'Go and may your journey be cursed,' the second spearman snarled, on his knees beside his companion. He wadded a filthy rag frantically into the wound gaping in the man's shoulder, blood already soaking the cloth slippery beneath his fingers. The injured man whimpered, tears and slime running through his fingers as he clutched at his broken nose.
'Follow me again and I'll kill you,' Kheda said with all the menace he could muster. 'All of you.'
He backed away through a spindly thicket of sardberry bushes, barely glancing over his shoulder to see what lay in his path. An impenetrable stand of wrist-thick red cane finally halted him. Pausing, he listened to the hunters' urgent shouts of argument and lamentation ringing loudly through the forest. There was no obvious sound of pursuit. Turning, Kheda ran, twisting between nut palm saplings tangled with logen vine, his immediate concern to put as much distance between himself and the hunters as he could.
Not down the gully; if they try tracking you, revenge in mind, that's where they'll look first. What will you do then? Kill them in all truth? You've probably killed their leader as it is, crushing his windpipe like that. That shoulder wound will likely fester and it's too high up to save the hapless bastard by taking off his arm, if the black rot gets into it. What did they do to deserve that, only seeking to do their duty by their lord and Daish Sirket, returning a runaway slave?
Sour bile rising from his empty stomach like acid remorse, Kheda pushed on through the lightest patches of underbrush, trying not to slide too far down the hill. He slashed furiously at tendrils of firecreeper, at frail tandra saplings, with Telouet's bloodied sword. Finally, he broke through to a narrow, overgrown track. Sweat stinging the countless scratches he'd collected in his flight, Kheda stopped, heart pounding. With all the birds and animals fled from the noise he'd made or crouching in silent hiding, the forest was tense with stillness. He counted ten deliberate breaths. There was still no sound of pursuit.
And you'd have been easy enough to follow, noisy as a raging fire. So much for all Daish Reik's lessons in stealth and forest craftiness. Now then, get yourself in hand. Where are you in relation to the shore, to the trading beach you've been making for? Getting clear of this domain is more essential than ever now, preferably before half that hunting party's village come looking to nail your hide to a tree.
Kheda walked slowly down the tortuous path, berating himself. The forest stretched out ahead of him, all around, ever changing, always the same. The morning wore away beneath his feet. Only thirst finally put paid to his recriminations, its stranglehold tightening around his throat. Belatedly recalling one of Daish Reik's lessons, he left the path to find a bristled creeper snaking up an ironwood tree. Mindful of Agas's laughter when he'd got this trick wrong as a youth, he made his first cut as high as he could, slicing an arm's length of the dun creeper free with a second lower slash of Telouet's blade. The plant's jealously hoarded water gushed free and splashed over his face as he caught all he could in his gaping mouth, stale and woody tasting as it was.
And I wouldn't trade it for the promise of a dozen flagons of the finest golden wine.
He threw the length of cut creeper aside and such idle thoughts evaporated as he glimpsed a yellowing square of old palm fronds bright through the muted green of the living trees, some little way down the slope. Moving cautiously forward, as quietly as he could, Kheda saw it was indeed what he'd guessed; the roof of a hut, ramshackle and in need of considerable repair if the imminent rains weren't to soak anyone within as they lay in their beds. The ground all around showed more recent care though, newly dug with black earth piled high along trenches waiting impatiently to capture all the precious water that the tardy rains would bring. Kheda left the path and circled round the edge of the dusty barrenness where the underbrush had long since been taken for firewood.
Long since, but none too recently. Those sardberry bushes have a good few seasons' growth on them. There's no fowl house either, ducks or geese ready to raise a commotion if strangers come too close to a hut outside the more usual protections of a village.
Behind the sparse cover of a withered perfume bush, he hunkered down to see inside the decrepit hut's splintered shutters, hanging crooked on sagging hinges. From his vantage point, Kheda could clearly see a heap of quilts were tossed all anyhow on a narrow bed. A tumble of clothes lay on the floor, together with a single lidded cooking pot and a half-unrolled length of sturdy cotton, such as any Daish islander might use to gather up a few belongings for a short journey.
Who's making a stay here? Someone not wanting to live in such an isolated hut for the present but still making use of the fertile garden until the forest reclaims it. But where might this diligent farmer be now'! Out foraging or squatting over a privy scrape?
Kheda crept closer, the skin between his shoulder blades crawling with apprehension lest the unknown gardener return. He sheathed Telouet's sword with sudden decision, driving the hilt home with a snap. Swinging himself over the low sill of the window, he grabbed the topmost quilt and a leather thong left curling across the floor. Seeing a sweat-stained tunic, he pulled it over his head, grimacing with distaste as he fought his arms through the sleeves. Cut for a taller and fatter man, it would at least help hide his own ragged trousers from a casual glance.
Going bare-chested on to a trading beach will attract entirely too much attention and I think we've had more than enough of that this morning. So what else is there, to make you look more convincing as a traveller? You can't afford scruples, not now.
Kheda knelt and made a rapid roll of the quilt, lashing it tight. His stomach rumbled, startlingly loud in the quiet gloom. He lifted the lid off the cooking pot to find a cold smear of sailer pottage, the grain long since cooked and mixed with crushed tandra seeds, some pepper pods and salt to keep it from spoiling. Lilla fruit rinds had been dumped on top of it. After a moment's hesitation, Kheda fished out the rinds and scraped the greasy remnants out of the bottom of the pot, spitting out fragments of lilla pulp and choking the humble food down over his first instinctive revulsion.
So it's come to this, eating a lowliest islander's leavings. Is this plan sense or insanity? I don't know. All I do know is, just now, food's more use to me than pride.
Then he saw the knife that had been used to cut the fruit. It wasn't much of a knife, a short length of clumsily sharpened steel stained with juice and pitted by rust. The wooden handle was cracked where it had once got wet and been left to dry without care or oil. Kheda sat back on his heels, one hand on the hilt of Telouet's sword, the other on his own dagger. Both blades marked him out, as a man belonging to some significant household. This knife would brand its owner as the lowest of the low. Everyone scorned a man who'd reached an age of discretion without a decent dagger to call his own, born to a father who'd never managed to trade sufficient goods, skills or service to be able to give his son such a gift.
Better the lowest of the low than an escaped slave, just at the moment.
Kheda sprang on to the bed. It raised him just high enough to reach up into the crudely hewn rafters. He threaded Telouet's sword carefully into the tight-packed palm fronds, twisting it sideways so it lay flat, hidden in the roof. Shoving his dagger up to join it, he jumped off the bed, caught up the quilt, shoved the paltry knife into the sheath at his belt and ran out through the open door.
Let this be a test of my judgement here, if I get clear without being called to account for this theft. That can be an omen to show me if I'm following the right course.