But before he fell into slumber, Tal wondered if it had been Quint who had saved Eye of the Blue-Winged Teal, and if there had been others saved as well.
He slept for two hours, was awakened by Quint, and then after two hours he woke Visniya and returned to sleep. In the morning he awoke and stretched, then looked across to the campfire. Jenkins was dead.
The cave had been their home for a week, and the men were slowly growing stronger. Tal had set snares around the area and caught enough rabbits and squirrels and one fat turkey that they were eating relatively well. He had found wild berries and a stand of plants he recognized from his homeland; the roots were edible and nourishing if slowly heated in water for a few hours. Lacking a pot, he contrived a way to cook them; he wrapped the tubers in leaves and put them in a pit, which he filled with heated rocks, steaming the roots by pouring water over the rocks. The process was tedious and had to be repeated many times, but the men welcomed the addition to their diets.
Tal felt stronger than he had since leaving the fortress, and he knew that in a few more days they would need to start the next leg of their journey. Quint came over to where Tal was sitting and asked, “Do you think Kaspar will try to find us?”
“You know him better than I do. What do you think?”
“Depends.” The old soldier had become gaunt since leaving the Fortress and now had a ragged beard and matted hair. “He may be too busy with another of his mad plans to send soldiers after us, but he’ll surely have his agents around the region keeping an eye out for us.”
“He has agents in Karesh’kaar?”
Quint smiled. “Everywhere. Some work directly for him, like you did, and others are just men who know that Kaspar pays well for certain information. There are a fair number of Olaskons living in Bardac’s, and I’ve seen the reports. I don’t know who’s writing them, but Kaspar’s got eyes everywhere.”
“So what? Once we’re out of Olasko, he can’t arrest us.”
“But he can kill us,” said Quint. He laughed. “My only pleasure these days is imagining him fuming when he hears we’ve escaped. It will annoy him no end not knowing where we are. Given his nature, he will assume we’re sitting in some tavern right now, drinking, eating, and whoring, laughing at him and calling him a fool. Brooding is his downfall.”
Tal didn’t smile. “I take no comfort from Kaspar getting distressed.” He held out the stump of his right arm. “He has this and many more things to answer for. You might be content to get away from him and find service elsewhere, Quint, but I mean to see him dead at the end of my sword.” Tal’s eyes became cold. “And not until I’ve taken everything from him. First I destroy his power, then I take away his wealth, then I kill him.”
Quint said, “Dreams are nice, Tal, but look where we are.”
Tal looked around the rocky hills, which were broken only by stands of trees and brush. The afternoon wind was blowing, hot with the promise of summer to come, and birds could be heard in all directions. He looked back at Quint. “Well, I didn’t say I was going to do it today.”
Quint laughed. “Very well.”
Tal stood up. To the other men he said, “I think after a couple more days of hunting we’ll start moving north again. I’d like to sleep in a bed before another month goes past.”
The men nodded, and Tal turned to Quint. “I think I’ll check the snares.”
Quint nodded and watched as Tal walked away, carrying a spear he had made from a sapling, a knife at his belt, his sword cast aside in his bedding for the time being. The former Captain shook his head. Tal looked nothing like the Champion of the Masters’ Court, nor would he even if he had had both arms. But then, Quint considered, he looked nothing like the commander of the Armies of Olasko, either. He decided to head down to the lake they had passed on their way up to the cave and try his hand at fishing.
Five ragged men waded through the bogs. Fetid pools covered in green slime were bounded by muddy flats. Trees with stunted branches dotted the landscape, small markers by which they judged their position as they moved north.
Tal, Quint, Masterson, Visniya, and a former nobleman, Stolinko, all who were left from the escape from the Fortress of Despair, waded through knee-deep water. Flies plagued them, and the day’s heat beat down on them. Even after the cave’s brief respite Donska and Whislia had deteriorated during the arduous journey, and they had also been lost.
“You’d think with this heat the damn place would dry up,” said Masterson, his huge ax carried over his shoulder.