A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind) by Guy Stanton III Read Free Book Online Page B

we’d had to practically run our hors es into the ground to avoid capture. Last night I had released the horses so that they would lay down a false trail for our pursuers to follow and we had set off on foot towards the lake hoping that the patrol would take the bait and follow our worn out mounts instead of us.
    It seemed to have worked out so far in our favor, but there was nothing favorable about our current circumstances. The water we stood in was dark and it stank. Dead fish and lake debris swirled around us in the murky water, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Leeches! I could feel them sliding along my flesh and then the sudden pinch of pain when they bit on and started to suck my blood.
    All I wanted to do right now was roll in a barrel of salt, until every last one of the retched things shriveled up and fell off. I hate bugs and anything close to it, especially leeches. The arena dungeons had been full of bugs and the poor ex cuses of what passed for medicinal experts assigned to patching up fighters had employed the heavy use of leaches in all their remedies. I had grown too loath both. It was all I could do to remain calm, as I stood there being fed upon.
    The boy looked as miserable as I felt. “Okay , there gone, let’s go!”
    We waded through the reeds over to the beach, where I slid a sturdy looking small craft with a single small sail out into the waters of the lake. Pushing it further out into the current I reached for the boy and lifted him into the skiff and then climbed in myself. I rowed away from the shore for awhile to get some distance between us and the beach and then I unfurled the sale and set the rudder on a course to take us to the northern side of the lake.
    I turned to the boy, after I had tied the rudder off, “Now that we’re on our way let’s get these stinking bloodsucking leeches off!”
     
     

Chapter Three
    Hunted
    We sailed through the night and most of the next day be fore we reached the far end of the lake, which bordered the Silepsium Moors. I had never seen a more foreboding stretch of land, as was laid out before me now. Not even the Hagathic Wastelands could compare with the somber mood of these moors.
    I kept my reservations about the gloomy moors to myself though. No need to infect the boy with my uneasiness. I pulled the boat up onto the shore and after a brief meal of fish we started out into the moors.
    The boy was like a shadow in how close he stuck to me. He was still as silent as he had been since we’d left Kharta. That night we had another fire and ate some more fish along with a few wild vegetables that I had managed to scavenge on the way.
    Things were going well for us, until the next day. As we were traveling along through the scrub brush of the moors a sense of foreboding came over me. We were being watched! I glanced at the boy behind me and I could see that he sensed that something was different as well. Perceptive boy, I thought approvingly to myself. I put my hand on his shoulder reassuringly, and felt him draw slightly closer to me. I had been followed before, it was in fact almost a daily occurrence in my life, but this feeling of being followed was dif ferent in some way. It took me a couple of hours of puzzling over it to realize what was different and then it was almost too late.
    I didn’t tell the boy, as it would only have stressed him out more and he would find out soon enough what was fol lowing us. I quickened our pace through the dense brush searching the gathering darkness ahead of us for a spot to make a good account of ourselves and perhaps live out the night.
    We weren’t being followed by humans. Moor wolves were shadowing us! I had heard the stories and the stories had been enough to convince me that I didn’t want any part of them. Unfortunately I did have them, quite a lot of them. Moor wolves traveled in packs. The wolves of my home country that I had never seen were of a bigger build than the se moor wolves and remained solitary