Caleb rolled over and groaned, sharp pain shooting through his lower back. Shifting around on his sleeping mat, he reached under it to remove the small stone that during the night had turned into a boulder. A wry smile touched his lips as he tossed the rock away into the waist high grass a few yards from where he lay. The thought drifted through his mind of how, when he was younger, things like the stone did not seem to bother him and surely did not cause as much pain as they did now. He forced those thoughts from his mind.

The trail he was following was getting cold and that could not be allowed, not with his daughters life hanging in the balance. A week has passed since she was taken, and the signs left no dought that he was gaining ground. Two more days at the most and he would catch up with the bank of brigands that had stolen her from the farm.He knew that she was still alive by her smaller footprints intermingled with the larger ones in the band that had taken her.