Valorian (2 page)

"I am cal ed Valorian," the hunter told them, opening his cloak so they could see he wasn't armed.

The men in front of him studied his iron-bound leather helmet, his long wool cloak, his sheepskin vest, and his tattered tunic and leggings. They didn't bother to look past the grime and the patches to the long, lean man with the face hol owed by days of hunger and the quick flash of intelligence in his deep-set eyes. "A clansman," one soldier snorted derisively. The five Tarns visibly relaxed.

Valorian stifled a surge of anger at their disdain and tried to smile. The effort was thin at best. He knew the Tarnish Empire and the Chadarians held his people in low esteem.

The clanspeople of Fearral were regarded as slovenly, weak, cowardly, and of little account. The only useful thing they could do, and the only thing that kept them out of slavery in the emperor's gal eys or salt mines, was breed and train horses. Valorian had anticipated the soldiers' reaction to his origins, but that didn't mean he had to like their attitude.

What really galled him was there was too much truth behind their scorn.

The Tarn who had spoken stepped out of the circle and thrust his sword point toward Valorian's chest.

The hunter didn't flinch, but stood still as the point came to a stop a hairbreadth away from his ribs.

He forced his eyes to widen in fear and his mouth to hang open.

The soldier eyed the clansman suspiciously from helm to boot. He was a big man, as tall as Valorian himself, with a strength and brutality forged from many battles. His hard, craggy face was clean-shaven, and his uniform and weapons were wel cared for despite the obvious wear of long travel.

Valorian recognized the insignia on the man's shoulder as the rank of a
sarturian
, a leader of usually eight to ten men within a legion. Gritting his teeth, Valorian swallowed his humiliation and bowed his head to the soldier. "I have a deer I thought to share, General."

"I'm no general, you stupid dog!" the man snarled. The tip of his sword slowly dropped away from Valorian's chest.

"Share, hah!" a short, bandy-legged soldier snapped. "Just kil him. That'l leave more for the rest of us."

The sarturian cast a speculative glance at the clansman to see his reaction.

Valorian shrugged, his eyes stil downcast. "You could kil me, but then who would you have to light the fire and roast the meat?"

"Good point," a dark-haired Tarn said. "We're not having much luck with the fire."

The circle of soldiers began to break apart as they edged around to stare hungrily at the deer.

"Let him cook it, Sarturian. Then we can kill him," the short Tarn urged.

Their leader made an irritated sound and slammed his sword back in the scabbard. "Enough! The Twelfth Legion doesn't deal in treachery. You and your deer may join us, clansman. "

For just a moment, Valorian lifted his gaze and came eye to eye with the Tarnish sarturian. He despised Tarns with a hatred born of thirty-five years of bitter experience. His common sense told him to look away and maintain his harmless, weak facade, but his pride overrode his sense for just a heartbeat. He let his silent hatred bore into the man's dark stare. When he saw the Tarn's eyes begin to narrow, he thought better of his intentions, swal owed his pride, and let his eyes slide away. His jaw clenched, he turned before he could damage his credibility as a harmless clansman any further and went to his horse to unpack his saddlebags.

The sarturian stood for a minute as if deep in thought, a scowl on his face. Finally he gestured to his men. "If you want to eat tonight, help him."

The four other men obeyed, spurred on by the hunger that gnawed in their bel ies. Two hauled the deer carcass to the edge of the clearing while the other two came to help Valorian as he undid the girth of his saddle.

"Fine horse," remarked the short legionnaire. He reached for Hunnul's head and cursed as the stallion whipped his nose away from the strange grasp. The horse wore no bridle or halter, so the soldier could not get a good grip on the muzzle.

Valorian was slow to reply. Hunnul was a fine horse, probably the finest in Chadar. Tall at the withers, long legged, and beautifully proportioned, the stallion was a magnificent animal—and Valorian's pride and joy. The horse had been careful y bred, hand raised, and trained to the clansman's utmost skill. Oddly enough, he was totally black, without a single white or brown hair. Such a horse would be valued highly by the soldiers of the Black Eagle Legion.

Valorian shrugged nonchalantly at the soldier, thrust several bundles in the man's arms, and said,

"He's not bad. Rather vicious, though." Before the soldier could react, the clansman slipped off the saddle and spoke a command.

