Greyfax Grimwald (21 page)

“Well,” he said aloud to his cave wall, “if anyone should have to go on the errand to find this man Froghorn speaks of, it should be me. No sense taking Otter into heaven knows what danger. Silly old fellow would only be in the way if one was really hard pressed. I may as well get an early start and simply leave him a note explaining it all.” Bear, heart heavy and saddened at the thought of leaving Otter, rose up and began packing what he bought he would need for the journey. Clever dwarf tins of the new honey, full of the comb, and an extra cask of water, maps, and a favorite book or two, and lastly, pulling it out of the other knickknacks upon the high shelf, the dragon stone of Dwarf’s, which he had picked up from Broco’s floor, where he’d found it lying forgotten when he and Otter had discovered Dwarf gone, and Froghorn full of his incredible tale.

Knapsack bulging, Bear started for his entrance door, then halted. He remembered Otter’s odd visiting hours, and as likely as not, he’d run into the little gray fellow capering about for a last swim, or sitting on the rush shore counting ripples, or other such otter nonsense. He decided to use one of his other tunnels, unused until now, which led through the hill to an opening on the other side. He’d dug that long ago, right after they had first settled in the valley, for that spring brought floods and high water, and he’d wanted to have a dry spot to nap in should the water decide to visit him in his lower den. The thought of padding about up to one’s hocks in water was a drearier thought than a bit of a dig, so he’d set to work on the project, and after all his fortnight’s effort, the river had receded, and spring turned more beautiful than ever, and he’d forgotten the tunnel until now.

“What good sense to have that shaft,” he chuckled’ to himself, then, recalling that he was leaving his home, and Otter, and all else he had come to hold closely to his heart, he turned, brushed away a single, huge tear, and packed two extra cooking pots that Dwarf had forged for him, with clever folding handles so that when placed atop one another, they slipped into the space of only one.

“Whatever else Dwarf is always meddling with, he certainly is skillful with his hands,” he sighed, hoping Broco not too badly off wherever he was. “If only he’d contented himself with making things sensible, we all wouldn’t be in this mess. Wizards and wars, bah. A bear pox on the lot of them.”

The night outside was folding over its bedding and thinking of waking when Bear poked a cautious nose out of the end of his tunnel. A cricket was singing a very sad song off over the slope toward Otter’s house, and a few birds, early risers, chittered staccato greetings when they saw him. A stately ebony raven perched on the low thorn thistles near Bear’s exit hole.

“Good morning, Master Bruinlen.”

“Greetings, no-sleep.”

“Away on a journey so early? What tidings are these? My slow toes out and wandering before the sun shines?”

“I’ve important matters, chatterbox, ones that would stand your features as straight as quills if I .wanted to waste my time talking. But good health and hunting, Raven, if I lay my eyes no more upon you. Goodbye.”

Bear granted and snorted, heaved his large bulk through the rather small opening, and started at a brisk trot away from the river toward the first gleam of morning on the distant, snow-covered peaks.

“The same to you, Bruinlen. I just saw Otter not ten minutes ago, and he told me the same thing. To my reckoning, I haven’t seen things so strange since early this summer, when those others were skulking about. My Aunt Caw and Uncle Croak both were eaten in that scare, and I dare say, a lot of others I didn’t know about, but I didn’t think things were so bad as to drive you big folks off.”

Bear jolted to a stop, planting his forepaws sturdily into the dew-wet grass, almost sliding down to his nose. He lifted his pack from where it had tumbled over his ears.

“What? What’s that? Otter gone? What others?

Speak, sticktongue, before I send you off to join your Caw and Croak. Why haven’t you spoken to us before, you tree duster? If you’d spoken up before, Dwarf might still be about, and all the nasty business avoided. Speak up.”

Bear had raised up full height now, in anger and frustration, advancing toward the raven’s perch. The bird fluttered and started to fly, but Bear, amazingly quick, caught the Mack form of the bird and held him fast in his two great forepaws.

“Cawright, cawright,” screamed the frightened bird, “I’ll tell you. Let me down. You’re squashing my pinfeathers.”

