Raymond Feist - Exile’s Return

He lay panting, face down on the grass; and he could feel the moisture of the blades against his face. Weakly, he dug at the grass and his fingers clawed up the loose earth. Below it he felt dampness. With his last shred of will he pulled himself to his knees and drew his sword. The odd thought came to him that should his old swordmaster see him use a blade this way he would be up for a beating, but he ignored the whimsical thought and plunged the blade into the soil. He dug. He used the blade as a gardener would a spade and he dug.

He ripped and pulled with the last of his strength and forced a hole into the ground with near-hysterical purpose, tearing the dirt aside as rapidly as a badger digging a burrow. Then he smelled it. The damp smell was followed by a hint of gleaming moisture on the blade.

He plunged his hand into the hole and felt mud. He tossed aside the sword and dug with bare hands, and then plunged his fingers into water. It was muddy and tasted of clay, but he could lie on his stomach and pull up a meagre handful at a time. He filled his cupped hand, raised it to parched lips and drank. At some point he rubbed some water on his neck and face, but over and over he raised his cupped hand to drink. He had no idea how many times he did this but eventually he collapsed, his head striking the ground as his eyes rolled up into his head and consciousness fled.

The bird scratched at the seeds, as if sensing danger nearby. Silently, Kaspar watched from on his stomach behind a depression a few feet away, masked by a line of thorny brush, as the bird – some sort of sage fowl he didn’t recognize – pecked at the seed, then picked it up in its beak and gobbled it down.

Kaspar had recovered from his ordeal enough to pull himself into the shade that morning, leaving it only to drink what he could dredge up from his impromptu well. The water came harder each time, and he knew this little reservoir would soon be exhausted. He had decided near mid-afternoon to venture deeper into the gully, to see where it led, and to find another place to dig for water.

Near sundown he had found the tree. He had no name for it, but it bore a tough-skinned fruit. He had cut several down and discovered that once the skin was cut with a blade, the meat was edible. It was also pulpy and tough, and the flavour was nothing to delight a hedonist, but he was desperate. He ate a few bites, despite being consumed by hunger, and waited.

It seemed they weren’t poisonous. He ate several before cramps gripped him. They might not be poisonous, but they were tough on the stomach. Or perhaps three days without food had caused his stomach to act more tenderly.

Kaspar had always possessed a healthy appetite and had never known hunger more pressing than skipping a midday meal because of a hunt or sailing off the coast. Others in his father’s household had complained bitterly when he pressed on, and he laughed silently to imagine how they would react in his current circumstances. The laugh died as he realized they would all likely be dead by now.

The bird came nearer.

Kaspar had placed seeds in a line leading to a snare he had fashioned from the materials at hand. Painfully he had woven tough fibres pulled from the bulb of a strange-looking cactus; it was a trick shown him by his Keshian guide. He had ripped off the end of the bud and yanked hard, producing a sharp tip attached to a long fibre. ‘Nature’s needle and thread,’ the guide had said. He had struggled, but in the end he had produced a line twice the length of his arm. His hands and arms were covered in cuts and puncture wounds, testament to his determination to fashion a snare from the thorn-covered branches of the local plants.

It took every ounce of will for Kaspar to remain silent and motionless as the bird approached his snare. He had already started a small fire, which was now banked and waiting to be fanned back into flame, and his mouth positively watered in anticipation of roast fowl.

The bird ignored him as it worried at the seed, attempting to break though the tough outer husk and get to the softer inner kernel. As Kaspar watched the bird finished the tiny morsel and moved to the next seed. For an instant, Kaspar hesitated as a pang of doubt seized him. He felt an almost overwhelming fear that somehow the bird would escape and he would slowly starve to death in this isolated place.

Genuine doubt almost paralysed him to the point of losing the bird. The fowl tossed the seed in the air and it landed just far enough from where Kaspar had placed his snare that he felt sure it would escape. However, when he yanked his line the trap fell exactly where he had judged it would land.

The bird fluttered and squawked as it tried to escape the thorny cage. Kaspar endured punctures from the iron-like points as he lifted the small cage to reach under and seize the bird.

He quickly wrung its neck and even before he had returned to the fire he was plucking its feathers. Using the tip of his sword to gut the bird proved a messy prospect. He wished now he had kept the dagger instead of using it to warn off the nomad chieftain.

Finally the bird was dressed and spitted and he was turning it over a fire. Kaspar could hardly contain himself waiting for the bird to cook. As the minutes dragged on, the cramps in his stomach were from anticipation more than anything else.

Throughout his life Kaspar had developed a strong self-discipline, but not eating undercooked bird was the toughest test he could remember. But he knew the dangers of eating undercooked fowl. One bout of food poisoning as a young man left an indelible memory.

Finally he judged the bird finished, and with disregard for burned lips and tongue he set to with a frenzy. All too quickly he was finished, having eaten every shred of meat and the tiny bit of fat the scrawny thing had possessed. It was the best meal he could recall, but it merely whetted his appetite. He stood up and looked around, as if he might spy another bird waiting to be snatched up and eaten.

Then he saw the boy.

He looked to be no more than seven or eight years of age. He wore homespun and sandals, both caked with dust. He had as handsome a face as Kaspar had ever seen on a child and a serious expression. He was dark blond and he studied Kaspar with wide, pale blue eyes.

Kaspar remained motionless for what seemed minutes, and then the boy turned and fled.

Kaspar took off after him a half-moment later, but he was weak from hunger and deprivation. His only goad was fear that the boy would alert his father or the men of his village and while Kaspar feared no man living, he knew he was too weak to give much account of himself if faced by more than one man.

Kaspar laboured to keep the boy in sight, but soon the child had vanished down a gully and between some rocks. Kaspar followed as well as he could, but after only a few minutes of climbing where he had seen the boy disappear, he stopped as dizziness gripped him. His stomach grumbled and he belched as he sat down. He patted his middle and in a moment of giddiness laughed at how he must look. It had only been, what? Six or seven days since he had been captured in his citadel in Olasko, but he could feel his ribs already. Near starvation had taken its toll.

He forced himself to be calm and then stood up and looked around for signs. He was perhaps as gifted a tracker as any man born to nobility in the eastern kingdoms. Kaspar had few vanities, but his skill at tracking and hunting were not among them; he was as good as he thought he was. He saw scuff marks on the rocks and when he climbed up them he saw the pathway.

Like the ancient abandoned road, this was an old path, made ages ago for carts or wagons, but now used by animals and a few humans. He saw the boy’s tracks heading straight away from him and followed.