The Kingdom of the Bears Read online

  “Is that what you think?” Brumbles asked.

  He hesitated, then shook his head. “No. You know what I think? We are a broken people, but there is strength in us yet. Ice, famine, grizzly bear. We have faced them all. And still we survive with our music and our love of food and company.” He clenched his paw into a fist. “We just need one victory. Something or someone to remind us. A friend, to help. King Prestor, perhaps.” He looked into Bethany’s eyes, then Aaron’s.

  Aaron met the fierce stare. “Maybe we’re the help. We’re from Vermont.”

  “And they are fierce warriors in Vermont?” the old bear wanted to know. “Great leaders and kings?”

  “Well...uhm...great leaders and kings? I mean, yes, yes there are. We are fierce warriors, after our own kind.”

  “They’ve already fought weasels and wolverines,” Brumbles put in with a nod. “Fought hard and bravely.” Aaron felt a swelling of pride at the Sheriff’s words of praise. “I didn’t know at first,” the bear continued, “but now I believe that yes, they can help us.”

  “Then I am satisfied. And if you do not return at the head of a host of knights, then bring us something, at least. Bring us hope.”

  The bear rose from the table. He took up his crutch, and with a final nod, turned and hobbled away. As the companions returned to their food and drink, Aaron felt the expectations settling on his shoulders. They needed him to deliver. He could hear it in the music coming from the flutes and voices of the bears. There was just a tinge of hope mingled with the sorrow. Soon, it became too much and Aaron rose to go outside for some fresh air.

  As they were lying in their beds that night, candles snuffed and fire dying to coals in the hearth, Brumbles said, “We are beyond the reach of Garmley and Half-Paw for now. But don’t get to feeling too comfortable. We’re passing into the wilderness. The Ruined Land, we call it. There used to be farms and villages and even cities and castles throughout the hills to the northeast. But it’s a dangerous land now, filled with wolves and rock gnomes. And there are no more bears or villages beyond the borders of Silverleaf. We are on our own.”

  Chapter Nine: In the Land of the Rock Gnomes

  It was a safe night with full stomachs, and sleeping in a real bed for the first time since Vermont. Aaron and Bethany slept long and hard and were none too pleased to be rousted from bed with a shake from Brumbles. “Come on. The road is waiting.”

  They grumbled as they dressed in their bear clothes. The wool was rougher than they were used to, and the sheepskin jackets, while warm, were heavy. A pair of bears had been up half the night making the children leather boots with hardened soles; they felt perfect for hiking long distances.

  Breakfast was cheese, bread, and unfermented apple juice. They ate quickly. All too soon, they were loaded up and trodding northward along the road leading from Silverleaf. Bears lined the road and gave them back slaps and bone crushing hugs and shouts of encouragement.

  The old shepherd gave Aaron a wink and a nod. “Good luck, boy,” he said in a voice meant only for Aaron’s ears. “Bring us hope.”

  They passed beyond the village and into the last few farms before the forest and hills. Aaron glanced over his shoulder at the last night of comfort they would see for some time. Silverleaf faded slowly into the background.

  “Ugh, these packs are heavy,” Bethany said. She was struggling with the straps, trying to get it into a comfortable position.

  “We’ll be all too glad to have that extra weight before long,” Aaron said. “Those are our provisions that you’re complaining about.”

  “I wasn’t complaining. I was just noting that they are heavy. They are.”

  “Heavy or not, I don’t feel so soft as I did when we left the Greencloaks’ encampment. My muscles are starting to toughen up.”

  It wasn’t as if they’d lived a sedentary life in Vermont. Before the accident, they’d earned extra money shoveling snow in the winter, and growing pumpkins, strawberries, and blueberries. They kept busy enough at the inn, too; it was a good way to keep out of Brad’s way.

  Still, it was different than this. This was real. His blistered feet attested to that. So did his aching muscles, his bruises from the struggle at the fords, and the weasel-bite on his hand that was scabbed over but not yet healed.

