The young female bear next to him, named Dara, pawed demurely through the garbage. “Have you decided then? Will you be coming to the Salmon Fest next week?”
Orick imagined the hundreds of bears that would be gathered at the fest, fishing in the day, sitting around campfires and singing all night on the rocky beach on the banks of the cold river. He imagined the smell of wet fur, the pine trees, whole salmon skewered on stakes as they leaned against the fire pits to broil. Though Orick didn’t particularly relish the idea of wading in the icy waters of Obhiann Fiain all day trying to catch fish in his teeth, he was nearly four, and certain primal urges were getting hard to ignore. Orick saw that becoming a father would confer upon him a type of immortality, for he would live on through his progeny, and he hungered for that particular blessing.
Yet if he entered the priesthood, he would have to take a vow of chastity, and so he considered that this year he would need to go to the Salmon Fest. At the Salmon Fest many a fair young female bear would be hunting for more than a slimy morsel of fish for dinner, and frankly, as the bears say, “A she-bear in heat is the best kind to meet.”
Sure, there would be games at the festival-competitions where the males would go at it tooth and claw, tree-climbing races, the log pull, the pig toss. Orick would have to win the right to breed, but he was becoming rather large, and he’d learned a few wrestling tricks by watching Gallen.
Who knows, he mused, perhaps I’ll unseat old Mangan as the Primal Bear. He imagined how envious the other bears would be as he chose the best and brightest females to breed with, then Orick gobbled some cold cabbage and deep-fried clams from the garbage.
“I’m not sure if I’ll come or not,” Orick growled in response to Dara’s question. “I’ll think about it.” It was possible to find a mate without going to the Salmon Fest, but a saying rang through Orick’s mind: “While the common bear shivers in his wet fur, the superior bear builds a fire.” So, Orick knew that if he really wanted a quality mate, he would need to make the journey to the Salmon Fest, leaving Gallen O’Day behind.
“I saw some deer up the hill in Covey’s apple orchard,” Dara said coyly. “I really like venison. How about if we go up there and see if we can kill us a deer?”
Orick grumbled, looked at her askance. He didn’t like hunting for deer. The bucks had antlers, and even the females had sharp little hooves to kick with. Orick didn’t like undertaking unnecessary dangers. Besides, he was hungry, and being hungry made him grumpy.
“Nah, I never developed a taste for venison,” Orick lied. “I know where some squirrels have a midden. Do you like acorns?”
“Well,” Dara said, “I’ll go catch one myself.” She left the garbage to Orick and headed up the north road. Orick watched her longingly. He knew that she expected him to follow. The chances were slim that she’d be able to sneak up on a deer herself. But deer usually ran uphill when frightened, so if Orick were to go uphill and wait for Dara to scare the deer up to him, the chances were pretty good that he could catch one.
Orick imagined a huge six-point buck charging uphill, antlers lowered like pikes, hooves slashing, and decided not to risk it.
He crept beneath the shadows of the pine boughs that sprouted from the inn, then lay down. The clouds were quickly blowing away and stars dusted the sky in a fiery powder while the moons sank lower, staring down like the eyes of God. For awhile Orick watched for falling stars and thought about Dara. She was a flirtatious young thing. Orick suspected that she had no idea how strongly her charms affected him, and he felt as he laid there that he was making a momentous decision: should I follow her to the Salmon Fest and see if I could win the right to mate with her, or should I stay with Gallen for one more season?
Above Orick’s head, someone blew out a candle in one window of the inn. Orick suddenly noticed how dark it was. Nearly all the lights in town were out, and only the pale fires of heaven shone in the streets. The shushing whisper of waves breaking on the beach a quarter of a mile away lulled the bear.
Orick closed his eyes and rested his muzzle on the ground. He slept lightly for some time, but a dog’s yelp interrupted his dreams. It was an odd bark, the noise a startled dog makes, but it was cut short, as if someone had kicked the dog in the ribs. Orick would have gone back to sleep if he had not noticed a faint, peculiar scent barely distinguishable above the salt tang of the sea air-blood. He blinked and looked down the road south of town, and for a moment thought he was dreaming.
Something was walking up the road. It resembled a human creeping on all fours, but its spindly legs could have been no less than eight feet long, as were its arms, while its torso was very short, perhaps only two feet. It moved jerkily, wary as a mantis, its tiny round head pivoting as it tried to gaze in all directions at once.
It carried something in one hand-the mangled body of a whippet. The creature got to a crossroad and hesitated in the shadows, then dropped the dead dog and bent its elbows so that its forehead nearly touched ground. Orick could hear the creature sniffing. It crept toward Mahoney’s stables, keeping its nose to the ground, then suddenly seemed to catch a scent. It swerved back toward the inn.
The monster sneaked to the darkened windows of the inn, not twelve feet from Orick. It stopped, sniffed at Orick and regarded him a moment. The monster had large eyes that showed orange in the moonlight, and Orick saw that its marvelously long hands looked very powerful. Orick didn’t move, and the creature must have decided that Orick was asleep and therefore didn’t matter. Let sleeping bears lie.
It began inhaling near the small round windows of the inn, tasting the scents. The head was indeed human in shape, but the monster really did not move at all like a human. Its jaunty twitches reminded Orick more and more of an insect.
The thing reached up sixteen feet to a small window, grabbed the sill in one hand, and pulled itself up to sniff at the crack under the window. In performing this maneuver, it seemed to defy gravity, as if it were a mosquito clinging to its victim.
It reached one long arm sideways eight feet to the next small window, swung over to it, tasted the scent there.
Mahoney’s Inn, like most structures in town, had grown from a house-pine seed. As with many such homes, the owners were of course obliged to put in windows and doors only where openings for such grew naturally, and new windows and doors had to be fitted every few years as the openings grew larger. So it happened that sometimes the window didn’t fit snugly.
The creature must have known this, for it stuck its long fingers into the lintel, scrabbling with heavy claws to pull the window free. Orick heard wood splinter under the force of its assault, and though Orick had never before seen anything like this monster, he knew that this thing was intent on mayhem.
The monster pulled the window free and tossed it away with a flick of the wrist. Its hand shot into the dark cubbyhole of the room. Orick roared in warning, then lurched from his hiding place, jaws snapping. Though the monster was incredibly long of limb, it looked to be rather flimsy. Orick grabbed a leg and shook his head, pulling the creature down, ripping its sinews.
For its part, the creature slashed at Orick with its long fingers, raking open wounds across the bear’s face. In the heat of battle, Orick hardly noticed. He bit into an arm and found it to be much tougher than he’d imagined-indeed, Orick had once bitten into the haunches of a running horse, and the horse was not nearly as tough as this monster. Orick growled in his fury, clamped his jaws down and rolled, then finally managed to snap a bone.
The monster struggled up on three limbs to run. Orick heard shouts of dismay and screaming from the inn, and he worried that if he let the beast escape, it would return to town with murder on its mind.