A beast barreled down the stairs, a creature unlike anything
Sithe Breckenridge had ever seen. It looked like a fur-coated boulder with
claws the size of a man’s head, and teeth like curved knives. It leaped upon
Gregor Abney, all the while with that ear-splitting, earth-shattering roar.
It was a bear.
Not a man with a bear pelt; no. That, Sithe could have
understood. Using a pelt to inflict terror on an enemy was something she could
respect, understand, and appreciate. It would not shock her to her core. No.
Sythius Sil’nathin, hunter from the north, had become the bear he wore.
Except this bear was twice as big as any Sithe had ever heard
of.
Abney thrashed beneath the creature, screeching in terror and
agony, thrusting his knife futilely into the huge animal’s flank. The bear’s claws
sank deep into Abney’s fleshy shoulders, pinning him to the floor. Then,
apparently tired of the game, Sythius dipped down, clamped his gigantic jaws
onto Abney’s throat, and ripped.
The spells that had been dancing on Sithe’s tongue, to
defend and to attack, withered. She watched with numb detachment as the object
of her fury let out a last, gurgling breath, and died. Gregor Abney, all
his monstrous sins with him, was no more.
The bear sat back on its haunches, and settled onto Sythius’s
broad, but apparently human, back. The big man reached up and settled the bear’s head back
into place on his right shoulder. He stood up, and glanced at his midriff. He
was bleeding, but Sithe could tell even in the darkness that they were
superficial wounds at best. Abney’s knife had barely been an afterthought.
The Avrok grizzly was too sturdy for such trifling things.
* * *
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