"She won't eat at all?"
"Nothing,"
Grubbi sighed. "That girl…I don't believe it's possible for her to get any more stubborn."
Gritty nodded. He'd called Grubbi, their resident physician. Ursa's fever still hadn't gone down any. He knew Ursa would be less than appreciative but he didn't care at the moment. He just wanted his leader and friend the old way again.
"Ursa?" Gritty pushed the door open and found his leader trying to stand. He raced in and grabbed her in a vice like grip. She slammed her foot down on his and elbowed him in his stomach. He winced but swiftly restrained her. She was not very strong, considering her condition. The attack caused more annoyance than pain.
"Let me go! Let me go!"
"Ursa…"
The blond haired Barbic looked up. Grubbi was approaching her. He felt her forehead.
"Your fever's too high!"
Ursa growled, "I'm fine! I want you two concerned with Buddi."
Grubbi sighed. "Ursa let me examine you. Gritty called me because you're so sick. By touch alone, I know your fever's over three degrees above normal."
Grubbi nodded to the bed and Gritty pushed Ursa down hard. She kicked and squirmed but she wasn't strong enough. Gritty handed her to Grubbi, who told her firmly,
"Ursa Marie Barbic! Enough!"
Gritty cringed. He couldn't remember the last time Grubbi had called either of them by their full names. Judging by the way Ursa stopped, she couldn't either. Grubbi took a breath and said,
"Ursa! Listen to me! We can't do any more than we are doing-"
"Grubbi! But I remember! He came to us in the past. He called himself Timba but it was Buddi. Gum's sake we lost our home a few months ago and now that infernal spell is flinging him back! Do you know what that'll do to him? It took him months to heal! This will just reopen those wounds!"
Grubbi grabbed her by her face. "Ursa!"
She stopped yelling and listened. Grubbi gave her a delicate smile and fingered her sweaty blond hair. She sighed deeply. Grubbi smiled,
"Ursa, listen, we're doing everything we can. Gritty's making sure of that. But you need to get better. So do me a favor and let me see what's wrong with you?"
Ursa shook her head, "I won't until Buddi's home."
Grubbi sighed, "I'm sorry that just won't work."
That said, he grabbed her firmly with one of his hands, holding her head still.
"Grubbi!"
"Sorry Ursa. I'm not leaving until I know what's wrong with you!"
He held her still with one hand and pried her left eyelid up with the other. Her eyes were glassy, he found from looking into them both. He tilted her head up and told her,
"Let me see your throat Ursa."
"Grubbi this is rid-"
Grubbi cut her off. He had asked her that to get her to open her mouth. Now he held her mouth open and pressed his thumb against her tongue so he could see her throat. He found it a raw red.
He released her and she growled. He grabbed her wrist and felt for her pulse. He found it a bit faster than usual but not too fast. He lifted Ursa's shirt off and felt for her breathing patterns. She had given up her fighting but she wasn't happy about this.
Grubbi nodded, "Hmm, typical fever. But it's too high. Stay in bed Ursa. Doctor's orders."
"Grubbi…my Buddi…"
"No, no, no. You stay in bed. Gritty, I'll help the Glens with research as much as I can. I want you to make sure this stubborn girl obeys my orders."
Gritty nodded. Grubbi turned to Ursa. "You, young lady, keep to bed and I don't want you up or I'll have Gritty use your pressure points to keep you there."
Ursa growled low in her throat. Grubbi turned to Gritty.
"Just keep her still. Keep a cloth on her forehead and get fluids into her."
Gritty nodded and the healer left.
Ursa tried to get up almost immediately. Gritty held her down. She growled,
"Gritty!"
"Don't Ursa. I know pressure
points and I'm not afraid to use them."
Ursa sighed, "Gritty, Buddi…"
"Ursa," he pinched her lightly behind her neck. Her eyes rolled back and she collapsed. "I'm sorry Ursa."
Gritty looked towards the library. "Please bring Buddi home. I don't know how much longer Ursa'll last."
1355
Buddi sat up and rubbed his head. He was sitting in a patch of clovers. He looked around and saw trees overhead and a swimming pool nearby. Barbic Woods again. Tears blurred his vision. Why was fate playing with him this way? Why did it have to reopen so many cuts? The first trip back to his home had sliced those open. Now returning again and again was salt in an open wound.
The cub took a quick look around and realized that this was earlier than before but not all the way back to Ursa's childhood. He knew how tall the trees had been and these were not that tall yet.
Still, that meant he couldn't be seen here. The first time Ursa'd seen him was when she was six but she probably forgot that. In that case, she had to be at least twenty-four before she saw him or it would ruin the future.
