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been here days beyond telling.”
    Surely it can’t be more than three days, thought Brrr, but he didn’t contradict.
    “I can’t bear another night,” claimed the fellow.
    “The very dark,” said the Lion. This didn’t seem enough, so he added, “Isn’t it very very fright-ful?” It was his first remark to anyone other than himself, so it was the first time he heard himself sound like a pantywaist. What was that all about?
    “I beg you. Mercy, for the love of the Unnamed God.”
    The Lion backed up, his rump high in the air, his whiskers a-twitter.
    “Release me or do me in-one or the other,” said the man, and fell to moaning. “Kill me and you can chew this wretched leg off my torso at last.”
    “Actually, I’m very vegetarian,” said the Lion, proud of the actually. Is this how conversation was supposed to go? Your turn.
    The young man reached again, for what must have been the ten thousandth time, to try to open the trap by force, but the thing was built to hold. He hadn’t the strength by himself, and the trap wouldn’t yield.
    “You pull that side and I’ll pull the other,” said the fellow. “Together we can open it. Then, maybe you could cart me to a settlement, or at least to a stream. I’ve been rotting here with nothing to drink but the dew I could lick off the vegetation.”
    But the Lion found the teeth of the trap alarming. “That’s a very iron mouth,” he observed. “Far too very dangerous. Look what it’s done to you.”
    “It’s sprung, it can’t spring again. Hunter’s traps don’t work like that.”
    Brrr shook his head.
    “You imbecile. You flathead. I’m begging you-”
    “I can’t risk it. There are those who rely on me for support,” said the Lion, thinking: Myself, for one, and one is enough. “Besides, I haven’t those curving shrimplike fingers you have. I can’t just purr the thing off you, you know.” He was trying for a jocular tone, but it seemed to lack smack, and the hunter’s distress was, well, distressing. Brrr pawed about, keeping a fair enough berth, sniffing and tossing his mane. “So this is a hunter’s trap, and you’re a hunter. And I’ve just put the two concepts together. Aren’t you a little bit very ashamed of yourself?”
    “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