In the Shadow of the Bear

by David Randall

  “These Tansyards are very peculiar,” Clovermead declared loudly. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand them properly.”

  “You farmer-folk confuse us just as much,” said Fetterlock.

  In the afternoon the clouds parted and a wan sun came out. The riders passed a low stone fort of Low Branding mercenaries, who cantered out quickly to see who the strangers were—looked at Lady Cindertallow’s letter, grunted, and returned to their stronghold. East of the fort the stone road turned into a dirt track. Here the farms were few indeed, and each had a wooden palisade around it. The farmers all were mounted, and they watched the Yellowjackets with surly suspicion. Clovermead saw that some of them had white tattoos in the shape of pikes on their foreheads.

  “Are those Tansyards?” she asked Fetterlock.

  Fetterlock snorted. “The pike is the emblem of Low Branding. These farmers ape our ways, but they are not Tansyards. The tattoo says that the farmer has killed a Tansyard. It is a new custom: The farmers did not practice it when I was young. I do not care for it. Farmers are farmers, not Tansyards, and they should not try to look like us.”

  “Sorrel wears a Yellowjacket’s uniform,” said Clovermead. “Why can’t they have tattoos?” Fetterlock did not reply. “Fetterlock?”

  “He will have to insult me if he speaks, Clovermead,” said Sorrel. “Let him be silent. He thinks it is a disgrace to see a Tansyard in this livery. I do not agree, but it took me years to convince myself that I was not shamed by a yellow jacket. And you know that I would not have put on Cindertallow livery if my Horde still lived.”

  “I don’t think it’s a disgrace,” said Clovermead. “I think it’s an honor to fight for Chandlefort, and if any Tansyard tells you otherwise, they’ll have to fight me.”

  “Well said,” said Sergeant Algere, and the other Yellowjackets rumbled approval of her words.

  “I will tell the warriors of the White Star Horde to be discreet,” said Fetterlock, after an appraising glance at Clovermead and the Yellowjackets. “At least your yellow coat brings you a loyal leader, Sorrel. That much of your choice I respect.”

  “I have no worries there, Fetterlock,” said Sorrel. He smiled at Clovermead, and she blushed with pleasure to hear his good opinion of her.

  That evening they ate barley porridge from their stores. Clovermead wrapped a blanket around her, but she was still cold. She let herself grow furrier, grow bigger, and the cold lessened. Fetterlock looked at her and he hissed in wonder. “Then the tales are true,” he said. “You are a changeling?” Clovermead nodded. “I do not know that the Elders will be pleased to know they must ally with a bear one way or the other.”

  “I’ll stay human in front of them, but I won’t lie about what I am.” Clovermead couldn’t help growling her anger for a moment, and the Yellowjackets sitting by her side, Sergeant Algere and Corporal Naquaire, hastily retreated from her. Fetterlock held his ground. “Our Lady gave the ability to turn into a bear to my true father, Ambrosius Beechsplitter, and to all his descendants. I’m a bear at Our Lady’s pleasure, I’m grateful to her for the gift, and I’ve sworn to use it to fight for Our Lady. I figure that if Our Lady gave me that gift, there’s nothing to be ashamed of about it, and I haven’t hid it since I learned where it came from. If your Elders can’t accept that, they can deal with Lord Ursus by themselves.”

  “You just have to learn how to stay out of arm’s reach when the Demoiselle gets hot-tempered and bearish, Tansyard,” said Algere. He looked at the grass he and the Corporal had crushed in their hasty retreat from Clovermead’s side, and he smiled ruefully. “Not so difficult to do, is it, Naquaire?”

  “Just a short scuttle on my arse, Sergeant,” the Corporal growled. “Begging your pardon for the language, Demoiselle. Are you in temper again?” Clovermead nodded, and the Corporal and Sergeant sidled back to their places beside her at the campfire.

  “I will inform the Horde Chief’s wife that Chandlefort’s Demoiselle is indeed a shapechanger,” said Fetterlock. “If the fact is brought up in our counsels, perhaps she will know how to mollify the Elders.”

