Chapter 26: Dancing with a Bear

Alistair

"Svenya is well."

I kept repeating this to myself, over and over, holding it like the tiny thread of her essence that I had discovered during my time in the Fade. With every step towards our destination I recalled that same twinge, that echo of her that connected us and it comforted me amid the delays and the physical distance that lay between us.

In the Fade Svenya had looked well and whole. The threat to her had been removed by…whatever that thing was that I had confronted. When I had described it to Bruna she had lifted her eyebrows with interest, but she either could not or would not tell me what it was and therefore she asked for more information on the Fade Amalgam. My description of the horror seemed to genuinely concern her since the mysterious woman had said it had been created by something wandering through a tear in the Veil into the Fade from our world.

"I would say that is impossible," she answered grimly, observing during the following evening, "but I have lived too long to believe anything is impossible when it comes to the Fade. As I said before, I knew that the Veil was becoming quite thin in places around the Cauldron, but I did not think it could ever be so thin."

"Ragged doorway…" Letha muttered with a shudder as she rubbed the palms of her hands against her upper arms as if she felt chilled and were attempting to warm herself next to the fire. The evening had been cool, but I received the impression that it was more than that.

"What did you say?" I asked, turning to her and suddenly she cowered back and I cringed, realizing I had startled her.

In the day since my dream she had become shakier and Bruna discovered that she had a mild fever. The effects of the lyrium were still strong, though they had waned. Despite the fever, I had to make us press on and Bruna permitted it since there was not much else we could do for Letha and she was stable enough to travel.

As anxious as I was, inwardly I acknowledged that I would have waited and remained encamped for another day if Bruna had advised it. In my short time with her I discovered she had insight and would not back down if she felt strongly. It garnered respect to the point that she seemed to take all of us in hand like a woman leading children and yet it did not make either Ser Grey or me feel belittled.

Bruna placed a hand on my arm and stepped forward to speak to her, coaxing Letha gently, "What do you mean by a `ragged doorway' Sister?"

After a moment's hesitation, Letha squeaked, "The doorway was there, the air was in shimmering tatters around it. It breathed a scent neither foul nor fair. Whispered voices within beckoned. Did not want to go…ran. No one followed."

"Did she see a tear in the Veil?" I whispered to Bruna, "Or is this a result of the lyrium poisoning?"

"Perhaps it is both," she offered, putting an arm around the Sister and guiding her to her bedroll and wrapped a blanket around her, encouraging her to recline and go to sleep, "the lyrium poisoning might have enabled her to see it when normally she might not." I watched as Bruna soothed Sister Letha and the timid woman drifted off to sleep.

When Letha was quiet, Bruna began to brew more tea in her little copper kettle and I quietly inquired, "Will she ever recover from this?"

"I cannot say. I have rarely seen a poisoning this severe. Most people exposed to lyrium dust are usually only exposed to a small amount in passing at a luckless moment. To become like this she would have had to either been exposed to a large amount or had to have been exposed to it repeatedly over a vast period of time. She has enough of her faculties that she is able to move under her own volition and is fairly coherent, so there is hope. I am not sure what the Templars did to her and I fear pressing her because it could break her tenuous hold on reality."

"What are you whispering about?" demanded Ser Grey as he re-entered the clearing with more firewood, though I noted he used a more hushed voice, keeping in mind our nervous guest. He strove to be calmer in Letha's direct presence for fear he would upset her and I believe he felt guilty for frightening her so severely when he first found her.

Bruna explained, "We were discussing Sister Letha and her likeliness of recovery."

Ser Grey's face visibly darkened, "If I discover whose hands harmed her, those hands will be lopped off."

"Easy, Ser Lion, do not roar over it now," Bruna chided him, nodding to the sleeping sister, "There will be a time for justice or vengeance, but there is no point in dwelling upon it now. Save your strength and feed the fire. We must eat before it gets too dark and so we can bank the fire down to coals. We are going ever deeper into dangerous lands and lessening the light should help us to remain concealed from unwelcome eyes."

After Ser Grey took a deep breath, nodded and did as she bid. He did not even complain about her manner of address.

