John Dalmas - The Lion Returns

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."