The Kingdom of the Bears Read online

  “Who was it?” Bethany asked. Her face was pinched with worry. “Weasels?”

  “I don’t see how they could have possibly come this far north. But who else can it be?”

  The driver, up higher where he could see better, turned to Brumbles. “Look up here, Sheriff.”

  The children stood to get a better view. Two carts lay overturned, blocking the road ahead. A pair of bears stood in front.

  “Well at least someone is guarding the road,” Brumbles growled. He got down from the cart and walked ahead as it rolled forward. He looked wary, but confident. “Hello there,” he called out. “I’m Sheriff Brumbles of the Eastlands. We’ve been short of news. What is this all about?”

  “There’s something else I just remembered about those stories,” Bethany said to Aaron. “The ones where the kids from our world find themselves in a magical kingdom far from home.”

  “Not now,” Aaron said. “Let’s see what we can learn from these bears.”

  She continued as if she hadn’t heard. “Those kids quickly find themselves in terrible danger. In the older stories–the truer ones, you might say–some of them never return. They are killed.”

  One of the bears on the road spoke and his voice was quavering and barely loud enough to hear. “Turn back. Turn back, now.”

  Brumbles stopped and let out a growl. There was something terribly wrong with the two bears, Aaron noticed as they pulled closer. They looked sickly and small, or so he thought at first. No, that wasn’t it. Their black fur had been hacked off. There were iron links around their back paws, chaining them to the overturned wagons.

  Brumbles growl became a roar as he reared back on his hind feet. It was frightening to behold, but not as frightening as what they saw next. Five weasels, each as tall as a small boy, came snaking around the side of the wagon. They drew wicked-looking knives. Behind them, almost as big as a bear itself, was an enormous wolverine. It bared its lips into a snarl. The two chained bears cowered in front of them.

  Aaron heard a laugh and turned to see three more weasels on the road behind them, sneering at their predicament. They’d stumbled into a trap.

  Chapter Three: The Enemy Revealed

  The weasels and the wolverine did not yield ground in spite of Brumbles’s angry roar. One of them jeered, “Another bear who doesn’t know his place. You’ll learn soon enough.” The weasel seemed to be the leader of this little band. He wore a rabbit pelt over his shoulders and a necklace made of what looked like wolf teeth. He held a long, thin knife in his left paw. The right was missing two fingers.

  “This is the Kingdom of the Bears,” Brumbles said. “Release those bears and stand aside from the King’s Road.”

  The weasel gave a toothy smile. “The King’s Road, eh? What king? There is no king in River’s Edge. Garmley has cast him down. Your so-called king lives in a cage now.”

  “That’s a lie,” Brumbles said with barely restrained fury in his voice. “You are nothing but thugs and brigands, and I promise you will get the thrashing you deserve.”

  The weasel’s eyes turned squinty and mean. “We’ll see who does the thrashing. Get him!”

  The other weasels moved quickly. The first leaped in with a swish of his knife at Brumbles’s belly. It caught in the bear’s cloak, who swung out with a paw. The weasel ducked nimbly under the blow, coming up again with its knife. Two other weasels stabbed at Brumbles. One of the blades slashed across the bear’s leg, drawing a roar of pain and rage. He swung again with an open paw, and this blow caught one of them full-on and it went flying into the overturned cart. The two chained bears cringed backward with a whimper.

  The wolverine closed for the attack.

  Wolverines were mean, aggressive beasts, even in the world the Merleys had known. A wolverine would stand down a bear over a piece of carrion. In this world, the wolverine was nearly as big as the bear, and moved with startling speed and a snarl at its lips. Soon, Brumbles was rolling over and over, embraced with the big brute in a death struggle.

  The wagon driver jumped down from his perch above the horse–now neighing in terror–and rushed at the half-paw weasel and his comrades. The second bear startled the weasels, who were forced to break from their gang-attack of Brumbles and face this new threat.

  Brumbles broke from the wolverine. Blood was streaming down his face. He shouted to the other bear. “I’ll take care of these beasts. Protect the humans!”

  “Aaron!” Bethany cried in terror.

