The Redemption of Althalus by David Eddings Read Free Book Online Page A

“I’m not a greedy man, friends. Two bags of gold are more than enough to satisfy me.”
    Althalus stepped around to the side of the tavern to swear. It was the irony of it all that stung so much. Gosti desperately wanted everybody in Arum to believe that he was rich. That absurd reward offer was nothing more than a way for the fat man to verify his boasts. Gosti, still eating with both hands, was probably laughing himself sick right now. Althalus had stolen no more than a handful of brass coins, and now he’d have to run for his life. Gosti would get the fame, and Althalus now had Galbak on his trail and every man in Arum looking for him—with a knife.
    Obviously though, he was going to have to get rid of his splendid new tunic, and that
really
bit deep. He went back to the door and peeked inside to identify the man who’d just described him. What had happened had been Gosti’s doing, but Gosti wasn’t around to punish, so that loud-mouthed tavern loafer was going to have to fill in for him.
    Althalus etched the man’s features in his mind, and then he went outside the village to wait and watch.
    Dusk was settling over the mountains of Arum when the fellow lurched out of the tavern and came wobbling out to the main trail that passed the village. He was carrying a short spear with a broad-bladed bronze tip, and he was whistling tunelessly.
    He stopped whistling when Althalus savagely clubbed him to the ground.
    Then Althalus dragged him back into the bushes at the side of the trail. He turned the unconscious man over. “I understand you’ve been looking for me,” he said sardonically. “Was there something you wanted to discuss?”
    He peeled the man’s knitted smock off the limp body, removed his own splendid tunic, and regretfully dropped it on his would-be assassin’s face. Then he put on the shabby tunic, stole the man’s purse and spear, and left the vicinity.
    Althalus didn’t have a very high opinion of the man he’d just robbed, so he was fairly certain that the idiot would actually wear that tunic, and that might help to muddy the waters. The description the fellow had been spreading around had mentioned a black beard, so when the sun rose the following morning, Althalus stopped by a forest pool where he could see his reflection in the surface of the water and painfully shaved with his bronze dagger.
    Once that had been taken care of, he decided that it might be prudent to continue his northward journey along the ridgelines rather than in the canyons. His shave and his change of clothing had probably disguised him enough to conceal his identity from people who were searching for somebody with a black beard and a wolf-eared tunic, but a fair number of men had stopped by Gosti’s hall during the preceding winter, and if some of those guests were among the searchers, they’d probably recognize him. And if
they
didn’t, Gosti’s cousin Galbak certainly would. Althalus knew the Arums well enough to be certain that they’d stay down in the canyons to conduct their search, since climbing the ridges would be terribly inconvenient and there weren’t many taverns up on top where they could rest and refresh themselves. Althalus was positive that no real Arum could ever be found more than a mile away from the nearest tavern.
    He climbed the ridge with a sense of bitterness dogging his heels. He’d make good his escape, of course. He was too clever to be caught. What really cankered at his soul was the fact that his escape would just reinforce Gosti’s boasts. Gosti’s reputation as the richest man in Arum would be confirmed by the fact that the greatest thief in the world had made a special trip to Arum just to rob him. Althalus mournfully concluded that his bad luck was still dogging his heels.
    Up on the ridgeline, the sodden remains of last winter’s snowdrifts made for slow going, but Althalus slogged his way north. There wasn’t much game up here on the ridges, so he frequently went for days