The big stal ion tossed his long mane. With a neigh, he turned on his heels and plunged into the darkness.

The five soldiers looked after the horse in amazement.

"Planning on walking home?" the sarturian asked.

Valorian ignored the remark and picked up his gear. "He'll be nearby if I need him."

The men exchanged glances of mingled surprise and doubt, but Valorian gave them no more time to speculate on the magnificent stal ion. He set them to work immediately, butchering the deer and gathering more firewood. From his saddlebags, he removed a small pack of dried tinder, his fire starter, and a small hatchet. With the skill gained from over thirty years of practice, Valorian swiftly cleared out a space on the ground for his fire, built a lean-to of woven vines and branches to protect the flames from the rain, and gathered the necessary materials for the blaze.

The soldiers watched as he quickly piled his tinder—a handful of dried fluff, grasses, and tiny twigs—on the cleared ground. Using his knife, he feathered the ends of several larger twigs and added them to his pile, then he brought out his most precious traveling tool: a small, glowing coal, carefully nurtured inside a hol ow gourd. In a moment, the hunter had the fire blazing merrily in the dark, wet clearing.

The Tarnish soldiers grinned in a sudden release of tension and frustration.

"As good as magic," one man said, slapping Valorian on the shoulder.

"Magic," the sarturian grunted. "You ought to know better than to waste your time with that nonsense! Magic is for self-deluded priests and fools." The clansman sat back on his heels. "What do you know about magic, Sarturian?" he asked out of interest. Unlike many of the Tarns, the clanspeople didn't believe in a power of magic, only in the powers of their four deities.

The leader gestured to the fire with a broken length of deadwood. "Magic doesn't exist, Clansman.

Only skill."

"Don't tell General Tyrranis that," the dark-haired soldier said with a smirk. "I've heard he's trying to find the secret of magic."

"Shut up!" snapped the sarturian.

The mention of General Tyrranis made Valorian grit his teeth. The general was the imperial governor of the huge province that encompassed Chadar and the foothills where Valorian's clanspeople were forced to live. To say he was hated was putting it mildly. Tyrranis was an ambitious, ruthless combination of astute politician and merciless military man who crushed anyone who tried to thwart him. He ruled his province with enough violence and fear to keep the people firmly under his heel without any thought of rebel ion.

Valorian had heard rumors that the general's ambitions reached as high as the imperial throne, so the mention of Tyrranis's search for magic didn't surprise him. Perhaps with luck, Valorian thought to himself, Tyrranis would kill himself in some foolhardy experiment looking for something that didn't exist.

Seeing the sarturian watching him, Valorian quickly removed any expression from his face and set to work. He didn't want to stay with these men any longer than necessary. He wanted to feed them and get their tongues talking about more useful information—such as why they were in Chadar, what was the Ab-Chakan garrison doing, and where was a good trail to the Ramtharin Plains.

As rapidly as he could, Valorian built his fire hotter and roasted strips of deer meat over the glowing coals. The soldiers plunged into his cooked offering with the voraciousness of hungry wolves.

By the time they stopped eating, the deer carcass was virtually stripped, and the rain had died to a heavy mist. The soldiers leaned back, laughing and talking and drinking from their last flask of wine. No one offered wine to Valorian or paid him any heed as he sat in the shadows under a tree and gnawed on the last of the venison.

The clansman felt a brief pang of guilt for filling his stomach with meat while his family was probably eating watery soup and the last crusts of old bread. The winter had been hard, and there were very few stock animals left in their herds. The family was counting on him and the other men to bring in meat for the cooking pots. Perhaps, he hoped, one of the other hunters had had some success. He drove the feeling away and concentrated instead on the talking soldiers.

The meat and wine had indeed soothed their tensions, setting their tongues free to air their gripes and worries. Their disregard for the clansman was so complete, they seemed to forget he was there.

For a while, the five men simply conversed about the everyday complaints of soldiers: bad food, hard work, loneliness. Warm in his cloak and weary from the days of hunting, Valorian listened to their conversation with growing drowsiness. His eyelids drooped. He was beginning to wonder how he could turn their talk toward the Ramtharin Plains when the short legionnaire said something that jolted the clansman wide awake.