Bear loosened his grasp a bit. I’m sorry to have to be so rough, Raven, but it’s of dire import you tell me all you know. We’ll forget what you didn’t tell any of us before, for that’s beyond help. I thought you’d be a better friend, after all the meals Dwarf left you and your kind. Speak up, and perhaps it may be some knowledge to undo the wrong of your silence.”

The bird was stirred by Bear’s speech, and fearing no harm now, and remembering, too, the bread crumbs and dwarf cakes left upon Dwarf’s table when the deep winter snow made other food difficult to find, he spoke willingly. His kind, once befriended, were loyal friends, and true, but were cunning and close among themselves, and usually avoided contact with anyone who didn’t possess a pair of wings. He was sorry not to have made Bear a friend, and now, it seemed he was leaving .He would tell him all, and perhaps give out a morsel or two of advice to boot

“Where shall I start, Master Bruinlen?” he asked earnestly.

“With the others you mentioned. Begin with that.”

“It started a few days before All Summer’s Eve, I think, or that’s when I first came to know about them. They came into these parts foraging for food. That’s when they got my Uncle Croak and Aunt Caw.”

“Who is they?” queried Bear impatiently.

“Wolves, or they had wolves’ bodies but bigger, and they spoke to each other as men do. I overheard them the day they left, or All Summer’s Day, after you had your party. They kept saying something like ‘him’ and reporting you all to ‘him’ or something to those likes, and I guess that’s what kept them from having you all in a stew.” The raven chuckled at his own black humor. “But anyway, they left, and no one heard of them or saw them again, until this very morning. Mrs. Jeffrey Sparrow heard them speaking again last night, and saw them moving down the valley edge toward your settlement.”

“Just the two?” asked Bear, growing alarm rising inside him for Otter, helpless ball of fur who hadn’t a chance at all against two such adversaries, Raven nodded.

“And then Otter showed up not ten winks before you, made me a little speech, and darted off down yonder. Pretty silly, an otter out of water. He had a bundle of something wrapped in a rucksack, and was gone before I could say a word.”

“I dare say, it must have taken you aback, Raven. But what I said before is now more urgent. You’ve put yourself aright, friend. I must go now.”

As Bear raised his great paw to release the raven, a cry, loud and screeching, followed by two long, hideous howls, broke the stillness of the gathering dawn. Then Otter’s war cry, terrified and terrible, tore loose the roots of Bear’s paws, and he broke into thunderous, rumbling run, his great voice angry and deadly, away in the direction where Otter had been set upon by his two dreadful foes.

“W
e don’t needs to wait for sunrise for our sweets,” growled a low, cruel voice. “We gets them now, I says.”

“We waits,” snarled Three Toes, great yellow fangs bared, an oozing spittle slipping past his crooked underlip.

“Then we splits the dwarf, says I. I don’t want no animal flesh.

“We’ll kill ‘em all first, then we’ll see who eats who. Maybe you should gut the bear, Gagrot, since you seems in such a hurry to eats.”

“If we gets them now, they’ll all be asleep,” protested the first werewolf, Gagrot.

The two lay hidden in a thicket, out of sight of the valley below, evil eyes shining a dull yellowish green light. Far above, in the very top of a great shouldered oak, a small sparrow hung, trembling.

A faint noise of a leaf stir caught Three Toes’ attention. He snarled quietly to the other beast. The noise, faint but barely perceptible to their keen, cruel ears, grew closer. An animal, a not very cautious animal, was moving in their direction. The light of their harsh eyes was lidded, and they waited for their unsuspecting victim to deliver himself to hungry fangs. Closer still, until they could distinctly see the dim outline of a small animal with a peculiar hump on its back moving directly toward their hiding place. When Otter was within a paw’s length, the two ravenous, growling beasts beset him, without so much as a snarl of warning.

