Free Flight of the Nighthawks by Raymond E. Feist Page A

battle, as soon as you kill the man in front of you, another will take his place.”
    â€œI don’t know much about battles,” muttered Zane. “Maybe I should get a really fast horse…”
    Tad laughed and Caleb said, “Not a bad way to look at it.”
    After a few more minutes of sword practice, Caleb said, “Time to turn in.” They had been sleeping under the wagon, so he motioned for them to take their usual places. “I’m going to keep watch tonight. I’ll wake Tad first, then he’ll wake you, Zane.”
    â€œWatch?” asked Tad, his face looking particularly ruddy in the firelight. “Why? We haven’t had one so far.”
    â€œWe were close to Stardock.” He glanced around, as if trying to see something in the darkness beyond the fire’s glow. “From here to the village of Yar-rin, things might be less civilized. We’re heading deeper into the Vale.”
    The Vale of Dreams was a lush series of rich farmland, orchards, and villages benefiting from a seemingly endless series of streams that ran from the Pillars of the Stars Mountains to the Great Star Lake. The region had been the object of conflict between the Kingdom of the Isles and the Empire of Great Kesh for over a century. Both sides maintained claims, and both sides sent patrols into the Vale, but the Kingdom observed an unofficial accommodation with the Empire, and the Kingdom patrols did not venture too far south, and the Empire patrols did not wander too far north. As a result, the region had spawned a host of bandit gangs, mercenary companies, minor robber barons, and constant struggle. Finding a pillaged town or a burned-out village at any point was not unusual. If banditry got too out of hand, one nation would look the otherway while the other sent troops deep into the Vale to punish the malefactors.
    Zane looked around as if suddenly aware of a potential menace behind every tree bole. Tad seemed less convinced. “What would bandits want with an empty wagon?”
    Caleb’s smile was indulgent. “Anything that you can sell, they’d want to take. Now, get some sleep.”
    The boys turned in and Caleb took the first watch. The night passed uneventfully, though Caleb roused himself twice to ensure the boys were not falling asleep while keeping watch. Both had, and he gently chided each, promising not to tell the other about the dereliction.
    By the third night, both boys were keeping alert and Caleb felt comfortable sleeping until dawn.
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    The wagon bumped down the road and Caleb said, “One more night under the wagon, boys. By mid-morning tomorrow, we’ll be within sight of Yar-rin.”
    Both boys nodded with a lack of enthusiasm. Riding in the back of the wagon for days had taken its toll. They were both bruised and sore from the constant jostling over what passed for a road in these parts. Caleb had observed that with the constant strife in the region, neither nation was taking great pains to repair what passed for highways. Occasionally a town or village might elect to send out a gang to repair a stretch that had fallen into such disrepair that it was impairing commerce, but unless a significant loss of income was involved, the locals tended to ignore the problem.
    Which meant that at times the boys were thrown around the back of the wagon without mercy, hanging on to the sides to keep from bouncing right out of the wagon bed. Finally Tad said, “Don’t bother stopping to camp, Caleb. Just get us there. I’ll sleep in the stable if it means not having to endure another day in this wagon.”
    As Caleb suspected, the wagon journey had conspired to make the boys a great deal more amenable to learning how to ride. He knew he could probably find three saddle horses in the village andthat after a couple of days the boys would be sore in a whole new array of places, but that eventually they would be happy to be traveling on