In the Shadow of the Bear

by David Randall

  “Cut those murderers down,” Lady Cindertallow screamed at some bowmen near her. “Quickly, by Our Lady.”

  “They’re among the slaves,” said the bowmen’s sergeant uncertainly. “We’ll kill them, too.”

  “They’ll die anyway.” Angry tears cut down Lady Cindertallow’s cheeks. “I won’t just watch while they’re butchered. Shoot.”

  The Yellowjackets sent a hissing cloud of arrows out toward the bear-priests, but the range was too far. A few arrows struck bear-priests, a few others struck slaves, but the massacre went on.

  With each death the bear-priests’ song throbbed with more power. Its music shivered over the land, and the sun grew pale. Blood drained from the slaves’ corpses—and floated in the air. A bloody mist thickened over their bodies. Then the droplets began to gather, to condense, to rise into the air in bloody ropes. The bear-priests’ chant grew loud with triumph, and jet-black appeared from nowhere and mixed with scarlet blood. The two colors smeared a portrait of a pair of jaws as high as the treetops. Its teeth clashed together. Bone-white claws tore the earth—

  Ursus came. He was a shadow, a bear, darkness itself, and the sight of him was more terrible than in Clovermead’s dreams. He was no portrait, but solid: flesh and fur and blood. He roared, and a cold, foul gale shivered against the walls. Clovermead braced herself against the pressure of the wind. Then Ursus reared up, higher than Chandlefort’s walls, and his paws smote the parapets. The stone crumbled beneath the blow of his paws, and the Yellowjackets caught beneath them fell screaming to the ground below. The Yellowjackets near Ursus retreated from him as he widened and deepened the gash in the walls. Ursus roared again, and he fell back from the walls. He snuffled among the blood-drained corpses of the slaves and bent down to consume them. He shrank now; he was only fifty feet long, but he did not vanish. His shadow stretched to the broken walls.

  The sun was pale and drained of warmth. The bear-priests howled their joy, and they rushed toward the breach. Now, at last, the waiting bears came with them. “I’ll try to stop the bears,” said Clovermead. “Stay here. You can’t fight on that ankle.”

  “Wait,” said Lady Cindertallow. She clutched at Clovermead’s hand, and her face had gone as pale as the drained sun. “Clovermead—”

  “No time,” said Clovermead. I won’t say good-bye. She squeezed her mother’s hand for a moment—then let her go. She rushed down from the parapet toward the gaping hole in the walls.

  A cinnamon bear ravaged a soldier in her jaws. Clovermead drew Firefly, and the sword flared with light. I’m sorry, thought Clovermead. I can’t free you. The light froze the bear in place, and Clovermead slashed her in the neck. Blood spurted, and the bear yowled with pain and fell to the ground. Clovermead faced a black bear—and he was terrified of her, but Ursus’ blood-net was tight on him and he couldn’t retreat. Helpless, he leaped at Clovermead. I’m sorry, Clovermead repeated, and she slashed the black bear with light, and with cold, murdering steel. He died, and Clovermead fought a third bear. Desperately she tried to hold the breach.

  Beside her the Yellowjackets fought against the bear-priests. Clovermead saw Lady Cindertallow hobble to the front lines. Idiot! she moaned inside, and then her mother was fighting by her side once more, with a fury that made her seem a young woman again. Her sword was a bolt of lightning, a scythe, and bear-priests fell like wheat before her. She pushed the bear-priests back from the breach, and the Yellowjackets followed her with a yell of hope.

  Boulderbash appeared in the breach. The great white bear leaped past the crumpled walls and idly smashed a Yellowjacket to the ground. She looked around—saw Clovermead, and snarled with recognition, fury, and delight. Hello, traitor, she called out, and she flew at Clovermead. I shan’t be merciful to you this time. Clovermead brought up Firefly. Light flared, but to no avail. Boulderbash served her son of her own free will. The steel sank into Boulderbash’s front leg, Boulderbash’s paws smashed into Clovermead, and Clovermead spun to the ground. You’re no dream this time, said Boulderbash. I can fight solid flesh. Firefly fell from Clovermead’s hand to the rubble beside her. Boulderbash stepped over to Firefly—and hesitated a moment. She looked at the plaque that showed the boy Ambrosius as he freed Boulderbash from the steel trap. He was kind, she muttered—and then she growled in anger. His daughter is not. She dipped her jaws, grabbed the blade between her teeth, and bit down. Clovermead shrieked as Firefly snapped into a dozen pieces. The birchwood plaques came loose, and Boulderbash stepped on them. They splintered under her weight.