  They left the road northeast of town, as it turned first to a footpath, and then to a goat trail, and finally disappearing altogether. The day passed warm. Night was cool and clear. They slept under a sky filled with stars. Aaron knew a little bit about the constellations–the stars were the same as back in Vermont–and he told stories about the Greek myths from whence they’d come. The fire crackled and dimmed to embers as he talked.

  Brumbles stopped him when he finished telling about Ursa Major, the Great Bear. “Yes, we have that story, too. Or something like it. But most of our constellations are different.”

  “Tell us,” Bethany urged.

  “Okay, then. See that one? That’s Jasper the Greedy. See how both of his paws are stuffing sticky buns into its mouth? Now, see that red star of Jasper’s right eye?”

  Aaron knew the star well. “We call that Betelgeuse in our land. Part of Orion’s belt.”

  “Follow it to the right and you’ll see a collection of stars that look like a gold circlet. That is the crown of Queen Julia, the wisest and most beautiful of all the bear queens. She watches over her three daughters, there, there, and over there. They are dancing for their mother.”

  Bethany snickered. “Dancing bears. That’s funny.”

  Aaron asked, “Do you have any constellations that aren’t bears?”

  “Well, sure. Take that one over there. You see, the blue star, encircled by three smaller, white stars? That’s the Great Honeycomb. It has nothing whatsoever to do with bears. Those three stars over there belong to the paw of Yoth the Sticky, preparing to scoop out a mouthful of honey from the Great Honeycomb. Uhm, okay. So I suppose that is a little bit about bears.”

  Skunk said, “That’s not a honeycomb. It’s a log. See, those are grubs. And that’s not a paw. It’s the snout of the Great Skunk.”

  Brumbles interrupted, “That doesn’t look anything like a snout. It’s clearly a paw. See how–”

  “Look!” Bethany cried. “Those stars are moving.”

  Aaron looked and caught his breath. A cluster of blue and green and red lights were dancing in the heavens, blinking on and off. And then his mind readjusted and he realized that the lights were not in space at all, but only fifteen or twenty feet above the ground. There were soon dozens of them with more pouring into the clearing with every passing moment.

  “Oh, they’re lightning bugs,” Bethany said. “But not like back home. All the colors...they’re beautiful.”

  “Not bugs,” Brumbles said. “Pixie folk.”

  “I thought they were a myth,” Skunk said in a hushed voice.

  “You’ve spent too many years in the south, my dear skunk. No, the pixie folk are real.”

  “But what are they?” Aaron asked. They were still lying on their backs, but he felt like springing to his feet and trapping one in his hands. One dropped toward his face, swirling downward like the ember of a spent firework. It flickered yellow, then green. And then it stopped right over his nose and flared to life.

  It was a tiny faerie, no bigger than his thumb. Her face, her hair, even her arms and legs and clothes, all glowed. She eyed Aaron with a quizzical expression, then asked him something in a voice that was like a tiny chime.

  He laughed. “What?”

  She repeated the question, and though he couldn’t understand her words, their meaning was clear. “Who are you? Where are you from?”

  He laughed again at the pure joy of seeing something so magical. All he could think to say was, “I’m from Vermont.”

  She called out in her musical voice and suddenly the air around his head was swarming with pixies. Their chattering voices were like a thousand wind chimes. The air was bright with their lights, so many
that they warmed his face.

  “They’re so beautiful,” Bethany said with wonder in her voice.

  The pixies scattered at her voice, but then they flitted over to investigate this new speaker, then the others, in turn. Animal, human, and pixie all laughed with delight at the joy of this unexpected encounter.

  And then, as soon as it had begun, the pixies flew away, lights blinking out one by one until the night sky was dark once more. Nobody spoke, not wanting to disturb the magical feeling that hung in the air. Aaron fell asleep with the sound of wind chimes still playing in his mind.

  The next day was another long one. They walked, hiked, struggled over hills that were so big as to almost be called mountains. Taller peaks stood to the north, their crowns still covered in snow, but they avoided these, moving only gradually northeast as the mountains allowed. They spent the night alongside a mountain stream. In the morning, they tried to fish some elusive brook trout from the stream, but gave up and broke fast with cheese and bread.

  “We’ve passed into gnome country,” Brumbles announced just before noon. The land was still wooded, but speckled with glacial boulders and the rotting trunks of giant redwood trees that were much larger than anything currently growing.

