First: Running in the Bear Empire
Previous:50: Inn
Next: 52: Tales
🐻

“Oh! Your ladyship!”

Deline blinked at the woman in front of her, digging quickly for a name.  “Pallar. I didn’t think we’d gotten that close to the capital…” Had she gotten that turned around? Or that thrown off by the attack? 

“It’s a mess out there,  isn’t it? I could get lost in my own yard, storming like that.  No, no, we branched out. Pennit took the capital bar, I moved out here,  and Pollo went east. Anywhere you go, your road lead to us!”

Deline relaxed.  “Good to hear business is going well.   I… have a situation.” Continue reading →

First: Running in the Bear Empire
Previous:49: Lies
Next: 51: Lady
🐻

Carrone kept sending little looks her way. 

Deline wasn’t quite sure what it meant, and she didn’t quite want to stop and ask, either. 

They’d gone from being two people dodging bounty hunters to being an entire entourage, the wounded on wagons with their healers, the rest trudging along through mountains that were clearly no more familiar to them than they were to Carrone. 

They had no privacy and no time to talk, but, on the other hand, they weren’t very worried about being attacked.  Not with Ranger Learone and Lord Eigeran having decided that they were Deline’s personal bodyguards. Not with their surviving able-bodied soldiers stalking along as if they were an invading force led by Deline. Continue reading →

First: Running in the Bear Empire
Previous:48: War
Next: 50: Inn
🐻

Deline raised her eyebrows at this interloper.  “Pardon me, Lord Eigeran. I must have misheard you.”

“Was I speaking to you, prisoner?”

“Sir.”  Ranger Learone cleared her throat.  “The Claw of the Bear is not a prisoner.  I and the soldiers here are.”

“And your commander?” His body language suggested he was either intentionally ignoring Deline to slight her or he was unaware of what a Claw of the Bear could do. 

“He died of his own doing, sir.  He upset the prisoner Teshone, who fell on him.” Continue reading →

First: Running in the Bear Empire
Previous:47: You Will Die
Next: 49: Lies
🐻

Deline considered their prisoners, the wounded, the dead, and those in between. “Who of you who’ve surrender have medical training?”

One person cautiously raised their hand.

“Carrone?”

“Just basic field stuff.”

“Okay. So. If you have surrendered, you are now under the care and aegis of the crown of the Bear. You belong to the Bear until your trial. I am going to put you to work seeing how many people we can save, do you understand?”

Two of them nodded, including the one with medical training. Continue reading →

First: Running in the Bear Empire
Previous: 46: The Nameless Claw
Next: 48: War
🐻

You WILL die.

The soldiers had begun backing up again.  Deline raised her chin in defiance at the enemy commander.

He had clearly had enough.  With an angry grunt, he shoved Teshone in front of him.  “Your turn,” he snarled.

The big man balked and stumbled.  His forward foot barely missed hitting the outer circle.  There was a blade pricking at him, urging him forward. Teshone looked at Carrone; he looked like he was pleading.

“No help in this direction, my ‘friend’.”  Carrone hissed it out quietly. It sounded like final rites for the dying. Continue reading →

First: Running in the Bear Empire
Previous:45: By The Numbers
Next: 47: You Will Die

🐻

There were twelve soldiers — without uniforms, but Deklegion and Haloran from the looks of them— rushing towards Carrone and Deline.

“Halt!”  The commander – had to be the commander, the way he was talking – pushed forward, pushing Teshone in front of him.  Teshone clearly didn’t want to be moved, and the commander was using a sword and two of his cronies to do the forcing.  “I’m not joking around, Carrone, I will push your friend into whatever trap you have next.” Continue reading →

First: Running in the Bear Empire
Previous:44: Tricks
Next: 46: The Nameless Claw
🐻

“So there were fifty of them,” Deline murmured.  They stood ready, weapons drawn, listening to the shouts and screams.  “How many do you think we’ve taken out?”

“Over half,” he murmured back.”  The shouting stopped; they fell silent.

Somewhere on the other side of the boulder there, a whole bunch of people were trying to kill them.  It should have probably frightened Deline. They’d already blooded her here, for one. She found she was smiling.  Carrone’s traps were nasty and amazing. The spell-work she’d been pulling out of nowhere was exhilarating. Continue reading →

First: Running in the Bear Empire
Previous:43: Trapped
Next: 45: By The Numbers
🐻

The boulder jutted into the path, cutting it off until someone had carved their own path around it.  From the looks of the trees growing in and around it, it had fallen over a hundred years ago, but Deline could still see how the path had been warped.  It meant that until they came to the sharp edge of the stone, they couldn’t see anything ahead of them.

Carrone stepped ahead of her and she let him, her slingshot ready.  He hissed and took a step back, an arrow flying over his shoulder.

Deline grabbed a handful of components from her hip pack and began a spell under her breath.  Just as she was starting to speak, a voice boomed from the far side of the boulder. Continue reading →

First: Running in the Bear Empire
Previous:42: Home
Next: 44: Tricks
🐻

I did try to kill you.

“It would be nice to not be reminded of that,” Deline muttered.  She held up her hands in his direction. “I suppose it’s hard for you to forget it.”

“The funny thing is, in most situations, it would be easy as anything to forget.  You’d be dead. Your head would have been turned in. The bounty would have been collected, and I would be on to my next job.”  He huffed, almost a laugh. “I didn’t think much about what I was doing – I mean, I thought about the hunt. I learned early on not to think about the deaths.  They come, they go – sometimes they haunted me, but most of them just… they passed on.” Continue reading →