The Lion Returns

by John Dalmas

  "Indeed I do."

  "When the Lion talked with me, none of that had happened, and I did not encourage him. If invaders actually came to Yuulith, it seemed unlikely they'd commit offenses against us. But now they've trespassed on my kingdom and murdered two guards. Then yesterday I received a message from a dwarf of the Diamond Flues, Tossi Pellersson Rich Lode. He'd been in Colroi when the sorcerers captured it. Captured it and committed unspeakable acts against the people there, humans and ylver. Afterward Tossi went out of his way to visit Duinarog, to tell the western emperor what he'd seen.

  "The Lion was in Duinarog too. He advised the emperor, and the delegates from the east who were there. Then he left to rouse the Rude Lands if he can. I want yer people to find him for me, and tell him he'll have our help. And that of the Diamond Flues, I have no doubt. For an offense against one is an offense against all."

  The king withdrew his gaze from the bird, reexamining his thoughts. "The army that entered the gorge walked into a fool's trap, where we had every advantage. We cannot expect them to repeat such stupidity. Then the Storm Lord added the flood, but the Storm Lord is neutral, favoring no one. It's the people of Yuulith who must drive the invaders into the sea. And to do that, they must join, and the Lion must lead us. No one else can."

  He paused, lips drawn tight across spadelike teeth. "We must know what he wants us to do. And then—then I need yer people to serve all of us, tallfolk and small." He raised a hand in restraint. "I know ye don't mix yerselves into the affairs of men—ylver, humans, or for the most part ourselves. And we respect that. But these invaders must be beaten—driven out or killed. And yew—yer people will be our messengers, using yer wings, yer mindspeak, and yer tongues." He paused. "If ye will."

  Old One peered at the dwarf king with eyes like black marbles. The dwarf hadn't threatened, or even hinted at cancellation of sanctuary. Before the Old One opened his beak to reply, Finn Greatsword added something else. "I dreamed last night that the invader held us all in the palm of his hand. Actually in his hand! It was the most terrible dream I've ever had. He'd brought down sorceries upon Yuulith that even we could not withstand. Nor were yer own people spared."

  Old One harrumphed. Though his people easily made the sounds of speech, a good harrumph was an accomplishment. "Your Majesty," he said, "I will have the Lion found and notified. As for your larger request—it is in our hive mind now. I will call attention to it, and my people will decide together. What you ask goes far beyond anything we have ever contemplated. And no one of us can decide for all. We must decide together. For if even a few do what you ask, we will all be held accountable, I have no doubt."

  * * *

  In the Rude Lands, many could not read and write, and those who could, seldom had paper or pen at hand. People learned to listen and remember. And some, by nature and long experience, remembered and repeated quite accurately.

  From Duinarog, Macurdy had gone first to the royal palace at Indervars, the throne-home of Indrossa. Which was the easternmost of the River Kingdoms, the nearest to the Eastern Empire and invasion. The king, he learned, already knew of the war, of the destruction of Balralligh and the occupation of Colroi. And the massacres of their people—human as well as ylvin.

  Macurdy did not ask him to promise troops for an allied operation. He simply said he planned one. Given the horror stories the king had heard—apparently not far from the truth—he might well hesitate. The queen would work on him. She'd sat in on their talk, and she was a Sister. So all Macurdy suggested was that the king order the reserves to train evenings and Six-Days, in case they were needed to defend the kingdom.

  He also spoke with the king's lord general and his staff, discussing the principles of hit-and-run attacks by small mounted units. Units trained to fight on foot and on horseback, attacking escorted supply columns, especially in forest and at night.

  With his reputation as a war leader, they paid attention. But Macurdy left with the impression that any forces they mustered would be defensive.

  He moved on. The Sisterhood Embassy at Indervars had agreed to courier a message for Macurdy, to Wollerda in Teklapori. Wollerda would know what to do, and Jeremid could carry a copy to Asmehr, for whatever good that might accomplish. He himself mounted Vulkan and headed west for Visdrossa, and on to Kormehr, Miskmehr, and Oz.

