The huge black creature-it was almost amorphous, it moved so fast-reared up.
It was a troll.
It cast.
The sigil on his chest felt as if it was melting and running over his skin, and he shrieked, but he and his horse rode through a cloud of black-blue fire and he dropped his lance point a hand’s breadth-
His lance caught it in the centre of the head. Even a ten-foot-high stone statue would be damaged by a war horse and rider powering a heavy lance. His strike was so sure, so exact, that his lance tip caught on its brow ridge and bent-and broke.
But the black troll went crashing down.
Ser John never had to give his horse a lead-he was turning as soon as it felt his weight change. He was naked, his back to his enemy-he saw a dozen daemons, streaked with mud and blood, running at him and, behind them, boglins and behind them, at the far edge of the field…
A flash of bright gold in the last of the sun.
He shook his head and drew his sword, prepared to sell his life dearly.
The great black stone troll was sitting, legs splayed, like a ten-foot child who had hurt itself.
It shook its head-paused, shook again…
Ser John smiled grimly. Iskander couldn’t manage more than a stiff trot, but he powered by, put a fore-hoof into the troll with the ringing sound of iron-shod hooves on stone and then Ser John’s war hammer fell with all the power of his shoulders on the thing’s fractured head.
Instead of dying, it reached out, almost casually, and slammed Ser John out of the saddle, breaking his left arm and dropping him behind his horse. Ser John had time to see that his left vambrace was crushed.
He lay in the mud and waited to die. He couldn’t raise his head.
Over his head, sorcery flew. He caught a piece of something and was showered in mud, then a wave of incredible heat passed over and he tried not to breathe.
Heavy arrows began to fall. He saw two come down, but he had trouble moving his head-some muscles in his back were damaged, or perhaps he was gutted and dying. It was hard to tell. There was no pain, even from his arm, so he knew that he had no way to tell.
And then, silence. He could hear very little inside his helmet. But he could feel the ground move as something big came up the field. His uninjured right hand went for his dagger.
It was heading for him.
Deep in Ser John’s throat was a whimper, and he knew if he let that whimper out, it would be the way he died. So instead, he tried to see Helewise-see her wonderful naked body, see the cheerfulness of her, the fullness-
Helewise’s breasts were a better thought with which to die than brother Christ, whatever the priests said.
The thing was coming. The ground shook.
He couldn’t do it. His eyes opened.
Over him was a great furry creature covered in mud. It looked like a giant rat, but in a flicker of thought he knew it for a very dirty Golden Bear.
He exhaled.
The bear leaned over him. “You-again?” it asked, its voice deep and raspy and majestic.
Ser John thought he might laugh forever. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he said.
The day was not yet over, but it had ended for Ser John. The pages and archers had to fight off a pair of bargests that came-too late to turn the tide of the rout-out of the setting sun. They caught the pages on horseback and killed two, but their interest in feeding on the horses gave the archers time to drive them off.
Ser John lay in the roots of a great tree, his back against its old bole. They were just at the edge of the woods.
The old bear was as tall as the troll, and just as heavy. He wore a great bag dense with red and black porcupine quillwork, and had an axe-a heavy soldier’s axe-from far-off Etrusca.
He sat-very like a man-back curved in fatigue, legs splayed. A very cautious Jamie the Hoek brought the bear water.
“I am called Flint,” the old bear said.
Around them, in amongst the old maples at the edge of night, moved two dozen other bears. Even covered in mud-and they were caked in the stuff-they gave off the occasional gleam of gold.
Ser John extended his good hand. “I’m Ser John Crayford,” he said. “The Captain of Albinkirk.”
“You are the lord of the stinking houses,” the bear said.
Ser John swallowed his pain. “I suppose. And you?”
“I lead the Crooked Tree clan,” Flint said. “I have for fifty summers.”
“You saved us,” Ser John said.
“More than you know!” Flint nodded. “But in the winter, you and the Light that Shines came to the deep woods and saved me. And many of my people.” He looked away-again, a very human head movement, but Ser John could not read the thing’s face. “That was an army-going to raid all the way around your stinking houses.”
Ser John bit his lip. When he could master the pain, he said, “Yes.”
“The sorcerer is marching on Ticondaga with all his force,” the old bear said. “We have refused to submit. But most of my people hate men-all men-more than they hate the sorcerer. Or at least as much.”
Another bear came and squatted by the old bear. Ser John had the sense that the second bear was much younger-lithe, almost thin from winter.
“We awoke to find his spies in our dens. He had massacred a clan, merely to show that he could.” Flint seemed to be talking to himself.
“How can I help?” Ser John asked.
The old bear looked at him, its muzzle weaving side to side. “Let us pass west,” he said. “We have friends to the west.”
“The Abbess?” asked the wounded knight.
“Is the Light that Shines not one of her mates?” asked the old bear.
Ser John groaned with a desire to laugh that conflicted with his obviously broken rib. Or ribs.
“The Abbess is a nun. Nuns are women who do not take mates.” Ser John took a careful breath.
“Yes-some bears are the same, loving only their own, she-bear with she-bear,” Flint said.
Ser John nodded. “Yes-but no. They take no mate at all.”
“I have heard of this,” said the old bear. “But assumed it was just one of those rumours of hate that young people concoct. You mean some humans choose not to mate at all? What do they do in spring? Hibernate?”
Ser John took another careful breath. “You speak the tongue of the west very well, for a bear.”
“Some of us meet with men,” the bear admitted. “At N’Pana, or even Ticondaga.” The bear growled. “We do not work with fire, but a steel axe is a fearsome thing indeed.”
“Then-if there is trade, you must know something about us?” the man asked.
The bear growled. “More than I’d like. Can you give us passage west? On the road, and safe from your people?”
Ser John sank back onto the bole. “Where are you going?” he asked. “Will you tell me what you know of the sorcerer?”
The bear got up on all fours. “I will tell you much. How badly hurt are you? Your outer shell is unbroken.”
“I am hurt,” Ser John admitted.
Jamie the Hoek came back out of the near darkness. “I thought you might like this,” he said, handing the bear a pot.
The bear sat, much like a stuffed bear in a toy shop, legs again splayed. It put the pot between its paws and pulled off the top.
“Wild honey?” it said in a tone of pure greed.
Jamie, the perfect squire, smiled, and his teeth shone in the dark. “I thought you’d like that,” he said again.
The bear lifted a sticky snout from an empty pot a little later, and growled.
Ser John was losing his ability to remain awake, but he tried to be courteous. “Lord Wimarc can escort you,” he said. “We have an army on the road to Lissen Carak. Lord Wimarc will see you get safe passage. You may want to go through the woods though…”
The bear licked its obvious teeth and nodded at Jamie the Hoek. “I may have to change my opinion of men,” it said.