So he would have to gamble. He found a bag that was halfway torn open, giving it a little more length so that it could be swung in a wider arc and would come free without snagging into his claws. Still, the bag could also rip halfway through the toss, losing mass so that ultimately Orick might not get as long a throw as he hoped.
Orick bit the thing in a fit of frustration and carried it up to the circle in his teeth. He was dimly aware of the cheers from the females in the camp behind him, and he looked out over the field. He needed five points. He would have to beat Mangan’s toss by more than five feet in order to win the tide, and even then Orick would have to wait to see if the other contenders would best his own mark.
He had never tried throwing a bag underhand the way that Mangan had just done. The only advantage Orick might really have was that he was younger and stronger than Mangan. But Mangan, having a long reach, had thrown his pig in a long arc that Orick could not march. Which meant that he would need to hurl that pig with a sidewise toss.
Orick took his well-ripped bag back to its pile, found one that was still new. He carried it to the circle, closed his eyes, twisted a three-quarter turn, and roared in frustration as he threw with his might.
The pig sailed toward the same tree Mangan had hit, and for one moment Orick thought he would repeat the older bear’s performance, but the bag missed the tree trunk, lofted past it a few feet and tangled in the branches, then fell to the deeper grass beyond. Orick could not tell how far the pig had gone.
A dozen cubs rushed up with the measuring rods in their teeth, and a moment later they announced that Orick had beat Mangan’s mark by twelve feet. For the moment, Orick was leader in the race for Primal Bear, and roars of delight came up from all around, from males and she-bears alike, for now it marked the end of Mangan’s reign. This year, there would be a new Primal Bear.
Still, at least two other bears could possibly beat Orick, and as he walked back to the crowd, he listened to the deep cheers, and for one moment, just one moment, he wished that Gallen and Maggie could be here to see what he’d accomplished. But they were off in Clere, planning their wedding.
He looked over the crowd at old Mangan, who scowled at the ground, defeated, and Orick suddenly felt no victory.
He sniffed the delicious scent of the females in estrus, looked at their lustrous fur and the shining eyes that watched, and suddenly he knew what he had to do.
Orick turned his back on them all and walked away.
Perhaps he would win the title of Primal Bear and perhaps he wouldn’t. In either case, he wasn’t going to stick around the Salmon Fest to find out.
He marched past the crowd, into the woods. Perhaps the others thought he went into the woods only to relieve himself, but Orick trekked on up a trail through the sheltering pines where the salmon sat cooking on their skewers.
Ahead, at the top of the hill, the trail forked. One branch led north to Freeman, the other led southeast to An Cochan and beyond that to Clere where Orick’.s best friend, Gallen, would soon wed. All through this past week, Orick had imagined that after the contests he would sate his lust upon at least one female before heading home.
But suddenly he thought of Gallen’s wedding, and a longing came over him that was too painful to name. If he dirtied himself by breaking his vows of chastity—for he had taken those vows in his heart, though he never had spoken them to God or man—he wouldn’t return home with any sense of real victory.
So Orick went to the fire pits, stood in the blue-gray wood smoke, and began pulling salmon off their skewers, swallowing them hot from the fire. A full stomach was all he would take from these contests, he decided.
Farther up the hill, a feminine voice called to him. “Are you leaving already? Aren’t you going to wait to see if you’ve won?”
Orick looked up. A young she-bear lay sprawled under a tree, and before her was a large, leather-bound book. Orick realized with a start that she’d been sitting here reading while all of the others watched the game. This in itself marked her as an unusual kind of bear. Furthermore, she did not ask the question with the batting of eyes and coyness he would have expected. Instead, she asked with a tone of apathy, as if she were intrigued by his answer, but it wasn’t especially important to her.
“No, I’m not waiting. I’ve done my best, and that is all I wanted to do.” Orick studied the young thing. Her eyes looked bright, alert. He guessed that she was perhaps four years old, but rather small for her age. He hadn’t met her before, didn’t know her name.
