"Hold still," I hissed, in frustration, because I'd just felt the knot shift. I leaned after it and struggled with the tie once more and the knot loosened further. It wouldn't be long before Val-- Valkyrie, I mean, was freed. "I almost got it--"

Then Valkyrie looked past me and, though her voice was calm and light, her eyes told me that I needed to look behind me right now.

I looked behind me. And immediately got a face full of fur as one of the two bears leaped off the floor and hit me square on the nose. I stumbled back, fell over Valkyrie, and hit one of the struts of the wall with a bone-jarring thunk.

Then the bear, with its claws hooked on my ears, began pulling my head back and forth rapidly, beating me repeatedly into the offending strut. It was like, thunk-"Ow!"-thunk-"Hey!"-thunk-"Stop!"-thunk-"Quit it!"-thunk-"Ow!"-thunk

I wasn't sure where the other surviving bear was.