In the Shadow of the Bear

by David Randall

  “If I read Clovermead’s blushes right, you kissed Sorrel’s fiancée. I’m told that makes men tetchy.”

  “True.” Lacebark glanced a little nervously at Saraband. “She’s not really my type, you know.”

  “I’m not jealous of my cousin.” Saraband giggled. “Although we clearly do have similar tastes in men. I was once rather fond of Sorrel.”

  Lacebark raised an eyebrow. “Should I be worried?”

  “Oh, hush.” Saraband kissed him again. When they were done, she dragged him toward the door. “That was many years ago. I’ll tell you all about it.”

  The library door swung shut, and Clovermead still heard Saraband laughing as she woke.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Bear-Priests Attack

  The next day the bear-priests’ catapults began to lob stones against Chandlefort’s walls. With leisurely deliberation the bear-priests got the range of the walls, and then great boulders began to crack against the parapets and the lower walls. The oncoming boulders sent the Yellowjackets sprawling. They repaired the rents in the walls as best they could with loose rubble and cobblestones. Darkness brought no respite: The catapults continued to lob stones at the walls through the night.

  Lady Cindertallow took up station at the tower on the town walls nearest the gates. She conferred with her commanders that evening, and when she was done, Clovermead brought her a late-night bottle of wine.

  “Much thanks,” said Lady Cindertallow. She sat down in a chair by a wooden table, thick with papers, which stood in the middle of the tower’s entry hall. She put her eyeglasses down on the table. “I don’t think I’ll ever put these on again. I need them to read, not to fight.” She opened the cork and offered some wine to her daughter. Clovermead shook her head. Lady Cindertallow shrugged and took a swig straight from the bottle. “That hits the spot! You chose a good vintage.” She took another swig. “I take some satisfaction from remembering how my first Chancellor swore up and down that I didn’t need to bother spending scarce money repairing the walls, since no army would ever dare assault us. ‘But what if they do?’ I asked, and he didn’t have a proper answer. So I spent the money, and now my walls are holding!” Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright. “They’ll spend their lives dearly to get inside my Chandlefort!”

  “I’m afraid that’s not much of a comfort,” said Clovermead. “Right now I’d rather figure out a way to keep us alive than to kill more bear-priests.”

  “I tried to keep you out of Chandlefort,” said Lady Cindertallow. She shrugged. “Back you came. Now we fight. Now we die.”

  Clovermead grimaced. “You have such a pleasant way of putting it. Why not say ‘Now we might die’? It has a less final air to it.” We have some hope. Sorrel’s coming back from Silverfalls with the caul. She crossed her fingers. If that dream was true.

  “I might get drunk if I put this entire bottle inside of me,” Lady Cindertallow said thoughtfully. “Such things have been known to happen. I will be disappointed if I don’t get drunk. What sort of wine leaves you sober?” She took another pull from the bottle.

  “Ha, ha,” said Clovermead. “Still, I wish you’d be a little more optimistic—”

  “‘Melisande Cindertallow will die in battle.’” Her mother’s words echoed around the tower for a moment. “That was the prophecy told about me at my birth. Word for word, so I am assured. It seems straightforward.”

  “It is.” Clovermead’s throat was suddenly dry. “How long have you known?”

  “Since I was fifteen. I was arguing with Grandmother, I don’t remember about what. I said something cruel to her, and she told me what my love of hunting and riding and swordplay would lead to. I would not believe her, but the old Abbess of Snowchapel confirmed what she had said. After that I would not believe in prophecy at all, until the time came when I had no choice. And since then I have been somewhat nervous before battles begin.”

  “How many have you fought?” Clovermead’s eyes fell. She couldn’t look her mother straight in the face.

  “Eight full-scale battles and twenty-two skirmishes,” said Lady Cindertallow. “I’ve kept count.” She clutched at the bottle, to steady her trembling hands. “Most of them were in the war the Mayor and I picked with each other. At first I thought it would be a glorious way to die. Later I thought it would be stupid to die in some pointless skirmish over land and glory. And now these last few years we have been at war with Lord Ursus, and I have had no doubt at all how much this war matters. This is not battle for myself—and if I must die, I would rather die fighting for Our Lady. Fighting for my people.” She took another swallow of wine. “So many years without Ambrosius. I’ve grown tired of waiting for that prophecy to be fulfilled.”