“What about the she-bears in heat?” she asked. “They’re all drooling for you. I’ve seen the looks they give you. And ‘a she-bear in heat is the best kind to meet,’ or so I hear.”
“I’m not interested,” Orick said. He pulled another bit of salmon from a stick and swallowed, savoring its smoky flavor with bits of ash on it.
The she-bear pricked up her ears, sniffed the air as if testing for his scent. Orick sniffed back, wondering if she was in estrus. She wasn’t. So perhaps her questions were not the byproduct of some sexually induced intrigue, but were rather guided by a sense of curiosity. The she-bear was not particularly attractive. She had a dull coat of black hair with brownish tips. Her nose was petite, her paws rather overly large. Finally, she asked, “I don’t get it. You could mate with any she-bear down there. Why don’t you?”
Out of curiosity Orick sauntered over to the she-bear. She was reading from a book on how to rig sailing ships—perhaps the most useless topic a bear could study.
“I don’t know,” Orick answered honestly. “I guess I want more from she-bears than they’re willing to offer.”
She studied his eyes. “You’re that bear that runs with Gallen O’Day, aren’t you? So what is it you are after—fidelity?”
Orick hesitated to answer afraid that she would laugh at him, but something about her demeanor said that she wouldn’t. “Yes.”
She nodded. “I’ve heard of some males who want things like that,” she said. “It’s the cub in you. You still want someone to care for you, even after your mother chases you off. You’ll grow out of it.”
“Perhaps I want someone to care for—as much as I want someone to take care of me,” Orick said. “Perhaps I have something to offer.”
“Perhaps.” She nodded. “So where are you going?”
“To Clere. My human friends, Gallen and Maggie, are getting married.”
“Hmmm …” she said. “I was heading that way myself. Do you mind if I come along?”
“Only under one condition.”
“What?”
“If you tell me your name …”
“Grits,” she answered.
Orick wrinkled his nose in distaste. “That’s not much of a name,” he said, perhaps too honestly.
“I’m not much of a bear,” she answered. She flipped her book shut with her paw, then gingerly picked it up in her teeth and carried it to a red leather pack under the tree. She nuzzled the book into the pack, then stood and slipped the pack straps over her head. Within moments the pack was on, two leather containers dangling at her side when she walked on all fours, as if she were some pack mule carrying its burden.
Then they padded off up the worn trail. By late afternoon they reached Reilly Road, which led south along the coast to Clere. As they flitted beneath trees, the sun shone warmly on them, almost as if summer had returned. And each time the road crossed a stream, Orick was obliged to stop and slake his thirst. His mouth was made dry by more than the constant exercise, for he talked long with Grits about many things—about his interest in religion and her interest in the ways that ships were constructed. They talked of far lands, and of the strange rumors they’d heard of heavenly and hellish creatures walking alive and in the daylight down in County Morgan.
Orick didn’t tell Grits about his part in such matters, how he’d just returned from a journey with Gallen O’Day and learned of the vast universe beyond their small world. Although all the rumors said that Gallen O’Day w
as up to his neck in affairs with creatures from another world, and though Orick was Gallen’s best friend, Orick preferred to feign complete ignorance of the matter, hoping that Grits wouldn’t press him with questions. The poor she-bear just wouldn’t be able to comprehend such talk, and, if it frightened her, he feared that she might blather the news about willy-nilly.
So it was that they climbed down out of the tall hills and into the green rounded hills of the drumlins. By dusk they reached the village of Mack’s Landing, beside a long gray lake where geese and swans gathered out on the flat waters. Jagged clouds hung on the horizon, curtains of rain falling from them. The town itself was nothing more than a grove of old oak house-trees that sprawled at the bottom of the green slope of a long hill. The house-trees’ rust-colored leaves flapped in a small wind.
The wood smoke from the cooking fires left a pall over the glade, and two large flocks of black sheep had come down to huddle for shelter under the trees. Orick hurried his pace, hoping that he and Grits might be able to earn a meal before dusk. Yet as they neared the town, he got an odd, uneasy feeling at the pit of his stomach. He slowed.
