Keeping his face unreadable, the Tarnish officer saluted and moved to obey his commands. After a few brief orders, the ranks of legionnaires broke into groups and set about their duty with a vengeance. With ruthless efficiency, they tore down every standing building, corral, shed, shop, and pen, and piled the debris on the blackened remains of the burned hall. They scattered salt over the plowed fields and small gardens, demolished the shrine to the Clan gods, poisoned the well, and killed every stray dog and abandoned animal they found. The palisades were broken to pieces heaped on the growing pile of shattered ruins. Nothing was left standing.
When the town was completely leveled, the soldiers stood back while several of their number soaked the huge heap with oil and set it aflame. The fire burst into light with a hungry roar, consuming the remains of the Clan village in a searing bonfire that sent clouds of black smoke billowing high over Stonehelm.
Tyrranis looked on in grim satisfaction. When nothing remained but a few bare patches and the blackened stone where the coals of the pile were still smoldering, the Tarns remounted and rode down from Stonehelm. They, too, trotted over the ridge and disappeared to the south on the trail of the Clan.
The last rays of sunlight were streaking the pink western sky when the Clan finally reached the meadows below the ridge where Valorian had been struck by lightning a year before. The wagons creaked to a halt, the footsore animals fell to grazing, and the clanspeople heaved a mutual sigh of relief. They had been traveling almost constantly for six days, and they were exhausted.
Valorian had been pushing them hard over rugged terrain, for he knew Tyrranis’s troops could move faster than laden wagons and herds of livestock, and he wanted to put as much distance between them and the Tarns as possible.
This night, however, he allowed the caravan to stop a little early. He had sent out scouts several days before; and they were to rejoin the Clan here at what everyone had started calling Lightning Ridge. He didn’t really want to wait, but he badly needed the scouts’ information, and the weary clanspeople needed the rest.
Through the dwindling daylight hours, the people bedded down the herds of horses and livestock, set up shelters, and found food for everyone before collapsing on their blankets for some much needed sleep.
Valorian thought several times about riding Hunnul up to the top of the ridge, but there was no real reason to do so and too much to do to get the Clan camped for the night. Being responsible for about six hundred people was quite different from leading a small family of fifty.
In the past few days, Valorian had come to truly appreciate the awesome responsibilities of his position as lord chieftain. Not only did he have to lead a large caravan over difficult trails, but he also had to elude the Tarns, see to the people’s everyday needs, settle minor disputes, and make countless decisions about everything from whether to send someone to search for a lost goat and how to punish a young woman who stole food, to which men should ride in the rear guard. In order to preserve his strength, he refused to use his magic for anything but emergencies, and he delegated some of the duties to Mordan, who was increasingly becoming his invaluable friend and right-hand man, and to the other heads of the families. But the brunt of the work and the ultimate responsibility were still his.
Despite it all, Valorian wouldn’t have exchanged places with anyone. He relished his new authority and gave his people his full attention. His constant optimism and his evident pleasure at being on this journey were infectious to all who were with him. He gave hope and purpose to everyone during the long and difficult days of travel.
Perhaps because of their new hope and anticipation, the people had traveled faster and harder than Valorian expected. They had put aside their major differences and were working together to achieve their common goal. No one knew for certain if Tyrranis and the Tarnish soldiers were coming after them yet; they only knew their decision to leave Chadar had been irrevocably made, and they were on their way to a new home.
Late that night, however, the first of the scouts returned, and the Clan learned the truth that Valorian had feared.
“They’ve found our trail again,” the young man wearily told Valorian and the few other men who had awakened when he arrived. “We lost them for a while, but they’re catching up now. About a day behind.”
Valorian nodded, hardly surprised. “Is Tyrranis with them?”
“Yes, lord. But not the full garrison. I only counted about two hundred men.”
“Interesting,” Mordan said, stifling a yawn. “Either the Tarns are incredibly arrogant, or they’re not going to try to stop us.”
The chieftain scratched his jaw thoughtfully. His expression was unreadable in the darkness. “I can’t believe. . .” he said half aloud, then he paused and said to those around him, “We’ll wait to see what Ranulf has found. But with the Tarns so close behind us, we cannot wait here for him. We will have to leave at daybreak.”
The others agreed.
Valorian didn’t go back to his blankets after that. Worry weighed heavily on his mind, so instead of futilely trying to sleep, he went to check the brood mares. All of the Clan’s precious brood mares were together in one herd, faithfully tended by Gylden and a flock of enthusiastic boys. In the past seven nights, twenty more black foals had been born, all with the white lightning mark of their sire. To the delight of everyone, Hunnul’s foals were already showing signs of being stronger and more intelligent than the other new foals born on the trail. No one had the slightest doubt that the black foals were another blessing and omen sent by the goddess Amara.
Valorian stopped to speak to Gylden, who was taking his turn at guard duty, and sent him back to bed. Then he rode up the slopes among the peaceful horses. Hunnul found a quiet place near the herd and stopped to watch over his mares. Stiffly the chieftain rubbed a healing bruise on his arm and leaned back on the stallion’s rump. He spent the remaining hours until dawn wondering what Tyrranis was planning to do and how long he would have to wait to hear from Ranulf.
It turned out that Valorian didn’t have to wait long at all.
The young man sent to scout the trail ahead for Tarnish patrols came galloping into camp at dawn as the clanspeople were harnessing their horses and packing their gear. Disheveled and worried, he was met by Valorian, Mordan, Karez, and several other men at the head of the forming caravan.
His words came tumbling out even before he saluted the chieftain. “There’s a big force of Tarns, Lord Valorian,” he excitedly. “They’re ahead of us on the trail around the great canyon.”
The chief’s mouth tightened into a grim line. “How many?” he asked.
“About four hundred, as close as I can count,” Ranulf replied. “They just arrived there yesterday. They must have force-marched down the lowlands to cut us off.”
Mordan folded his arms. “Tyrranis probably knows where we’re going by now. I’d say he’s going to try to trap us between a sword and a shield.”
“He’s picked a good place to do it,” Valorian said, his concern plain on his face.
The other men with him looked mystified by their chief’s grave reaction to the news. Few clanspeople had ever traveled this far south, so they weren’t familiar with the territory. “Why can’t we just go around through the hills?” asked a Clan priest.
Picking up a stick, Valorian scratched a crude map of the lands just to the south of their position. “The Darkhorns run in a fairly even line north and south of Lightning Ridge, except right here,” and he stabbed the stick at the place in his drawing. “The mountains bulge out there in high bluffs on either side of a very deep canyon. We can’t take the wagons and carts across the canyon and we can’t go around it to the east because the canyon is too long. We can only drop down to the lower hills to the west to pass around it—”