Robert Adams - The Memories of Milo Morai

However, the hunt had only been at it for some half-hour when Djim-Bahb returned at the gallop to report that two riders, clearly Dirtmen, were tracing the trail down from the north. The hunt had but just come through a stand of ten-foot-tall grasses, and Little Djahn led them all back into that stand, placing them well back from the trail and on either side of it, with orders to stay out of sight of the Dirtmen, but to close up behind them once they were within the grasses, then flank and trail them until they came out into the open area beyond, where the young leader sat his horse with drawn bow and his saber loose in its sheath.

Just beyond the higher, thicker grasses, First Sergeant Kahl Rehnee saw a single rider, his smallish horsestanding side-on, his bow drawn and its metal-shod arrow pointed squarely at Captain Mehrdok’s chest. Spare and a slender build, the horseman wore baggy trousers and shirt of some homespun fabric—the trousers about the hue of unbleached wool, the shirt obviously once dyed a green color but now much faded, the sleeves and much of the torso heavily embroidered in designs depicting animals, weapons, flowers and geometrical designs. Atop his blond head, the rider wore a helmet of boiled leather further armored with strips of horn and antler. His master-fully tooled leather boots were high-heeled and pointed-toed and rose to just below the knee, and to them were laced wide single strips of horn to protect the top of the instep, ankle and shin.

The slim young man appeared to be somewhere between sixteen and twenty years of age, but the cold, hard stare of his blue-green eyes denoted the deadly seriousness of his overall demeanor every bit as much as did the steady bow, the taut bowstring and the glittering tip of the black-shafted arrow.

As Kahl drew nearer, following Mehrdok, he could see that the threatening stranger was dusty, dirty and very sweaty and that his clothing was splashed here and there with what looked to be fresh blood.

Very slowly and with exceeding care, Wahrn Mehrdok raised his right hand to above shoulder level, horny palm outward, in the incredibly ancient symbol of peaceful intentions. Fervently hoping that he recalled the proper way to do it after so many years of not doing it, he mentally beamed, “Greet the Sacred Sun, brother warrior. My brother and I come in peace, our bows unstrung and all arrows cased.”

Little Djahn Staiklee started to such an extent that he almost let his thumb slip from off the bowstring. The very last thing he had ever expected was to be mindspoken by a damned Dirtman. To play it safe, he imperceptibly eased up on the tautness of the weapon and lowered the point a bit, beaming in coolish reply, “I am the brother of no Dirtman, no Dirtman of any stripe! How did you learn to mindspeak, anyway?And to do it in words of Horseclansfolk? Do you then reverence Sun and Wind, Dirtman?”

Mehrdok shrugged. “Yes, as much as I reverence anything, brother warrior; for without sun and the rain the wind brings, nothing could grow to feed man or beast. As for my telepathy, I never knew I owned it until I was a bit older than you now are. I was a hired sword with a caravan of wagon traders and became the friend and battle companion of a Horseclansman named Tchahrlee Rohz. He it was awakened my quiescent telepathic abilities and taught me to use them.”

“Your sword brother, there,” demanded Staiklee, “does he, too, mindspeak?”

Mehrdok shook his head silently, beaming, “No, Kahl Rehnee is a good man, but he has no trace of telepathic talents, nor do the most of the folk among whom I now dwell, though right many of our horses seem to.”

“Do we start breaking these two Dirtmen for slaves, or simply kill them, Little Djahn?” beamed Djim-Bahb Gahdfree from his place behind Kahl Rehnee, completely unaware that his leader and one of the strangers had been silently communicating.

“Neither, Djim-Bahb,” Staiklee broadbeamed to all, including Wahrn Mehrdok.“The man closest to me, he mindspeaks. I think it best that we take him and the other back to camp. Let Uncle Milo decide what to do with him and the others.”

Milo liked the big, solid man from first meeting. Mehrdok was most certainly frightened here in his surroundings of well-armed and cold, if not openly hostile, strangers, but he controlled himself well, polite and calm of demeanor, firm of handclasp and rock-steady of gaze from his wide-set dark-brown eyes.

Wahrn, Kahl Rehnee and Milo were all about of a height, which made them half a head taller than the tallest of the Horseclans warriors and even taller than most of the women. Where all of the Horseclansfolk were flat-muscled, mostly with fine-boned bodies, Milo and the two newcomers were big-boned, with rolling muscles. Of all the nomads, only Gy Linsee bore any resemblance in size and shape to the Dirtmen and Uncle Milo, and even he was a bit shorter and slighter than any of the three.

Nor were the Dirtmen’s mounts much akin to the equines of the Horseclans. Not only did the beasts stand a good hand or more higher, they were heavier-bodied, clearly more powerful, with deeper chests, thicker legs and smaller, more graceful heads in proportion to their size. They were mindspeakers;Milo, Gy Linsee and Little Djahn Staiklee had all conversed with them, checking out portions of Wahrn Mehrdok’s story. One was a mare, one a gelding, and both were glossy beneath the dust, well fed, and had been carefully shod on all four hooves.

With the evening meal consumed and most of the Horseclansfolk going about chores and various handicrafts by the light of the fire, Milo and Bard Herbuht talked with Wahrn and Kahl, speaking aloud for the benefit of the nonmindspeaker.

“Mr. Mehrdok, you claim to have been a close friend, a sword brother, of a Horseclansman, years agone, somewhere north of here. You say that his name was Tchahrlee Rohz. Was he older than you or younger?”

“Younger,” replied Mehrdok.“Younger by about six or seven years. Not much above a mere stripling, truth to tell, but nonetheless a tried and proven and fearsome warrior already, and wise far beyond his years.”

Milo nodded slowly, then asked, “What was his most striking physical feature, the thing you first noticed about him?”

Wahrn grinned, his eyes lighting up with old, good memories.“His ears, Mr. Moray. They both stuck out like the handles of a jug, and so big were they that he had to fashion oversized leather flaps for his helmet to afford them protection when blades came out. But big as those ears were, oddly enough, they neither one had hardly any lobe on them. We all laughed at his ears, in a good-natured, comradely way, and he laughed and joked about them as much as any. The two of us, Tchahrlee and me, we . . . well, we were closer than born brothers, closer than any two men who have not been comrades in arms can ever be, I . . . Do you understand any of this, Mr. Moray?”

Milo nodded. “Better than you could imagine, Mr. Mehrdok. I have had friends like that, over the years. But tell me, whatever became of your sword brother? Was he slain?”

“No, sir. After about five years of riding with the train and wintering over in Tradertown with the rest of us, he went back west in search of his folks; he said that he had promised to, and good, old Tchahrlee, he always kept his promises. He wanted me to go back along of him . . . and sometimes, over the years, I’ve wished to hell I had of. God bless him, I still miss him right often. I wish him well, be he alive or dead. He was the best buddy a man ever had.”

Milo smiled warmly. “You will then be happy to know that Tchahrlee Big-ears of Rohzis now a sub-chief of his clan. Herbuht, there, and I wintered with Clans Rohz and Ashuh some six years back. Tchahrlee now has three wives, a pretty young concubine and a pack of children, not a few of them with duplicates of his ears.