Chapter 9: Brotherhood and Blood

Andy and I made our return trip to Aruh right after breakfast. Titan and his two patrol mates had been joined by another three person patrol, and we met Shaker, White Foot, and Eclipse.

These were the abbreviated versions of their names that we used amongst ourselves. Their actual names were much longer and more descriptive. Eclipse was the oldest of the three in the new patrol.

Copper and Slider had no problem with the Yaru. In fact, Slider went over and nuzzled Titan as if he suspected him of hiding an apple somewhere. When I 'looked' through Copper's senses, I realized that the Yaru just smelled like family to the horses.

We had our introductions and then took off across the plains. Titan was setting a quick pace, for his patrol because waiting for us to arrive had put them a couple hours behind, and he was worried about making his scheduled arrival time.

As soon as we established a line of travel I sent my senses ahead, spotting a small rocky outcrop with a few fallen trees on top of it that appeared to be directly on our path, to the northwest, and a good thirty miles ahead of us. One of the Yaru sat in the shade of the fallen trees. Obviously a sentry.

<Are we going to pass that small outcrop of rock with the fallen trees where I see a sentry?> I asked.

<You have good eyes.> Titan answered. <Yes, we will stop there to check in with the sentry before we proceed.>

<Would you mind if I took us there directly?>

<Not at all, but I only hope we do not scare poor Greytail out of his senses.>

So I jumped us to the edge of the outcrop that faced us. We caught Greytail looking the other direction, and Titan made a low 'Hruff' sound, deep in his throat to alert the sentry. The relatively thin Yaru Jumped and spun in mid air to face us. His coat went black and rigid as he did, and he started a loud snarl, until he caught site of Titan and the rest of the patrol.

We 'heard' the mental laughter of the three Yaru as they enjoyed Greytail's embarrassment at being caught unawares.

<Do not let them laugh at you Greytail, > I thought to him. < these tricksters are merely enjoying the benefits of my being able to do this.> I jumped myself and Copper to the other side of Andy and Slider.

<Walkers!> Greytail's amazed thought shouted out. <Walkers have returned?>

"indeed, Greytail. You may not have long to remain here after we arrive at the den. There may be a calling." Titan said in the Yaru speech, followed by a thought to us. <We could be there very quickly if your eyes are still sharp.>

<What do you want me to look for?>

<Can you look through my eyes?>

<Yes.> I said and did.

<Those cliffs?> I asked, seeing them through his eyes.

<Yes. There are caves at the base of them and some Hurim-built things as well.>

Using my own eyes, I zoomed in on the cliffs, another twenty miles or so further to what we would say was the northwest. I could see the caves and more Yaru, as well as the 'Hurim-built' structures, which seemed to be relatively crude wooden buildings of some sort. Zooming out from there, I saw that there was a river a few miles to the south of the caves that ran east and west. Another Hurim built structure marked what might have been a river crossing.

<The horses need to run a little, or they will be disappointed when we return home. Can I jump us to here and let the horses run the rest of the distance?> I sent the image I was seeing to Titan.

<Yes, that would be a good one, there is a sentry there who we will want to send word of our arrival ahead anyway.>

So I jumped us again, and this time we caught the Yaru looking our way when we blinked into existence. He still jumped a little, and his coat made the same amazing transformation that Greytail's had.

"Greetings Boomer!" Titan said out loud to the sentry. "Could you announce our early return, and announce that we are escorting welcome guests? Warn those ahead that we will be coming in at speed, only for the fun of it. There is no emergency."

"At speed?" The sentry asked. "Are you trying to be funny again Titan? You know what Long Night Running thinks of your sense of humor."

"That I do, Boomer. That's what makes it so much fun. You already have a clue what our guests are. No ruining my surprise now!"

"Very well, boy. But you're the one who has to survive the next council meeting, not me."

And then I heard a Yaru speak in the Long Voice for the first time.

Think of wolves howling at the moon, and then imagine the howling is language. In the case of the Yaru, a complex, rich descriptive language.

Perhaps this is how Boomer got his name. I thought to myself as his long call echoed back off the cliff wall a few miles away.

<Let's run!!> Titan thought to us, and we ran! Copper and Strider were in horse heaven, as we ran through the shallow rive crossing, up a shallow dirt bank and onto a stretch of hard packed prairie. At first I worried about how Andy would handle such a hard gallop, and then I worried about how I was going to keep up.

Judging by the expressions on the Yaru faces as we went by, assuming I was correctly able to judge the expressions of a species I had known for a total of one day, we were expected, and a shocking surprise, all at the same time. As we slid by the wooden blur of the buildings I had spotted with my long vision, the terrain suddenly changed to a hard, flat-packed dirt, and then a long shallow climb up a terrace-like slope of rubble, where the brakes got thrown on. Slider showed where his name came from as he did a controlled skid in the gravel, coming to a stop right alongside of Titan.

Copper's stop was a little less dramatic and dignified, which apparently did not make him happy. As soon as we had come to a stop he reared up on his hind legs and let out a long whinny. Yes, I managed to stay aboard and preserve my own dignity, thank you.

