The Lion Returns f-3

by John Dalmas

  Omara was on her feet when they entered. Entered respectfully, for she was the Dynast's deputy, and despite her youthful appearance, probably fifty years old or more. While they were nineteen, second-year ranks in the Guards.

  Omara looked them over thoroughly. They were as tall as their father, and athletic looking. Within a few years they might approach him in muscle. Their hair was as red as their mother's, and their skin, from the drill field, the same unlikely tan. Their eyes were hazel green. "Sit," she said, indicating two chairs. They sat.

  "You know your lineage," she told them. "Strong lineage, very strong. Able. The Dynast hopes for comparable qualities in you, and has decided you should have Outland experience. You are to leave at dawn tomorrow, and travel to Miskmehr for assignments in the embassy there."

  The youths watched, their features controlled but their heart rates speeded. Omara took two sheets of paper from her desk, two lists, and gave them to the youths. "Here is the clothing and gear to take with you. Someday, not too distant, you may be carrying out missions for the Dynast herself. Some will be secret. Some will be urgent. So I am treating this trip as a trial and a drill, to see how you do. Do not disgrace yourselves.

  "I want you there as quickly as possible without killing your horses. You will have remounts, and travel with an experienced sergeant who knows the route. He will meet you in the vestibule of your barracks no later than first dawn. First dawn. Be there, ready. Do not keep him waiting.

  "On your way to your barracks, you will stop at supply and pick up two bundles containing clothing suitable to Rude Lands travelers.

  "Say nothing of this to anyone. Not your platoon leader, not your sergeant, not anyone. I will be checking. If I discover you have broken secrecy, it will earn you a reprimand, and go into your records."

  She paused, looking them up and down again. "If you have any questions or uncertainties, say so now… No? Good. You are dismissed."

  When they had gone, Omara called in her page. "Lolana," she said, "go to the Guards duty office and tell them- quietly! -that I want to see Sergeant Veskabren Arva in the Rose Garden, at once. At once! But do not run. Do not draw attention to yourself. Do you understand?"

  The girl nodded. "Yes ma'am," she said, then saluted and left.

  ***

  In her office, Idri did not sit down. She paced. She needed to make decisions and necessary arrangements, and that required a plan. Think! she told herself. How will Omara handle her part in this? In the Sisterhood, males were little educated. And the twins would be-how old? Surely less than twenty years, and untraveled. Little traveled at best. Omara wouldn't send them galloping off by themselves. Who would she send with them? A Guardsman, of course, who'd been attached to the embassy in Duinarog, and was familiar with the route.

  Her basic plan sprang full grown into her mind. A Guardsman attached to the embassy in Duinarog! I have, Idri told herself, the perfect substitute. It seemed a marvelous omen, and with Rillor she could terminate the risk irrevocably.

  Abruptly she stepped to her door. "Jaloon," she said to her aide, "come in here. I want you to arrange something for me. Unobtrusively."

  ***

  Idri looked over the information Jaloon had gotten for her. Omara had listed the twins in the travel book as going to the embassy in Miskmehr. So. They were indeed scheduled Outland. Miskmehr had to be a false destination, the cover story. A Guards senior sergeant named Veskabren Arva was also listed as going to Miskmehr; hardly a coincidence.

  They would probably leave at dawn. That was customary for long trips. Now she had arrangements to make with Rillor and Skalvok.

  ***

  Idri didn't have Koslovi Rillor come to her office. A Guards officer coming into this corridor might well be noticed. And would look odd, for she rarely had official business with the Guards. Instead she met him at the stable, where she was having her mare saddled. She rode at least twice a week, to stay in shape for travel, and because she liked to ride.

  They did not speak, but rode separately out the Cloister's open south gate, about a hundred yards apart. The well-beaten bridle trail skirted the mountain stream above the Cloister. Soon the trail entered the forest. When she reached the junction with a side trail, she stopped her mare, and waited till she saw Rillor again. Then she rode out of sight up the side trail, and stopping, dismounted.

