Tangled Threads Publishing

Tag: That is a weird bear

  • 6.9 – Bear

    6.9 – Bear

    A roar reverberated through the trees as the creature caught the scent of humans. Its unnatural red eyes started directly at Einarr and its lip curled up in a snarl, revealing massive fangs.

    Einarr slid Sinmora from her sheath. Avoiding the bear was not an option, not now that it has seen them, not with the look of madness in its eyes.

    Erik and Irding moved up to flank him, their axes in hand. Good.

    Runa stepped up behind them then, and the sweet soprano of her voice carried past them. It was not the fury-song, however. Instead, she sang to end the rage – not for them but for the bear.

    It swayed on its feet as though drunk, Runa’s song warring with some other influence. The Woodsman’s, perhaps?

    The horned creature began to look drowsy, and Einarr nudged Irding to begin circling around.

    Immediately the possessed bear’s eyes snapped to follow the movement, wide awake again. The three men froze, and Runa’s song grew louder and more insistent. Einarr’s mind was clear, his body relaxed, but even his eyelids began to feel heavy.

    Erik sighed loudly, replacing his axe in its loop on its belt, and rolled his shoulders back to limber them. “We don’t have time for this.”

    “I don’t think so, old man.” Irding cracked his knuckles. “I’ve got this one.”

    Erik opened his mouth as though to protest, but evidently thought better of it. He folded his arms as his son readied himself.

    With a primal yell, Irding charged into the clearing as though into a glíma ring. The bear lowered its head, ready to toss its assailant with its massive stag horns. Irding clinched with the beast, grabbing hold by those selfsame horns. Then followed a test of strength, with each grappler attempting to throw the other.

    Had Irding wrestled a stag soothed by the song magic, he might have had a chance. A bear with antlers, however, was still fundamentally a bear – song magic or no. The creature twisted its head down and Irding lost his footing. Only for a moment, but that was all it took for one massive paw to send him flying for the edge of the clearing.

    Einarr nearly started forward to help, but a cry from Runa kept him from it. The foliage writhed and twisted towards her feet, and even with Jorir’s help it was all he could do to keep her free of the bramble and focused on the song.

    Erik took half a step forward, but Irding was not to be defeated so easily. Already he was rising from the ground, beating the needles from his trousers as he watched the bear, waiting for an opening. When the bear stumbled again, he rushed in low.

    Having failed to best the creature locked with its antlers, Irding sought to get in close for the second round. Erik’s jaw dropped as he realized what his son – correction, his idiot son – intended, but it was too late to stop him.

    The bear caught Irding in a hook with its front paw and tossed him up in the air, rearing up to continue playing with its prey. When the creature had reached its full height, just before it could slam Irding back down to the ground with another swipe of its paw, Erik’s shoulder impacted with its belly.

    The bear looked down, somewhat perplexed by the not-furry creature that now had its arms wrapped around the bear’s middle.

    Irding tumbled to the ground, only a little more gracefully than a sack of onions.

    The bear roared again, giving off the impression of a shrug, but before it could wrap its forelegs about Erik’s back the big man had slipped out from beneath the creature’s grasp.

    Irding rose to his feet unsteadily, but the strange creature’s attention was still on Erik even as it fought off the effects of Runa’s song.

    A note of panic was rising in Runa’s voice. Certain, now, that the other two had the creature well in hand, Einarr turned his full attention to the vines that crept around their feet. Tendrils had begun to grip the leg of his trousers, and Jorir was tearing at several that had begun to wrap about Runa’s legs. And this is when the Woodsman isn’t paying attention?

    A quick yank had his feet free again, and he joined Jorir in tearing at the vines that converged on Runa. Einarr questioned, at this point, whether her singing was doing any good, but judging by her expression something was actively fighting her attempt to put the Woodsman’s servant to sleep.

    The bear gave a roar, and Einarr risked another glance over at the other fight. Irding had locked its horns in the clinch again, but this time his father lay on the creature’s back in a very familiar posture to Einarr: It was much the same move he had used to knock out the fimbulvulf on Svartlauf. The bear, between the lack of air to breathe and the song designed to induce relaxation, was losing the fight to remain conscious.

    With a nod, Einarr turned back to his still-singing fiancée and pursed his lips in thought. Nodding, he scooped Runa up by the waist and set her on his shoulders. Vines trailed from her skirt, but of the ordinary kind that did not writhe under their own power. He kicked his feet to keep the vines from getting a grip on his own legs and moved toward the clearing where Erik and Irding were lowering the now-unconscious bear creature to the forest floor.

    Irding looked pale, and he breathed heavily, but he insisted to Einarr and Erik both that the was fine.

    “If you say so…” Einarr did not bother to hide his dubiousness, but Irding waved him off again.

    Before they set off into the forest again, he turned to Runa. “Keep an eye on him, would you? I suspect he’s broken something.”

    Runa nodded. “Of course. But not, I think, a something the herb-witches or apothecaries would be able to do much about.”

    Einarr grumbled. “Time to move on, people, before we draw any more attention to ourselves.”

    Vote for Vikings on Top Web Fiction!

    Table of Contents

    Hi everyone. Thanks for reading!

    If you like what you read, it would really mean a lot to me if you clicked through to Top Web Fiction and voted for Einarr there. It’s a visibility boost in the ever-growing genre of web fiction, and that helps me out a lot. There’s no sign-up, and votes refresh every 7 days.

    If you’re all caught up and looking for something a little longer to read, I also have other works available on Amazon.Or, if you happen to not like Amazon you can also get the Einarr ebook through Smashwords, B&N, Apple, Kobo… you get the idea. Direct links are available here.

