“So speak, coyote. And quickly, while your presence still amuses me.”
“My rout knows well, my Ogeema, how the great Taka-Dirge led his army against the last of the Skinless
Ones. The Forest—voras and viands alike—are grateful to your ancestors for the Rising.”
“Yes,” the Ogeema said.
“My mate and I saw something disturbing just a day ago.”
“What did you see?”
“You know of the relics that the Skinless Ones flew? The great silver birds that lie rusting in the Forest?” She paused, not expecting the Ogeema to answer but wanting to make sure he was following her words. “One fell from the sky.”
The wolves behind the Ogeema flicked their ears curiously.
“We were there when it landed. And from inside appeared a Skinless One. A living Skinless One.”
In an instant the wolves atop the rise were on their feet growling and glaring ferociously at Rend. The Ogeema stood motionless.
Rend continued. “I know as well as any that they were all slaughtered. But a Skinless has been sent down from the sky. To the bears.”
“To the bears?” the Ogeema whispered.
“We set upon the Skinless One, my Ogeema,” Rend said. “My rout and I. We were going to bring the creature to you, but a bear stopped us. She is called Casseomae. She fostered Alioth as a cub when his mother was killed.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Casseomae protected the Skinless from us. She’s taken the young Skinless to her sloth.”
“Has she now?” the Ogeema said. He stepped onto the rise, pausing to lick one of the pups between the ears. When he looked back at Rend the Ogeema’s expression was calm. “You might have guts of gravel, coyote, but your tongue drips with viper poison.”
Rend flattened her ears.
“There are no Skinless Ones being sent down to the bears. It is simply not possible.”
“But, my Ogeema—” Rend began.
“Whatever grievance you have with Chief Alioth is not my concern. And bringing me lies won’t tempt me to involve my wolves in your dispute.”
“I’m not lying!” Rend yipped.
The Ogeema snapped his enormous head around.
“My Ogeema,” Rend said. “Please, I will bring you proof! A piece of the fallen relic.”
“Some trash you’ll dig up, most likely,” the Ogeema breathed as he slipped back toward the shadows of his alcove.
“My Ogeema, if you would simply—” Rend started to say.
But the Ogeema cut her off. “Get away while you still have your breath and be glad I’ve lost my appetite.
Bring me the Skinless One if you want to offer proof. Otherwise, I don’t want to smell you or any of your rout again. Do you understand?”
Gall was on his feet, nipping at Rend’s muzzle to leave. She stared a moment longer at the black wolf before saying, “Yes, my Ogeema.”
She trotted off after her mate, slinking low with disappointment.
Once the pair was out of the den, the Ogeema said to one of his wolves, “If she’s speaking the truth …”
“Should I send a patrol to investigate, my Ogeema?” the wolf asked.
“No,” said the Ogeema. “I don’t want Alioth pestering me with complaints about violating the pact. We must send someone Alioth will never notice in his territory.”
The Ogeema lowered his snout to his paws, looking up with his gold and silver eyes.
The wolf thought a moment, then said, “The assassin?”
The Ogeema bared his teeth. “Yes, the assassin.” He closed his eyes. “Send him.”
C
asseomae watched her chief until he disappeared back into the Forest on the other side of her meadow. When she turned, she found the cub staring at her from the doorway of the den. She came toward it and the cub whimpered in its strange chirping speech.
“It’s safe, cub,” Casseomae said. She rubbed her nose against its cheek, trying to settle its panic. She stuck her nose in the den. “You didn’t eat your grubs. You’ve got to eat. You’ve got to have strength if we’re going to get you away from here tonight.”
Casseomae spent a few minutes digging up dandelions from the glade and gathering mouthfuls of acorns. She even managed to catch a vole, but as she brought each to the child, it pushed them away with chirps of protest.
Casseomae sighed and was about to try something else when she caught the child putting its mouth to its upper arm. At first, she thought it might be licking a wound or cleaning the strange furless pelt covering its body. But then she heard a slurping noise.
She edged closer to see what the cub was doing. A tube protruded from its hide. There were lots of the strange protuberances and pouches along its body, none of which made any sense to her. As she watched, the cub’s cheeks drew in and its throat lumped with a swallow.