  The next day they rode into the Harrow Moors. The Moorland was a half-submerged plain interwoven with ridges of chalky gray stone. In the valleys, shallow ponds filled with dun reeds alternated with sheets of mud covered by leafless bushes and studded with stubby thorn trees. On the ridges, sturdy brown grass just turning to green covered the land, save where swellings of stone pierced the grass coverlet. Herons and wild ducks swam among the reeds, and a brown mink appeared on the crest of a nearby hill, twitched his whiskers, and fled from the sight of the soldiers.

  “What a desolate place,” said Clovermead out loud. “Does anyone live here?” She had meant to ask Sorrel the question, but Sorrel wasn’t by her side. He had fallen back to the rear guard, and rode fifty yards behind her.

  “The Harrowmen,” said Fetterlock. He spurred his horse and came to ride by Clovermead’s side. “They live in villages set up on islands in the ponds. They hunt, they fish, they rob anyone who ventures through the Moors without a strong escort. Sometimes we hire them as guides through the Moors on our way to raid Low Branding. Sometimes the Mayor likewise prizes money from his cash-box for their aid.” He looked around the Moors. “I believe the Harrowmen find their land quite beautiful.”

  Clovermead wrinkled her nose. “No arguing with taste, I guess, but I’m glad I didn’t turn out to be the long-lost daughter of the Queen of the Harrowmen. That would have been a lot more depressing than turning out to be Demoiselle of Chandlefort.”

  “Yes, and then you would have been a were-beaver or a trout-changeling,” said Fetterlock. His eyes danced. “You would not frighten the Elders then.”

  Clovermead groaned. “I thought it was just Sorrel who mocked me, but now I find out that it’s Tansyard humor. It’s going to be a long summer on the Steppes.” And a long summer away from Mother and Father, she thought wistfully. I like being out seeing new places, even if they are damp and muddy, but I miss them already. The worst part about traveling is all the people you leave behind.

  They rode on a curving track that was barely more than a rut in the ground, and soon they were surrounded by pools and mud, reeds and grass. A thin white haze curled over the pools and obscured the travelers’ vision. As the denizens of the Moors grew used to their presence, mournful quacking filled the ponds and the rustling of small animals grew louder in the grasses. Fetterlock kept them to the thin track, sometimes orienting them by blazes scratched on rocks. As they rode deeper into the Moors, the pools grew larger and the dry land smaller. Soon they had to line up single file. Sorrel rode in the vanguard.

  They came to a large meadow of brown grass that lay amidst three large ponds—and Sorrel suddenly reined in Brown Barley. He peered at something in the grass, then swung to the ground to examine it more closely. After a minute he gestured the others to come closer. Clovermead trotted up on Auroche, Fetterlock close behind her—and she gasped in horror. Two men and a woman had been struck down, and their bodies lay sprawled on the grass. Clovermead saw great gashes all along their bodies. Their mouths were opened to scream.

  Fetterlock hopped down from his horse and looked closely at the corpses. “Harrowmen,” he said grimly. “The beadwork on their jackets says that they are from one of the southern villages. They were struck from behind. I think they were running away when they were killed.”

  “Who killed them?” asked Clovermead. Her guts were squirming and she turned away from the dead bodies. “Bear-priests?”

  “I do not think so,” said Sorrel. “I have never known them to burn their victims. Look, the grass is charred black all around the bodies, and the flesh around these cuts has been burned. There is some sort of silver ash on their wounds. I think they were struck by torches as they died. What else could make injuries like this?”

  Clovermead looked back at the bodies, and now she saw the silvery sheen all along the gashes on the dead Harrowmen. It glistened like liquid fire, eve
n in the overcast light. Clovermead swung down from Auroche and knelt by the corpses. Hesitantly, fascinated, Clovermead reached out a finger to touch the silvered flesh—”Ouch!” She drew back her finger. It stung. She looked at her fingertip: It had been charred as black as the grass around the bodies. “That silver still burns.”

  Sorrel shivered. “I would like very much to know who killed these poor people.”

  “I would like to know if the killers are still around,” said Fetterlock. He looked around at the meadow, whose emptiness suddenly seemed ominous.

  “Can we bury them?” asked Clovermead. “If we have time, we ought to.”

  Fetterlock looked at the sky. The light was dwindling and it would be dusk soon. “We might as well camp here. Let us put earth on them and ready ourselves for night.”

