The Eye of the Hunter (36 page)

Wrauu!

Uran examined one of the slain Bears, the beast pierced with black-feathered, black-shafted arrows. “This is Rutch work. At least they didn’t get the cub.

“Stand awhile, Beorc. Let the wind carry our scent into the cave. Mayhap the cub will come out once it smells who we are.”

Beorc squatted, stirring ashes with the arrow. “Hola! What is this?”

He held up a tiny arrow, no more than five inches long. Its point was discolored, as if coated with something. Taking care not to touch the darkness, Beorc handed the minuscule shaft to Uran. “’Ware the point. Mayhap it is poisoned.”

While Uran examined the arrow, Beorc sifted through the remains of other Rutcha, their corpses turned to ashes by the coming of the Sun. “Uh,” he grunted. “Here is another…and another. What manner bow—?”

Waa
…The tone and tenor of the cub’s cry changed pitch dramatically, climbing upward, becoming less of a hoarse wraul and more of a plaintive wail.
Waaahh
…

Uran leapt to his feet. “That’s no Bear cub,” he gritted, moving to the low cave mouth. Cautiously he peered in, then reached. “Aye, no cub this! Instead, it’s a wee bairn!”

Uran turned to Beorc, and in his arms he cradled a squalling child, perhaps six or eight months old, male, unclothed.

Beorc dropped the tiny arrows and whipped off his cloak, handing it to Uran to wrap the baby in. “You’ve good lungs, my wee Manchild,” said Uran above the yowling as he enfolded the bairn in cloth.

Beorc squatted down and looked into the enshadowed cave, finding that it was but a shallow hollow. “No cub at all. No place for one to hide.”

While Uran gently rocked the baby and rumbled a wordless tune, Beorc examined the slain Bears, then studied the ground up slope and down, carefully reading what he could from the tracks.

When he returned, the child was asleep. Uran continued to rock the baby. “Well?”

Beorc took up the tiny arrows. “All these Bears, they are boar Bears. Not a sow among them. And for boars to travel together…well, it’s—it’s unnatural!

“The tracks tell that they came downhill from the col above, four boar Bears and a cub! D’y’ hear me, Uran? I said that boars,
boars
; came with a cub! And that’s not all: there were foxes—three, maybe four—and the overlap of prints tell that they walked among the Bears!

“The signs say the Rutcha lay in ambush. When they attacked, the cub took to the cave, and the boars stood before it.

“Whether the Wrg were slain by the Bears”—Beorc held up the tiny arrows—“or by these, I cannot say, for Adon’s Ban destroyed the evidence of such.

“That Rutcha would lay in ambush to slaughter Bears is not surprising, for Foul Folk revel in such butchery. Yet, Uran, I ask you this: Why would boars travel together? Why would they tolerate a cub? Why were foxes among Bears? Who cast these arrows? And where is the cub?

“The only answers that I can think of are…are…”

Uran spoke. “Are perilously strange, aye. Heed, Beorc: as to your first four questions, I deem the foxes were among the Bears, for they were ridden by those who cast the arrows: the Hidden Ones—in this case, the Fox Riders. And that’s what I thought I saw on the back of the fox as we
climbed—a tiny person astride—a Fox Rider.” Beorc’s eyes widened at Uran’s words, for even though they followed his own line of reasoning, conjecture was one thing—confirmation, another. Still, he remained silent.

After a moment Uran added, “It is my thought that the Bears and Fox Riders were escorting the cub, taking him to a place of safety, or to his kindred.”

Beorc looked over his shoulder and up slope, as if he suspected that even now eyes were upon them. Seeing nothing untoward, he turned back to Uran. “And the cub?”

Uran sighed, looking down at the sleeping babe. “Beorc, I deem I hold the cub.”

* * *

While they waited, Beorc stirred through all the ashes of the slain Foul Folk, gathering diminutive arrows, taking care not to touch the dark smear on the minuscule points. He laid the tiny shafts out side by side on a flat rock. “They’ll want them back, I shouldn’t wonder.”

The Sun climbed up the sky, and Uran sat in the shade of a great boulder and rocked the sleeping babe. “He is exhausted, Beorc.”

“Mayhap he travelled through the night.”

Uran nodded.

Beorc came and sat beside his brother. “If the Fox Riders are proportioned to their stature as we, then by the length of the arrows, those Folk stand no taller than my foot is long.”

