The Kingdom of the Bears Read online

  “Are they magic?”

  “Magic? No, I don’t think so. But they are well made, and they’ll serve you well.”

  “You sure you don’t want to take them back?” Aaron asked, watching Bethany, who was still waving hers around like it was a plastic toy from Walmart. “At least for now. We don’t know what do with them.” He sheathed the blade and held it out to the bear. “Here.”

  But Brumbles was already hoisting up his pack. “Nah.” He didn’t even spare Bethany a second glance. “You’ll know what to do with them when the time comes, eh? Come on. We’ve got another long day.”

  The daggers were soon forgotten. The ground began to flatten out, the trees thin. It was as rocky as ever, and hot under the open sun. They made their camp that night in a gravely, uneven spot that made getting sleep difficult. The next day was more of the same.

  They woke on the morning of the fifth day since leaving Silverleaf to discover that they’d pitched camp in the ruins of a castle. They’d taken it for a hill during twilight. Much of the castle had long since collapsed, but here and there were twisting towers like slender fingers. Scraggly trees grew from the ruins and vines snaked up the towers, as if trying to complete the job of pulling them down.

  “We must be on the outskirts of Prestor’s lands,” Brumbles decided. He’d been sleeping against a boulder so as to trap the warmth of the fire while he slept. It was a massive block of stone, carved with writing. None of them could read it.

  “Then where is this Prestor?” Skunk wanted to know. “Is his kingdom nothing but ruins?”

  “Bears lived in this land,” Brumbles said. He was still examining the writing on the stone, as if staring would make the words suddenly readable. “Prestor gave us a kingdom on the edge of his own, stretching all the way to Cragholme on our western border.” He looked up from the stone to the towers overhead. “It must have been the humans who built this castle, though. Bears don’t have the skill to do this kind of work.”

  T hey skirted the ruins and continued to the northeast. About midday, they passed through a ruined village, its foundation stones still rising above the soil. These were not ancient ruins, Aaron thought. Too many years and even castles would no more than grass-covered hills. He thought them no older than a hundred and fifty years, maybe two hundred. That old shepherd in Silverleaf had said his grandfather had survived the wars with the grizzlies. Could these ruins date from that time?

  Late afternoon, they made a more important discovery. It was a fire pit and the remains of a couple of meals, buried under a shallow layer of dirt.

  “What do you think?” Aaron asked Brumbles. “Was it your brother and the princess?”

  “A likely guess,” Brumbles agreed. He squatted to take a closer look. “They stayed one night, no more. Not enough ash for anything longer.” He looked around, then nodded. “Yes, I’ll wager this is Dermot’s camp. See those claw marks up there?” He pointed to a tree, dead of disease, where someone had been tearing branches for a fire. Claw marks stretched high up the trunk. “Not many bears are tall enough to reach that high. Only Dermot.”

  “A grizzly can reach that high,” Skunk said. “And higher.”

  Everyone looked at her and a shadow passed across the Sheriff’s face. Then he shook his head. “No. The paws are too small. Look here.” He matched his paw to one of the lower marks. It matched his own in size. “It was Dermot and Sylvia. Question is, where did they go from here?”

  “I don’t think they went anywhere,” Aaron said. He’d just made a gruesome discovery. He’d been wandering around the camp, looking for clues when he’d discovered the object.

  It was a bear skull.

  Chapter Ten: Half-Paw’s Revenge

  Youd the Half-Paw showed fear to no one. He’d killed the pirate who had taken half of his right paw in a sea battle. He’d stood up to wolverines, to bears, and even to his rival, Snark, the ferret. He’d even faced down the weasel lord himself on occasion, and Garmley had yet to kill him for his impertinence.

  No, he never showed fear. But sometimes he felt it. This was one of those times.

  Youd and the two mink who served as his bodyguard approached the Oaken Throne where Garmley sat. The weasel lord had a gold chain about his neck and was eating from a platter of baked quail. Snark stood by his right side, wearing his dagger. Two chained bears, their fur shaved, cowered at Garmley’s feet. To Youd’s surprise, other bears stood freely in the great hall, unchained. Well, he guessed that was to be expected. They would need free bears, at least until they took full control of the kingdom. But when they finished snuffing out the rebellion, all bears would be reduced to slaves, as they deserved.

