Bearshirt 2: The Hidden World: Bearshirt, #2

By G. W. Thomas

Enter the world of Arthan the bear man! Traveling to the north, Arthan feels the loss of his love, Natali the wise woman. Strange men astride mammoths capture him and sacrifice him to a hole in the earth that leads to another world. In Thule, Arthan faces off against a race of lizard men before solving the secret that lies behind the countries of Sharn, Ilsic and the hated Datha. As he navigates this world, in search of a way home, he must combat another were-being!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rage Machine Books
• Release date: Mar 11, 2025
• ISBN: 9798230853985

G. W. Thomas

G. W. Thomas has been publishing since 1987 and has appeared in hundreds of magazines, books, ezines and podcasts. He has written non-fiction for Writer's Digest, The Writer and Black October Magazine. These days he contributes articles to Innsmouth Free Press as well as publishes the daily micro-fiction newsletter FLASHSHOT. He is also one of the editors/artists of DARK WORLDS, a modern-day Pulp magazine. He has been a champion for ebooks since 1999 and was brought to tears a few months ago when he saw his first TV ad for ebooks. It's been a long road, folks.

Book preview

RAGE m a c h i n e Books

Canada

2023

Bearshirt #2: The Hidden World

RAGE m a c h i n e Books

Canada

The entire book is copyright© G. W. Thomas 2023.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED by the Author. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission.

First Edition July 2023

Chapter One

Arthan the bear man looked into the howling wind and snow and wondered for the thousandth time why he stayed in this terrible country. The land was flat, icy and there was little to eat. Still, it was far, far away from his Natali and their unborn child. As a were-bear he could not be near them now for he might kill them both. So for now, he wandered...

He had seen the white bear the night before. He followed it but lost it when it dove into a hole in the ice. Later when it returned with a seal, Arthan had taken the prize. The seal meat was fatty and fishy but he devoured it quickly. He would not be able to stay in this snowy world for long if he did not find a way to feed himself. Fighting other bears for food was too risky a proposition. Unlike most bears, these white ones did not fawn over him.

Wandering the flat, rocky land, he came across a river of spoor. It was the footprints and scat of a line of caribou. Now here was something he could hunt! He followed the tracks knowing they were days old, but his tireless gait would soon bring him to them tomorrow. He dug a shallow cave in a snow bank to sleep for the night.

The next morning he took up the chase. It was an hour later that he encountered a new trail, this one even larger than the caribou spoor. Several animals with large circular feet had crushed the snow under massive weight. He sniffed the ground. There was a scent he recalled but not in a snow-filled world but a jungle. Elephants. The odor was that of elephants.

There were also human tracks along with the strange new ones. These appeared then disappeared. He assumed the men were riding the elephants. This he had also seen in the jungle, small brown skinned men who wore little and sat on the elephant's back.

He followed the tracks easily. He grew excited when the ground began to rise, hiding whatever was making the noise he heard from his sight. Where the land had been flat and endlessly dull, there were now shapes in the distance. Volcanic mounds had pressed up from below to form small hills and even mountains in the far distance.

Topping the ridge he looked down on a scene filled with carnage and wonders. Bright red blood splashed across the monotonous white field. Dead caribou dotted the ground between large, lumbering beasts, shaggy and brown. Among the mammoth creatures were men dressed in fur, carrying long harpoons.

The smell of blood came to him on the wind. His stomach grumbled with anticipation. But how to approach these men? Perhaps it was best to do so as a man?

He hamasked, the were-power that allowed him to be either a bear or man. Having changed from an eight hundred pound bear into a tall man with long brown hair and beard and brown eyes, dressed in only his clothing of bear skin, he stepped down the slope in the direction of the hunters.

As he approached, he was seen. The men, over a dozen, all grabbed their spears and took up a defensive stance. They called to him in a language he did not understand. He could make out their features now, yellow hair in braids, clothing made of fur, armed with axes and daggers as well as their wicked looking harpoons. He kept walking, holding his hands up to show he was unarmed.

One of the men nodded to an underling. The harpoon was pulled back and released. The deadly missile flew true, directly for the bear man. Arthan stepped aside at the last second, allowing the harpoon to strike the icy spot he had occupied. This act received a grunt of grudging respect from the headman. He nodded to two others.

