The Prince Who Fell from the Sky Read online

  ALSO BY JOHN CLAUDE BEMIS

  THE CLOCKWORK DARK

  The Nine Pound Hammer

  The Wolf Tree

  The White City

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2012 by John Claude Bemis

  Jacket art copyright © 2012 by Justin Gerard

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bemis, John Claude.

  The prince who fell from the sky / John Claude Bemis. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When an orbital spacecraft crashes on a post-apocalyptic Earth where animals have regained control, a cubless mother bear adopts the lone survivor, a young boy, and leads him on a journey toward safety from the ruling wolf clans.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89804-4

  [1. Human-animal relationships—Fiction. 2. Bears—Fiction. 3. Wolves—Fiction. 4. Animals—Fiction. 5. Forests and forestry—Fiction. 6. Voyages and travels—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.B4237Pri 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2011020509

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  For Rose

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Forest was green with summer when the bear lumbered up from the creek bed where she had been cooling off. As she crested the bank, she paused to sniff. The air was heavy with the scent of new life.

  Moist smells. Earthy smells. Flowery smells.

  And mixed with them was the sweet aroma of death.

  The bear’s coppery-black body was massive, and it was nothing for her to push aside saplings and tangles of creeper as she followed her nose toward the carcass.

  The odor grew ripe. She hurried, loping through a bed of the relics rusting among the laurels. She drew in a deep sniff and stopped.

  She had found it. But she was not alone.

  She edged out from the thicket of laurels. A trio of cubs tumbled on the ground. At the sight of Casseomae, they squealed and ran clumsily toward their mother, who was eating from a day-old elk, her face buried in the cavity of the elk’s body. She lifted her face at the sound of her cubs. Blood was smeared on her snout and nose. An assembly of crows who were waiting for their turn in the branches of a hickory overhead began jeering with loud caws.

  The sow rose and circled around from behind the carcass. “Get behind me, cubs,” she growled, and they retreated nervously behind their mother. “You know you are not welcome, Casseomae. I’ve warned you before.”

  “I don’t mean harm,” Casseomae said, dipping her head. “Not to you, Dubhe, or to your cubs. I only thought we might share this—”

  Dubhe bounced on stiff front legs and popped her jaws, as their kind would to show menace. “And let you curse my cubs! No, get away from here, witch, before you steal their breath away like you did your own—”

  “That’s enough, Dubhe!”

  Dubhe dipped her nose to the newcomer. “Alioth!”

  Dubhe’s cubs dropped to their bellies at the sight of their chief. “Big One,” they whimpered in unison.

  Alioth lumbered forward slowly, his fur looking almost red as he passed through a patch of sunlight. He was not the biggest of their clan, but he had been tough enough and strong enough to convince even the larger males that he was their chief. He was the Big One and had been for several summers now.

  “Dubhe,” Alioth grumbled as he came closer. “What have I said about that sort of talk? Let us all finish this lucky find together. And with haste before the Ogeema’s hunters smell it.”

  Alioth shuffled over to the elk and bit in greedily, but neither Casseomae nor Dubhe moved. The chief pulled a stretchy piece of tissue and crunched, looking back at the sows.

  “Come now,” he said. “Don’t let grudges dampen your appetites.”

  Dubhe nudged her cubs to leave. Quickly Casseomae said, “No, let Dubhe share the viand with you, Big One. She has cubs to feed. I’ll forage. The Forest is rich. Isn’t that what we old sows always say?”

  Casseomae trotted off through the trees. She hadn’t gotten far before Alioth called out behind her, “Casseomae.” When he caught up, the bear chief spoke in a low voice. “You’re still mourning. What can I do for you?”

  “Nothing, Big One,” she replied.

  “Don’t call me that, Casseomae. You of all my bears don’t have to call me that.”

  She gave a huff. “I’m fine, Alioth. Don’t worry about me.”

  “But I do,” the chief said. “I always have.”

  She bowed her head and turned to go back to her meadow. Alioth called out, “The bear’s path is marked by heavy steps. You remember, don’t you? You taught me that lesson long ago.”

  “I remember, Alioth,” she said, and lumbered away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Casseomae reached the meadow with the sun high overhead. The air was still and hot, buzzing with insects. Casseomae spent most of her time here. It was her meadow, as much as anything can belong to a bear. It abounded for much of the year with fruit and flowers and tasty shoots. She had hunted and foraged here her whole life. Just over on the far side, beyond the rows of vine-covered relics, was the little den of wood and stone where she had given birth to several litters of stillborn cubs.

  Snapping a grasshopper from a milkweed stalk, she climbed onto the nearest of the relics. Its dilapidated frame creaked under her weight. Normally bears and bigger vora hunters found it unwise to climb on the relics of the Skinless Ones. Tangled in fox grape and honeysuckle, the hulking metal shells could easily pass as shrubs, but the vines masked sharp edges of rusted metal and pits of jagged glass.

