“I’ll give you anything. Every nickel florin I own. My father’s cottage-it’s freehold, no mortgage, running water, two fireplaces, stunning views.”

“A cottage among very human cottages?”

“Nicely done up. You wouldn’t even have to redecorate.”

“Cottages filled with the fathers of hunters? I don’t think so.”

The man fell back, stunned into silence, and then began to weep. Quietly, noxiously. The Lion was appalled and faintly offended. This wasn’t quite as much fun as he’d imagined. The human raised himself on an elbow and managed quaveringly to say, “You have a pride nearby-someone old enough to know how to show mercy to a stranger in your kingdom…”

“I’d go for help,” said the Lion, “but I’m afraid no one is very near.”

“Help is near enough. If not from your clan, then from mine. I just got separated from my pals. Not long ago, really. They probably only made it back to the base camp by now. And look, in case the base camp has pulled up stakes, there’s a small cadre of the Wizard’s forces stationed at Tenniken. I’m one of their number-hunting with my mates on behalf of the regiment. They’re loyal to the Wizard of Oz! They will come for me if you tell them where I am. Soldiers don’t abandon their own.”

“A soldier-hunter.” A new concept. “A lesson for us all,” said the Lion cautiously. “Wish I’d had a soldier for a mother, then. Loyalty to the pack: what a thought.” But that was rumination, not conversation. He tried again. “Have you enjoyed visiting this very neck of the woods?”

“Are you tormenting me?” The lad-he was hardly more than that-sat up as far as he could. “Am I hallucinating all this? Kill me or save me, as you wish, but for the love of the Unnamed God, do it soon. I’m all alone.”

It was this last remark that moved the Lion to pity, or pity of a sort. He knew about being alone. The weather was always cold there.

He padded forward and put his big head down on the man’s chest. The man swooned in fear or disbelief, whereupon the scattershot snare in his chest slowed to a more stately thud.

The Lion considered creeping off. The whole thing was so embarrassing. Yet he remembered conversations usually concluding with “Good night” or “So long” or at least “Piss off.” He didn’t want to be rude and leave without the correct valediction.

He wrinkled his nostrils and sorted out the ribbons of odor. The pheromones of panic and anxiety (the young soldier’s and the young Lion’s, both). The salty sting of male sweat, and the cinnamony reek of human feces. Dried urine (faintly aphrodisiacal), dried blood (an astringent to the curled outer segments of Brrr’s olfactory fissures). And mold, but not common leaf mold. This was mold on parchment that had been sized with bleaching.

Brrr had few words for those apprehensions, which were nonetheless tantalizingly distinct. He followed his nose and discovered a satchel of four books. They were dropped a few yards beyond the trap. He picked them up in his mouth and brought them forward to the soldier. He smelled the ferrous note of the belt buckle and then its complement, the tooth-sting of processed tin. The soldier wore a medal on his chest. Even in forest gloom the shine on it was enthralling.