“I think it is,” the dwarf said. “Strange.”
“Are you kidding?” Gifford looked at Rain. “In all this, you find the bird stands out as unusual?”
Rain shrugged. “Nothing else came through the entrance—why the bird?”
“We should get moving,” Tressa said, still staring out into the darkness that lay ahead.
“What about Moya?” Roan asked, her face illuminated by the threshold, eyes bright with the light that flooded the tiny clearing. “Maybe if we . . . perhaps we could—”
“That’s as far as she’s going to go,” Tressa said.
Brin stiffened. The cold indifference in Tressa’s voice infuriated her, even more so because Brin felt guilty for abandoning her friend. Once again, Tressa had become the heartless hag who’d thrown her pages in the river. “What if it were you, Tressa?”
The older woman gave a miserable smirk. “If it were me lying back there, everyone would have already left.” She focused on Brin with a naked honesty. “And you know it.”
“That’s not true,” Gifford said.
Tressa frowned. “Thing is, I wouldn’t mind. I’d expect it because this isn’t about me. We all knew the risks. I certainly did, and if Moya didn’t, then she was an idiot.”
“How can you be so cold?” Brin asked.
“I’m cold,” Roan said.
“What?” Brin looked at the woman, puzzled and a bit irritated. Filled to overflowing with self-hatred and doubt, she didn’t appreciate the flippant remark. It only took a second for Brin to remember that Roan never made offhand comments.
“I mean, I feel cold,” Roan clarified, following this up by rubbing her arms vigorously.
Tressa shook her head in disgust. “Seriously? What are you, eight? I’m cold, too. We’re all cold. Deal with it. We’ve got—”
“No, she’s right,” Gifford said. He was looking around suspiciously, as if the darkness and the dead trees were plotting against them. “I haven’t felt anything since dying. And the chill just started. I didn’t feel it when we were in Rel.”
Brin noticed it then. Not a true cold, not in the wintry sense, but she felt a distinct chill rise up her back and neck. It danced along her skin. Something was different, she could feel—
Snap, crack, rip. In the forest of bleached wood, something stirred, something big.
The chill grew frostier as Brin peered into the forest. The world of Nifrel was dark. Not black, like it had been at the bottom of Neith where she couldn’t see her own hands, but dim and hazy. This new world settled for shades of gray that built up to an eventual ebony where the sky had always promised to be. Brin wasn’t aware of any light that made it possible for her to see, but then what good was light when she didn’t have eyes? The world was no longer something she saw but rather something she perceived.
“What is that?” she asked.
Crack!
Brin couldn’t tell if it was a large branch that snapped or just a really close one.
Gifford drew his sword.
The crow finally moved. Flashing black wings, it flew to a low branch of a nearby tree. Even it no longer felt safe.
Struggling to penetrate the hazy silhouettes of the eaves, Brin finally saw movement, a giant hulking creature bristling with fur. “What is it?”
“I think,” Gifford said. “I think it’s a bear—a really big bear.”
“Is that . . . ?” Tressa started, then faltered. “Could that be . . . ?”
Out of the shadows the beast lumbered, a great brown bear. It rose on its hind legs and roared so loudly that the trees shook.
“The Brown,” Brin gasped. She’d never seen the bear that had killed Konniger and so many others, but she’d heard what it looked like: reddish, the color of dried blood, and huge from a steady diet of human meat. Maeve had been among its victims, and Suri would have died, too, if she hadn’t—
“Fire!” Brin said. “If only we had fire.”
Roan looked at Brin, and their little miracle worker’s eyes brightened. Without a word, she rushed madly toward the bear.
“Roan!” everyone called out in panic.
She didn’t go far. Stopping short of the trees, she snatched up a handful of fallen branches before running back.
“What are you doing?” Gifford shouted.
“Fire! It will be afraid of it.” Roan dropped her armload of wood and tore open her pack.
Rain joined her on the ground, breaking the branches into manageable sticks.
“I could use larger pieces,” Roan told them while fishing out raw wool and a bit of cloth from her side bag. She handed these to Rain before digging back into her pouch.
“Does that even work here?” Tressa asked.
In the trees, the growling menace drew closer. Brin could hear it lumbering with heavy feet through dead leaves.
Rain helped Gifford drag a fallen log while Roan began striking a rock with a jagged bit of metal. Sparks flashed. She stopped, put her head down, and blew into the pile Rain had fashioned. Light appeared—a wonderful warm yellow flame that raised a host of shadows, which danced across the pale wood. Their patch of ground became a place to defend, a clearing turned into a campsite, a wilderness transformed into civilization.
Seeing the flickering shadows dance among the trees, Gifford said, “Build it larger.”
“Let’s hope it’s still afraid of fire.” Tressa found a stout stick and raised it like a club. “Will this work or are we—you know—maybe it’s attracted to the light.”
“What? Do you think it’s a giant growling moth-bear?” Gifford asked.
“Look around you. Is that really so crazy right now?”
Gifford didn’t answer and went back to collecting more wood. “Don’t happen to have a spear in your bag of tricks, do you, Roan? A spear would be handy.”
She looked up. “I could make one.”
Gifford smiled back. “Maybe next time.”
“Here, use this.” Roan lit the bristling end of a branch and handed it to Gifford. With his sword in his right hand and the torch in his left, he advanced on the beast.
“What are you up to, Giff?” Tressa asked in a manner that suggested he shouldn’t be doing anything of the sort.
“Hoping to scare it away.”
Gifford swung the flaming brand before him. The bear, still some distance off, snorted and shuffled back, retreating once again on all fours. “It’s working.” Gifford pressed his attack, advancing forward and thrusting with the torch. The Brown growled in anger, and as Gifford reached the row of trees, the bear turned and bolted back into the forest.
“Ha!” Gifford watched it run. “Look at that!”
“How very cruel.” The words issued from the fire.
Roan and Rain leapt back from their creation as it grew beyond its meager fuel to a blazing bonfire. Everyone retreated to the edges of the light as the comforting yellow-orange glow drained to an eerie white-blue flicker. In the depths, a face appeared—a woman’s face: sharp chipped cheeks, black razor lips, a knife-blade nose, and pinprick eyes that glared out at them.
“My bear was merely coming to welcome you, and that is how you greet it?” the lady in the fire said with mock offense and then smiled—those thin black lips curling tightly at the corners. “Might have also eaten you, I suppose. Can’t help it. It’s her nature, but still, it was quite rude of you.”