Early Spring, 5E988
[The Present]
Snow swirled before the mouth of the cave, borne on a twisting groan of air. Still Aravan lay on his stomach and peered out at the pit floor some two hundred fifty feet below. Now and again the unstable earth trembled as night came full upon the land.
“They gather in darkness,” Aravan hissed at last, his Elven sight making out silhouettes moving across the snow.
Gwylly felt his heart hammering, and he reached out to take Faeril’s hand, finding her reaching for his.
Urus shifted his bulk and drew up his legs and sat with his hands draped over his knees. Except to turn her head toward Aravan, Riatha moved not. “In darkness?” she asked, her voice low. “Are there no torches among them?”
“Nay,” responded Aravan.
Puzzled by this new tactic, Riatha looked at Faeril, seeking answers, but in the darkness of the cave neither could see the face of the other. Even so, Faeril said, “Perhaps they do something in secret.”
The wind moaned, and snow raced past, thickening. Above the sob Aravan’s voice hissed again. “They mill about, as if waiting.”
He sucked air in between his clenched teeth. “And in the bolt-hole…someone, something—”
Skraww! A harsh skreigh split the air.
Gwylly’s heart jumped into his throat, and Faeril tightly clutched his hand. Riatha’s eyes flew wide, and she looked at Urus. “Stoke!” he gritted, scrambling toward the entrance, Riatha following, Gwylly and Faeril coming after.
And opposite, issuing forth from the bolt-hole, a large leathery-winged black thing flapped out and upward, rising through the moaning wind and hurtling snow.
Skraww!
Like some creature from the time ere Men walked the world, out and up it came, wings flapping, its long, fang-filled beak wide and shrieking, its eyes glaring yellow, clawed feet trailing after.
Only Aravan saw it well, the rest arriving too late to see aught but a dark blot rising up through the storm. Even so, they saw its span—twenty feet from wing tip to tip, fifteen from beak to whiplike tail—as southward arrowed the hideous creature.
Skraww!
Below, Rūcks and Hlōks and Vulgs turned and streamed southward, too, into the canyon slot.
“They’re leaving,” said Aravan.
Riatha started to scramble out, but Aravan caught her by the arm—“Dara! Wait! Thou wilt betray us to the Rûpt!”—holding her back.
“Stoke!” she spat. “He’s getting away!”
Aravan did not release her. “What wouldst thou do, Riatha? We have not the weaponry to bring him down. Were Gwylly or Faeril or both on the rim above, mayhap they could achieve such…but they are not! And we must climb to come to the rim. He will be gone by then.
“Nay, Dara, reveal us not to the Spaunen. Instead we must follow in secret. Else he will know he is pursued.”
Distressed, the Elfess looked at Urus. The Man’s teeth ground in suppressed rage. “Aravan is right, Riatha. Aravan is right, damn it!”
The Elfess burst into tears of frustration. “Mayhap I could have slain him yester had I only tried. And now he is fled.”
Urus reached out to her, but she would not be comforted. And still the wind moaned past and snow swirled and tremors shook the land.
Aravan peered outward, seeing nought in the pit below; the arena was obscured by the white fling. “Let us be gone. I will climb to the verge and lower a rope.”
Out and upward he went, free climbing the stone, a line fixed to his harness and payed out by Urus in case the Elf fell, the wind battering at him as if trying to dislodge an intruder in its domain. A time passed, but at last a signal came from above and another line snaked downward, lashing about in the blow. Urus leaned out and after two attempts managed to catch it.
One by one they sent up their packs, Aravan hauling them upward. When that was done, with the Baeran anchoring, Faeril climbed first, Gwylly after, then Riatha. And the angry wind howled, yet could not stop their ascent. Last came Urus, the huge Man clambering up and over the brim.
Aravan coiled the lines as the others shouldered their gear. When he had buckled his own pack in place, southward they headed, into the teeth of the growing storm. “We must hurry,” urged Riatha, “else their tracks will be buried.”
* * *
Pressing against the wind, the snow pelting into their faces, along the western rim of the canyon they fared, the brow slowly descending to meet the wide vale beyond. Gwylly carried a shuttered lantern, the hood tightly closed to prevent detection from afar, yet enough light leaked out to show the way.
Soon they came to the valley floor and, in the lead, Aravan called a halt, and he bent down to examine the trail in the snow. Gwylly cracked the hood of the lantern, illuminating the track, a track even now being eroded by the wind and covered over by the new fall. The Elf stood. “We must make haste, else we will lose their trail under the storm. Yet we must not come upon them until day arrives, for they travel in a force that will overwhelm us with their very numbers.”
Southward they went, three hours or more, the Warrows setting the pace. Wind-borne snow spun down, thicker by the moment, as if to bury these interlopers.
Burdened as they were with their packs, a few minutes every hour they stopped to rest, for they could not keep this pace endlessly. And so they sheltered in thickets or against rock outcroppings when they could find them in the thickly swirling snow, trying to evade the wind. As they rested, Faeril sought the elusive answer to a question that had been tugging at the back of her mind, an answer that she thought she should know. Why had the maggot-folk gone forth in darkness, issuing out from their splits and cracks without torches to guide them?
