In the Shadow of the Bear

by David Randall

  “I cannot play that role, Saraband,” Sorrel said quietly. “I am sorry.” Then he was galloping straight toward the dead bears, hunching under a shower of arrows sent by the bear-priests and riding from right to left twenty feet in front of the bears, whistling to them as he went. He circled around the dead bears, circled around all the bear-priests and Mallow, and the bears followed eagerly after him like dogs after a haunch of meat. Sorrel circled in front of the dead bears once more, the nearest bear snapped at his heels, and he fled around the castle with a stream of dead bears behind him. Jaws, bones, and shadows followed him, waiting for Brown Barley to stumble.

  “How can he risk himself so?” asked Saraband. Her eyes were fixed with horror on his fleeing figure. “I couldn’t bear to see him go,” she whispered. “I’d never sleep at night while he was away.”

  Now that their dead brothers were gone, the living bears leaped forward again with howls of delight. The bear-priests readied their scimitars and stood on their horses, waiting for them to come. Clovermead glanced at the walls of Chandlefort—Where are the Yellowjackets? Last winter they had come charging from the town gates to rout Ursus’ bear-priests just when they were most needed. We could use the help, she thought. Now’s the time to come out.

  The gates stayed shut. There were terribly few Yellowjackets on the walls. Against the distant torchlight she saw the faces of servants in ragged armor, plugging the gaps between each yellow coat. They were brave enough to hold the walls, but they would not be coming forth this time. That was too much to ask of them.

  “Do you still have Milady’s flask?” asked Clovermead. Saraband nodded. “I’ll try to distract Mallow. Wait until the way is clear and then ride like blazes for the gates. You don’t have to fight,” she added hastily. “Just ride.” Saraband hesitated and Clovermead almost yelled at her. “There isn’t anybody else.”

  “Then ride I will,” said Saraband resignedly. “I won’t fail Milady.”

  “Thank you, Cousin.” said Clovermead. She turned away from Saraband, drew her sword, and rode toward the dead man.

  Mallow sent his dark steed in a gallop toward her and raised his pale sword up high. They were hurtling toward each other, and Clovermead tried to keep straight the lessons she had learned at fight practice. Be steady, she thought. Aim for his head, his throat, his chest. She felt a terrified laugh struggling to escape from her. Slice at his other hand. You can’t kill him, but you can keep him from killing you.

  Their swords met with a shriek of metal. The force was so great that, numb as she was, Clovermead screamed with pain as her muscles wrenched. Her horse had galloped past Mallow, and Clovermead brought him up short. She gaped at her sword. It had been sheared off halfway, and the new tip was jagged splinters. She looked up at Mallow. His blade was unharmed. He laughed, almost gently. He raised his sword to salute a gallant opponent, then lowered it toward Clovermead again and charged.

  Clovermead looked behind him—and saw Saraband riding on her Phoenixian! She had left the safety of the woods behind and was galloping for the gates between Mallow and the bear-priests. She was only halfway there. “Not yet,” Clovermead whispered. “It isn’t safe yet. You fool, you’ll kill yourself! Dear Lady, don’t let Mallow see her!”

  Clovermead drew up her broken blade and charged toward the dead man once more. Sir Auroche never had his blade break in the middle of a battle, she thought crossly. Why do these things happen to me? I don’t want Mallow to see Saraband, but I don’t want him to skewer me while I’m distracting him! How do I get out of the way of his sword? Wait, I remember a trick of Sorrel’s. Clovermead let her sword drop, slipped to the side of the horse so its torso was between her and Mallow’s deadly blade, and hung desperately to the reins—but she couldn’t hold on. Her fingers came loose and she fell to the ground, but it was just as well, for Mallow’s blade had caught the Phoenixian in the head and he was already dead. His legs went forward another ten feet, then caught, and he fell to the ground. Behind him, Clovermead rolled on the earth.

  Mallow brought up his horse. “Well done, Demoiselle,” he said. “But not good enough.” He grinned, raised his sword—then, as Clovermead smiled with triumph, he looked over his shoulder to where the gates of Chandlefort had opened and Saraband rode through.

  “You’re too late,” said Clovermead. The gates began to close. “I don’t care what you do to me. Saraband has the flask and Milady is safe.”

