Friends (2013) - Adams, Robert

When I awoke I was still on Smada’s lap and Lanny was still dead in front of me and I began to whimper some more. Smada was infinitely caring. He rocked me until I stopped whining. He spoke to me in a dull but reassuring monotone. He wiped my bloody forehead with his glove and once, tenderly, with his damp soft beard. I just stared, mostly, not thinking of anything for a long, long time.

When I came partly out of it and looked up into his eyes he smiled lovingly at me and said: “Time to go home, son.”

I began to cry. “I don’t know how,” I whispered plaintively. “I don’t know how!”

But he just rocked me and said, “Sure you do.”

And, of course, I did. I looked upon him one last time, teacher, father, brother-in-arms, and then I closed my eyes and slept again.

When I woke up it was night and 1 was back in the forest and the SCA party was still going on by the campfire and the tequila bottle was empty and Lanny was alive beside me.

He looked pale—bet I did too. We stood up and embraced and walked back to the trailer and took off our sword stuff and put on blue jeans and got drunk all over again and slept.

It was a three-day SC A event, but we left bright and early— and hungover—the next morning.

Lanny and I are still best friends, more than ever now. I never told him about my dream and he never told me about being dead, and 1 don’t blame us. We still go to SCA stuff but we never fight. Mostly we just point and laugh.

We still read the Horseclans, too. Now more than ever. Because now we understand just what they were about all along. And the heroes in those stories are no less real to us than before. Hell, just the opposite. Now we understand that for a man or woman to rise to heroism in such a brutal place is what heroism is all about. We had wanted to go there because we thought being great was automatic. Now we know it’s miraculous. It is awe-inspiring.

Read it.

No, I do not wish to go back. I think about it a lot, what happened, but 1 never think I want another crack at it. Not me. Not ever.

But I do miss Smada. Whoever or whatever he was—or is—I miss him. Every day I miss him.

Every single day.

Sister of Midnight

by Shariann Lewitt

Bom in New York City, Shariann Lewitt began writing seriously in her teens. Her first play was produced Off-Broadway when she was nineteen years old. Educated as a playwright, she holds an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama, where she was named Lord Memorial Scholar, John Golden Fellow and a Graduate Fellow of Calhoun College. Her undergraduate degree is in anthropology, with a specialization in physical anthropology/ evolutionary biology. In addition, she has done graduate work in Middle Eastern anthropology and studied at the University La Source d’Orleans in France, and she speaks French and Arabic.

In the tradition of writers, she has held numerous jobs, including teaching at Catholic University, directing plays in New York and Connecticut and working as a drama therapist in a rehabilitation program for heroin addicts. She has also worked on archaeological digs and had a short stint as a commercial model.

When not writing, Lewitt sustains an active interest in aviation, ballet and international travel. She makes her home in Washington, D.C., with her husband and three blue hippos.

The men of Harzburk had made short work of the Ehleenee rearguard. Here along the road were scattered the remains of the previous day’s work, and already most was gone. The larger scavengers had come first, and now the crows and worms were feasting on what was left. The feast was a generous one, men and warhorses alike strewn in a mass of tom limbs and innards set in congealed blood. Even from a good distance the carnage rested heavy on the air, the stench overwhelming any other scent.

Emhelee gagged slightly, then took a deep breath and held it as long as she could. A small knife rested in her left hand;

she held her nose with her right. She settled deeper into the brush and listened, her mind alert for any stray thought-sending of any creature in the area. She did not want to be noticed.

Assured that she was alone, she edged closer to the scene of the slaughter, still careful not to draw attention if there were any lurkers beyond. Her knife was ready. If it was small it was also very sharp, and Emhelee knew how to use it. It was not the kind of blade anyone but a noble would carry, made of the finest steel. Not a proper thing for a young girl, her mother had said. What kind of scullery maid could wield a weapon so well?

At eleven, she was no real scullery maid yet, but her mother had hopes. And the girl was unwilling. Which was why she was out on the road at twilight so very far from home. Gingerly she crept forward toward the scene of the fight.

“My father would be proud of me,” she told herself over and again. “He would not let the smell make him sick. He will be pleased to hear how I came, and took what I needed ...”

Emhelee leaned against the bole of a tree and was sick in spite of her good intentions. She heaved, then spat out the bad taste and forced herself on. She could not possibly get sick again. There was nothing else in her, and she had no more food in her bag. The last of it was lying uselessly spit-up on the grass.

“Stupid, stupid,” she berated herself, not permitting herself to cry. She was sure that her father would not approve of girls who cried. When she met him she would present the knife, which he would surely have to recognize, and she dared not cry.

Now for the men. She pulled her courage around her fiercely and forced herself toward the scene of the battle. Little enough there would be, and she could not miss any of it. Not if her plan was to work. Over and over she told herself that this was the most fortunate good luck that could have come her way. There was nothing to fear from the dead, and what goods they had she could surely use. Food would be gone, taken by those who now picked at the remains of men and horses alike, but there should be some money, plate, maybe a fine sword.

Not that she could use a sword, but Emhelee did believe that she could recognize a particularly good one. All she had to do was to match the blade to her knife, to the strange wavy patterns of subtle color that danced down the length of it. Plate could be traded on the road for food. A truly wonderful sword might be the beginning of a dowry when she arrived in Morguhnpolis.

The odor overcame her once again, and she dropped onto the hardpacked road. And began to sob. It was growing late, the shadows long and the light deep yellow. Soon the chill of evening would creep in, and Emhelee had no idea how far she still had to travel. The terror of it spread cold fear through her, and she began to mindcall, without control, for anyone to hear. It was so lonely, lonely, she sent out the message without precise words, and she was frightened.

“Who bespoke me? Who calls on Midnight to kill their enemies?” A mind had touched hers.

Emhelee whipped around and sought the speaker. Midnight was not a man’s name, nor a woman’s either.

“I! I! Supid two-legs, I should show you the Steel of my warhooves. I should trample and kill you, mash you to redness! I am over here!”

“Here is not very helpful,” Emhelee beamed back, offended. She understood it was a warhorse who bespoke her, yet she had done nothing to incite the stallion to such anger. The only horse she had ever bespoken in Harzburk, the ancient mare Meehah, had warned her about the stallions.