  Casseomae had learned how to maneuver these da
ngers. She’d plopped down on the top to enjoy the sun when she heard the yaps of coyotes nearing. They’ll go around, she thought. Voras almost never entered her meadow. Even the Ogeema’s guard, whom she could never have denied access, always avoided her meadow. But the cries grew louder.

  Casseomae sat up and shook out her mane. Coyotes posed no threat to a bear of her size. She could drive them away without a fight. But today, with Dubhe’s words still stinging, she wouldn’t have minded a fight.

  The yapping grew until at last five coyotes, one after the other, burst through the brush into the bright sun of the clearing. Something small—some little viand, a rodent maybe—dashed through the tall grass and sumac in front of the pack. It had a strange scent about it—acrid and heavily laden with the odor of Skinless relics.

  The coyotes circled one of the vine-covered dilapidations, digging at the edges of its frame. “It’s under here, routs!” one called to the others. “Watch that other side that it doesn’t escape!”

  As the coyotes dug and barked and ran around, Casseomae saw the creature emerge through the vines at the top of the relic. It was a rat, just a little brown blur of fur. The creature ran to the edge of the relic and leaped to the next, and then to the next. It was halfway to Casseomae before one of the coyotes caught its scent. “It’s getting away!”

  “You can sniff it, you sons of curs!” the rat called back to them. “You won’t catch Dumpster. Ri-ee! Ri-ee! Go lick your unders, you cur lovers, you Old Devil slaves!”

  Casseomae reared up in surprise. The rat was speaking in Vorago, the common tongue used by all the vora hunters. How could a rat speak Vorago? None of the viands spoke Vorago.

  The coyotes tore around the relics in a rage to catch the little creature. For all his tough talk, the rat was nearing the last of the rusting relics before an open section of field with nowhere to hide. Casseomae was almost disappointed that such a brave viand would meet its end at the jaws of the most vile of all voras, the coyotes. But such was the way of the Forest—voras hunted viands.

  The rat landed on top of the last relic and scampered in a circle, searching for an escape. The coyotes surrounded below. The biggest, a female named Rend whom Casseomae had encountered before, said, “Nowhere to go now, loudmouth! We’ve got you.”

  The rat was big for his kind, nearly the size of a squirrel. Casseomae had eaten a few plump marsh rats in her time, but this creature was muscular, with a long powerful tail. He wouldn’t taste very good, she decided. Especially if he talked.

  “You’ve not got me yet, you dung-heads,” the rat said, twitching his whiskers as he peered down at the circling coyotes. “You know what you got? You mess with Dumpster and you’ve got spittin’ trouble. Nothing but spittin’ trouble!”

  Rend leaped onto the flat front of the relic. “I don’t think so,” she snarled, exposing her shimmering teeth. She inched toward the honeysuckle-covered slope leading to the top.

  “Come on up here, whelp,” the rat spat, backing to the far side of the relic’s top. “You put just one spittin’ paw on this car and I’ll send you scurrying back to your hound of a mother!”

  “You won’t talk so brave from the bottom of my stomach,” Rend growled as she leaped for the creature.

  In the fraction of a moment before Rend’s paws met the vine-tangled slope, Casseomae realized what the little rat had done. This Dumpster was smart. He’d provoked the coyote into a trap. What appeared to be a solid slope was in fact a thin veil of honeysuckle over a pit of jagged glass.

  Rend’s front paws punched through the vines, and she disappeared with a yelp. The other coyotes backed away from the relic, not knowing what had taken their leader. Two of them tucked their tails and raced away into the trees.

  Dumpster reached into the shattered slope and plucked out a sliver of broken glass with his teeth. Then he ran to the edge, leaped into the air, and landed in the grass with a thump.

  As Rend fought to escape, she howled, “Don’t let him get away!”

  The little rat was headed for Casseomae’s relic, but he was too far away. With a leap, the two remaining coyotes were on him. There was a rustle of commotion in the grass and then the coyotes yipped in pain, one after the other drawing back. Blood ran freely from slashes along their snouts.

  With a final dash, Dumpster squeezed under the bear’s relic. Casseomae dropped down from the top and stood in front of the coyotes.

  “Let us pass, old sow!” one of them barked.

  The bear struck the earth with her paw, raking her long claws through the grass. “When did I start taking orders from coyotes?”

  The two edged side to side, their tongues dangling, their yellow eyes looking up warily. “That creature is ours by law. He’s one of the Faithful.”

  Dumpster cried out, “Liars! Call me that again and I’ll slice your tongues from your muzzles.”