  * * *

  Old One had quickly gotten the attention of the raven he had in mind: a venturesome male known as Blue Wing, still in his prime. Blue Wing had been the Lion's companion during much of the human's earlier years in Yuulith. Remarkably enough, Blue Wing was even then in the Great Eastern Mountains, newly returned from wandering. He'd been away since early spring, visiting first the Southern Sea. Had explored its coastal districts, then worked his way back north via the shore of the Ocean Sea. He'd seen the scavenged corpses washed up on the Scrub Coast beaches, and learned from the hive mind of the debacle in the Copper River Gorge.

  But he'd not put his attention on the long-departed Macurdy, and hadn't been aware of his return.

  The Lion, said Old One, had been reported traveling on a great boar, headed west through Visdrossa. "If you would," Old One said, "I hope you will find him and stay with him. Communicate to him and for him, be his mind-ears and far-tongue. He may be at Ferny Cove by the time you can catch him. If any of our people see him, they'll tell him you're looking for him."

  * * *

  Blue Wing agreed, but he didn't set out at once. He had a nest, so to speak. Not the pile of sticks in which he'd help raise a brood. That had long since been claimed and enlarged by a pair of young eagles. What he now thought of as home was a small ledge, little more than a niche beneath an overhang on Silver Mountain itself, a niche large enough to perch on comfortably. His people sometimes cached things they thought pretty, or interesting, or that had a personal meaning. And in that nest, covered with sand and pebbles, he'd hidden something he realized now he wanted Macurdy to have.

  He flew there at once. And in the morning, after breakfasting on the remains of a cougar kill (its owner was sleeping off his own breakfast), Blue Wing got his polished blue stone. Then he flew with it to the entrance of the king's palace, where he laid it down and asked to speak with Finn Greatsword.

  The guards had been instructed to inform the king if Old One came around, but this wasn't Old One. "What's yer business?" asked the senior guard.

  "I am carrying out an errand for your king, and I need his assistance."

  They let him in then, and with the stone in his beak, the bird rode on the arm of a page to the royal apartment. There he laid the stone on the table in front of His Majesty. "I am Blue Wing," he said, "Macurdy's companion when he was in Yuulith previously. Old One wants me to go to him, to be his mind-ears and far-tongue. And I want to take this stone to him, but I need something in which to carry it. It's awkward and burdensome to carry in my beak; it slows me. And there's always the danger of dropping and losing it."

  The king stared at the polished blue gem.

  "My people," Blue Wing went on, "have little of what yours call 'talent.' But when I saw this, I felt sure it was enchanted."

  He cocked his head, his obsidian eyes on the dwarf. "I took it from a tallfolk skeleton on the Scrub Coast beach, a skeleton so long, I suspect now it was one of the invaders'."

  Cautiously the king picked it up, and examined it by lamplight. "Yer right," he said, "it is enchanted. It's far the most powerful stone I've ever touched or seen. And it never formed in the earth, I'll tell ye that. Like the best swords, it was created by wizardry, with a spell added at every step." He looked up at Blue Wing. "Not protection spells, or curses. Something ... neutral. But very powerful." He put it down again. "Myself, I wouldn't keep it around, rare though it is. The Lion, though—he's said to have killed Lord Quaie in a contest of magicks. And to have killed a troll this very Six-Month by calling down lightning from the sky. So you may be right. It may be something he can use."

  Turning, he called toward the door, and a servant
came in. "Send Glinnuth to me. Have her bring sewing things, and some light, tough cloth. Spider silk would be right. I need a sack made, big enough for this." He gestured at the stone. "With a drawstring," he added.

  The dwarf lad scurried off. "This could," the king said, "prove good or ill. We'll let the Lion decide for himself. To me he seems a lot more lucky than unlucky."

