her left breast. Thwack! A warrior peering over a large sheaf of rushes received an arrow in his forehead, stumbled and fell. Her second arrow hit one of the torchbearers in the chest. She wounded another bear in the shoulder.
With a roar that echoed among the trees, the enemy continued to advance, holding bundles of branches in front of them. John shot an arrow into the tangle of furry legs. An ursine stumbled, but kept going. A reed bundle carried by one of the attackers burst into flames, and he dropped it. John shot him in the shoulder.
He aimed at the legs of another ursine, but the brute crouched suddenly behind his makeshift shield, and the arrow thudded harmlessly into it.
Liz offloaded arrow after arrow into the approaching mass. She rarely missed, and the ground behind the advancing enemy was covered with writhing bodies. Dry grass ignited by the dropped torches burned in several places, the flames spreading to smashed brambles and hazels.
When the ursines closed to within ten yards, John scored his first headshot. Before he could launch another arrow, the fastest attackers slammed into the stockade. They shook the stake-wall and bashed it with clubs. But the structure that had withstood an auroch was invulnerable to mere clubs. So far, the brutes had not found the rotten logs.
As the aurochs had not trampled the brambles that grew immediately around the enclosure, the enemy couldn’t reach the walls, apart from one side that had been kept free for access.
John laid his bow aside and picked up a rock. He leaned over the parapet and posted it into the snout of an ursine that was looking up at him. Blood spray flew into the air, and the injured warrior reeled away from the wall. Another brute stepped into a foot-trap and fell with a roar of pain, his foot impaled on a sharpened stick. An ursine that tried to clear the brambles took Liz’s arrow in the side of his head and collapsed on top of his crippled comrade.
Suddenly, furry black paws appeared on the parapet and then a snarling ursine head. John stepped forward, raising his flint axe, and smashed it into the enemy’s forehead. As he wrenched the blade free, blood splashed in a crimson arc. The stricken enemy dropped out of sight. Another pair of paws groped for purchase atop the wall. John brought the axe down. With a yowl of pain, the ursine let go and fell atop his comrades.
John picked up a throwing dart and hurled it into the writhing tangle of shaggy bodies and limbs under th
e wall. He readied another dart.
In a sling at John’s chest, tiny George screamed in terror, his face sprayed with ursine blood.
For a while, it seemed that the ursines were beaten and would retreat. A thought flashed in John’s mind—with the bramble enclosure flattened, he and Liz should be able to sneak out in the night; they were faster runners than the ungainly bipedal bears. So, they only had to hold on until dark. He prayed fervently that the enemy hadn’t discovered the Ra.
An ursine who had been clearing the brambles at the back of the stockade stepped into a pit-trap and began thrashing with a wail of agony.
Liz’s eyes gleamed as she fit another arrow. With her hair flying, and her pale face speckled with blood, she looked like an avenging angel. She let fly, and one more enemy let out a yelp of pain and collapsed.
“We’re winning,” she said casually, as if discussing the weather.
“Yes.”
He picked up another dart and pulled his arm back, ready to hurl it. The nearest ursine met his gaze and leaped forward with a defiant yell. John’s dart took him in the belly, but the enemy tore it out and launched himself at the parapet, hooking his paws over the top and heaving himself up. His comrades surged forward to boost him over the wall.
As John brought his axe down on the enemy’s head, wood splintered below. An ursine yelled and jabbered excitedly. Clubs began slamming into the rotten log. John stuck his axe under his belt and picked up a rock. He leaned over the parapet and threw the sharp-edged chunk of flint as hard as he could. It rebounded off a thick skull, shredding the enemy’s ear.
John peered down between the poles lashed together to form a walkway. The ursines were smashing and tearing the rotten log out. His heart hammered in his chest. Could the enemy break through? Removing one log gave them a ten-inch gap. Not enough for a brawny brute to squeeze through, but what if they found a way to pry the logs apart?
Liz leaned over the parapet and shot the bear who was tearing out the log. Half a dozen bodies lay immediately under that section of the wall, and the enemy had to tread on their dead and dying comrades to reach the stockade.
John heard a thump from behind. An ursine had hooked an elbow and one leg over the parapet at the back. Another heave and he’d be in. John dashed over the swaying and sagging walkway and pulled out his trusty axe once more. He unleashed a flurry of blows. Blood, gore, and fragments of bone flew into his face with each hit. The ursine, spurting blood from a severed carotid, slid down the wall.
John glanced over the parapet. Two more ursines crouched by the wall. Another writhed on the ground, holding a bleeding foot. John shook his axe at them. Behind the attackers, the charred grass smoldered, and the flames had spread into the woods where the undergrowth burned furiously.
He returned to Liz. On her side of the fort, the enemy had retreated, leaving behind a scatter of bodies. A few still moved feebly, groaning. Farther away, more ursines crouched behind their makeshift shields and glared at the fort. Whenever Liz pointed her bow at them, they stooped lower and seemed to shrink.
“Why don’t you just go away?” she shouted.
But there were scores more of ursines, and soon they surged forward once again, treading over the bodies of their comrades, slipping in the blood.
John reached for more rocks, but there were none. Only two darts remained. He was reluctant to use the precious arrows even though they had over a hundred left.
The ursines slammed into the wall, and once more tried to climb over. John sighed and grabbed his axe. As he began chopping, out of the corner of his eye he saw Liz shoot a bear who appeared over the parapet at the back. An arrow protruding from his forehead, he clung to the wall for a while, then toppled out of sight and hit the ground with a thud.
