He turned his head as the point of a spear, wielded without
passion but with skill and fell purpose, split his shoulders precisely
and buried itself in his heart.
*
Trembling with fear, Kalus opened his eyes slowly. Why had Shar-hai not
finished him? Why was he still alive?
The first thing he saw was the body of his foe, large even in death,
lying on its side, the shaft deeply embedded. But the next thing he saw
puzzled him still more, was yet stranger. He saw the hunched and
grizzled form of Barabbas standing not five yards away, looking at him
with tears as large as droplets running down his cheeks. In all his
years, Kalus had never seen him cry. But that was not quite true.
Something in the nerve-heightened sense of the moment, and in the strong
man's broken expression, brought home with sudden clarity the memory
of a day that lay buried among the horrors of a past he had tried to
forget. The day of his father's death.
It had been less than seven years. In the midst of a scourge of
spiders, hunger and scarcity of game had forced the tribe far to the
west, beyond any boundaries or even point of recognition. After a long
and fruitless day's search, the men at last spotted three large deer,
feeding in a clearing on a long hillside surrounded by trees.
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