But each time ere she came to any conclusion, Aravan called for them to take up the march, and once again the exigencies of the trek drove the search for the loose thread from her mind.
Again Aravan signalled for a resumption of the march, for the tracks they followed were now but dimples in the snow, and if they did not begin, the trail would be lost. Faeril wrapped her scarf tighter and pulled the drawstrings of her hood to shield her face from the stinging white, and along with the others, shouldered her goods and set out once more into the buffeting wind.
Onward they hurried, Gwylly and Faeril walking on either side of Aravan as he tracked the diminishing spoor. Why did they go without torches?
Why…?
Suddenly Faeril remembered the thought that was lost; she remembered what she had said about the maggot-folk’s lack of torches just before the thing flew up and out from the pit: “Perhaps they do something in secret.” That was what I had just said, “…something in secret.”
What would they do in secret? Escape? Do they lay a trap for us ahead? An ambush? If so, then they know we follow…or suspect so. And if they suspect such—
“Wait!” exclaimed Faeril, stopping, reaching out to stay Aravan, too. All five halted. Urgency filled the damman’s voice. “Aravan, how many maggot-folk left the canyon? Did you count them? Did you count them, Aravan?”
“Nay, Faeril, I did not. That black flying thing…it—it took my mind from doing so.”
Faeril’s heart pounded in her breast. “They did not bear torches. Do you hear me? They did not bear torches.”
By the faint light of their hooded lantern, Gwylly peered through the blowing snow at Faeril, her face hidden in the blackness of her hood. “And the meaning…?”
Faeril’s voice was grim. “If Stoke plans something in secret, he would issue forth in darkness, where spies such as we could not count the strength he takes with him. And if some had been left behind—”
Urus’s growl cut through the shadows. “—then they were held back to see if Stoke is followed, and if so, he would want to know who is it that pursues and how many.”
“Thou art not saying that we must wait to see if we are followed, are thee?” Riatha’s voice was filled with distress. “If so, then surely Stoke will escape us.”
Ere Faeril or Urus could answer, Gwylly spoke: “What if they all went? I mean, there may be none left behind. If so—”
“Gwylly is right,” interjected Faeril. “To assume that Spawn follow us doesn’t make it so. They may simply have wanted to slip away in secret. There may have been none waiting while the others left, waiting to follow later and see if anyone trails Stoke. There were twenty-seven maggot-folk and thirteen Vulgs, last I knew—”
Riatha interrupted. “There are but seven Vulgs now—two fell to their deaths in pursuit of me, and four others disappeared.”
“Oi!” exclaimed Gwylly. “Those four that disappeared—we killed four at the monastery.”
“If the four ye slew are the missing ones, then that would account for all,” responded Riatha. “Of the thirteen Vulgs, seven are left. And of the twenty-seven Rûpt, Faeril, thy count still holds true.”
The damman turned to Aravan. “Can you count the tracks and say how many we follow?”
Gwylly opened the hood of the lantern slightly, illuminating the trail, but at a gesture from Aravan he closed it again.
“Nay,” answered the Elf. “The trace is now too faint to do so. There could be that many ahead, but I cannot say. Thou might have the right of it, Faeril—all may be ahead, or only part: even as we follow Stoke, Rûpt may follow us.”
Urus growled in frustration. “Regardless as to whether some follow or none, we must go onward, for as Riatha says. Stoke will escape if we do not. But this I say: we must be ever vigilant for those who may come at our backs, as well as guard against traps laid by the foe ahead.”
Again they started southward, trekking onward in the blowing wind and the ever thickening snow, the trail becoming fainter and fainter as they went. They struggled down a twisting valley, wending among unseen stone massifs rearing upward, hidden by the blizzard. Earlier, the choice had been simple: follow the plain track. Yet now the trail grew perilously dim, and at times disappeared completely. And they knew that Stoke and his lackeys could make for unrevealed canyons and hidden vales split off to left and right, or could go up slopes to either side where lay storm-concealed cols leading to other vales. And so, whenever the trail vanished completely, all would search for trace of the spoor, casting about for which way the faint dimpled track ran, finding it eventually, and going forward.
Finally the trail disappeared, and they could not find any traces at all. Long they searched by lantern light without success. At last Urus growled, “We will lose them altogether lest we change our tactics.”
The Baeran began shedding his pack. “Here, Aravan, you and Riatha carry this between you. I am going ahead. Follow the tracks I shall leave in my wake.”
Before any could object, a dark shimmering overcame Urus, enveloping him. His shape changed, his form dropping down on all fours, growing huge, with long black claws and ivory fangs and coarse reddish fur grizzled at the tips. And where Urus had been stood a great Bear!
Gwylly’s heart was hammering, and Faeril clutched his arm as if he were an oak in a storm. Aravan stood stock still, as if made of stone, and Riatha’s eyes glittered in the night.
