The Brown Terror (The Bear Clan Book 3): A Progression Fantasy

By Vasily Mahanenko

Zul'var's altar is no more. In one fell swoop, it was destroyed, Leg Ondo lost his shot at becoming a full-fledged wizard, and Liara Slick disappeared without a trace. The emperor is doing everything he can to impede the upstart clan’s growth. A mysterious wizard following Bashorg is filling Brown Bear lands with terrifying demons. And then there’s the academy and final exams. With so much to do, giving up would be the logical move, only Leg Ondo isn’t one to throw up his hands when the going gets rough. The stage is set for the Brown Terror to teach his enemies the meaning of fear.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Magic Dome Books
• Release date: Feb 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9788076196001

Book preview

Summary of book one

Thirteen-year-old high mage Ishar-Mor was a valg, a lizard that walked upright, who was sentenced to death. After plotting to overthrow the emperor, the memory of his previous lives was stripped from him, and he was banished from his home world to one where they’d never even heard of magic. But sheer luck played a cruel trick on the executioners. Just as the high mage was being banished, a ritual was performed in a different world to summon a soul. The Brown Bear clan leader’s only son had fallen from a tree and was teetering between life and death. Knowing full well what they were doing, the clan leaders beseeched their spirit protector for help, and he pulled the most powerful soul he could find out of the universe. The valg became fifteen-year-old Leg Ondo. There was magic, after all, in his new world, though he couldn’t use it—humans only gained magic abilities when they were initiated at age sixteen. When it came to magic itself, it was animal spirits called totems that gave their clans strength and two or three magic abilities. The planet also had force stones, or special rocks that could share magic power.

Six months later, Leg and his team were participating in an interclan competition when they were ambushed by goblins, the planet’s true inhabitants. His friends were all killed, though he managed to survive. He then figured out how to control the magic lines force stones gave off, using them to defeat the commander of the goblin squad. But it was as he prepared to do battle for his life that help arrived. Lando Slick, the sixth son of the emperor, happened for some reason to be on the outskirts of the empire, and he gave Leg a launcher, a forbidden weapon for the outcast clan. In return, the representative of the imperial Viper clan demanded a year of service from Leg. And the boy couldn’t say no. For reasons only he knew, Lando sent the son of his sworn enemy to one of the most expensive and privileged educational institutions in the empire: the Imperial Academy. Leg quickly realized how far the Brown Bears lagged behind the rest of the world. Cars running on force stones, clothing, learning, trains—even a regular provincial city made a deep impression on him. One downside to urban life, however, was the stench that hung in the city air, almost as if the city sewers didn’t work. The residents themselves were so used to it that they didn’t notice a thing, but it was an unpleasant surprise for Leg.

The train Leg was traveling on was attacked. The bandits were hunting Ulma Reloit, leader of the Panthers, the second clan in the empire, though Leg was able to leverage his new ability to control magic lines and save the old woman. That ruined the plans of a secret organization called the Crimson Ribbon.

Once at the academy, Leg met two boys his age named Elrin and Had. The work they put into training together forged a bond, though they were subsequently punished with a trip to the sewers, a special area for testing abilities and coming back with resources the academy needed, after breaking the rules. Two girls named Liara and Belis also headed in with them. Joining forces, the group made their way down to the third level below ground, as Belis had a map of the sewers she was counting on to get them all plenty of loot. But nobody knew that level was packed with enormous octopus-like beasts. The group found themselves in an uneven battle, and it was only Leg’s ability to work with force lines that helped him save his friends.