  An unstoppable torrent of bears streamed in behind Boulderbash, and the Yellowjackets sagged backward. Lady Cindertallow tried to rally them, and whirled her sword against a pair of snarling white bears. Clovermead struggled to her feet. She sprouted golden fur, her claws and teeth grew long, and she leaped at Boulderbash—

  Boulderbash smashed her to the ground. Clovermead’s chin crunched against a rock. You’ve lost, changeling, the white bear growled. Chandlefort will fall.

  Agonizing pain swept through Clovermead and she could not move. She saw Lady Cindertallow surrounded by bears. The Yellowjackets fell back from the broken wall, fled to the Castle, and left Lady Cindertallow behind. Clovermead’s mother turned from side to side, struck and struck again against a circle of snapping bears—and an old black bear grabbed her mother’s sword arm in her jaws and bit down. Lady Cindertallow screamed, and dropped her sword.

  “Mother,” Clovermead screamed, whispered—she couldn’t tell. The bears swept up over her mother, and she fell beneath a wave of fur and teeth.

  She’s dead, said the white bear. Then she bashed Clovermead’s head.

  Chapter Twenty

  Deluge

  Clovermead sat in a cave next to a black bear. It was Ursus. He sat at the edge of the cave and watched the autumn rain fall outside. He was a young bear now—full-grown, larger than his mother, but barely an adult. He watched the drops disappear into black puddles. Brown leaves from the trees swirled in the slick water, dull silhouettes in the starlight. It was a cold, wet night, and he shivered despite his thick fur.

  “Come away from there,” Boulderbash muttered sleepily. She had gorged herself the last few days, and now she was curled up toward the back of the cave. “It’s just the miserable tail end of autumn out there. Come sleep by my side until spring, little one.”

  “I’m not little anymore, Mother,” said Ursus. He ground his teeth in annoyance. “You know that.”

  “You’ll always be my little one,” said Boulderbash lazily, affectionately. She yawned. “What do you see out there that’s so fascinating?”

  “Black water,” said Ursus. He shivered. “Sometimes I get scared before we go to sleep for the winter. I think the water will keep rising. I think it’ll flood our cave and drown us in our sleep. Or snow will cover us and suffocate us, or humans will find us while we sleep and slay us. What if we die before we wake?”

  “Our Lady will not forsake us,” said Boulderbash. She groaned, staggered to her feet, and ambled to Ursus’ side. She nuzzled his cheek with her mouth. “You’re in an odd mood, little one! You might as well be afraid when we go to sleep at night in the summer. It’s really no different from going to sleep in winter.” Ursus said nothing, only stared out at the falling rain. Boulderbash sniffed at the downpour and drew back again. “Ugh! I’ll leave you here. Come join me when you’re ready to sleep.”

  “I will, Mother,” said Ursus. He rubbed his cheek against hers. “I’ll join you in a little while.”

  “Don’t be too long,” said Boulderbash. She yawned again. “It’s cold when you sleep by yourself for the winter.” She ambled away from the rain, back to the rear of the cave, and curled up again. “Good night, Ursus,” she said.

  “Good night, Mother,” said Ursus. Boulderbash was already snoring, and Ursus chuffed with good humor as he saw her fur rise and fall on her ribs. “Lady give you good dreams,” he growled softly. “Dreams,” he muttered more softly, and he looked out agai
n at the falling rain. “Nightmares of nothingness. I don’t like sleeping, Mother. I’m always afraid. You don’t know what it’s like.” He looked up at the clouds. For a moment they thinned, and he saw the moon, hazily visible. “You know,” he said, and anger flickered in him. “You set me here. You girt me with black water, you made me afraid, and you gave me no way out. I wish—” He dropped his head. “I am ashamed of what I wish, Lady.”

  Something small and wet staggered into the cave. The bedraggled thing shook itself. It was a small gray-furred mountain goat. It was very thin, with ribs bulging through its coat. It looked warily at Ursus, and Ursus sat back, hunkered down. “I won’t harm you,” he said. “I’ve eaten for winter. Stay warm, stay dry.” The goat stared at him blankly. Ursus laughed softly, and closed his eyes.