This journey had been a chastening experience for the man. In the time I had known him, he was a representative of all things precise. He did not surrender, he did not compromise, and he was as immovable as granite. The hardships we had faced together had slowly chipped away at a man who could withstand a battle without a wound. A man who could bring warriors to their knees and inspired complete obedience from younger knights allowed himself to be directed by women, something which would have been unthinkable mere weeks ago.

When Eamon had assigned Grey to me, I had resented the old knight. He acted superior and refused to bend. This was not the man who carefully fed the fire while being careful not to upset the small teapot. He seemed more human, more honed. He had complained and griped, but he had adjusted and, in my eyes, he had not been marred by the change. Others like him would have been broken by such twists of fate, but he persevered.

Admittedly, I had grown slightly fond of Ser Lion; though I knew telling him would probably humiliate us both. I vowed that when this ordeal was concluded, I would find a way to honor him appropriately and would more willingly make use of his talents in the future.

We ate a sparse meal and, as Bruna had advised, we banked the fire down to coals. The night silence was eerie in the darkness. Since we had passed into Cloughbark lands, the lack of bird calls or other sounds had only added to the sense of wrongness that pervaded this entire place. Occasionally the solitary cry of a mournful wolf was the only thing that broke the stillness, and that was not a comfort.

As I felt myself beginning to doze as I leaned against a tree, a sudden rushing in the brush to the East caught my attention. A heavy crashing accompanied it, as if trees were being knocked over and the sound approached. Both Ser Grey and I leapt to our feet, swords unsheathed and ready, just as a hulking shadow stopped short of the edge of the clearing. It stood two heads taller than the tallest man I had ever seen and was three times as wide. My mouth went dry.

You would think that a man who has faced ogres twice that size would not be troubled by a large bear. What you are forgetting is the claws. That is one thing ogres do not have. Its breath made steam in the darkness that was faintly visible by the dim light of the coals. It was one monstrous black shadow amid the trees.

Most bears, unless it is a female protecting her cubs, would have turned around and disappeared back into the woods on seeing a group of human beings. This bear continued to stand before us, as if considering us carefully. The sound of its rumbling breath panting made me edgy, but what disturbed me the most was looking into its eyes.

Even though it was dark I could see its eyes plainly, for they glowed with a haunting blue light.

Perhaps if we had remained still, it would have eventually left and not bothered us, but Ser Grey moved to take point and consciously place himself between where Sister Letha still lay on the ground and where the bear stood. A dry twig snapped and it sent the bear into a frenzy of motion, almost catapulting through the air in a blur, flying at Ser Grey.

Sister Letha stifled a cry as the bear made contact with the knight, barely missing her entirely as it threw Ser Grey across the clearing and to the ground. The thud the old knight made as he hit the needled forest floor was punctuated by a harsh grunt of air that was forced from his lungs. Ser Grey was not a small man, but the bear tossed him like a rag doll.

Bruna moved before I could, taking her tea pot from where it rested at the edge of the coals and tossing its contents right into the bear's face, blinding it with scalding water. The bear was distracted from the prone form of Ser Grey as it violently shook its head, roaring in pain, swaying from side to side with the power of its distress. I took that opportunity to attack it while it was distracted, plunging my sword repeatedly into its thick hide around its neck. It tried to attack back, but without its vision to guide it the bear was unable to hit me and finally crumpled to the ground in a hulking heap.

While I had been trying to dispatch the bear, Bruna had rushed to Ser Grey's side, dragging him free of the rampaging beast can tried to examine him. Once I was assured that the bear was dead, I struggled to stoke the fire again so that we would have enough light by which to attend to Ser Grey.

Bruna muttered under her breath as she ripped away what was left of the sleeve from his left arm at the shoulder. The bear had managed to slash at it and the gashes were deep. He had struck his head on the ground, and though there was no wound to his head, Ser Grey was mercifully unconscious. She put more water in the kettle and put it back on the fire and managed to pull a needle, some thick thread and some clean rags from her travelling pouch.

As she gathered what she needed quickly to attend to Ser Grey's wounds, I turned my attention to Sister Letha. The skittish sister had been greatly upset by the attack and sat with her knees brought to her chest, rocking herself, gabbling something I could barely make out until I got down on my knees next to her, "It glowed. It glowed with the hum. It smells wrong. It does not smell of forest. It smells of the glow. It hums still, even dead it hums."