  A minute later he stood in front of her. He did not reach, however. They were lovers, but on her terms, not his.

  Captain Koslovi Rillor was burly, hard-bodied, and well endowed-the physical type that most stimulated her.

  "I have a vitally important mission for you," she said. "If done properly, it will remove my single major rival for the Dynast's throne. Our single major rival." She didn't see auras, but she read faces. It was clear he understood. "Do you know a Guards senior sergeant named Arva?" she asked. "Veskabren Arva?"

  "Right. We overlapped at the embassy in Duinarog for a couple years. When he was there; he pulled courier duty a lot."

  That explains why Omara chose him, Idri told herself. It also gets rid of any doubt about where Varia's brats are being sent. "Ah!" she said. "Look, sweet pole, this evening I'll leave my garden door unlatched. When it's dark, come and see me. I'll have your mission instructions for you then; you'll be leaving the Cloister at dawn."

  Rillor raised his eyebrows. "Mission instructions? Is that all you'll have for me? It's been too long."

  Idri chuckled. "It's never too long. The longer the better."

  He took a short step toward her, but she pressed him away. "This evening," she repeated. "Right now I need to get back. I have further arrangements to make."

  They rode back separately, Rillor fantasizing the evening to come. Idri, however, was thinking about another captain-a Tiger captain. As far as she'd seen, Tigers had no scruples or reluctance about killing. They weren't even interested in the reasons. All they wanted was orders.

  What they lacked was finesse, and not only in bed. Rillor was definitely the one for his role in this.

  ***

  Before first dawn, Sergeant Arva quietly shut the door of his barracks behind him and looked eastward. He had an excellent mental clock, and much preferred being early to being late. There were no street lamps, nor any sign of dawn, only a slender crescent moon, still somewhat short of the meridian. Slinging his bag over a shoulder, he started toward the street.

  Arva never heard the man step from behind an ornamental hedge, never heard the blackjack descend. He didn't even bleed, except slightly from ears and nose. His murderer dragged him behind some shrubbery, and quickly but systematically searched Arva's pockets, shirt front, and shoulder bag. Finding a large sealed envelope, he stuck it in his own shirt, then squatted beside his victim to wait.

  Moments later a team and coach approached. Shouldering the corpse, the killer strode into the dark street. The coach slowed for him but did not stop. As it rolled by, he pulled its door open, heaved the body inside, then got in himself and pulled the door closed. The coach stopped a couple of hundred yards farther on, where tulip trees darkened the street even more. There the killer transferred the body to the coach's luggage boot, covering it with a tarp. That accomplished, he climbed to the driver's seat and showed him the envelope.

  "Take me to Guards Barracks A, and hurry," he said. "I need to be waiting across the street before this Rillor gets there. And give him what I found on the carcass." He thumbed toward the back of the coach.

  The driver grunted assent, and turned left at the next corner. Deliver the envelope, he rehearsed mentally, then out the north gate and north a mile, across the line into Asmehr. Deliver the body to the guy waiting with a rubbish wagon. Then back here and return the coach before the stars have faded.

  He grinned. Nothing to it. He could develop an appetite for jobs like this. They'd keep life interesting.

  16 Skin and Bones

  In the design and construction of the Cloister, esthetics had been important but not primary. Cost, defensibility, and th
e efficient use of limited space set the constraints. Thus there was not much room between buildings-enough for narrow lawns, some flowerbeds and shrubs, and street trees. The residences-dormitories and barracks-mostly resembled each other. And of course, there were no street lights, nor any lights at this hour.

  Captain Koslovi Rillor's barracks was adjacent to the Administration Building, at the center of the Cloister. Guards Barracks E, on the other hand, was on the East Wall Road. And like most of the Sisterhood, female or male, Rillor's night vision wasn't a lot better than human normal. But familiarity and the sickle moon told him exactly where he was.

  Ahead, he recognized the building, and slowed to a walk, scanning about. The man he was watching for emerged from the shadow of a hedge, and stepped into the street to meet him. Rillor had never seen a Tiger out of uniform before, but he knew what he was by his demeanor-his sense of hardness and arrogance.