  “No,” said Mallow. His voice throbbed with emotion. “Niece, traitress, how can you? I won’t be denied my revenge. You’ll die for this.” He turned from Clovermead and galloped toward the gates.

  “It’s no good, Mallow,” said Clovermead. She brought herself aching to her feet. “Mother will live.” The gates clanged shut.

  “You shall not keep me away!” cried Mallow. He had come to the gates. They stood massive and iron before him. “I have come back from death. I have vowed myself to Lord Ursus. No lump of metal will keep me from my vengeance.” He lifted his sword and it shone with a bitter fury, brighter than the moon and the stars. The bear-tooth at his neck gleamed in its awful light. Clovermead felt his misery, his cankered love, and his despairing rage surging through his heart. Lord Ursus drank in Mallow’s anguish and gave it back to his servant, transformed into destroying power. He had never hurt so much and he had never had such strength. Mallow brought his sword down on the gates of Chandlefort.

  “No,” Clovermead gasped. Mallow’s sword sliced a vertical gash in the gates from eight feet high down to the ground. As she watched, the sound of creaking metal filled the fields, and the gash spread to the top of the gates, fifty feet above the ground. Mallow brought his arm back for another blow, and Clovermead shifted to bear form. She began to run—her front paws ached and she could not go at top speed, but at least it was faster than a human could go. Mallow struck the gates from left to right.

  The gates screamed. The metal hinges tore off from the struts that attached them to the stone walls. Cracks spread along the frontispiece of metal. The metal shivered, wailed, and fell. The crash of metal chunks striking pavement rang in Clovermead’s ears, and there was a gaping rent fifty feet wide in Chandlefort’s walls. Inside, Clovermead saw servants and Yellowjackets in the entrance square fall back from Mallow. Saraband, at the far end of the square, turned and galloped toward the Castle.

  “Nothing on earth can stop me,” said Mallow. He kicked his dark horse in the flanks and rode through the crumbled gates of Chandlefort.

  Clovermead chased after Mallow. Bears and bear-priests were fighting nearby and somewhere a trail of dead bears was chasing Sorrel, but she had no time to think of that. She bounded over the metal wreckage and into the square, where the servants gaped at her and a Yellowjacket drew his sword against her.

  “Don’t hurt my daughter!” said Waxmelt, and he slapped down the Yellowjacket’s arm. He stumbled toward Clovermead. He was still dressed in his ill-fitting helmet and chain mail. “That is you, Clo, isn’t it?”

  Clovermead shifted quickly back to human form. “I can’t stay,” she panted. “I have to stop Mallow.”

  “Clo, he broke the gates,” Waxmelt began, then checked himself when he saw Clovermead’s weary determination. “Lady fight with you.” There was a howling behind Clovermead, Waxmelt looked through the gates, and his face dropped in horror. “Oh, no.”

  Clovermead looked back. The bear-priests had turned from their fight with the bears and were charging horseback toward the crumpled gates.

  “Can you handle them, Father?” asked Clovermead.

  “We’ll see, won’t we?” asked Waxmelt. He turned to the servants around him. “Time for us to show these Yellowjackets how we defend our town,” he cried out. “And it will be our town when this night’s work is finished. There won’t be any more talk about how we have to defer to the lords and ladies because they fight for us. We’ll have done the fighting for ourselves.” The servants cheered and rushed forward. They showed very little military discipline or
skill, but they were there. They made a ragged line among the fallen chunks of the gates. Clovermead couldn’t think of words to say. She hugged Waxmelt, kissed him on the cheek, then let him go. She was bounding off in an instant, a bear again, pursuing Mallow into the town.

  She raced up the curving main street toward the Castle. The street was empty: If anyone had been on it before, they had fled at the approach of Mallow Kite. Clovermead tried to go faster, but she could not. I need to practice these marathons, thought Clovermead, breathing hard. I’ll catch up with him before he catches Saraband. I will. I will. But she was terribly afraid she would not.

  She burst into the chapel square—and there she saw both Saraband and Mallow. Saraband was only halfway across the square, passing in front of the steps that led up to the chapel, and Mallow was close behind her and gaining. Saraband looked behind her with a face full of terror, and she swerved up the chapel steps. The crescent moon high over Chandlefort lit up the high dome of Our Lady’s chapel. The chapel’s marble steps shone lightly pink in the moonlight, as if a stain of heart’s blood suffused them. Saraband reached the top of the steps and half-fell from her saddle. She fell against the chapel doors, stumbled inside, and slammed them behind her.

