Read Online King of Foxes by Raymond E. Feist - Free Book Online

challenge, and Tal ducked low, thrusting the boar-spear under the animal’s breastbone.
    The bear howled, stepping back. Once more Tal ducked under and thrust. The broad-headed blade cut deep into the muscle, and blood flowed, streaking the beast’s brown fur. Howling in pain, the bear retreated once again, but Tal followed, continuing to duck and thrust into the same spot below the breastbone.
    Soon blood gushed like a river down the animal’s torso, pooling in the ground at its feet. The huge creature waved its paws, and again Tal thrust home with the boar-spear.
    Tal lost count, but after close to a dozen cuts, the animal staggered backward, and fell on his left side. Tal _______________
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    didn’t wait, but reached down and grabbed the Duke, gripping his right upper arm and dragging him downhill.
    Kaspar said weakly, “I can get up, Squire.”
    Tal helped Kaspar to his feet. The Duke seemed slightly dazed, but otherwise unhurt, though he was moving slowly. “I’ll be feeling that blow to the ribs for a week with each breath I take.”
    “Are you all right?” Natalia cried, arriving at a run.
    The two barons approached, bows in hand, and Mikhael said, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    Kaspar said, “How did you do that, Squire?”
    “My grandfather,” said Tal. “He told me once of a boyhood hunt. The great bear rears up to challenge. It is the only way to kill one, he said. If you run, he’ll take you down from behind, but if you stand and threaten him, the bear will rise on his hind legs. Then, said my grandfather, you must strike upward, just below the breastbone, hard and fast, for there is a great artery under his heart and if you can nick that with a deep thrust of a spear, he will bleed to death inside and quickly lose consciousness.” He looked over to where the now-comatose bear lay bleeding out, and said, “Apparently, Grandfather was right.”
    “Your grandfather must have been an amazing hunter,” observed Baron Mikhael quietly.
    For an instant emotions threatened to overwhelm Tal as the image of his grandfather, Laughter in His Eyes, came to him, smiling as he always did. Tal forced that memory aside, using every mental discipline he had been taught at Sorcerer’s Isle to keep composed. He said softly,
    “He was that.”
    “Well, Squire,” said the Duke, wobbly enough to allow Baron Eugivney to help him down the hill, “I owe you my life. What can I do to repay that?”
    Tal suddenly realized that without thought, he had _______________
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    just saved the life of the man he had sworn to kill, but Kaspar read his confusion as modesty. “Come. Let’s go back to camp and rest, and we’ll talk about it.”
    “Very well, Your Grace,” said Tal. For a moment the irony of the situation came down on him in full force, and he was caught halfway between wanting to laugh aloud and wanting to curse.
    He took a glance back at the dying bear, then shouldered the spear and followed the Duke.
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    That evening, the Duke lounged in one of the chairs with his feet propped up on cushions, nursing his injured ribs.
    Tal was amazed at how much strength the man possessed.
    In his prime, Kaspar was a powerful man with the shoulders of a wrestler or dockworker, and arms knotted thick with muscle. When the servants had removed his shirt, revealing the huge blackening area from the deep bruise dealt him by the bear, Tal saw there was very little fat on the man. In open-handed combat, he would be extremely dangerous.
    He was also tough; every breath had to be a trial, for Tal suspected the Duke had cracked ribs, yet he lay back comfortably, chuckling at one or another remark during the evening meal, one arm draped over the back of the chair for support, the other holding a cup of wine.
    He ate little, but he consumed a prodigious amount of wine. Tal’s opinion was that the wine would help the Duke sleep soundly. At the end of the evening, he directed a question at