At last one came in range and he jammed the spear down, felt it hit solid meat and thought he had a fish. Had food.

But the wooden points were not barbed and when he tried to lift the salmon from the stream it slipped off the spear and escaped.

He shook his head. Had to be a new way. The points were scuffed a bit from hitting gravel beneath the fish and he sharpened them with his knife and went back to the water.

More waiting. The violent wriggling of the salmon he speared had made other fish move away and it took time for them to come back, and in those still moments he realized that there was silence.

It wasn’t that there had been wild noise before but there had been the constant cawing of crows, gurgling of ravens, and chatter of other birds.

But now it was silent.

Suddenly dead, cold silent.

All he heard was the rippling of water around his legs, and he turned and let his eyes move in a circle around the line of trees and water.

Nothing was there.

But still, silence.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose and a spiral . . . spiral-something went down his spine and came back up.

Then he saw it.

No, saw-felt it. Leaves moved on willows in a way that put them unnaturally against the direction of the breeze that moved up from shore.

And in there, back in the leaves and low limbs on trees, he saw a motion, also against the breeze. And at the centre of the motion there was a deep, dark spot and small cloud of thick brown – a place of no-light – and without sound or warning an enormous brown bear stepped away from the trees and stood looking at Leif.

And Leif thought, Oh.

Just that.

Then, No.

It’s not a bear. It can’t be a bear. It’s too big to be natural. If it stood . . . if it stood, it would block the sun.

He had never actually seen a brown bear, had only heard stories about them from men on the ships, but always assumed the stories were all sailors’ lie-stories. Stories told to make men look . . . bigger. Smarter. Braver.

But this wasn’t a story.

It was a mountain of a bear, easily two or three times the size of the largest black bears he had seen.

And it was looking directly at Leif. No. Into Leif, through Leif, as if Leif wasn’t there. Or didn’t matter.