  Casseomae glanced over her shoulder. Dumpster gazed out from beneath the relic, his black eyes flickering from one coyote to the other and his tail lashing back and forth.

  “A Faithful? He doesn’t look like a cur to me,” Casseomae said to the coyotes.

  Rend climbed out of the pit of glass and leaped down, her breast and front legs bloody. Limping forward, the coyote said, “Not all that served the Skinless were curs.”

  Casseomae snorted. “I didn’t know his kind served the Skinless Ones.”

  Dumpster shouted, “We didn’t!” at the same time Rend barked, “They did!” Rend quickly added, “His clan lives in the Skinless’s cities, don’t they? Clinging to the nests of their former masters. Wishing they would come back—”

  “You lying pile of puke!” Dumpster shrieked.

  “This isn’t the first time we’ve caught the scent of his sort coming down the stone trails from the city,” Rend said. “Others of his kind have been sneaking into the Forest, defying the Ogeema’s orders.”

  “All this nonsense about the Faithful,” Casseomae grunted. “Would you catch a bird that’s nested in the ruins of a Skinless’s den and call it a Faithful? You must be desperate to win the Ogeema’s favor again, Rend.”

  Rend growled. “I’m telling you that rat is one of the Faithful. And if you don’t step aside, Casseomae, you’ll answer to Ogeema Dire and his wolves next.”

  The she-bear distended her lips and struck the ground. The coyotes scurried back a few paces. “I don’t answer to dogs!” Casseomae growled.

  “You’re reckless, old bear,” barked Rend. “You always have been. You’re making a terrible mistake crossing Ogeema Dire—”

  Casseomae lunged forward on stiff front legs, roaring as if to shake the earth. And for a moment, she thought she had. A boom resounded from overhead. Over the tree line, a ball of flames appeared against the blue sky. Then it was gone. In its place hovered a small shadow.

  Casseomae rose on her hind legs, trying to make sense of it with her nose and her ears. Whatever it was, it was rapidly growing larger. She looked down at the coyotes, who were watching with wide yellow eyes. The rat, too, had come out from beneath the underbelly of the relic to stare at the growing shape.

  “What is it?” one of the coyotes whined.

  “I don’t know,” Rend said. “A bird?”

  The shadow was taking shape now. It looked to Casseomae like an enormous insect—shiny and armored and sailing on wide wings. Lines of mist or possibly smoke trailed behind it. A cry emanated from the object, shrill and growing louder as the flying thing got closer.

  “That’s no bird, you idiots,” the rat said.

  “Then what is it?” Casseomae asked. The noise was so loud, she had to roar to be heard.

  When she got no answer, she turned. The rat was gone. Tails tucked, the coyotes were dashing for the tree line. The ground began to vibrate. Casseomae dropped to her front paws as the sky darkened.

  With a deafening roar, the object sailed over the meadow. Casseomae could see the entire underbelly of the thing, but it made no sense to her. It could not have been an insect
or any other creature of the Forest. Nor was it a storm cloud or anything else she had ever seen sent down by the sky. In some ways it reminded her of the relics that littered the Forest, but this was much bigger and it wasn’t rusted and crumbling. Casseomae saw white flames spitting from the rear of the object as it disappeared over the treetops.

  Then she heard tree trunks splintering and snapping. The earth shook. And a cloud of brown dust burst into the sky.

  Whatever the thing was, it had just fallen to the Forest.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The bear had never experienced anything to compare with what she had just seen. She had hunkered down in dirt caves and in the ancient dens of Skinless Ones during many terrible storms of ice and thunder and tornado winds. But her instincts had always forewarned her.

  This had come with no warning.

  As clouds of dust drifted over her glade, a family of deer broke from the trees. Other animals too were running from the thing that had crashed in the Forest—squirrels and foxes, raccoons and woodchucks. They cried out to one another in their viand languages. Birds of all sorts flocked together over the treetops as they flew away.

  Casseomae understood their urge. They could not help themselves. But she was different. She was a bear, and while the Ogeema and his wolves might rule over her sloth, there was nothing left in the Forest that hunted her kind. Her instincts told her to go forward to see what this thing was.

  Casseomae went into the trees and soon saw that the dense canopy of leaves above had been torn open. A huge scar cut through the Forest flooded it with sunlight. Oaks, beeches, and hickories lay knocked aside as if they’d been little more than saplings.

  She crested a hill and saw it. The thing’s nose was half-buried in earth with crumpled trees piled around its front. Casseomae rose to her hind legs and sniffed. The odors stung her nose and made her eyes drip and her tongue numb. She snorted and dropped back to the ground, gazing from one end of the thing to the other.

  She heard a scampering in the leaves behind her and turned. The rat stopped with one paw raised, his bulging black eyes on her. “It’s a passering, isn’t it?” he said.