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Chapter 10 - War

12th Day of Shinixuroc

117 I.E.

Bart crouched low behind a bush, trying his best to remain as hidden as possible. The green paints that he'd smeared over his fur stunk and left him feeling sticky as the hardened liquid pulled at his fur. He only tolerated it because it helped him blend in with the woods around him. The makeshift outpost before him was concealed well and had allowed the enemy to hide with relative ease near their territories. Some tents combined with a few lean-tos provided the only shelter for the soldiers down below, but it was more than enough as they worked to establish their forward base. The trees were thick enough that they formed a defensive wall around one side of the post, providing at least some protection to the hastily erected camp.

The ursar held a stylus that flew across the parchment in his paw as he gripped the overly small tool with his fingers. It had been a long time since he'd put pen to paper and sketched something, and he was vaguely aware of that as he tried to map out the enemy base. He'd been sent on recon duty, and was tasked to get a layout of the enemy's defenses so that his commander could come up with a plan of some sort. He looked up at the outpost, then down at the image on the paper. They looked nothing alike as far as he was concerned.

This fact bothered him. He was deep in the enemy's territory, but all he could think about was how much the image on the page annoyed him. The lines were all wrong, and not the least bit crisp. The soldiers and the positions they maintained while doing guard duty were nothing more than shaded blobs.

How could he have allowed his skill with the stylus regress so far? He began to furiously scratch the drawing out, filling the air with noise as the paper was crinkled up in his fist. He tossed the balled up parchment aside and grabbed a fresh piece from his pack to begin again. This time he would get it right! He couldn't allow anyone to see such a subpar product of his efforts. It would be downright embarrassing.

He was halfway through re-sketching the first watch tower when he heard movement nearby. The ursar dropped low, pressing his gut into the ground, and waited. He watched as a pair of dwarves walked by. Their helms prevented him from seeing who they were, but that didn't matter to Bart. To him, they are all nothing more than traitors. He'd been told to think of them that way, and that's how he intended to view them. He scowled and watched from the relative safety of his hiding spot as the soldiers passed him. Their armor rattled as they move, and it struck Bart as odd that they had their equipment on. Even lighter plating on armor was too heavy to do much walking for long periods of time, even for the most hearty of soldiers.

What's with all that equipment for a simple patrol? Bart thought. It was unusual for a scout to carry so much stuff with them. Such a job required quick movement and silence, and being in heavy armor doesn't allow for that. Did they sortie against my unit? he thought.

Bart began to wonder if perhaps he was too late, that the enemy may have found their outpost before he had a chance to complete his mission. He scrambled to look for the parchment that he had tossed aside. It was time to leave, and he would have to take what he could get, regardless of whether or not the map was good enough by his standards. However, the paper had fallen into a nearby puddle when he'd carelessly tossed it aside like the trash it was. The old map was water-logged and ruined beyond recognition, and it fell apart in his paws as he clumsily tried to unfold it. He flicked the droplets of water off his hands as he threw aside the rest of the paper.

Damn it! he thought as he looked around to see if the coast was clear, then resumed his job of mapping out the enemy camp. He couldn't go back empty handed, not after being gone for so long. He'd been watching the base all day, keeping track of the soldier's movements, noting when the changing of the guard occurred, and so on. It was all for the sake of victory, so why couldn't he get over something as simple as his art skills? It didn't even need to be a good map, just a complete one!

Bart growled as he tried to force himself to ignore the shoddy nature of his sketching. Why had his desire for perfection in his sketching decided to surface while he deep in enemy territory and in the middle of a time critical job? The new image looked worse than the previous attempt, and lacked many of the mission critical details that he'd been sent to require. He made a few short hand notes on the paper to get the information he had missed.

'Two identical towers suspended in trees, one guard each. Rope ladder access.'

'Four guards stationed at all times to watch the compound.'

'Leader presumed to be in large tent, not visible from vantage point.'

'Weapons and munitions stocked in crates on north side, behind a cusp of trees.'

Bart cringed as he saw his sloppy writing scribbled all over the page, making it even harder to discern a tower from a tree, and a bush from a soldier. Well, at least he knew what was what, but he knew his commander would have no ability to distinguish anything without his aid.

"You're not very good at hiding, you know," a voice said from behind, startling Bart. "THE BEAR'S OVER HERE!"

The ursar swung around and struck without hesitation. His paw was swift, a mere blur that the dwarven soldier failed to react to. Bart's fist struck his face with a satisfying crunch, and he could feel something crack as his hand smacked into the soldier's helm. The blow sent the dwarf tottering backwards as his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he slipped from consciousness.