  Both Mallow and Clovermead veered to follow her. Mallow galloped up the steps and only stopped for a second as his dark horse reared up and smashed open the doors with its hooves. Mallow rode into the chapel, and Clovermead was still at the bottom of the chapel steps. She bounded up them, but she couldn’t help feeling despair. He’s right, she thought. Nothing on earth can stop him.

  Clovermead leaped past the broken doors into the chapel. Inside, moonlight poured in through a great glass roundel. Near the door stood rows of pews where worshipers could listen to sermons and pray. Farther from the door a wooden pulpit carved to resemble a crescent moon rose ten feet from the ground. Tile mosaics of Our Lady’s travels through the Thirty Towns decorated the rose granite walls. In the back half of the chapel a large open space of flagstones surrounded a shallow pool whose water came piped in from the well in the square. Pewter cups lined the edge of the pool; any Chandleforter could use them to take water from the pool and drink. The water of the pool glimmered in the moonlight.

  Saraband stood before the pool. She glanced behind her, but there was no back way out of the chapel. She composed herself and stood with dignity. Mallow sat on his horse in front of her. He reached down with his free arm, tore the flask from Saraband, and crumpled the metal in his hand. He hurled the flask to the floor, then caught Saraband by the neck. “Traitress,” he spat. He lifted her up in the air and held her dangling a foot in the air, his half hand around her neck. Saraband looked him levelly in the face, without fear. He smiled and twisted, and Clovermead heard a horrible crack. Saraband crumpled, and Mallow cast her to the floor.

  Clovermead’s heart leaped with delight. Sorrel’s mine now, she thought. Then she was horror-struck at what she had thought. She tried to forget she had ever thought it, but Mallow knew. She could see it in his mocking, compassionate eyes.

  “Take her death as my gift,” said Mallow. “She’ll never trouble you again.”

  Murderer! roared Clovermead. Mallow was the murderer, not her, she would make it be Mallow, and she leaped at him with tears in her eyes.

  Mallow slapped Clovermead with the flat of his blade and sent her crashing into a pew. “A murderer at your service, Demoiselle,” he said. “I gave a friendly hand to a friend in need. Deny it, Demoiselle. Dear Clovermead, you wanted her dead.” He waited for Clovermead to protest, but she could not speak. “How well I know your heart,” he said. Then he laughed, spurred his dark horse, and galloped out of the chapel.

  “It’s not true,” said Clovermead, shifting to human. She stumbled to the girl sprawled on the floor, and she felt Saraband’s wrist. There was a faint pulse, Saraband’s chest rose and fell a very, very little, and her neck was at the wrong angle. “I swear it isn’t—” The piercing light of the crescent moon, nearly extinguished, fell on Clovermead through the roundel, and it dug at her through the layers of dead flesh around her heart. She turned away from the moonlight, but it was inside her now, setting what little blood still ran in her to boil with anguish and guilt, clawing at the bits of her that could still feel pain, and she could not lie.

  “I did want you dead, Saraband,” said Clovermead. “Oh, Lady, I still do. You’ve been kind to me, a good companion and brave to the death, you love your mother more than she deserves, you’re even funny, and I still hate you so much. Sorrel’s fallen in love with you, and I’d rather you were dead and he were miserable than to see the two of you happy together. I want you dead and I want him to dance with me and look at me the way he dances with you and looks at you. Lady help me, I was happy when Mallow broke your neck. There’s hardly anything left in me to care or love, but what there was, was happy. Mallow was right. He did what I wanted him to do. He acted as my friend.”

  A little blood trickled from Saraband’s mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” said Clovermead, and now she was weeping. “I hate you and I love Sorrel, and I am like Mallow, all eaten up with jealousy, but I don’t want to be. I want to love without hurting other people. I don’t want you dead anymore, Saraband. Mother and I, we’ve chewed up your life between us, but we’re not supposed to do that, are we? We’re supposed to protect our subjects and keep them alive. Oh, Lady, it’s too late now, but I wish I could keep you alive. You gave up everything for Mother, and I can’t stop hating you with part of my heart, but I know it’s wrong of me. You ought to live, you ought to be happy. Even if it’s with Sorrel. Lady, isn’t there anything I can do?”