  Half-Paw climbed the steps, dropping to a knee as he reached the throne. “You wished to see me?”

  “Get up, Youd,” Garmley growled. “You know what this is about.”

  “They escaped.”

  Garmley rose to his feet, quite a trick in Greatclaw’s oversized throne. “Yes, you fool. They escaped. Not just once, but twice!” He looked at the bears in the room and waved his hand to dismiss them. The free bears slinked away and a weasel led out the two chained beasts.

  Youd took that as a bad sign. They’d taken his blade when he’d entered Garmley’s presence. Why? he’d wondered. Because Garmley means to kill you, was the answer.

  Half-Paw had seen it before. The weasel lord didn’t suffer failure.

  Well, Youd was prepared. He had a small dagger hidden inside his cloak. If either Garmley or Snark moved against him, they’d find that this weasel still had teeth. With luck, the two mink at his back would fight by his side, but that was just chance. They were treacherous beasts, and would fight for him only so long as they thought Youd could win.

  Snark spoke now. His voice was deadly. “I sent you to the fords with plenty of strength. You should have held them easily. Instead, the enemy escaped, and you lost two more weasels.”

  Youd tried to justify himself. The first time, well that hadn’t been his fault. He’d been holding the road against stragglers, not against the Sheriff of the Eastlands, and the presence of the humans had caught him off guard. But at the fords...yes, he should have won that battle. Victory had slipped away at the last moment.

  He shut his mouth. Excuses would not save him. “You are right. I should have taken them. Things...happened, but I should have been better prepared.”

  “Very well,” Garmley said. “Next time you will be more fortunate, we should hope.” The rage left his voice.

  The weight of Youd’s hidden dagger eased. He would not need it after all.

  “The truth is,” Garmley said, “We’ve suffered setbacks elsewhere, as well. The east bank of the Alonus remains in bear hands. A party of Greencloaks continues to resist down in the Apple Valley. We lost two mink and a wolverine to an ambush just south of Honey Hill.”

  The last was alarming news, indeed. Honey Hill was just south of River’s Edge. It was worse news than two children and a bear fleeing the kingdom. “Have you sent men to root them out?”

  “Sent them where? I simply don’t have enough weasels to just wander about, looking for a fight.”

  “No, of course not. So what are your plans?”

  The ferret stepped forward. “As it turns out, old friend,” and here the ferret showed his teeth, “we have a better way to find out. We have a prisoner.”

  “Excellent.”

  Garmley nodded. “Yes, quite. Captured on the highway. A Greencloak. I want you to interrogate him. Find out the Greencloaks’ hideout.”

  “Then what?”

  Garmley smiled. “Then you have one more chance, friend, to prove your worth.”

  Youd gritted his teeth. He had proven his worth a dozen, no, a hundred times. He had saved Garmley’s life more than once. And now he was being treated like...like what? Like one of the lowly rats or beavers of Garmley’s lands. Threatened, bullied.

  He nodded, face calm, though inside he was seething.

  #

  T
hey kept the prisoner in a hole below the manor house. The Kingdom of the Bears had no real prisons. Troublemakers had been locked up for a night or two, then set free. The real hard cases–rare as they were–earned banishment. The weasels had needed a prison at once. They’d discovered it in the filthy cellars below the king’s own house. Refuse of all kinds had collected in the cellars, then been shoveled out and washed away with the rains. It had been garbage pile and sewer alike and still smelled of it.

  Two wolverines guarded the door. The manor itself was guarded with thirty of Garmley’s best men. An intruder would have to fight his way past them to reach the cellar and then defeat the wolverines.

  The jail keeper opened the door to let Half-Paw enter. It was dark, and smelled of rotting food and vomit. Youd swallowed hard to keep his breakfast down. The keeper stayed outside the door, holding his torch in so Half-Paw could see. The bear had been stripped of clothing and chained to the stone next to a bowl of murky water and a dry crust of bread. His left eye was swollen, and there was a gash on his left arm. The battle had left him bruised, the treatment since had left him beaten.