  The goat stared at him, stared at Boulderbash—stared at the pouring rain outside. It shivered, and then it sat down, a careful distance away from the bears. It rubbed its damp locks of fur and sighed, and then it, too, fell asleep. After a while it began to snore.

  Ursus’ eyes opened. He stared at the goat. He got to his feet, padded softly over, and loomed over the small creature. His great paws straddled the goat’s wet body. His jaws hung over its head. He looked at every inch of the sleeping beast. He looked out at the rain, at the dim moonlight that wavered through the sheets of water. He looked down at the goat—and it opened its eyes. It was very quiet as it saw Ursus over him. It blinked, and its eyes were thick with fear.

  Ursus bent down, like lightning, and his jaws crushed the goat’s throat. Blood spurted into his gullet. The goat tried to scream, but no sound escaped its crumpled windpipe. Boulderbash slept. Ursus let the dying beast fall to the floor, and he saw the fear in its eyes. Blackness swallowed up the goat, but Ursus was alive, and he wasn’t afraid anymore. I am the cause of fear, he thought, with delight, with triumph, with relief. I am the cause of death. I am the servant of fear and death, and they cannot touch me.

  The goat died. And as it died, in fear and blood and pain, Ursus felt a surge of power in him. For a second, black lightning flared from Ursus’ eyes.

  “I liked the feel of that,” said Ursus. He grinned in sudden pleasure. “I shouldn’t, but I do.” The moon came out from between thick clouds, and for a moment Ursus cringed. Then he scowled, and faced the moon straight on. “Why should I feel guilt? You say murder’s a sin, Lady, but I think you’re just afraid. There’s power in blood. Power to leap past black water, and power to reach you, high up there on your rock. Sin? That’s just an empty lie, you hypocrite. Blood is a tool.” He grinned again. “I want more of it.”

  He glanced back at Boulderbash. He took a step toward her, to say good-bye—and stopped. She’ll smell the blood on my breath, he thought. She’ll ask me what I’ve done. She’ll stop me. He turned away from his mother, and bounded into the torrential night without a backward glance. “Sleep on until spring, Mother,” he growled. “I’ll have no fear when I return. And I will be very strong.”

  He snuffled in the downpour, and he caught a faint scent of human women from far away. The nuns at Snowchapel, he thought. I’ll bet they have more power in them than a goat does. He laughed, smacked his lips with anticipation, and ran northward.

  A goat bleated, but Ursus didn’t hear it. Clovermead turned back toward the cave. Boulderbash still slept, and the bloody body of a goat still lay on the cave floor, but another goat stood in the cave. This one was not gray but white. It was well fed, and its eyes gleamed with moonlight. The goat bleated with joy and it pranced out of the cave. There was something so saucy and so happy about the way it jumped that Clovermead laughed too and came leaping after it. The goat danced fearlessly on rain-swept rocks, but it was sure-footed now beyond belief. Clovermead danced after it, and she never slipped once. Laughing and bleating together, they hopped up the mountain slope.

  It was raining harder than ever. The world was awash with black water, and it flooded over Clovermead. There was black water on her skin and in her throat, in her eyes and her nostrils, filling up her lungs, black water everywhere, but she didn’t fear it now. She danced in the deluge, skipped ever higher, and now they were in a cloud bank. She clutched tight to the goat’s fur, though she couldn’t see it any longer. Its bleating melted in the downpour, and Clovermead could hardly tell her own body apart from the rain. Now she could not see or hear, could not smell or taste or touch. She still danced, though, danced in darkness, danced in black water. “There’s nothing to fear, Ursus,” she cried out. “You’re wrong. You’re wrong. Oh, Ursus, you needn’t have bothered.”

  And then she was out of the flood. She stood on a mountain peak with the white goat, and all the world below her was rolling cloud bank. Above—Clovermead gasped. The moon stood right next to them, glorious, brilliant, immense. There was no gap at all between the mountain and the moon: Here they met. There were a few short steps of rock, and then there was a city on the moon’s broad plains. There were palaces and fine houses, ponds and shady parks, broad streets and friendly stoops. There were no walls: This city would never be besieged, nor ever fall.

  The goat baaed, and it nipped Clovermead’s knee. “Ouch!” said Clovermead. She rubbed her leg, knelt down, laughing, and hugged the goat to her. “I suppose you want to go. Good-bye. You took a hard blow from Ursus, but it turned out all right in the end.”

