In the Shadow of the Bear

by David Randall

  Clovermead shuddered too. “What happened to the gold sovereigns?”

  “I used them to buy Ladyrest from old Granny Mendloom. Her children had died and she wanted to become a nun at Snowchapel. She used the two sovereigns to dower herself into the convent.”

  “How lovely, Father! Mr. Snuff would gnash his teeth if he knew his money had ended up in Our Lady’s chapel.” Clovermead laughed. “Serves him right. Father, what if I find myself in a tight situation and have no choice but to deliver up the brooch to either proud Chandlefort or sinister Low Branding? To which of these warring powers do I give it?”

  “To Chandlefort,” Waxmelt said, unhesitatingly swift. “To your sharp-eyed friend Mr. Sorrel and to Lady Cindertallow and to the whole lot of them. Though it will tear me apart to give her back the Ruby. Remember that if they get hold of it, Clo. It will tear me apart.” Those words were urgent and filled with pain. “But far better them than Snuff and Low Branding.”

  Chapter Eight

  Ambush

  The dawn was cold and foggy. Trees a hundred feet away faded to shadows in the white mist. Tiny droplets of rain floated in the air and crept inside Clovermead’s hood no matter how she arranged it. The thin skeins of ice that covered the puddles on the Road cracked wetly when Clovermead stepped on them. A light, chill wind blew from the northwest.

  Midmorning they reached the Tansy Pike. It was a straight gray cobblestone road that demarcated the northern boundary between the flatlands and the hill country of Linstock. A cairn of red rubble marked its intersection with Crescent Road. A little back from the intersection a wooden inn cheerily radiated light from its windows and smoke from its chimneys. It was built in much the same style as Ladyrest, though it was larger. Inside the attached plot of fenced-in, withered grass, a black billy goat tied to a post curiously watched Clovermead and Waxmelt and bleated contentedly. Clovermead heard mist-hidden cows low in the distance.

  “Can we stay for lunch, Father?” she asked wistfully.

  Waxmelt shook his head. “I’m sorry, Clo. Snuff’s sure to stop and ask if we’ve been there.”

  They turned east on the Pike. The mist swallowed up the inn, the lowing of the cows, and all sounds but the steady clop-clop of Nubble’s hooves on the cobblestones. The wind blew colder against the three of them, and the droplets of rain turned first to sleet and then to snow. The snow melted on the ground but left a white shadow behind.

  The Pike passed through a dreary land of scrub forest, ponds, and isolated farms huddled on either side. The farms would suddenly loom up out of the mist and just as suddenly vanish into the mist behind them. Clovermead thought that the roofs were strangely flat—Evidently, she told herself, they do not fear blizzard as much as do we hardy northerners of Timothy Vale. The farmers had painted their farms white, yellow, or pale blue. Most had also painted a crescent on their doors, but a few hung bear-tooth necklaces instead. From the barns came the muffled sounds of clucking, quacking, neighing, oinking, and mooing. Guard dogs loured at Clovermead and Waxmelt from inside fences, trotted alongside as the Wickwards passed by, and growled angrily until the two travelers disappeared from sight.

  “Where is everybody?” asked Clovermead. “I thought Linstock was so full of people that you tripped over a dozen of them between the back door and the outhouse. These houses look like people are living in them, but they don’t come out. Do Linstockers hibernate like bears?”

  “Maybe they’re scared of strangers after so many years of war,” said Waxmelt. “I was in the Vale five years before I stopped being afraid when pilgrims knocked on the door.”

  A few minutes later Clovermead heard horses neigh ahead. There was one, three, a dozen of them, galloping on the Pike. “Is it Snuff?” she asked. Her legs were tensed to send her bounding into the underbrush.

  “I don’t think so. The straight route from Low Branding is up the Crescent Road. This way leads to High Branding and Ryebrew. It’s someone else.” But Waxmelt put his hand to his dagger as the troop of horses approached. Clovermead put her hand to her wooden sword too, but it didn’t make her feel much safer.

  The horsemen burst into view and grew rapidly from distant manikins to nearing giants. They wore armor made of green leather and chain links, carried lances and shields, and rode immense, furious warhorses that seemed to be another species from placid Nubble. Each of the riders’ shields bore a different escutcheon on it—a green fox, a red fish, a silver honeycomb, a pair of crossed brown axes. Each steed’s blanket had been embroidered with the same escutcheon as his rider’s shield.

