John Dalmas - The Lion Returns

In summer he'd learn how to farm in the north, and she would teach him sailing. They'd explore the shoreline, visiting the occasional fishing hamlets, and their people. Take him to Cyncaidh Harbor, and the best inn in the empire. They had twenty-five years, more or less, before decline hit her.

Meanwhile he began training her to draw on the Web of the World.

Like Varia, Macurdy had thought about the future, though not in such detail. This in connection with revisiting the past, remembering their brief married life on Farside. They could hardly go back. They'd changed too much, and this was where their children were. But this time they'd complete their lives together.

As they traveled, Vulkan spoke almost not at all. On their fourth night, as they lay in their tent, on and under ylvin furs, Varia commented on it in English. "His aura doesn't indicate unhappiness. It's as if he was meditating, with his body running on its own. Is he often like this?"

"Never for days on end before. When we first met, before I went back to Farside, he was almost talkative. He's told me since, he was excited to find me. He knew right away, he said, that I was his 'mission companion.' He's told me since that we were sent to Yuulith on the same mission." He paused, reflecting. "It seemed to me like a strange thing to say, seeing as how he came here a couple hundred years before I did. Besides, I knew why I'd come to Farside the first time: to get you, and take you home. Although when I was getting ready to leave, I did suppose I'd come back. I even wondered why."

Again he paused, this time longer. "And when I finally did, I knew he'd find me. At first he talked quite a lot again, telling me stuff he wanted me to know or think about. And asking questions, probably more for the things they brought to the surface than for my answers.

"He's never been big on idle conversation though. He's gone for hours sometimes without paying me any attention at all. I got the feeling he didn't want his thoughts interrupted."

She nodded. That was the feeling she'd gotten.

"And what you said about his body running on its own- He told me once that he can meditate while walking. He tells his body what he wants it to do, and then pretty much disconnects. Maybe goes off somewhere mentally, though I suppose he leaves some part of himself in touch. To pop him back if he's needed."

Again Macurdy reflected. "But this time… Might be he's getting ready to leave, now the war's over. Maybe I'll ask him tomorrow."

He didn't though. It seemed to him Vulkan would tell him when he was ready to.

Meanwhile the giant boar had hardly eaten since they'd left Colroi. He'd drawn energy from the Web of the World, and for other nutrients depended largely on reserves. Twice, when they came to an orchard, he'd paused to paw and root for frozen, windfallen apples, Macurdy and Varia helping, digging with mittened hands. That was all the food he'd had. He'd declined to share theirs, or the horses' corn, saying they didn't have any to spare. The supply situation at Colroi had not been good, and Macurdy had declined to take an inordinate share.

So when they reached the forested hills in the south, Blue Wing kept an eye out for game. The first day, he reported a small band of elk pawing for grass in a meadow. Macurdy stalked within bowshot of them, and hit a bull. The band fled into the forest, Vulkan following at a leisurely pace. The elk were in poor shape, and the one Macurdy had hit was now lung-shot. Not being pressed, it soon lay down to rest. When Vulkan arrived, it was barely able to get up. He knocked it back down and killed it with his tusks.

Macurdy skinned the bull, then sliced out some loin cuts for himself and Varia, while Varia made camp. They rested there throughout the day, while Vulkan, with the help of Blue Wing and assorted smaller birds, fed on the carcass.

After his initial feeding, Vulkan volunteered what he'd been doing these several preoccupied days: monitoring another great boar. Communication between them was not, he said, attenuated by distance. It didn't cross physical distance.

"Wait a minute," Macurdy said frowning. "Where is this other boar?"

‹In Hithmearc.›

"Hithmearc?"

‹Strictly speaking, it was initially well east of Hithmearc, but on the same continent. The region is savanna-in German you'd say Waldsteppe -grassland with scattered woods and groves, and woodlands along the rivers. The tribes there hunt, raise foodstuffs on small plots, and occasionally raid one another.

‹They are animists, and regard my, um, kinsman as a deity. His experience and mode of life have been quite different than mine.› He paused. ‹While we were at Colroi, I asked him to find out if the voitar in Hithmearc had been affected by the event at Kurqosz's headquarters.

‹At the time, however, my kinsman was far away from the voitar, and the winter there has also been severe. Nonetheless, he agreed. So he's been traveling, and I with him, experiencing that part of the world.›

Again Vulkan paused, a pause which Macurdy realized was meaningful. ‹Today,› the boar finished, ‹we-he and I-finally encountered something pertaining to my question: report of a plague having swept the Voitusotar. And of hithik uprisings against the survivors. The "plague" must be severe, or the hithar would not have dared.›

The next morning, Macurdy cut off some of the remaining frozen meat and put it in an empty corn sack for Blue Wing. Then they headed south again. A day and a half later they left the Eastern Empire, crossing the Pomatik River on the ice. There was a road along the south shore, and it soon brought them to a small village. They didn't stop there, but rode on west. Shortly after dark they reached a town-Big Fork-where a major tributary entered the Pomatik from the south. Another road ran south along the tributary, and at the junction stood a large, prosperous-looking inn. With a sign reading BATHS.

The stableman accepted the horses, but wanted nothing to do with Vulkan. He realized who Macurdy must be, and who Vulkan was, but he was adamant. Macurdy offered to stable the boar himself, feed and curry him, but the man wouldn't budge. He would not have the giant boar in his stable.

So Macurdy went in and described the problem to the innkeeper, who went out and reminded the stableman in no uncertain terms that it wasn't his stable, but the innkeeper's. Still the man shook his head. He'd quit, he said, if the boar was stabled there. Which would require the innkeeper to find another stableman at once, at night.

Macurdy defused the situation. "Is there another stable in town?" he asked.

There was, at the west end. "Well then," he said, "I'll take him there." Macurdy and Varia rode there with Vulkan, who was accepted willingly if warily by the owner-operator. Before Macurdy left, he had the man's promise to groom the boar.

At the inn, Macurdy bought a string bag of chicken entrails and organs for Blue Wing, the great raven's special order. Spreading his big wings, the bird transferred the foodstuff to the roof, to eat them in the lee of a broad, warm brick chimney. It was, he told Macurdy, where he would spend the night.

While paying for a room, Macurdy asked about the baths. "My big bath's dry," the innkeeper said, "and not near enough hot water to fill it. If I'd known you were coming… There's folks would've come to join you in it, ask questions and hear about the war. But I've got three small baths, and enough hot water for one of them." He shrugged. "Not much good for sharing news or gossip-won't hold more than four people-but it's costly to keep water hot in winter. And this winter there's been little traffic, plus what there is don't have much money." He paused thoughtfully. "We heard, a few days back, that the war's over, and it was you that won it. So for you I'll fill one of them free."