  “There must be a way out,” said Clovermead. She looked up again. “There must be a loophole.”

  “A way to cheat fate? Perhaps. But Master Fate is a gentleman who generally gets his way.” Lady Cindertallow sighed. “I think I will finish off this bottle tonight. And perhaps another, if I can totter to the sideboard and back. I’d like your company, but I don’t think you should see me so drunken. Away with you.”

  “If you insist,” said Clovermead. “I just might go.” Her mother barked laughter. “I’ll still keep looking for a way out.”

  “Lady bless you,” said Lady Cindertallow. She stood up, swaying, and kissed Clovermead on the cheeks. “Have yourself a good night’s rest.”

  “You too, Mother,” said Clovermead. She gave her a quick hug, and then she left the room. “Though I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep yet,” she said outside. She looked up at the waning moon in the clear night sky. “I’ll walk through the town again,” she said. She began to stride through the dark streets.

  It was a warm night. The wind was from the south, and the last chill of spring had been banished. The fields of Chandlefort were drying up, but the smell of new grass and flowering bushes wafted over the walls—stronger than ever before, for now there were no Chandlefort cooking fires or perfumes or human sweat to disguise it. The pale moonlight shone brightly enough that Clovermead could make out the colors on the buildings’ painted walls.

  “It’s never looked so beautiful,” said Clovermead out loud. Her words echoed off the streets. She smiled, and she couldn’t help but feel a little happier. “It has been beautiful, Lady, even if it has to end. And you won’t forget it, will you? Even when we’re dead and gone, you’ll still know we made this a lovely town. And you’ll know Mother loved it and fought for it, and so did both my fathers, and I’ve done my bit too. You look down on all the earth, and the way forward is dark for us, but it isn’t dark for you. I’ll try to keep that in mind, even at the worst.”

  The crescent moon shone down, and Firefly gleamed softly in the moonlight. Clovermead glanced down at the sword, and her fingers slid over every cranny of the birchwood plaques her true father had carved so long ago. She drew the sword from its sheath. There was Ambrosius as he offered his sword up to Lady Moon; there was Ambrosius as he freed Boulderbash from a steel trap. Light surged along the metal. Clovermead could feel it inside her, too, aching to be used.

  “I’m sorry, Ambrosius,” Clovermead said softly in the night. “Father.” She sheathed the sword again. “I did want to free bears, just like you, but I haven’t had much chance. And I’ve fought hard against Lord Ursus, but he’s still going to win. He’s always been winning, and all I’ve ever done is slow him down. I feel like I’ve wasted my life.

  “We’re not going to win by fighting, are we? It doesn’t matter how many bears I freeze, or how many bear-priests I kill. I’m not going to pull a rabbit out of the hat that way.” She laughed a little. “I’m not even going to sneak up on Ursus and stab your sword into his black heart. Or suddenly free a hundred bears and have them leap on the brute and tear him limb from limb. I’ve dreamed of that, and a hundred other daydreams too. That’s how it would happen in a proper story.”

  Clovermead sighed. “But it won’t happ
en that way. Chandlefort will fall, and Mother will die, and I can’t stop any of that with a sword. Mother’s right: You can’t cheat fate, can you?” The night was quiet, and Clovermead smiled wryly. “Sometimes I wish you were more talkative, Father, like me. It would make things easier. Ah, well.” She turned back to the tower by the wall. “Time for me to go to bed.”

  She dreamed that night that she walked in a field with Ambrosius on a summer morning—

  She was as tall as he was. He was a slender man in a Yellowjacket’s uniform, with light brown hair, a downy beard, and blue eyes. “Do you mind?” Clovermead asked her true father. “That I’ve wasted your powers?”

  “Your career freeing bears isn’t over,” said Ambrosius. He smiled. “You’re right, though. Your task can’t be finished by the sword.”

  “Then how?” asked Clovermead. Ambrosius shrugged. “Oh, lovely. You’re going to keep me in the dark. This isn’t a very paternal spirit on your part.”

  “I am a paternal spirit,” said Ambrosius. He chuckled. “What more do you want?”

  “I know visions are supposed to be mysterious,” said Clovermead, “but do they have to include bad puns?”