I tried my best to hush her, carefully brushing back some of the loose tendrils of hair with careful fingers and taking one of her hands in a sure grip, "It is alright, Letha. The bear will not harm you."

"You saw the glow?" she questioned timidly, once some of the panic had begun to abate and the rocking had slowed, "It was not only me? The beast glowed with what should only be reserved for the Maker."

I nodded, not entirely sure of everything she was saying, but reassuring her that I too had seen the perplexing glow in the bear's eyes.

"I need your arm, your Majesty," Bruna called to me from where she crouched over Ser Grey. She looked grim. Certain that Sister Letha was calm enough that she would cause no injury to herself, I returned to Bruna's side.

She had managed to clean the wounds with hot water, but they were too deep to be left open. She needed to sew them closed. Unsure of whether Ser Grey would remain still, she needed me to forcibly hold him to the ground so that she could do the stitching. Physically lying across him, I managed to keep him still enough so that she could perform her needlework, even when he began to regain consciousness and thrash thinking that I was the bear still attacking. He gasped and cried out until we could make him sensible enough to know that we were out of danger.

"Is the Sister safe?" was Grey's first comprehensible question.

"Yes," I said, "she is safe. The bear missed her in its haste to dance with you."

He groaned, "Why can you not be serious?"

Glancing over at the carcass of the newly killed bear, I replied, "I'll worry about being serious when I butcher the bear. At least we will eat well tomorrow."

During this exchange, Bruna boiled more water and made a tea that would help Ser Grey and Sister Letha sleep. Once they were both secure on their bedrolls, she helped me to drag the bear out of the clearing and begin to salvage the gear that had not been completely destroyed by the rampaging animal.

By the wee hours of morning, the stars had faded and the dawn had begun to turn the sky gray, we sat together in our ruined camp and stared at the fire as it died down.

"You saw the glowing eyes," Bruna observed without removing her gaze from the coals that she prodded with a thin stick.

"Yes," I concurred, "Letha said something about the animal glowing too, but she also said that it hummed."

Bruna rubbed her eyes with a weary hand, "Letha is not the only one suffering from lyrium poisoning, it appears."

I felt my brow furrow with that information, "You mean…the bear…"

"No normal bear would have attacked us at this time of year." She sighed, trying to explain, "They are concerned with eating enough before they hibernate and it makes them slightly sluggish. That animal was sick and half crazed, though it had enough sense to examine us before flying at us. Lyrium can have strange effects on animals, but they rarely have access to it. Bears are more likely to be affected by it if they somehow come into contact with a stray vein in their caves, but even that would not have caused so heavy a taint that it would make its eyes glow blue with it."

"This is making me wonder…" I began before she finished my thought.

"…About the animal attacks that have suddenly begun occurring here in the Cauldron?"

I nodded, "Yes. We had been attacked by a pack of wolves. They seemed desperate but strangely in chorus with one another but their eyes didn't glow like this."

"Wolves are pack animals," she acquiesced, "they might have gained a certain amount of clarity from the lyrium that enabled them to work more efficiently together. It could have been a lesser taint which would have made them less erratic. Different animals respond differently depending on what is inherent in their natures."

I sighed, "We're not going to be able to eat the bear, are we?"

"I would not advise it," she confirmed before continuing, "In truth, we will need to bury the beast once daylight arrives to prevent other animals from getting into the carcass and becoming poisoned by its flesh."

"It would be easier to burn it."

"A bear that size would burn like a beacon."

"It would also probably be considered sacrilegious to give it a pyre."

"I am not sure of that, but I will help you to bury it come morning," she offered, "Ser Grey will be little help in such a task. I will have to sling his arm until it heals."

"This will slow us even further," I gritted my teeth in frustration, "We will also have difficulties defending ourselves in the event we have a run in with the Templars. If Svenya and Rian are in trouble, we will be unable to rescue them by force."

"I doubt force was ever an option in this situation," she allowed, "but do not lose hope. Mae is a clever girl. She may find a way to rescue us before the week wanes."

I shook my head, getting to my feet, searching the brush for a large branch with which to move enough soil to bury a bear, "May the Maker see fit to make it so."