  “I’ll miss you so,” bleated the goat, said the goat, but it was her mother’s voice, loud and clear in her ear. “I love you, Clovermead. My little Cerelune. I wish we had had more time together.” The goat kissed her; it was Lady Cindertallow’s lips pressed firmly on Clovermead’s cheek; her arms hugged Clovermead’s neck—and then the goat broke away from her. She ran lightly and happily into the white city. “Have courage,” her mother said. “Good-bye.” She disappeared into the shining streets.

  The moon suddenly dwindled, retreated from the earth. “Good-bye,” cried Clovermead, but now the wind whipped the words from her mouth. It grew cold on the mountaintop. She looked down, and the clouds were thicker and blacker than ever. Now they dripped with scarlet light that shone through from beneath. Lightning like great teeth flared in their billowing folds—

  The lightning was teeth. The scarlet light was blood. The clouds were black fur. Ursus covered all the world, save for Clovermead’s lone mountaintop. He roiled, he heaved, he hunted for her everywhere. His great head rose from the banks of his fur, and he smiled as his red eyes focused upon her. “You have been left for me,” he said, and he laughed. “I have waited a long time for this moment.” He licked his lips. Blood dripped from his great jaws.

  “I won’t be afraid,” said Clovermead, but now the moon was far away. Her stomach was as cold as ice. “I know better than that.” But what she had known in her heart had faded from her. She made the sign of the crescent with a numb hand as Ursus loomed over her. “Lady preserve me,” she whispered.

  Ursus howled, and his jaws came down on Clovermead.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Lady Cindertallow

  “Wake up, Lady Cerelune,” said a harsh voice. A hand slapped Clovermead’s cheek, brutally hard. Clovermead’s eyes flew open, and Lucifer Snuff grinned at her. His bronze-tipped teeth shone in the light of morning. “Had a good sleep? Come to your coronation, Milady.”

  “Mother’s Milady,” Clovermead croaked—but then she remembered Lady Cindertallow falling beneath the bears. “No,” she whimpered.

  “Oh, yes,” said Snuff. “Take a look.” He grabbed Clovermead by the scruff of her neck and lifted her up from the rubble of the breached walls. Not far away was what was left of her mother. Clovermead moaned and shut her eyes. “Lady Cindertallow is dead! Long live Lady Cindertallow!” Snuff guffawed, and the nearby bear-priests laughed too. A whole crowd of them had come to enjoy this moment.

  “Oh, Mother,” Clovermead sobbed through her dry throat. She clutched for her mother’s cold fingers, though she knew the bear-priests were watching. They jeered at her while she held
her mother’s hand, and she could not look at her mother’s mutilated face. She gave Lady Cindertallow’s palm a last squeeze, then let it go. She glared up at Snuff. “I’ve given you your pleasure. Kill me now.”

  “In time, Milady. But first Lord Ursus commands that you be crowned.” He plucked from the ground a strip of jagged iron bent into a circle, jerked Clovermead to her feet, and slammed the circlet onto her forehead. The crown sliced open her temples, and blood trickled down her face. “Come with me, Milady! It’s time for you to look at your kingdom.” He forced Clovermead’s hands behind her back, tied them together with rough rope, and shoved Clovermead away from the debris of the gates.

  Chandlefort had been destroyed. The bodies of Yellowjackets, bears, and bear-priests lined every street. Every building had been defended, smashed, and conquered. Not a single pane of glass remained unbroken, scarcely a door was on its hinges, and battle had scarred half the houses with shattered plaster and crumpled bricks. Flames flickered here and there throughout the city, and a pall of smoke concealed the sun. Bear-priests wandered in and out of houses, ransacked them for valuables, and wrecked what they did not take. Bears smashed the artifacts of man for sheer pleasure, turned houses into caves fit for bears, marked them with their waste, and consumed the bodies of the dead.

  Another bear-priest, huge and strong, grabbed Lady Cindertallow’s body, swung it over his back, and shambled after Clovermead. Bears and bear-priests turned from their pastimes of destruction to form a gauntlet along the street. As Clovermead stumbled up to the Castle, bears growled at her, and bear-priests hissed their contempt. Snuff shoved her, and Clovermead fell to the cobblestones. A bear-priest jeered at her, reversed his spear, and battered her ribs with the butt. Another bear-priest spat at her; a bear stroked his claws through Clovermead’s yellow hair, and pulled out a hank.