  He raised his head wearily as Youd entered. For a moment, the weasel felt almost sorry for the animal. They were so soft, these bears. Big, but stupid and weak. Really, they deserved what they got. This land belonged to weasel-kind now. Bears would take their rightful place with the raccoons, the squirrels, and the other servant beasts of the world.

  “What now?” the bear asked in a weak voice.

  “I am Youd the Half-Paw. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”

  “One of Garmley’s ugly henchman. Yes, I can see.”

  Youd had a whip in his good hand. It lashed through the air and struck the bear across his face. He cried out and fell back. Youd said, “Let’s make one thing clear. You live because I say so. If you do not give me what I want, you will die. Very painfully.”

  The bear said nothing.

  “That’s better,” Youd said with some satisfaction. Perhaps this would be easier than he’d feared. “Now, what I want is simple. Your Captain, a she-bear named Brownia. Where is she? Where is the Greencloak encampment?”

  Again, the bear didn’t speak. Half-Paw lashed out again. This time there was no cry, but the bear flinched all the same. “You know I cannot tell you.” His voice was pleading. I have suffered enough, the bear was saying. Please, no more.

  “I know that you will tell me. If you don’t, you will suffer and suffer some more, and you will still tell me in the end.”

  The bear said nothing. The weasel waited for several moments, wishing that this bear would just talk, so he could get out of this stench hole and back into the fresh air.

  But still the bear said nothing.

  Very well, Youd thought. You will make this difficult. We will see just how weak and cowardly a bear really is. This is one of their Greencloaks. Let’s see how long you hold out against the weasel lord’s captain. He raised the whip again.

  As it turned out, the bear was stronger than he’d expected. It took almost two hours to break his will. But break it did. Just as Youd had said. He left the dungeons with all the information he needed.

  The only thing that marred his satisfaction was the knowledge that Sheriff Brumbles and the children–oh, and that traitorous skunk–had slipped from his grasp. No matter. He would snuff out this rebellious band, and then he would kill Brumbles and his friends, as well. But first, he would deal with the Greencloaks.

  Chapter Eleven: Important Discoveries

  Aaron bent to examine the bear skull while the others gathered around him. It was bleached white, teeth still sharp in death. It was surprisingly like a human skull, but longer and heavier.

  “Yes,” Brumbles said. “It’s a bear skull.”

  Aaron straightened, feeling depressed. He had been counting on finding Brumbles’s brother and the princess as much as he’d been counting on finding King Prestor. And how must Brumbles feel?

  “We’re so sorry, Brumbles,” Bethany said. She came to give the bear a hug.

  The Sheriff held up a paw to stop her. “Let’s not get carried away. It’s a bear skull, but it doesn’t belong to either of the bears that we’re looking for.”

  “How can you tell?” Aaron asked in surprise. “I’d have thought one bear skull looked pretty much like any other.”

  “Oh, probably. But I last saw Dermot and Sylvia in March. Six weeks ago.” He yanked the half-buried skull from the ground. “It’s dry enough here that it would take years to age a skull this far.” He turned the skull over in his hands, then let it drop. “This one must be ten years old, eh?” He hefted up his pack. “Let’s go.”

  The mountain range ended where it hit the river, which they came upon just before dusk. Just as the Alonus had made the Mad River in Vermont look like a creek, so did this river make the Alonus look like some farmer’s irrigation ditch. They could not see the other side. The near bank was treeless and covered in gravel and boulders left by past floods.

  “What now?” Aaron asked.

  Brumbles shook his head. “The river will take us to our goal. King Prestor’s great city of Shar La sits upon an island in the river, if it exists. We can follow the riverbank until we find the island.”

  “But which way?” Skunk asked between bites. As soon as they’d stopped, she’d started in on the acorns they’d roasted the previous night. “North or south?”

  Brumbles said, “Legends say north.”

  “Legends?” Bethany said doubtfully.