There were travelers in town—four dozen sturdy mountain horses, so many men that some were forced to camp outside the only inn. The men wore brown leather body armor over green tunics, carried longswords and spears. He knew they were sheriffs from the northern towns, but he’d never seen so many gathered together. It could mean only one of two things: either they were chasing a huge company of bandits, or they had gathered for war.
Orick stopped, raised on his hind legs and sniffed the air. The scent told him little. He could smell leather saddles, horses, well-oiled weapons, the common odors of a camp.
“What do you think they’re up to?” Grits asked.
And Orick suddenly had a sinking feeling. “With all the stories we’ve heard in the last week of angels and demons warring openly in County Morgan, I fear that we’ve attracted some defenders.” Orick licked his lips. “Do me a favor, Grits. I’m a known companion to Gallen O’Day, but I don’t want them to know it. Call me what name you will, as long as it isn’t Orick.”
“Of course, my dear Boaz,” she whispered.
They plodded silently along the dirt road, Orick with his nose down, until they reached the camp under the trees. These were not grim soldiers, worn with experience. Most of them were younger men out for an adventure, strong and limber. One played a lute, and several of the fellows sat beside a campfire, singing drunkenly a rousing old tavern song,
“My lady fair, my lady fair,
was drunk as a duck and fat as a bear.
And if you saw her prancing there,
You’d lose your heart to my lady fair”
There was merriment in the sheriffs’ twinkling eyes, and they laughed and boasted as they gambled at dice and drank themselves silly with beer, hardly noting the presence of two bears wandering into town. One young man with long brown hair and a thin vee of a beard spotted Orick and shouted at him, “Och, why, we have strangers in our camp. Would you like to work your jaws a bit on something to eat? We’ve just boiled up a pot of stray lamb stew.”
“Stray lamb stew” was another way of saying “stolen lamb stew.” By law, a traveler could claim a stray lamb if it wasn’t with a flock and its ragged appearance made it look as if it were lost. In practice, if men traveled in a pack more than six, they tended to butcher any lamb they came across, figuring that they could intimidate the rightful owners.
Orick sniffed at the stew from outside the circle of the campfire. It was well seasoned with rosemary and wine. Bears were notorious for begging food from travelers, and were therefore not often so welcomed to camp. “Why, I thank you, good sirs,” Orick said in genuine surprise at the offer.
The lad got up from the rock where he sat, staggering from too much beer, went to the stew pot and made up two heaping bowls. He came and bent over, set the steaming bowls before Orick and Grits—then pulled them back.
“Ha!” he laughed, seeing how the bears’ mouths watered at the stew. “Not just yet. You have to earn it.”
“And how would I go about that?” Grits asked.
“With a tale,” the lad laughed. “You’ve likely heard more news out of County Morgan than we have. What tale have you? What rumor of demons? And make it straight for me!”
Orick was in no mood to humor the lads. Sheriffs or nor, this was a dangerous company of men, rowdy and full of themselves. “I’ll give you no rumor of demons,” Orick grumbled in his loudest, most belligerent voice, “for I’ve seen them, and what I have to tell isn’t the kind of idle gossip you’ve likely heard up north!”
Suddenly, the lutist stopped and over two dozen heads turned Orick’s way.
One old sheriff with a slash under his left cheek looked up and sneered, “Out with it, then. What did you see?” His tone said he was demanding an answer, not requesting it.
Orick looked at the sheriffs. They were weary from the road, and they weren’t in the mood for any slow tales. Orick licked his lips, remembering. “Two weeks ago yesterday night,” Orick said, “I was in the city of Clere, on my way north for the Salmon Fest, when the first of the sidhe appeared. It was a man and woman who came into town, late of the night, in the middle of a storm. I was begging scraps at the tables of John Mahoney, the innkeeper at Clere, when the sidhe opened the door and stepped out of that damnable rain.
