Raymond Feist - Exile’s Return

Home, he thought bitterly. A day earlier he had been home, ruling his nation, before being taken captive in his own citadel, defeated by a former servant he had thought as good as dead. He had spent the night in chains considering the dramatic reversal of fortune that had overwhelmed him, and had fully expected to be hanged by now.

Instead, Talwin Hawkins, his former servant, had forgiven him, and he had been banished to this distant land. Kaspar was uncertain as to what exactly had transpired over the previous few days. In fact, he was beginning to wonder if he had truly been himself for the last few years.

He had heard guards talking outside his quarters while he had been awaiting what he anticipated would be his execution. Leso Varen, his magician advisor, had been killed in the battle for the citadel. The magician had first come to him years earlier, promising great power in exchange for Kaspar’s protection. His presence had been only a minor distraction at first and he had from time to time provided useful service.

Kaspar took a deep breath and returned his attention to gaining his freedom. There would be time for more reflection on his past, assuming he lived long enough to have a future.

Kaspar was a broad-shouldered man of unusual strength, but his looks were deceptive. Unlike many men of his build, he kept himself limber. Expelling all the air from his lungs and hunching his shoulders forward, he pulled his knees hard up against his shoulders, sticking his head between his thighs, forcing his feet between his bound wrists. He could feel ligaments protest as he stretched his arms as far as possible, but he managed to get his hands in front of him.

And almost pulled the tent down in the process. He found himself able to lie down, easing the tension on the rope and peg. He studied it. The bindings were indeed of rawhide, and he set to them with his teeth. Using saliva, he got the simple knot wet, gnawing at it until it loosened. For long minutes he worried at the loops of the knot, then suddenly it came loose and his hands were free.

He flexed his fingers and rubbed his wrists as he slowly stood up. Forcing his breathing to a slow, deep rate, he crept around to the front of the tent. He peered around the edge of the tent and saw a single guard sitting with his back to the fire at the other end of the camp.

Kaspar’s mind raced. He knew one thing from years of experience: more harm came from indecision than from bad choices. He could attempt to silence the guard, thereby possibly gaining several hours on the pursuit that would certainly follow, or he could simply leave, and hope the guard didn’t come to check on him before dawn. But whichever choice he made, he had to act now!

Without conscious effort, he took a step in the guard’s direction. He trusted in his instincts: the risk was worth the potential reward. The guard hummed a simple tune, perhaps as a device to keep himself alert. Kaspar trod lightly on the balls of his feet and came up behind the man.

Some change in the light as Kaspar stepped between the guard and the camp fire, a slight sound, or just intuition, made 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 travelled 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 towards 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, downwards 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 towards 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 chieftain was a fool he would understand what Kaspar had done. The dagger next to his child would say, ‘I could have killed you and your family while you slept, but I spared you. Now, leave me alone.’

At least that’s what Kaspar hoped the man would understand.

Dawn found Kaspar climbing over broken rocks, high into the hills. There was almost no cover above the small copse of trees he had seen the day before, and he struggled to find a place to hide.

He could still see the camp below, though by now it was a distant dotting of tents on the floor of the wide valley. From his vantage he could see that this valley was a choke point of a broad plain, flanked on his side by broken hills with a plateau opposite. On the other side of the valley, a vast mountain range rose in the distance. Snow-capped peaks suggested that these mountains would be difficult to cross. The military man in him admired the defensibility of the location, should someone choose to place a fortress where the nomad’s camp was. But scanning the horizon, he realized there was nothing to protect here.