Otter’s cry went up, startled and frightened at first, then seeing the great open vises of jaws rowed with cruel, tearing teeth, it turned to terror and his battle cry. As the two dark, scab-covered beasts circled him for the kill, Otter slid out of the heavy pack and turned in a slow circle, warding off bites from those vicious jaws by side leaps or quick, slippery twists. His folds of loose skin saved him from serious harm when the beast behind got his mouth upon what he thought was Otter’s neck, but the skin lifted upward with the fierce bite, leaving the beast’s mouth filled with gray, twisting fur. Otter was lifted off the ground, whirling and trying to get his powerful jaws onto some part of his attacker’s body, and the wolf made the mistake of letting the wriggling form bump against his chest as he tried to find Otter’s throat or backbone to snap it. Otter’s viselike jaws clamped onto the werewolf’s right foreleg, and with all the grinding strength in his small body, he forced his upper and lower teeth deeper and deeper until they met with a rending, crunching sound, and the bone was splintered and split.

A great, deafening howl of misery and pain and hatred rent the peaceful dawn. The other beast jumped quickly to grab Otter’s small body, howling fiercely. Gagrot, his leg broken and bleeding badly, dropped the gray thing whose jaws had so cruelly hurt him. All thoughts of breakfast were replaced with the single desire to maim and kill this filthy rodent-like creature.

Next moment, the trees trembled and the earth shook, followed by the long, angry wail-bellow of a great beast. Otter, fearing help had come to his two assailants, seized the surprised instant when the werewolves turned toward the great bellowing charge, snatched his rucksack, and was safely away into the surrounding dense thickets, running as fast as his short, stubby legs would carry him, heart pounding, out of this terrible wood. As Otter topped the hill, and half slid, half ran down the other side to safe hiding, Bear, hackles bristling, claws and teeth gleaming like steel flames, burst into the clearing where the two startled werewolves stood frozen. Bear’s great speed carried him over the two huge forepaws raking the gristly flesh from the side of the injured beast, great jaws snapping dosed onto the back of the other, and he flung his head high, damped his teeth harder, and skidded to a halt, raising his great bulk to an upright fighting bear stance. Three Toes, still in his mouth, was dead, his back broken from the terrible pressure of Bear’s huge jaws. He flung the lifeless brute into the thicket with a flick of his head, and advanced upon the other beast, cornered now, and wounded. The werewolf, serine his death in Bear’s flaming red eyes, dragged himself to the foot of a wide-girthed ash tree, fangs bared, waiting. His front leg was dangling uselessly, and his rite were torn open and bleeding, and all the strength he had left he would use for one last lunge at this fearsome raging giant

The battle fire that burned Bear’s heart subsided a moment seeing his enemy beaten and dying, the other already dead. He quickly looked about the clearing for what he feared most to find, Otter’s small, helpless body torn and bloody, or worse, half eaten. There were no traces of Otter or his knapsack to be seen. Bear halted a paw’s swipe from the werewolf, still snarling and dangerous.

“Be quick with your answer, foul breath. What happened to the waterfolks? If your answer is true, I’ll give you the mercy of a quick death. If not, I have ways to rend your bones and drain your filthy life slowly enough.

“The gray water filth escaped;” growled Gagrot. “A curse on his filthy lot forever. He’s escaped us. But Doraki still knows.
He’ll
have his gray fur rotting on his door before too long.” Laughing cruelly, the werewolf coughed blood from the terrible wound Bear had smote him. “And yours, too, scum of a murderer, if I don’t sink my fangs through your fat throat.” Savagely speaking, the beast leapt feebly at Bear’s chest. Lightning-quick and lethal, Bear’s great forepaws crushed the werewolf s skull in midfiight, and the body of the beast crashed lifeless at Bear’s feet.

Bear’s booming victory cry shook the woods with a roaring shudder. In another part of the forest, the birds and other animals who had not heard the struggle thought the day brought a thunderstorm, although the dawn was breaking bright and clear, “May the carrion birds pick your bones,” growled Bear. “And if any harm has come to Otter, a curse and bear fangs in the throats of all your vile kindred.”

Bear’s body began to tremble slightly as the fire burned down, then out, and he sat down wearily at the far end of the clearing, away from the bodies of his two slain foes.