The Prince Who Fell from the Sky

by John Claude Bemis

  “First of all,” Dumpster squeaked, “I told that mushroom brain that the Havenlands don’t exist. So don’t accuse me. Second of all, eat droppings!”

  “I have to find somewhere,” Casseomae said. “What was it you said before about the Auspectres?”

  The dog looked with sidelong wariness at the cub resting against a poplar trunk. “I’m not sure it was a good idea.”

  “Why not?” Casseomae asked.

  “It’s … too dangerous.”

  “More dangerous than wandering the Forest?” Casseomae growled.

  When the dog hesitated, Dumpster said, “I told you it was cur nonsense.”

  “The Auspectres are witches,” the dog said quickly. “Carrion hunters. By eating the dead, they can divine what is to come.”

  “I don’t like this,” Dumpster said.

  “Well, the cub isn’t yours!” the dog snapped.

  Dumpster lashed his tail. “He’s not yours either, no matter how bad you long for a Companion.”

  “Right,” the dog said, his hackles twitching. “He’s the bear’s, and his fate belongs to her. I’m not suggesting we go to the Auspectres. Believe me, if I never have to see them again, I’ll be grateful.”

  “So you’ve been to them before?” Casseomae asked.

  “Once.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Same as everyone who braves those witches,” the dog replied. “I had a question.”

  “What did you ask them?”

  He glared sideways at Dumpster. “I don’t want to say.”

  “But what they told you,” Casseomae asked, “were they right?”

  The dog shrank a little, his remaining ear flattened. “Yes. They were right.”

  Casseomae felt a surge of strength fill her body. She rocked back and forth eagerly. “Then let’s go. Let’s see them now.”

  “They don’t live near here,” the dog said.

  “But you know how to find them?”

  “I do.”

  Casseomae nudged the child with her nose. “Come on, cub.” He chirped and sluggishly got to his feet.

  Dumpster gave a shrill note and ran up to Casseomae, clicking his incisors at her. “But what about my mischief? We can’t leave the highway. I’ll lose track of them.”

  Casseomae hated the thought of leaving the rat out here alone. He was tough and he’d come a long way already on his own, but she couldn’t imagine that he’d survive for long.

  “My responsibility is to the cub,” she said grimly.

  Dumpster sank back on his hind legs.

  Casseomae figured there was danger any way they traveled. And Dumpster knew things about the cub and his kind that she never would have known otherwise. “Can we still follow the highway?” she asked the dog. “Will that lead to the Auspectres?”

  “Yes, but like I said, it’s a bad idea.”

  “But will it get us there?”

  The dog looked over at the trembling rat. “It will.”

  “Then lead us that way,” Casseomae said.

  Dumpster snapped his tail in satisfaction and clambered onto her back more gently than before. As the dog set off down the highway, the cub slogged beside him, patting his head as they walked together. Casseomae was glad he liked the dog. She was glad to have another she could trust to protect her cub. He would need the dog if something were to ever happen to her.

  They had only traveled until midday before the child slumped to the ground, whimpering and clutching his stomach. Casseomae lumbered over and licked his hand worriedly.

  “What’s wrong with him?” the dog asked, joining her.

  “He hasn’t eaten in a while,” Casseomae said. “He needs food.”

  “There’s food all around,” the dog said. “I’ll catch him a viand.”

  “He needs Old Devil food,” Dumpster said. “His kind doesn’t eat fresh kills.”

  “Sure they do,” the dog argued.

  “No, they don’t.” The rat clicked his teeth. “Only canned carcasses.”

  “Carcasses?” the dog replied with a bark. “I enjoy something dead and pungent on occasion, but I know the Companions don’t. My ancestors hunted for them. We caught their meals, and they were fresh, not half-decayed.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, cur,” Dumpster said.

  “Wait here. You’ll see.” The dog flitted off the highway and into the underbrush.

  While Dumpster leaped down from Casseomae’s back and began to rattle off the many reasons he despised dogs, Casseomae found a cane of ripe raspberries. She had nearly gotten her fill when the dog came back with a squirrel in his teeth, wagging his tail proudly. He dropped it before the child and gave a bark.