  The comment did not reassure Blue Wing. Among his people it was a truism that those whose luck ran heavily to the good would pay for it eventually.

  * * *

  In the Rude Lands, Macurdy had been eating routinely at inns along the highway, often going unrecognized. For when he wished, he used his concealment spell lightly, leaving him visible, but easy to overlook. Meanwhile Vulkan waited or foraged invisibly outside. This allowed Macurdy to listen, instead of answering questions. Reports of the invaders had penetrated the Rude Lands, news worrisome but sparse. And in the River Kingdoms, like the Rude Lands in general, farming and herding remained the heart and backbone of their economy.

  So while the war was often talked about, the main topic of conversation was the peculiar weather. Ten-Month had arrived, and in most years, in northern Kormehr, the first freeze was still a few weeks in the future. But this year there'd been frost almost every night since before the equinox, with some hard freezes. Even the gaffers couldn't remember such a year.

  Nonetheless, tapping the Web of the World for warmth, Macurdy and Vulkan often slept out on clear nights, in a haystack, or beneath some hedge-apple row beside the road. They traveled till it was getting dark, or sometimes after, and let dawnlight waken them. Macurdy would eat breakfast at the first inn they came to—sometimes deep into morning—and a second meal toward evening, or later.

  Reason told him it would be colder, probably quite a bit colder, in the empires than in the River Kingdoms. The voitar would need to secure provisions for winter, and shelter for their army. When the ylver moved out of an area, did they burn the villages as he'd instructed them? Herd the livestock with them? Take all the food they could carry, then burn the granaries and haysheds? It could make the difference between winning and losing.

  Could the voitar draw on the Web of the World? It seemed to him such powerful sorcerers would have learned to do that, yet in their homeland they'd bundled up warmly when they went out on winter days. At least Rillissa and her father had, and their retainers. That could, of course, be a matter of form. Regardless, their human soldiers would need shelter and heat. So if the retreating ylver burned their towns, villages and farms, the invaders would have to halt their campaign soon enough to build shelters: squad huts with fireplaces, if it got as cold as seemed likely this year.

  He was depending on it, to give him time. To give the Rude Lands time. At best they'd have none too much. He'd thought seriously of buying a good horse. But Vulkan needed less care, and if he couldn't cover distance like a horse, he could nonetheless trot almost endlessly.

  On the previous evening, they'd seen a sign that said FERNY COVE 18. An hour later they'd bedded down by a haystack near the road. When the sun came up, Macurdy rose, stretched, scratched, relieved himself, then gave Vulkan a good scratch around the base of the ears. Some cattle stood off a bit, watching warily.

  «Macurdy,» Vulkan said, «carryingyou around would almost be worth it for the grooming and ear scratching.»

  "With the rivers getting so cold, maybe I should buy you a warm bath from time to time. If the innkeepers will allow it."

  «Hmm. There is a saying on Farside: 'When pigs fly...'»

  "How did you know that?"

  «Most of my human incarnations were on Farside. Including one in rural England, centuries ago, where the expression was current in the Middle English vernacular. And the memories, of course, are accessible to me. As I have told you, I am a bodhisattva.»

  Macurdy remembered the conversation when Vulkan had explained the term. Bodhisattva still didn't seem very real. As Vulkan had described it, being a bodhisattva meant he'd completed the "necessary lessons" as an incarnate human being, gotten all his karma cleaned up, and no longer had to be reborn. But he'd volunteered to come back anyway, to deal with something in Yuulith. Something they were both committed to.

  "Well—does that mean I'm a bodhisattva too?" Macurdy had asked. "I don't remember any earlier lives."

  «If you were,» Vulkan had answered, «you wouldn't need to ask. What you seem very definitely to be is the major action factor, and a bodhisattva is not eligible for that role.»

  Macurdy had felt relieved at that. He thought of himself as a human being, albeit with a strong ylvin strain through his Sisterhood ancestry. Since then he'd learned a lot, done a lot, and obviously had a lot more to do. If he lived.

