Chapter 80: Is This The Future?
They watched the embers fade until the sky in the east lightened. Yorvig struggled to his feet, and with Rightauger and a few others, they went in among the bodies, but they found no more living. If it weren’t for Rightauger dragging the wounded back during the fighting, the toll would have been worse. From Rightauger's shoulder hung Rothe's shuglenu. He must have taken it from the wounded Jackal at some point in the night.
The fires would not hold the ürsi, now. The heat was dissipating in the morning air, and the fire had not continued down the springtime slopes. Yorvig’s nose burned; all smells had fled. The blaze of the emerging sun behind the eastern ridge sent a plume of color into the sky. A dwarf nearby looked strange, and it took a moment for Yorvig to realize that it was the youngest of the refugees in mismatched hauberk and helm. The young dwarf's left arm hung useless at his side. Looking around, Yorvig didn't see the other refugees among the living.
Sledgefist was staring at something to the west. Yorvig turned to follow his gaze.
South along the crest, just beyond the burnt remains of the village, an ürsi stood alone.
It was large. Far larger than One-Ear had ever been. It did not shriek. It did not move for a time. When it had approached or how long it had stood there, Yorvig wasn’t sure. It wore no ruff of feathers. It was stripped to its grey skin, wearing only a kind of breech clout, and in one hand it held a club with a long iron spike run through it.
It had one ear.
Slowly, it raised a hand and pointed at Yorvig, lifting its club with the other.
The dwarves stared at it in silence.
After a time, the ürsi lowered its arms. It waited, then raised them again in the same way, lifting its weapon and pointing with its other hand. It was pointing at Yorvig.
“What’s it doing?” Sledgefist asked. His voice was like the rasp of a file on poor iron.
“Look behind it!” one of the Wardens croaked.
The crest was clear-cut for about a hundred yards beyond the huts, and at the edge of a cluster of pines, the growing light revealed the shine of yellow in the shadows. There were ürsi there, perhaps a score, all wearing yellow ruffs about their shoulders.
The solitary ürsi made the gesture, again, raising its weapon and pointing at Yorvig.
“Why don’t they finish us?” Sledgefist asked.
The pointing ürsi shook his hands in what looked like a gesture of frustration. Yorvig looked down at the rock, searching for Treadfoot, but if he had dropped it next to the barricade, it had burned. He reached behind his back, grasping his punch dagger.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s One-Ear. He’s challenging me,” Yorvig said. For that is what it was, Yorvig realized. That is what it had always been. The ürsi was much bigger than the last time they'd met, but there was no mistaking the face. It was One-Ear.
“Let him,” Sledgefist said. “Don’t be a fool.”
Yorvig ignored Sledgefist and stepped forward. Sledgefist grabbed his arm.
“This is what we came for,” Yorvig said. “I command you by every oath you ever swore. Unhand me.” Whether Sledgefist was weakened or whether he relented, Yorvig twisted his arm away and stepped forward, walking across the embers of the barricade and through the spiraling smoke of the burnt camp and charred trees. One-Ear watched him come, and lowered his arms.
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Yorvig stopped a few yards away.
One-Ear’s upper body was clawed and lacerated and bleeding. Once more, he pointed at Yorvig and raised his club in his other hand. So near, Yorvig heard a wet clicking in the ürsi’s throat, like half-submerged gears turning. There was an old scarred wound on One-Ear’s shoulder—and many other places on his sinewy body.
This ürsi had killed dwarves, had eaten Savvyarm, but to Yorvig’s surprise, he did not feel hatred. He stared at the Last Rat, any vestige of childhood horror gone. He felt calm. One-Ear had crafted Yorvig into who he was, and Yorvig had crafted One-Ear. They fought for the survival of their folk. They were equals. They were the same. They knew each other.
It changed nothing.
Slowly, Yorvig raised his dagger with one hand and pointed at One-Ear with the other.
One-Ear’s remaining ear perked forward and a tremor ran through his body. He crouched, his sinews taut like ropes of steel wire. Yorvig crouched as well, gripping his dagger.
Crack!
One-Ear grunted and crumpled, collapsing onto the rocky path. Yorvig twisted to look back. Rightauger stood in the ashes with the shuglenu against his shoulder, a plume of smoke billowing away in the morning breeze.
A chorus of shrieks rose from the trees where the ürsi chieftains watched, but they did not move. Why did they not come?
One-Ear struggled to look down at his chest. Blood bubbled up and ran down his side. Resting his head back on the stone, the fallen ürsi stared up at the morning sky.
A horn blasted from the north. Emerging down the crest trail a short way off were cadres of Ridge Wardens.
Thrushbeard had come.
The ürsi chiefs dispersed into the trees. Dark blood pooled on the rock at One-Ear's side, and his breath came in rasps and gasps. He spasmed, and his fanged jaw slowly opened. He was still, eyes yet gazing skyward.
“Iltan fӓr Indal,” Yorvig whispered.
The mountains are ours.