under cover of night they went;
fading from ursus as merrick had envisioned.
his eldest son ranged ahead, blending with nightfall. merrick walked at their head, the righteousness of their departure burning within him. surely his raven queen had brought with her the sacred bones; he himself carried the skull of evien, eyes blackened hollows, all of the man ivoried.
i will bring you to a new land, he breathed to whatever wisps of spirit might still cling around the sacred object.
he allowed only his son to help him carry the skull, and paused in its burden only to encourage one or another of his youngest along.
and the bear-voice spoke, and it spoke, and it whispered;
and it did not cease.
by day merrick bid ursus lay in the cooler shadows, and all through the blackness he moved them, filled with compulsion and love by how they all seemed to become, for long hours, children of nightfall.
one evening, the wolves of ursus stepped back beneath starlight and the air had changed to that of salt. the sea. he did not know if he had come so far, but surely! he must have,
it was an evening of cool rain during which their bear-blessed band finally came to the place of the first one. merrick set down evien's head and darted into the mouth of the cave immediately, shouting with joy to find the yellowed, ageing bones of the giant bruin, its own skull with teeth bared, heavy upon the floor, as if to threaten those who would enter.
and the cave of crystal! it was pure lust that bolted through merrick now, and he danced back to ursus, delighted and face upturned to the heavens.
"ursus finds its beginning, and in this, its future," the bearwolf told them all with a solemn madness. "but look what the bears have kept for us. lift your heads, ursus."