Richard Byers - The Reaver

Despite the absence of blue fire shrouding its mane and its smaller stature, the creature seemed equally impressive, although now in a majestic rather than menacing fashion. Umara almost felt like bowing to it, and when it spoke, she wasn’t surprised.

“I apologize,” the lion rumbled. “I wasn’t in control of my actions. Until the Chosen put it out, the pain of the Blue Fire maddened and diminished me. But I am sorry and shamed nonetheless, for the harm to humans and my own children, too. I can only seek to make amends. I’ve already commanded the other lions to stop fighting and run away. Now, I’m willing to use my powers to heal or fortify any in need of it, starting with you, Lathander’s cub.”

Anton raised his saber a hair, evidently to remind the lion he was standing armed and ready. “How kind. But I’d prefer you leave the boy alone.”

“It’s all right now,” Stedd repeated. He tried to stand, then seemingly decided the effort was too much for him and settled for sitting with his back against the flaking bark of the nearest blighted tree.

Umara touched Anton on the forearm to ask him to rein in his belligerence, at least temporarily. To the lion, she said, “Who are you?”

“Nobanion,” the beast replied, “or, if you prefer, Lord Firemane.”

He grunted. “Although that name feels like mockery now.”

Anton cocked his head. “The lion lord of the forest? That’s just an old story.”

“Your great-great-grandsires knew differently,” Nobanion said. “But then the world burned, and while I sought to protect a pride of my folk, a wave of blue fire swept over me. It left me as you first saw me, perpetually in anguish. Vicious and deranged.” He turned his golden gaze on Stedd. “Until you cleansed me, and all this corrupted earth as well.”

“It’s time for the Blue Fire to go away,” said Stedd, looking embarrassed by the creature’s gratitude. “Otherwise, I couldn’t have done it.”

“You may have been insane,” Umara said, lowering her wand to her side, “but it wasn’t just delirium that made you attack us.”

“No,” Nobanion said. “In my time, I fought often against the Black-Blooded Pard and so won his hatred. Then the Lady of Mysteries died, and in the tumult that followed, he and I both suffered misfortune, but I fell farther. My agony enabled him to take revenge on me by subverting my will and enslaving me.”

Anton smiled a crooked smile. “You’re talking about Malar. Splendid. I’ve been thinking that a single divine enemy scarcely seems like enough.”

“My hunch,” Umara said, “is that the Beastlord is acting in Umberlee’s stead now that we’re away from the sea. From what I understand, they’re both powers of savagery and destruction.”

“Well,” Nobanion growled, “he won’t do it anymore, not now that you’ve restored me to myself. Not as long as you walk in my place of power.”

“You’ll protect us?” Umara asked.

“Of course,” the lion answered

“Thank you,” said Stedd, “truly. But we need even more.”

“If it’s within my power,” Nobanion said, “you’ll have it.”

“We have to get to Turmish,” said the boy, “and we aren’t traveling fast enough.”

“That can be remedied. Now, may I share my strength with you? There are men suffering beside your fires for want of the healing you and I can give them.”

Umara looked to Anton. He shrugged and stepped out of Nobanion’s way, although she noticed he didn’t sheathe his swords. She came to stand beside him.

The lion lord lowered his head and licked Stedd with a tongue big enough to cover his whole head. Apparently, it tickled; the boy laughed and squirmed.

As she and Anton looked on, Umara murmured, “Surely, our new friend is at least semi-divine. If he can regain his former estate, that’s a little more reason to believe Lathander actually has returned.”

Anton smiled. “Belief is a wonderful thing. Or at least that’s what people tell me.”

Stedd had taken to riding on Nobanion’s back with as little fuss as he might once have ridden the farm donkey or plow horse. Anton watched him bend down, hug the lion spirit’s neck, and almost bury himself in the shaggy mane to avoid bumping his head on a branch.

It was remarkable how infrequently the boy had to do that. With Nobanion for a traveling companion, Gulthandor was a more welcoming place. Game trails wound through spaces where the trees grew farther apart, brambles didn’t clog every pathway, and the ground, though not dry, didn’t threaten to suck a man’s boots off with every labored step. No doubt the lion spirit knew the best ways to traverse his own domain, but Anton suspected there was more to it than that. It was like the forest changed to reflect its monarch’s desires.

If so, perhaps that explained the travelers’ speed, not that mortal senses revealed any trace of it. Content to let Nobanion guide them, the wayfarers seemed to be hiking in a more leisurely manner than hitherto. Yet the spirit assured them they were actually crossing the forest as fast as riders on horseback might cross a plain.

Anton enjoyed the ease and peace of the trek. It was comparable to chasing Kymas’s galley with Umara when, despite the various discomforts of life aboard Falrinn’s sailboat, he’d once or twice caught himself wishing the journey could take longer.

But that interlude had ended when it ended, with life’s usual lack of regard for anyone’s wishes, and this one would, too. He told himself he’d be better off when it did.

Walking beside him, the hair on her scalp grown out to fuzz, Umara gave him a quizzical frown, and he realized he’d been tramping along in silence for a while. He tried to think of something to say, something that would mask the actual trend of his reflections, and then Nobanion came to a halt and lowered himself onto his belly, as was his habit when Stedd needed to climb on or off.

“This is as far as I go,” the lion said.

“Already?” asked Stedd. Perhaps, his sense of urgency notwithstanding, he too had been enjoying the easy traveling.

“Yes,” Nobanion said. “After a century of neglect, I have to tend to the needs of the prides and the forest as a whole. And my part in your undertaking is done. You’ll see that, I believe, if you don’t allow the sadness of parting to cloud your vision.”

The boy sighed. “I guess I do.” He ruffled his fingers through the spirit’s mane as he might have petted a shaggy dog, then clambered down onto the ground.

The Thayan mariners regarded Nobanion with a touch of the same regret. That too was remarkable when Anton thought about it. They were hard men who in large measure justified their homeland’s grim reputation, and mere days before, the lion spirit had led the attack that killed several of their fellows. Yet in the time since, his air of nobility had won them over. Or perhaps Stedd’s steadfast eagerness to forgive and see goodness in everyone had inspired them to do the same.

Fools, the lot of them, Anton thought, and then Nobanion turned toward him and Umara.

“Stedd needs the help of everyone here,” the lion rumbled. “But you two have known him longest and best. You, he needs most of all.”

“Needs to do what?” Anton replied. “Do you know?”

Nobanion grunted. “No. But I have no doubt it truly is a charge laid on him by the Morninglord, and vitally important.”

“Well,” Anton said, “I’ve put up with the brat this far.” He gave Stedd a wink. “I suppose I can tolerate him for a few miles farther.”

“I already pledged to help him,” Umara said, a bit of Red Wizard hauteur showing through even though she addressed a demigod, or something not far short of one.