  "Your name," the Tiger ordered.

  "Rillor. Koslovi." He said it resentfully. He was, after all, a captain. The man before him might be, probably was noncommissioned. Arrogant!

  The Tiger drew a large envelope from inside his shirt and handed it to the Guards officer, then loped off up the street.

  Rillor tucked the envelope in his shoulder bag and angled toward the barracks' main entrance. He needed Omara's instructions to Arva, and the official offer to Varia and the Lion. Now, presumably, he had them. He wished he knew the oral instructions Omara had given Arva, and whether the two youths knew the identity of who was to pick them up. He couldn't pretend he was Arva. They might know the man.

  You can't have everything, he told himself, stepping onto the stoop. Until he'd read the enclosures, he'd say no more than he had to.

  ***

  Picking up the two young Guardsmen presented no problems. They were wide-awake and ready when he got there, and being well-trained, accepted his authority without questions. Together, the three had loped the half mile to the courier stable, where horses had been readied for them-three mounts, three remounts, and two packhorses.

  Now they rode northward, the Cloister's defensive walls diminishing behind them in the faintly graying dawn. When it was light enough, Rillor intended to open the envelope and read the contents.

  Ahead, a team and coach rolled toward the horsemen, and they guided their horses to one side, giving the rig abundant room to pass. Probably, Rillor thought, it carried some Outland trade representative.

  ***

  Ordinarily, in the Sisterhood, newborns were named by their mother. That became their calling name. However, for routine records, breeding assignments and performance ratings, the breeding stock or lineage designation was used as a surname, and listed first.

  But in conversation, the calling name was used almost exclusively, except as necessary to clarify which Rillor or Liiset or Jaloon was meant. Depending on how common it was, one's calling name might be all one's friends knew. In daily affairs, one's lineage was usually not significant.

  Thus Macurdy's twin sons were not known as Macurdy. In the breeding record, their lineage was listed as Jesarion 2x5-Jesarion for short. And because of Varia's disgrace, she hadn't been allowed to provide their calling names. The only contact she'd had with them was during the first weeks of their lives, when she'd nursed them. She'd called them after her two Macurdy husbands: the firstborn Will, the second Curtis.

  Sarkia had let Idri provide their official calling names. The names she'd listed for them were obscenities, and their nannies had objected to Sarkia in writing. Sarkia had chastised Idri for it, and renamed them Ohns and Dohns. In Old Ylvin, those meant first and second, but in Yuultal they were meaningless. And in any case unique.

  Although Ohns and Dohns totally identified with the Sisterhood and the Guards, they'd grown up feeling different from other children, simply by being a two-member clone. Most clones numbered from four to six.

  Given the nature of small boys, they'd early been made self-conscious of their peculiar calling names. Ohns? Dohns? What had they done to deserve names like those? Not surprisingly they were unusually close.

  When they were ten years old, their clone aunt, Liiset, had told them about their mother: her strengths, her character, and that she'd gotten into trouble and run away. Liiset had not elaborated on the reasons. No less a tracker than the famed Tomm had failed to bring her back.

  She'd also told them what she knew of their father's family history. Most of it was anecdotal-stories of the Macurdys related by Varia during her marriage to Will. During those years, Varia had come through the gate to Ferny Cove every two or three years, to give birth. Back when the Cloister had been located in Kormehr, near the Ferny Cove gate.

  More interesting to the boys, and much more exciting, had been Liiset's descriptions of their father's exploits during his three years in Yuulith. From slave, to revolutionary, to warlord, to victor over the ylver in only three years! Even knowing who their father was made them special, though they said nothing about it to others.

  Afterward they'd imagined what their father was really like, and shared those imaginings with each other. To them, the Lion of Farside was larger than life, a mighty warrior and hero, admired and obeyed in all the Rude Lands, and feared in both ylvin empires.

  The personality they imagined didn't resemble their father at all.

