A Deliberate Ambush? Or Just Ill Fortune?

"I do not know, Lord Frederigo," Wilkes replied. "Nor do I know how Maisie finished up at the inn's livery stable."

"I didn't really think that you would. Well, we had better be off. We have a long journey ahead of us to Caemlyn. I suppose that the inn would be the best place to spend the night. Can we reach it before dusk?"

Wilkes looked to the west, and judged by the position of the sun that it must be about two hours before sunset. "Just about," he said.

Fred and Astra mounted, and they set off. In the first couple of miles the trail passed through several villages, but these had all been abandoned by their inhabitants when the castle had been destroyed. So they encountered no-one.

After half an hour or so, the countryside grew wilder, as they reached a region that had only ever been sparsely inhabited. There was thick forest on both sides of the track now.

Without any warning a huge black bear lumbered out of the undergrowth less than fifty yards ahead of them. The terrified horses reared, and then turned and bolted. Fred stayed in the saddle, but was carried away by Maisie. When he eventually got her back under control, some quarter of a mile back down the track, the other two horses galloped past him riderless. Astra and Wilkes must have both been thrown.

He knew that he would never get Maisie to approach the bear again, so he tethered her to a convenient branch next to the track, and then ran back as quickly as he could.

1. Wilkes appeared to have been knocked unconscious by being thrown. Astra was standing over him, facing the bear.
2. But there was no sign of bear, Astra or Wilkes! What could have happened to them?
3. There was no sign of the bear. But there was a man with black beard and wild black hair, well over six feet tall and heavily built, bending over Astra and Wilkes, who both seemed to have been injured when they were thrown. Could he be a werebear?

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