While still down in the sewers, Leg was able to find a statuette made of a blood-red material that turned out to be one of seven Bogush crystals. His find was quickly taken away—students weren’t permitted to valuables in their possession. But that was when the emperor showed up at the academy to personally reward the student who saved his niece. Leg had no other choice but to gift the crystal to the emperor, the latter responding by lifting the moratorium on trading with the Brown Bears and giving them room to resume their development. Not only that, but Lando Slick handed the boy a waystone. Working something like a teleport, it gave the sixth heir a way to show up when he was needed. Leg availed himself of it almost immediately. Had, one of his friends, had been kidnapped. The dark-skinned southerner was the only surviving heir of the Gray Elephant clan that had once ruled the Southern Empire. His plan had been to hide at Mirax, the Northern Empire’s Imperial Academy, only his pursuers were able to get to him even there. But while Leg was able to find where Had was being held, he found himself facing a new enemy: infernos. They were people who had chosen the path of absorbing mithril, losing their human appearance but gaining unheard-of strength. Lando and his people were able to neutralize the threat. Once he returned, Had joined Leg’s family, becoming one of the Brown Bears.

That calm lasted all of a few minutes, however. The bandits that had tried to eliminate Ulma Reloit, leader of the Panther clan, attacked him. Happily, he was able to fight them off, take one prisoner, and deliver him to the Panther residence. Ulma told the boy about how things in the empire really stood and how their assailants worked for a mysterious organization called the Crimson Ribbon that was out to destabilize the empire. As thanks for saving her, the woman set off with Leg to his village and signed a mining agreement with the Brown Bears. That let Leg’s clan shaman take him to another spot where a Bogush crystal had been stored and destroy it. Whoever could combine all seven parts of the statuette would get a map showing them all mithril deposits while also being able to control infernos as well as angels. The latter were the next level of modified people.

For his entry exam to the Academy, Leg wrote down a few chapters from a book that had been popular in his previous world. The text thrilled his supervisors to the point that they asked him to write the whole thing. Not only did Leg write it, however; he won a contest with it. After reaching the imperial palace, he and Liara found the seventh and final Bogush crystal, though it was taken from them on their return to Mirax. The head of security there, Lando Slick’s older brother, had no wish to strengthen the empire with such a treasure. Instead, the seventh crystal was hidden far away from both the Bears and the Crimson Ribbon.

Leg successfully completed his studies and earned his due reward, after which he and his friends set off for his village to go through initiation. In addition to Leg, there were Had and Elrin, the latter also deciding to join the Brown Bear clan. They were attacked by a Crimson Ribbon fighter on the way. But Leg was able to summon Lando Slick, and their combined strength was enough to defeat the adversary. The battle showed, however, that there was someone in the empire who could use magic. And something had to be done about that.

After initiation, Had became a powerful warrior with the ability to use the totem’s magic gifts. Elrin became a knight—they could mimic any ability used against them. For his turn, Leg was made a wizard, a legendary and long forgotten being who could create magic using nothing but his will. The gift wasn’t given lightly, however. To use it, Leg was going to have to take a long trip into goblin territory.

Summary of book two

The new wizard’s entry into the world didn’t go unnoticed. The organization fighting for control of the entire planet, not to mention the empire, began its hunt, though Leg Ondo was warned and able to avoid the machine set up at the academy to find him. When he arrived, however, what he did find was that his girlfriend, Liara Slick, had also been made a wizard. She refused to be tested and hid within the Mirax walls, knowing full well she would be identified sooner or later. But the Black Ravens, the clan running the academy, helped Leg and Liara get out of the academy so they could make it to Zul’var’s altar and become full-fledged wizards. The teenagers hid in the sewers that spread out underneath the entire city. Down there, Leg came across a device spewing poison into the air and water by pulling energy from a black crystal. He destroyed it even without knowing exactly how it worked and earned himself a set of memories from one of his previous lives.

He earned a second set in the Panther dungeons. As part of their plan to get out of the city, the wizards decided to ask Ulma Reloit, the clan leader, for help. She had them taken out of the city in one of her clan’s cars while simultaneously sending in the opposite direction her train with her bodyguard, an angel named the Shadow, and two decoy children.

Two events occurred at nearly the exact same time. First, the train was attacked by representatives of the mysterious global organization led by one of their highest-ranking officers. Second, Leg and Liara reached the Northern Empire’s border and realized they couldn’t go any further by car. The pair stopped at a roadside café where they heard strange news: Lestar province, on the border with the Western Empire, had been handed over to the Westerners with no explanation, while the local population was being hunted by strange, werewolf-like creatures. Everyone who could leave was on their way out. All their belongings in tow, they and their remaining totems were heading deep into the Northern Empire to escape the horrors besetting them. But that was when those who couldn’t get out began to have nightmares that left them injured or even dead. They hadn’t slept in a week.

