"Raymond E. Feist - Conclave of Shadows 3 - Exile's Return" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feist Raymond E)

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