  “You said they were dangerous,” Aaron said. “Just how dangerous are we talking?”

  “Dangerous enough.”

  Bethany cleared her throat. “Like, give you a wedgie dangerous or pull your arms out dangerous?”

  “What’s a wedgie?” both Brumbles and Skunk asked at the same time.

  “Never mind, wedgies,” Aaron said. “Are they a risk to our lives?”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Brumbles said. He stopped at a rotten log, where something had carved out a hole and lined it with leaves. “Here’s one of their burrows. See, it’s only about the size of a large raccoon. If one of them grabs your leg with its bony, green fingers–”

  “And they do that?” Bethany asked with a shudder. “Grab at your legs?”

  “Sometimes. Yes, sometimes they do. But as I was saying, if one of them does grab your leg, you can knock it loose with a kick. But what if there are two gnomes? I guess you can kick them both away. But what about ten? Say you start kicking at two gnomes, but they hold until eight pop out of their burrows to grab you.”

  “We could fight them off, couldn’t we?” Aaron wanted to know. It was ominously quiet all of a sudden, and he wondered if that was because gnomes had eaten the birds and squirrels. A carpet of pine needles muffled their steps. “Even if there were ten gnomes, we could fight them off, couldn’t we?”

  Brumbles looked over his shoulder with a smile. “Oh, probably. They’re not weasels, after all. But it could take a few minutes and by then there might be twenty or even thirty gnomes. All grabbing. And then we’re in serious trouble. So I guess you see my point.”

  Aaron certainly did. “Don’t let them grab your legs?”

  “Exactly.”

  They continued in silence.

  Aaron first saw the eyes, staring mournfully from a cave scooped out beneath one of the boulders. The way the terrain lay, the boulder was on a hillside to their right and the hole was at eye-level, just a few feet away. Aaron let out a cry as he sprang backward.

  The gnome stuck out its head. It was covered in green hair and wore a green beard that grew halfway down his chest. To Aaron’s surprise, it spoke. “Why?”

  “Why, what?” he asked in return.

  “Why did you do it?”

  Brumbles turned sharply at the sound. “Don’t talk to it. Step away!”

  Indeed, the gnome’s hand was creeping out of its burrow. He hurried past, looking several times over his shoulder. To his relief, the gnome never left his hole, just kept watching as the company moved away.

  A few minutes later, he heard another mournful voice. “Why? Why won’t you stop?” The voice had come from a hollow in an oak tree. Aaron couldn’t see anything but old, musty leaves that stirred as the occupant of the hollow turned to watch them.

  “What are they talking about?” Bethany asked. Her voice was high and frightened.

  “They think you’re coming to steal their mushrooms,” Brumbles said. “Gnomes’ mushrooms are quite delicious–or so I’ve been told–and there are a few beasts brave, or foolish enough to pilfer them.”

  “Mushrooms, you say?” Skunk asked.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” Brumbles warned. “In the first place, we don’t have time to fool around looking for their patches, which are well-guarded, I assure you. In the second, there are so many of the blighters in these parts that...well, let’s just keep to ourselves.”

  “But wait,” Aaron said, feeling a sudden surge of relief. “If they grow mushrooms, then they are vegetarians. So all we have to do is keep them from getting angry and we should be safe.”

  Brumbles glanced over his shoulder with visible disappointment at Aaron’s lack of reasoning skills. “Humans eat mushrooms, do they not? Well, so do bears. So does almost any animal, if they can get them. Mushrooms, as it turns out, add a nice flavor to fresh meat.”

  “Oh,” Aaron said. “Oh, yeah.”

  “Why did you do it?” said a sleepy-sounding voice to his right, from a cave dug beneath a boulder.

  “Yes, why? Why would you steal them? Why?” There was a second gnome, this one in a hollow at the roots of a fallen tree. It was a fat one, green and mossy. Its teeth were yellow. “What are we going to do now?”