  The leader reined in his horse and the other riders halted with him. “Stay for the Borderers of High Branding,” the leader cried out in a low, reedy voice. He looked the Wickwards over as they stopped obediently. Waxmelt kept his eyes to the ground, but Clovermead boldly examined the leader’s features. He was a thin man with a long face, wispy blond hair, and oiled mustachios. His expression was mild and matter-of-fact.

  “Travelers,” he said with an air of formality and flourish that was both pompous and bored, “you have entered the Purlieus of High Branding. Please state where you are from, where you are bound, and what your business is.”

  “From Ryebrew,” Waxmelt said. “Returning there from pilgrimage to Snowchapel. Sir, can you tell us how the roads are ahead?”

  “I regret to tell you that the road through the Harrow Moors is washed away,” the horseman said without any particular sympathy in his voice. “The autumn rains have been strangely fierce this year. The Pike has been an impassable mire for a month.”

  “Darkness and eclipse!” Waxmelt swore. “Are you sure there’s no way through? How are the southern Moors?”

  The horseman shrugged. “The Moors are flooded for a hundred miles. Farther south there are brigands. There will be no passage to Ryebrew till spring. Of course, the Moors are never easy to traverse in autumn. As any traveler from Ryebrew knows.” He cast a skeptical eye on the Wickwards. “You were unwise to return this late in the year.”

  “My niece fell sick in Snowchapel,” Waxmelt said. “I had to wait till she had recovered. Sir, we may need to stay awhile in High Branding. Can a visitor find work here for a few weeks?”

  “Ah,” said the horseman. “An excellent question—it is strange you do not know the answer, since you must have passed through High Branding on your way from Ryebrew to Snowchapel. Everyone who passes through High Branding knows that work is scarce in the town. We are a byword for generous hospitality, travelers, and we have opened our city these twelve years to refugees from all Linstock. There are far more people than jobs in High Branding. We are charitable, travelers, but it has become necessary to reserve all new jobs for our native citizens. It has even become necessary to close our borders against those unfortunates who flock to High Branding with hopes of feather beds to sleep on and gold coins to spend.” The horseman smiled thinly. “I regret to inform you, sir, that travelers suspected of vagrant intent are not allowed inside the Purlieus of High Branding.” The troop of horsemen drew closer to the Wickwards.

  “Can I prove to you that we’re not vagrants?” Waxmelt asked, holding his hands flat and open, standing very still.

  “Entry fee to the Borderers is a shilling from each traveler,” said the horseman. “You must also prove possession of at least one sovereign per traveler.”

  “That’s an outrage!” Clovermead burst out. “No one has that much money.”

  “You’d be surprised, miss,” said the horseman. “Some do. They are honored guests at High Branding. Sir, will you be able to be our guest?” Waxmelt shook his head. “Alas, sir. You’ll be returning westward, then?” The horseman extended his lance past Waxmelt’s forehead and pointed back toward Crescent Road.

  “So it seems.” Waxmelt bowed low. “Good fortune attend you, Borderer.”

  “And you, refugee,” said the horseman. He waited until Waxmelt had turned Nubble around and started the pony away from High Branding. Only when the Wickwards had left the tro
op far behind did Clovermead hear hoofbeats and halloing and a jangling diminishing to the east.

  “They are coldhearted rascals,” said Clovermead. “An opossum knows more of courtesy and welcome. And they’re certainly not knightly! Sir Auroche in the Heptameron shares his last food with a hideous crone, though of course she turns out to be a beauteous maiden the next morning. And his boon companion Sir Plateous welcomes seven snoring merchants into his forest cave, and they all stink of rancid horse grease, but Sir Plateous never complains, though he does pray to Our Lady to make them snore less, and she grants his wishes. Even you, Father, you let that smelly pilgrim from Selcouth stay at Ladyrest for a week last summer, and you didn’t charge him a penny. I’d like to tell High Branding what I think of their nasty little city! I . . . I . . . I’d blow the Tansy Horn and down would come their walls, bzam, blam, boom! And that would show that bored Borderer what is what.”