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm glad to be leaving that forsaken pile of rocks." The man took a long swig from the wine flask and passed it on. "Good riddance to Ab-Chakan!"

"How can you say that?" another soldier said, his voice thick with sarcasm. "I'm going to miss the place—the cold, the wind, the heat and the fleas in the summer, no town in sight for league after league after league. Why would we want to trade that for a comfortable billet in Tarnow?"

One man slapped the eagle emblem on his chest, grinned, and said, "By the sacred bul , I'll be glad to see Tarnow again. I haven't been home in ten years." The speaker, a dark-haired soldier, slid off his seat to stretch out full length on his back. "Say, Sarturian, has General Sarjas said when we're being withdrawn?"

A grunt escaped the sarturian's lips as he retrieved the flask of wine. "You think the commanding general of the Twelfth Legion discusses his plans with mere sarturians?"

"No, but you must have an opinion. You've been around long enough to figure out officers."

The sarturian shifted his position and snorted. "No one understands officers. . . still, I'd say we'll pull the garrison out by late summer. The legion's supply wagons have to get over Wolfeared Pass before snow blocks the trail."

Three of the legionnaires grinned at each other. It wasn't often they could get information out of their closemouthed sarturian, and this was a chance too good to let pass.

Under the tree, Valorian leaned back, his heart pounding. He could hardly believe what he was hearing. Breathlessly he remained still, closed his eyes, and willed the soldiers to continue talking.

"So which way do you think we'l go home?" the short Tarn probed his leader. "North through Chadar to Actigorium or south through Sarcithia to Sar Nitina?"

There was a long silence that dragged out until the soldiers began to think the sarturian wasn't going to reply. Finally he shrugged and said, "I'd lay my money on the southern route. It's longer than going through Chadar, but it's easier than risking General Tyrranis's political traps. He'd sell his wives to have a ful legion under his jurisdiction. If we want to get back to Tarnow without delays, we'd better go by way of Sar Nitina." He took a long swallow of wine as if to end the conversation and passed the flask on to the next man.

"Then why are we going to Actigorium to see General High-and-Mighty Tyrranis?" asked a soldier.

The dark-haired Tarn snickered. "General Sarjas doesn't see things as clearly as our sarturian, so he's probably sending us for the general's written permission to cross Chadar just in case he decides to go that way. Isn't that right?" he demanded.

The sarturian cocked an eyebrow at him. "You have a big mouth, Callas."

Callas pulled his lips into a triumphant grin. "I am right! Well, I don't care which way we march as long as we get out of those plains. Gods, I miss cities." Suddenly he noticed the fourth soldier sitting quietly across the fire, looking glum. "What about you, Marcus?" he jibed. "You haven't said a word.

Aren't you glad to be going home?"

"Not this way!" the older man said bitterly. "The Twelfth Legion has never retreated, and yet here we are about to abandon a perfectly good fortress and withdraw because our all-powerful emperor can't even hang on to what his father left him!"

"Keep such thoughts to yourself, Marcus," the sarturian growled. "Talk like that can separate your head from your shoulders."

The old soldier gestured angrily. "It's the truth and you know it! Ab-Chakan is the last occupied fortress on the plains. When it's abandoned, Tarn will lose the entire Ramtharin Plains."

The short Tarn shook his head. "The plains have given us nothing more than grass, copper, hides, and a few miserable slaves. We can find those anywhere. Better to lose a distant, unprofitable province than our own homeland."

"The loss of the province isn't so bad," Marcus agreed. "It's the cost that angers me—the loss of pride and honor for the legion, the loss of confidence and respect in the empire. The man who sits on the throne of Tarn is throwing away a mighty realm out of weakness, stupidity, and—"

"That's enough!" commanded the sarturian sharply. "You don't need to shout your views across all of Chadar."

The soldiers fel quiet. Although Valorian kept his eyes shut, he could sense their attention had abruptly turned toward him.

"What about the clansman?" he heard one soldier ask softly. "Do we kill him or let him go?"

"Let him go. The meat was worth his life," answered the sarturian.