P. Hodgell - Bound in Blood

“Bark wanted to, but Ten said that Dure and Tigger didn’t know what they were doing and needed their hands held. That left Ten, me, and the pook.”

In a sheltered place, they had found huge footprints, twice the length of a man’s and four times as wide. Gorbel had sounded his horn, but no one answered, only echoes off the steep mountain slopes of the ravine into which they had ridden. Kibbet wanted to go back to collect the others, but Gorbel was hot for the kill and the pook Twizzle was whuffling with excitement. Then the bear had come at them from around a boulder. It towered, roaring, over Gorbel’s horse, and with one great blow ripped off both the saddle’s cantle and most of the horse’s rump. The horse went down, squealing, and the bear fell on it.

“I think Ten got his spear butt braced on the ground and the bear fell on that too. I heard bones breaking, but I couldn’t see Ten at all under that mountain of black fur. It quivered, then it was still.”

Kibbet fingered his wrist and drew down the cuff, but not before Jame had seen a ring of bruises encircling it.

He had tried to free Gorbel, he said, but had only managed to drag out one hand. It had no pulse. Then, because there was no way that he could shift that vast weight by himself, he had come back for help.

“Did you mark the ravine entry?” asked the Commandant.

“Why, no, Ran, but I’ll recognize it when I see it again.”

“You mean ‘if,’ ” growled Harn. He himself looked not unlike a bear with his bloodshot eyes, glowering countenance and disordered hair. Jame wondered if he was ill. “There are thousands of gorges and ravines in that part of the mountains, in case you hadn’t noticed, and like everything else in this bloody valley they move around at will if not nailed down.”

The Commandant sighed. “Very well. In the morning, if the snow has stopped, we will try to find the body.”

“What do you think of that?” Timmon asked Jame as they left the mess hall.

“Not much, perhaps for a silly reason: the pook didn’t come home.”

It stormed most of the night. Wind rattled the shutters as if trying to pry them off and snow sifted through the cracks. Jame lay in her furs listening to the whoop and roar, watching the flames under the copper cauldron dance in errant breezes and snow drift down through the smoke hole above. Toward dawn, when the storm’s clamor faltered and ceased, she rose, dressed in her warmest clothes and, leaving Rue and Jorin snugly asleep behind her, went down to the tack room to collect Death’s-head’s gear.

She found the rathorn by tripping over him curled up, more like a cat than a horse, in the lee of a boulder. Underneath his shaggy winter coat, the slashes on his shoulder were still red and sore; however, the stitches held and the cuts were healing.

“We’ll just have to take it easy,” she told him, knowing how ridiculous that sounded under the circumstances, and saddled him while he munched on a slab of roast venison that she had palmed the previous night at dinner.

They set off northward with the college barely astir behind and below them.

The storm clouds drifted off southward and the sun came out to cast dazzling light on the new-fallen snow. At the mountains’ feet, drifts crested in a sea of frozen waves, a foot deep in the troughs, shoulder high at the summits. Farther up, snow swirled around boulders, blew in veils off the heights, and smoked from laden trees as if they were being consumed with sparkling, white fire. The storm had swept away all trace and scent. She could only hope that the rathorn’s instincts were similar to the pook’s, allowing him to follow prey over the folds of the land even without normal scent markers.

Midday, barely five miles from the college and into rough terrain, Jame saw movement ahead. At first she thought it was a large bird trying unsuccessfully to take flight. Closer to, she heard it woof at the top of each leap before disappearing back into the snowy well that its own weight had dug. Drawing up alongside, she looked down into a face—or was it a bottom?—turned upward toward her.

“Woof,” said the pook Twizzle again, with evident satisfaction, and scrabbled up into the saddle in front of her.

They were at the mouth of a steep-walled ravine.

Several steps inside, the colt stopped, nostrils flaring. Even Jame could smell the bear’s rank scent although at first she didn’t see him, he was so big, like another of the shed-sized boulders that had tumbled down from above. This one, however, had tufts of black fur blowing through the crust of snow that covered it. There was no question that it was dead.

Dismounting, Jame walked warily around it.

On the leeward side, the fur had been ripped open and something lumpy had inserted itself within the tear against the monster’s flayed side. It stirred when it heard the crunch of her feet on the snow crust and peered out.

“About time,” it croaked.

“Glad to see you too, Gorbel.”

The Caineron Lordan looked awful, his face blotchy with bruises and stubble, everything about him caked with dried blood and bear fat. Jame sat on her heels before him with the pook draped, panting happily, over one knee.

“Are you injured?”

“Some ribs that hurt like blazes, thank you, and maybe a broken collarbone. The horse took most of the impact, poor brute. Where is everyone else?”

“By now, out searching for your body. Kibbet said that you were dead.”

“Huh. Much obliged to him, after that grip I got on his wrist.”

“He’s wearing the bruises of it.”

They considered this, without speaking.

“How many times has someone tried to kill you since Autumn’s Eve?” Jame asked at last.

“Four, counting this.”

“It’s about his brother, you know.”

“I know. Kibben died this autumn of brain congestion. He never did get his feet properly under him again, no matter who told him to stop standing on his head. Including me.”

“Well,” said Jame, after another pause, rising, “we can’t do much about your ribs or shoulder out here. Time we got you back to the college.”

Although obviously in pain, he only grunted as she helped him up. He regarded the cave bear.

“Damn. What a trophy to leave to rot.”

“You could cut off his forepaws.”

“I couldn’t, not with this shoulder. You could.”

“Later maybe. Come on.”

Jame supported him around the carcass, where they came face to face with the rathorn. The colt clearly remembered that Gorbel had also tried to make a trophy of him. His ears flattened, his crest rose, and he hissed. Jame swatted him on the nose, bruising her hand.

“Oh, behave.”

Gorbel regarded them sourly.

“I should have known,” he said.

Getting Death’s-head to carry them both and the pook back to Tentir was no easy business, but at last he grudgingly consented with an air of You owe me one , “one” no doubt being the largest roast chicken Jame could find. They reached the college at dusk, left the rathorn grumbling sore-footed among the boulders, and descended to amaze the returned search parties.

Some time later Jame stood outside the Knorth barracks watching the peach glow of the Map Room’s windows. A light snow fell. Her breath was a plume on the cold air, and she settled more deeply into her fur coat.

Brier emerged from the barracks. “Well?”

“That depends. The Commandant, Gorbel, and Kibbet are up there.”

They fell silent as the door to Old Tentir opened. Kibbet stood on the threshold. He looked around the square, taking in the lit windows and the warm fellowship inside, then turned and reentered the keep. As he hadn’t shut the door, they saw him walk down the length of the great hall, open the front door, and slip out through it into the night.