Katira watched the crying woman carefully. She was currently clinging to Risa, like a drowning man would a plank of wood. Something didn’t add up.

“Sinta,” Katira said quietly. “Sinta? Sinta.” The last utterance caused the slender woman to look up, her eyes puffy and red.

“Please don’t hurt me, Miss Katira. I’m sorry,” she said, still holding Risa to her chest.

“Relax. I’m not going to hurt you. In fact, we may be able to help each other. Tell me something. When you said you ‘didn’t want to lose another’, did you mean to say that you’ve lost children before?” Katira asked gently.

Sinta took a shuddering breath, her grip loosening on the young girl. She nodded hopelessly. “I have borne five children. The first two died in their first year, the second two were stillborn, and,” -she drew a shuddering breath- “and Malak beat me so brutally that I lost the fifth. My womb is cursed,” she said quietly.

Risa hugged the older woman tighter. “You’re not cursed, Miss Sinta. You’ve just had hard luck,” she whispered.

“She’s right, Sinta. You are not cursed. Just plain bad luck,” Katira said, then sighed quietly. “Come with us, Sinta. I could use the help caring for Risa, and you seem like you could use the company.”

Risa pulled back slightly, looking Sinta in her amber eyes. “Come with us?” she asked.

Sinta looked between the odd pair, shock evident on her face. With tears streaming down her rosy cheeks, she nodded. “Thank you, Katira,” she whispered.

“You’re welcome. I am sorry, but we must be on our way as soon as we can. How many people live in this cave?” Katira asked.

Sinta wiped her face, scrubbing her nose on her sleeve. “Uh…fifteen? I think Derrin is the only other one here at the moment. The others are due back any day, now. Why?”

Katira nodded. “Derrin must be the one by the running water. Is he dangerous?”

Sinta shook her head. “No. He just fixes things that break around here. He’s no more dangerous than any other man,” she said, rising.

“Okay. Where are Risa’s clothes? We have a couple of changes back near where we were ambushed, but she cannot go around in that sack for too long,” Katira said.

“Near the stream. Let’s go. I’ll handle Derrin, if I must,” Sinta said, packing her few meager belongings into a sack. She strapped a pair of daggers and a quiver of arrows to her waist, and slung her bow onto her back. She nodded once, and the trio set out.

Sinta, seeing the body of Barklin, turned and tied a strip of cloth over the young girl’s eyes. “There are things out here that you do not need to see, Little One. Please trust me?” She said softly. Risa nodded, and allowed herself to be blindfolded.

Following Sinta to the stream, Katira kept a vigilant watch for any who would seek to harm them. Risa was simply happy to have her bear back at her side, and kept one hand on Katira’s broad back.

Reaching the stream, Sinta poked her head in, and saw nobody in the room. She darted in, grabbed the clothes and jogged back out. Katira nodded, and they continued, following Sinta to the front of the cavern, creeping silently, lest they be heard by any coming in.

Reaching the final bend before the door, Sinta motioned for the other two to stay put. She walked out into the hallway, and saw Derrin standing over Malak’s corpse, slack-jawed.

“Derrin?” Sinta called softly. “Derrin? Are you okay? What happened here?” she asked.

Derrin worked his jaw silently, trying desperately to speak, but was unable. He simply motioned to the remnants of Malak’s head and his half-eaten body. Sinta looked down at the body and covered her mouth with a hand.

Malak lay there, his head crushed, with pieces of his skull missing. His left arm had been bitten off at the shoulder and was missing. His insides had been torn out, and his liver was gone. It appeared to have been taken with precision, as no other organ had been damaged.

“Dear gods. This was brutal. Whoever did this must be more powerful than any four men we have ever encountered, Derrin. It might be best for us to leave, and never return. I was just on my way out to hunt. You should probably gather your things and do the same. Go to some village. Find a farmer’s daughter and put ten or twelve kids in her. Live, Derrin. This place reeks of Death,” she said softly to the younger man.

Derrin, a smith’s son, was no stranger to hard work. What he hadn’t had to handle, however, was the brutal reality of Death. He nodded dumbly, his mind desperately trying to process what had happened.

“But…he is…was…” he said, trailing off.

“A massive sack of shit, Derrin. And you know that. He’s hit you a few times just to watch you bleed. He beat the child he put in me out of me. He broke my arm doing so. I swear, he made a mess in his trousers when he heard me scream, Derrin. I will shed no tears for that pig. Leave the body. Get your things and run. Run as far as you can from this place. There is no home here for you. Not for any of us. Go,” she said decisively.

Derrin walked off, stepping around Katira and Risa, blind to their presence. He stumbled around the corner, and was gone.

“Let’s go, Katira,” Sinta whispered.

Katira walked out, leading her charge around the body as widely as she could. Risa wrinkled her nose as they passed the body, but made no sound. Once they had gotten out of the cavern, Sinta undid the blindfold, and stood there, her hands on her hips.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Well? We are free of them, Risa. Thanks to your amazing bear, we have gained our freedom from those bas- uh, terrible men,” she said, quickly correcting herself.

“Thank you, Miss Sinta. I’m glad to be out of that cave. What was that stinky smell at the end? It smelled like poop,” she said, her face scrunched up in disgust.

Risa had opened her mouth to speak, but Katira interjected. “Because it was poop, Risa. That big mean man pooped himself after meeting me.” Sinta could swear she saw a smile on Katira’s face.

“Oh.” Risa said quietly.

“Let’s go. This way, back to where our things were,” Katira said, lumbering off.

The journey back to their belongings was uneventful and mostly silent. Sinta felt no need to speak, and Katira wasn’t about to pry the words out of her. She would speak when she was ready, and not before.

