Then the three priests saw it, bolting across a lane of sunlight under a clump of towering pines and into the shadows on the other side. They all knew the animal well—a great, striped buck, not unlike the extinct wapiti, the American elk of the lost ages, but with two-pronged antlers, now only soft stubs. Hiero suppressed his pity for the hapless prey. It was bait, and they rose as one man and followed on its slot, knowing the catfolk would wait for them on the border of the sinister marsh.
Panting, the two Mantans arrived in time to join them as they caught up with their furry allies. All crouched to listen and peer over the bog and brush tangle before them. The big deer had given up, and its tracks were plain in the mud before them where it had charged into the uncanny wilderness, the terror of those behind driving it to risk whatever lay in front.
Hiero listened with his mind. The onslaught of whatever lurked out there suddenly blended in his brain with an audible cry of agony as the killer struck. Now they could all hear the threshing uproar of the death throes; mingled with that was a new sound, a chuckling growl, vast and ominous, through which ran a purring note as well, a menacing evil to human audition. Even the proud felines laid back their ears at that noise.
All had their weapons ready, and the Mantans now had caught their breath. No further signal was needed. As one body, they all ran for the marsh, moving as silently as they could, leaping over patches of mud, avoiding the shallow pools, and utilizing the out-croppings of rock wherever possible. Ahead of them, the struggle had ceased, but the snarling was now replaced by a new sound—the crunch and snap of mighty jaws, clearly audible through the hush of early evening.
The little band was very close. Suddenly the sounds ceased, and they knew they had been detected. They ran for their lives, hoping for a clear space in the mixture of mud, rock, and thicket, careless of what noise they made. As they ran, they spread out automatically. Almost simultaneously, they arrived at their target and abruptly halted at the sight before them.
The marsh opened here and formed a small swale, treeless and covered with some rank, brown grass, rooted in ankle-deep water. In the middle of this watery meadow lay the bloody, dismembered carcass of the stag, and over that reared its killer, glaring at them from mad eyes.
It vaguely resembled a colossal bear in general shape as it stood, swaying on columnar hind legs; but if the bear family had ever played any remote part in its ancestry, the horrid transmutation of the atom had long since changed the pattern out of resemblance. It was almost hairless, the leathery bide a dirty, mottled gray. The huge head was short-muzzled, and the naked ears were minute, lying flat against the skull. Long bunches of wiry bristle sprouted above and on either side of the gaping jaws, which were packed with monstrous, shearing teeth, blood-flecked and dripping. The bulging, reddish eyes glittered with insane fury, but there was also intelligence under the lowering brow. The proof of this lay in the torn-off club of broken wood, a man’s height in length, which the thing gripped in one mighty paw; the forelimbs, though they bore great claws, carried these on crooked hands, five-fingered and with working thumbs!
In the brief second while the monster and the hunters took each another in, Hiero remembered the Abbey lessons of long ago. The notes had been few and those scanty indeed in detail, for those who glimpsed this horror of the Taig seldom lived to tell of it. This was the Were-bear, the grim night gaunt of the dark, known mostly by its ghastly after-trail, the haunter of the shades, the invisible death whom none could overcome. It lived by ambush and stealth; the ruins of some small cabin or the shredded remains of a hunting party, found long after the slaughter, were its usual traces. Fortunately, the deadly things were very rare and thought to be solitary in nature. All this flashed through Hiero’s mind in the mere flicker of an instant as battle was joined.
Three missiles flashed across the air as one. The Mantans fired their blowguns at the same time that Sagenay loosed a slender arrow. The two small darts buried themselves in the bloody snout while the shaft from the longbow sank deep in the belly hide.
The horror screamed, a piercing shriek, high and yet mind-shattering in its sheer volume. Clutching the club and still erect, it shambled toward them, water and mud flying from the strides of the great, flat hind feet as it came. Its speed was deceptively fast. It was aiming straight for Per Edard Maluin, perhaps because he was the largest and at the center of their ragged line.