  It was only a few feet from Aaron’s legs and ankles, and it reached out a hand. He jumped back, and as he did, he tripped on a tree root. He hit the ground hard, coming up with a mouthful of leaves. The hand of the fat gnome seized his ankle. The other scrambled from its lair so quickly that Aaron could hardly believe that it was the sleepy-sounding gnome.

  He tried to cry for help, but leaves filled his mouth. The grip on his ankle was strong, almost painful. The second gnome grabbed his wrist. This one was thin and wiry. Together, they started to drag him back toward the hole in the roots of the fallen tree. Aaron kicked to free himself, filled with terror. He turned toward his sister, the last of the companions disappearing into the forest. A line of green faces appeared as if from nowhere.

  He spit the leaves from his mouth. They left a muddy taste. “Help! Somebody!”

  The companions turned. Brumbles shouted his alarm. Skunk raised her tail. Bethany shouted and ran back toward them. But by now, there were a dozen gnomes scrambling out of the gloom, grabbing his legs and arms. He couldn’t understand where they had come from, or how they’d arrived so quickly. They spoke in drooling whispers.

  “Why? Why have you been stealing our mushrooms?”

  “You must be punished.”

  “Why?”

  “Yes, punish him.”

  “Let’s see how he tastes. We’ll make a broth.”

  “With mushrooms!”

  And then Brumbles arrived with a roar. Bethany shouted and kicked and hit at the gnomes. Skunk lifted her tail and let out a huge, stinky cloud that covered half a dozen gnomes. They coughed and spit, but it didn’t stop them in their tracks as it had the weasels at the fords.

  But the gnomes were small and, individually, weak. Every kick or blow sent one flying. Brumbles tossed them aside as if they weighed no more than dried leaves. Even Bethany cleared a path with little difficulty. Aaron regained his feet, free for the moment. More gnomes were pouring into the clearing at every moment, but they were clear of the main body for now, and fleeing for their lives.

  As they ran, Aaron heard the sad voices in his ears. “Why? Why did you do it?”

  When they were some distance away from the gnomes, Brumbles said, “Be more careful, eh? Another moment and it would have been too late.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No need to apologize. This is dangerous country. Just be careful, is all.”

  They avoided mishap for the rest of the day. Gnomes grabbed for feet once or twice, but mostly kept their distance. Aaron had learned, however,
that it would only take a moment of relaxed vigilance to bring the creatures out in force. He wouldn’t let it happen again.

  When evening came, Brumbles found a safe spot next to a mountain brook. “Gnomes live in the waters, as well, but they are a different sort than the forest kind. Dangerous, but not so hungry. We’ll keep good watch, in any event.”

  It was a long night. During his watch, Aaron could hear rustling in the trees just beyond the light of the fire. Once or twice he thought he heard voices whispering. The noises might have been gnomes, or merely forest animals drawn to investigate the strange group of companions who had entered their forest.

  In the morning, over breakfast, Brumbles said, “I suppose it’s time that I give you these.” He opened his pouch–the only thing he’d retained from the fight at the fords–and took out two daggers and their sheaths. He handed a dagger first to Aaron, and a second to Bethany.

  The Merleys had handled knives before, as well as axes, saws, and other dangerous tools. Bethany hefted hers in hand, touching the sharpened point gingerly. She gave a thrusting motion, as if stabbing an enemy, then turned to Aaron. “Wonder what Mrs. Kinsley’s fifth grade class would say if they could see me now.” She looked exceptionally pleased with herself. “Bully Brad wouldn’t be quite so tough if we had these, would he?” She was jabbing and feinting now, and looking frankly ridiculous. Skunk backed safely out of range and watched with an amused expression.

  Aaron snorted. “I’ll tell you what people would say. They’d say, quick, someone call the ambulance. Because it’s going to be about five seconds before she stabs someone. Now put that thing away before Brumbles changes his mind.”

  “Those blades are old,” Brumbles said, ignoring Aaron’s concern. “They weren’t made in the kingdom.”

  Aaron turned his dagger over in his hand. The handle was almost smooth, but there were faint lines in the wood, as of some ancient carving. “Where did they come from.”

  “Captain Brownia gave them to me at her encampment, after you’d gone to sleep. Said to give them to you when you were ready. When I was sure of you.”