5
Among the twisted trees they went, the Bear and his rider Camille, and all about was gloom and desolation and chill, a drear and silent wood. And now and again the Bear would pause and raise his head and sniff the air, but what he was seeking-water, food, habitation, friend, or foe-Camille knew not, though she suspected that what he sought was the scent of peril in the surround. After each pause, he would growl low over his shoulder at Camille, and she construed he warned her to silence, and for her part she did stay mum, as the Bear pressed on into what surely must be the Winterwood, or so Camille did think.
Forward they went into the fading day, the Bear following a narrow track through the dreadful demesne. Embedded in ice and snow and looming all ’round were harsh gray rock and jagged crags and stripped, barren trees-nought but cracked and splintered and tangled wood-and Camille shrank away whenever a clawlike branch seemed to clutch at her. Yet even though this was Faery, where strange and grim things were said to occur, Camille reasoned it was the Bear passing under or near the deadwood that made the limbs seem to reach out to grasp, rather than it actually being so… or so she did think. Still, she continued to flinch away when misshapen boughs reached forth with their fingers of twisted twigs as the day drew down toward night.
And just as the last of the dismal light was fading, a distant and terrible skriegh sounded, seemingly from far above, and Camille looked up through gnarled limbs to see high in the gloom a great and terrible creature of leathery wings and a sinuous body with legs ending in claws. “Oh,” she gasped, breaking her silence. “A Dragon. A Dragon dire.”
Yet the creature flew on to disappear beyond ice-laden peaks afar. But even after it was gone, Camille’s heart continued to race, and a goodly while passed ere it came to steady rhythm again, if a beating heart within this tangle could ever be said to be steady.
Even after darkness fell, the Bear continued apace, and in spite of the dreadful realm they trod, Camille began to nod in weariness, and now and then she would jerk awake in startlement to peer about, only to nod again. It was when she nearly fell from his back that the Bear came to a stop at last, and neither camp nor fire nor cooking food awaited them this night in this ghastly place. It was as if their unseen attendants had abandoned them.
Stumbling about, Camille managed to loosen the bundles the Bear did indicate, and in one was food-jerky and cold biscuits… it would have to do.
“I am thirsty, O Bear,” whispered Camille, her lips quite dry, for she had had nothing to drink since they had left the stream where they had eaten shallots and rootstock.
The Bear gave a soft whuff, and he sniffed the air and then led her to a frozen pool. With his great weight he broke through the ice and then backed away. Camille knelt and sipped at the frigid water, her face twisting in revulsion, for it tasted of brimstone, sulphurous and disgusting, but she drank of it nevertheless. When she raised up and moved away, the Bear, too, drank his fill, though he snuffled in loathing.
Back in the camp Camille fell asleep while wrapped in a blanket and eating, the partially consumed biscuit falling from her lax hand. Gently the Bear took up the remainder and finished it for her.
The next drab day, after a cold breakfast and another foul tasting drink, and after Camille had relieved herself, again they went through the drear land, Camille weary of travel, weary of fear, weary of this dismal realm. And this day seemed even darker than the one before, the woods more tangled, the shadows deeper, the ice and snow more chill; it was as if they were now travelling within the malignant heart of the dreadful domain, with its shattered gray rock and dark, looming crags looking on with sinister purpose. Even so, she once again straightened her spine to sit up tall, for she would not be defeated by the grim Winterwood, no matter how baleful its frigid clutch.
On padded the Bear through the unremitting gloom and rocks and crags and gnarl, and still the sky darkened above, and somewhere off in the remote fastness a distant Wolf howled, answered by an echoing howl even farther away. Though Camille gasped in alarm, the Bear gave no heed to these callings, as onward they went.
They stopped nigh what Camille thought might be the noontide, though with the blackening skies above, she could not say of a certain just what time it might be. The Bear directed her to loosen the food bundle, and again they dined on jerky and cold biscuits. And once more the Bear found water to drink, water again tinged with a sulphurous tang.
Forward they pressed after hardly any rest, and as the dark day began to wane, Camille thought she could see ebon shapes scrambling through the tangle afar. But the sightings were too brief for her to be certain, and the crags and rocks and shadows and snarl alone had fooled her more than once. Even so, “Oh, Bear,” she whispered, “does someone or something run alongside our course?”
The Bear paused and raised his head on high and sniffed. Long he stood, snuffling, but then without comment continued on. Camille wetted a finger and raised it to measure the flow of air, and yet all she discovered was the forward motion of the Bear. Mayhap the air drifts the wrong way for the Bear to scent th-What’s that? Camille’s heart hammered in her chest. I thought I saw something large and looming in the dark by that tall crag, something staring, leering. But the Bear had moved onward, and whatever it might have been had vanished behind a dead thorny tangle, and though she peered intently, she saw it not again. Slowly her heart calmed. Mayhap it was nought but shadows in the murk, or a standing stone or twisted tree or other such. Still she kept a sharp eye out, and now and again did she think she saw what might be dark forms running among the ice-laden twists and angular wrenchings of the tangled wood and the outlying crags and jumbles of shattered rock, but still she could not be certain.
Long did they travel as the day wore on, and toward night a wind began to blow down from the mountains above, and the pall o’erhead was riven into ragged, gray, wraithlike tendrils streaming across jagged peaks. In an effort to stay warm at the end of a day become blustery and chill, Camille wrapped her cloak about and huddled down within, abandoning her vow to remain unbowed within the Winterwood.
Night fell, and once again did the Bear pad onward as if trying to be quit of this terrible place. And once again did weary Camille nod and jerk and nearly fall from her perch. And in the windy cold, once again did the Bear finally stop for Camille to make camp and drink distasteful water and fall asleep while eating.
Wha-what? What was tha-?
Camille was wrenched from sleep by screams of dying and yawls of terror and howls of combat, and a great snarling and roaring. And just as she jerked awake in fear, a dark being crashed to the frozen ground beside her, his face torn off, his abdomen gutted. Shrieking, she scuttled back and away from this hideous dead thing, and looked up in the slanting light of a low gibbous moon to see a great battle raging, her Bear standing on his hind legs, ringed ’round by creatures with spears stabbing. And then she knew from her papa’s stories- Oh, sweet Mithras, they’re Goblins! And the Bear laid about with massive blows, his great claws ripping and rending, and blood flew wide and bones crunched, and Goblins fell ’round him slain. Yet the Bear was bleeding as well, his white fur stained with a scarlet gone black in the night.
Scrambling up, Camille looked for something to She was jerked from her feet and hauled into the air and clasped against a huge body, and a large hand slapped down on the top of her head, huge fingers grasping, curved talons clamping against her face. And a voice bellowed out above the Bear’s own roars, “Stop now, or I’ll snap the girl’s neck like a twig!”
6
At the shout from the huge being clasping Camille, the Bear swung his great head ’round, his ashen eyes mad with rage, and for a moment it seemed he would charge. But instead he took one last swipe at the beringing Goblins, scattering them, and then he dropped down to all fours and stood, his fighting done. At another command, the Goblins again surrounded the Bear, their spears ready to stab.
And when the Bear was encircled, the creature grasping Camille shifted his clutch to her shoulders and
