Medva

Medva, a brown she-bear, is the mother of the Wagon clan. Her grandmother was carried along the old lines in a travelling menagerie: twelve wagons in red and cream stripes, with the bears in the last one. In the ring they put human hats on the bears and taught them to bow, and people laughed. On the night of the Fading the train stopped in a dead end by the Lull halt and never moved again. The keepers went to find out what had happened to the light and never came back, and the animals stayed locked in. On the ninth day Medva's grandmother tore the door of the bear wagon off its runners, and the bears came out

They did not leave. The clan still lives in that train, a family to a wagon, and calls itself the Wagon clan. Medva was born there, on the straw of the last wagon, and was one of the first to speak. Her first word was “all”: she said it to her mother when she had counted the little ones after a blizzard. Ever since she counts her own after every trouble, by heads and out loud. She had three cubs of her own and nursed a score of others: wolf cubs, piglets, kids that fell off the wall of the Dam right onto the wagon roofs. That is why they call her the mother of the clan. The bear law is short: when one of yours falls, stand over them. A she-bear does not lead her cub away from a blow, she stands over it and takes the blow herself. Medva took the round hatch lid off the roof of the bear wagon: what once kept the bears in now keeps everyone else out

The Haze is drawn to light, and nothing on the whole Dam burned brighter than the Lantern. That winter the grey came to the Lull as a pack: faded linemen from the crest and wild dogs in signal vests. Selma fell on the platform, and the Lantern rolled out of her hands. Medva stood over them both with her lid, as the clan law says, and held till dawn. In the morning the grey left. Medva stayed on her knees over the Lanternkeeper with the lid on her back, and her light went into the glass she had covered with herself all night. Selma lived several more winters and every winter brought bright salt to the wagons for the cubs to lick

She is slow and quiet, says little, low and as if growling. She is hard to anger, but whoever touches one of hers sees her at her full height. She counts everyone as her own from the first meeting: “Whose are you? Mine now.” After a battle she counts the squad by heads and does not settle until the count adds up. She does not like people, for the ring and the hats, yet wears human armor she took off the grey herself, and none of it fits her. Stavr calls her his downstairs neighbor: his trail ran right above her dead end, and young goats that fell off the wall landed on her wagon roofs. Varga hates being counted with everyone else like a cub, but when Medva loses count, Varga is the first to call “here”. Tobrin once tapped the wheels of the menagerie on this line, and now after every battle he taps her lid with his wrench: “Rings. Sound.” No one else may touch it