  “‘Even you, Father,’” Waxmelt repeated ruefully. “You think more of your blessed Sir Auroche than you do of your own father. This is a lesson to me: I should never have let you learn to read.”

  “You cannot mend what is broken, Father, as you said when you saw me with that shattered tureen of candied apples. I believe it was then that you agreed to let me learn my letters, so as to keep me out of mischief. You were very wise, Father. I didn’t break nearly as many dishes afterward. Should we try to slip around these horsey knaves and scuttle through the Purlieus of High Branding? We don’t have to stay on the Pike.”

  “Too dangerous. The land around here doesn’t have enough places to hide—it’s too flat and open. And those Borderers won’t just threaten us if they catch us again.” Waxmelt sighed. “I suppose we must take the Pike past Chandlefort after all. Lady preserve us.”

  The snow fell harder as Waxmelt and Clovermead returned west on the Pike. Great, shuddering northern gusts chilled the air and sliced through their coats as the pale sun fell before them. Now the farms were not even shadows by the roadside, but only hints of color in the swirling white. The animals were quiet in their warm barn stalls. A lone dog growled at Waxmelt and Clovermead as they passed, but low and dispirited. Nubble groaned in the harsh cold.

  “I do hate retracing our steps,” said Clovermead as they ate a late lunch by the roadside. “I wasn’t worried before, but now I fear an ironical coincidence. Do you suppose Mr. Snuff will have arrived with his henchmen at the crossroads? I see him now, searching for us with villainous intensity. He will bare a hideous grin and his eyes will light up with gratified malice as he sees his victims approach. He will laugh so poisonous spittle flies from his jaws. I can see it distinctly. If you want, Father, I can describe his features in even greater detail.”

  “Please, Clovermead. Your poor father is eating. Don’t upset his stomach.” He tousled her hair and looked anxiously at the soft whiteness underfoot. “We were slow going through the Chaffen Hills and we’ve lost time today, but I think we’ve outrun him. I’m more worried about the snow. Snuff might see our tracks and follow us. If he finds us—if he does, I’ll try to hold him. You run and don’t come back for me, don’t try to save me. Go down to Queensmart by yourself, or to Chandlefort as a last resort. I’ll meet you if I can.”

  “I absolutely refuse,” said Clovermead. “I’ll stand and fight. I’m not afraid. How could I leave you?”

  Waxmelt laughed. “You’ve never been frightened in all your life, Clo. I know that. But sometimes it’s no shame to run.” He looked at Clovermead as she stood there, defiant and uncertain. “Don’t any of your books tell you that?”

  “No,” said Clovermead sullenly. “But I’ll run if you say I have to. I’ll leave you.” But behind her back she crossed her fingers.

  “Good,” said Waxmelt. He opened his purse and counted out half his coins to Clovermead. Clovermead stuffed them down her stockings. “Don’t go running to spend that. You’ll need it all if you want to get to Queensmart.”

  “Couldn’t I go back to Timothy Vale?” Clovermead asked wistfully.

  “Too dangerous, Clo,” said Waxmelt. “People say that bear-priests can command bears, and there are bears all through the Reliquaries. By now Snuff must have sent word to them to watch the Vale. We don’t dare go home.”

  They passed the Crescent Road again a few minutes before dark. The Wickwards squinted southward and saw only whiteness falling. The snow was already three inches deep. The fog was thicker than ever. Now houses only fifty feet away vanished in the haze.

  The Pike angled southwest through a wilder country of undulating hills sparsely clothed by scrawny trees, fallen brown leaves, and haggard bracken. The farms grew more scattered here—a few had been burned and abandoned, and the rest were poorer and smaller than the farms in High Branding’s Purlieus. These homesteads were defended by stone walls.

  They walked another hour before the last light faded. Then Waxmelt turned off the Pike, walked half a mile into the gullied bracken, and found a rock-strewn hollow formed by fallen trees. He cleared the snow from the ground and lit a fire behind a broad tree trunk, where it couldn’t be seen from the road. Waxmelt had Clovermead snap off a pine branch and whisk snow over their footprints all the way back to the Pike. She enjoyed spreading the snow so as to fill the faintest dimples their boots had left behind. When she returned, she found that her father had turned a blanket into an impromptu roof and had made ready another stew. The taste was drearily familiar, but she wolfed it down.

