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Now it was a pile of board and beam slumped into its cellar, and so were most of the outbuildings; a silo had broken off and left jagged teeth standing upright like a shattered tooth. Nearby the rusted hulk of some machine of the ancient world-the type called tractor -stood forlorn, half buried. The potato barn was a low long rectangle, roofed in curved sheet metal and with ventilators rising from the top like pipes crowned with pointed conical hats. ?Seems perfect,? he said-or rather, shouted.?Let?s take a look.?
They did; the boards of the building?s sides were mostly intact, and the glass in a couple of windows unsmashed. The entrance was double doors, sagging open, down a ramp that must have been for the passage of wagons. They approached, then kicked out of their skis and set those upright in the snow. It was nearly knee-deep on the humans when they put their feet down.
Garbh stopped just outside the entranceway, and even over the wind?s keening he could hear the ratcheting menace of her snarl. Edain and he shouted as one: ?Watch out!?
Warrior?s reflex overrode surprise; he could feel it happening, like a surge of fire through the cold sluggishness of his body. A great dark shape came out of the doors like something shot from a catapult; he could hear the dogsled team going wild in their traces. Garbh leapt for a throat and was batted aside like a rag doll, turning head-over-heels with a whining yelp of surprise. The bear had to rear on its hind legs to do that, though, roaring in gape-jawed rage. That gave Edain his single chance. The longbow spat an arrow, and the roar turned to a coughing gurgle for a moment as the cloth yard shaft transfixed the thick neck.
Rudi had his sword out now, in the two-handed grip; not what he?d have chosen to fight an animal three times his weight, quick as a cat and stronger than a team of plow oxen, but it was a great deal better than nothing or a knife if you didn?t have a hunting spear to hand. The bruin hesitated only an instant, and then it was on him. Like a wall of dark fur it reared, and the paws swung like living maces fit to snap necks and spatter brains.
Whippt.
The claws passed half an inch from his face as he drove in and ducked; some part of him cursed the snow for hampering his feet. He twisted and hewed, and the yard of sharp steel raked a great forearm open to the bone and skidded off that. Blood spattered at him, striking his goggles, blinding him. He threw himself backward frantically, landing on his back in snow that hampered and clung as he tore them off. Only an instant, but the bear was looming over him like the shadow of incarnate Death, ready to fall in an avalanche of teeth and claws. Rudi snarled back at it, coming up to one knee and tensing for the last effort.
A chain snaked out of the night and whipped around the bear?s forepaw. The sickle-blade at the end sank in as Mary set her feet and pulled. The bear?s stroke was thrown off, but at the end of her fighting iron the hundred and fifty-odd pounds of Dunedain woman and her gear traced an arc through the gathering darkness almost as spectacular as Garbh?s a moment earlier. She?d wrapped the end around her waist for leverage, and now it worked the other way.
There was a wail of:?Oh, rrrrrrhaich!? and a thump. ?Firo, pen u-celeg!? Ritva screamed, and loosed an arrow from her recurve.?Firo, brog!?
There was a wet thunk as it hammered into the beast?s hip bone.
That wasn?t going to fulfill the cry of:?Die, foul beast! Die, bear!? But it would help.
Rudi surged up while it was distracted, his whole body twisting into the two-handed drawing slash across its belly. Impact shocked up his wrists and arms, more like hitting an oak pell than a man. Fur and thick hide and fat and muscle parted under the desperate power of the blow, and intestines spilled out like writhing pink eels as he followed through. Something hit him, stu
Rudi rolled through the snow, blinded by it. Someone landed across him as he did-Ingolf, he realized, as he heard the flat vowels of his curses. They struggled to get up without cutting each other open on longsword or shete, and then an arrow hissed between their heads. ?Be sodding careful!? he bellowed.
Back on his feet he could barely see the beast through the horizontal wail of the snow, though its moaning bellow was loud. Pierre Walks Quiet had an actual hunting spear with him, lashed to the dogsled. Now he?d gotten it free, and he dashed in and thrust. The long point went home in the bear?s chest, but it charged even with its staggering feet tripping in its own guts. He ran backward through the snow, half falling, until the butt-cap of the spear rang on the side of the buried tractor. The machine rocked backward, but the impact drove the weapon deep into the charging animal as well.
Rudi and Ingolf hobbled forward. Edain was already there; even Garbh was, limping but game. Her master shot twice, Ritva once, and then Rudi and Ingolf each slammed the edge of their long blades into its spine.
The bear sank forward; Pete?s thin form wriggled out from beneath it, the arms and chest of his parka wet with its blood and fluids. The animal gave a last whimper, pawed at its neck, and went limp. ?Back! Let Brother Bear die!? Rudi snapped.?Is everyone all right? Sound off!?
His folk did. Ritva returned with Mary?s arm over her shoulder; the one-eyed Ranger staggered over to Ingolf. ?Are you all right, honey? Bar melindo,? he added. ?I?m… just… thumped…? she wheezed, half collapsing against him.?Nothing… broken.?
She gri
Rudi wiped the blood from his sword, feeling his pulse slow and the sweat that soaked his underclothing turn gelid. Controlling his breathing turned it deep and slow and took the tremor out of his hands. There were knocks that would be painful bruises, but that was no novelty. ?Now, that was more like a matter of excitement, anxiety and dread than I prefer before di
He bent to touch the bear?s blood to his forehead and murmur the rite of passing; it had been a brave beast, and deserved honor. ?Why did it go for us?? Pierre Walks Quiet said.?They usually don?t, unless they?re real hungry, or you push them into a corner, or it?s a mother with cubs. We hadn?t gone in to its den… and it?s early for a bear to den up for the winter, even with the weather like this.?
Ingolf bent to examine it; snow was collecting on its open eyes and on its mouth and nostrils, which meant it wasn?t going to get up again. He spoke thoughtfully, if you could when you had to shout: ?It wasn?t mean-sick either. Big healthy four-year-old male, I?d say. And see, nice und fat for winter. That makes them more peaceable, most times.?
Mary nodded, shrugged, and then winced a little.?Bears are unpredictable,? she said.?Even black bears.?
Rudi went on:?I don?t know. Perhaps we should have a rite for the Father of Bears. I do know one thing, though.? ?What?? Edain said.
He was looking around for a place to haul the carcass up to drain, and testing the edge of his knife.
Rudi gri
Epona whickered at him, raising her head from a heap of feed pellets made of compressed alfalfa and cracked oats and sugar-beet molasses. Rudi whickered back in the horse-tongue; a sound that meant, Yes, I?m here, relax, as near as he could tell. The smell of bear was not calculated to make horses easy, even one as brave as Epona. Nor that of blood. ?Oft evil will will evil mar,? Mary muttered, leaning back against Ingolf?s chest.
She was a little tiddly with the applejack they?d brought from Readstown. They had fires down the length of the potato barn, and it had heated up to the point where you were reasonably comfortable without your parka-provided you kept everything else on. The body heat of the people and that from the horses down near the entrance helped, and the quick patches they?d made on holes in the walls, and the way the snow was piling up outside. It made good insulation.