The Children of the Wind raced for the creature’s flanks, two to a side, the shallow, splashing water hardly slowing their speed at all. Hiero saw M’reen swerve like lightning to avoid the stroke of the tree limb aimed at her. The next instant, all four were slashing at the brute’s haunches with their long knives, drawing blood at every stroke, dipping and darting like hornets, as it checked itself and tried to deal with them.
The Mantans and Sagenay fired again, and once more the arrow sank deep and the darts feathered themselves in the frightful head. Hiero was close now and he hurled his heavy, crossbarred spear into the middle of the muddy, twisting paunch. The hoarse grunting of the Were-bear again rose in an awful coughing scream as the broad spearhead drank deep. He saw a rolling, crimson eye, distended with pain and fury, turn down at him and he ducked, splashing away in the sedge and liquid mud the fury had churned up. Another arrow drove into the center of the wild orb. God, hut Sagenay was a great archer! Would the damned thing never die?
It towered up, dropping the useless club and clutching at its tormented face, to let out one last choking howl. Then it fell forward, splashing them all with a sea of water and filth, mingled with its own gore. It died. There was not even a twitch of rigor, just the vast corpse, prone in a wallow of muck and torn plant stems, while nine panting entities stood, weapons still poised, and looked at one another.
“You are an amazing shot, Per Sagenay,” Hiero said to the younger man. “And you, too, gentlemen,” he added, nodding to the Mantans. “I think that your venom slowed the brute down. It was more confused than I had been led to believe these monsters were supposed to be.”
He sent his own message of praise to the Children of the Wind, using their mental channel, and he could feel the pride in their response.
“I never got close enough,” Maluin grumbled, lowering the billhook.
“It was aimed right at you when my friends halted it, you big oaf,” Hiero said. “Another second and you would have had plenty to do. Now everyone be silent while I use mind search.”
He was none too soon! Almost at once, the expression on his face and the tenseness of his body had all the others alerted, their weapons lifted anew.
A voice he had not heard for many months beat into his brain like a hammer on an anvil. Watch out, Hiero! Another one comes fast from the north! We are following, hut beware… 1
At the same time, the Metz caught the wave of black anger and killing rate which he had noted from the monstrous brute, only half an hour before. Its mate! He spun, cursing the dying light and facing to his left. The rest of his troop whirled also, and thus the second attack did not catch them totally off their guard.
The new menace burst from the screen of brush and charged, fangs agape, down upon them. It ran on its hind legs, and the vast, lumbering strides brought it on at a pace a racing hopper might have envied. Each of the giant arms bore a mighty burden. As the ghoul-thing came, it hurled a great rock from one of them with deadly aim.
Perhaps the onset of age had begun to stiffen B’uorgh’s sinews; perhaps one of his lightning shifts, by plain bad luck, was in the wrong direction. The boulder—for it was nothing less—struck the catman chief with a sickening crunch and hurled him aside like a castoff doll, useless and discarded. M’reen’s high scream of rage and sorrow rose above the triumphant bellow of the enemy.
Once more, one of Sagenay’s bronze-tipped shafts sank home, though this time he struck an arm. The darts of the brothers Mantan hissed again; at this range, they could not miss. But their poison, so lethal to normal life, seemed to work very slowly on this alien fle
sh. Hiero had wrenched the spear from the corpse of his late foe and now stood erect upon the giant body itself, waiting to meet this fresh attack, trying to free his limbs of weariness in the seconds remaining before it closed. The gray light of dusk made the appearance of the demon hard to discern, and he knew that it was a creature of the shadows, the vague outline not the least of its weapons. Beside him, but lower down and braced for battle, his strong legs slightly bent, Maluin also awaited the onslaught, his fell weapon held two-handedly and cocked over his left shoulder. Then the monster was upon them, and they ceased to think.
The second rock the creature clutched was a long slab of granite; it did not hurl this, but used it like a club, as its mate had wielded the shattered tree limb. Hiero flung his spear but heard it ring on stone, even as the monster struck at him. He tried to duck, holding his shield high, but the grazing touch of the great rock swept him off his feet, left arm numbed to the shoulder, and pitched him down the side of the dead beast and into the marsh below.