  The Yellowjackets buried the bodies by sunset, Algere said a few words over their graves, and then they set up camp at the opposite end of the meadow. There were no songs this night, though Bergander strummed his lute for a few minutes in a vain attempt to counter the gloom of the thickening night mists. Clovermead looked nervously back at the fresh graves and at the darkness around them. She ate in silence and quickly fell asleep. In the cloudy night, Clovermead dreamed—

  She ran in darkness and pounded through thick mud that sucked at her paws. She could not see and she raced terrifyingly blind. A bit in her mouth pulled her viciously left and right. She ached from a dozen cuts on her sides, and now a nailed whip sliced through her fur and pierced her flesh so that she howled in agony. Clovermead heard laughter. It was a familiar voice. It came from a man riding on her back.

  “I want to be free,” said Boulderbash. “You promised me. When will I be free?”—

  “Where are you?” gasped Clovermead as she woke. “Are you near? Answer me!” She listened, but there was only silence. “I will try to save you, Boulderbash,” Clovermead repeated. “Just as soon as I can find you.”

  It was gray already, nearly dawn. Clovermead rose unsteadily and put on her jacket. The old Yellowjacket Golion, unshaven and potbellied, was standing sentry; he yawned as he saluted her. Clovermead saw Sorrel fifty feet from the camp, looking into the thick fog roiling on the Moors.

  “I had bad dreams,” said Clovermead as she came up to him. “How about you?”

  “I, too,” said Sorrel. “I do not remember them, but I woke weeping.” He shivered. “In the Cyan Cross Horde, we knew that dreams hold meaning, but we also knew they are difficult to understand properly. We went to the Shaman-Mother to tell us what they meant. Even she could not tell all dreams, but she relieved us of much perplexity.”

  Sorrel smiled in sudden reminiscence. “She was kind to small children. When our parents were busy, she would take us on walks, tell us the names of plants, and say what medicines they could be used for. She told us stories, too—not the great histories of the Horde, not tales of Our Lady’s time wandering on the Steppes, but small, silly things that had happened to our fathers and our grandfathers. I learned from her that my mother once chased a hedgehog into a river, and that my great-grandfather had been terrified by a chipmunk when he was very small. Shaman-Mother had always loved such stories, even before she began to study the shaman arts, and she was glad for a chance to tell them.”

  “What about young Sorrel? Was he terrorized by a starling?” Sorrel chuckled, but said nothing. “I’ll bet there’s a story to be wormed out of you.” Clovermead looked eastward into the mists. “How far are we from the Steppes?”

  “Some twenty miles,” said Sorrel. “The Moors are sometimes narrower than that, sometimes wider. I never went through the Moors until after the Horde was destroyed. Then I fled, half-mad, only knowing that I would be in danger until I came to the far, dry place where horsemen wore yellow coats and the town walls were ruby-red. I was many days coming to Chandlefort, and I do not remember them distinctly.” The breeze turned, so it came from the east, and a scent of green grass came with it. Sorrel inhaled it longingly. “This is the first time since then that I have come this close to the Steppes.”

  A soft and distant sound carried through the Moors. Sorrel cocked his ears. “What is that?”

  Clovermead let her ears grow big and furry, and she heard water splashing. “Something’s swimming. Maybe an otter.”

  “It would have to be an animal. The Moors suck people into their depths.” A cold breeze blew through the meadow, and Sorrel shivered. “We have a tale of how Our Lady walked upon the surface of one of these ponds, to rescue a pure white foal of the Red Spike Horde trapped in the mud. The whole Horde bowed down to worship her, and a Harrowman slave was the first to kneel. When Our Lady returned the foal to dry land, she asked the Horde for a gift to recompense her. The Horde Chief said she could have anything she wanted, and she chose the Harrowman slave. She touched his shackles and they sprang open. He cried with delight and ran into the Moors, skimming lightly over the water. His former mistress could not bear to see him go free, ran after him to catch him, and sank into the mud. Our Lady did not want to rescue her. Only when the entire Horde had fallen to its knees and begged her for mercy did she return to the pond to rescue the woman. Afterward she said she would rescue no more Tansyards if they went slave-catching among the Harrowmen. Since then, we have not touched them.”

