The four stepped quickly through the underbrush in the rising sun. The forest on all sides grew denser by the day. The boy Silas had learned many things already. He learned when it was right to complain – when it was strictly necessary and there was an action that could fix it – and when not to complain – for simple discomfort.

  The pace they kept would have put many lesser men to exhaustion, but the boy in their company learned how to conserve his energy for the right movements and the right ways. “Come along, Silas,” Siegyrd crooned, “I know you’ve got more in you than that. Only slightly faster than we went yesterday. Proud of your persistence, so keep pressing forward!”

  Aerendir had been a man driven by forces outside himself since they departed the trial of truths. Something more than a hunch or sense of urgency compelled him. Yet, it was not discernible to himself. To his companions, though, he continued to change from without. Mareth eyed Sieyrd as they crested a rise in the growing foothills beneath the wildlands. Between close clumps of trees they could see growing rises and slopes.

  Valleys grew deeper and ridges higher. On rare occasions, in clearings, they could see a distant mountain range growing nearer and nearer. The air remained somewhat cold, though it did not get colder, southward as they were bound, more south than east by all rights.

  “A big kitty is behind us,” Silas said without fear.

  The three men stopped and looked back, though Aerendir only half turned, his body still facing in the direction of the distant mountain range and leaning that way.

  Mareth walked back to the boy who had slipped a little behind, “Step up between Siegyrd and I, boy.” The boy obeyed quickly, and Mareth took up the rear of the formation, looking out expectantly into the shadows of the forest.

  “Do you see him?” Siegyrd inquired, walking up, the boy next to him, following the command to stay between the albino and the wizard.

  Silas pointed to a space in a low section between near trees, perhaps twenty-five paces away, and said, “It went there.”

  Mareth knelt and lined his eyes up with the boy’s pointing arm. He squinted into the forest, but couldn’t make out any movement or strange shapes. “I don’t see anything.”

  “I swear,” Silas said.

  Siegyrd gave the boy a flick on the ear to which the boy flinched and yelped in minor pain. Siegyrd said, “Don’t swear, Silas. We take you at your word, little man. He simply doesn’t see it.”

  “I’m big for my age,” Silas retorted.

  Siegyrd laughed and said, “But little for a man.” He tousled the boys’ hair and continued, “let’s see if the big kitty will come play.”

  Mareth stood and started to protest, but Siegyrd was already moving.

  Silas slipped in front of Mareth to stay between him and Siegyrd, but watched from a distance. Siegyrd sauntered, almost heedless and placed his back to the position Silas had indicated. Silas’ eyes grew wide, and he pulled on Mareth’s sleeve as he yelled, “It’s behind you.”

  “Shh, Silas,” Mareth’s voice was very calm, “Lions are ambush predators. They hunt by surprise.” Mareth made a quick movement of his hands to emphasize to the boy before continuing, “So Siegyrd will try to get it to ambush him. It’s very dangerous, but effective. Don’t think to do something similar yourself until you are much stronger ok?”

  Silas nodded, but then questioned, “Will Uncle Seegard be ok?”

  Mareth put his finger over his own lips, then indicated with a tilt of his head for the boy to watch.

  Siegyrd waddled backwards, very near to the spot the lion was hiding, still facing away.

  He wore his leather armour and dark cloak, but left his swords sheathed. Siegyrd could feel the lion’s warmth and hear the echo of its heartbeat nearby. It was calm, steady as a metronome. He took another slight step back, putting himself in the most advantageous position for the lion, then he closed his eyes and sat very still, listening to the heartbeat. Steady, steady. Two quick beats, then a few more in rapid succession, Siegyrd knew before the lion did what it was going to do.

  Silas watched as the lion leapt from its position, slightly above Siegyrd, its claws reaching out inches from the silvery-haired man’s face. But as he leapt, once he was entirely airborne, Siegyrd spun on one foot and faced the creature, stepped inside its claws towards its open maw and thrust his palm upward into its lower jaw. With a sharp crack the lion’s mouth snapped shut with a crack and a whimper and Siegyrd drove through his blow as he stood adding the power of his legs. The beast head lifted up and his whole body went vertical, every muscle taut with instinct and intent. To the boy the lion seemed to hover for a moment, staring up at the sun through the trees before all the tenseness flowed out of it and it slumped and began to fall. Siegyrd caught the heavy creature which lay limp across his arms.

  He walked back toward Mareth and Silas. Mareth stood and gave a small clap and an approving nod of the head. The boy’s eyes were wide as saucers. He mimicked the movement Siegyrd had just done, a low crouch, a spin, and an upward jumping thrust and whooped into the air as he did so, “WOW!”

  Siegyrd carried the lion’s unconscious form back toward where Aerendir had stopped. The elder brother faced the mountains, lost in his own thoughts distantly staring when Siegyrd spoke, “We’ve got a choice here, brother. Train it or kill it. It’s not likely to stop following, and it’s a risk to Silas.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Aerendir shook himself out of his musings, gave a brief sigh and said, “I suppose I know what you’d prefer.”