  The moonlight glittered on the crumpled flask that had fallen by Saraband’s side, and Clovermead saw that it wasn’t completely destroyed. The water you have drawn up will counteract that other flask, heal any wound I have caused, Mallow had said. Clovermead grabbed at it and sloshed it gently. A little water still lay in the bottom. There was only enough for one drink.

  Sorrel doesn’t need to know, thought Clovermead. The thought was a whisper of dust and hatred that struck at her from her freezing heart. Do nothing and let her die. He’ll never know you could have saved her.

  “But you’ll know, Lady,” Clovermead whispered. She fought back against the dust that rose high in her, which tried to choke all warmth from her. “I couldn’t ever look you in the face again.”

  It won’t be your fault, said the dust, roared Lord Ursus. Clovermead recognized his voice. It was familiar. Once he had come to her through her loneliness and desolation; now he came to her through her jealousy and desire. She could never rid herself of him entirely, no matter how hard she tried. It will be mine. So little of your heart is left to strengthen you against my influence. How can you be expected to resist me?

  “Like this,” said Clovermead. She lifted Saraband’s head and brought the flask to her lips.

  Milady needs the water, Lord Ursus urged her. Saraband wanted her to live. How can you make her sacrifice be for nothing? Milady’s need is greater than hers.

  Clovermead laughed bitterly. “Milady’s need is always greater. My need will be greater too when I’m Lady Cindertallow. Maybe that’s the way Cerelune Cindertallow should think, but I’m not her and I never will be. I’m Clovermead Wickward, Saraband is my friend, and I won’t let her die. Not even if Sorrel spends the rest of his life with her. Oh, Mother, I’m so sorry.” Her dry tears flooded down her face, and what was left of her heart was howling. “I don’t know if I could even get this to you, and Saraband’s dying now.” Before she could change her mind, she poured the remaining water of the flask down Saraband’s throat.

  The pool was a sheen of silver, the flask was so bright that Clovermead couldn’t look at it, and then the whole chapel flared with blinding light. Lord Ursus roared his disappointment. For a moment Clovermead heard joyful singing pounding in her ears, and then both light and music faded. There was color on Saraband’s face again and she breathed more
strongly. Her neck was in the right position again. She smiled in dim moonlight and slept normally and healthily.

  “Thank you, Lady,” said Clovermead exhaustedly. She put the empty flask down on the chapel floor, and she wished she could put herself down next to it. She was empty too. The light was dim, she could barely feel the last trickles of sluggish warmth inside her, and she wished they were extinguished once and for all. She looked again at Saraband, and cold resignation filled her. “There’s no hope,” she whispered. “She’ll have Sorrel, and Mother will die. There’s nothing left to live for.”

  She took Saraband’s hand in hers a moment to make sure she was all right. She could feel how Saraband’s blood jumped in her veins, hot and vibrant and exuberantly alive. Clovermead let Saraband’s hand drop to the floor, squeezed it in farewell, then let it go. She turned into a bear and lumbered to her feet. I’ll get my revenge on you, Mallow, she growled. She could feel hatred for him, even in her coldness. It was the only thing she could feel now, and she clutched it close to her. There’s no life in Mother and there’s no life in me, but you won’t have a chance to enjoy that. I’ll tear you apart. I’ll send you screaming back to the grave. She started to run down the aisle. She growled again, with merciless anticipation. Mother and I will be revenged on you.

  In the waning moonlight she dashed from the chapel.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Dark World

  Clovermead could not see the stars, and the windows of the houses were flickering panels of gray in the darkness as Clovermead ran through the streets of Chandlefort toward the Castle. No one tried to stop her: A few soldiers lay dead, struck down by Mallow, and the rest had fled. The doors to the Castle hung loose on their hinges. Mallow’s steed stood in the courtyard, and Clovermead rushed past him into the Throne Room. There she saw Mallow Kite as he loped toward the far door and the corridors that led up to Lady Cindertallow’s apartments. Clovermead roared and leaped at him.