They gathered Risa’s pack and checked to make certain its contents were still there. Nothing had been disturbed, so they set out once more, on their journey to mee the priest.

Several days passed in relative comfort. At night, the trio would spread their bedrolls out, making sure to snuggle up to Katira for warmth and safety.

Sinta would hunt for food during the day, ranging far ahead of the pair. She would come back empty-handed more often than not, but she thankfully knew what plants and mushrooms were edible, and which ones to stay away from. She would set snares at night, hoping to catch a rabbit or squirrel, and those were usually more effective than her bow.

All in all, the trio made decent time to the small township where Risa was to meet the priest.

As Katira looked out from the dense forest, she saw that she would likely be unable to enter the town as she was. Most settlements didn’t take kindly to bears roaming the streets. She sighed softly and looked over at Sinta. It was time to tell her more of the truth.

“Sinta,” Katira said, gaining the attention of both ladies. “The time has come for you to know more about us, and what we are doing. Come. We will spend one more night in these woods, and then we will enter the village of Blek,” she said, turning back into the woods.

Sinta looked down at Risa, shrugged and followed the bear. They walked back into the woods until they could no longer see or hear the village, and found a small clearing in which to spend the night.

They set up camp with their usual efficiency, and in short order, they had a fire going, over which Sinta was cooking a brace of rabbits she had killed the day before. She had amassed quite the collection of skins on the meandering road to Blek.

While they waited for the meat to cook, Katira sat down and with Risa snuggled into her side, she began to explain herself.

“Sinta, I am certain you are aware of the fact that I am no ordinary bear. In fact, I am not a bear at all. I’m not sure what I am. I have belonged to Risa’s family for the past twenty generations, taking a new form whenever my Person died. That new form would be dictated by the whims of the one I would Bond with. In Risa’s case, she was born shortly after her grandmother passed. I was a cat, then. A large one, but a cat, nonetheless. Risa, being a newborn, couldn’t properly give me a form, so I spent the next few years with my body slowly dying and decaying, until there was nothing but a skeleton left. I’ve done this several times over the course of my life, so none of the family were very surprised. When she was eight, Risa was given the choice of Bonding with me, or refusing. She chose to take the Bond, and the ritual was completed. That night, I entered her dreams, and she chose the form you see before you. When she woke up, she had gained a Protector. I have been with her ever since.

“I do not need to sleep, but I do enjoy food on occasion. I am “fed” on something else entirely, though I’m not sure what it is. I know that without people in my life, I grow lethargic and weak. I have watched over this family for as long as I can remember and will continue to do so until the line is extinguished. I love these people, this family, and I will do absolutely anything to preserve them, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.

“As to our purpose here? For the past five hundred years or so, every time I have a new Person, we come to the priest to be ‘cleansed of evil’. Some feel that I am evil, and continue checking the family to make sure that I do not ‘taint’ them. That is why they go to Blek. Apparently, the holy man here has some special skill that will allow him to remove the taint that they think is on this family. I don’t know what it is they do, but it makes them feel better, and hasn’t harmed my Person, so I let it be.”

Sinta stared at Katira. She was obviously not a bear, but to have lived for over twenty generations? And a different form each time? It was too fanciful to be true, but she had little reason to doubt it.

Seeing that the rabbit was done cooking, she removed both from the fire, and gave one over to Risa. “So, what is your plan on getting into Blek?” she asked around a mouthful of rabbit.

Risa nodded and looked at Katira questioningly. “Yeah. How do you think you can get in? I doubt they’ll be okay with a bear,” she said.

Katira looked down at Risa. “Risa, I need you to sit up, please. Thank you.” Looking at Sinta, she said, “I am able to shift myself into only one other form. It takes too much out of me to have another one beyond that. As such, one of Risa’s ancestors chose one for me, and I have maintained it.”

Sinta cocked her head to the side, and waited. Sighing as she centered herself, Katira closed her eyes, and slowly began to shrink. Down, down, down she went, until she was maybe a hand high. A tiny bear now sat beside Risa.

Risa laughed giddily and picked Katira up, hugging her to her chest. “You’re so cute! And tiny! I could put you in my pack and nobody would know!” she said happily, holding Katira aloft.

Sinta sat there, open-mouthed. She had just witnessed magic. Real, live magic, right in front of her! “That… That’s incredible. Can you pick a size between, or is it all or none?” she asked.

Risa set Katira down, and she slowly grew larger. She was able to settle on a smaller shape, but only for a moment before her body forced itself into her usual bear-sized shape.

“It seems it is all or none. I can maintain the small form just as easily as I can this one. Being in-between is not as easy,” she replied.

Sinta nodded and chewed thoughtfully on a rabbit leg. It seemed they would be able to enter the village tomorrow, and Risa would do whatever she had to do, and then they would leave the next day. Simple.

“So, how long will this take? Do we start back to your homestead the day after tomorrow?” Sinta asked.

“Unfortunately not. I am to be here until springtime,” Risa said sullenly.

“Oh.”

“What will you do in the meantime, Sinta?” Katira asked.

“I’ll make myself useful. I can hunt and trap. I can fish, too. I’ll make myself useful to the village somehow. Of that, I’m sure. If you would assist me, Katira, I am certain I could build a home out here if the village won’t allow me inside,” Sinta said with a shrug.

“Of course, Sinta. I’m sure Risa will be safe enough with this holy man for me to get out and help. Although, I’m not sure what kind of help I will be,” she said.

Sinta nodded. With that settled, she banked the fire, and the trio curled up around each other for one last night in the woods.