UGH SHIMMERWEAVE's Arc

Chapter 5 of 2

Ugh crossed the ridge beyond the lunanut grove at first light. He needed one fact. How many bears roamed the far slope? Until he knew, his chart of safe forage stayed open, and Béyla's hives faced another raid. He moved slow, reading the ground. He found old tracks, scat full of lunanut husks, and claw marks on three frostbark trunks. All matched the one bear he had already redirected. He searched for a second set and found none. Then the ground changed. The grass turned purple and stiff. Ugh pushed through a stand of frostbark and stopped. A herd fed in the open below him. Tall, sleek animals with armored coats and sweeping chitin crests. A stag lifted its head, antlers branching violet, thermal tips glowing. A doe near him turned, cyan light steady around her dark eyes. Males and females both. He had never logged this species. He crouched and drew fast, crest shape, leg joints, the glow lines along their flanks. The herd grazed the purple grass, not the frostbark. That mattered. These grazers would not compete with the bees. Ugh wrote it down and smiled. A whole new animal, male and female, and no threat to Béyla. A short, heavy bird burst from the grass ahead. Chitin scales, violet sheen, green eyes that glowed. It scolded him and ran. Ugh followed its path to a nest woven from frostbark twigs and purple grass. Six eggs lay inside, faintly glowing, laced with frost. He took two for his pack and left the rest. A male of the same kind stood guard on a rock, crest rigid, coat like gray metal. Both sexes logged. Breakfast too. He climbed higher to finish the survey. From the top of the slope he saw the whole far side at last. Grass, frostbark stands, the herd, the birds. And no other bears. One animal ranged here. The tracks, the scat, the clawed trees, all led back to the single bear he had already moved. The far slope held no hidden raiders. Ugh opened his chart on a flat stone. He drew the slope's edge. He marked the grazing herd and the nesting birds as harmless to the bloom. He wrote the count that had stayed blank for days. One bear. The chart of safe forage was complete. He sat with it and saw the trouble inside the answer. One bear was the whole slope's bear. The lunanut grove could not feed it the season. When the fruit ran out, that bear had nowhere else to turn but back to the meadow and Béyla's frostbark. No second bear meant no rival to hold it off, and no other range to draw it away. Ugh closed the chart. The far slope was mapped. The count was known. But Béyla's six hives had already dropped to four since the last raid, and the one bear was coming back. He had to feed it or lose the bloom.