This time the spears flew from two assailants. Arthan side-stepped one while knocking the other aside with his hand. He did not bother to pick up either of the harpoons. He continued to keep his hands raised. He just wanted to talk.

The leader signaled again. All the men turned and mounted their hairy rides, the elephantine creatures standing about quietly until goaded into action. Soon there were six mammoths, with two riders each, headed his way. Harpoons were waved in anger but were not thrown.

Arthan knew then he had no choice but to turn into a bear and run. A cheer of joy went up after this as the mammoth riders realized they were in for a treat, a real challenge to hunt. Arthan did not turn around but threw himself into running. The icy ground was slippery in places but he headed for the roughest ground he could find, thinking it would bother the mammoths.

He topped another volcanic hill, finding the ground dotted with sharp lava stone. That should give them some trouble he figured. A backward glace told him they were not coming up the slope but going around it. Arthan cursed. They know the terrain. He was at a distinct disadvantage.

He pressed on, finding the rough ground hard to navigate. He gingerly made his way up the hill to find better ground to stand on. The mammoths had circled around him below. He continued to climb despite the sharp rocks. Ahead he could make out an open hole in the hillside. He could feel a welcome sensation of warmth, something he had left behind days ago. The pool ahead was filled with steaming water. He placed a paw in the misty recess then quickly pulled it back. The water was boiling hot!

He cooled his burnt foot in a small snow drift. He waited. The hunters did not seem to want to come to him. He could wait. After an hour the men and their mammoths left, returning to the dead caribou they meant to harvest. Arthan sat, enjoying the steamy heat that blew down the slope to his back.

It was after dark when he left the volcanic funnel. He crept over the ridge to look for any remains from the caribou carcasses. His nose told him the good news. The hunters had gutted the animals, leaving piles of intestines for the crows. These would make a fine meal for any bear. He chased a small white fox away from a gut pile then began to eat. Requiring more, he ventured to another collection of viscera and continued to feed.

After awhile, Arthan felt full and sleepy. He wanted to return to the smoking hilltop to sleep in the comfort of its heated top. He lumbered back in that direction when he heard a scream. It was a man in fur throwing a harpoon! Arthan ducked in time to avoid a spear in the face.

The hunters were back! In fact, they had never left. He had fallen for their trap. More men came from the darkness, hitting him with harpoon butts and the flats of their axes. He stood on his back legs and slammed them with his paws. A man screamed as his head was crushed. The bear claimed another with his jaws before a net fell over him. The voice of the headman called out and ropes were pulled. These were soon hitched to one of their mammoths. Arthan was powerless against the power of such a gigantic beast.

The rain of pummeling blows continued, until the headman called a halt. What happened next was a hazy dream to the bear who was dragged over icy ground by the mammoth. He skidded and bobbed as they moved along. His were-powers healed the small hurts and bruises but the bear bided his time. At some point they would have to open the net....

An hour of being dragged is a long time to wait but finally the mammoth riders came to some place important to them. Arthan's bear eyes could make out a tall, strange structure made of mammoth tusks. An old man, painted in strange whirling designs greeted them with burning sage and mystical mewlings. Most of the men ignored him, letting him get on with his shamanistic ritual. He approached the netted bear and passed a noxious smelling smoke over him. Arthan sneezed, then growled.

The old man prayed and then took a stone from his mass of soiled clothing. He pressed the ugly rock against Arthan's face. The bear went to bite the hand that offended, but found himself hamasking into a man. He recognized the type of stone that the shaman brandished. Ventus had purchased and worn such a rock before Fren the archer had taken it. With that amulet, he had tried to kill Arthan.

Finally the oldster signaled to his audience that he was finished. The men cheered as they detached the ropes from the mammoth, then pulled the human-sized Arthan from the net. It took very little strength for the dozen men to shove the bear man into the weird structure.

Inside was dark, and it smelled like a zoo. Arthan thought he heard the barking of foxes and the grunts of other animals like oxen. What did the old man do with these captive creatures? He did not have long to find out. He was shoved again, out the other side of the weird temple, into the cold morning light.

There was a wooden platform after the door. The structure looked out over a wide abyss. Below was red hot lava glowing in a volcanic pool. The chasm was long and wide and hot air blew up from it like a furnace. That was their game! He was to be sacrificed to their fiery god. Not if he had anything to do about it. But the hamask was gone. He could not become a bear and kill these men who held him.

