In the Shadow of the Bear

by David Randall

  “Love?”

  “Serious. Real.” Clovermead hunched into herself in embarrassment. “I—You know, I first thought I might care for him, that way, that much, the summer we were riding in the Reliquaries.”

  “I never guessed,” said Saraband. She suddenly laughed. “Though I shouldn’t be surprised. You seemed awfully angry at me then and I couldn’t quite understand why. Now I think I do.” She looked at Clovermead with sudden compassion. “You’ve felt this way that long?”

  “I don’t know,” said Clovermead. “I was awfully jealous of you, but then when you and Sorrel stopped seeing each other, it seemed like I didn’t care so much about him. Not the same way, anyway. Then I thought maybe I’d just had a stupid little-girl crush on him, and it wasn’t really l-love.” She stuttered a little as she said the word out loud for the first time. “I mean, I wasn’t even thirteen yet. And then I thought, I keep on thinking, I’m only fifteen now, and maybe it’s still just a little-girl crush. How can I tell?” She shook her head shamefacedly. “I spend hours asking myself, ‘Is it a crush or isn’t it?’ I am such a noodle-head.”

  “I see,” said Saraband. “You’ve spent hours a day for the last three years thinking about Sorrel, and wondering whether it’s just a crush.”

  Clovermead rolled her eyes. “I’m not that bad! Sometimes there are days, or weeks, when I don’t much think about him at all. But then it all comes back to me. He’s so kind and funny, he’s such a brave soldier, and he never forgets that I’m really Clovermead Wickward, and not Cerelune Cindertallow, the Demoiselle of Chandlefort. Mother and Father aren’t bad about that, and neither are you, but I’d lose my balance without Sorrel.” Clovermead blushed. “And he is so handsome! I’d be horribly frightened if he even looked at me funny, but I would very much like it if he kissed me. That would be lovely.” She looked helplessly at Saraband. “If you want to be kissed, is that being in love or just a crush?”

  “Oh, now I’m being called in as the voice of experience? I feel like an old crone.” Saraband smiled, and took Clovermead’s hands in hers. “I don’t know much more than you about the subject. All that my immense age suggests is that you don’t need to worry so much about names. Call it a crush, call it love, it doesn’t matter.”

  “That’s entirely too sensible a piece of advice. I couldn’t possibly follow it.” They both laughed. “Do you mind, Saraband? That I like him like that?”

  “Me? I don’t care.” Saraband laughed again, but now her laughter sounded a little sad. “Not much, anyway. It’s been three years. And Lady knows we were no match for each other, while you two ruffians clearly are. No, no regrets on my part, Clovermead, no jealousy.”

  “You don’t have cause to be jealous anyway,” said Clovermead. “He’s never looked at me the way he looked at you. I like to think that it’s because I’m the Demoiselle of Chandlefort, and I’m so exalted that he’s afraid to say anything, even if he does like me.” She grimaced. “But maybe, when you get right down to it, he only thinks of me as a friend.”

  “He is discreet—he always was.” Saraband smiled. “But you needn’t despair. I think I have seen him give you several admiring looks lately.”

  Clovermead’s eyes went wide, and she was blushing worse than ever. “Really?”

  Saraband hesitated. “I think so. I haven’t spent much time with him of late, you understand.” She giggled. “You’ll have plenty of opportunity to find out this summer.”

  “Don’t say that,” said Clovermead. “Now I’ll be embarrassed all the time, and I’ll make a fool of myself, and I’m going to blame you.” Then she took Saraband in her arms and hugged her. “I hope you’re right,” she whispered.

  “I do too,” said Saraband, as she hugged Clovermead back. “But don’t fret yourself. A watched Tansyard never boils.” She released Clovermead and kissed her on the cheek. “Take care of yourself out on the Steppes.”

  “And you take care of yourself here,” said Clovermead. They made their last good-byes, and then Saraband slipped from the room.

