The last day of tournaments went as expected, with Petra winning archery and Britta placing a respectable third. A nomad companion of Lukas's, a loud man named Rolf, narrowly defeated the aging but agile Kennet in reindeer racing. The feasting was prodigious, but Otto didn't stay too late, still stewing over his defeat even as he tried to keep up a good face. Otto went back to his room above the great hall while the merriment was still going strong. Hours later, he awoke blearily to the cries of a sentry. He could not make out the words, but the meaning was clear.
There’d been an attack.
Bemused, Otto sat up in his bed, looking out the window. Twilight still lingered. But it must be night, he realized, momentarily disoriented by the lack of true darkness. If it were morning, the sun would have been much higher than this. More shouts joining the sentry's cry, followed by the baying of the hounds, shook Otto to his senses. He rolled out of bed, heart pounding, and dressed as quickly as he could.
The solstice feasts were a sacred time, taboo for the burgs to begin new wars. Battles had been fought at such times, but most had been desperate matters, fueled by long and bloody conflicts between enemy settlements that called for a decisive end, or the act of mad rovers without home settlements who were driven by threats of starvation to attempt (always fruitlessly) to get past burg walls. It was a plentiful season, so the latter was impossible; even reindeer thievery couldn't be the case, as all the reindeer had been brought back inside the walls for the night, to eat what little grass remained on the trampled yard before the nomads departed in the next few days.
Otto's opinion of Yewcastle was no better than his opinion of stoats or snakes, but he'd thought them to have a sliver of honor, and certainly not enough foolishness to risk angering the gods by beginning new conflict so close to holy days. Why not wait another week until the rovers were gone, unless some plague or catastrophe had wiped out their reindeer?
A horrible, rumbling sound echoed through the building, drawn out and terribly loud even though it was coming from some distance away. A pinprick of fear pierced Otto as he discarded his previous assessments and recognized it for what it was: the roar of a legendary monster. Something bigger than dire wolves, greater than trolls.
By the time Otto had donned his armor, grabbed his weapons, and run out of his room, the building was filled with its own noises, warriors rushing up and down the hall, and children crying in the nurseries. One of the burg's guards was pounding on Hald's door; Otto's brothers slept more heavily than he did.
As he ran toward the stairs, Otto caught sight of his mother Vilma. Tall and slender, Vilma looked commanding even in old age, and she still had plenty of strength, carrying one of Otto's young cousins as she directed two other wives. Otto ran over to her, reassured as always by her calmness in the chaos.
"Are you alright?" he asked, wrapping an arm around her for a quick hug and patting his cousin on the head.
"Yes, my dear, I have everything under control here," she said, touching him briefly on the shoulder before gesturing him along. "Now go, see what terror awaits at our gates."
Otto burst out through the large double doors of the great hall into the still night air. The noise was coming from the area of the tournament yards, no doubt caused by the monster trying to get at the reindeer, whose panicked noises could now be heard among the din. The outer palisade was strong and twice as tall as a man, but the worst monsters could break through the timber with enough effort.
As he hurried through the square, past workshops and gardens, Otto caught sight of something dark rising from behind the wall. Only the tops of the wall were visible beyond the lower but thicker earthen walls of the upper settlement.
A giant, bark-brown paw rose above him, and then another, falling down onto the sharp tops of the wall. But the points seemed to not bother the beast, the wood instead chipping under his claws, and indeed he poked his head over the wall. Coming up from behind the palisade, rearing up onto his hind legs to look down upon Thunderhill, was a titanic bear.
Ursa Magnus.
Fear shook deep in Otto's core, his legs still moving forward but his heart feeling as if it would seize, his thoughts losing their usual focused clarity. Ursa was head and shoulders taller than the outer wall, and climbing up over it. Ursa was no usual beast. He was a monster who made dire foxes look like pups. A full-fledged invasion force from Yewcastle would be a lesser threat than Ursa; men could be held back by walls, felled with arrows and swords, crushed with a brutal focus of red magic. Ursa Magnus had flattened villages, slain two heroes of legend, and, when he'd last been seen four decades ago, had eaten an entire band of nomads.
