Hair of the Bear

By Steven W. White

Hair of the Bear is the sequel to New World and the second book in the Tales of the New World series.

News of the murder of Tyrus Jurgen has rocked the ancient lands of Algolus, and his sister, Lisandra Jurgen, has vowed revenge.

Lisandra has avoided the cloistered fate of a typical Algolan duchess by joining the royal guard and catching criminal after criminal. She is fast and strong, cunning and deadly – but if her brother's murderer were to escape justice, she would be dishonored and cast out of the guard. She would suffer a duchess's fate and be married off for a dowry.

The hunt will not be easy. Lisandra has heard that Tyrus was killed by a shadowy Miran who communes with the savage green people of the forests. No witnesses have seen this man, but some whisper the name... Simon Jones.

She arrives on the shores of Mira unprepared for its deadly surprises. To assure her success in her pursuit of her brother's killer, she finds a local guide – a cantankerous mountain man named Tiberius Bogg.

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Bogg hasn't laid eyes on Simon, his thirteen-year-old nephew, since they trekked back from the Hestern Sea together last year. It's clear to Bogg that Lisandra is tough as splintercat skin and ornery as an exiled dragon – as dangersome as the old swordsman Tyrus Jurgen ever was. Bogg reckons he'd better lead her off track, into the far and snakey woods, or his pup of a nephew won't stand a chance.

So he takes the job.

As Bogg leads Lisandra on a merry chase across Mira, Simon's ongoing quest to find the wild man, Mira's mystical being, leads him closer to discovering the true nature of the world.

But Lisandra will not be so easily fooled. She leaves Bogg for dead and closes in on Simon, hoping to shackle him for the trip to Algolus for trial and hanging. Once again, Simon must fight for his life alone against a powerful Algolan foe.

And when Lisandra finds that Simon is just a boy, she must choose whether to condemn a child to death... or give up her honor forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steven W. White
• Release date: May 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310301384

Steven W. White

Steven W. White has written science fiction and fantasy since he was a teenager. Along the way, he's been a Christmas tree farmer, a rocket scientist, and a snake handler. Lately, he's earned a Fiction MFA from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts on Whidbey Island, Washington. He writes, teaches, and occasionally plays with fire in the Pacific Northwest.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

After nine weeks at sea, with nothing beyond the rail but rolling gray swells, the land of Mira beckoned at last. The hollow clang of the lookout's bell echoed down from the crow's nest.

Lisandra Jurgen, major in the Royal Guard sworn to uphold the law in Albueshire and its provinces and territories in Sept Algolus, tapped her fingers on the rail's worn oak. Finally, justice would be done. Finally!

Lis had no taste for the sea. Ships were not her place. She knew the towns and country of Sept Algolus, and its thieves and ruffians. She knew their hiding places, and which rogue would reveal the whereabouts of another, given sufficient pressure.

And she knew how to apply pressure.

Beyond the rail, Mira was a dark mass, cloaked in morning fog, above the gray sea. The sun would be up in an hour's time, and the darkness would give way to the continent's legendary green forests, visible even from ships well away from shore. Lis would be among those trees soon. Searching.

What if the stories are true? The voice, low and rough, came from her side. Galton, the sneak, had crept up beside her.

She didn't turn to him. I really don't care.

They speak of untold dangers, my Lady.

Lis hated that title. She whirled to face him. You will refer to me–

As your duly earned rank in His Majesty's Guard. Galton smiled up at her, and the crown of his head barely came to her chin. He was short and scrawny, wizened, a dried-out old pest who was blessed to be a friend of her father's. He wore a brown robe and a simple belt, hiding soft and lightweight leather armor beneath. Rather different than her own byrnie – a coat of woven iron links.

What would your father say, pressed Galton, "if he heard me call you Major?"

Lis felt her back teeth pressing tightly together. "What would he say if he heard me call you dwarf?"

But I am no dwarf, Major.

And yet I grow weary of seeing the top of your head.

I take no offense. You are tall enough to look down on many men.

That's little consolation for me.

Then cast your gaze there. Galton narrowed his eyes at the dark continent off the bow. What a place for his Lordship to meet his end. They say it is a forsaken place. Cursed.

Lis stared at the shape on the horizon, as the top of its outline resolved into individual trees, like black teeth. Who says? Pirates? Madmen?

Survivors, Galton said flatly.

Lis grinned at the old man's drama. Those days are gone. There are communities there now. Towns on the coast.

Galton made a sour face. "Because they dare not venture inland. What of the beasts? The birds that can pluck up a horse as if it were a beetle? I know not what a four-legged hill is, but I do not like the sound of it. And what of the green men? Vivets, in the local dialect, if I am correct. Not men at all, it is said. Few have seen them and lived."