The great Bear shoved his nose into the snow and snuffled until he found faint traces of Spawn. Moving forward, again he burrowed his muzzle and breathed. Then he looked over his shoulder at the four behind, and with a deep Wuff! he turned and lumbered away, moving at a pace that none of those left behind could match, burdened as they were.
Onward trekked the four, now following the spoor of the Bear, fresh tracks in the snow. Even so, the storm intensified, and this trail, too, began to dwindle under the onslaught, yet for the moment it was clear enough to follow.
An hour passed and then another, and on they marched, occasionally resting awhile, by faint lantern light the snow spinning about them as a whirling wall of white. Now they could see no more than a stride or two ahead, and their progress slowed to a virtual crawl. “Stay close,” cautioned Aravan, “else we will need rope ourselves together.”
Still they wound their way among the unseen mountains, with canyons and valleys and cols concealed to either side. Often they came to where the Bear had cast about for traces of those he followed, at times the pattern of his search showing that it took a long while to relocate the spoor. Yet always he found it, or so they deemed, and they trailed after.
Following another short rest they resumed the trek, Riatha and Aravan in the lead, carrying Urus’s pack between them, breaking trail in the deepening snow, Gwylly and Faeril coming after. Of a sudden Aravan held up a hand. “Wait! The blue stone grows cold. Rûpt or other such are near.”
“Which way?” asked Gwylly, peering about, seeing nothing but the whirling blast.
“I know not,” responded Aravan. “The stone only tells me whether far or near, and these draw nigh.”
Riatha and Aravan put their common burden down.
“Let us take refuge,” said Gwylly.
“Where?” asked Faeril. “I can see nought.”
As Riatha turned to answer the damman, her eyes flew wide and she shouted, “’Ware!” the Elfess wrenching her sword from its shoulder harness.
Aravan whirled about.
Faeril heard a horrendous snarl, and she started to turn, but someone or something crashed into her from behind, slamming her facedown into the snow, smashing atop her.
* * *
After the transformation, when he was no longer Urus, the Bear snuffled the snow and caught the acrid traces of Urwa, the Bear’s name for Foul Folk. He turned to the two-legs behind, those companions he befriended, and called out for them to follow: Wuff!
Deep within this savage creature, reason prevailed, but barely, for the Bear was driven by other urges, other needs from those of the Man he once had been. He was now a thing of the wilds—not some Man in the shape of a Bear, but a Bear cunning beyond all others, a Bear who at times had strange un-Bearlike urges, urges and motives akin to those of Man, perhaps even akin to those of a particular Man, a Man named Urus. Yet the Bear who once was Urus only occasionally thought along those paths, and although he might again become Urus, there was no guarantee he would. And that was a danger that the Bear and Urus both lived with: Urus might never again become the Bear; the Bear might never again become Urus. The Man Urus was aware of this danger; the Bear was not.
But now the Bear followed Urwa, hated foe of all Bear-kind, and he would not be swayed from this task. And so, down the track he lumbered, knowing that the others followed in his steps. How he knew this was beyond his ken—but he did not question, for he simply knew.
Miles he went, and miles more, the scent of the Urwa growing fainter. Often he had to root about for the spoor, and at times he raged in anger, roaring loudly in challenge, slashing the snow with his claws. But he found dim trace of the scent again and again, though it was now all but gone.
The pelting white all about him grew thicker until he could not see more than a Bearpace or two, and it tried to hide the Urwa. It would fail.
The blowing air tried to stop his walk. It would fail. He knew.
The Bear had no concept of time, and little of distance, only knowing that light came, then dark, only knowing that something was near or far.
He lumbered far. He knew far.
He lumbered until the white and the blowing air erased all Urwa spoor. He roared and bit the white, clawed the white, bit the blow, clawed the blow. The scent of the Urwa was gone.
The Bear sat on a hillock, the last place he had smelled Urwa. Here he would wait until the two-legs came in his footsteps.
White howled about him. He waited.
White grew thinner. Howl grew less. He waited.
The blow stopped pushing and just breathed little. He waited.
The white stopped. Light would come. He knew.
Light did come. The two-legs did not come. Something was wrong. He knew.
He thought of Urus….
And a dark shimmering came upon the beast, and swiftly it changed, altering, losing bulk, gaining form, and suddenly there in the deep snow sat a giant of a Man: Urus.
Urus stood and looked at the sky. Dawn had come. He remembered much of what the Bear had done, for Mankind has the capacity to do so, whereas Bearkind has much trouble envisioning the acts of Man.
Mountains loomed about, and from the knoll Urus could see five ways that Stoke and his minions might have gone, five ways they could have escaped.
And where were Riatha and Aravan, Gwylly and Faeril? Surely they could not have fallen that far behind.
The Sun rose.
Urus scanned up the vale until it twisted from sight. Where are they?
A sudden foreboding filled his heart, and he knew that ill had befallen his comrades. And Urus the Man roared his anger, wrath twisting his face beyond all recognition as he raised his clenched fists unto the sky and bellowed the name of the enemy—“Stoke!”
His shout flew out among the mountains, and the mountains hurled it back—
Stoke!…Stoke!…stoke!…stoke!…stoke…stoke…toke…oke…o…