It’s drinking, she realized. But how could the creature drink moisture from its own body? She shuffled away a short distance to sit down and think.
This was no bear cub—this was a Skinless One. It was unlike any creature in the Forest. She couldn’t communicate with it. She couldn’t understand it. What was she doing protecting it?
The cub took its mouth from the tube and settled back against the doorway of the den. It looked up at the sky, where the clouds were turning orange and pink with the setting sun.
It needs me, she reminded herself.
She heard something coming through the brush beyond the nearest of the vine-tangled cars. Something scraping along the ground. “Haven’t you been eaten yet?” she called.
“Nice to smell you too, you big lump,” Dumpster called from the thick grass. “How about coming over here and helping me?”
“What’s the matter?” she said, lumbering toward him.
“Nothing’s the matter. I’ve only been dragging this stinkin’ thing halfway across the Forest.”
As Casseomae pushed aside the weeds, she spied the rat pulling something with his teeth—a square container with the distinctive sheen of the Skinless objects.
“What is that?” she asked.
“It’s plastic. A material the Old Devils could make.”
“I’ve seen it before. Why are you carrying it?”
“It’s for the cub,” Dumpster said before going around to the other side and pushing against the box with his head to scoot it forward.
“For the cub?” Casseomae asked.
Dumpster twitched his whiskers. “Yeah, for the cub. The Old Devil over there.” He sighed. “To eat.”
“They eat plastic?”
“No, you idiot bear. The food is inside.” Dumpster gnawed at a corner with his teeth before prying at the top of the box with his narrow paws and popping the box open. Inside were neatly stacked rows of small shiny packages. Dumpster pulled one out and dropped it before Casseomae.
She lowered her nose and sniffed. Dumpster had
perforated the package with his teeth, and a strange, sweet odor came from inside. “There’s hardly enough in here for a meal.”
“It’s plenty, believe me,” Dumpster said. “A little goes a long way with this Old Devil food.”
“Where did you get these?”
“From a squirrel’s nest,” Dumpster said in his acid tone. He snapped his tail and pointed with his nose. “I got it from that crashed passering out there. The cub won’t eat our food. I’ve seen the remains of their food caches back in my city and believe me, the Old Devils hardly ate anything that we scratchin’ eat. They like this stuff. Go ahead. Give it to the pup.”
Casseomae picked the crinkling package up with her lips. The plastic left a bitter taste in her mouth, and she was glad when she was finally able to drop it before the child. The child sat up sharply, its eyes fixed on the package.
Dumpster scampered to peer from around the bear’s back leg. “What’s it doing? Did it eat it?”
“Not yet. It’s not even touching it. Are you sure that’s food? It tastes awful.”
“Yeah, that’s just the wrapping. They used plastic shells to protect their food. Trying to keep us rats from eating their cache.” Dumpster looked up, giving a smug twitch of his whiskers. “We got into it anyway, of course. Idiot Old Devils.”
“Look,” Casseomae said.
The child reached for the food. In an instant, it tore off the crinkling casing and bit greedily from the sweet-smelling lump.
“You were right,” Casseomae said.
“Course I was right. I told you I’m the Memory for my mischief. I know all about these Devils.”
The rat watched her for a moment before saying, “What are you doing anyway, old bear? I mean, that’s a stinkin’ Old Devil sleeping in your den and you think you’re going to make a bear of it?”
“It’s not an
it
,” she said, suddenly realizing it herself. “It’s a
he
.”
Dumpster gave her a skeptical twitch of his whiskers.
“I can just tell,” she said. The cub had a sort of stubborn, rootlike smell. A smell like a thundercloud on the West Wind. A smell not unlike Alioth’s when he was a cub.
“We’ll be leaving soon,” Casseomae added.
Dumpster blinked rapidly. “You’re taking him away?”
“That’s right.”
“To where?”
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “Somewhere the Ogeema won’t find him. But the first thing is to get him out of my sloth’s range.”
Dumpster glared at her. “You are one moon-mad old
bear, you know that? When Lord Murk was giving out brains, he stuffed your head full of moss.”
Casseomae huffed. “What are you going to do? Will you look for your mischief?”