“The woman was a princess of the Otherworld, more beautiful and powerful and fair than any woman who walks this earth. Oh, she had a face that an angel would envy.” Orick recalled Everynne’s face, and he let the memory of her beauty carry in his voice. Some of the men grunted in surprise at the sound, for it was obvious that Orick loved her, and the sheriffs seemed amazed that a bear would love a fairy woman, so they leaned closer. Orick decided to stretch the tale a bit, try to fill these men with the proper sense of awe. “Beside her was her guardian, an old bearded man who was stronger than any three men I’ve ever met, and swift as a bobcat. He guarded her jealously, with two swords that glowed magically. And though the rain was pelting the inn like awaterfall, neither of the two had a drop on them.”
Orick stopped a minute, gauging his audience to see if they believed that last bit about people walking dry through the rain. Some of the rough lads had their eyes popping out at his tale, and they gaped with open mouths.
“I’ve heard rumors of the sidhe coming to town, but I’ve never heard report of these two,” the old scar-faced sheriff said.
“That’s because you never heard the tale proper, from someone who was there,” Orick continued. “At first, no one quite believed what they saw. The princess sought dinner and a room for the night, and she asked to hire someone local to take her into the woods, to Geata na Chruinne, the Gate of the World.”
The sheriffs hunched nearer, and one of the younger ones muttered, “That’s where the demons were headed, too.”
“Ay,” Orick said. “Gallen O’Day, who legend says is the best of you good lawmen, happened to be in the room, and when the princess turned her eyes on him, he must have fallen under her spell—as we all did—for he agreed to guide her, never dreaming the consequences.”
At this point, Orick licked his lips. The sheriffs listened with rapt attention. He had begun to hear rumors of late, nasty tales where Gallen was named a conspirator with the sidhe. Orick couldn’t come right out and say that such tales were lies, couldn’t tell men that the Lady Everynne was no more a magical creature than any one of them, that she was just some woman from another world, trying to defeat the swarms of alien dronon that were sweeping across the galaxy. What did it matter if she carried weapons that could demolish worlds? She was still only something akin to human, and even though she had no magical abilities, she was still more marvelous and powerful than these men could comprehend. And Gallen had done right in becoming her servant and protector. But Orick could never convince these men of the truth, so he bent the tale, making it seem that Gallen had been a slave who
couldn’t control himself, and maybe that wasn’t far from the truth, for even Orick had fallen under the spell of the Lady Everynne.
“So it was that the princess sought rest and refreshment that night, for she had been running long and hard, trying to escape monsters straight out of hell.”
“You saw them?” one of the young sheriffs asked, leaning nearer and spilling a wooden cup of wine in the process. His hands were shaking.
“Aye, I saw them up close, I did,” Orick said. “And I’ll never sleep deeply again. Some of them were giants, and the biggest of you would hardly stand above their bellies. Their skin was green, and they had large orange eyes as big as plates. They were strong creatures. When they walked into town, I saw one of them kick a wood fence just in passing, and it splintered into kindling. Others had the same green skin and walked like giant dogs, on all fours, sniffing for the scent of the princess and her bodyguard. And with them was a major devil. A creature with wings the color of ale and a skin blacker than night. It had great clusters of eyes both on the front and on the back of its head, and it had feelers like a catfish’s under its jaw, and when you saw him, you knew his name: Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies.
“The demons walked into Clere just after dawn, and Father Heany confronted their master. Now Father Heany, there was a man of God. He had no fear for himself, only for his parishioners, and he rushed to block the path of the demons. And Beelzebub raised a magic wand, and a bolt of lightning flew out of it, striking Father Heany dead right there in the street, right in front of every woman and child in Clere. And when that lightning hit him, it melted the man. The flesh stripped from his bones and melted in a black puddle as if it were pudding.
“Then the demons marched on to Mahoney’s Inn and asked after the princess and her guard, but the princess must have slipped out in the night. When the demons learned that she was gone, Beelzebub flew into the air and bit John Mahoney, ripping his head off.”
Orick fell silent, and the eyes and ears of every sheriff were upon him.
The Golden Queen Page 36