The inner gates were already manned by Thunderhill’s garrison, open to allow the warriors to run down toward the attack but ready to seal them should the attack press inward. Not that it would do any good with such a large beast; if he could climb the palisade, the ancient earthen walls would be no effort at all.
Arrows began to fly through the air at Ursa as he tested the palisade again. But the hulking bear seemed unbothered by them as he hopped over the wall, kicking his hind legs up and landing inside with an earth-trembling heaviness. Screams grew louder, more panicked. The reindeer who were not tethered could no longer be contained, nearly stampeding the incoming warriors in their flight. Even loyal herd dogs had abandoned their reindeer and were running through the streets. Otto worried briefly about Leif, but he recognized none of the reindeer, and the stables looked intact; the bear was targeting the nomads’ reindeer, which were fully exposed behind the wall.
"Get these reindeer under control, and up the hill!" Otto shouted. The nearest warriors looked confused over poorly hidden fright, and Otto boomed his instructions again, louder.
The scene in the yard was gruesome chaos. The weak pens for the reindeer were broken in several spots, some reindeer injured from their own attempts to breach the fence, and others dragging their leather tethers. Many of the nomads were still in their nightclothes as they fled with the reindeer or fought to get them under control. Calm but clearly terrified wives carried away screaming infants and crying tots. Dozens of warriors ringed around Ursa. Some were firing arrows; all were keeping their distance. As Otto rushed to join them, he saw not only dead reindeer at Ursa's feet, but already a dead warrior.
An arrow caught Ursa's face, sticking right above his umbra-dark nose, and he rubbed a paw at it. His accompanying roar was louder and deeper than a full procession of drummers, resonating within Otto's heart, but bringing a sense of doom rather than exhilaration. Ursa swiped a paw out, catching the nearest warriors, and even as a few others sprang in to try to attack the exposed limb, three men were knocked a dozen feet away, sprawled on the ground like ragdolls. One shuddered, moaning, another tried to return to his feet, and the third cried out in agony, his chestplate torn clean through with his guts pouring out. Ursa bent his head down and took one of the dying reindeer in his teeth, crunching it once then throwing it back and swallowing the whole of the broken corpse. He seemed only mildly concerned by the warriors, as if they were nothing but mosquitoes.
"Split up—attack the flanks, warriors on either side," Otto called. He didn't mention his worry that their weapons wouldn't pierce deeply enough through the bear's fur. Ursa's skin hung off him leanly, like his mundane cousins’ coats early in the summer, when they’d started to eat again but were a long way from their full weight. For a monster of Ursa's size, a whole burg would be quite the hibernation-readying meal.
"Otto!" Johan's voice carried even across the cacophony of battle. He was accompanied by Isak, Werner, Petra, and Mona. "Petra, organize the archers—pull them back, and aim for Ursa's eyes," he called. "We need to hit the beast's face or belly. His limbs will be too solid for us to give him more than a scratch. Keep the groups on the flanks to keep Ursa's attention divided, and we'll charge in. Ax-wielders with their shields in the first line, swords in the second!"
The warriors fought with Ursa, but the few who went under him couldn't reach his belly with their swords. More and more fell to his paws as he made his way across the yard, eating more reindeer and starting to feast on the fallen warriors as well, to Otto's horror. More kept joining the fray, a few nomads—Lukas included—taking positions with the other swordsfolk. For all of Lukas's poor attitude before, here there was no hint of vanity or arrogance, only stone-still composure as he followed Johan and Isak's directions.
An arrow landed in the corner of Ursa's eye, and he bellowed monstrously— all restraint was now gone. He attacked the warriors with renewed fervor. While many retreated, a few trampled beneath the rampaging bear, Otto held his ground. Johan strode through the crowd to join him at the front line as Isak kept directing those further back.
Another arrow hit Ursa's eye, but he batted it away, suffering only a fine trickle of blood. As Ursa raised a paw frighteningly close, Otto stepped and aimed for his sensitive pads rather than flee.
Ursa was faster. His claws cut through Johan beside Otto and deeply into Otto's arm. The fiery pain was so bad he struggled to hold onto his sword, his bracers entirely cut through —likely the only reason his arm hadn't been sliced entirely to the bone.