  “That wasn’t nearly as embarrassing as I’d feared,” said Clovermead. She fell into her bed, kicked off her shoes, and scrunched up the blankets about her. “Maybe saying something to Sorrel won’t be so bad either. ‘So, Sorrel, did you know I think you’re awfully handsome? And I love the way you smile. So, would you like to kiss me?’” She groaned, and pulled the blankets over her head. “No,” she said through the cloth, rather muffled, “that would be just awful. I suppose I should have read more of those sappy love poems that Saraband likes—they must have some tips on what to say to someone you like. But they’re dreadfully boring. It was all so easy in The Astrantiad—Sir Tourmaline rescued Queen Aurette single-handedly from being devoured by a sand dragon, and she just knew that he was in love with her, and of course she was rather fond of him after being rescued from the dragon, so they didn’t actually have to talk about the matter. I wonder if there are any grass dragons on the Steppes?” She started thinking about how precisely to rescue Sorrel from a grass dragon, and then she fell asleep—

  Clovermead was in the northern woods again, trapped in the same dream. Ursus stood in front of her again, in front of Boulderbash. He was dark, he was huge, and he was terrible. Blood and filth besmeared his black fur. His eyes were dark holes.

  “It is true,” said Boulderbash, in horror. “I heard, but I couldn’t believe. Until now.” She looked at her son, and more tears trickled down her fur. “What have you done to your eyes? They shone so beautifully in the moonlight—”

  “No more,” growled Ursus. Blood dripped from his mouth and he caught it in midair with his tongue. He gulped down the red liquid. “There is no moon. There is no light. There never was. Only darkness, Mother.” He chuckled. “Darkness for everyone.”

  “There was light in your eyes,” Boulderbash repeated stubbornly. “I saw it when you were born. Oh, Ursus, you were lovely.”

  “I am magnificent now,” said Ursus. He rose onto his hind legs and reared up against the sky. His claws scrabbled against the stars. When he came back on four legs, he had grown. He was twice the size of Boulderbash, and still growing. “I am power, I am pain, and I am destruction. I am killing and I am the end of light. I am the end of everything. Oh, Mother, you have given birth to a god.” He smiled. “Lord Ursus.” Blood streamed out of his teeth. It spread along the rock ledge, pouring toward Boulderbash.

  “I have given birth to a monster,” said Boulderbash, and her heart was breaking. “Lady, what did I do wrong?”

  “There is no Lady!” Ursus howled, and the roar made the mountains tremble. And the blood rose from the rock. The red liquid spun in the air, formed tendrils—and one strand lashed out to grab Boulderbash. Red threads were spinning into a net, and Boulderbash reared up in sudden fear and anger and slashed at the red tendril with her claws. Her claws bounced off the blood-net and another tendril attached itself to her. And her son laughed, cruel and mocking. “Beg for help, Mother. Ask your Lady to help you.”

  Another tendril came questing for Boulderbash, and she snapped at it with her fangs. Her teeth slid away from the red line. “Help me, Lady!” Boulderbash roared in terror. “Keep me free.” But there was no light in the darkness, no aid for her, only more tendrils attaching themselves to her limbs, her torso, her head. And somehow the tendrils were going into her, and her muscles were no longer moving at her command. Ursus moved her instead. All that was left was her brain—to see, to hear, to know what he was doing with her body. “How can you do this to your own mother?” she roared.

  “I will bring the gift of darkness to everyone,” crooned Ursus. “You are my first servant, but I will have many more. In time all bears will serve me and all humans worship me.” He laughed. “There is no hope, Mother. You will never be free.” The blood-net was tight around her now.

  “Our Lady will not leave me in darkness forever,” said Boulderbash. “I will be free.”

  Then darkness swirled down, endless darknes
s, and when it lifted, Boulderbash had grown old, and she was looking at Clovermead, Clovermead as she had been three and a half years ago. Clovermead stood by a prison cart in the Army of Low Branding and she held a bear-tooth in her hand, glowing red with blood. “Come help me,” she said to Boulderbash. “I need your strength to free Father.” There was another blur of darkness, and then Clovermead wavered back into view. “You can go free when you’re done here.”

  Clovermead was suffused with blood, Lord Ursus’ darkness covered her, but the clouds overhead parted and her eyes glowed with moonlight. It was Our Lady’s light, the light Boulderbash had seen so long ago in her infant Ursus’ eyes, and the words repeated inside of Boulderbash, a promise fulfilled at last. You can go free. You can go free.

  Clovermead faded from view. Now there was only darkness and pain. “More than three years have passed and I am still waiting,” said Boulderbash, and she was very tired. “Redeem your promise. Free me.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant,” cried Clovermead. “I just meant I’d free you then, from my own compulsion. I didn’t mean I’d free you from Ursus, too. You aren’t remembering this properly.” She gulped. “I’ve sworn to free all the bears, Boulderbash. I’ll free you when I can, with the others—”

  “You promised to free me, Clovermead,” said Boulderbash. “I heard you. Don’t tell me I dreamed it. Don’t tell me you never gave me hope.” She was crying in the darkness. “I saw the light in your eyes. Our Lady will not abandon me forever. You promised.”

