No doubt Emperor Jagang had spread their description far and wide and had offered a reward large enough that even his enemies would find it hard to resist. For many in the Old World, though, the price of continued life under the brutal rule of the Imperial Order was too high. Despite the reward, there were many who hungered to live free and were willing to act to gain that goal.
There was also the problem of the bond the Lord Rahl had with the D'Haran people; through that ancient bond forged by Richard's ancestors, D'Harans could sense where the Lord Rahl was. The Imperial Order could discover where Richard was by that bond, too. All they had to do was torture the information out of a D'Haran. If one person failed to talk under torture, they would not be shy about trying others until they learned what they wanted.
As Richard watched, the lone man, once he reached the bottom of the hill, made his way along the gravel beds lining the bottom of the rocky gullies. Off to Richard's right the wagon and horses were lifting a long trail of dust. That was where the man seemed to be headed.
At such a distance it was hard to tell for sure, but Richard doubted that the man was a soldier. He wouldn't likely be a scout, not in his own homeland, and they weren't near the hotbeds of the revolt against the rule of the Imperial Order. Richard didn't think there would be any reason for soldiers to be going this way, through such uninhabited areas. That was, after all, why he had picked this route, heading east to the shadow of the mountains before turning to a more northerly route back to where they had been.
There was also the possibility that the bond had inadvertently revealed Richard's whereabouts and an army was out looking for him. If the man was a soldier, there could shortly be many more, like ants, swarming down out of the hills.
Richard climbed the back side of a short rocky prominence and lay on his stomach, watching over the top. As the man got closer, Richard could see that he looked young, under thirty years, a bit scrawny, and was dressed nothing at all like a soldier. By the way he stumbled, he was not used to the terrain, or maybe just not used to traveling. It was tiring walking over ground of loose, sharp, broken rock, especially if it was on a slope, since it never provided any solid place for a steady stride.
The man stopped, stretching his neck to peer at the wagon. Panting from the effort of making it down the slope, he combed his fine blond hair back repeatedly with his fingers, then bent at the waist and rested a hand on a knee while he caught his breath.
When the man straightened and started out once more, crunching through the gravel at the bottom of the wash, Richard slid back down the rock. He used the intervening lay of the land and patches of scraggly pine to screen himself from sight. He paused from time to time, as he moved closer, to listen for the heavy footsteps and labored breathing, checking his dead-reckoning estimation of where the man would be.
From behind a freestanding wall of rock a good sixty feet tall, Richard carefully peered out for a look. He had managed to close most of the distance without the man being aware of his presence. Richard moved silently from tree to rock to the back side of slopes, until he was out ahead of the man and in his line of travel.
Still as stone behind a twisted reddish spire of rock jutting from the broken ground, Richard listened to the crunch of footfalls approaching, listened to the man gulping for breath as he climbed over fingers of rock that lay in his way.
When the man was not six feet away, Richard stepped out right in front of him.
The man gasped, clutching his light travel coat beneath his chin as he cringed back a step.
Richard regarded the man without outward emotion, but inside the sword's power churned with the menace of rage restrained. For an instant, Richard felt the power falter. The magic of the sword keyed off its master's perception of danger, so such hesitation could be because the smaller man didn't appear to be an immediate threat.
The man's clothes, brown trousers, flaxen shirt, and a light, frayed fustian coat, had seen better days. He looked to have had a rough time of his journey-but then, Richard, too, had put on unassuming clothes in order not to raise suspicion. The man's backpack looked to hold precious little.
Two waterskins, their straps crisscrossed across his chest, bunching the light coat, were flat and empty. He carried no weapons that Richard saw, not even a knife.
The man waited expectantly, as if he feared to be the first to speak.
"You appear to be headed for my friends," Richard said, tipping his head toward the thin golden plume of dust hanging like a beacon in the sunlight above the darkening plain, giving the man a chance to explain himself.