Again he heard the bellow of triumph start; but as he tried to stagger erect and free his sword, he heard the awful cry rise to an impossible pitch of pain. On his feet once more, he saw what had happened.
As the second Were-bear stooped to crush Hiero’s life away, Edard Maluin had seen his chance and leaped in. The huge billhook scythed down in a terrible stroke upon the left arm of the monster. The vast, deformed hand, severed at the wrist, flew away into the haze and murk, and a gout of blackish blood spouted and spat red through the evening air.
As the titan turned on Maluin, Hiero struck at its haunch with his heavy short sword, but his aim was off, and it seemed to him the stroke was slow and feeble. He tried to recover, noting almost absently that another of Sagenay’s arrows had driven home in the gray hide. It will kill us all before it dies, a remote part of his mind decided. Half in a dream, he watched as the ghastly head, turned back to him; he saw the yellow fangs, crusted with dried foam, as the monster moved forward and down to crush the pigmy who had defied it.
He was spun aside like a top and hurled yards away on his back, the sword flying out of his grip as he went. Helpless and with his eyes full of muddy liquid, he did not see what the others saw and thus missed the final event.
A great, black beast cut through the sedges with the speed of a pike darting through waterweed. Driven by a bulk not much less than that of the Were-bear and brushing Hiero aside in the process with its shoulder, the new arrival smashed into the enemy with the precision and force of a battering ram. The last, frantic bound carried two great, razor-edged feet smack into the space between the eyes of the northern horror. As they went home, the awful cracking noise cut off the gross snarling of the monster, ending its evil life instantly.
Frantically trying to get up on his feet, brush the mud from his eyes, and rejoin the battle, Hiero became conscious of a vast foreleg on which he seemed to be leaning. As he tried to deal with this most familiar but long-absent concept, an enormous tongue swept over his face and a wave of sweet breath enveloped his head. Then he knew!
“Klootz, you miserable, slab-sided piece of worthless dog meat! What do you mean by frightening me like that?” He pounded softly on the great barrel, his eyes shut to keep the ready tears locked within. How many thousand leagues had the great beast come, to home in on him and find him in the midst of a life-or-death struggle? He blinked at length and saw the long neck turn round and down again; once more the morse’s tongue care-washed his face in a mighty swipe.
He wiped his eyes and managed to stagger away from his friend’s side and stare about hirn, Maluin leaned on his bill a few yards off, covered with mud, but seemingly otherwise undamaged. He winked at Hiero, then began to brush himself and his weapon clean as best he could, whistling softly to himself. The Mantans and Sagenay were plucking their darts and arrows from the hides of the dead terrors, cleansing them in the marsh water and restoring them tidily to their quivers. Then Hiero saw the three young catfolk gathered around something silent in the sedges and he remembered that B’uorgh was dead. He was about to go to them when suddenly a very irritated voice burst into his mind, and he halted in his tracks, so that Klootz, who was following behind, almost ran over him.
Hiero, if all that mess is cleaned up, I would appreciate your telling your friends that I am not a target for all those things they shoot. Then I will be able to come out from behind this rock. As Hiero reeled with the realization of what and whom he was hearing, the mind voice went on, somehow conveying an acid tone. Klootz didn’t do it all, you know!
Breathlessly, Hiero spoke. “All of you, listen. A new friend of ours is here. Don’t shoot, for God’s sake! He helped bring Klootz to us.”
They all turned and looked with keen interest at the burly, rolling shape, coated in dark brown fur, which now emerged from a thicket to the north and ambled down their way. None looked with more interest than Hiero. It had been a long time since they had parted, far away in the South, after the destruction of both the House and the buried city of the ancients.
He saw that Gorrn had changed and he wondered what changes the young bear saw in him. Gorm was perceptibly larger and also leaner, indeed almost drawn-looking. He had nowhere near the bulk he would attain someday—of that the Metz was sure—but he was a powerful animal now and he radiated a surety and inner strength which had not been there before.