He shouldn't have been able to sneak up on me. Damn it, what the hell am I doing!? Bart began to listen to the sounds nearby. Adrenaline began to course through his veins in response. In the woods all around him, he could hear the rustling of leaves and the snaps of branches as soldiers descended on his position. He didn't have time to unholster his crossbow that hung from a strap over his shoulders. With a curse, he carelessly stuffed the map he'd been drawing into his tunic pocket and started running.

As he bolted noisily through the woods, his ears flicked as he picked up the sounds of weapons being drawn from their sheaths. Something zipped in front of him, and time seemed to stand still as an arrow whizzed past his muzzle. He could see the glittering purple rune along the blunted arrow's surface as it went by. If he was even a fraction of a second faster, he would have been done in. Gulping audibly, he kept going as fast as he could. Even after a couple minutes, he had a stitch in his side that hampered his breathing and he huffed as he trudged along. He slowed only when he tumbled on a root or lost his footing on an uneven piece of ground. He couldn't afford to stop.

A few minutes later, Bart burst through the edge of the woods and stumbled into a sunlit field. The sky was clear, save for the distant thunderheads on the horizon that crackled with lightning. The sound of thunder rumbled in his sensitive ears, momentarily preventing him from hearing the dwarves chasing him. Fortunately the plains offered him more freedom of movement, and the ursar had no trouble hefting his loaded crossbow and bringing it about. The field ahead was clear, and knowing this, he ran straight ahead with his head turned to the side so he could watch over his shoulders. He couldn't get a full view of what was behind him, but it was enough to see the dwarves coming out of the woods.

With only one hand extended, he fired off a bolt with a glowing rune on it. Firing on the run threw his aim off, and he missed his mark by a wide-shot. Bart let out a growl in frustration as he grabbed another bolt from his quiver. It had taken him weeks to be able to reliably shoot a stationary target back at Hell's Crucible. He had yet to get enough practice against moving targets to be able to fight effectively. In this situation, he needed to adapt quickly or it would be over for him.

He pondered how he was going to reload his weapon while on the run. He could not use the stirrup without coming to a stop, and if he did that, he would be a sitting duck for the enemy to pick off at their leisure. It was fortunate for Bart that he was much larger than his dwarven pursuers. Though he had about as much endurance as his bulk would imply, he made up for it with his longer strides that helped propel him that much further. He could hear arrows being fired, and he was grateful that the enemy was having just as difficult a time shooting at him as he did them.

He came to a stop once he'd gotten some distance on them. They were still chasing him, and he couldn't believe they would chase so far from their base just to go after a single scout. They were leaving their position undefended and open to being flanked. Did they really have it out for him after the beating he had given them on that first day when he'd arrived at Hell's Crucible?

Bart locked in another rune-covered bolt and took steady aim with both hands this time. The crossbow clicked as he fired but he was off the mark again. Six seconds later another shot was in the air and struck a dwarf in the upper thigh. The soldier screamed as the blunted projectile hit him with enough force to send him toppling to the ground. His fall was followed by the sound of paper being torn as a rift opened in the air. It had a bluish-white color that denoted the change in space, and it glowed unnaturally as the prison at the Crucible superimposed itself over reality. The downed dwarf disappeared into the portal and it closed up.

Finally got one, Bart thought. It was the first time since the operation began that he'd managed to down a target. He had to admit that the Rune of Sending that the mages had put on his ammunition did a good job of getting rid of whatever living thing he hit. The dwarf he'd shot would be back at the Crucible, in the prison beneath the commander's offices. The soldier would be a little sore from the blunted ammo, and probably sick from being forced through a portal, but no worse for wear than usual.

With another bolt loaded, Bart took off across the field and heard the *thunk!* of arrows striking the ground where he had been standing. Though he was merely participating in war games as a form of training, the thought of being locked up for losing did not appeal to him. The short time he spent in solitary confinement was more than enough to give him a fear of prison cells for the rest of his life. He shuddered thinking of the cold and the rats and the filth the guards called food.

In the distance, Bart sighted his unit's camp. It was a collection of tents and makeshift towers atop a hill. He waved his hands over his head, hoping someone would see him. He was tall enough that any look out could pick him out from a great distance, so there was no need for him to worry about the flare spell that every dwarven soldier was taught. Magic was beyond his ability to understand.

The enemy dwarves halted their pursuit and after trying to take a few potshots at him from a distance, they began to slink back the way they came. They didn't want to get caught in the open field in enemy territory. They feared what could be lurking in the tall grass.

Bart huffed and dropped to the ground as his body was overcome by exhaustion. He fought against his body's desire to curl itself as his muscles in his legs and abdomen began to cramp. With his teeth gritted and grinding against each other, he found against the pain and tried to stretch himself out as best he could to counter the cramping.

