Hendrik’s little smile reached his eyes, there. “Yours is very fine.”
Dagan fingered it, preening a little. “Isn’t it? The master smith in my conservancy is known for beautiful work. My parents had it commissioned when I began my training.”
“I thought you didn’t have metal. In the wood.”
“We have tin and copper mines; everything else we trade for over the mountains. Sometimes with the City, even. It’s expensive but useful.”
Hendrik frowned. “Really?”
Again, interesting. “I suppose it’s illegal there, but there will always be smugglers where there’s good trade to be had, right?”
“I never thought about that, either.” He paused and nodded. “About a lot of things, apparently.”
“You’ll pick it up quickly as we go.” Dagan hefted his pack and then his bow. “First, a bath and a good meal.”
Hendrik hesitated for a moment, looked at his sad little camp, seemed very, very lost. And then he took his pack and nodded, following Dagan into the forest.
*
The path wound through the loneliest part of the conservancy first, out here on the fringes near the sea. Dagan had just come this way and hadn’t picked up on anything strange, so he let his mind wander as they made their way through the forest. Hendrik kept his paring knife in hand, more for a feeling of security than any actual use, Dagan suspected.
At the end of the first day, when the sun disappeared over the treetops for good, Dagan stopped on the path suddenly. A sound, something large, and the faintest smell of animal struck him suddenly. He held out an arm to halt Hendrik’s progress and examined the path and the surrounding underbrush.
Bear shit, as he’d suspected. What were bears doing this far west at this time of year? They should be fishing in the…oh. The river. There were certainly more than one, and at least a single, very large one, judging from the leavings. A mother and cubs.
“I don’t want to alarm you,” Dagan said quietly. “But we should move fast and silently through this—”
“Uhhh,” Hendrik cut him off, voice high and tight. “What is that?”
A shrub moved. A smallish, perhaps 3-moon-old, fluffy brown bear cub stumbled out of it. When it noticed them, it managed to look slightly surprised. And, more worryingly, curious.
“That is a bear cub, which means its mother is nearby. Follow me.” He started moving, and, to his annoyance, the cub followed. If he hadn’t seen larger scat, he might’ve thought it was orphaned and taken it to a sanctuary, but no chance of that here. “Fuck me,” he sighed.
“What?” Hendrik’s grip on his tiny knife was white-knuckled. “How big is the mother?”
“As tall as me and far heavier than you,” Dagan replied. He could smell it more clearly, now, or maybe it was the cub, but the wind was blowing the other direction. Which could only mean—
With a great crunching sound, she appeared, a magnificent, dark-eyed, massive-pawed mother bear. She spotted her cub. And then the humans standing between them.
Dagan grabbed Hendrik and pushed him off the path to put some distance between him and the bear. He stepped between them, hands up, backing away. “Keep going. Into the woods.”
Hendrik now sounded officially panicked. “Fuck, she’s—she’s big.”
“Listen to me,” Dagan said quietly. “And start walking. Calmly. I’ve got you.”
The bear took a few steps forward and sniffed. Then she let out a massive sound, somewhere between a roar and a bark, that seemed to shake the leaves around them.
“It’s alright, mama,” Dagan almost sang, simultaneously saying a silent prayer to the forest gods. “We know your fishing is spoiled. There’s plenty of food here for your babies. I’ll tell the humans to keep away,” he kept saying as he moved backwards.
The cub made to follow him, but the mother, with terrifying speed and agility for something so large, caught up to it and gave it a little cuff. It whined in complaint, but mama was adamant. Two more roly-poly cubs emerged from the woods behind her, clawing at the path as they started a wrestling match.
Once he was far enough away and mama was fully busy with her cubs, Dagan turned and took off like a shot, catching up to Hendrik and pulling him deeper into the underbrush. He stepped in front and cleared the path as best he could, making a direct line for the next potentially safe place to pick up the path again. They would cut through a few groves, but nothing dangerous…in theory.
The bears were a bad sign, though. Not only was the corruption potentially spreading, but the river supported so much of the Heart Wood’s population of animals and plants. This could get very, very ugly.
When they finally got back to the path, Hendrik was white as fresh linen, with a few new scratches on his hands from branches Dagan had failed to move out of his way. “Apologies. I wanted to move quickly.” As he stepped onto the path, he turned to Hendrik and reached out for one of his hands.
Hendrik started and stepped back. Then he seemed to shake himself and held his hand out again, before Dagan could withdraw his. Dagan examined the cuts, which were superficial, one of them crisscrossing the largest and pinkest of his scars. “We’ll wash you up at the next spring, but it doesn’t look like there’s too much damage.”
Hendrik took his hand back, still breathing hard.
“Was it too much? To be in the thick of the forest?”
Hendrik shook his head. “I thought it would be. But the bear was scarier.”
Dagan chuckled. “They’re not inherently aggressive, but a mother with her cubs is a fearsome thing.”
“You didn’t even touch your weapons,” Hendrik said, eying the knife and bow.
“She had babies to care for,” Dagan said, surprised at the suggestion. “Anyhow, bear hunting is seasonal and very, very specialized; I don’t have the gear.”
“You’ve hunted one of those?”
Dagan just nodded. Needs must, to keep the balance—and their fur made exquisite rugs.
“They look like they could rip you apart.”
“They absolutely could,” Dagan assured him. “Which is why I told you to move quickly.”
