They rode on in silence for a bit. Dan said "You always knew we couldn't do anything with this hunting party; but that's not the point, is it?"
Chaldez made no reply.
"It was never intended to wipe out Sigmar with 200 men. This is the core of the revolt, remember? Sigmar is surrounded by enemies, and if they haven't destroyed him already you'll bind them into an alliance. These 200 men are your personal guard - that's all; you have treasure, horses and men. No one will be able to ignore you."
"It's hopeless," said Chaldez. "It's been hopeless from the very beginning."
"So you'd like to go back to being the potters' slave in Theigia?"
Chaldez gave a dismissive grunt. "The gods never intended I should be king of Sair. If I'd had any sense I'd have read the signs long ago."
"You seem to have forgotten Arwarnhi."
"It's the other way around. Arwarnhi has forgotten me."
"From being a potter's slave to having 200 armed men in attendance and treasure enough to laden four mules is hardly proof that he's forgotten you! Don't give up now, Chaldez. We could both have wished for your road to be easier, but you must know now that it ends at the Sairish throne. You will be avenged, I swear it, and the crown will be yours."
Chaldez grunted again, but that night he ate his meal with Dan, and seemed to be in better spirits.
The vast Harwardi plain, dissected by numerous rugged ravines whose size is out of all proportion to the tiny streams which trickle through them, shimmered in the late summer sun. The nwodeks and lesser nobility of the Harwardi lived in fortresses, from where they watched the progress of Chaldez's task force with much curiosity and not a little apprehension. After a couple of uneasy encounters, in which Aravi Valtrern, the Laifyan guide, played his part in avoiding serious misunderstandings, Dan sent him ahead as emissary to make contact and give assurances of peaceful intent, and so successful was he that more often than not he returned at the end of the day with offers of supplies and hospitality."
"That man has his uses," Dan remarked to Chaldez as they rode away from a rambling and dilapidated fortress where they had been given beds for the night and a breakfast of roasted quail by a wild-eyed local ruler. Dan liked Valtrern and it rankled with him that Chaldez so obviously did not. Chaldez merely said "He's a rogue, whatever you say. I will not trust him."
At noon the usual halt was called, but hardly had the men completed the symbolic purification rituals required by their religion before they took food than there was a shout of alarm. Chaldez looked up, and saw that ranged along the top of a near-by ridge was a line of horsemen, their spears sticking up like so many pins. He uttered a curse, then turning to Dan he said "Now we'll see how good your Laifyan is. You'd better send him up there."
Dan was as much alarmed as everyone else and he at once sent for Valtrern. There was a tense interval while a search was made for the guide.
The news that came back was not good. "He's not here. He was seen riding away."
Chaldez once again felt the familiar sense of doom lying like a lead weight in the pit of his stomach. He stared at the horsemen, and then seemed to pull himself together. "Prepare for an attack," he told Dan.
Dan's string of commands had an immediate effect, and almost at once the horsemen on the ridge started to move closer. Chaldez screwed up his eyes against the brightness, and called out to Dan "There are no more than 50 of them. What do you think?"
Dan agreed with his estimate.
"They're not going to attack us with that number," said Chaldez. He mounted his horse, and presently two figures detached themselves from the advancing line of horsemen. Chaldez rode out towards them, and recognised the nearest figure as that of their host of the previous night. He called out to him.
The nobleman, a man called Rah Ezatna, shouted back, spurred his horse into a canter and was soon close enough to speak.
"You thank me by stealing eh?" he said, his eyes glaring.
"If any of my men have stolen from you," Chaldez said evenly, "they shall be punished and your goods returned. What's been taken?"
Rah Ezatna, still angry, said "a gold flagon. Taken from my table. A solid gold flagon set with precious jewels."
Chaldez remembered it, and he at once understood the implication of its disappearance: only he, Dan, Valtrern and their personal servants had been entertained at Ezatna's own table.
"The thief has fled," he said. "I know who it is. When we saw your men up there on the ridge I sent for him and was informed that he had ridden off. He knew what you had come for."
Only when he had been allowed to conduct his own search for Valtrern, and had been paid by Chaldez in gold for the stolen flagon, did a somewhat mollified Rah Ezatna retire to his fortress.
Chaldez said nothing to Dan about the Laifyan, and he had no need to; his feelings could be seen in his face, and for the rest of that day's journey they rode side by side in silence. Chaldez was once more sunk in gloom. However much he had disliked Valtrern, at least he knew the way. Without a guide his problems could only multiply. He assumed that the direction they were taking would lead them to the River Kis, and the Kis to the Na Pass; there was nothing for it, then, but to carry on and manage as best they could.
A rocky escarpment lay across their route, and at the top of it they came to the first large town which they had met with since leaving Nadim. Outside its walls they were greeted by an armed deputation. Chaldez conducted his own negotiations with its leader, with the result that he and his chief officers were permitted to enter the town. They stayed there three days, replenishing supplies and looking, unsuccessfully, for a guide to replace Valtrern. On the last day they heard that the Laifyan had himself just recently passed through the town; he had sold a golden flagon, and then headed west towards the Kis.
The river, when they came to it, meandered across the floor of a wide fertile valley. Towns, villages and farms were frequent, but within a few day's journey up river the valley had become narrower, and ahead could sometimes be glimpsed the dark smudge of the Futchung mountains.
As the days passed, Chaldez sometimes wondered if he was looking at low clouds or distant mountains. The river valley grew steep-sided and rocky; there was no room now for fields and no occasion for towns, and the river, its lazy, meandering ways awaiting it down stream, surged impatiently through narrow ravines, gushed down rapids and cascaded over jutting crags. With every day that passed, the surrounding hills more boldly emulated their distant cousins. The air grew sharper, the nights colder, and the way harder.
Imperceptibly the mountains drew nearer, and then all at once they were a dominating presence, their snow-covered peaks clearly visible in the bright sun light, their breath chilling the air. The baggage train struggled along the uneven and ancient trade route as it climbed steadily upwards, the rushing river a constant companion. Chaldez gave orders that the animals were not to be hurried, but Dan was anxious about the approach of autumn and often he rode back down the line to chivvy on the handlers. For all his efforts, however, the expedition's progress was painfully slow as it crossed over the rim of the empire.