  The child looked down at the limp squirrel at his feet and chirped something.

  The dog panted cheerfully and said, “Go on. Try it.”

  “Watch, he isn’t going to eat that,” Dumpster said.

  “You watch! Sure he will,” the dog said. He picked the squirrel back up with his teeth and pressed it to the child. The boy pushed it away and stood.

  “Let me show you,” the dog said, putting his paws on the squirrel and tearing open its side with his jaws. “He just doesn’t know how to get it open.”

  As the glistening pink-white organs spilled on the ground, the child put a hand to his mouth and backed away.

  “Told you,” the rat said, and moved off to search out some seeds and thistle to eat.

  The dog looked from the child back to the squirrel with a perplexed cock to his head. “Maybe he just doesn’t like squirrel.” He dropped to his belly and began crunching into the squirrel. “No need to waste a good catch.”

  Casseomae returned to the berries. She hadn’t been foraging long when she noticed the child watching her. His gaze flickered from the clusters of glistening berries to her. She understood his questioning look. She’d seen cubs look to their mothers this way. Is it safe?

  She snorted in affirmation and continued eating, watching the child from the corners of her eyes. He plucked off a berry and sniffed it. He dabbed the berry to his tongue. A soft moan of pleasure came from the cub’s throat, and he stuffed the berry in his mouth before reaching for more. Soon he was tearing the raspberries from the vines and eating them by the mouthful.

  Casseomae swiveled her head around to the rat and dog. “Look!”

  “Snip my tail!” Dumpster squeaked.

  Casseomae rumbled with pleasure. The cub, her cub, was devouring a bear’s feast in raspberries. Maybe there was other bear food he would eat. Maybe he just needed her to show him what was good. Wasn’t that what a good mother was for?

  The dog followed his nose over to a tree and gave a yip.

  “What is it?” Casseomae asked.

  “A scent marking,” he said. “I think this is Gnash’s territory.”

  “You know his pack?” Dumpster asked.

  “I know them,” the dog said, heading down the highway. “And the Ogeema holds sway over their pack. We’d better go.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  With food in his belly and his pouches bulging with berries, the child chased after the dog. None of them sensed wolves nearby, but Casseomae smelled their occasional markings and spied some of their droppings. She also came across rat droppings just after a section where the highway split. She let Dumpster down to investigate.

  “Are they your mischief?”

  “They sure are,” Dumpster said happily before climbing back up.

  By dark, they came to a creek dammed up into a pond over the highway by a family of beavers. Dumpster and the dog set off in opposite directions around the pond to hunt. Casseomae found some pickerelweed growing on the banks that she hoped the child would eat. The cub watched as she hooked a claw to the flower clusters and spilled out the fruit. After Casseomae ate some, the child picked up one of the fruits and tried it. The seed inside cracked under his teeth and he held his lips like he was going to spit it out. But then he gave a dog-smile and swa
llowed it, before eating more.

  “I can’t believe he’s eating Forest food,” Dumpster said as he returned. “He’s either going to turn into a bear or fall over dead.”

  Casseomae snorted and foraged on water insects, leaving the child to crack open more of the pickerelweed flowers. As darkness settled over the pond, the dog returned and flopped next to the child, who was searching for something in the pouch at his stomach.

  “Is he really wearing a vora’s hide?” the dog asked. “The wolves liked to taunt that the Companions only kept us around because they’d tear our hides off when they got cold. The pup looks like he’s covered in some sort of hide, but I can’t tell what vora it’s from.”

  “It’s from no vora nor viand,” Dumpster said. “It’s something the Old Devils made.”

  “That color,” the dog said. “It’s just like the sky. Just like his eyes.”

  “He fell from the sky,” Casseomae said. “Maybe his hide and eyes are made of the sky.”

  “Doubtful,” Dumpster said.

  Casseomae scratched her itchy back against a rock. “But you don’t know. You were wrong about what he ate.”

  “I wasn’t wrong,” Dumpster said. “The pup just has strange tastes. I still know a spittin’ lot more than you, old bear.” He snapped his tail. “Look at the pup over there. Either of you have any idea what he’s holding in his hand?”