The cub swung up into the highest branches of the trees and entered what they called the forest within a forest. Where the leaves of the trees formed a floor that was solid but he could see through it at certain points. The cub moved towards the middle and looked down through an opening, down towards the very active Barbics below.
He could make out a few. He saw Ryo, younger but still the same attitude and he saw Lundi. He saw Gritty too; he looked about twenty or so. He wasn't as muscular as the one Buddi knew but he was still strong. They were arming themselves.
Buddi looked out over the landscape and saw that humans were approaching. This must be the two-year war between the humans that Ursa said happened before he was born. Humans had tried to force them out but they had finally forced them out.
"Gritty!"
Buddi turned. He knew that voice. It was Ursa. But if the war was just beginning then Gritty was twenty-one which made Ursa…. eighteen!
Buddi grabbed a vine and swung lower. His jaw dropped.
* * *
"Gritty!"
The young adult turned as his younger friend Ursa ran out after him.
"Let me come with you."
Gritty shook his head. "I tried to convince Gianni for you. No go. He says that the war'll be intense and until you're an adult you can't come into battle."
Ursa growled. "I've passed all my tests. I'm fully certified in our fighting skills."
Gritty smirked. "All but one little test."
Ursa sighed and rolled her eyes. "I know, I can't lift a sword yet."
She sat backward and pouted. Gritty chuckled. She was the only one that couldn't fight. The others were a little older than her and they were males. Their strength came before hers. Ola was a few years older. So she was strong enough. Ursa was their youngest.
She didn't look it. Her red hair was dulling to a light blond but it still had auburn highlights. She had it in a braid that she had thrown over her shoulder. She didn't have anything to protect her, not even a helmet. She had no wrist guards either.
She wore a dark navy blue dress that fell to her knees. It was short sleeved, with a green belt across the waist. She kept a dagger in her left boot and another, long one, on her right side of her belt. Her boots themselves were mid shin length and a dark blue that matched her dress.
Gritty heard the warning ring through the trees and turned to Ursa. It was his first battle and he sincerely wished that his best friend could have come. She looked like she was itching to fight. All Barbics had a hatred for humans but humans had taken her parents away. Her hatred was extremely intense.
"Ursa?"
She turned to her older friend. He extended his hand to her. She grasped it tightly.
"Gritty? Be careful."
He nodded and grabbed a vine to swing down to the others. Ursa ground her hands into tight fists. A gentle hand was placed on her shoulder. She turned.
Theanrn, their eldest and wisest healer was smiling at her. He was old and approaching the end of his life but he could fight still. Not nearly as well as he had been able to in his youth but well enough. He mainly served as backup.
"Don't distress so, little one." Ursa smiled faintly. She was little, to him. "Your time will come. From the moment you entered this world I saw a warrior in your eyes. You need only wait a little longer."
"How long?"
"Not long. You are nearing your prime."
Ursa turned to him. She, as well as all the others had learned to respect Theanrn's sixth sense. He made a prediction at each birth. On hers he had declared,
"A spitfire she'll be. But she'll be a light that leads us through the darkest times."
Ursa wondered what dark times he was referring to. She turned to him and nodded. He smiled and swung down towards the battle. Ursa followed with her eyes and then smiled,
"They never said I couldn't watch."
That said, she grabbed a hanging vine and headed down to the lower branches. She landed on a branch just over the battlefield and watched. Unknown to her, Buddi had crept down behind her and sat just behind her, staring.
Buddi was stunned. Ursa was so different. She was younger, obviously, but he didn't know before this journey that her hair had been red. Or that she had been so rebellious. He and her were similar in that sense, although he generally rebelled to not participate in their rituals while she rebelled to be allowed to.
Buddi felt a pain hit his heart. Oh, he wanted to run to her, even if she was only eighteen. But she would reject him, he knew it. When this journey began he had believed that she would try to accept him, no matter what time but now his faith had died so that he didn't believe in anyone anymore.
The cub looked over the group of Barbics as they prepared for battle. He gulped.
"No, not this war. Please don't let it be this war."
But it was. He knew it.
This was the war where they had lost three-fourths of their kind. Ursa had not told him much, just said,
"When you're older. I don't think you're mentally ready for what happened."
For that reason, the child could not peel his eyes from the battlefield.
He did not have to wait very long. Soon, humans were plowing through the trees, attacking the fifty or so Barbics that were on the ground, not noticing the other half in the lower trees. Soon, arrows flew.
Buddi gasped. One human fell, an arrow lodged in its neck. Its murderer drew back their bow and fired another, falling a second human. Blood began to puddle the ground and stain the grass and clovers. Buddi shuddered. He'd rolled in those green fields. He felt ill thinking of it.