    Lastly, if you really like what I’m doing, I also have a Patreon account running with some fun bonuses available.

  • 6.8 – Infiltration

    6.8 – Infiltration

    The difference between the Woodsman’s territory and that the hulder still clung to was stark and immediate. It was more than the absence of signs of fighting: in the area around the hulder village, the wood was open, like a well-tended garden. It looked as though man and beast alike would have been able to gain what they needed from the forest. Where the leshy controlled, however, was a riot of plant life and swarming bugs, so thick that anything larger than a rabbit would need to pick their way carefully through the underbrush in places.

    Einarr frowned, wishing not for the first time that putting Erik and Jorir in the lead to cut their way through wouldn’t draw the leshy’s attention. Unfortunately, however, he was even more certain now than he had been before that the spirit was a stone-fisted tyrant who kept a careful watch over his demesne. This had been reinforced as they stepped across the battle-lines to see months’ worth of growth over land that had been fought over within the last few nights.

    The bramble that spread before him presented no easy answer, of course. The thorny vines climbed not only the nearby trees but each other, weaving together in a chest-high mat that may as well have been a wall. It was the third such blockage they had run across, on three separate attempts to penetrate past a ledge they could just see on the other side.

    “Is it just me, or are these vines following us?”

    “Based on what we’ve already seen?” Jorir’s answer sounded mildly winded, and just as annoyed as Einarr felt. “It wouldn’t surprise me. Does that mean the creature already knows we’re coming, though?”

    Erik grunted. “If he does, he doesn’t know what we intend. Otherwise we’d be fighting our way through.”

    The sound of breaking branches and tearing vines signaled Irding’s less-than-graceful descent from a nearby tree. “The ledge curves around toward us just further on. I think we might be able to get through the vines there.”

    Einarr took a deep breath, nodding. There was no point getting upset about the noise, not at this point. Not since he was pretty sure the Woodsman had known they were coming for hours now. “Worth a shot, then.”

    Back through the brush they went, and once again Einarr would swear the plants were moving to impede their progress. He was not – yet – irritated enough to begin hacking his way through, but his fingers twitched.

    Irding led the way this time, since he had the most recent lay of the land, and while there was much grumbling and cursing about the underbrush Einarr could not argue that his more direct route was slower than picking their way through easier paths. Or less effective: the vines, by the time they reached the ledge, did climb up and over it. However, where they went over the ledge, the vines were much lower to the ground, allowing just enough space for the five of them to hurry across.

    The vines began to coil, snake-like, as Einarr half-leaped across. Erik followed next and the mat grew visibly taller. Jorir followed hot on his heels, and then Einarr offered a steadying hand for Runa. Even as she made the leap a vine reached up and thorns tore at her skirt.

    Irding was the only one left, and now the vines were knee-high and still climbing visibly. The tall young man took a step and a half backwards before running forward to vault over the climbing hedge.

    Irding stumbled a little at the landing and winced as he straightened himself.

    “You all right?” Einarr asked.

    The other man nodded perfunctorily. “Just a scratch. Nothing to worry about.”

    “We should keep going, then.” Einarr started off again, deeper into the woods and away from the creeping hedge. The others followed close behind, Runa muttering under her breath the entire time as she ran through the instructions she’d been given.

    The light that filtered through the canopy was dim now, the leaf cover above so thick the sky was not even visible in slivers. They pressed on through this until their thighs burned from the exertion of pressing through underbrush.

    Einarr stopped and held up a hand for silence. Erik nearly collided with him, but no more than another heartbeat passed before Jorir quieted Runa.

    The birdcalls had stopped. Up until that moment, the birds had not seemed to care that they existed, but now the forest stood in silence. Einarr strained his ears for the disturbance and came up empty, although his hackles stood on end. It felt as though something were watching them. Whatever it was, it felt hungry.

    Something growled from off in the underbrush, something that was neither wolf nor bear nor lynx, and then the presence faded.

    Einarr shrugged off the feeling of a lingering presence. “I think the Woodsman wants us to know he’s watching.”

    “So it seems.” Jorir sounded just as unnerved as Einarr felt, for which Einarr was grateful.

    “We’ve done nothing to his forest,” Erik reminded them. “He should have no reason to attack us.”

    “Nothing except venture into his territory. That sounded like ‘go away’ to me.”

    “You’re not wrong, milord.” Jorir’s eyes still scanned the forest around them, but the threat had passed. “Under other circumstances, I’d be inclined to oblige.”

    “Under other circumstances, I’d agree. Let’s go.” Einarr heeded his own suggestion and started moving again, wading between a pair of shrubs that reached to his hip because there was no other route.

    They had not gone much farther on when they spotted what passed for a clearing in the Woodsman’s territory. In the interest of a moment’s respite, and the vain hope that it might be the clearing they sought, Einarr steered his companions towards it. This clearing, however, contained no cave. Instead, its lone inhabitant was a massive brown bear. A bear, it should be noted, with stag’s antlers and red eyes.

    Vote for Vikings on Top Web Fiction!

    Table of Contents

    Hi everyone. Thanks for reading!

    If you like what you read, it would really mean a lot to me if you clicked through to Top Web Fiction and voted for Einarr there. It’s a visibility boost in the ever-growing genre of web fiction, and that helps me out a lot. There’s no sign-up, and votes refresh every 7 days.

    If you’re all caught up and looking for something a little longer to read, I also have other works available on Amazon.Or, if you happen to not like Amazon you can also get the Einarr ebook through Smashwords, B&N, Apple, Kobo… you get the idea. Direct links are available here.

    Lastly, if you really like what I’m doing, I also have a Patreon account running with some fun bonuses available.