  Siegyrd smiled, “With life resides hope.”

  Aerendir smiled, though sadly, “With life resides hope.” He nodded, “If even the smallest wound is given to the boy, the creature dies. Not all life is equal.” Aerendir looked at Silas and then at the unconscious lion and shook his head and sighed again.

  “We need to move. Will you carry it until it wakes?” Aerendir asked.

  “Of course.” He wove a song around the creature which locked its jaw shut and bound its legs and then slung the heavy burden over his shoulders carefully, “You will be sore, my friend, but soreness seems a petty price weighed against death.”

  Silas watched the whole process and then asked, “Is kitty ok?” Mareth and Siegyrd both laughed. Aerendir only smiled.

  “It seems kitty is coming with us, might need to think up a name,” Mareth said.

  Aerendir spoke up, “We’ve tarried long enough.” Then he stepped over the ridge at a fast clip and wove his way through the trees. Siegyrd followed, with Silas in tow and Mareth trailing behind.

  #

  The lion woke a few hours later. It frantically tried to escape from its magical bonds for the first few minutes it was awake, exhausting itself in the attempt, but forcing Siegyrd to set it on the ground so it would not injure itself.

  Aerendir clenched his jaw, more and more impatient as they pressed forward toward the mountain, “We don’t have time for this, little brother!”

  Siegyrd nodded to Mareth who set to create another force cage around the creature, though a bit broader so it could move around.

  “Who knows what good may come of doing good, even when it is not the good we had planned?”

  Aerendir growled an almost beastly growl, then shook his head and said, “I apologize. The fateline is… almost maddening. I want it to end.”

  Siegyrd hummed in understanding, “Do you fear to lose it?”

  “Standing still feels like dying.”

  Mareth completed his spell and called out to Siegyrd, “It’s ready.”

  Siegyrd tilted his head toward Aerendir who nodded and shooed him with a gesture. Siegyrd went over and looked into the lion’s eyes and then sang a brief song, just a few notes and a flurry of whistles. Then he spoke, or seemed to speak, in a strange roaring, whining, cat-like language. He snapped his fingers and the magical binds upon the lion evaporated.

  The lion pounced upward and tried to leap at Siegyrd but its legs slipped after long binding and it fell into the leaves. Siegyrd spoke again in the odd roaring, cat speech. The lion responded with a quick half-hearted roar. Siegyrd spoke again, and the lion snarled and shook its head with a twisting flash of its mane.

  “Can you let me in there?” Siegyrd asked Mareth.

  “If you’re sure.”

  Siegyrd nodded, and Mareth began a series of incantations and hand movements which ended with his hands palm out and fingers interlaced together, “ready.”

  Siegyrd said something else in the cat speech and then said to Mareth, “go ahead.”

  Mareth separated his fingers and hands ever so slightly and the shimmer of the force wall split just wide enough for Siegyrd to step through sideways. Then Mareth’s hands snapped back together and he released leaving the force cage enclosed.

  The lion prowled around Siegyrd who moved to the center of the cage, about twenty paces in diameter. It snarled and gave half and full roars from time to time in response to Siegyrd’s calm, direct speech patterns. Silas and Mareth watched closely as this happened, the boy almost pressing his face to the edge of the force.

  Aerendir feigned disinterest, but stole glances back toward the cage and eventually walked back to stand with Mareth and Silas, wincing as he moved away from the mountains.

  After a long back and forth, Mareth turned to Aerendir, “Does he seek an accord with the beast?”

  Aerendir shook his head.

  “A trade or compromise?” Mareth continued.

  Aerendir shook his head again.

  Silas, “Kitty friend!”

  Aerendir smiled, and said, “Not a friend either, little one. One cannot be a friend to a lion, nor a partner, nor have any accord. He must be master. That is the only relationship that does not end in death.”

  “Master? Why?” Silas asked.

  “Because if you do not master the lion, it will devour you.”

  “Why?” Silas asked again.

  Aerendir looked at Mareth with a raise of the eyebrow. Mareth shrugged.

  “It is in the lion’s nature to devour.”

  “Why?”

  “It pleased Apeiron to make it so.”

  “Why?”

  Aerendir paused a long time, and Silas looked up, eyes bright with curiosity. “Why?” He asked again.

  “I don’t know, little one, why do you think?”

  Silas had already opened his mouth to ask why again when the question came, and he blinked a few times, “Ummm, because it fit.”

  Mareth tilted his head in idle curiosity, “It fit? What do you mean by that?”

  Silas shrugged and pointed at the lion and Siegyrd in the cage, “Big kitty eats, fights. It’s big and tough and has pointy teeth and claws. It fits.”

  Mareth looked at the lion, prowling around the cage, its regality but also its designed brutality, and he pondered for a minute before he said to Silas, “It does, doesn’t it? Don’t you think Aerendir?”

  “I suppose it does fit.” His face and tone was calm. His foot tapped rhythmically on the dirt beneath him, and he glanced often back at the mountains in the distance.