  Casseomae rolled to her stomach to gaze at the child. He had out the flat piece of plastic he’d used to startle the cougar. She had come across objects like it on occasion. There were so many broken bits of relics around—in the Skinless’s collapsed dens, strewn through the Forest, even sunk in the streambeds.

  “Well, cur?” Dumpster asked. “He’s your Companion. Any idea?”

  The dog looked back at Dumpster, lapping his tongue. “No, what is it?”

  “It’s called a screen. It’s an Old Devil device.”

  “What’s a device?” the dog asked.

  Dumpster sat back with a jaunty angle to his whiskers. “Something they made to do things. Some devices opened stuff and some made light. Other devices made noises and they used them to talk to others of their kind. That’s sort of what a screen is.”

  “That screen isn’t making any noises,” Casseomae said.

  “Maybe it’s broken,” Dumpster said. “I don’t scratchin’ know.”

  The dog panted a little laugh. “So you do admit, rat, there are some things you don’t know.”

  “I never said I knew everything about the Old Devils,” Dumpster said. “Just more than you beetle brains. And the name is Dumpster. She’s Casseomae. What’s yours anyway?”

  “Pang,” the dog replied.

  “Cur name if I ever heard one,” Dumpster muttered.

  “Well, what kind of name is Dumpster?” Pang asked.

  Dumpster considered the dog a moment before answering. “You ever been in any Old Devil cities?”

  “Lots,” Pang said.

  “They’ve got these dumpsters the Old Devils kept beside their dens. It’s where they put their best food and treasures. They’d make dumpsters out of metal. Huge heavy things. No cur or puss or even a bear for that matter could get into one.” Dumpster paused to wiggle his whiskers. “But we did. Our ancestors got into their dumpsters. We snuck in and raided their precious caches and they couldn’t stop us.

  “It’s a great honor to have my name,” Dumpster said, continuing. “I’m the Memory for my mischief. Like a dumpster holds treasures, my memory holds the knowledge of the Old Devils. It’s what’s kept us alive. It’s what’s kept us from being wiped out by the voras.”

  “So your kind depended on the Companions—” Pang began.

  Dumpster hissed so loudly and clicked his teeth so angrily that even the child looked up.

  “Don’t you say it. Don’t you dare call my clan Faithful! We’re not like you. We might have lived beneath their dens, but we stole from them. We never served them! We never promised to betray the clans of the Forest for those Devils!”

  Pang flattened his ear. Without a word, he trotted around the pond and lay down with his snout on his paws. The child put the screen in his pouch and went after him.

  Casseomae said, “I don’t think the cub’s screen is broken.”

  Dumpster was still eyeing the dog with irritable twitches of his whiskers. “Well, what do you reckon it’s doing?”

  “Have you heard how birds weave charms of leaves and twigs into their nests to protect their young?” she asked.

  “I’ve heard they do that, but birds are superstitious pebble-brains.”

  Casseomae grunted. “The screen might be a piece of the sky. It might protect him.”

  Dumpster gave a dubious snort. “It wouldn’t have saved him from that cougar.”

  “But it gave me the extra moment I needed to reach the cub in time. And maybe it was what led the cub to us. If the sky is the cub’s true home, maybe the piece in his screen watches over him. It might have drawn us to him, so we could guard over him and keep him from harm.”

  “A piece of the sky,” Dumpster scoffed. “You have some funny notions, birdbrain.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Pang anxiously sniffed all morning as they journeyed. When they stopped in the shade of a crumbling overpass, he approached Casseomae. “I smell wolves. We need to leave the highway.”

  Dumpster shot toward him, trembling with fury. “But my mischief—”

  A scent hit Casseomae’s nose, and she reared up on her hind legs. The cub jumped to his feet in alarm and clutched her sides. The dog circled, looking around with his one ear alert. “What is it?”

  Down the highway, from around a cluster of cars, a wolf appeared.

  Dumpster leaped to Casseomae’s back and scrambled up to her head, squeaking, “Go! Go!”