Uran grinned. “A small Folk, but a large foot.”

Beorc barked a loud laugh, quickly stifled, for he would not wake the babe. The sleeping child stirred but slept on.

At last Uran stood. “They are not coming for him.”

Beorc looked up at his elder brother. “You would take him with us?”

“Aye, we can’t leave him here.”

Beorc nodded, gaining his feet. “Then let us go. And a surprise we’ll be bringing to the camp.”

Uran looked down at the babe. “Only temporarily, Beorc. I’m of a mind to surprise Niki.”

Beorc’s eyes flew wide. “You’d take this wee one to your wife?”

“Aye.”

Shaking his head in bemusement, Beorc scrambled down from the flat and reached back up, and Uran handed the
child to him, then descended after. And in this manner, down the slope they went, when necessary, passing the babe from hand to hand as they clambered down each ledge.

Now and again they would scan back up slope, and when they had gone a furlong or so, Beorc called in a low voice, “Hola, brother. Look and see.”

Carefully cradling the babe, Uran turned about.

High above on the brim of the flat stood
five
foxes gazing down.

* * *

“Given to us by the Hidden Ones, you say.”

“Aye, Niki,” responded Uran. “That they did.”

Niki bent over the child, spooning warm milk into his mouth.

“Followed us all the way, they did,” chimed in Beorc. “Flitting through the woods, through the shadows of the Great Greenhall. Every day for five days…till we got here, till we came to the village.”

“Well, what did you feed him for those same five days?”

“Well-chewed rations, love,” answered Uran. “I took my lessons from the Wolves.”

“Don’t forget the berry juice,” added Beorc.

Niki glanced up at the Men. “No wonder his stomach is upset. But I judge there was little else you could do.

“I don’t suppose he has a name.”

Cub!
both Men said simultaneously.

“
Cub?
What kind of a name is that for a child?” Niki spooned more milk into the baby’s mouth, the tot grinning from ear to ear at the Woman’s face, reaching out to clutch at her russet hair. Niki smiled back, and the babe laughed, his amber eyes sparkling.

“He shall be named Urus, after your grandsire.”

And that settled that, though Beorc and Uran often called him Cub.

* * *

Urus was a happy child, and he prospered under Niki’s care and Uran’s guidance. He developed swiftly, seeming to go from crawling to walking overnight, and likewise from babbling to talking, though when Niki and Uran looked back on it, they realized that winter had come and gone. Another year passed and another, and Urus ran through the forest with the other children, playing in the leafy galleries of the
Great Greenhall, the child tall for what they guessed to be his age.

When Urus was perhaps four, there came a clamoring from the glade center, and the boy threw open the shutter and looked out. Waddling across the sunlit sward came a great Bear. Calmly in its path stood Niki, water pail in hand, the Woman still.

Niki was unafraid, for Bears and Baeron had long held each other in respect, but she was astonished when a cub came bolting from her cottage, squalling, thundering across the grass toward the boar. The boar raised his muzzle and snuffled the air, then sat back on its haunches and waited, and was bowled over by the younker Bear. There was much shrill growling by the cub, matched by deep rumbles from the boar, and they rolled about on the sward in mock battle.

Niki laughed to see such, for she had never witnessed a boar Bear playing with a cub. In fact, it was well established that boars would at times harm cubs, were it not for the sows’ fierce protection. Yet here were two who proved to be the exception to the rule.

The cub yawled and the boar roared, and the entire village came to see. But at last the boar Bear stood and shook himself, as did the cub, and together they ambled off into the woods.

* * *

“What do you mean it was Urus?” Niki’s question seemed to fill up the entire cottage.

Uran sloshed oil into the lantern. “Love, there’s some that I never told you about the day we found Urus.” He stoppered up the jug and set it aside.

“What? What didn’t you say?”

Uran scrabbled under the bed and withdrew his morning star. “I’ve no time to tell you now. I’ve got to find him. Night’s coming on, and he’s out there, mayhap with a boar, mayhap alone.” He hooked the weapon to his belt.

“I’m coming with you.”

“Oh, Niki, there’s a large boar involved, and should he go mad—”

“I said, I’m coming with you!” Her tone brooked no refusal.

Niki caught up another lantern and threw her cloak about her shoulders.

Uran took a deep breath and let it out. “Well then, let’s be off.”

Niki following, Uran stepped to the door and flung it open.