  “I know I should be a grave man,” said Ambrosius, “but somehow I can’t manage it.” More soberly, he said, “You’ll do fine, Daughter.” He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead—

  Clovermead woke to the sound of trumpets and drums as they shouted out the message Attack! Attack! Attack! Clovermead rolled out of her bed—and tripped on the blankets curled around her body and legs. Cursing, she jumped into her leather-and-steel jerkin and leggings, shoved her feet into her boots, and rushed out of the abandoned house near the town gates where she had spent the night. She tumbled down the streets, accompanied by dozens of other roused Yellowjackets. When she reached the wall, she galloped up the stairs to the parapets and looked out at the bear-priests.

  A dozen siege-towers pushed by laboring slaves rolled toward the walls in front of Clovermead; at two other spots, each a third of the way around the town, more siege-towers rolled in. Bowmen in the middle of the towers rained the parapets with arrows, while more bear-priests at the top waited to get close enough to leap over. On the ground a wave of bear-priests carrying ladders and grapnels ran toward the walls.

  “I told you they wouldn’t wait,” said Lady Cindertallow. She patted Clovermead on the shoulder, and then she was running toward the nearest siege-tower. “Don’t give them an inch,” her mother cried. Fire-arrows dipped in pitch flew from the walls, the siege-towers ignited, and some of the attackers dropped their swords and picked up buckets of sand to douse the blazing timber. The Yellowjackets readied themselves as the siege-towers touched the walls. Clovermead drew Firefly from its sheath.

  A screaming bear-priest leaped onto the parapet. Clovermead slashed him in the thigh, he staggered, and a Yellowjacket stabbed him through the chest. An arrow whipped through the Yellowjacket’s neck. Another bear-priest leaped at Clovermead; she chopped at his arms, and lost sight of him as a Yellowjacket stumbled between them. She hacked at another bear-priest in the melee. Flaming arrows whipped over her head, the siege-towers billowed with smoke, and Clovermead coughed as she fought.

  A bear-priest caught at Clovermead’s sword hand, but she punched his nose with a bear-paw and sent him reeling from her. She swept her sword after him—but he slipped, and Clovermead’s sword sliced into the elbow of a Yellowjacket beyond him. Clovermead cried out in horror. The Yellowjacket screamed and stumbled, but two more bear-priests were running at Clovermead, and she had no time to see if she could help the Yellowjacket. One of the bear-priests thrust at her head; she parried him—and the other sent his scimitar through the gap between her outstretched arm and her chest. The blade sank into the wall behind her. I should be dead, thought Clovermead, and she slashed backhand at the second bear-priest. She sliced his head open before he could pull his scimitar from the wall’s grasping mortar. As he screamed and died, she kicked the first bear-priest in the knees. He keened in agony and fell backward into the burning siege-tower. A waft of smoke blew between them, a Yellowjacket jumped onto the siege-tower after the bear-priest, and Clovermead lost sight of him. Lady, that was too close. Another bear-priest advanced with scimitar drawn, and Clovermead parried his blade with all her energy, disarmed him, and shoved him over the side of the wall. He fell wailing to the distant ground.

  The nearest siege-tower was a mass of flames, and the bear-priests on it scurried to the ground below, but now grapnels chunked into the parapet and ladders clanged against the walls. Clovermead ran to the nearest grapnel, shifted her arm to bear-shape, and wrenched the metal hook loose from the stone. Clovermead tossed it far into the air, somewhere a bear-priest screamed, and Clovermead ran to the next grapnel. A bear-priest came over the top of the wall right next to Clovermead. She spun to face him, but she was too late, and his scimitar was coming down on her shoulder—

  Lady Cindertallow ran him through. “Watch your sides, Clovermead,” she said. She drew back her sword, bloody from hilt to tip, and the dead bear-priest fell forward into the parapet. “Something you learn after eight battles. The enemy sometimes sneaks up on you.”

  “So I’ve been told,” said Clovermead. “Sometimes it’s a little hard to remember in the middle of battle. Thank you, Mother.” Lady Cindertallow nodded, and Clovermead pulled up the next grapnel while her mother protected her from the bear-priests rising over the walls. Clovermead slashed a bear-priest as her mother pushed a ladder away from the parapet, and they fought together up and down the wall, defending each other as bear-priests scrabbled onto the ramparts. A scimitar sliced shallowly along Clovermead’s calf, but with one blow she decapitated the bear-priest who had wounded her. Lady Cindertallow bled from half a dozen flesh wounds. And then, in an instant, all the bear-priests were gone.