Sweat rolled down his body, wetting the camouflage paint he wore. It dripped into his eyes, and he squeezed them shut to try to keep the stinging fluids at bay. He sighed in resignation as he waited for someone to come tend to him, but after a while, he realized no one was coming to get him.

Bart pictured that soldiers would look out for one another, regardless of who they were in the past. They were trained to operate that way, because they functioned better as a unit rather than as a group of individuals. Yet every time Bart struggled, no one was to be found to help him out. He wasn't a soldier to them. He was just a magic-less convict and a big, dumb bear.

With a groan, Bart righted himself and wiped the paint from his eyes with the palm of his paw. His shaking feet could barely support him, but he pushed himself to move towards camp. Though his unit's base wasn't nearly as fortified as the enemy's, the prairie provided other benefits that forest didn't have. It wasn't as massively defensible as the woods, but it provided an amazing view of the fields around them, one that could not be rivaled anywhere else in the training grounds. Any enemy approaching would have to do so at night when visibility was almost non-existent, and would have to do so without the aid of any light or a moon to guide them.

Captain Jacinth, a dwarf with an explosion of red hair on his head, approached Bart and demanded that he turn over the map he made. His nose flared in anger when Bart shoved the crumpled piece of parchment into the dwarf's face.

Not even Jacinth gave the ursar any sort of leeway when it came to his training. While he was in charge of Advanced Individual Development and all the trainees enlisted in it, he showed little care for the ursar's presence within his unit. Even though Bart had never once turned on anyone after his first day at the Crucible, and never refused an order, they still treated him like he was some sort of security risk. It was as if the idea of giving him any amount of freedoms or respect would empower him to run off and leave to do whatever criminal things they imagined he did.

"What the hell is this?" Jacinth asked. A few soldiers looked over when they heard him shout, curious as to what was going on. "You call this a map? It looks like you shit on the page."

Bart tried to suppress his growl building in his chest, but it came out as he responded, making his voice deeper and more gravelly than normal. "If you think that's what crap looks like, you should see a medic. What did you expect me to do when you're telling me to try drawing something with only my knee as a surface to write on and this piece of junk stylus to use?" Bart shot back as he held up the dwarven-sized tool between his thumb and forefinger. "I can't handle something this small!"

He heard some laughter coming from off to the side and he felt his face burn with embarrassment. It wasn't just because of what he said, as Bart was as immodest as they came, but because he was ashamed of the map he'd made. He shouldn't have destroyed his original sketch. The one he handed to Jacinth was rushed and lacked all the detail he needed, and it had come at the cost of being discovered by the enemy.

"Don't give me that excuse. This is garbage! It doesn't tell us anything about Sergeant Thora's encampment."

With a huff, Bart snatched the paper back. "Look, I'll do it again, just give me another parchment and a table to work on and -"

"No. You've done enough. You revealed yourself to the enemy and wasted precious ammunition." Jacinth gestured to the dwindling number of bolts in Bart's quiver. "Judging by how many soldiers were chasing you, you didn't hit any, did you?"

"I got one!" Bart shouted defensively. He tried to sound angry but his voice betrayed him as it came out whiny, just like when he was a cub.

"Not good enough! At this point we'll be lucky if Thora leaves her encampment there, much less changes it to counter whatever intelligence you've retrieved."

Bart knew he did a poor job, but he didn't think it was that bad. However he had failed to consider that the enemy would change anything after finding a scout. Is that really how things work in the military? If they failed to eliminate him, that would mean it would be stupid to not change their tactics, wouldn't it? Bart's ears drooped as he continued to think about it. Fighting was supposed to be the one thing he was good at, so why couldn't he approach it logically and without his damn sense of pride and perfection getting in the way of the job?

Was he really that good to begin with? He was, after all, much larger than the dwarves. What if he was pitted against someone from a larger race? Or another ursar even? More self-deprecating thoughts swirled through his head, and suddenly Bart found himself aching to have a pint of ale, despite the fact that the closest source was several leagues away from where he was.

"This'll have to do," Jacinth sighed as he snatched the paper back and walked off. "Get out of my sight. You've done enough, convict."

And there it was, the immortal label that Bart was forever branded with. Normally he would have been angry, and probably would have done something stupid, but at that moment he was too mired in his thoughts to care. He was barely listening by that point. The ursar merely nodded his head in response and sulked to some far off corner of the base.

It had been a long time since he'd felt down on himself, but it had also been a long time since any of his abilities were brought into question. He had so few things to call his own, and to realize that he had no real skill in either of them made him question his worth, much like how Remi had done when he was a cub.

Bart took one last look at the dwarven stylus in his hand before he crushed it in his fist.