The Princess and the Bear - Mette Ivie Harrison [24]
She tested herself further.
When she shifted, she could feel the tightness on her belly where the bear’s claw had caught her. The wound had already begun to heal, but the scab of dried blood was tight. She would tear it open if she tried to move. More if she tried to walk or run. But that did not matter.
The hound crawled forward, feeling weak and unsteady. Her vision swam. She had eaten the evening before the bear attacked her, but how long had it been since then? If she were to recover from this, she needed strength, and that meant food.
She looked around her and saw beetles boring into a fallen log. A hound did not eat beetles.
But in an emergency a human would.
She put out a paw, scooped up a handful of beetles, and poured them into her mouth.
She swallowed as quickly as she could without chewing. Nonetheless, her stomach felt tight and hot, as if the beetles were not yet dead and were running around inside of her.
She waited, and gradually felt better.
More beetles?
No.
She pulled herself up on all fours and limped, tail between her legs, head close to the ground to sniff for water.
There was a pond ahead, fed from an underground stream she could smell but not see. It was not deep, but it was enough for her to drink from, and the water was fresh.
She slaked her thirst, and strangely felt even more hungry.
It bothered her that she could not ignore her hunger.
But when an animal was hungry, it acted on that hunger. Only a human tried not to feel what she felt.
For now, she would do as a hound and deal with her hunger.
She waited by the stream. It was a good place to be, for other animals must come here.
Soon enough, a vole stopped to get a drink.
She pounced on it and killed it instantly. She would ordinarily have taken her time to enjoy the taste of it, but she found herself hurrying through the meal as only a human would, for all that mattered was filling her stomach enough to follow the bear.
She washed herself in the stream, cleaning the dried blood off her belly.
She went back to where she had last seen the bear, set her nose to the ground to find the bear’s scent, and there it was—headed directly north.
The hound followed the scent for a full day before she allowed herself to rest for a few hours the next night. The mountains were growing steeper here. She had to stop frequently to catch her breath, and she left a trail of blood drops behind her. Her belly wound had reopened and oozed blood down her left hind leg, but it closed again as she rested.
She went another day, and found a place where the bear had fallen. She could smell his scent, and then suddenly it was gone. She had to go back down to another level to find it again, at a less steep section of the mountain.
She saw berry bushes now and again that the bear appeared to have picked from, but no roots. He seemed to sleep near rocks, as if to make a place like his cool cave.
The hound slept near logs, with her back to them. A part of her was afraid that the bear would come back and fight her again, so she prepared for that possibility. She was ready for a fight at any moment, waking or sleeping, climbing or resting.
In two more days the hound was over the first mountain range and got her first glimpse of the larger mountains beyond. She had never seen anything so impressive.
King Helm’s palace with its stone towers and guards was merely a poor imitation of this beauty. The mountains rose up so sharply that anyone would look at them and tremble.
Stopping there, the hound felt the magic.
She had felt something before, a pressure inside her head, a feeling of heaviness. But she had not been sure what it was. She thought it might simply be the effect of the mountains themselves, how high they were.
Or it could have been the exhaustion she felt, and the sense of loss, after the bear had left her and she had to travel alone through a place she had never seen before.
But as it continued,