Heroes And Fools

Scene 4. A Road at Night

A hand crawled desperately on the road dust, as though trying to escape the body attached to it. The pulse throbbed visibly in the wrist.

The crawling slowed-became intermittent-and the hand twisted upside down, fingers quivering in the air like the legs of a dying spider.

Tulaen regarded the hand with as close to regret as he would ever show. “If only you had known more,” he said to the corpse. “You could have said so much more. You might have lasted till morning.”

He stood, the cold night wind stirring his beard. Tulaen slept very little.

“You traded a haying wagon to a man, a kender, and a girl on the road. They gave you a stack of books. You said the girl sketched you.” He tugged at his beard, thinking. “I wonder, now-does she sketch the pictures for the books?”

He looked at the blood trail behind the corpse. It was three times the length of the body and could have been so much more. “Well, there’s no use asking you. At least you knew where they were going.”

While waiting until morning, he tied a log to a rope and slung it from a low hanging limb. He set it spinning in the faint light and chopped it with his broadsword, ducking with practiced ease. For the next log he put a patch over one eye and led with his left. For the last he tied his feet together, and still the spinning log never hit him.

By dawn he had an impressive pile of splintery tinder and kindling. He cooked a quick breakfast and began his walk toward Xak Faoleen.