  “Our Lady only walked through Timothy Vale once, on her way to Snowchapel,” said Clovermead. “There were just a few flocks of sheep on the meadows then. She stopped for a night at a shepherd’s croft. He learned she had come from the Thirty Towns, and he asked her what they were like. She told him of the crowded cities, the wealthy princes, and the rich fields. The shepherd listened to her thoughtfully, then said, ‘That’s all well and good, but what of their sheep?’ She told him that they had shepherds, too, although none with flocks as fine as his. The shepherd smiled. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You know, I would love to see this valley white with their fleece from one side to the other, like a garden filled with flowers.’ ‘You will,’ said Our Lady, and by the time the shepherd was an old man, the Vale was solid white with lambs every spring. And it’s been that way ever since.”

  “Long may it continue that way,” said Sorrel. The distant sound had become louder, and Sorrel frowned. “That is not an otter.” Clovermead poked up her furry ears again, and now there were two sounds. Nearby, something was splashing in the pond, trying to come quickly, but slowed by the muck. Farther off there was a low pounding. It came along the grass, still very quiet, but louder and louder. Sorrel whistled loudly, three long bursts, and the Yellowjackets stirred from their sleep and staggered to their feet. “Clovermead, I think you should withdraw behind these soldiers.”

  Clovermead took a step backward—but Sorrel hadn’t moved. “What about you?”

  “I should not go,” said Sorrel. He shook his head. “Someone calls me to stay.”

  “I don’t hear any voices,” said Clovermead. Sergeant Algere and Corporal Naquaire led the Yellowjackets as they rode toward Clovermead and Sorrel, Fetterlock was leaping onto his horse, his braids untied and his hair swinging loose, and Clovermead put her hand on her sword hilt. “You don’t really think I’ll let you fight without me?”

  Sorrel smiled vexedly. “I have no such fear.” His smile faded and he looked anxiously again at the Moors. “I know that voice,” he told himself distractedly.

  “What voice?” asked Clovermead, but now she heard the splashing loud and clear. Through the haze, she saw a figure struggle through the pond. The heavier, pounding sound was approaching swiftly.

  “What’s happening?” asked Fetterlock. He had overtaken the Yellowjackets and he reached Clovermead before them. He reined in his horse and drew his broadsword, a monstrously long blade at least five feet long that looked delicate against his bulk.

  “I don’t know,” said Clovermead, and then the figures came into sight.

  A woman fled toward them through the pond. She held a large bundle in her arms, and made sure never to let it drop. Behind her four be
ar-priests came out of the mists. They wore wolf-skins, their scimitars were upraised, and each rode a bear. The bears were saddled with reins, bits, and eye-patches to blinker them in a world of night. All around them Clovermead saw with her mind’s eye the tight, enslaving crimson bonds of Ursus’ blood-net sunk into their skulls and entwined in every muscle. A cinnamon bear came first, then a pair of black bears, and finally a huge white bear.

  Boulderbash, thought Clovermead numbly. The last rider pulled on the bit in the white bear’s mouth, and men and bears came closer to the fleeing woman. Is it really you?

  It is, Clovermead heard in her head. The old bear had never sounded so weary. Have you come to free me at last?

  Yes! cried Clovermead. I’m sorry you’ve been in darkness so long.

  Rescue me now, little cub. That’s all that matters.

  “Don’t wait for them,” Sergeant Algere cried to the Yellowjackets. “Keep them away from the Demoiselle. Tansyard, will you cover my flank?” Fetterlock nodded, and the Yellowjackets started to ride around the edge of the pond to intercept the bear-priests. The woman saw them and cried out something. The words meant nothing to Clovermead, but Sorrel gaped. “She is a Tansyard,” he said. “She asks us to help her.” Now she was only fifty yards away, hip-deep in water. She had silver hair and a worn face, and held a small girl in her arms. Sorrel looked at her again and his eyes went wide.

  “Mother,” he said disbelievingly. “Can it be you?” The Tansyard woman looked at Sorrel, and she gasped in shocked recognition. Sorrel looked at the child. “Mullein?” Then he hurtled into the pond, his sword drawn, and he was yelling in Tansyard to his mother and the girl. His mother’s name was Roan, Clovermead remembered. Mullein was his baby sister. She wanted to free Boulderbash, she wanted to go with Sorrel, and she hesitated at the edge of the pond, uncertain what to do. Boulderbash’s rider pulled at the bit again, Boulderbash moaned with pain, and then the rider came into clear view.