John Dalmas - The Lion Returns

Macurdy signaled the barkeeper, then looked Zassfel up and down. "You don't look so bad, for someone that lives hard. I'll bet there's not many guys pick fights with you. What do you do these days?"

"Damn right they don't. One thing I've kept is my strength. I got a wagon and team. I haul stuff. Whatever anyone wants hauled, I load and haul it. And I'm not doing bad. I even got me a slave, a pretty good screw. She's home with the kids."

The two men stayed in the tavern till late, mostly trading off buying. Macurdy used the spell he'd concocted, based on one of Arbel's, to metabolize the alcohol as fast as he absorbed it. A spell he'd used in the army during World War II, to let him drink with his buddies without getting drunk.

Zassfel asked to see Macurdy's scars from the war on Farside, and Macurdy dropped his pants to show him. That got the attention of the tavern's patrons, who gathered around to see. The truth would have been incomprehensible to them, so Macurdy answered creatively. "You've got to watch out for those war dogs," he explained, and patted his scarred buttocks, torn by mortar shell fragments on Sicily. "You get busy with people in front of you, they'll hit you from behind."

It was the long surgical scars on his right leg that impressed the audience most, though. "Bhroig's balls, Macurdy!" Zassfel said. "I never seen scars like those before! What happened?"

Again Macurdy answered creatively. "I got knocked out of my saddle, and trampled by horses. A Farside shaman cut my leg open and put the bones together again."

Zassfel nodded thoughtfully, his eyes on Macurdy's groin. "And that's a real club you've got there. The party girls would have loved it." He paused, thinking, his lips pursed. "But you got the best of it. You got the spear maiden."

Zassfel had a large capacity for booze, but after a time he fell down on his way to the latrine out back. Macurdy helped him up, and Zassfel relieved his bladder in the weeds. He wasn't the first. It smelled of urine and vomit there.

"I'm drunk," he slurred. "Don' usually get this bad. Gotta get up early. Big job t'do, take all day." He laughed. "One thing 'bout me, never hung over." He patted his thick belly. "There's muscle behin' this. Drink all night, an' outwork anyone the nex' day."

Steadying himself, he thrust out a hand. "Shake, ol' buddy," he said. "Le's see how strong you are."

They gripped, Macurdy careful not to squeeze too hard. "That's a hell of a grip you've got, Zassfel," he said. "There's damn few I can't grip down."

Zassfel smirked. "Damn right. Same here." He paused, peering at Macurdy. "You know what?" he said.

"No. What?"

"You're all right, Macurdy. Damn if you aren't! I didn' give you credit before. 'Member that jaguar we treed…?"

After another drink, they left the tavern together, Zassfel weaving along, singing bawdy songs off-key. It wasn't far to his house. When they got there, his wife had put the kids to bed. She'd been pretty once, Macurdy realized, probably one of the party girls brought to the House of Heroes on Six-Day evenings. She'd gotten somewhat hefty over the years, but bore no overt signs of abuse.

"Macurdy," Zassfel said, "this is Kleffi. She's a good woman and a good hump. You wanna try her, iss okay." He paused. "Or not. Thass okay too. I 'member how you never humped the party girls."

"You're right," Macurdy said, "I never did. That's an old custom among some people. They just hump their wives."

Zassfel nodded sagely. "Differn' people got differn' ways. Thass a fack." He paused. "You sure you don' wanna hump her?"

Macurdy nodded soberly. "I know she's good. I can tell those things. But for me, it wouldn't be all right to."

Zassfel peered at him, simultaneously earnest and vague, then reached for Macurdy's hand. This time it didn't turn into a gripdown. Instead the ex-sergeant stood silent, Macurdy's big paw grasped in his own. "You're all right, Macurdy," he repeated after a long moment, the words quiet. "You're all right… You're all right…" He paused, then gave the hand a weak squeeze, a slight shake, as if the evening had suddenly caught up with him. "You're all right," he said.

Then he let go. Macurdy clapped the Ozman's big shoulder and left.

He returned to the tavern for Piglet, then hired a bed in an inn. Afterward he took Piglet to a livery stable across the street, let him drink all he wanted, and saw that he had hay and oats. He brushed and rubbed him down himself. Then, in his room, he wove an insect repellent field about himself, and went to bed.

He did not sleep at once. Instead he reviewed his evening with Zassfel. And realized how good he felt about it. It had been healing for both of them, and it seemed to Macurdy that it marked a turning point in his life.

12 Vulkan

The next morning, Macurdy paid a courtesy call on the Chief of the Oz, and managed to be on his way again before midday. He wouldn't worry about Vulkan finding him. He'd found him before, without even knowing who, exactly, he was looking for. Presumably he'd find him again, if he was still interested. Meanwhile, Macurdy would cross the Great Muddy, ride southeast to the Green River Valley, and thence to the royal palace at Teklapori. Except for Arbel-and Varia, he hoped, and maybe Omara-his best human friends in Yuulith were in Tekalos. Pavo Wollerda was king there, or had been when Macurdy had left, and Jeremid had a farm in the Kullvordi Hills.

The route was familiar, and lovely in advanced spring. On the third day he rode a ferry raft across the Great Muddy into the kingdom of Miskmehr, rich in forested hills and valley farms, though not in money. The Miskmehri had provided two cohorts of tough, self-reliant infantry to fight the ylver in Quaie's War. Earlier, during Quaie's Incursion, only an unprotected border had separated them from the savage fate of Kormehr, and the memory had still been fresh.

Meanwhile, the weather had changed from showery to bright, cool at night, warm by day. Drawing on the Web of the World for nighttime warmth, Macurdy found it simpler and more pleasant to sleep beneath the forest canopy or open sky, than in an inn or some farmer's barn. Metabolic energy in general he could draw from the Web, thus even eating was less urgent than it would otherwise have been. Though his stomach complained when he didn't. For vitamins, minerals, proteins, he stopped at farms along the way, buying cheese, scrawny chickens, overwintered vegetables and wizened apples. And ate the mild forest leeks abundant in that season, until the smell of him could have repelled barn flies at twenty feet.

In time, the winding dirt road he'd been riding reached the wider, straighter dirt road known as the Valley Highway. At the junction, the brush-tangled forest blowdown where he'd earned the friendship of the dwarves, and the enmity of Slaney's brigands, was thick young forest now, fifty feet tall.

It was there he was halted by a voice he knew well, deep and resonating within his skull. ‹Aha! Macurdy! I knew I'd meet you soon.›

It was thought, not words that reached him. About forty yards ahead, a great boar trotted from the forest. In size, it suggested an Angus bull, though the large head and tusks, the high shoulders, the deep narrow body that tapered toward the hindquarters, all were strictly wild hog. Piglet began to prance skittishly, and Macurdy reined him in, while patting the arching neck. "Whoa, boy, easy now, easy…" Then a wordless calm washed over them both, intended for Piglet, who quickly settled down.

"Vulkan!" Macurdy called, "I figured you'd find me! When did you know I was back?"

The boar trotted casually toward them, stopping half a dozen yards away when Piglet shifted restlessly again. There was black muck on the tusked snout, as if it had been rooting up skunk cabbages. And suddenly Macurdy was unsure whom he faced, for this creature had red eyes.