“You sure are persistent,” John muttered, wrenching the axe from another skull. A chopped off black finger was lodged in the gap between two stakes. Blood dripped down the walkway. “Why don’t you go back to your woods and steal honey from bees, or whatever you do?”
Why wouldn’t they leave him and Liz alone? Why couldn’t the damned bastards let them have just a single square mile of the forest when there were millions of square miles in the world? Why did they come to take away what little he and Liz had?
Why?
He brought his axe down again and watched another body slide down the wall to fall atop a growing pile. Was the enemy commander building a ramp out of his fallen soldiers? Surely not.
As the last enemy wave broke and receded, John stuck his bloodied axe behind his belt, picked up his bow, and nailed one of the retreating brutes in the back.
Chapter 86
The Fiery Standoff
The fire spreading through the clearing reached the ruins of the reed hut and set them alight. A pine tree that extended its branches over the hut erupted into flames and blazed, crackling, like a giant torch.
The ursines shied away from the flames. John’s mouth was parched, and his eyes watered from the pungent smoke. Liz came over to his side, lifted her bow, and shot another brute. The enemy retreated further and stayed out of range.
“Well, we’re besieged again, so let’s have a lunch break,” she said brightly. “Watch them while I feed and change George. Fortunately, we have some dried moss for his diapers.”
He untied the sling and handed the baby to her. “Can you clean his face?”
“Sure. We’ve got plenty of water.” She paused. “But we carried away most of the food.”
John waved at the dozen stricken bears sprawled under their walls. “We’re surrounded by food. Bear meat is the blue plate special.”
“Maybe later.”
John sat down and listened to the pitiful groans and choking gurgles of the dying. How callous he’d become in the past year. He held his gore-coated hands in front of him. Hmm. Not a tremor. He glanced at the tangle of heaving, bleeding bodies below. You brought it on yourselves, busters. Didn’t you?
He watched a wounded ursine emerge from behind the stockade and hobble toward the tree line. Should he expend an arrow on him? Nope, that would be a waste.
Some time later, Liz returned without George. “He’s asleep. Go down and have a drink.”
John climbed down and drank from the trough, then clambered back up the internal ladder. At the north end of the clearing, the undergrowth burned under the fir trees. The smoke haze obscuring the sky made his nose itch. His eyes felt full of grit. He peered into the trees, searching for the enemy. He spotted scores of them milling around, seemingly in confusion.
“We gave them hell,” Liz said with more than a hint of pride in her voice.
“We sure did.”
“Pity they’re out of range. I wish we could get closer to them.”
“Be careful what you wish for.” John grinned tiredly. “But I could go down to provoke them, so they come nearer.”
“Too risky.”
He eyed the darts and arrows protruding from the enemy bodies. He estimated that he’d have at least twenty seconds before the nearest ursines could reach the wall—if they charged. Enough time to clamber back and pull up the ladder. And the fastest attacker or two would get nailed by Liz. “I’ll climb down and recover some ammo.”
As he readied the ladder, an ominous rumble erupted at the north end of the clearing. The lower branches of the mature fir tree, under which Spot used to hide during the previous siege, burst into flames.
“Look at that!” Liz cried. “If that spreads . . .”
NB! Ask Sophie The hungry tongues of fire climbed up the trunk. In another heartbeat, the entire tree became a two-hundred-foot torch. Black smoke spiraled into the sky, and sparks rained down on the ursines.
***
Gnorrk watched his retreating troops in dismay. His brilliant plan had failed. Again. How could it not work?
Why?
He turned to Strongpaw, who had led the initial attack. “What do you mean they couldn’t break in? Why didn’t your warriors simply pull the logs apa
rt?”
“They can’t be pulled apart.” Strongpaw swayed on his feet, clutching at a feathered shaft protruding from his shoulder. Blood seeped between his fingers. “The logs are held together by something at the top.”
“Why didn’t you dig them out? Have your warriors forgotten how to dig?”
“No, Father.”
“Then why didn’t they?”
“Those who tried are still there, dead.” He winced. “The flying sticks and rocks . . .”
Gnorrk reached for the stick protruding from Strongpaw’s shoulder. He yanked it out and snapped it in half. “Better?”
Strongpaw opened his snout to speak, but then his eyes rolled up in his head, and his knees unhinged. He fell headlong like a falling tree.
Two young warriors crouched at Strongpaw’s side and rolled him over. “He’s alive. It’s just his shoulder.”
“Get that loser out of my sight,” Gnorrk snapped.
He watched dispassionately as the warriors grabbed Strongpaw under his arms and dragged him off.
The Sunriser chief Moorgs emerged from the smoke, dry-retching and coughing. He spotted Gnorrk and approached. “Save thyself!” he cried in his foolish dialect. “Da woods be afire.”
A cloud of dense smoke blew in their faces, and both bears cringed. Several small fires in the undergrowth had merged and were advancing on them in one unbroken wall.
Gnorrk smirked. “That’s only a little smoke.” But he moved to where the air was cleaner.
Moorgs coughed, his eyes red and streaming with tears. He nearly doubled over. “Tis too bad,” he wailed. “I lost so many warriors.”
Gnorrk laughed. “Life’s cheap, Moorgs.”
Seized by a fit of coughing, Moorgs didn’t reply.
Gnorrk said, “In my village, fifty cubs are born every spring.”
“Aye, but it takes dem seven summers to grow.”
“Be positive, Moorgs.”
“Tis easy fer thou to say dis. My eyes are burning.”