Pursue. Stay. Go. That’s what we talked about. I said it was time to leave. If only I’d said that before the bear had been brought to bay. Da would still be here.

The ocean of his grief threatened to rise up at that, and for a while Drem stood there with fresh tears rolling down his cheeks. After a while he gave a shuddering sigh and wiped them away. Forced his mind to return to the scene of his da’s death.

The bear. We both heard it. To our right.

He turned, staring to his right, eyes screwed shut as he remembered.

How did it flank us so quietly, when it had been crashing through the forest so recently?

No answer would come for that, so he moved on.

Da telling me to run. Me falling. Snatched glimpses. Da’s battle-cry.

He was on the ground in his yard now, the snow cold, exhilarating.

Me trying to get up.

On his knees in the courtyard, pushing to stand.

An explosion in the back of my head.

Dropping back into the snow.

Waking, pain, turning, standing.

He re-enacted it all, just as he remembered and saw it in his mind’s eye.

The blow to my head? What was it? Not the bear – its claws would have carved me like a melon. And besides, it came from the wrong direction.

He spun on his feet, looking accusingly about his yard for the hidden culprit, but only one of his goats looked back at him, chewing.

A branch, maybe, sent flying through the air by the bear’s attack.

He moved on to the last moments when he held his da, spoke to him. First the sword. Then . . .

I was wrong.

The goats bleated, the second one there too now. Both of them watching him.

He felt frustrated because he was still not understanding. His hand rose up to the bear claw about his neck, the bloodstains still upon his shirt from where his da had gripped it.

I was wrong.

And then Drem was breaking into a run, past the barn and stables and into the paddock, crunching, almost wading through the deep snow until he was standing before his da’s cairn. He stopped then, breathed in deep, long breaths, as if he’d been running half a day, the thought of what he intended to do stopping him, holding him in a grip of iron.

I can’t do it.

You have to. It’s the only way to know.

Another deep-tremored breath.

I can’t.

You must. Da would want you to, if it leads to the truth. To an answer.