Chapter 17: The Battle of the Braun

We traveled almost blindly for a while, our visibility down to a few meters in the swirling snow. I had a good image in my perfect memory of the path to our destination, and that was the only thing that kept us going. On the plus side, I was hoping the blowing snow would also confuse the bears, or at least slow them down. My instincts though were telling me to find a defensible position, and to find one fast.

Fifteen minutes after leaving the hilltop, we came to the outer opening of the small canyon, about 250 meters wide with steep walls. Around the opening we saw an amazing sight. Bears! Both dead and alive, clustered around the opening. The live ones seemed to be juveniles by their size, three and four year olds maybe, both sexes, probably a year before sexual maturity. The young bears scattered as we approached, growling and howling but not trying to block us.

The juveniles were difficult to count in the blowing snow, but they seemed like a large number, perhaps as many as a dozen, certainly larger than any pack size I've ever heard of. From my own experience, bear cubs after weaning would be kicked out by the alpha-male. They would then wander alone until they were accepted by a new pack. It was very strange to see such a large loose group of pubescent bears around without adults.

On top of the wind I heard answering howls, adult bears, a lot of them, maybe two to three hundred meters behind. I recognized the aggressive display roars of the males. We were out of time. We dashed forward into the mini-canyon.

And there we saw the more bears, adult ones, all dead this time. Two female corpses, and then two huge alpha-male types, both looking heavily chewed up by rifle fire. It suddenly occurred to me what we might find at the end of the canyon.

I turned around. "Abigail! Give me your devil-dog, holster too!" She looked reluctant for just a fraction of a second and then quickly complied. I strapped the pistol to my left leg and then we continued to jog away from the bears, as fast as we could carry our packs safely over the snow-covered rocks.

I discovered my view from the hilltop was a bit deceiving. It was not a wedge-shaped canyon. It was more like a U-shape, 300 meters long and narrowing to perhaps 200 meters at an abrupt end. Along the back wall about three meters off the ground was a large entrance to a cave, irregularly shaped, roughly two meters high and four meters across. Two men in Holy Militia uniforms appeared and started waving to us wildly.

We were out of time. Abigail and Michal ran the last thirty meters ahead while I drew both devil-dogs, set them to single-shot exploding darts and turned to face our pursuers. Out of the swirling snow came a rush of juvenile bears baring their teeth and growling. Behind the youngsters and to my sides were the adult bears. I had the wild feeling that the adult bears were herding the juveniles, using them as shock troops for the charge.

I started firing rapidly while walking backwards blind, knowing that tripping on a rock now would probably be fatal. I was taking two quick head shots per target. At this distance one solid hit inside the skull would be fatal. I kept backing up as fast as I could, firing both pistols at once.

I tried to keep track of my shots as I backtracked. I knew my own pistol had an ammo reading of 27:29 before I started firing, 27 exploding darts and 29 non-exploding, and that Abigail's pistol was at 28:30.

In the twenty seconds it took me to backpedal thirty meters, I created a scene of carnage before me. About half my targets were cleanly killed, and a number of others were at least hit once and not an immediate threat. The explosion of a single dart in the shoulder or chest cavity of a bear will cause a shock wave great enough to cause the bear to stumble and be disoriented. Any bear not actively charging me I ignored. One bear caught a dart in his cheek deep inside his mouth, and the explosion blew off half of his jaw.

As I reached the back wall, a large, alpha-male-sized bear reared up at me from my left. I gave two quick shots from my left-hand pistol. I thought my aim was dead-on, but the bear howled and kept coming. I realized the pistol had switched to non-exploding darts. I flicked the firing-mode to full auto and started draining the pistol at his head. Out of the corner of my eye I saw another bear coming in on my right, a full-grown female. I fired at her with the other pistol and felt the pistol click between my two shots.

The female bear kept on coming. There were also more targets looming out of the snow in front of me, but the bear on my right was my most imminent threat. I needed to focus all my attention on her, grimacing with the realization there would be no time to reload before the front bears would be upon me. I started draining my last pistol at my right-side target at point-blank range.

There was the crack of the sound from a military rifle, then another, then another. The bears in front of me howled and then faded from sight. The female on my right dropped lifeless at my side. I whirled and found the alpha-male on my left also dead.

Instincts and training took over. I dropped and focused all my efforts on reloading one pistol from the holster spare, then scanning the area... Nothing...

"Sir? May I help you up?" A voice called out above me.

I called back, "Do you have me covered?"

"Uh, no sir. Those were our last three rounds."

I handed up my loaded pistol and heard the man whoop for joy when he saw the full reading. I looked at the status display on the other pistol, 0:0. Well, it had done its job. I ejected the spent clip and reloaded the second pistol, and then made one last scan of the area. Everything was quiet, and with the thick falling snow obscuring the carnage, the scene was almost peaceful. Insane, I thought. I turned and handed up my pack and second pistol and then scurried up the rocks.