And before him was Urus, the lad just then stepping onto the stoop, returning home. “Where we going, Da?” piped up the child.

* * *

Her chair creaking gently, Niki rocked back and forth, holding Urus, the younker asleep. “I don’t care if he is a Cursed One, still I love him. Even though he is not of our blood, he will always be my baby, my child…our child.

“Oh, Uran, even had you told me this the first day you brought him home, still would we have kept him. We had no children of our own, though Adon knows we have tried”—Niki smiled—“and still do.”

In the flickering candlelight she gazed down at Urus’s face, brushing a lock of his reddish hair back from his forehead. “Cursed or no, we would have kept him, for he is precious. He is precious.”

Uran whittled on a block of wood. “They wanted him raised where he could learn the ways of Man.”

Niki looked up at her husband.

“The Hidden Ones, I mean,” continued Uran. “They were bringing him here…well, mayhap not
here
exactly, but to the Baeron, I’m certain.”

Niki said nought, the rocker creaking, the knife whittling. After a moment—“I wonder who his sire and dam are.”

“Most likely they are dead,” answered Uran. “Else they’d raise him on their own.”

The Man stood and placed his carving on the mantel. It was the likeness of a Bear. “Let us to bed, love.”

As they lay Urus in his bunk, Uran advanced one more opinion. “The Wrg are thick as thieves in the Grimwall. Why? None knows. Yet I think that they are responsible for making this lad of ours an orphan. What happened and why…well, like as not we’ll never know. One thing is clear, though, this lad is an orphan no more.”

They blew out the candle and the silver Moon shone in the open window, lighting their way to bed.

* * *

Years fled, and Urus grew toward his Manhood, and when he came into his fullness, he towered some six feet, eight inches high and massed nearly twenty-two stone.

The fact that he occasionally transformed into a huge Bear did not seem to cause great distress among the Baeron. In truth, when Urus took up border duty in the Grimwalls, his ability became an asset. Wrg had continued to gather in the mountains and several skirmishes had been fought at night, and Urus as a Man was a mighty fighter, but as a Bear he was devastating. And though often wounded, weapons did not seem to do him lasting harm, and his healing rate was phenomenal. It was told by the loremasters that only silver pure could do his kind permanent harm—that or starsilver.

His prowess was sung of often at the Gathering, the annual Mid-Year’s Day convocation of the Baeron in The Clearing in the Greatwood to the south of the Great Greenhall Forest. There it was that tales of heroism were told, and songs of valor sung, and among these were stories of the Man who at times became a Bear.

Still, he
was
cursed and knew it, and though he longed to love a Woman and to be loved in return, he held himself aloof from Women and made no advances, for he did not wish to pass his curse onto a child. And perhaps because of his aloofness, or perhaps because of his curse, Women made no advances to him.

His foster parents, Niki and Uran, had never withheld from him that he was a foundling, not that it lessened their love for him or his love in return. But even though he was happy, Urus had always wondered at his origins, and resolved to one day find his roots somewhere in the vastness of the Grimwalls above Delon Island. Yet time and again, skirmishes against the Wrg prevented him from going on this quest, for his fighting skill was needed along the borders.

He had been found in 4E1911, and thirty years later, in 4E1941, he was hailed as Chieftain by the Baeron of the Greenhall nigh Delon. Oh, he was not Chieftain over all the Baeron—Rau in the Greatwood held that honor—but Urus was made leader of his clan. When the Council announced their decision, Niki, her russet hair showing strands of grey, embraced and kissed him, saying. “Your father is likely to burst with pride.” And Uran was indeed proud, and he hugged Urus a fierce bear hug and slapped him on the back, and that night Uran and Uncle Beorc, both now in their fifties, drank themselves sick.

Well and good did Urus lead the clan for the next three years. And then, one night…

* * *

Urus and his Warband of thirty had come upon the survivors camped at Haven, the long-abandoned way station on the Landover Road near the eastern rise up to the Crestan Pass, the stopover point nought but crumbling ruins. These people had been part of a waggon train attempting to cross over the pass in early winter. But snow had come, and the train had turned back, only to be ambushed by Wrg. Several had managed to hold out until sunrise, but Men and animals alike had been slaughtered, and now Women and children and the wounded were all that were left. The survivors had come back down on foot as far as these ruins, but as night drew nigh, they feared another attack.