John Dalmas - The Lion Returns

"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 Greatsword 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.›

As if by agreement, they dropped the subject. Macurdy asked Blue Wing how he'd gotten the stone. Blue Wing then described the events at Copper River, as told by Finn Greatsword on the one hand, and on the other, recorded in the hive mind of the great ravens. It relieved Macurdy to hear it; it made the voitik threat seem less severe. And when Blue Wing had finished telling it, Macurdy said as much.

‹Less severe perhaps,› said Vulkan, ‹but still extremely dangerous.›

Macurdy spent three days at Ferny Cove. Along with the Ozmen, the Kormehri had been his most effective troops in the Quaie War, and they'd been more numerous. They'd be good again, he had no doubt.

The first day he spent with King Arliss, describing what he knew of the Voitusotar, and of the war so far. On the other two days, and evenings, he spent most of the time in a hall with Arliss, his ranking officers, and Arliss's entire elite guard company. There they discussed the principles of guerrilla raids, even imagining possible circumstances, and what might be appropriate in them.

From time to time, Macurdy took questions from the ranks. He warned them not to take their imaginary scripts as more than mental exercises-against scripting an action in advance, when one didn't know the actual on-site circumstances. Let alone the choices and events that might occur within them. "Stay light on your feet," he said. "Ready to adjust, and take advantage of opportunities that come up. And always keep the goals in mind: to disrupt their supplies, kill their men and horses, and wreck their morale."

Vulkan and Blue Wing sat in on those sessions, which made an impression on both the troops and the officers. The troops and officers in turn impressed the three visitors.

Macurdy told them about the monsters and the panic waves. He also told them he doubted they'd have to face any. If they did, he said, they could break off contact, ride for the woods and reassemble.

They were not afraid, only grim. It seemed to him their fearlessness grew mainly from a sense of tribal superiority.

If voitik sorcery was sufficiently adaptive to use against raiders, it seemed to him that fearlessness would not survive. And that breaking contact, and riding for the woods, would fail as a tactic. He worried that the monsters would prove intelligent. Clearly they knew enough to flail their chain whips. Felstroin had said they hadn't begun to flail till they reached the docks. Then they'd seemed to strike at targets.

Macurdy didn't voice those thoughts though. It would attach too much of their attention, to no good purpose.

Nor did he mention the ravens as Yuulith's version of radio communication between forces. He hadn't had time to give it much thought. He did, however, set Arliss up for it. He told him to be ready in case another great raven came to see him. "He may stay with you for a while," Macurdy added. "We can consult with each other through them."

Arliss whistled silently, as if seeing the potential.

When his officers and men had gone to their quarters for the night, the king left the building with his guests. "There's more to the three of you traveling together than meets the eye," he said thoughtfully.

It was Vulkan who replied. ‹The three of us constitute a team. Each has powers the others do not, or has certain powers more strongly. The combination makes us far more able than any of us could be singly. But the Lion is the center, the keystone. The decisions must be his.›

Then Macurdy walked Vulkan and Blue Wing to the stable. Blue Wing flew to the top of a large spreading white oak for the night. Macurdy groomed Vulkan for a quarter of an hour, drawing an occasional aaah of pleasure.

"About me as the keystone," Macurdy said. "Each of us is the keystone. We're like a three-legged stool: no leg more important than the others."

‹A flawed analogy,› Vulkan replied. ‹Your task would be much more difficult without us, and the odds of success much poorer. But still you would have a chance. A small chance. And you are the only one who would. As I said previously, my role cannot be as warrior. Nor can Blue Wing's. Only you can destroy the enemy's heart and brain. Which I believe is what it will take.

‹But do not be overawed by the size and difficulty of the task. Remember Schloss Tannenberg and the Bavarian Gate. You carried that off. It is reasonable to hope you might carry this one off as well.›

Reasonable to hope. Might. Not all that reassuring, Macurdy told himself, but maybe it'll keep my feet on the ground and my head out of my butt.

Vulkan knew Macurdy's thoughts, but kept his own private. Indeed, my friend. By your own telling, you are given to episodes of total disheartenment. Perhaps a little inoculation in advance, along with the medicine of honest praise, will strengthen you against them.

30 Sisters! Guardsmen! Tigers!

"My name's Macurdy. I've come to see Sergeant Koslovi Rillor." Macurdy handed the young red-haired woman the letter from Queen Raev of Miskmehr, another Sister. "But the ambassadress," he added, "needs to see this first."

This Sister really was young; he could tell by her aura. She glanced at the letter, sealed with wax and marked with the queen's signet. Then she looked again at Macurdy, got to her feet, gracefully of course, and disappeared into a hallway.

Macurdy looked the room over. By Rude Lands standards its furnishings were rich but not extravagant. Anything more would have been undiplomatic in Miskmehr, which was picturesque but poor. Even the building was small for an embassy, as was its staff-four Sisters and a single squad of Guardsmen. With no more foreign trade and connections than Miskmehr had, even that was only marginally economical. Or so the queen had said. A small Outland crafthouse was the largest export manufactory in the kingdom, weaving handsome carpets from Miskmehri wool. The Cloister planned to build another crafthouse there the next year, to make stoves. Reportedly, the royal residence and the embassy had the only stoves in the kingdom. Everything else had fireplaces. And the Great Muddy was only a dozen miles west down the Maple River, a highway for export.