Valorian watched all of these changes with a sense of mingling worry and happiness. The time to make plans for the move to the Ramtharin Plains was upon him, and that gave him great joy, but no one else seemed to be paying attention. That deeply concerned him. Everyone, even Kierla and Aiden, was involved in his or her own responsibilities and plans, with little time to discuss leaving Chadar. He rode out a few times to talk to other families but met with little success. Most of the people were leery of having a wanted man in their midst and were in no frame of mind to discuss an exodus. It was very frustrating. Valorian didn’t give up, though. He knew he had to keep trying. Perhaps when the weather warmed and the clanspeople felt the urge to travel again, he could grab their attention.
In the meantime, the unusually heavy snows and cold weather had kept the Tarns in their homes and made life a little easier for Valorian and his family. That, he knew, would change with the first big thaw. He imagined Tyrranis was not pleased with the soldiers’ lack of success in finding him. By spring, he was afraid Tyrranis’s search for him would be renewed with a vengeance.
“Not pleased” was putting Tyrranis’s mood mildly. In fact, he was enraged. For three months, his servants, aides, and officers had stepped very carefully around the volatile general. One wrong move, one imagined slight or mistake could send a person to the dungeon cells beneath the old Chadarian garrison tower—or worse. Tyrranis railed against the stupidity and incompetence of his soldiers and threatened executions if Valorian was not brought to him by early summer at the latest. He wasn’t going to lose this man through the blundering of his underlings.
As soon as men and horses could travel through the snow and mud of the lower foothills, he started sending scouts out to search for the winter camps of the Clan. He knew the families couldn’t leave their camps until the trails dried enough to allow carts and herds to travel, so he hoped to find some clue or information that would lead him to the elusive clansman.
To make matters more interesting, he had it announced all through Chadar that he was offering a large reward in gold for the capture, or information leading to the capture, of Valorian. Tyrranis hoped the lure of gold would loosen the tongues of the impoverished clanspeople.
Then, late one windy night in the fourth month of the year, his offer of a reward reaped results. A Tarnish scout came galloping into the courtyard of Tyrranis’s palace with another man clinging behind his saddle. He demanded to see the general immediately, and the officer of the guard, seeing the ragged clansman with him, escorted him to Tyrranis without hesitation.
As usual, the general was working late on the endless details necessary to running the large province. Tyrranis was a ruthless man, but he drove himself as hard as he drove others, and his great pride lay in his enormous ability to govern. He glanced up irritably when his officer of the guard pounded on the door and announced himself.
At the general’s command, the three men entered, the two Tarns nearly dragging the reluctant clansman.
“What is it?” snarled the general. His fastidious side hoped the smelly, filthy clansman wasn’t the Valorian who had reputed magic powers and had eluded his best men for so long.
“I found him coming down out of the hills, sir,” the scout said breathlessly. “He says he has information and wants to claim the reward.”
Tyrranis pinned his dark stare on the clansman. It was impossible to tell the man’s age because he was so ragged, bearded, and covered with mud. He was probably one of those foul exiles even the clanspeople couldn’t stand in their midst. “Let’s hear what he has to say,” the general said to the scout. “Then we’ll decide if he has earned the reward.”
The clansman smiled a gap-toothed grin and shuffled a step forward. “Oh, I’ve earned it all right, Yer Highness. I know where Valorian is!”
Tyrranis didn’t deign to reply. He sat at his desk, his arms crossed, his face haggard-looking in the light cast by the oil lamp on the table. Outside, the wind gusted to a roar, rattling the shutters and blowing tiles off the roof.
There was a long pause while the clansman stared nervously around him until the thought of the gold in his hands shored up his courage.
“I know Valorian, you see,” he finally muttered. “Big man. Son of Daltor. Daltor didn’t like me. He arranged it so I was exiled seven years ago. The stinking—”
“Get on with it!” growled General Tyrranis. He was growing impatient with this fool.
The clansman started with fear and stumbled over his next words in his hurry to be away from there. “I, uh, saw him—Valorian that is—five days ago, riding that big black horse of his. Hard to miss that horse. So I followed him, at a distance. He went into Gol Agha and rode up the canyon for a long way. They’re camped in there, General. The whole family. Valorian’s with them.” He stared eagerly at Tyrranis, but if he was hoping for some sign of excitement or praise, he was disappointed.
The general only turned to the scout. “Can you find this Gol Agha?”
“Yes, General,” the scout answered.
“Good.” Tyrranis shot a quick glance over the clansman’s shoulder to the guards standing by the door and barely nodded.
“What about my reward?” the exile demanded, holding out a grubby hand. “Isn’t my news worth something?” He was so anxious to get his gold he didn’t see the guardsman slip up behind him.
There was a quick flash of steel and the sound of a thud, and the clansman slowly sagged to the floor, a dagger buried between his ribs.
“Now he cannot go back and sell a warning to Valorian,” Tyrranis said with heavy contempt. He gestured to the body. “Remove that.”
Just as the guards were dragging the body out the door, the garrison commander hurried in and saluted his general. He didn’t give the corpse a second glance. The commander was a very anxious man these days, for he was responsible for the success or failure of the search for Valorian.
“Did he have any news?” the commander asked, trying not to appear too hasty.
“Gol Agha,” Tyrranis replied. He rose to mask the sudden excitement that filled him and strode to the fireplace. The light of the flames flickered over his harsh face. “Go there,” he ordered the scout. “Find the camp.” He turned to the commander. “Now, as for you,” he snarled, “do as we discussed, and do not fail me again.”
Both men saluted and hurried out. While the scout went to find a fresh horse, the commander went to rouse the garrison. The officer wanted every man he could find for this duty. He didn’t intend to let a single clansperson escape from that camp.
That same night, the early spring winds were streaming down the canyon of Gol Agha with the strength of a gale and the voice of a howling madwoman. The lone rider who rode its length could hardly believe that any Clan family in its collective right mind had chosen to camp in this wild place. It wasn’t until he trotted his horse around the curves and into the comparative peace of the back canyon that he saw its advantages. He was around the last bend with the campfires in sight when two guards rode up beside him.
One of them was Valorian’s younger brother.
“Mordan!” Aiden cried with pleasure. “What brings you from our lord chieftain’s side?”
“Believe it or not, Lord Fearral sent me,” the stocky guardsman replied jovially. “He wants to talk to Valorian.”
“Oh? Another warning? Another dithering?”
Mordan laughed. He had long ago given up being insulted by the behavior of their chieftain. “I’m not sure. Our lord has had a rough winter, and he’s getting very nervous about spring. ”