Leg decided to help the poor people and headed out to hunt at night. A pack of twenty modified dogs found him, some bastards having pumped them full of mithril to turn them into monsters. And while the boy was able to kill them, he sustained serious injuries. The Boar clan leader showed up to give Leg his loot from the dogs: sixty kilograms of mithril. Remembering how the dogs had been able to block his mana, he ran some experiments with the metal and accidentally turned it into Blood of the Beast, a dangerous substance goblins hunted for some reason. The café had to be abandoned with the blood inside it.

Leg demanded total vassalage from the clans needing help with the modified dogs. His motive was simple: after joining the Western Empire, a portion of the materials and devices they received would be handed over to the Brown Bears. After the local totems agreed to the terms, the brown bear named a duke responsible for all the clans in the province. It was Had Ondo, pulled suddenly from the academy to the Boar city of Fasorg.

Finally, Leg figured out why the locals were having nightmares. Someone had poisoned the water. Heading underground into the water supply system, Leg was nearly killed by an assassin. The source of the poison was yet another black crystal—the same as the ones poisoning the air in all the big cities. He destroyed the device to restore another portion of his memories before heading back up to the surface and finding out that Liara had been kidnapped. The girl’s father used the Viper clan’s ability to jump between clan halls, showing up to ask Leg for help. As it turned out, Liara had gotten away from her kidnapper and returned to the capital, where the emperor’s servants had grabbed her.

Leg agreed to help, though he first had to strike back at the enemy. Sneaking into their camp, he killed most of the remaining modified dogs, took their mithril, and used his own ability to return to the Brown Bear city of Turo. The clan leader and shaman helped him come up with a plan: he was going to buy Liara’s freedom with a counterfeit Bogush crystal made by an Ondo ancestor. On his way to the capital, Leg figured out how the crystal was made and came up with another of his own to make sure they grabbed the enemy’s attention.

Lando Slick announced that his older brother Oswald was a member of the Crimson Ribbon, the secret organization, and invited him to a meeting that ended in a fight between Oswald, who turned out to be an excellent mage, and Leg. The boy won the battle and learned that the leader of the Crimson Ribbon was a teacher named Rikon responsible for training many Slick generations. With the help of Liara’s father, who lured Rikon out of his lair, Leg broke into the teacher’s mansion and found Liara as well as the Shadow. The latter had gone over to the other side. She was serving Bashorg, a terrifying demon who had destroyed many a world, though Leg was able to nullify the oath she had taken to the demon. That done, he took her on as his protector. Leg then fled the capital and headed to Fasorg with the Shadow, Liara, and five Bogush crystals.

But surprises were in store for everyone when they arrived in the Boar city. It was under siege by the Western Empire. After pulling one over on the enemy, Leg was able to grab most of their supplies, kill the army’s high command, make it into Fasorg, and find Farg, one of the leaders of the mysterious organization vying for world power. He was the one who had kidnapped Liara. In fact, he’d been looking to sacrifice her to Bashorg in an effort to gain power and overthrow his own teacher. A battle ensued that Leg won. However, Farg got away, and the boy learned that there were barely more than a hundred people left alive in the city.

Realizing he had no other choice, Leg headed into the enemy camp to take the fight to them. His magic and the Shadow’s skills made for an excellent diversion, though that was when the balance of power shifted drastically. A demon had been summoned to the city by Farg to take possession of the Blood of the Beast. While Leg was able to kill the demon with the help of some goblins who had also shown up in search of the blood, he could only look on as the goblins then destroyed the dangerous substance by absorbing it themselves. They then attacked Leg, assuming he was a follower of both that world’s main enemies: the demon Bashorg and a dragon called the Beast. Leg was able to kill the goblins, though a new enemy in the form of Farg showed up almost immediately to show that he, too, was a mage. Farg blocked Leg and put Liara through her initiation as a wizard, planning on sacrificing her immediately afterward. But the old mage hadn’t been counting on the wizard’s newfound power. He was defeated.