  From Liiset's explanations of naming on Farside, they'd gathered that their surname there would be Macurdy, and they began privately to think of themselves as the Macurdy boys, each with a calling name of his own. Ohns, being the "eldest" and dominant of the two, claimed Curtis. After a brief argument and scuffle, he agreed that Dohns could be Curtis on Five-, Six- and Seven-Days. On the other four he'd have to settle for being Will. Dohns accepted the compromise.

  All that, of course, had been nine years back. But the feelings remained, albeit not much heeded in young manhood.

  ***

  As the threesome rode westward through the Asmehri foothills, with the newly risen sun on their backs, Rillor read the instructions Omara had written to Arva. Then he told the young Guardsmen their true destination, and what their mission actually was. The boys rode on in stunned silence. They were to actually meet their parents! And hopefully bring them back to the Cloister, to be welcomed by Sarkia herself, and given important jobs.

  Omara, in her instructions, had not included the posts Sarkia had in mind for Varia and Macurdy. That, presumably, was in the similar, enclosed envelope, addressed simply to Varia. It was sealed with wax, and stamped with the Dynast's signet, to be given to Varia when he met her.

  To Rillor, the sealed envelope was unimportant. From what Idri had told him, he could guess the contents. But they were irrelevant, as Varia's sons ultimately were irrelevant. It was his job to ensure that, and he had no doubt he'd succeed.

  ***

  It was on an early afternoon that Rillor and the twins reached the Crossroads Inn outside Gormin Town, and stopped to eat. Rillor arranged a feed of hay and oats for their eight horses.

  In the taproom, it was the innkeeper himself who waited on the three travelers. As always he examined his guests without being obvious about it. There didn't seem to be much difference in their ages. A set of twins, and the other a few years older. He addressed the one who was senior. "Have you stopped here before?" he asked. "These lads look familiar."

  "I've been here before, but my brothers haven't."

  "Ah. I guess they look like someone I've seen," the innkeeper said thoughtfully, and left to fill their orders.

  At almost the same time, another man came in. Seeing him enter, a guest called out to him. "Esler! What's the news up north?"

  "Macurdy's back!" the man answered. "He arrived riding a great boar, if you can believe it! Just like in the stories."

  "Tell us something we don't already know," someone else called. "He's been in here twice. First time he brought the boar right into the taproom. Ordered a beer for himself and a bucket of it for the boar."

  "Yeah," another added.
"Afterward he stayed at the palace with Wollerda. Rode his boar right down Central Street. Half the town saw them. Shit their pants, some of them."

  The newcomer grunted. "That's nothing. He's staying at Jeremid's now, on his way up north. And that ain't but the start of it." He paused, scanning the room to make sure he had their full attention. "The night before he got there, a troll killed a plow ox on the neighboring place, belonged to a fellow named Arnoth. So Jeremid and him, and some others went hunting it. Figured to track it down before dark and kill it. Only it didn't work out that way."

  He paused. "You remember that string of thunderstorms that came through, four, five days ago? Big old boomers? Well, when the dogs caught up to the trolls, turned out there were three of them! Trolls, that is. Two males and a female, one of the males a dozen feet tall. Jeremid said any troll that big had to be a sorcerer in troll form, and I expect he's right. Anyway, for there to be three together, there had to be sorcery connected to it. They were in thick woods where the light was weak, and one of them big boomers had just come over. It got almost dark as night, and instead of Jeremid and them jumping the trolls, 'twas the other way around. Right away the trolls killed four men. Which left only Jeremid, with a broken arm and nothing but a skinning knife, and Arnoth with only a shortsword, because a troll snatched his spear away. Might as well have had blades of grass instead of steel. The horses was all killed or run off, and most of the dogs were dead. It looked like Jeremid and Arnoth were goners.

  "Then up rides Macurdy on that pig. He jumps off, and the pig goes for one of the trolls. Rip! He guts it with his tusks! While Macurdy…" The man paused, to tighten their attention. "Macurdy raises his sword and points it at the clouds, and shouts something in some Farside tongue-and two bolts of lightning come down and fry the other two trolls.