Ursa roared deeply and pulled his paw away, blood flowing down. It took Otto a moment to see what had happened: Lukas, near them, had sliced off one of Ursa's paw digits. The severed finger and his sword-length claw lay matted in gore on the ground. Bellowing, Ursa shuffled backward, showing hesitation for the first time. And beside Otto, Johan moaned in pain.
"Father!" Otto cried, rushing to his side, his own pain nothing in comparison. Johan was already going pale, pressing one mangled hand to the stump of his wrist on the other. His sword and the remnants of his grip lay on the ground.
Lukas knelt beside Johan. Otto expected to see him pulling out bandages, or lighting a torch to cauterize the wound, but instead he held a round pebble engraved with runes. Sorcery.
"What are you doing?" Otto demanded. Lukas didn't reply, didn't even look at him, but pulled a dagger from his belt and swiped it against his thumb. He dropped the blade and pressed his thumb to the stone. "Tell me what you're doing right now, sorcerer!"
"I'm trying," Lukas snapped, "to save his life."
"Ursa's retreating," Isak yelled. Otto looked up to see, with a flicker of hope, that it was indeed true.
Ursa was snarling and still viciously lashing out, but he left great bloody pawprints with his left paw as he inched back toward the palisade, and another arrow had sprouted in his eye, this one near his pupil and leaking fluid. He grabbed corpses on his way, animal and human alike, snapping them into pieces with his jaws and scarfing them down. A volley of arrows found purchase on his face, several landing on his snout and another in his already-injured eye. A searing bolt of fiery magic followed, singing his torso; the red sorcerer Elov, gesticulating with a bloody stone in his fist, had finally joined the battle as well. With a final furious roar, Ursa backed all the way up to the palisade, rose onto his back legs, and climbed back over the wall.
Otto looked back down to Johan, whose eyes were closed. For a moment, Otto feared he was dead, but his chest was still rising and falling under his armor with each breath. Lukas was holding Johan's wrists, smeared with blood, and pressing the stone between them. Before Otto's eyes, the stump congealed, purple and ugly, hiding the exposed bone and staunching the bleeding. The other hand was still broken and cut, but it too grew ugly scabs and the blood flow stopped.
Otto looked up to Lukas with gratitude and confusion and relief and anger swirling in a tempest of feelings.
"You didn't mention you're a sorcerer," Otto said, his voice low and rough.
"I'm a green sorcerer," Lukas said defensively, taking the words as an accusation. Which they were, in a way; Otto was shocked to see a warrior perform any magic, healing or not. "I can heal. Rudimentary, but lifesaving healing. I have no red magic, before you chase your wild conclusions any further."
"Green or red, warriors don't learn sorcery!" Otto felt stupid now for dismissing the rumors. He could handle being defeated by Lukas, allured by the man's handsomeness while resenting him for his arrogance. If Lukas had pulled out red sorcery in the course of the battle, then Otto could have at least known he was untrustworthy and may have indeed cheated his way to victory, that he was bloodthirsty and dangerous. But a warrior who used the vigor in his veins to both fight and heal?
"Your warriors might not, but not everyone follows your narrow ideas of proper. And if I had followed such notions," Lukas said as he stood, his voice sharp, "your father would be dead by now."
Those words lingered in Otto's mind as Lukas left and he stayed by Johan's side, the panicked chaos of battle giving way to the grim chaos of its aftermath.
Cori spotted Otto quickly, and rushed over to him, her long hair loose and wild from her unexpected awakening. She held her pouch as she ran, and had materials in hand by the time she reached them. Her face darkened in confusion as she looked at Johan's poorly healed wounds.
"Who did this?" Cori asked, glancing to Otto.
"It doesn't matter," Otto said. "He needs further help."
"He does. But whoever staunched the bleeding saved his life." She blanched. "There's not much we'll be able to do for his hands, but it's a miracle he survived at all."
*~*~*
None but the children returned to sleep that night. The green sorcerers tended the many injured, enlisting the help of wives who didn't have their hands full with disturbed babes. Laborers went to work doing emergency repairs on the palisade so other predators couldn't take advantage of the opening, and gathering the bodies of the slain. Warriors, nomad and burgher alike, gathered in the great hall.
