The Last Bear by Mandy Haggith

Author:Mandy Haggith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: the last bear, mandy haggith
Publisher: Saraband
Published: 2015-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

In the bleak pit of the night, when the cold had reached into the sleeping men’s cores, but before they had begun to dream, the hunt came to the men. Only Til was ready for it, his five deer hounds with their big gentle eyes waiting with him, alert and expectant, listening, unmuzzled.

At the first howl of the wolves, Bjorn came round, shuddering. He was awake in an instant, unsure if the howl was a dream or reality. The fire was barely glowing, the last sticks thrown on by Til nearly burned through. He got up to reach for more wood and froze at the next howl, much closer than before. His legs felt as if he had to wade through mud to reach the wood pile. He seized some branches and dragged them to the fire, panic rising, realising the camp was unwatched; the fire, their main defence, not burning.

He kicked Bran, and shook him, whispering his name. ‘Bran, Bran, wake up, Bran.’ Though so often annoyed by the brutality of the man, Bjorn needed the strength of his compatriot now.

Turning to Eachan and Donald, he shook them too. They came around, questioning, bleary and blind in the pitch dark. Their protests fell away, crushed by the next howl that tore into the camp, followed by another, and another. A chorus of wolves, singing their victory over the men, their clarion call before battle.

All around the camp the men were ripped from their sleep, waking to terror. The darkness was absolute. The fire refused to burn, the wet branches merely hissing in the embers, which cast no more than a faint red glow on the few nearest faces, further deepening the black beyond.

The horses whinnied and stamped in alarm. Moran came running from them. ‘Help us!’ he wailed, already mad with fear, crying like a boy, his face transformed into a gargoyle of fright in the dimness. ‘The horses are possessed. The wolves. Help us!’ He clung to Bjorn’s arm, shaking it, beseeching him.

‘Get a grip, man,’ Bjorn said, detaching his arm from Moran’s clutch.

‘Donald, can’t you do anything with this fire,’ he muttered to the blacksmith. Donald began to blow.

Til sat quietly with his five dogs. The others strained at their leashes, pulling at the stakes that held them. Lachlan and Ro Moine gingerly moved among them, removing their muzzles on Til’s instruction, preparing them to fight.

For one quiet moment the men’s fear grew and then out of the blackness one of the horses shrieked and with a pounding and stamping the other ponies tried to break their tethers to escape. The men rushed towards the horses, blades out, stumbling in the darkness. Then the wolves were on them, like a black lava flow. Night-sighted fangs struck blind iron, and blood spilled from shrieking, fleeing bodies.

In a blacked-out pandemonium the men blundered in the dark to the squeals of terrified horses and excited barking of dogs. Bjorn’s courage failed him. There was no time to organise, no way of seeing enough to co-ordinate, no chance for shouted orders to be heard over the clamour.

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