  The moon shone terribly bright in her dreams, glaring warning and danger, and Clovermead woke in the velvet darkness of the late night. Waxmelt huddled underneath his blanket, snoring and shivering close by the fire, his face careworn and exhausted. The fire had burned low and the fog was thick as coal smoke, dank and hungry to swallow the last heat of the burning logs. All around Clovermead snow fell out of the darkness into a sphere of dim light.

  Something scuffled, something cracked a branch, something hissed, and something hooting pretended to be an owl. There were many somethings padding and scratching and arranging themselves around the Wickwards. They shuffled and slunk, never fell silent, and never went away. The noise was a throb and an itch. The tooth on her neck bit at her, but sleep numbed its insistent, sharp alarm. Languidly, Clovermead pinched her arm. The pain was dull and a long time coming. I’m still dreaming, she told herself. This is a fear-dream, nothing real. When I cry out, Daddy will tell me not to worry and to go back to sleep.

  Clovermead heard a growling laugh. It bit into her sharper than frost and her tooth was a bonfire on her chest. She was wide awake and she was paralyzed with fear. Cold pumped out from her chest to her guts and lungs and head and limbs. Her fingers were nerveless slabs of flesh.

  A bear limped into the firelight. Old Bonegrinder was mangy and scarred from many battles. His left ear had been torn off and his small yellow eyes gleamed nastily. He grinned at Clovermead, saying, I have you now, little prey. You’ve given us a hard chase. Clovermead smelled rotting meat on his breath.

  Bonegrinder cast an enormous shadow that pierced the white mist and made it bleed darkness. The shadow-bear scraped at boulders and bit trees, pacing back and forth on yet darker hills. The shadow moved when Bonegrinder was still, and roared silently. A black and oozing trail followed his progress.

  Bonegrinder drew closer to Clovermead. His back left leg was twisted out of kilter. His tongue ran across his blood-lined yellow teeth. Clovermead followed his tongue with her eyes, but she could not move, could not cry out, could only whimper deep in her throat. She despised herself for her helplessness.

  Waxmelt tossed in his sleep, frowning, and Bonegrinder’s ears twitched. He snarled and extended his three-inch claws. Clovermead screamed, but no sound came out of her mouth. She ran, but she lay quiet and still. Waxmelt jerked the blanket higher over his face. Bonegrinder’s teeth were notched and splintered, and some were stumps. His melon-large muscles rippled under his scabby hide. I’m hungry, he said, and he leapt and grew huge and the air whistled past
his enormous, nearing jaws—

  And a shadowy figure at the edge of the clearing whipped a knife through the darkness to slam into Bonegrinder’s eye and pierce his brain. The bear howled with surprise and indignation, slumped in midair, and fell whimpering between Waxmelt and the fire. Waxmelt jerked awake and fumbled for his dagger, but the bear was already dead. The bear’s shadow growled contempt for his unlucky servant and melted into the outer darkness. Clovermead felt Bonegrinder die and she cried out loud at last. The corpse began to smoke and burn as sparks from the logs set its fur ablaze. The somethings around them were yelling and clattering and moving, and the deadening ice was gone from Clovermead. She sprang to her feet. All around them the somethings had become visible, turned into neighing horses, cursing horsemen, and loping bears. They rushed at the Wickwards from all sides.

  “Run!” yelled Waxmelt. He charged at the nearest horseman, who swept at Waxmelt with a cruelly sharp sword and hit a low-hanging branch. From the darkness the shadowy figure hurled a handful of pebbles at the horseman’s head. While the horseman cursed and raised his hands to cover his face, Waxmelt hacked at the horse’s belly. The creature shrieked, tossed its terrified rider high into the air, and crumpled to the ground. The horseman landed heavily on a protruding boulder, and Clovermead heard his neck snap. Waxmelt gulped and looked nauseous, but he turned to face the next horseman.

  Clovermead seized a long branch, thrust it into the fire, and waved the burning brand at the three bears hurtling toward her. Nuthoarder, Rootswallow, and Comblick were smaller than Bonegrinder and not half so fierce. They whimpered at the light and fell back uncertainly.