An unknown being the world’s totems all followed pulled Liara away for training and named Leg a hero, someone with no will of their own whose only responsibility was to follow orders. The bear stood up for Leg, reminding the being that the boy still had almost an entire year to become a wizard and avoid eternal servitude. The being agreed. Still, Leg was given a crown, the symbol of a hero, and the ability to identify anyone following Bashorg or the Beast.

Leg was painfully aware of how little time he had left before turning seventeen. And there was so much work to do. But one thing was certain: he had no intention of ever becoming someone else’s errand boy.

Chapter 1

WHAT DO YOU THINK? asked sixteen-year-old Had Ondo, my adopted brother and duke of the four clans in the province of Lestar.

Brutal… I’m going to vomit if I have to stand here another minute. Okay, let’s go! There’s too much mithril.

We were on the edge of an enormous hole. While it was only a bit more than three meters deep, it was half a kilometer wide and long. We’d found it thanks to the map I’d filched from the tent belonging to the Western commanders, and the mysterious key also in the tent had disarmed the energy blocks. A tall fence generating a powerful electric field had been built all the way around the hole. In fact, I nearly died of shock when I figured out how the site worked. Every meter, there was a large ruby set in the fence, and the Westerners had just recently stopped mining and taken their equipment with them. I’d already understood that it took a hundred grams of mithril at two meters to turn my stomach inside out thanks to the gift my unknown benefactor had given me. And the more mithril there was, the farther away I had to be. The angel called the Shadow, who was my protector, had eaten more than seven hundred kilograms of the sky-blue material, which meant I had to stay at least fifty meters away from the seventy kilograms still inside her. Any closer, and my head started to get cloudy. Judging by how poorly I was feeling in that moment, there were at least two or three hundred kilograms in the pit. But the Westerners had been in such a hurry to get their hands on the province that I had to assume there was an order of magnitude more.

Legally, we’re supposed to report this to the Viper clan, I said as soon as we got far enough away from the crater. Mining mithril is their prerogative.

But everyone still does it, Had replied. Secretly, at night, and in abandoned mines, of course, but they do. We need to talk to a lawyer.

That’s a problem in our empire, I said with a laugh. We only have one law, and he’s off arranging dinner parties in his palace. If the emperor finds out we’re hiding a mine, we’ll be in for a punishment. And getting off with just exile would be a blessing…

It had only been two days since Farg had been defeated. The news that the province was going to remain part of the Northern Empire arrived immediately—a Slick teleported over and handed us the new decree. And after the initial surprise, the people got used to the new reality, trying to understand how to go back to their lives, where to find workers, and how to survive the coming winter. The war was over. The destruction remained. Handing the reins of power over to the clan leaders, Had decided to make the rounds of the province and check all the crosses on the map the Westerners had had with them. One marked an iron deposit. Another was a force stone mine, and a third was mithril. All three points were untouched, too. There was even existing infrastructure the refugees had left behind, only the fact that the spirit protectors had claimed Lestar and everything in it, making it the property of the Boars and therefore the Brown Bears, meant it was left to me and Had. And neither of us knew how to get everything up and running. Twelve thousand people, of which just five hundred were adult men, weren’t enough to stick up for themselves. If Had announced his claim on the province and everything in it, it was going to be chaos. And I knew firsthand how problems were resolved in our empire: by brute force.

It looks like the Shadow and I are going to have to hang around, otherwise the locals will eat you alive, I said. But I do need to head home first. If I don’t deal with the way mithril does me in, I won’t last long. And what if the clan can help with people?

Just don’t bring your beloved Panthers here, Had replied. I know the top clans. Let them into your territory once, and you’ll never get them out. We have to take care of this ourselves. No Vipers, no Panthers, and no other animals. At least, I don't want them as partners. Either they agree to complete vassalage, or they hit the road.

