The Orphan Prince of Tiyrna Sl'ev
an excerpt

The two-legged figures were entering the cave now. Bears still pored forth from the innumerable dens deep in the mountain. Some of the men were caught from the side, necks and chests caved in powerful jaws, thighs detached from waists with swipe of bear claw and a scream. But still they came, and even more bears were felled between the powerful blasts that shuddered the snow outside and turned it into gas, and the deadly red light that tore into their beloved mountain.
Alkan struggled to get up, to get into the fray and do something to help in the fight that was destroying completely his only home and his only family. But the snow, always deceptive in its softness and light, held him as fast as if he had been buried in ice. He cried out, but his voice went nowhere against the cacacophony of battle. He was hidden entirely by the fallen brown bear.
A bone and ice shattering roar, at once so familiar and never before heard on the mountain, erupted from the mouth of the cave.
“There she is!”
“They’ve driven her out!”
The two-legged figures stopped their fire and drew back towards the humming dark shape and the sharp male voice.
“Give me the boy, Aefe Ma-Haerna Sl’ev! He does not belong to you!”
“Leave this world, Mendax Avu-Domarus!” Great Mother roared back. “You do not belong here! You are transgressing the sacred law of Thelmearc! Go back to your own world!”
The male voiced roared, his sharp, thunderous, biting laugh. “Who are you to tell me about transgressing Thelmearc, Aefe Ma-Haerna? You have held what belongs to me for fourteen world-turns, against my will and with intentional deceit.”
The clan and the black, two-legged beings stood still equally and listened as if the gods themselves were fighting back and forth.
“The Gerusia has given me the right to take what is mine! I will leave here only in one of two ways, with Feaderleas, or with you as prisoner!”
Alkan could only see black shadows against stabbing pools of white. He did not know who this male being was but he seemed to know Great Mother and she seemed to know him. He had never heard her called anything but Great Mother; what was this name that the male being kept calling. He did not know what was happening around him but the thought began to dawn on him that this battle and death and roaring names that seemed coarse and alien in his familiar world was about him. He was the boy that the man in the black ship was destroying his world for, he was the boy who the man said belonged to him. The dawning thought terrified him. He knew only one world that he belonged to, one family, only on being that he belonged to, and that was Great Mother. He did not want to be taken away, the snow holding him in the ground could not have left him more cold than this thought. But he did not want his brothers and his home hurt any more. He was terrified Oser had been hurt, or worse. He did not want Great Mother to be taken prisoner.
He began to cry, and through choking tears, “I am here! Stop! Take me!”
But his words went nowhere through the cold air, filled with smoke and the smell of blood. He looked to the mouth of the cave and saw Great Mother rise up on her hind legs. He had never seen her do this; he had never seen her so terrifying. An enormous force of silver, reflected off the lights from the ship and the snow, surrounded by dying bodies both bear and skin, and red blood against white snow.
She roared, “The Gerusia has no rule over my world! You will not have him!”
She fell to all fours, as a great mountain falling from the sky and lunged towards the male voice. The other bears, wounded and otherwise, fell in behind her with a roar and an avalanch of red, and black and broan and white. Alkan craned his head but still could not see Oser.
“Take the silver one, let the others be destoyed,” the man called aloud.
The men gathered back up into a black, trooping mass towards the light from the ship and the male voice. Great Mother and the clan were crushing down upon them and seemed, for all their losses, with her in front, now capable of obliterating the ship and the man once and for all.
As she galloped towards them, and the light from the ship began to illuminate her form, her silver coat began to reflect the light as if she herself were a cold, bright burning torch streaming towards the ship, the rest of the clan streaming out behind her like the eddies of a flaming comet rushing through space.
She entered the bright sphere of light that surrounded the ship and shone fully in all her power. Alkan had never seen Great Mother full on like this, always filling the warm dark depths of the cave, or sitting above the lake and forest in summer time watching her clan below. Now, she was a terrible force of pure territorial fury rising up in the night, illuminated, burning silver, black eyes flashing in attack. She reared up on her hind legs and seemed to tower above even the ship itself.
“Now!” the sharp roar of the man cut through the growling, barking, lumbering mass of bears headed towards him.
Black lines of rope, like malicious darting eels tore out from the ship and ripped around great mother. She let forth a gut-wrenching howl of pain and was pulled forcibly down, her fore feet pinned against her, her head crashing into the snow. The steady formation of bears broke apart in confusion. They knocked into each other, unsure whether to retreat from another attack, or to keep running. Some tried to run to Great Mother, but the red blasts seared anyone who came near her. Seeing themselves helpless, they paced about, roaring in fury and fear. Great Mother was being dragged to the entrance of the ship, which had began to vibrate more forcefully, like a giant, wicked devouring maw.