  “I didn’t,” cried Clovermead. “This isn’t fair of you. You can’t expect—”

  “You promised!” Boulderbash repeated, and she roared in sorrow and in loneliness. “I heard you, changeling. Our Lady was in you.”

  “It’s not fair,” Clovermead repeated, but it was only a whisper now. Boulderbash ached so, and Clovermead tried to refuse her again, but she couldn’t. “I will free you,” she said wearily. “It won’t be just a dream. It will be real. I promise you that, in Our Lady’s name.” She sighed. “Stop weeping, Boulderbash.”

  Now Boulderbash roared with sudden joy. “I will, changeling. Thank you. I am waiting for you. Come quickly.”

  “Where are you?” asked Clovermead. “How can I free you if I don’t know where you are?”

  “Come quickly,” Boulderbash repeated. Her voice was softer now, dwindling in the darkness. “I am waiting.”

  Chapter Three

  Across the Whetstone River

  Clovermead came to the town gates at dawn the next day. She had put on her traveling outfit of black leather boots, gray woolen shirt and trousers, and an outer jacket of boiled brown leather laced with steel wire. In the square in front of the gates Fetterlock, Sorrel, and nine other Yellowjackets waited for Clovermead. The Tansyards were talking to each other quietly while the rest of the Yellowjackets said farewell to their children and their wives. High above, Yellowjackets and armed servants lined the formidably thick walls of Chandlefort. The gates themselves were the walls’ only weak point. Mallow Kite had shattered them three years ago, and so far the town blacksmiths had only welded back together the first ten feet of iron. Above the ironwork, nothing more than a palisade of wood protected Chandlefort from its enemies. The city was fortunate that Lord Ursus had been busy subduing the Thirty Towns since Mallow’s assault: Save for the odd raiding party of bear-priests, Lord Ursus had left Chandlefort in peace.

  Clovermead swung up onto Auroche and checked to make sure her true father Ambrosius’ sword was still tightly cinched to her belt—she was now tall enough to wield it comfortably. It had been broken once, but now it was whole again, and as strong and supple as a new-forged blade. Three years ago it had blazed with Our Lady’s light, and Clovermead had freed two hundred bears from Lord Ursus’ slavery—but there’d been no chance for it to shine lately. Ursus had kept his bears prudently far from Chandlefort since then. Clovermead still called it Firefly, in memory of when it had shone in the night. She patted the sword, and waved to the distant Castle, where her mother was watching from the window of her study. Then she and the Yellowjackets rode out onto the Low Branding road.

  They galloped along a highway of gray flagstones straight east toward the distant line of the Chandle Palisades. A slight rise of twisting hills hid the riders from the green fields of Chandlefort almost at once, and then they were riding across the flat Salt Heath. Knee-high thorny bushes pockmarked the brick-hard ochre earth, and a thick blanket of fine red dust whipped back and forth in the breeze. The land was empty of human beings, of animals, of everything but the occasional thornbush.

  Clovermead looked two or three times at Sorrel as they rode, to see if she could catch him being discreetly admiring of her, but he was always quite busy watching the road, or soothing Brown Barley, or drinking water from his flask. Saraband doesn’t know what she’s talking about, Clovermead decided. He spends more time looking at Brown Barley than he does at me! Clovermead’s heart twinged, but only a little. At least I know how to be just friends with Sorrel. It’ll be easier to talk with him that way.

  The morning was briskly cool and the sky a pale, clear blue. As the sun rose in the sky, it warmed the land, but not much. They stopped for a lunch of water, hard cheese, and oat bread by a cluster of teardrop-shaped pillars inscribed with the burning bee. Five Yellowjackets kept watch while the rest of them ate their lunch; halfway through lunch the watchers and the eaters changed places. The sergeant in charge of the Yellowjackets paced restlessly by the pillars when he’d finished eating; he was a lanky, fair-skinned man with graying chestnut hair. What’s his name? thought Clovermead. Oh, yes, Algere. He’s from the Lakelands. Near the horses a laughing, freckled redhead barely older than Clovermead fenced with a scowling, bald-headed corporal with a jet-black goatee who was twice his age. Sorrel sat near Clovermead, and glanced eastward as he ate.