  Clovermead gasped for breath, while her ribs shuddered. The wall was free of grapnels and ladders, and the clash of swords receded into the distance. Her mother leaned against the parapet, her face damp with sweat and drops of blood. The Yellowjackets peered over the walls as the remaining siege-towers rolled away. All along the walls lay knots of dead Yellowjackets and bear-priests. Now nuns and Yellowjacket stretcher-bearers came to pick up the wounded Yellowjackets and bring them back to the temple hospital. The unwounded Yellowjackets slumped down on the parapets and rested.

  “We drove them back, Mother,” said Clovermead at last.

  “They’ll attack again,” said Lady Cindertallow. She pointed upward at the sun. “It isn’t even noon yet.” Clovermead looked up, groaned, and looked out at the bear-priest encampment. The bear-priests were readying more siege-towers. “Grab a bite to eat,” said her mother. “It won’t be quiet for long.”

  Clovermead wolfed down she-didn’t-know-what and poured a flask of cold water over her face. The day was pleasant and mild, but it felt broiling hot in her armor. She cleaned the blood off of Firefly with a rag. Her mother talked to her about something, but Clovermead forgot just what a moment later. There were jittery Yellowjackets all around her. Some prayed to Our Lady while they waited, some played dice, and some napped while they could. All were tired: The Yellowjackets had no reserves. Every soldier was at the walls.

  Horns blared, the siege-towers rolled toward the walls again, and a host of bear-priests ran forward with more grapnels and ladders. Flaming arrows sleeted through the air, and for a moment Clovermead didn’t know if it was the first attack or the second, they were so much alike. Then the bear-priests were at the walls, Yellowjackets flung cobblestones down at them, and Clovermead drew Firefly once more.

  This assault was twice as long as the previous one, and when it was done, there was only a half hour reprieve before the third one began. Clovermead’s arms were weary, and after a while she just chopped and chopped, like a butcher at his block. Once a scimitar scraped along her left arm, and once a bear-priest knocked her skull with the hilt of his sword. A bear-priest stabbed Lady Cindertallow
in the left ankle, and she limped thereafter. Clovermead kept to her mother’s bad side, to protect her from bear-priests. Lady, let this day end, Clovermead begged as she pushed the hundredth grapnel off the parapet. They can’t go on attacking forever.

  At last the third assault subsided. Thousands of bear-priests littered the walls above and the ground below. There were hundreds of Yellowjackets dead, hundreds more were wounded, and the remainder were scarcely able to stand. The sun was low in the afternoon sky. A Yellowjacket fell to his knees by Clovermead, and his sword fell from his fingers to the stones by his side. He stared dead-eyed at nothing.

  “I think they’re done for the day,” said Lady Cindertallow. She hobbled over to Clovermead’s side and looked at the rents in her clothing and chain mail. She smiled painfully. “You’re not as good at dodging as I am.”

  “I try, but I keep dodging into swords instead of away from them. I’ll be better next time, I promise.” Clovermead wiped a trickle of blood from her cheek. “Let me help you down. You shouldn’t be walking on that ankle.”

  “All right,” said Lady Cindertallow. She put her hand on Clovermead’s shoulder, took a last look out at the bear-priests—and her face went pale. “Oh, no.”

  Clovermead looked out. The bear-priests had brought out hundreds of slaves from their camp. Emaciated and filthy, the slaves staggered forward in chains. There were Queensmarters and Linstockers and Tansyards among them, soldiers and civilians, men and women and children. They pooled onto the bare land in front of Chandlefort, and stared fearfully at the bear-priests around them.

  “What are they doing?” asked Clovermead, but the answer came as she spoke. The bear-priests drew their swords. “No,” said Clovermead, but the swords were already rising and falling. The bear-priests moved down the chains and hacked the slaves to death. The slaves tried to flee, to fight back, but they were weak and chained and helpless. The bear-priests sang as they slaughtered. The tune pulsed like blood.