I've no interest in the wildlife.

Pray it takes no interest in you.

I am only after one thing.

And what a thing. Have you asked yourself how this creature, this Simon Jones, could have bested your brother?

Lis didn't know, but she suspected, and that suspicion grew bitter roots in her heart. Guile. No one could beat Tyrus in a fight.

Galton leaned close, and his eyes were intense under gray brows. Rumors abound that this Jones character runs with the green men. That he has allies among them.

Lis didn't care to hear of dangers. There were too many – to hear them enumerated grew tedious. I have no interest in the obstacles. My attention is on the prize.

That is the source of my fear for you, my... Major. You've had a capacity for single-minded focus since you were small enough to sit on my knee. But you can miss a detail, now and then. Galton looked back to the looming continent, and his voice became even more grim. This is no place to miss a detail.

Lis didn't like it when Galton brought up her childhood. It softened her will, and took the steel out of her spine. She couldn't stay angry at him.

But he knew the difficulties she faced every day, as a woman – a Lady – in her position. Any other woman of her station would be confined to a palace, kept safe from the danger of so much as a scar, lest her wedding to the son of some neighboring Duke be thwarted and some trade agreement jeopardized. Lis could live the way she did, riding, fighting, and collaring criminals, because of her sheer competence. She was as strong, and twice as fast, as any man on the force. The Royal Guard could not do without her, and no one in the world had the rank – or the strength – to lock her in a tower.

But that meant she couldn't slip. Not once.

She would bring her brother's murderer to justice. The odds against success simply made the task more essential. Simon Jones stood no chance.

She reached past her right ear, until her fingers touched the leather grip on the handle of the weapon on her back. I have my old mace. You have the stiletto and the amulet. We'll be able to deal with any details, no matter how sharp their claws.

Galton's fingers touched the amulet at his neck, a deeply translucent crystal that looked like quartz, but was not. Suppose we merely get lost?

The brightening gloom revealed an inlet, where the water was flat enough to reflect the twilight sky, though the inlet's far shore was too dark to see. Driftwood Bay, as the local maps proclaimed. The quartermaster had sought to avoid Keelkicker Shallows, so the ship should reach Deer Cove soon. It would dock at Fort Inconvenience and from that moment forward, she and Galton would be on their own.

Lis considered Galton's question. We'll hire a guide. Will that suit you, dwarf?

A fine idea, my Lady.

CHAPTER 2

Tiberius Bogg had reckoned he'd seen everything. That was before he'd found pemmican. It was a simple enough recipe, just jerky, shredded and with plenty of gristle, mixed with ripe berries and mashed near to paste. It kept well, and a moderate supply would probably keep him alive through a whole winter. That aside, it tasted so good he could feel it in his toes. He leaned against a tree at the edge of a clearing, ignored the fine morning air and all the bustle and hullabaloo around him, and ate his pemmican fingerload after fingerload, grinning like a mule in a briar patch.

Maybe it was just because Bogg had been hungry. He'd had sour luck with his traps, and had missed a few meals. It was nigh on two days since he'd eaten. Such a thing weren't no matter – Bogg had faired worse in earlier times – but now, his full belly served to put him in a fine mood. Coming here had been a right smart decision.

He swallowed the last bit and turned his attention to the noise and action that lay before him. This clearing, by Horse Creek where it branched off of Green River, was the setting for the Two-Dog Mountain Rendezvous, a yearly gathering for every coneybuck catcher, squirrel turner, and mountain man this side of the Starry Mountains. There had to be forty or more bearded and buckskin-clad folk here, jawing and palavering, singing ditties and drinking swamp dew, and swapping skins for food and needments off of supply wagons drove up here by traders from Fort Inconvenience.

Bogg had never come to the Rendezvous before. Crowds, even crowds of wilder folk like him, had never held much fascination. He always seemed to be in the wrong part of the woods come Rendezvous, or in the right part but in no need of supplies. Now, he wished he'd stopped by earlier, since they had such marvelous fare as pemmican.

He sized up his fellow mountain men. More than half were younger than he; less than half were older. Most were cleaner. Bogg's beard was longer than most, but still blond. He saw hats made from every critter from beaver to fox to coneybuck – most were less wore out than his own raccoon-skin cap he’d made last year. At least his still had its ringtail hanging in back.

A pair of folks caught Bogg's eye, on account of how they stood out from the rest – an old man and young woman who wore no skins, but rather were dressed up in fine trappings of the old country. He wore a robe of brown cloth, with its hood thrown back, and she had on chain mail armor.

Damn, Bogg thought. Algolans.