  Aaron had been so busy watching Brumbles fight for his life that he’d failed to see the last three weasels attacking the wagon. Two were climbing into the wagon, while the last was pulling at the horse’s reins to take control. The two in the back of the cart grabbed Bethany’s foot and dragged her backwards through the onions and apples. Aaron rolled onto his back and kicked at the nearest weasel, but it snaked its head from side to side, avoiding the blows. Bethany kicked her legs wildly and grabbed Aaron’s hand. His other hand found a furry neck.

  He jerked and choked until the creature came free. It wasn’t actually a weasel, he now saw, but a close relative, a mink, white-furred with glaring red eyes. Aaron didn’t have a high-enough grip. The mink twisted its head and sank its teeth into his wrist. He released his grip with a cry.

  The horse reared at the front of the cart, and the wagon lurched to one side and then forward. The mink slid across rotten vegetables to fall out the back of the cart with a curse. Bethany’s kicks forced the other to let go and fall.

  The third enemy was sitting atop the horse, trying to cut it loose from its reins. The horse bucked and cried out in terror at the commotion. The wagon was jerking back and forth. “Get off of there,” Aaron said, hurling a turnip at the weasel. It missed, but the weasel almost lost its grip as it ducked out of the way. A moment later and both children were hurling vegetables and shouting. At last, Aaron struck it on the head with a potato. It lost its grip and fell to the ground, just avoiding being trampled.

  Meanwhile, as Brumbles tangled with the wolverine, the driver was unable to return to the wagon. He was just managing to hold off the other weasels, who had surrounded him and were jabbing at him with knives. He was already bleeding from one shoulder.

  Aaron looked around for help. He didn’t know what to expect, maybe a troop of bears marching south from River’s Edge. But the weasel had claimed River’s Edge had fallen, the king taken captive. Then what? Knights from King Prestor’s distant realm? No, there would be no help from that direction, either. There was no help anywhere. Or was there?

  Aaron looked at the weasel that Brumbles had knocked aside with his paw. He lay in a heap at the base of the overturned carts blocking the road. A ring of keys hung at his belt. The keys to the chained bears. The two beasts cowered at the edge of the wagon.

  He told Bethany, “Don’t let those weasels get back up.” The three were reorganizing to charge the wagon a second time.

  “I can’t fight them off by myself,” Bethany said in a panicked voice. “Where are you going?”

  Aaron didn’t have time to answer. He slipped over the edge of the wagon and fell to the ground. He dodged through teeth and claws and roars. Briefly, Brumbles and the wolverine rolled in front of him. The sheriff’s foe was tearing at his belly with its claws, while its jaws sought to close around the bear’s neck. Aaron found his way around them and to the side of the dead weasel. Working quickly, he untied the weasel’s belt, worked the keys loose, and then turned to the first of the bears. It shied away from his touch.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  The bear let out a whimper and Aaron could see burn marks and bits of singed fur. Their fur hadn’t been cut away, but burned off. One of them had a festering, unbandaged wound on its forearm. No wonder they were so frightened. It took Aaron a moment to get the lock undone, and then he slid off the chain.

  A weasel spotted Aaron just as he was unlocking the chain from the second bear and came running with knife in hand. “That’ll be the last
thing you ever do, you little fool.”

  Aaron turned to the two bears behind him, expecting them to face the weasel with him, but they cringed away. He snatched up the knife of the dead weasel. It was awkward in his hand.

  Brumbles had pulled momentarily free of the wolverine. The two circled each other, each bleeding from wounds. The sheriff looked in their direction just as the newly freed bears ducked their heads and tried to slink away from the battle. Brumbles ordered in an angry voice, “What are you, field mice? Or bears? Stand your ground!”

  His words stiffened the two beasts. They reared on their hind legs and let out a roar. It wasn’t much, but together with Aaron with knife in-hand, the enemy hesitated. This encouraged the two bears even more and they roared again, this time louder, and advanced on the lone weasel standing in front of them.

  The horse and wagon barreled into the middle of the battle. Weasels and bears scattered out of the way. Even the wolverine fell back as it tried to stay out of the way of the terrified, rearing horse. Bethany had taken the reins.

