The Nomad - By Simon Hawke Page 0,24

them spinning away into the darkness.

* * *

Sorak came to his senses not knowing what had happened. He was lying stretched but on his stomach, with his own cloak covering him. It was early morning. The campfire was burning brightly, and he could smell the aroma of roasting flesh. He opened his eyes and saw a man seated cross-legged by the fire, cooking some meat on a spit. He sat up instantly, and gasped as he felt a sharp pain shoot through his shoulder.

“Easy, friend,” said the man seated by the fire. “Move slowly, else you will undo all of my good work.”

Sorak looked at shoulder. His tunic had been removed, and his shoulder crudely but effectively bandaged. Some kanna leaves had been pressed together underneath the bandage to make a poultice.

“You did this?” asked Sorak.

“I applied the poultice and the bandage,” the man replied. “I did not inflict the wound, however.”

“Who did?”

“You do not know?”

Sorak shook his head. “No, I remember nothing.” Suddenly, he looked around. “Ryana! Where is she?”

“I saw no one save you when I arrived,” the stranger said. “But there was a party of men here not long before. If your companion was here alone, it seems they have made off with her.”

“Then I must go after them at once,” said Sorak. He tried to get to his feet, but winced at the pain in his shoulder when he moved. A wave of dizziness came over him.

“I do not think you would be of much use to your companion in your present condition,” said the stranger. “We will see to your friend presently. For now, you need your strength.” He held up a piece of uncooked meat, spitted on a dagger. “Elves eat their flesh raw, do they not?”

Despite himself, Sorak started salivating at the sight of the meat. He knew the tribe had fed earlier, but he did not know how long he had been unconscious, and the wound had made him weak. Druid vows be damned, he thought to himself as he accepted the meat from the stranger. Ryana needs me, and I need my strength to heal. “Thank you,” he said to the big stranger.

“You are small for an elf,” the stranger said. “Are you part human?”

“Part halfling,” Sorak said.

The stranger raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Indeed? And how did such a curious thing occur?”

“I do not know,” said Sorak. “I did not know my parents.”

“Ah,” the stranger said, nodding with understanding. “The ways of Athas can be harsh.”

As he ate, Sorak looked the man over. He was a large and powerful-looking man, very muscular, with a fighter’s build, but he was no longer young. His features betrayed his age, but his body belied it. He had long gray hair that hung down past his shoulders and a thick gray beard. He was dressed in a sleeveless hide tunic that displayed his mighty arms, hide breeches, high moccasins with fringe at the tops, and studded wristlets. He wore an iron sword and several daggers in his belt, and given the extreme rarity of any kind of metal on Athas, it was clear testimony to his prowess as a fighting man. Some very rich and grateful aristocratic patron had bestowed the weapons on him, and he was skilled enough to keep them and not let a better fighter take them away. Sorak immediately thought of his own sword and clapped his hand to his side. It was not there.

“Your blade is safe enough,” the Stranger said with a smile, noting his alarmed reaction. “It is in its scabbard, lying with your tunic, there.”

Sorak looked where the stranger pointed and saw that Galdra was, indeed, safely lying by his side, not three feet away, atop his tunic. “A lot of men would have been tempted to take it for themselves,” he said. The stranger merely shrugged. “I did not care for the shape of it,” he said simply. “A handsome weapon, to be sure, but not suited to my style of fighting. I suppose I could have sold it. No doubt, it would have fetched a great deal of money, but then I would have had the worry of wondering what to spend it on. Too much money can only bring trouble to a man.”

“What is your name, stranger?” Sorak asked.

“I am called Valsavis.”

“I am in your debt, Valsavis. My name is Sorak.”

Valsavis merely grunted.

Sorak felt his strength returning to him as he finished the raw meat. It was z’tal flesh, and it tasted exceedingly