Johan was still unconscious, so Isak convened the War Council. Otto, Werner, Hald, and several distinguished warriors sat at the high table, others standing or sitting nearby. Otto looked through the crowd for Lukas, but he was lurking near the back.
"Ursa Magnus has slain many of our warriors, and decimated our livestock," said Isak. "This beast has destroyed settlements before, and we thank Volha for giving us the strength to drive him off. But we cannot rest now. When great monsters roam the lands, their carnage inspirits their lesser cousins, the trolls and dire foxes and carrion-eaters who crave human flesh. They will be coming out in greater numbers.
"Worse, Ursa will be back the next time he wakes up from his great sleep, stronger than before and thirsty for the blood of our men, women, and children. Two hundred years ago, Needlepeak drove Ursa off as we did, only to be devoured some fifty years later when he reawoke. The hunger that drove Ursa to attack us today is nothing compared to his vengeance.
"We could prepare for his next attack, readying for worried years and decades, building higher walls and forging better swords. But the time for action is now. We must go on the offensive and attack him now. We know not where he makes his den, but it is only midsummer. He will not return to his slumber until the equinox, yet the longer we wait, the harder it will be to track him, and the greater our chance of losing him."
"We cannot fell him with a regular war party, and if we send too many warriors, Thunderhill will be too weak to defend itself," said Werner. "Not just from other settlements, but from the monsters encouraged by Ursa's presence." For once, Otto couldn't fault him for his frown.
"Thunderhill has held itself against war parties and monsters, time and time again!" the old warrior Peder called out. "Send an army after Ursa if we must!"
Isak held up his hand. "We will send an elite group of our strongest warriors, swordsmen and ax fighters and archers, after Ursa, with kell hounds for tracking. Otto will lead, with Cori for healing and Viggo to tend to the hounds. Kennet will go as well; he is a fine warrior and talented with the reindeer, which will be vital on such a trek. Those who inflicted meaningful injuries on Ursa will go as well—Petra and Britta, and Lukas, and Elov the sorcerer. Otto will choose the rest of his warriors from volunteers."
Of course Lukas would go. It was only fair, and sensible. The others Otto selected were the best of Thunderhill's warriors: Old Peder, a grizzled veteran and Viggo's husband; strong Ulf; ax-champion Hertha. For his last, he took Rolf from the nomads, as they had suffered the most losses.
Hald was eager to go, though he had the dignity to neither say so nor pout too obviously when he was not chosen. As Otto said good-bye to his brothers, he didn't answer Hald's unasked question. Truthfully, Hald was too rash and too inexperienced for such a dangerous mission, and Otto knew it was unwise to bring either of his brothers on a mission from which none might return.
The party had two hours to prepare and outfit themselves before departure. Every minute delayed meant Ursa would be farther away, his scent and tracks weaker. Giant Ursa might have been, but that gave him much greater speed to outpace the warriors. They each took a single reindeer, everyone carrying their own belongings. Draft reindeer would only slow them down, and summer meant sleeping under the open sky or forest would put them at no danger of frostbite; bedrolls without tents or extra furs would suffice. Besides, the number of reindeer that had been slain was just short of disastrous. Nearly sixty had been devoured or killed, another ten injured badly enough they'd been put down.
Apart from the reindeer, who could only be ridden until they caught up with Ursa—even the best-trained battle mounts would flee rather than approach a monster of such size—the only animals they would bring were the kell hounds. Bitty was among them, as a fine and fearless tracker who had an excellent track record with dire foxes. She sniffed the destruction made by Ursa, and the severed digit, eager to find and bring down the monster.
Otto knew this was unlike any hunt he'd embarked upon before. Death was always a possibility, but a nebulous one. No warrior raided another settlement, met the enemy in the fields, or tracked down a troll expecting to die. They went ready to die, certainly, if Noll decided it was their time, but not expecting it. Battle was an honorable way to go, but usually a warrior fought with the belief—rightly or wrongly—that he would triumph to fight another day. But with Ursa, there was a good chance they would fail entirely, and none of them would return at all. This was no fool's errand, but it was the hurried act of a shaken people. Otto was heavily saddled with the reality of their quest. If they didn't slay Ursa, the consequences would go far beyond the loss of his entire party. Failure would mean the destruction of Thunderhill and the deaths of everyone they held dear.