Long River-Plain Hunt's leader, Long Night Running literally stood before us, unmoving when we made our dramatic stop, as if waiting for one of us to falter and slide a touch too close and make contact. None of us did, and as soon as the dust settled, Andy let out a huge whoop! Of joy and jumped feet first to the ground before launching himself at Titan's neck and hugging him fiercely.

"That was the most wonderful ride I've ever had, Thanks Titan!!"

It took me a second, but I realized he had spoken in the Yaru language!

<Andy, how can you do that?> I thought at him. And he showed me in his thoughts the simple little adjustment he made, using the Light on his vocal cords. <Nice timing!> I thought to him.

"Greetings Long Night Running, I am Dave McKesson, and this is my son Andy." I said to the Yaru leader.

"Welcome back to the land of the Yaru, Walker. We have been waiting a very long time for you to come back to us. Are we at war again?"

The Yaru leaders words stunned me so completely I blacked out for a split second. My ears were ringing and my heart was beating a mile a minute. Andy's hand on my shoulder brought me out of it.

"We asked for a world where we could raise an army. I guess we weren't thinking that it could mean a world that already had an army waiting to be raised, huh dad?"

The Yaru had long memories indeed. It was what could be called racial, or species memory. Every Yaru born remembered the 'Yaru Stories' and could recite the 'Yaru Knowledge'

Within a couple of hours we had a deal. What a laugh! The first thirty minutes I spent giving my memories to the Yaru elders. The next fifteen minutes was them absorbing what they'd seen, and recovering from some of it. I gave them my entire life, every minute of it. The next hour was spent listening to the Long Night Running tell us what they expected us to do, and the last fifteen minutes were me thanking them profusely and asking if their was anything we could do for them.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" I had said.

When he heard this question I actually saw the leader's eye twitch, followed by a very wolfish grin.

"Yes! You can take Titan with you. Perhaps you can keep him out of trouble, and I can sleep peacefully at night."

So Andy 'got to keep him' after all.

I really did want to do something to celebrate our new allies, and to thank them. I was thinking about that as Titan was getting his 'marching orders' from Long Night Running.

<Buffalo burger?> I thought to Andy.

<For dinner tonight?> I heard the giggle in his thoughts and knew he was just teasing me. <I think that would probably be a big hit with them Dad, especially if you get the buffalo before its burger. Maybe we should ask Titan what he thinks when we get home.>

Idea explored and plan in place, we made our farewells and prepared to take our leave.

Copper and Slider had gotten a raw deal from us when we first arrived. After such a strenuous two mile run. We should have given them a good rubdown and some water at least. But we soon discovered that they were well tended. During the two hours we were with Long Night Running and the other Yaru elders, the horses had been running, drinking water from the nearby stream, eating some of the local foliage and enjoying the company of a half dozen young Yaru.

"Babies!" Said Titan. "The oldest of them is barely thirty cycles."

Titan was fifty cycles himself. That made him only a boy, the Yaru equivalent of Andy, a pre-teen adolescent. No wonder he and Andy became such fast friends.

<Blossom, are you busy?> I sent the thought.

<No sweetie! How's it going?>

<You'll have to follow it in my thought when I tell you, or you won't believe me. The bad news is that Andy got his wish.>

<Wish?>

<Does the phrase 'Can I keep him?' ring a bell?>

Somehow without a word or thought, or any invocation of the Light, I could sense my wife, in the midst of the silence that ensued, shaking her head sadly.

<We're dropping the horses off first, and then we'll be home.>

We had a lot of practice in recent years recruiting the best and brightest of the academic community, but in some senses the techniques we had developed where wasted on the kind of people that Legion Team Three wanted. Secrecy was a fact of life for them. Jobs with big payouts and no guarantees were par for the course. So were jobs where you didn't know where you were going until you got there. If then.

They started with people they knew. Former teammates. Those who had instructed them, and those they had instructed. Tony was the most connected of the four of them, and his first thought was the unit once known as 'Fat Eddy'.

Tony and Cyrus met the six surviving members of Fat Eddy at the Mad Cow Bar and Grill, in Porter, halfway between Muskogee and Tulsa, Oklahoma. A couple beer's worth of how the hell ya been's later, Pea Nichols got the real conversation started.

"Obsidian Research, huh?"

"Yup." Tony answered.

"Money's good?"

"Depends. Cyrus and I signed up for a long term gig. We do pretty good."

"Good enough he finally convinced Sylvia Porter to marry him." Cyrus added. "She signed up for the same gig."

"Don't suppose you can tell us where?" Joe Meier asked.

"Nope." Tony answered.

"Don't suppose you can tell us how long?"

"Nope."

"What can you tell us?" Tree Simmons asked.

"Tree, if you sign up, we take care of the 200,000 you owe your ex wife and wipe out the rest of your outstanding debts. Same for the rest of you. When you get on the bus you owe nobody from your old life anything. Chili, that weapons charge they keep hanging over your head down in Natchez will be history."