Bart Belly's Arc

Chapter 19 of 21

Inside Glacier Keep, a servant led Bart to a warm side room with a low fire. The wolf cub still walked wrong. Its legs shook. The poisoned water had left it weak, and it needed heat and rest, not the road. Bart knelt and pulled the cub against his chest. He could not chase anything while the pup clung to him like this. King Stormy wanted a talk about the gold. Bart wanted a healthy cub. Both waited on the same night. King Stormy came in without his crown. Bart had only ever seen the king grouchy and grasping, one paw always reaching for the golden Speedo. Now the old bear moved slow. He looked at the shivering cub and frowned. "That thing is dying," Stormy said. "Not if it stays warm," Bart said. "It drank bad water. It needs rest." The king watched the cub tremble. Something worked behind his eyes. "I sent guards to your back for months," he said. "You could have let the yeti have me. You stayed and fired instead." He sat heavily on a bench. "I have been a greedy fool. I chased gold while a stranger saved my life." Bart said nothing. He rubbed warmth into the cub's cold flank. Stormy stood and called through the door. A servant brought clean meltwater in a copper bowl and a folded wool blanket. The king took them himself. He set the bowl by the fire and draped the blanket over the cub with his own paws. "My hall has warmth to spare," Stormy said. "Let the pup stay. Let it heal here, by this fire, as long as it needs." Bart looked up. "You'd do that." "I owe you a life," the king said. "This is a small down payment." Bart lowered the cub onto the blanket. He tipped the bowl to its mouth. The cub lapped, swallowed, and lapped again. Its shaking eased. For the first time since the snow, it drank without choking. Bart pressed a paw to its ribs and felt the breathing steady and slow into sleep. The cub no longer needed to be carried. It needed a fire and time, and now it had both. Bart's arms were free. He sat back against the wall. The weight that had pinned him for days was gone. He could move again. He could think about the road, the wilderness, the gold. Stormy watched the sleeping cub, then turned to Bart. The softness stayed in his face, but his voice firmed. "The pup is safe now," the king said. "So there is nothing left to wait on. Tomorrow we settle the gold between us. You saved my life, Bart. That buys you my thanks. It does not buy you the Speedo." Bart met his eyes. The cub slept warm and safe at last. But the golden Speedo still sat in his bag, and the king had just named the hour of their reckoning.