As I stood at the entrance to the cave, I saw two militia laborers, a CL-2 and a CL-3, both holding a pistol out in a firing stance and scanning the area ahead. I nodded in approval that both men had set the pistols for single-shot exploding darts. As I finished my climb and stood between them, both men turned and saluted me sharply and handed me back my pistols. Both men were grinning broadly.

I saluted and grinned back. "Both of you, at ease and speak freely! Identify!"

"Yes sir! I'm private Class-3 Aasim. This is private Class-2 Omran. We're attached to the Jericho Green Mountain Boys, first battalion."

I nodded. "Survival training?"

"Yes sir!" Aasim and Omran both replied. They were also trying not to stare at my diamond insignia. The red, yellow and blue was informing them I was ten levels above Aasim's class, and the Security emblem showed I had direct command authority over them, equivalent to a CL-13 Priest.

"Same here!" I replied. "I'm Ilias, and these are my wives Abigail and Michal."

Aasim nodded. "Yes sir, Jericho's new Security station commander. I've heard of you, on the news sir, and your ride on the Asad..." He looked a little confused, glancing at Abby and Michal nervously, and then turning back to me. "The last I heard, you were about to ride to CL-13. Congratulations sir, on making it."

I nodded and turned to Omran. "How long have you been here?"

"For our survival testing sir, we were dropped on November 20'th. For this cave sir, about a day and a half. The bears hit us on the night of the 25'th, shortly after 11:00 PM."

I nodded. "Go on."

"Yes sir. Our plan was for me to be on guard duty 9 PM to 1 PM, and then switch with Private Aasim. Our plan was to start hiking before 6 AM." Omran paused for a moment before continuing. "There was a brief but intense snow squall, about two hours into my duty shift."

I remembered my first night with Abigail, hearing her surprise at seeing the snowfall. "Yes. Go on."

"The bears used the storm to attack us sir. They came in hard and fast, from multiple directions. I've never seen animals act that coordinated sir. Aasim barely got out of our tent in time. Thank the Holy he slept with his boots and night-vision on! We retreated into this canyon, firing all the way, often blindly. It took all our ammo to make it here alive. We would be dead if it weren't for this cave."

I took a look at their retreat. It wasn't a bad spot. The floor sloped down to the entrance with about a ten degree tilt, but at least everything was dry. After coming through the entrance, there was a lot of nice headroom, almost three meters for a full ten meter run back into the granite. After that the ceiling rapidly fell to meet the rising floor. There was no other exit.

I turned back to the two Priests. "And you've been holed up here ever since?"

Aasim replied, "Yes sir. We tried climbing out. We can make it to an overhanging ledge about ten meters up, but after that it's just smooth vertical stone. Without climbing gear, the only exit is to walk out. And the bears..."

Omran finished the thought. "... have been on guard duty since we got here, keeping us prisoners. They're like a pack of dogs that have treed a cat. And we don't have the ammo to fight our way out." He paused and then smiled at my devil-dogs. "Not until now sir, I mean."

I grinned. "We're in even better shape than you think!" I went to Michal's pack and extracted the two rifle clips, handing one to each of the Priests. They looked both overjoyed and worried.

Aasim spoke first, "Sir, if we load these, our rifles will log the RF-ID of the clips. Isn't this illegal?"

I considered his point. "I've read the rules. Using another team's gear is allowed."

"Sir, doesn't that team have to be dead?"

"The first team that had those clips is dead."

"Oh... Yes sir. But using another team's weapons sir? Isn't that still forbidden?"

"A direct order privates, lock and load! I'm making a field decision that weapons are rifles and pistols but clips are supplies. I'll put it in writing. No matter how this eventually gets decided, you two will be held harmless."

Aasim looked at me with pure gratitude as he loaded his rifle. "Sir, you don't have to do that."

"No sense putting more than one of us at risk private!"

"Yes sir..." and then a whisper, "Thank you sir."

Having loading his clip, Omran looked at me and asked, "Sir, how far do you think we are to Jericho?"

"About twenty, twenty-one kilometers."

"Yes sir. That was our thinking too. Perhaps we should try to make it in one push."

"Yeah... Well, we'll have to wait for the storm to clear first. Traveling now would give the bears a huge tactical advantage."

"No argument there, sir."

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light I realized these two men had absolutely no gear with them except for their outfits and the two rifles. We moved further away from the entrance and sat down completely out of the wind. The blizzard outside was severe, but very little sound was penetrating into the cave. The place almost seemed cozy.

I occurred to me these two Priests probably hadn't eaten since their first encounter with the bears on the 25'th. I grinned at them. "You boys hungry?"

"Yes sir!" two grins replied back. We began swapping stories over a late breakfast.

It turned out Aasim and Omran knew each other since childhood, a very unusual fact considering they grew up in different cities. Aasim was raised at the monastery at Kedar, the home township of the Ballistics Guild, and Omran was raised at Zoser, the home township of the Rocketry Guild. Along with Qataban, these three townships were founded in the first millennium and form a near perfect isosceles triangle, with a mere sixty kilometers between their city walls. Outside of Bandar Arenas, it's the densest concentration of humanity on the planet.