Free Heirs of the Fallen: Book 02 - Crown of the Setting Sun by James A. West Page A

hungry,” Leitos muttered sullenly, unable to guess why the man had failed to react as he had believed he would.
    The Hunter turned and slowly drew off his hood. His dark eyes shone like glass. “You’re a poor liar, boy. I can hear your belly grumbling from here.” He smiled then, a cheerless turn of the lips that showed strong, white teeth. “Come, I’ll cut you free. We can sup together on the sage hares I snared last night. They are scrawny, much like you, but I have a bit of salt and spices to flavor them.”
    After the Hunter deftly used a wide-bladed knife to slice through his bonds, Leitos sat up, rubbing away the numbness in wrists, then worked on his ankles. He offered no word of thanks. The Hunter did not seem to mind, and went about starting a fire of twigs and dried dung. Next, he drove a pair of forked sticks into the sand on either side of the flames. He pulled a pair of mangy hares from a threadbare sack, skinned and spitted them, then set to roasting them.
    “I would gladly die before eating anything from your hand,” Leitos said, wishing his belly agreed.
    “You’re too weak by half, boy, to travel very far without growing faint. You will eat.”
    “I have come this far,” Leitos retorted.
    “And how far is that, do you believe?” the Hunter chuckled grimly. “A few days of hard travel from the mines, boy—that is all you managed. Your masters would have caught you if not for the river, which those iron-boned
Alon’mahk’lar
will not cross without a sturdy barge. As there are no barges in this part of Geldain, and fewer bridges, they sent word out to all their spies and Hunters to keep an eye out for a fleeing slave boy, and offered a fair reward to anyone who captured you.”
    Leitos receded into himself, considering what the Hunter had said first. On one hand, it was hard to believe he had traveled so little, but on the other, he knew it for the truth. At the start of his journey, he had reasoned that it would be weeks, if not months, to reach the Mountains of Fire. Now, captured by the Hunter, he guessed he might never see those crags. His grandfather had placed his faith in the wrong person, Leitos thought, and had pointlessly thrown his life away. Save getting himself beaten to a pulp, captured and bound, Leitos grudgingly accepted that he had accomplished nothing.
    The smell of roasting meat gradually drew Leitos from the smothering morass of his bleak ponderings. During his lengthy brooding, the Hunter had continually turned the spitted hares, searing them over a small fire. Now the brute rummaged through a handful of tiny leather sacks arranged around an iron pot and a few other cooking implements, all nestled within an old wooden crate sitting open beside his knees. He carefully sprinkled salt over the hares, delved into another sack and brought out some dried green leaves. These he crushed into coarse flakes, letting them drift onto the glistening meat.
    Despite his conviction not to eat, the aroma of the cooking food set Leitos’s mouth to watering. He cursed his weakness. The only way to distract himself was to start talking. If the Hunter wanted to batter him for speaking out of turn, so much the easier to resist thoughts of eating.
    “What is this place?” he asked.
    The Hunter seemed to ignore him, not once looking away from the hares. Leitos had given up any expectation of receiving an answer when the man began to speak.
    “One of my hideaways,” the Hunter said. “I have many. Some are mere hollows; others are deep and winding caverns. All Hunters have their secret dens. Most, like this one, are more than they appear, even up close. Behind a rock at the back of this cave,” he said, tilting his head to a spot hidden in the gloom behind Leitos, “there is a crack. Squeeze through it, and you find a passage that leads to a large chamber with a seep of the sweetest water you have ever tasted.”
    Leitos found that interesting, but there was really only one thing he