She was a sight! A head taller than the feller, and strong-looking. If she'd squared off with a bear, Bogg would put money on the bear... but not much. She carried a steel club on her back that looked like it could crack somebody's head open like a raw egg. The little gray-headed feller followed her about, and he looked tired, his cloak weather-stained, like they'd been traveling for some days. Bogg judged that to be true enough – they surely were a long way from home. She, though, looked fine, not tired at all. In fact she strutted like a rooster in tall oats, strong and easy.

Algolans were a rare enough sight on the coast, and the Rendezvous was hell-and-gone from there. What were these two doing so far inland? Bogg didn't care much for Algolans, a prejudice he felt no shame over, since it was a common enough sentiment in Mira. And the feeling was mutual – folks from the old country looked on Mirans as nothing but crooks and exiles and lost souls, sorrier than a sheep tick in a tar barrel.

This party, said a gruff voice beside him, draws all types, don't it?

Another weed-bender had sauntered up to Bogg without his notice. This feller looked poor off – no hat and no shoes. His trousers ended in shreds mid-calf, and his calloused toes flexed, crunching the grass. He carried no firelock and no knife. Just a sizeable walking stick in one hand and a canvas sack over his shoulder. He was not especially tall, and thin as a rail, but he was a sight cleaner than Bogg, especially his hair and beard, which were soft-looking and dark brown as marsh mud, with not a grizzled hair to be seen. Not that I mind, he said. I like the variety.

Bogg grunted.

The feller stuck out his hand. Name's John Chapman. Though I'm called other things from time to time.

Bogg briefly gripped the man's hand with his own grimy paw. Name's Bogg. Me too.

Chapman squinted at the Algolan pair. They're a source of gossip, I'm sure. Besides watching them, there's nothing to watch but everyone else watching them.

Bogg checked the crowds and sure enough, aside from three mountain men shooting firelocks on the far side of the field, everybody was sneaking glances at the Algolans.

Chapman was grinning. Maybe I'll wander over and speak howdy.

The tip of Bogg's tongue found the gap where a tooth used to be, and worried it. If you trouble trouble, he said, trouble will trouble you right back. Algolans are bad luck.

I find I can make my own luck. Half the time, anyway. Chapman pulled at the sack on his shoulder, resettling it. Getting a chance to say hello to strange folk is why I wander by when these shindigs happen. Otherwise, life is just an exercise in food and shelter.

Bogg's eyes narrowed. You sound like you like people.

Chapman glanced at the hot blue sky, pondering. I reckon I do. Though it hadn't occurred to me before.

Fur trapping is a hard life for such a body.

Any life is a hard life, otherwise.

Bogg's jaw worked back and forth. He was developing a distaste for John Chapman. The man hadn't meant to, but he was pushing Bogg to cast back over the last year to memories of Simon Jones.

After their trek back from the Hestern Sea, Simon had no desire to see Fort Sanctuary again. Instead, he and Bogg returned to the greenies that lived in the forests around Deadreckoning Peak. Simon's faithful steed, Hummock, joined a herd of her own kind, and Simon set himself to the task of sussing out the green man language.

That had held no appeal for Bogg, and it weren't a month before his feet got to itching. Bogg wondered how the swimming was at Hottencold Lake, how crowded the downs of coneybucks had grown at the Slumbering Hills, and whether the creeks at the Thirty-Mile Woods had borne any fur-bearing trout.

So Bogg lit out. Simon stayed with his green friends. That had been nigh on a year back. Bogg had found that, traveling alone, the swimming at Hottencold Lake was too cold, the Slumbering Hills were full of six-pointers, and not a trout could be found, furred or otherwise, in the creeks that season. He had not realized, up until now, how hollow life had seemed without the pup to talk to.

You all right there, Bogg? John Chapman asked. You went all quiet.

Bogg roused himself to his surroundings. I don't care for people, myself. I prefer to weed my own row.

Now it was Chapman who had gone quiet. He stared at the treeline across the field, where three fellers with firelocks took turns loading and shooting at an empty jug set on a stump. None of them had managed to hit it yet... which was one of the reasons Bogg had never bothered with firelocks his own self. Chapman's eyes narrowed at the trees beyond that jug. Bogg followed that gaze, and thought he saw something moving among those trees.

Something large.

Good land, said Chapman. What sort of livestock is that?

It surged among the trees and burst out, knocking over the jug. It had four legs and a tail, all thick and lined with spikes, and a head square as a block. It galloped fast as a horse, but was a fair sight larger, and its body was covered with thin, loose lizard scales that moved and stood up like green hair.

Bogg had seen plenty of fearsome critters in his travels, and his chin jutted forward bitterly when he recognized this thing. Some called them mountain gators, and that was apt enough. But they were more commonly called hodags. They weren't the biggest beasts in Mira, but they were the meanest and the treacherousest.

