Pathfinder

Pathfinder is a science fiction novel by the American writer Orson Scott Card, published in 2010. It is the first book of the Pathfinder series.

Rigg has an unusual ability: he can see the path left by any living creature, no matter how long ago that creature went past. He spends his time in the mountains with his father, hunting and trapping animals for the pelts, and his father is also his teacher, having taught him everything he knows.

His father is killed, impaled by a tree, and what he says at the end is not that Rigg should look for his mother but that he has a sister, a person Rigg had never heard of. Afterwards Rigg tries to save a boy called Kyokay at the Stashi Falls near their home and cannot: someone else's path crosses the boy's, and Rigg is unable to reach him in time.

Kyokay's brother Umbo sees all of it, throws stones at Rigg thinking he can knock him down, and tells the village that Rigg murdered the boy. Rigg comes back to a mob that intends to kill him, and the innkeeper, Nox, hides him and gives him money, an address and nineteen jewels that came from his father. Umbo, who was thrown out of his own house over what he said, travels with Rigg, and at a place called Leaky's Landing the two of them meet a man named Loaf.