  “Weasels, to me!” Half-Paw cried. The enemy gathered itself in a tight knot, while the wagon driver stopped his horse and Aaron and the two freed bears hurried to Brumbles’s side. Together, they gathered in their own ranks. They now made four bears, and Aaron was armed, with his sister in a better position at the front of the wagon. There were wounds all around. Meanwhile, one of the weasels lay dead.

  Half-Paw apparently decided he’d had enough. He gestured to his men and they backed their way up the road toward River’s Edge. “We’ll meet you again, Sheriff. You’ll bow to our whip–or our sword–soon enough.” And with that, the weasel gave some signal to the others and they fled north. The children let out a cheer, but it died quickly in the face of Brumbles’s grim expression.

  “We’ve won this skirmish,” he said with a shake of the head. “But the war goes badly. Look.”

  As the sun set, the entire northern horizon glowed as with fire. The smell of smoke was so heavy in the air now that Aaron’s eyes watered and he coughed.

  Brumbles helped the two weakened bears into the back of the wagon. “Come, let’s get off the road. Those vermin will be back, eh? No doubt with reinforcements.”

  They continued northward on the road for about another mile with no sign of the weasels. When they reached a small path leading into the trees, however, Brumbles would take no chances. He sent the cart off the highway, then scouted ahead and behind before returning to their side as they made their way east, into the woods along the trail. Twilight was passing quickly, now, and soon they were stumbling through the dark. More than once, the children went sprawling as their feet caught hidden roots. Eventually, the trail narrowed to where they were forced to cut loose and abandon the wagon.

  Aaron’s hand was throbbing where the mink had bit him. He was so weak with hunger and exhaustion that he didn’t know how he’d stay on his feet much longer. Somehow, Bethany kept up, even though she was younger. When asked, she insisted on pushing ahead.

  Some time after nightfall, a female voice hissed unexpectedly from the trees to Aaron’s left, “Stop where you are or we will strike you down!”

  “Show your faces,” Brumbles said in a loud voice. “I am the Sheriff of the Eastlands, and if you are foes of the king, you will die where you stand.”

  A torch flared as it was revealed from behind a tree and three bears emerged, wearing green capes and armed with clubs. “Sheriff Brumbles?”

  “By the Sky Stone, I’m glad it’s the Greencloaks,” Brumbles said. “I don’t think we’d have survived another fight in our condition and in the dark. Ah, it’s Captain Brownia. How many are you?”

  “Precious few, I’m afraid,” she said. She lay her club over her shoulder in a leather holster. “Only a handful of us escaped the sacking of the city.”

  Brumbles let out a groan. “Then it’s true? River’s Edge has fallen?”

  She nodded. “All too true. I saw them lead the king away in chains with weasels and mink and ferrets spitting in his face. Garmley himself climbed onto the Oaken Throne and proclaimed himself Emperor. The Kingdom of the Bears is no more.”

  Chapter Four: The Song of the Bears

  The bear encampment was hidden in a ravine further up the canyon. A dozen Greencloaks, the king’s guard, had taken up refuge at a wooden guard tower hidden among the trees. It had been abandoned to the elements many years earlier, and the road to it was overgrown with brush. Inside, a small fire in the hearth struggled against the wind that blowed through cracks in the walls. The furnishings were spare, but the children sank gratefully into woolen pillows and accepted the blankets wrapped around their shoulders.

  Captain Brownia shrugged out of her cloak and joined her fellow soldiers in bandaging wounds. When they were done with that, they brought steaming bowls of acorn squash soup, hot bread with honey butter, roasted nuts, and honey cakes for the newcomers. Bear and child alike ate gratefully. Soon, Bethany began to blink and nod in the warmth of the fire.

  Aaron nudged her. “Not yet. We have to find out where this is going.”

  Brumbles took out a pipe and began to puff. The firelight reflected off the smoke curling in front of his face. “Whatever happened at River’s Edge? How could it have fallen so easily?”

