“Waking up. We’d best be off,” said the soldier. “They’ll twist it around to we attacked them when they wake up. And seeing this is their village and we’re both foreigners, they’re the ones who’ll get believed. I’m going to cut off across the hills. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll do likewise.”

“I would, most gentle fighting man, feel honored if I could accompany you,” Abdullah said.

“I don’t mind,” said the soldier. “It’ll make a change to have company I don’t have to lie to.” He picked up his pack and his hat—both of which he seemed to have had time to stow tidily behind a tree before the fighting began—and led the way into the woods.

They climbed steadily among the trees for some time. The soldier made Abdullah feel woefully unfit. He strode as lightly and easily as if the way were downhill. Abdullah limped after. His left foot felt raw.

At length the soldier stopped and waited for him in an upland dell. “That fancy boot hurting you?” he asked. “Sit on that rock and take it off.” He unslung his pack as he spoke. “I’ve got some kind of unusual first-aid kit in here,” he said. “Picked it up on the battlefield, I think. Found it somewhere in Strangia, anyway.”

Abdullah sat down and wrestled off his boot. The relief it gave him to have it off was quickly canceled when he looked at his foot. It was raw. The soldier grunted and slapped some kind of white dressing on it, which clung without needing to be tied on. Abdullah yelped. Then blissful coolness spread from the dressing. “Is this some kind of magic?” he asked.

“Probably,” the soldier said. “I think those Ingary wizards gave these packs to their whole army. Put the boot on. You’ll be able to walk now. We’ve got to be far away before those boys’ dads start looking for us on horseback.”

Abdullah trod cautiously into his boot. The dressing must have been magic. His foot seemed as good as new. He was almost able to keep up with the soldier—which was just as well, for the soldier marched onward and upward until Abdullah felt they had gone as far as he had walked in the desert yesterday. From time to time Abdullah could not help glancing nervously behind in case horses were now pursuing them. He told himself it made a change from camels, although it would be nice not to have someone chasing him for once. Thinking about it, he saw that even in the Bazaar his father’s first wife’s relatives had been pursuing him ever since his father died. He was annoyed with himself for not having seen this before.