The shaman danced and sang a song in his cracked and wizened voice. How Arthan began to hate this man. He wanted to crush him, even in human form. The wizard twirled and cavorted to a drum being played by some unseen assistant. Then it stopped. He said something in his language, the two young men who held Arthan by either arm, pushed him to the platform's brink.

For a second he thought they relent but then he was in the air, falling, falling. He was about to die and all he could think of was Natali and her baby yet unborn...

He had expected the pain. That he felt, striking the hard rocks below and rolling towards unimaginable heat. But what happened next surprised him. He blacked out then awoke, not dead but feeling cool water. He was in a river. He flailed about until he realized the water wasn't that deep. His feet struck rocks beneath him. He stood up.

Everything was dark. He floated for awhile as he went in and out of consciousness. He should have drowned but he had collected a mass of branches and weeds somewhere along the dark river path. These kept him above the bubbling waters, bobbing along like a cork.

He felt his body come to rest on soft sand between limp blades of vegetation. He no longer moved, just rested. He slept, wishing to take bear form the entire time. The were-power would heal him. He knew his body was broken. Where was the hamask?

He slept for an unknown time. He began to climb back to the land of living when he felt footsteps near by. Someone had found him. There was hissing speech and rough fingers on his cheeks. He was too weak to stop the probing and poking. Someone was trying to roll him over and apply ropes to his wrists. He fought back only to be pushed down again.

Arthan opened his eyes to see a scaly green face staring down at him.

Chapter Two

When Arthan finally came to, revived fully, he clutched his aching head. A thick crust of a scab on his forehead told him two things. First, he had lain there some time for the wound had begun to heal normally, not by the power of his bear magic. The second thing it told him was that his nursemaid was poorly equipped for there was no bandage of any kind. The wound had been left to heal as it might.

He summoned the red hot burning of hamask, the power that would transform him into an eight hundred pound bear. The feeling rose then receded. His injury had been bad enough to make turning into a bear impossible. This was unfortunate for in that form, all his ailments would have disappeared in minutes.

His next sensation was of smell. The warm, dark place where he lay had the odor of a serpent pit. The reason for this was his next surprise. As he shifted his stiff body his nurse rose from her vigil and fled through a simple doorway. In that brief second he saw who—or what—she was. He thought his senses at fault, for woman-shaped she was but her eyes had been large, round and slit-pupiled. The skin around those eyes and all down that retreating back was green, scaled and cold. But the final terror was a three foot-long tail that was the last thing he saw as she left. He had heard of the delirious suffering strange hallucinations. That must be what he was doing, seeing that which did not exist.

What happened next put all such thoughts out of his head. A large, taloned hand reached into his bier and extracted him with little concern for his feelings or well-being. The hand belonged to another snaky-looking person, this one, a male, and about twice the size of his nurse. He held Arthan there in his grip and looked him up and down before throwing him  to the ground. He hissed words at the bear man. Arthan shook his head to say I don't understand. The lizard man responded with a bare foot slammed into his ribs. He hissed at the bear man again. The nurse stood off to the side, looking nervous but doing nothing. She pointed to his left.

What he saw there, and all about him could only be described as a vision of hell. Maybe he had died at last and had arrived in Thalias, the Hell of the Weres, without realizing it. The room he was in was large, semi-dark and open. Off to the left there was a pit, in which milled about three or four souls, human enough though dressed in rags. He took it that the lizard-man wanted him to join them. Rather than take another kick in the ribs Arthan moved in that direction. The pit was seven feet deep and accessed by a crude ladder.

Before descending the ladder, Arthan took a second look around the chamber. The ceiling was devoid of lights, though there were plenty of roots hanging above them. He was underground. Near the serpent man and woman were a dozen small hummocks that he realized were the small singular chambers, his healer's room if you will. Behind these was a hole with an ascending ramp of dirt. The door out of this little paradise, guarded by another lizard man, holding what looked like a spear tipped with an obsidian blade. All this was lit by wicks floating in bowls spaced out around the bottom of the walls. The light was poor and the air filled with bitter smoke.

That was all he saw before the lizard man threatened him with another kick. Arthan took the ladder and landed on the moist dirt floor. He headed towards the closest man. He was a big fellow who stood away from the