The rat’s whiskers drooped glumly. “When I left the city, I had their scent. But then those underlickin’ coyotes made me lose their trail.”
“You’ll find them,” she said. “If they’re anything like you, they’re surely stout rodents.”
Dumpster gave a little shrug of pride. “I guess.”
Casseomae sniffed toward the child. “What about traveling with us?”
Dumpster gave a scoffing squeak. “Right.”
“I could use you,” Casseomae said. “You know all about the Skinless. And if you’re with me, you won’t have to worry about every owl and skunk coming after you.”
Dumpster wiggled his whiskers as he considered her words. “I don’t much care for the idea of being around some murderous Skinless,” he finally said. “But that little pup over there seems harmless enough. I guess I could come with you. For a little ways. At least until I pick up the trail of my mischief.”
The cub swallowed the last bite. Tracing a finger along the inside of the package, he drew out the last morsels and licked them off his fingertip with noisy smacks.
“Then the first thing we have to do,” Casseomae said, “is figure out how to get that cub to come with us.”
Dumpster scampered around in a circle cheerfully. “I think I know just the trick. Watch.” Dumpster pulled out another package of food. “Give that to the pup.”
Casseomae picked it up and eased over to the child with a reassuring snort. He looked at the packet in her teeth. When Casseomae dropped it, the child ran forward and grabbed the food.
“Now just wait,” Dumpster said. “Once the pup finishes, he’ll want the rest. Don’t let him have any.”
“But he’s hungry,” she said.
“Of course he is! That’s the point. Pick up the box when he comes for it. You got it?”
“What do I do then?” Casseomae asked.
“Start walking.”
“Where?” she grunted.
“Scratchin’ mites!” Dumpster squeaked. “Don’t you understand? The pup will want the food. If you carry it away, he’ll follow you. Then we can lead him out of here.”
The child stuffed the last bite in his mouth and looked around. When his eyes fell on the case of food, he ran toward it.
“Now!” Dumpster squealed.
Casseomae lifted the case in her mouth. The child
grabbed at the bottom of the box, but Casseomae jerked it away and growled.
“There you go,” Dumpster said. “Now walk.”
Casseomae took a few steps. The child stood with his arms limp at his sides. She snorted, “Come on, then, cub.”
“He doesn’t understand Vorago,” Dumpster said.
“I know he doesn’t,” she grunted through her clenched jaws. As the child began to come toward her, she added, “But it seems he understands food.”
Dumpster trotted beside her. “I told you he would.”
A
s long shadows fell, Casseomae and Dumpster led the child away from the meadow with the setting sun at their backs, toward the borders of the Ogeema’s territory. At first, the child chirped incessantly at her and even tried to tug the case from her mouth. When frustration drove the child to sit on the ground, Casseomae gave him another packet. After eating, the child followed them again. Little by little, they made their way deeper into the Forest.
Casseomae was surprised by how much difficulty the child had simply walking. Vines snagged his arms and legs. Logs and fallen branches seemed intent on stumbling him. She’d never seen a creature move more awkwardly through underbrush. It was as if the Forest was
trying to prevent the child’s journey … and Casseomae half-wondered if the Forest really was.
The child had an unreasonable fear of everyday noises. When a chorus of cicadas rose up, the child looked around in panic. If a tree frog croaked or a blue jay called, the child leaped in fright. A squirrel caused him to shriek as if he had fallen into a nest of timber rattlers.
After a few hours of chirping piteously for food and battling every spiderweb and leaf that tickled his head, the child calmed somewhat. They covered little ground that first day.
It was late in the night before Casseomae decided to stop. “I can’t carry this wretched-tasting thing one more step.”
“The pup is asleep on his feet anyway,” Dumpster said. “We’d better let him rest.”
Casseomae placed the container next to the child, offering him another meal, but the cub was already curling up in the leaves. Within moments, he was asleep.
“You’ll keep your nose up?” Dumpster said wearily.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll know if anything comes near. You get some sleep.”
Dumpster dug out a little den in the leaf mold. Casseomae foraged for a bit before joining them in sleep. When she woke in the morning, the child was already awake, adjusting the pouches around his waist. He watched Casseomae from the corners of his eyes.
She stood and stretched, calling, “Rat, you ready to go?”