It waded into the men with the firelocks, swinging its head. They never had a chance. Between the fangs hanging from each side of its upper jaw and the upward-curving horns behind each eye like the horns of a steer, all three men fell in a mess of blood before they could cry out, let alone get off a shot.

The whole field of mountain men set to scrambling – either away from the thing, to get safe – or toward it, to get a shot in, depending on each man's nature.

Bogg strode toward it, his upper lip curling. He hated hodags.

But the infernal thing wouldn't stay still. It bolted every which way, dodging the men who closed on it, and chasing the men who ran. In all the fracas, Bogg suddenly found himself face to face with the creature. Its yellow eyes had blobs for pupils, like the eyes of a goat. Godzooks, but it was ugly as a mud fence.

Against that onslaught of horns and fangs, Bogg drew his own weapon: a dagger at his belt – no ordinary knife, but rather the curved white canine of a sabertooth cat, fixed to a handle of carved deer antler. All manner of living things in Mira bore surprising traits, and the sabertooth was no exception. Its fangs, longer than a man's hand and wickedly serrated on the back edge, could cut through anything, including steel, and Bogg's knife had passed every test he'd put it through.

Bogg reared to swing, but the hodag slapped him upside the head with the curve of a horn, and Bogg found himself on his back. The thing stabbed down at him with its fangs–

And was knocked sideways by a blow from the outlander woman's steel club. The hodag blinked its goat eyes and shuffled back, but she feathered into it, swinging two-handed and hollering some Algolan war cry, landing two more hits that rang off its horns. It snapped at her club, missed, and bounded in retreat halfway across the field, out of her range.

She was running after it before Bogg could pick himself up off the grass.

The thing swatted another mountain man with the hooked claws on its foreleg, jumped at a group of fellers that managed to scatter clear, and stormed after John Chapman. He dropped his walking stick and held his shoulder sack like a panicky shield, and the hodag slashed its horns at him, laying Chapman flat out and shredding the sack in an explosion of red.

CHAPTER 3

Lis roared and ran after the monster, whirling her mace over her head.

Where was Galton? She had lost track of him in the chaos.

The absurd beast seemed to thrive on the madness. It darted from victim to victim, striking and running. It was no dragon, she was certain. It was too small, and no dragon had such an ostentatious array of barbs and horns. The thing was all Miran – nothing like it back home. She closed on its thick tail, and brought her mace down on the base of its spine.

It yelped from the blow and whipped about to face her, so quickly that she had no time to parry.

One of the mountain men leapt into its path. He was large and grimy with a blond beard and a raccoon hat, armed only with a knife made from a long, curved animal tooth. He swung as the monster reared its head at her.

His knife sheared off the monster's horn halfway along its length. As the horn spun away like a boomerang, the mountain man grunted, made a fist with his free hand, and punched the beast in the eye.

It stumbled back, whimpering. Then it bellowed and sprang away, tearing into the line of wagons at one end of the field. The man with the knife gave chase. Lis was about to follow when a hand closed on her shoulder.

Major! Galton hissed.

Stay out of the way, Galton!

This is not our fight. We should conserve our resources. And our lives.

Lis pulled out of his grip. I won't let some monster kill these people.

This land is full of monsters – or hadn't you heard?

The wagons were no match for the Miran beast. They were smashed to the ground, one by one. Lis turned on Galton. Do something!

Galton held up his hands. His only weapon was the stiletto at his belt. What would you like? A blast of hellfire? A bolt of lightning?

Lis eyed the fragile amulet, glinting on its chain around his neck. The crystal.

Waste the amulet? Galton's eyes widened in horror and he clutched the crystal protectively. This is a weapon of last resort.

Galton! Smash it.

He shook his head firmly. I'll not unleash the thing in this crystal because of a chance encounter with local wildlife!

Damn his stubbornness – in his effort to be cautious he endangered them both. Then, she said, I'll have to fight on with this. She raised her mace and ran for the wagons.

She passed the mountain man with the knife, lying in the grass. Lis didn't stop to see if he was all right. She reached the monster as it attacked a horse harnessed to one of the last wagons. As the horse screamed in terror and the beast bared its fangs, Lis brought her mace down on its head. The force of the impact jolted up her arms, and the beast stopped. It turned and struck her with its tail, and she went sprawling.

She dizzily spat grass from her mouth, and heard Galton's distant voice.

He was singing. Was she losing consciousness? Dreaming of her childhood?

She sat up, and saw Galton gesturing in the ways of the ancients, arms wide, and his voice touched upon a note of power. He was casting, the fool! Lis was no thaumaturge, but she knew enough to recognize the vocal runes of fire. As a girl, she had seen Galton strike a flame at the top of a lighthouse at sunset while he stood on the beach below.

But the fiery arrow did not appear. Lis could feel the magic bend and twist, go wrong, its energy misdirected. The grass at