Completely agreed—we’ll do this ourselves. Okay, we checked all the points, so there’s no sense in me heading back with you. I handed the reins to one of Had’s servants. I’ll leave the Shadow with you, just don’t forget to feed her stones. Hopefully, I can get back soon. Either alone, or with helpers. Questions? Requests? Anything to tell father or the shaman?

We need resources. Lots of resources. I’m planning on moving to Tonler, the provincial center, since I don’t want the Tigers moving back in. From what I can tell, even if the other clans ran, most of the simple people stuck around. We can put them to work. Tonler is much bigger than Fasorg, and it’s well placed, so heading there makes more sense than trying to rebuild what the Westerners turned Fasorg into. With the exception of a small population, we’re all moving.

I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, I said. The Tigers aren’t going to like it, and they’re vassals of the Vipers. A move like that will bring trouble.

They were among the first to flee the province. That’s a fact. And since their totem no longer holds sway, they’ll have to come to terms with us one way or another even if we’re forced out.

They could just kill you. There wouldn’t be anyone left to come to terms with then.

That’s what we have the Brown Bears for, Had said with a smile. You can’t leave your subjects to be slaughtered. They’ll have to talk to somebody, and I’m planning on leveraging the situation. The totem put me in this role. He can deal with the consequences.

Okay, the Shadow should be enough for the first stage, and then we’ll see… Curses! You realize you just gave me a new job, don’t you? Before I jump home, I need to head over to Tonler and get rid of the devices polluting the air now. You don’t want to live with them, do you?

Oh, right, I completely forget, Had replied, grimacing as he did. You get used to clean air. Starts to feel like it’s this way everywhere… I definitely need advisors. It’s all too much to hold in my head at once.

You have the clan leaders, I said. Lean on their experience. And learn. This isn’t Mirax—nobody’s going to let you retake the test. Okay, I’m headed out.

Taking my horse back, I checked my map and ambled off toward Tonler. Lestar wasn’t the largest province in the empire, just two hundred kilometers wide and a hundred long. Bordering both the Western and Southern empires, it made Tonler a hub for roads leading deeper into all three empires. The logistics were perfect for the province’s growth and advancement, which was why I was sure we were going to have to fight to keep it. But I wasn’t at all sure we were going to win that fight.

What I liked about well-trained horses was that I didn’t have to constantly guide them. The animal I was riding knew its job and walked forward, giving me a chance to get some work done. And there was a lot to do. The duel with Farg had left me with a dozen magic structures I needed to take apart, the most important being the three-layered protection that had withstood the blast of light during Liara’s initiation. Over the previous two days, I’d been able to dig into the structure, even writing it down in the notebook I picked up to use just as I had in my time as a valg before bringing it to life. The process was slow. I had to start over every time a line was out of place. It was hard to imagine working without quick access slots, the kind I knew I had in my last life as a valg. If I had them then, I needed to remember when I’d learned about them—that was going to make my life much easier. Spending a few days to materialize three layers of protection wasn’t an option. I had to wonder how long Farg had practiced to get as good as he was, particularly given that he couldn’t see magic lines.

My first success happened just before I was scheduled to reach Tonler. The thirty-minute marathon working with force lines bore fruit as all three of the layers appeared to form magic armor around me. Of course, they burned mana like a wildfire—one unit each second. And while the construction the spell was made out of was far from optimal, I couldn’t tell right then which lines were superfluous. Testing them was going to take an hour each, and that kind of time was a luxury I didn’t have so long as I didn’t have quick access slots. But I could see one big advantage the three-layer armor had over its two-layer counterpart. While it burned unheard-of amounts of mana, it covered me entirely. My two-layer protection only covered thirty percent of my body. And it was possible that would mean the difference between—

A few crossbow bolts slammed into my chest before I could finish that thought. The new armor worked perfectly, however, and I saw the strike without feeling it. Sparks flew as metal melted. A few of them landed on the horse, the horse whinnied in pain, and I hit the ground, never having been a great rider. But the new armor came through again—the landing was as light as a feather. Not only that, but I fell into a slight gully. And even though I wanted to jump up and charge off in search of my assailants, I forced myself to stay there. They had taken the first step. They could also take the second.

My magic vision wasn’t