  “That’s all we’ve got to work on. But if Shar La exists, then yes, I think it will be north.” He looked around. “We won’t make any more progress tonight. Let’s pitch camp.”

  They rose early the next morning, anxious to be on their way. Brumbles didn’t even take time to fish, though everyone was hungry for the taste of something different. They followed the river north. “Chasing legends,” Brumbles called it.

  Aaron found the morning’s travel tedious. The forest grew so thick they never had much of a view, except toward the river, which remained covered in mist. It felt like the same terrain over and over. Aaron wondered how they would ever find the city under such circumstances. As they rested for lunch, Brumbles scaled a tree to get a better view. He saw nothing.

  The next day was more of the same, and so was the next. Aaron was losing hope. If there had been a kingdom here at one time, no trace remained of it now. There were no castles or villages, not even ruins, only more forest.

  It was time to turn back, he decided on the third day after reaching the river. Bethany had been making eye-contact with him all morning, giving him discouraged looks that were meant for his eyes only. But the bear was forging ahead, and so determinedly that Aaron was afraid to say anything. At last, when they stopped for lunch, he could wait no longer.

  “This land is empty, Brumbles. There’s nothing here.”

  “Perhaps. Yes, probably you are right.”

  Aaron took some cheese, starting to go stale. He washed it back with water. “Shouldn’t we turn back?” His feet were aching, his calves sore. Even his backside felt like it had received a paddling. The thought of just turning around after all those miles was disheartening, but so was the thought of going fruitlessly forward.

  “I’ve considered it many times, my young friend. Our chances are looking grim, yes. But what do we bring back if we return now?”

  Aaron thought back to what the old bear had said at Silverleaf. “Bring us hope.”

  “We could still return and help the Greencloaks,” Bethany said.

  “That’s not enough,” Aaron said.

  “They need all the help they can get,” Bethany said.

  Aaron said, “There are only four of us, two of us just kids. We need an army. We need King Prestor’s army.” He turned again to Brumbles. “You’re right. We need to keep going until we find the island. That’s all that matters. If the city doesn’t exist, then none of the rest of it will, either.”

  “Hmm,” Skun
k said. “Isn’t that an island?”

  Everyone turned to look where Skunk was pointing, upriver. Aaron had taken the lump in the river for just another bend, but they were enjoying the best sun of the last three days and the mist had started to clear. It looked as though water was flowing around the far edge. Brumbles jumped to his feet and hurried north. The others followed at a run.

  “You’re right,” Brumbles said, pulling up short. “It is an island.”

  They rushed back to scoop up their belongings and were shortly on the move again. They stopped again some two hundred yards upriver. From here, the outline of the island was clearly visible. And there was more.

  What Aaron had taken for trees were really spiraling towers. Buildings spread right along the bank. Most miraculous of all, a bridge crossed from the far side of the river to the island, and a second stretched in a long, graceful arc to the near shore. This was not a village, or an overgrown town. It was a city.

  It was Shar La.

  The children shouted with joy and shared hugs. Aaron thought he would burst from relief and joy. Skunk joined them with her own smelly embrace. Even the normally dour Brumbles had a big grin stretching from one furry ear to the next.

  The last mile or so to the bridge was almost like skipping, they were so excited. But when they reached it, they stopped up short. The road leading to the bridge was completely swallowed in growth. The bridge itself was overgrown with vines and the entrance to the bridge nearly impassable with brush. Worse still, a center part of the bridge, crossing the deepest, swiftest part of the river, had collapsed. There was no way to reach the city. They looked out toward the city with despair.

  A voice spoke from behind them. “Behold, the great city of King Prestor. Behold, the mighty Shar La.”

  They turned. Two bears stood about twenty feet off. The shorter one had fur of a deep brown. The other was quite tall, with black fur and a longer face. He had a pendant around his neck, with a red stone that matched the one on Brumbles’s belt. When they’d arrived at the mill at Woody Ridge, Aaron had thought that all the bears looked more or less the same. Now, he could see clearly that Brumbles and the tall bear were brothers.