  The child chirped wildly, but she nudged him into action. “Run, cub, before he calls his pack.”

  Pang led them from the highway, into the thick of the Forest, as the wolf’s howl rang through the trees. “Where can we go?” she growled at the dog.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Just keep moving.”

  They tore through the underbrush and around trunks and saplings. “Is he following us?” Casseomae asked Dumpster.

  “I don’t see him.” But no sooner had he said this than a series of barks answered the wolf’s call. “That’s a pack!” he squeaked, digging his claws into her scalp.

  The child stumbled on a root and lay panting on the leaves, clutching his foot.

  “Get up, cub,” Casseomae said, nosing him under his ribs. She looked back anxiously. The wolves weren’t yet in view, but they had their scent. It would only be moments before they arrived.

  Casseomae dug her snout under the cub’s frame until she forced him to his feet. “Listen, cub. I’ve got to carry you.” She dropped flat and gestured with her nose toward her back.

  The cub hesitated, then flung himself onto her back, grabbing at the thick folds of fat and fur around her throat. Casseomae sprang to her feet and dashed after the dog.

  Pang flew over a log, gaining ground ahead of Casseomae. “I see something,” he called.

  A few strides more and Casseomae saw it too. A huge relic lay wedged between the trunks of some twisted maples.

  “A passering,” Dumpster said. “Get inside it!”

  “But—” Casseomae began, knowing they’d only be trapped.

  “Just do it,” the rat ordered. “Before they see us.”

  The dog waited by the base of the relic. Casseomae passed him, bounding onto the wing. Dumpster leaped from her head and scampered through a broken window. The child slid from her back and tugged at the side of the passering. A crack appeared. Casseomae dug her claws around the edge and pried it open like a mussel shell.

  The dog scrambled up onto the wing, his claws scrapping on the rust as he fled through the opening after the child. Once Casseomae was inside, the cub pulled the panel shut.

  The light coming
through the grimy windows was dim. “Is this what the pup came down in?” Pang asked, panting heavily on the mossy floor beside the child.

  “No,” Dumpster said. “This is an old one. Probably from before the Turning.”

  Barks grew louder and then Casseomae could hear the wolves surrounding the passering. “In there,” one cried. “Look for a way in.” A clattering of nails sounded on the wing outside followed by sniffs at the closed door.

  The child clung to Casseomae’s fur. A wolf scratched ferociously, trying to dig open the metal door. They couldn’t open it, she was certain. Wolves couldn’t use their forepaws like she and the cub could. But then a black nose wedged through the broken window where Dumpster had entered. Casseomae leaped up and raked her claws against it, sending the wolf whining back down the wing.

  “Do you think they saw the pup?” Dumpster said as Casseomae settled back down.

  “We’re trapped in here either way,” she replied. “This was a mistake, rat.”

  “You’d rather be out there?”

  Casseomae growled.

  “If the scout didn’t see him,” the dog said, “then they’ll hopefully move on once they realize they can’t reach us in here.”

  “And if they saw him?” Dumpster said.

  “Just be quiet,” Casseomae said, turning to comfort the trembling cub with licks.

  The wolves growled and barked at one another, setting up a guard around the passering. Casseomae peered around the interior. The part she could see wasn’t very wide, just enough for her to turn around. Up toward the nose, a dome of white leaned out from around a corner. A skull. Most likely the carcass of the Skinless who had perished in the crash long ago. The cub clung tight to Casseomae’s side and chirped softly to her.

  Just when Casseomae thought the wolves might have left, she heard one up on the wing again, sniffing at the door. Once he had climbed back down, Dumpster ventured up to the broken window and peered out.

  “Do you see them?” Casseomae asked.

  “Yeah,” the rat replied. “About ten. The way those underlickers are lounging around, they don’t seem in any hurry to leave.”

  Casseomae dug her claws into the mildewed material lining the floor. She’d fight them, drive them off, but doing so would mean the cub would have to open the door. She couldn’t risk his being seen. Besides, ten was a lot of wolves. She’d known male bears bigger than her taken down by that many. They waited and the setting sun sent golden shafts through the windows, and still the wolves kept the worrisome siege.