Pikel pointed past his brother to the bear, which was sitting and watching, its expression forlorn.
"Ye ain't takin' the bear!" Ivan bellowed, and he came forward.
"Uh uh," Pikel said again, waggling his finger and shifting to fully block the way.
Nose to nose, Ivan glowered at his brother, but he heard the bear growling behind him soon enough and realized this next fight wouldn't be even.
"Ye can't be taking him," the yellow-bearded dwarf reasoned. "Ye might be breakin' up his bear family, and ye wouldn't want to be doing that!"
"Oooo," said Pikel, seeming caught off guard for just a second before his face brightened.
He came forward and whispered into Ivan's ear.
"How do ye know he ain't got no family?" Ivan roared in protest, and Pikel whispered some more.
"He telled ye?" Ivan bellowed in disbelief. "The stupid bear telled ye? And ye're believing him? Ye ever think that he might be fibbing? That he might be telling ye that just to get away from his... cow or his doe or his . . . bearess, or whatever they're calling a she-bear?"
"Bearess, hee hee hee," said Pikel, and giggling, he whispered some more.
"He's a .she-bear?" Ivan asked, and he glanced back. "How're ye knowin' it's a ... never mind, don't ye be telling me. It ain't no matter, anyway. He-bear or she-bear, he ... she ... it, ain't goin'."
Pikel's face seemed to sink, his bottom lip getting pressed forward in a most pitiful pout, but Ivan held his ground. He wasn't about to do this strange tree-walking, unsettling under the best of conditions, with a wild bear beside him.
"Nope, it ain't," he said calmly. "And when we're missin' Bruenor's coronation, ye can tell Cadderly why. And when the winter's finding us out here, and yer friend's gone to sleep, ye watch me skin her for some warm blankets! And when .. ."
Pikel's low moan stopped his fiery brother's tirade, for Ivan surely recognized the defeat in Pikel's tone.
The green-bearded Bouldershoulder walked past Ivan and over to his bear. He spent a long while grooming the back of the gentle animal's ears, scratching and pulling ticks, and gently placing the insects down on the ground.
Of course, whenever he put down a bloated one, Ivan made a point of picking it up, holding it high, and popping it between stubby fingers.
A few moments later, Pikel's bear ambled away, and though Pikel remarked that he thought the creature was quite sad, Ivan frankly saw no difference. The bear was going on its way, and any way would have likely been good enough for the bear.
Pikel walked past Ivan again. He took up his newest walking stick and knocked three times on the trunk, then bowed low and reverently as he asked the tree's permission to enter.
Ivan didn't hear anything, of course, but apparently his brother did, for Pikel half-turned and held his arm out Ivan's way, inviting the yellow-bearded brother to lead the way.
Ivan deferred and responded by motioning for Pikel to go ahead.
Pikel bowed again and motioned for Ivan to lead.
Ivan deferred again and motioned more emphatically.
Pikel bowed yet again, still with complete calm, and motioned for Ivan to lead.
Ivan started to motion back yet again but changed his mind in mid-swing, and shoved his brother through instead, then turned and charged the tree.
To smack face-first into the solid trunk.
With his pale, almost translucent skin, and blue eyes so rich in hue they seemed to reflect the colors around him, the elf Tarathiel seemed a tiny thing. Though not very tall, he was lean and seemed all the more so with his angular features and long pointed ears. That was all an errant vision, though, for the elf warrior was a formidable force indeed and certainly would be seen as no tiny thing to any enemy tasting the bite of his fiercely-sharp, slender sword.
Crouching in the high, windblown pass, a day's flight from his home in the Moonwood, Tarathiel recognized the sign clearly enough. Ores had been through. Many orcs, and not too long ago. Normally that wouldn't have concerned Tarathiel too much-ores were a common nuisance in the wilds of the valley between the Spine of the World and the Rauvin Mountains- but Tarathiel had tracked the band, and he knew from whence they'd had come. They'd come out of the Moonwood, out of his beloved forest home, bearing many, many felled trees.
Tarathiel gnashed his teeth together. He and his clan had failed, and miserably, in the defense of their