Uther gripped Garreth's arm. "Do you know him?"
"I don't know. Can't see his face from here, but he's one of us, Pendragon. Must be. Look, his bow's over there beyond the bear. He had time to fire one arrow, at least. It's sticking in the thing's left side. Deep. See it? No wonder it's so angry."
Uther paid no attention. His mind was racing. "Go you to your right, cautiously," he said quietly. "Keep moving until you have a clear shot and we can take him in a crossfire. He'll be confused to see two of us, but he'll move quickly enough once he decides which of us to charge. At that point, the other must rain arrows on him, all well aimed, for the chosen man will have but a short time to live lacking help."
Garreth nodded and began moving quickly but cautiously away to his right. As he did so, the man on the cliff face saw him and called out. Perhaps he was startled or in his relief he might have tried to free one hand to wave. In any case, he lost his hold on the cliff face and tumbled forward, head first and screaming, to land directly on top of the bear. The beast, which dropped to all fours again, did not see the hurtling figure falling towards him until the man's full weight landed on its back. The huge animal leaped away in fright and reared up, roaring in protest, sweeping its head around to see its unknown attacker and failing to notice that its former tormentor was now sprawled at its feet. Instead, it saw Uther, alone by the forest's edge.
He had been in the act of nocking an arrow to his bowstring, and he froze as the beast's small, furious eyes found him and focused upon him, so that for a moment it seemed as if the whole world had stopped moving. The enormous animal hung motionless, and Uther had time to see the pig-like eyes take note of him; then the creature dropped to all fours and charged, bellowing, it’s terrifying jaws stretched wide, lined with huge, glistening teeth. It seemed to move slowly at first, and its lumbering motion broke the initial shock of terror that had held Uther spellbound so that he raised his weapon immediately and leaned forward into his shot. Even as he did that, however, his mind acknowledged the chilling speed with which the creature was now approaching, flashing across the broken ground, its great maw gaping, slavering for his blood. One shot, he knew, was all he could hope for against such speed—one tiny arrow against the onrushing mass.
Now the space between him and the terrifying creature had shrunk to less than half and he had not yet decided where to aim. There was no need to choose, however; the creature's wide-stretched maw was all he could see, and he sensed the soft palate and the moist, vulnerable flesh of its throat behind the lolling tongue and flashing teeth. His bow was fully bent, and he released his arrow, leaning into it and watching the speed of its flight as it snapped across the intervening distance and smashed fully against one of the enormous, curving canines, snapping it off and driving it back into the open mouth even as the tooth's ivory deflected the point and sent the arrow flashing outward. It missed the open throat and ripped through the creature's cheek instead before vanishing beyond its left shoulder.
The beast was checked by the violent impact of the hard-shot arrow, knocked off balance by the shocking force of it and stunned by the agonizing intensity of the pain it caused. It lurched and reeled sideways, then swayed and fell over backwards like a drunken man, but it rolled even as it fell and rose immediately to its feet again, and now there was a new note to its screaming.
Uther was surprised to find a second arrow in his hand, the notched end of its shaft already hugging the bowstring. Now he swung the bow up again and fired in one smooth motion, seeing the missile's flight end this time in the great animal's throat, burying itself almost to the flights and jolting the mighty creature again as Uther pulled a third arrow into place. He could see blood—old blood—on the beast's coat, some of it already clotted, and the arrow Garreth had noticed earlier, a short, broken, blood-covered shaft protruding from the beast's left side below the ribs. Obviously it was the shot that infuriated the bear in the beginning. It must have been aimed badly or carelessly by the man on the cliff, who having failed to kill his quarry, had become the hunted one.
The enraged behemoth rose to its full height, its arms extended and its enormous claws clearly visible, and Uther suddenly had a vision of the great silver bear emblazoned on his cousin Merlyn's black cloak. That emblem represented the monstrous bear that Merlyn had attacked and killed single-handedly from the back of a horse, and in his terror Uther wondered at his cousin's courage on that occasion. Merlyn had killed his bear; Uther had no confidence that he would kill this one.
He raised his bow for his third shot as the bear rallied to charge him again, but even as it began to move, another arrow struck it from the side, smacking into its body with a solid, meaty sound and piercing deep beneath its shoulder. The great beast reared up and swung about with an outraged bellow, and Uther felt a stirring of pity, suddenly sure that they would kill the animal now and that this was a wretched fate for such a magnificent creature. Another arrow struck and then immediately after that another, which Uther guessed must have been fired by the man who had fallen from the cliff. His bow had been lying on the ground close to where he fell.
The bear swung around again to face this new attack, and as it did so, Garreth Whistler's third arrow seemed to sprout from its eye, snapping the giant head backwards. For long moments the bear seemed to hang immobile, its entire body somehow hunched, as though straining away from the agony of the outrageous pain being thrust upon it, and then it turned once again and staggered a few steps towards Uther, who held his bow steady now, inexplicably unwilling to loose his third arrow, which was still nocked and drawn. The massive creature slowed almost to a halt as it approached, and its roaring dwindled quickly into silence. Watching it, Uther was reminded of a scene from his boyhood when a wild and deranged man in Camulod, after wreaking havoc among his neighbours and emerging victorious from fighting with half a score of opponents, some of them members of the Camulodian guard, had suddenly stopped and keeled over in the street, regaining consciousness later with no recollection of anything that had happened.
Even as that thought occurred to him, the bear straightened up completely to stand erect on its hind legs, pawing at the arrow protruding from its head and mewling softly and incongruously in pain. Then it swayed and fell slowly sideways, toppling to the ground so close to Uther's feet that he had to skip away to keep clear of it, lowering his weapon yet keeping it at full draw. He knew the bear was dead as it fell, but even so, he watched it closely, staying warily out of reach of its fearsome claws. Only when it lay motionless did he release his pent-up breath and the tension in his bow.
It was some time before any of the three men spoke or stirred, and Uther realized that he was trembling violently. He swallowed hard and forced himself to move, fighting to appear casual and relaxed although all three of them knew that was impossible. He stepped to the carcass and looked down on it. Even dead and supine, the creature's bulk reached to above his knee. The huge head was shattered, the point of Garreth's last arrow having passed completely through the eye, transfixing the brain and then emerging through the back of the skull.
Uther glanced from the wound to Garreth. "Did you aim that shot?"
Garreth shrugged. "Aye, I tried for the eye, but it was fortune that led it home, not judgment. I thought the whoreson had you."
"So did I." Uther subsided onto a rotten, moss-crusted log alongside the dead bear and wiped his free hand over his face before laying his bow carefully on the ground along with the arrow it still held. Then he looked at the stranger who stood silent, his gaze moving from Garreth to Uther and back while he held one hand pressed to his face. A sullen stream of blood flowed over the man's wrist and trickled downward towards the cuff of his sleeve.