"Two moons ago," he began, while they moved steadily along the twisting elephant path, "the girl I wanted as my mate was taken by a group of men who called themselves Ammadians. These men came from a great territory that lies south of your own caves. Ages ago many hundreds of the Ammadians left their country and traveled into the north, stopping finally in a high valley only a few marches from where the caves of my people now are."
"Here they built many strange caves on level ground by piling heavy slabs of rock together, surrounding them all by a great wall of stone. They named this place Sephar and spoke of themselves as Sepharians."
"From time to time bands of Ammadians cross the plains and mountains and jungles between Ammad and Sephar. The leader of one of those bands, an Ammadian named Jotan, saw Dylara and wanted her for himself. Not long before this, Dylara had been taken from me by a hunting party of Sepharians, and she was held captive by Sephar's chief until he gave her to Jotan."
"Soon thereafter Jotan's party set out on the return journey to Ammad. Because of a wound, it was an entire moon before I was able to set out in pursuit of those who hold Dylara."
So engrossed was Trakor in the other's story that he quite forgot his uneasiness regarding the night-cloaked jungle about him. His imagination was fired by Tharn's adventures, and his ready sympathy went out to the cave lord in his romantic quest.
"Then you must enter the land called Ammad and take Dylara from those who have her?" he asked.
Tharn nodded. "At first," he said, "I hoped to overtake Jotan and his men before they could reach Ammad. But several times I lost their trail for days on end. Once a raging fire swept over a great stretch of grasslands I was crossing and I was forced to spend many days circling the burned section before I was able to pick up the signs of their passage. Then, ten suns ago, I lost the trail completely; since then I have been guided only by the directions given me when I left Sephar."
For a little while Trakor did not speak. Then: "Are these men you call Ammadians not so large as the people of our tribes? Do they cover their bodies with a strange kind of skin that comes from no animal? And do they wear strange coverings on their feet? And do they carry a strange length of branch with a tight length of gut tied to each end and many small spears such as you are carrying?"
Tharn, his pulses suddenly beginning to pound, seized the boy by one arm, bringing him to an involuntary halt. "Such are the Ammadians," he said tensely. "What do you know about them?"
"I have heard the warriors of my tribe speak of them," Trakor said. "There have been times in the past when we fought them. But they are brave and good fighters and we do not have the gut-strung branches which throw the small spears so straight and so far. So now we seek no quarrel with them unless they come too near our caves."