John Dalmas - Lion Of Farside - 03 - The Lion Returns by John Dalmas

Author:John Dalmas [Dalmas, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-04-13T13:20:42+00:00

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26

The Willing and The Unwilling

Ť ^ ť

The late summer evening was cool, hazy, and autumnal, and Macurdy was on foot, giving Vulkan a half-hour break, more or less.

Something he did several times a day. He'd decided to get in better shape, and had taken to trotting instead of walking during the breaks. This was good farmland, somewhat more cleared than wooded. And as much improved as roads had been in the river kingdoms, in the Marches they were better. Certainly the Imperial Highway was. It even had reliable and fairly frequent mileage signs. The last had read BLACK GUM 2, and Macurdy and Vulkan had decided to spend the night there.

To the west, across a pasture, was a sunset that reminded Macurdy of murky red sunsets he'd seen in Oregon, in the '30s. There'd been a series of them lately. He slowed to a walk. "That's quite a sky," he said. "I'd think it was forest fires somewhere, but if it was, we'd smell smoke." He laughed. "There are people who'd take skies like that for an omen."

ŤAs it may be.ť

"People will make it out one, that's for sure. And afterward choose something that happened, and say that proves it."

ŤTrue.ť

"Got a candidate?"

ŤThe cause of these vivid sunsets is a natural event that will affect many vectors more or less importantly.ť

Vulkan's bland certainty took Macurdy's interest. "Really? What else do you know about it?"

Vulkan gazed westward, and he didn't answer for half a minute. ŤWeather will be the mechanism,ť he said at last. ŤDefinitely the weather. Over an extended period.ť

Macurdy looked at that without responding. Floods, he wondered? Blizzards? Heat waves? He'd know in good time, he supposed.

They arrived at the village of Black Gum, and stopped at its crossroads inn. Word had already arrived that they were on the highway headed north, and the stableman wasn't spooked in the least to see a man ride up on a great boar. He was, though, ill at ease about being left alone with it. "I'll send out a roast for him," Macurdy told the man. "He outeats me twenty to one."

ŤAn exaggeration,ť Vulkan replied, making the thought perceptible to the stableman. ŤTen to one would be more accurate.ť

The man blinked in surprise.

Macurdy went into the inn and ordered supper—roast beef, a large roast potato, boiled cabbage, a quarter-loaf of dark bread with butter and honey, and a mug of buttermilk. And an uncooked pork shoulder for Vulkan, which a pot boy took warily out to him.

Only after he'd ordered did Macurdy pay any attention to the conversation in the taproom. It involved some half dozen men—all who were there except for himself and the innkeeper. One man had the information; the others provided questions and interest.

The sentence that snagged Macurdy's attention was: "What do they look like, these voita somethings?"

"Too tall to go through doors without ducking. Red hair, great long ears like a goat And they're sorcerers. That's the main thing."

My God! Macurdy thought. It's happened!

"Ears like a goat? Not likely," another man said.

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