  They started down the highway, Macurdy trotting to "warm up his system." That particular stretch of road had an open field on both sides, and the early sun made them easy to see from above. Certainly by great ravens, carrion birds with little sense of smell, who need to spot dead animals, usually small, and often more or less concealed by vegetation.

  "Macurdy!"

  The call was faint—from some two hundred yards behind them, and as far above. A great raven's throaty "Grrrok!" can be heard much farther, but speech with beak and tongue is less loud. Macurdy stopped in his tracks, dumbfounded. He knew that voice; knew who it had to be. Turning, he shaded his eyes with a hand.

  "Macurdy!" the voice repeated.

  "Blue Wing!"

  Watching the great black bird swoop down, Macurdy felt almost like a boy again. He put his arm out, and Blue Wing landed on it. Large though he appeared, so much of the great raven was feathers and slender hollow bones that he weighed barely seven pounds.

  "It's good to see you again, my friend," the bird said. "You look unchanged." He turned his gaze to Vulkan. "You said he would probably come back. But when I heard nothing more of him over the years..." He shrugged his feathered shoulders.

  «I see you carry sorcery on your shank,» Vulkan remarked.

  "Indeed. It is something I brought for Macurdy. A gift. I also bring other things, services." He turned to the human. "Offered at the suggestion of Finn Greatsword, and approved by my people."

  They proceeded down the road, Macurdy riding now, Blue Wing perched in front of him on Vulkan's massive neck. The bird began by describing Finn Greatswords request. "Then," he said, "before I left, my people held a conclave in the hive mind. And agreed almost unanimously that we may serve as communicators—your mind-ears and far-tongues." He paused. "It is, of course, out of character for us, but we know what the invaders are like. It's recorded. Not the capture of the ylvin cities. None of us observed their fall; we rarely visit them. But one of my people witnessed atrocities committed on farmfolk, and another the torture and butchery of a band of refugees that was overtaken. A dwarvish trade mission witnessed the savaging of Colroi. The deeds were carried out largely by humans, but their commanders were the aliens."

  "The Voitusotar," Macurdy said. "That's what they call themselves."

  "We are aware of that," Blue Wing said, "as the dwarves are. It was a dead voitu who unwittingly provided the gift I've brought. The gift whose ensorcelment friend Vulkan noted despite the bag." He touched the object tied to his leg. "I'll be glad to be free of it. It's a nuisance to carry." His bright black eyes fixed Macurdy's."If you would remove it..."

  Carefully Macurdy cut the knot, removed the bag and took out the stone. "My gawd," he breathed, "its beautiful."

  Vulkan didn't even try to look back. He'd seen what was most important about it when it was still in the bag on Blue Wing's leg. «Beautiful?» he said. «What else do you see about it?»

  Macurdy blinked. Looking again, he saw what he'd somehow missed at first glance. "Huh! It's got an aura!"

  «I'm not sure the term aura applies in this case. It does, however, have a complex energy field. I suspect a different spell was laid on it at every stage of its creation.»

  Blue Wing blinked. "Remarkable! That's what Finn Gre
atsword said when he saw it. Also that it wasn't a protective spell, or a curse. Neutral, he called it, and very powerful. He also said he wouldn't want to have it around."

  Macurdy frowned. "Is it all right for me to carry then?"

  It was Vulkan who answered. «I doubt it will harm you. In fact, I suspect when you have carried it awhile, it will—become quiescent, 'get used to you,' let us say. More quickly, I believe, if you carry it in your shirt pocket, near the heart chakra.»

  "Maybe you should carry it," Macurdy suggested.

  «In a manner of speaking, I am.»

  "I mean..." Macurdy paused. What do I mean? he wondered. "What good will it do us?"

  «I do not know. But I suspect it will prove useful. Importantly so. Certainly it did not arrive in your care by sheer chance. If one of us detects anything amiss with it, anything threatening, that will be the time to consider—consider disposing of it.»