Exile's Return Read Free

the man turn. Kaspar lashed out as hard as he could and struck him behind the ear. The guard’s knees wobbled and his eyes lost focus and Kaspar struck him across the jaw. The man started to fall, and Kaspar caught him.
    He knew his freedom was measured in seconds as he stripped the guard of his headcover, and sword. But the man had smaller feet than him and his boots were useless to Kaspar.
    He cursed the soldier who had taken his boots on the night of his capture. He couldn’t attempt an escape barefoot. He lacked the calluses of those who traveled without boots and while he knew little of the terrain around him, what he had seen told him it was rocky and unforgiving. He remembered a small copse of trees on a distant hillside to the northeast, but doubted he could effectively hide there. What other cover might be nearby was unknown to him; he had had no time to study his surroundings between his arrival and the confrontation with his captors. His only escape option would be to find a pair of boots and put as much distance between himself and his captors before they awoke, climbing into the rocky ridge above them where the horses couldn’t follow.
    He stood silently for a moment, then hurried quietly to the largest tent. Holding the sword at the ready, he gently moved aside the tent flap. Inside he could hear snoring. It sounded as if there were two sleepers, a man and a woman. In the gloom he could see little, so he waited and let his eyes adjust. After a moment he saw a third body near the left side of the tent, a child from the size of it.
    Kaspar saw a pair of boots standing next to a small chest, where he imagined he’d find the chieftain’s personal treasure. Kaspar moved with the catlike stealth uncharacteristic of a man so large. He quietly picked up the boots and saw they were of a size he could wear, then moved back toward the tent flap. He paused. Conflicting urges tugged at him. He was almost certain to be overtaken and recaptured, perhaps killed this time, unless he could find an advantage. But what? While he pondered, valuable moments passed, time never to be regained that would count against him as he sought to distance himself from this place.
    Indecision was not part of Kaspar’s nature. He glanced about in the gloom and saw the chieftain’s weapons where he would expect them, close at hand in case of trouble. He inched past the sleeping couple and took out the nomadic leader’s dagger. It was a long, broad-bladed thing designed with a single purpose, to gut a man at close quarters. There was nothing dainty about it, and it put Kaspar in mind of the daggers worn by the nomads of the Jal-Pur desert of Kesh. He wondered idly if these people were somehow related. The language of the Jal-Pur was unrelated to Keshian, but Quegan had been a dialect of Keshian, and these people’s language bore a faint resemblance.
    Kaspar took the blade and crept closer to the tent flap. He peered in the gloom at the child. In the dim light he couldn’t see if it was a boy or girl, for the hair was shoulder length and the child’s face was turned away. With a quick, downward thrust, Kaspar drove the dagger through the floor cover into the earth below. The slight sound caused the child to stir, but not wake.
    Kaspar left the tent. He glanced quickly around and saw what he needed, a filled waterskin. He then looked longingly at the line of horses, but ignored them. A mount would give him a better chance of survival, but trying to saddle one was likely to wake someone, and whatever chance his warning in the tent might earn him, stealing a horse from these people would certainly outweigh it.
    Kaspar moved out of the village and toward the trees and the hills beyond. What he had seen before his capture indicated that it was rocky terrain and perhaps these horsemen might be disinclined to follow if the way was too harsh. Perhaps they had a rendezvous to make, or perhaps Kaspar’s message might give them pause.
    For unless the