Gritty ran out in front, meeting a human's blade with his own. His only thought was forcing them out. They had already lost several of their own. The human snarled with a laugh and pressed back. Gritty ducked to avoid the blade and swung his own blade, slicing the human's stomach open. Blood gushed out in great rushes. The wound was fatal.
Buddi couldn't bear it. He turned his face away and covered his ears to try and drown out the screams. Some were gummi but some were human. He heard crashes as Barbics fell from the trees, their lives stolen from them. He couldn't bear to watch. The harder he tried to blot out the sounds, the louder and louder they grew.
The cub finally opened his eyes as he felt the branch move. Ursa had leapt down and into the battlefield. Buddi watched with horror. She ran through blood as if it were water. Her thoughts were on a single goal.
Buddi dared to see what that was.
Gritty waited but the pain never hit him. Something had stopped the blade. He opened his eyes.
"Ursa!"
Having nothing else to fight back with, the girl had used her bare hands to stop the blade aimed for her friend's neck. Her eyes were alive with hatred. Blood ran down her arms but she ignored it and glared her friend's assailant in the eyes.
"Back off, human."
"Out of my way, gummi."
"No. You leave our woods."
"Not until I claim your friend's head."
Ursa's strength doubled with anger and the human man had to press hard to keep her at bay. Buddi watched with shock. He'd never seen such strength and anger displayed as one. Ursa's eyes were dark, pitiless.
Buddi turned to her attacker. He was pale skinned but older than most of the other warriors. His hair was dark midnight black and he had a beard. His eyes were deep blue, almost black. But his face was held in a cruel scowl. Buddi knew he had seen him before. But his young mind was at a loss of where.
He soon found out.
Ursa glared deep into the human's eyes and gasped. Gritty was trying to pry her off as he feared for her. Her strength wasn't fully developed yet. Ursa would have none of that. She gave him a firm backhand, sending him backwards, in more surprise than anything else but still in a decent amount of pain.
Ursa's voice dripped with hatred and a pain she had long tried to bury.
"You…you…it's you! The nisha that killed my parents!"
The human stared at her and then smiled, in an unkind and sarcastic way.
"So, the little red-haired brat is grown. You do make quite a beauty." He paused. "Considering your heritage."
Ursa let out a full-fledged roar and flung the human down onto his back. He stared at her. She was shaking with rage. Gritty approached her again.
"Ursa…"
"It's that nisha!"
"Ursa…""Your sword."
"What?"
Ursa whirled around and in a split moment drew the sword from her best friend's sheath, demanding,
"Give me your sword! This nisha's mine!'
"Ursa!"
She ignored his cries and sprung at the human, her eyes burning. The warrior barely managed to grab his own sword to block a fatal blow. Ursa was spitting, cursing. She had never felt such a blatant hatred in all her life.
"You took my parents from me. Well, guess what? Una's little girl's grown and she means to get blood for blood!"
The human had seen hate in the other Barbics' eyes but this girl was smoldering with it. He dodged another blow. The girl jerked the sword from the ground and tore after him.
Buddi was trembling. Ursa…was she truly full of so much hate, so much buried fury? He felt tears trickle down his cheeks.
Gritty tore after Ursa when he realized…
"She's using a sword."
"Gritty!"
The Barbic turned and saw Grubbi running to him. His eyes were blazing.
"Gianni's fallen."
"What?"
Their leader…
Buddi rubbed his arms, as if to ward off a chill he knew only thrived in his heart. He turned and nearly threw up. Gummies lay scattered over the ground, some whole with gashes but most in pieces, their bodies mutilated. He fell onto his backside and found for any air. But he saw that the humans were retreating for the time being.
Ursa ran and ran until her prey was no longer in her gasp. She stopped and panted. Gritty ran up behind her. She was trembling. She raised her arm high and screamed,
"RUN! RUN YOU COWARD!"
She dropped the sword to the ground. Gritty put his hands on her shoulders. She turned around. Gritty looked at her.
"Ursa…go let that anger out. Otherwise you'll do something stupid."
"You sound ancient."
Buddi watched with interest. He was afraid but curiosity overwhelmed fear. He felt that shiver run up his spine again. He was switching faster than before. He stared at Ursa and Gritty. Grubbi had come over.
He had something in his hands.
"Ursa. Our leader died."
"What?"
So caught up in rage, her ears had missed his cries as he departed this world. Grubbi smiled and turned to Theanrn who came up and took something from Grubbi. He turned to Ursa.
"But we have another warrior. Not as experienced as Gianni. But in time, in time."
He withdrew a silver bladed sword and gave it to Ursa. She recognized it. It was the one she had designed to be hers when she came of age. Theanrn smiled, despite the grimness of the situation.
Buddi could barely hear as he faded but he made out,
"Warrioress Ursa."
And then he was gone, leaving a dark past behind.