The bear reached Hiero’s side and rose on his hind legs until his small eyes were higher than the man’s. His tongue barely touched Hiero’s nose, and then he dropped back to all fours again and woofed gently. A nice sort of thing you go about looking for, I must say, his thought came. Lucky that Klootz scented you somehow and told me. We’ve been trying to cross this area for days now, but we knew there were two of them and we couldn’t risk it. You lost a friend over there, Hiero. Better go see what you can do. They need some comfort. Then we have to get out of here fast.
Marveling at the speed and accuracy of Gorm’s mental images, Hiero walked over to where the silent catfolk stood over the fallen chief. B’uorgh must have been killed instantly, for his whole rib cage was crushed. His fierce visage was unmarred, though, and he seemed to be smiling grimly, as if his death and indeed the whole universe were only one more bitter jest.
Hiero put his arm over M’reen’s drooping shoulders and addressed the three on their own private wavelength.
He was a great warrior. He died as he would have wished, in the fight against our ancient foes, yours and mine. When you return to the Pride—and when I return also—we will sing a song for him that all will learn as cubs and remember as long as the Pride shall live. Now, let us put aside our grief. M’reen, you are the leader now. You will tell us what to do to send him to his rest. But we must hurry. He would not have wished us to delay on his account. The enemy is moving.
They lifted the body between them and bore it to dry land where, with all helping, they excavated a grave under a large stone. M’reen sang a short wailing song alone, and then Per Sagenay asked them if he might speak with his own God on behalf of the fallen warrior. Shyly, after a moment’s talk among themselves, the catfolk agreed that this would be entirely fitting, After all, Ch’uirsh sent to Hiero, we are far from the night winds over the southern plains. Your god up here can help send his spirit back down to our land, where it can finally rest.
Hiero agreed solemnly that this was a perfectly sound piece of reasoning. And, God, he added silently, You could do worse. He fell in Your battle, and I know You’1l help. He said a quiet prayer of his own, and the thing was done.
As they turned away from the lonely grave, Hiero became conscious that Gorm was growing impatient. He knew that the bear was not much of a deist and, indeed, considered all appeals to the Unknown as a waste of time. Agnosticism was not unheard of among humans, but, the man thought, it was a fresh puzzle for the Faith if it occurred among the newer breeds. He chuckled to himself, for he knew that he had a young priest in the group who would have to learn this for himself in a fairly
brief time.
In a short while, they were all lounging in a circle around a tiny fire, Hiero had led them back along their previous trail and through the shrouded night for over an hour, until he deemed they were out of immediate danger and could take a rest. Outside the circle, Klootz stood silently, his vast, drooping nose flexing and sniffing, his mule ears twitching as he sought the scents and sounds carried by the wind. Already the buds of his antlers were two feet long. He looked thin, as did the bear, but he was obviously fit for anything, as the recent encounter had abundantly proved.
Gorm lay in the center, obviously enjoying the warmth of the fire, the light flickering on his thick, brown pelt. When he spoke, his speech in the minds of its recipients was so clear that ail—even, to Hiero’s intense surprise, the cat people—could understand him easily. Hiero threw a protective mind shield over the whole group with no trouble, observing with amusement that the stoic and impassive Mantan twins were frankly gaping for the first time in his experience and craning their necks to study first Gorm and then, in complete astonishment, each other. Maluin actually laughed, and a quiet smile stole over the face of Cart Sagenay.
First, I am but the forerunner of my people. The bears are coming, but it takes time. We do not live in tribes or villages, but in families. Thus, the incoming of all able to fight is not quick. The Elders have ordered it, and we are moving. We are not fast marchers and we must come far to the north and then swing south to join the human forces. We have to stay well away from the zones of the Unclean where I first met Hiero, lest we be detected and even stopped.
I was sent on ahead to carry the word to the Abbeys. As I journeyed, I heard a strange sound in the forest. He sent the mental image of a helpless fawn, calling for its mother. It was this great lump of a weed eater, bawling his head off for Hiero. Fortunately, I remembered what he sounded like and was able to contact him. He is not as stupid as he looks and told me much.
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