  “Sneak attack,” Captain Brownia said. She rolled back on her haunches. One of her soldiers handed her a mug of cider. “Well, you know trade has been more or less cut off since that skirmish last fall, but there have been a few, closely inspected shipments pass through, mostly food and cloth from the badgers. Last week, some foxes came up the old road with a dozen wagons of ale.” She shook her head. “We should have inspected those barrels more thoroughly before they reached River’s Edge.”

  “The weasels hid among the beer?” Aaron asked. “How did they do that?”

  Brownia continued, “The barrels held no ale. Instead, they were packed with weasels or wolverines. Last night, when the ale was inside the city, Garmley and his men broke free. They set fire to the barracks and when the Greencloaks rushed to escape the burning buildings, they fell straight into the enemy’s hands. A few of us fought free, but by then it was too late. Much of the city was on fire, and Greatclaw’s bodyguards had been cut down. The king himself was taken captive.”

  One of the two bears Aaron had freed from the weasels now spoke for the first time. “We were bakers in the king’s kitchens. Weasels rounded up the staff and had their fun with us. They burned some people with boiling water. Us, they singed our fur with torches. Then they dragged out us out of the city to use as bait to capture more unsuspecting bears.”

  “And none of the staff fought back?” Brumbles asked sharply. “Perhaps if you’d stood your ground, the Greencloaks wouldn’t have been overwhelmed. The king would be free.”

  Aaron remembered his fear when the weasels had climbed into the back of the wagon. “It was the middle of the night, wasn’t it? They’d have been sleepy and confused. And the weasels were armed, weren’t they?” The two bears nodded vigorously as Aaron continued, “It’s understandable that they didn’t put up much of a fight.”

  Brumbles harumphed at this, but in the end admitted that once the weasels were running free inside the city they would have been difficult to stop.

  Captain Brownia said, “So what now?”

  “Only two choices,” Brumbles said. “We either surrender the kingdom to Garmley and his thugs or we stand up and fight like bears. There’s only one choice, eh?”

  She nodded. “We fight, of course.” There were mutters of agreement from her fellow Greencloaks. She unrolled a sheepskin map on the floor. It was marked with rivers, mountains, and forests, and little circles where there were towns or outposts. One large river–marked the Alonus River–stretched on the east side of the mountains and looped around to flow past River’s Edge.

  She studied the map, then said, “This is what I see. All of this land to the south and west, from River’s Edge, through the Apple Valley and a
ll the way to Southbottom, is lost. Southbottom is too close to the weasels’ lands, and the Apple Valley is too flat and difficult to defend once River’s Edge has fallen.”

  Brumbles leaned closer to the map. “You’re probably right. We should concentrate on holding these mountain villages here, and here, and Woody Ridge, here. Garmley will move quickly to take the fords south of River’s Edge, but it will take him the rest of the year before he’s ready to move across the Alonus River to take Silverleaf and the rest of the hill towns on the eastern bank.”

  She hesitated. “Still that leaves precious little for us to hold and fight from.”

  The map was all new to Aaron, but he was trying to understand it as best he could. There were nearly as many towns to the north and east of the river as to the west. Even if the area from River’s Edge to Southbottom was lost, that would still leave half the kingdom to defend. He said as much.

  “Most of these towns to the north are not really towns anymore,” Brumbles explained. “They were abandoned in the days of my great-grandfather when the ice came from the north, bringing the grizzly bears.” He traced a claw along the Alonus River. “Over here to the east has become infested with rock gnomes since the ice retreated. Very dangerous. The king still hopes to resettle all these lands some day, and that is why they’re still on the maps. But for now, of the land on the far side of the river, only these three towns and this valley here remain part of the kingdom. There won’t be much help from the east.”

  “Not immediately to the east,” Captain Brownia mused. She stroked thoughtfully at the fur on her face and then eyed the children. “But what about King Prestor?”

  “No,” Aaron said. “We’re not from King Prestor’s kingdom. We’re from Vermont.”

  “Never heard of it. Does it have a powerful army?” Brownia asked.

  “Vermont? Uhm, no, not really.”

  “Oh, I see.” She sounded disappointed. “For a moment, I’d hoped that Dermot and Sylvia had returned with help. Still no word from them? Then we must send someone else to find King Prestor.”