Robert Adams - Horses of the North

It appeared to Milo that the doctor had simply packed up and left. The question was, where had he gone and why? When he broke off the lock of the footlocker he found in the laboratory at the felt works, he found some answers, though these answers bred a host of new and unanswerable questions for him.

“Friend Milo,

“You read this only because I at last have decided that the time has come for me to leave. Please do not come after me or send men to track me, for I am well armed and I will shoot any of you that I discover upon my trail.”

The very next sentence sent cold chills coursing up Milo’s back, covered his skin with gooseflesh and set his nape to bristling.

“Them I will assuredly kill, though I have reason to believe that, like me, a mere bullet would not kill you as it would kill other, more normal, humans.

“I do not know your true age, although I suspect you to be far older than you now aver. My own age, too, is very much more than the one I claim, but if I am wrong about you, you could not believe it were I to herein note it down. Suffice it to say that I have appeared just as I now appear for an exceedingly long time. Nor are you the first friend I have had to suddenly desert due to my noticeable aberration of not aging as do all other human beings.

“Part of what I have told you of myself at various times over our years of friendship has been of truth. I was, indeed, born in Niedersachsenland, to a wealthy, landed family of most noble blood and antecedents; my father was a margrave, a renowned military officer, a very brave man and a widely recognized hero, may whatever God exists bless his gallant spirit.

“Along with all of my brothers and half brothers, I was sent up to University and given the chance at a decent education, then presented a commission in one of the most illustrious of the Schwadronen of Hussaren, the Kaiser’s then-favorite one, in fact. It was during my baptism of fire that I discovered—twice over—that something extremely odd about me there was.

“We received orders to deliver an attack against the flank of the French army opposing us. That charge was delivered with great firmness, driven home, but just as I reached the French at the head of my Jungen, a French officer fired his pistol and the ball struck me in the breast. I distinctly felt the hideous pain as that large piece of lead, after passing through my dolmen and blouse and shirt, tore into my flesh, shattered rib bone, lacerated my heart, then exited my back, smashing another rib in the process. Forcing myself to ignore, alike, the agony and the giddiness and the firm knowledge that I was a dead man, I almost decapitated that Frenchman with my sharp saber, then bored into the formation, resolved to take the lives of as many of them as possible before I tumbled, dead, out of my saddle.

“I felt myself to be truly acting out the words of the ‘Alte Reiterlied.’ (‘Gestern noch auf stolzen Rossen, Heute durch die Brust geschossen, Morgen in das kuhle Grab.’ And then, ‘Und so will ich tapfer streiten, Und sollt’ ich den Tod erleiden, Stirbt ein braver Reitersmann. ’) (an old cavalry song: Yesterday, still on prancing horses, Today, shot in the chest, Tomorrow in the cool grave. And so will I fight bravely, And should death claim me, Then dies a brave cavalryman.) I set myself to fight until the last drop of my blood had been drained away and the great dark had enfolded my being, as befitted a man of my race and house.

“But, friend Milo, when the recall was winded and I hacked my way back out of the French ranks, my good horse wounded many times over and stumbling under me, my saber blade dulled and nicked and cloudy, my clothing all torn and gashed and soaked through with my own blood and that of many another, the top of my fur busby shorn raggedly away and the heel of my right boot shot off, I still lived, nor was there much deep pain in my chest, as there most surely should have been.

“Then, when almost I was out of the French lines, a wild-eyed, frothing gunner appeared suddenly and jammed the slender finial spike of his linstock into my body, skewering my right kidney and bringing from me a scream of pain. I split the man’s head with my saber, the linstock’s own weight dragging its point from out of me, then rode on, groaning and grinding my teeth in my agony. My good horse made it back with me still astride him to almost the point from which the charge had been launched, then he suddenly fell dead and a passing troop sergeant dragged me up across the withers of his mount and bore me back to the rallying area.

“The indelible mark of Fahnrich Karl-Heinrich von --- was made on that long ago day, friend Milo. Every officer and other rank of the survivors of that charge treated me with a respect bordering upon awe; my Oberst not only presented me with one of his own string of chargers to replace my dead one, but offered a very generous price for a full captaincy in his unit, and immediately my father was apprised of my exploits, he sent the monies to buy me that position, plus funds to pay for uniforms and equipment commensurate with that rank.

“But I here get beyond my story. When, in the privacy of the tent I had shared with another Fahnrich who had not come back from the charge, I stripped off my blood-stiff dolmen, blouse and shirt, I could find no trace of the wounds that I knew I had sustained. Just below and a bit to the right of my left nipple was a dent that looked like a very old scar, and there was another just below my left scapula. At the place in which the gunner had speared me, there was no mark at all, for all that the blood had dried on my skin and soaked my clothing, which last was holed in just the right places and ways to match my memories of those two deathwounds. Yet I was a living hero, not the dead one that I should rightly have been twice over that day.

“Justly fearing a charge of witchcraft at the very least, I said nothing to anyone in that army about my wounds or their miraculous healings, nor did I mention to anyone aught of the many other severe injuries that I suffered briefly in the course of that and many another war. Eventually, when certain noblemen and comrades began to openly question my imperceptibly slow aging process, I found it expedient to fake my death and move on to another country and army, something that I have been forced to do over and over again across the long years, as I do now, friend Milo.

“But, then, if what I most strongly suspect of you is of a Tightness, you, too, are more than familiar with this pattern of self-protection from superstitious or envious human beings. At times, one believes so long a life to be a curse—a curse of seemingly eternal loneliness and wandering amongst strangers—rather than the blessing that normally aging humans would imagine it to be. But there is a very positive side to it, in that it teaches one so very much about humanity in general and the proper psychology to be used in manipulating people both in groups and as individuals. You are different. You are very much like me, and my very first suspicion of you was simply caused by the fact that you did not seem to think, to reason like, a common, normal, short-lived human. I have, I firmly believe, met only two others of our rare kind over my years and travels.

“The first was a French comte (although I believe that he did not begin a Frenchman, but more likely as an Italian or a Spaniard), a charlatan, swindler, confidence man, poseur … and these constituted his better qualities. But Monsieur le Comte briefly took me under his wing, recognizing me for what I was, and taught me telepathy and the arts of mindreading and of hypnotism. He imparted to me the few vulnerabilities of men such as ourselves. For we can be killed, friend Milo; anything that prevents the air from reaching our lungs for long enough will render us lifeless as any mere human—immersion under water, strangulation, smothering or a prolonged crushing of the chest and lungs. So avoid these things, friend Milo, and be most wary of fire, as well, for are you consumed faster than the body can regenerate, you will be just as dead as any poor old woman who was burned for a witch.