  “Are you happy to be going back to the Steppes?” asked Clovermead, between swallows. “I would be. Chandlefort’s home for me now, but I still miss Timothy Vale awfully, and I wish I could go back there for a visit. But nobody will be taking potshots at me in Timothy Vale because they think I should have died bravely and stupidly, and I can see how that would make me less eager to pop on by.”

  “I am not afraid,” said Sorrel. He looked at the desert around him and shook his head. “Except, perhaps, of disappointment. I always talk about how much I love the green grass of the Steppes, and how much I dislike this dry land, but I have grown used to it over the years. I wonder if I will love the Steppes so much when I see them again. I wonder if I have forgotten what they are really like.”

  “I’m sure they’re wonderful. And I want you to show me what you like best about them! Anyway, you won’t be half as disappointed as I will be if it turns out that the Steppes aren’t as ravishingly beautiful as you’ve always said.”

  “You need not worry,” said Sorrel, smiling. “I am sure the Steppes are more beautiful than anything you have ever seen. It is just that they may not compare with my fond memories.” Then he sighed, and his eyes strayed eastward once more.

  Fetterlock sat, listened, and said nothing as they ate. His eyes met Clovermead’s, and he smiled and nodded. Clovermead tried to smile back at him as casually as possible.

  I don’t know what he’s hiding, Lady Cindertallow had said. I don’t believe he’s lying about the fortress going up on Bryony Hill—that fits with other reports I’ve had from my spies. I even believe he’s an emissary from the Horde Chief’s wife—that will be too easily checked for him to lie about that. But he’s keeping something important hidden. Watch for it, Clovermead. Don’t let him realize you’re suspicious, but find out what’s the truth he’s keeping hidden. I suspect it will matter a great deal.

  Do you think he’s an agent of Lord Ursus? Clovermead had asked. Is he leading us into a trap?

  I don’t think so, her mother had said. Too much of what he says has the ring of truth. Still, don’t let him lead you too close to Bryony Hill.

>   Fetterlock finished his food, wiped his mouth, and stood up. Clovermead wondered what would happen if she wrestled him in bear shape. There weren’t many humans who could tussle with a bear, but Fetterlock looked like he might be one of them.

  They rode through a thickening scrub all through the afternoon. The Heath grew more pleasant the farther they were from Chandlefort, and by day’s end they had come near to the forests before the Chandle Palisades. Birds flew in the air and small animals scurried through the trees. The freckled redhead, Habick, blew his horn and galloped after a jackrabbit, until Sergeant Algere grew annoyed and summoned him back with a ferocious whistle. He dressed Habick down with a lashing tongue, but the sparkle in the eyes of the young Yellowjacket showed he was unrepentant. The scrub turned into a hardy grass, sprouting new and green in the spring rains. They camped for the night a mile from the edge of the Heath.

  “I do like the land better here than in Chandlefort,” said Clovermead as they ate dinner around a fire. “It’s nice to see greenery that doesn’t come out of an irrigation ditch. And I can smell sheep! It’s not what I’d call perfume, but when I smell them, I think I’m back in Timothy Vale, and I feel warm and cozy. I’m glad we rode this way.”

  “It’s a fair stretch of earth, Demoiselle,” said Sergeant Algere. Tonight he sat near Clovermead, between Fetterlock and Sorrel. He tore a hunk of bread from the loaf in his left hand, and gulped it down. “And good sheep country, as you say. My da used to graze his flock here, when I was a lad. I remember when the grass was taller than I was.”

  “Back in Timothy Vale I used to scuttle through the tall grass and sneak up on the sheep,” Clovermead confided to the Sergeant. “I was heartbroken when I got too big to hide. Of course, by then I was large enough to leap ewe-back and pretend I was a knight on horseback.” She winked at Algere, and he laughed.

  “I think I have heard the end of that story, Sergeant,” said Sorrel. “She tried to rescue a maiden lamb from a dragon of a ram, but he sent the gallant knight flying and cracked her forehead. This explains many things.” The Tansyard looked at the grassland around him and smiled. “It is like the Steppes in a dry season. It reminds me of a time one very hot summer when a sudden flood had swollen the stream in our way and blocked the Horde’s wandering. My father saw that some animal had slept the night before on the grass where we pitched our tent, and he took my brother Emlets and me away from the Horde for a day, to follow its tracks. The three of us left the camp and followed the animal’s tracks all day, rustling our way through sere, yellow grass until we came to a broad hill. We climbed to its summit, and there, on a meadow very much like this one, we saw a red fox crouched down, coolly watching us, with a look on his face as if to say What took you so long?