Page 14

“Is it morning or night?” she said, and the wind of their speed whipped her words away.

“It is winter, so it is night here. The sun does not come back until summer, and that is very short, and many months away.”

He ran for an hour before slowing. “Can you eat and ride?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Gytha ate while he continued walking. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were crusted with frost, and her face felt frozen when she opened her mouth for each bite. When she was finished, she put the rest of the flatcakes and elk venison back into her coat to warm.

“I am finished. I should have asked you if you wanted some. I’m sorry. Are you hungry?”

“I will not take food from your mouth.” He began to run again. He continued without ceasing for hours. Gytha’s hands cramped in his fur, and she lay down with her head against his churning shoulders and dozed. She woke when he changed course. They crossed frozen streams and wound through ice-crusted canyons that gleamed in the moonlight.

Perhaps he ran for hours. Perhaps days.

At last he slowed to a walk. Gytha sat up, dizzy with hunger and fatigue. Her legs, buried deep in his fur, were as toasty warm as if she were sitting by the fire at home, but her body was cold, and she felt weak and strange.

“Thank you for your courage.” Alexander’s voice sounded strangely thin. “Remember, do not look at or touch the stranger in your bed. Do not be afraid.”

Gytha frowned at his odd tone. “Are you all right? You sound ill.”

The bear tripped and nearly fell, but caught himself before she lost her grip and fell headlong. “I can’t think.” He stopped and shook his head roughly. “I forgot my name for a longtime,” he said in a rush. “No one wanted it. No one remembered. Not even me. Only because I wanted you to trust me did I search through my mind for it.” He brushed one great paw roughly over his face and shook it again before stumbling forward.

For several minutes he continued walking in silence before he said, “I cannot speak to you once we arrive. Not even a word. Remember what I said. Do not look at him. Do not touch. Do not be afraid.”

“Don’t look. Don’t touch. Don’t be afraid.” Gytha murmured to herself. “Are you ill?”

“Tired.”

The bear kept walking, but his steps became more uneven.

“You must be hungry,” he said. “Eat if you want.”

“Do you want some of the meat?”

“No. Thank you.”

Still he pressed on without another word. He turned a little to the left and crested the low hill which he had been following for some time, then picked his way down the other side. The ice crust was heavy enough to hold his weight in most places, but sometimes his huge feet broke through and he went stumbling through the layers of ice and snow until he found better footing. They had passed out of the forest into rolling hills, and the world was white and gray and silver in the moonlight. To the west, the mountains were closer than Gytha had ever seen them.

To the east, the horizon was broken by low escarpments dividing this land from the higher tundra, and far behind them to the southeast, taller mountains reached for the stars.

“I didn’t know there were mountains to the east,” Gytha said. In the dim and sparkling night, they were only shadows, and she could not tell how far away they were nor any detail aboutthem. “And I’ve never seen the ones to the west this close. We must have traveled more west than I realized.”

“My home used to be on the other side of those mountains.” The words were low and breathless.

“Are you all right?”

The bear shook his head again and snuffled his nose into the snow. “I am fine.”

He pressed on, carrying her miles across the tundra, until they reached a wide crevasse, and he turned east and followed it for several miles until he reached a broken path that led deep into the shadowy hollow. His steps were nearly silent, but Gytha could hear his labored breathing. Above them the sky was a splash of stars, but the hollow itself was as black as pitch, and Gytha could not even see the bear’s white head.

“How far down are we going?” she ventured.

“To the bottom and back up. Hold on.”

In the interminable night, she could not see the bottom of the crevasse, and she was too frightened to keep her eyes open as they descended. She nearly catapulted over his head as he followed a steep, narrow path down the side of the gash in the world, but she gripped his sides with arms and legs and buried her face in the fur over his shoulders. She could not tell if it was ten minutes or several hours later that his gait shifted as he reached the narrow icy floor of the ravine and began to scramble up the other side. The climb was even steeper than the path down, and the way was uneven, slippery, and fraught with broken ice that crumbled under Alexander’s great paws. More than once they nearly fell, but he always caught a better grip and surged upward.

By the time they lurched over the edge on the other side, Gytha had bitten back several screams of terror. The bear stood still for a moment, his sides heaving, before stumbling forward.

“I think you need a rest,” Gytha said.