Faith of the Fallen (45 page)

Three strides away, the horse lowered his head.

“Good boy!” she cried.

Maybe he had a chance to clear the pikes. Kahlan took her weight off the saddle and angled forward, flattening her back. She bent her arms, giving the reins slack with her hands to either side of the horse’s neck. She kept pressure on him with her lower legs, but let him have the freedom he needed.

She didn’t know if it would work with the extra weight. If only the pikes were shorter. Kahlan screamed for Verna to hold on.

Wizard’s fire suddenly streamed past in front of them, coming in low. The men who had rushed ahead in a line to block Kahlan’s way dove to the ground. The entire line before them collapsed. The fire wailed past just over top of them, finally touching down off to Kahlan’s left. The cries of a thousand men filled her ears.

The horse stretched his lowered head, getting his hocks underneath his body. At the last instant, his neck shortened and his head came up as he sprang upward, using his powerful hindquarters to launch himself. His back rounded as they sailed over the leading edge of men. Verna cried out, her arm like a hook around Kahlan’s middle. They came down beyond the soldiers who had dropped flat. With her weight on the stirrups, Kahlan used her legs to absorb the shock—Verna couldn’t. With the extra load, the horse nearly stumbled as it landed, but kept his balance and continued running. They were at last clear of the Order soldiers.

“What’s the matter with you!” Verna yelled. “Don’t do that or I won’t be able to let it out evenly!”

“Sorry,” Kahlan called over her shoulder.

Despite the cold wind in her face, sweat ran from her scalp. The Order soldiers seemed to fall away to their rear quarter. Giddy relief washed over her as she realized they had made it past the bulge in the Imperial Order’s front lines.

In the distance behind them, a storm of fire lit the night. Zedd and Warren were showing them a good old-fashioned firefight, as Zedd had put it. It was a terrifying demonstration, if insufficient to stop an enemy as large as the Order. As the Order’s gifted raced to the scene and threw up shields, it limited the death and devastation. The two wizards had bought Kahlan and Verna the time they had needed.

Kahlan heard Cara calling “Whoa!” as she galloped up close.

This time, with Cara’s horse heading them off, the lathered mount rapidly came to a halt. The horse was exhausted, as was Kahlan. As they dismounted beside Cara and Sister Philippa, Verna tossed the empty bucket to the ground. Kahlan was glad it was dark, so that the others couldn’t see her legs trembling. She was relieved to see that the spot of fire had expended itself before burning through.

The four of them watched as the night went mad with flame, most exploding against shields of magic, yet still doing damage to anyone too close. Zedd and Warren sent forth one tumbling sphere of fiery death after another. The cries of men could be heard all along the line. The fire was being returned, reaping death in the D’Haran lines, but the Sisters were throwing up their own shields.

Still the vast enemy army advanced. At most, the deadly flames only slowed them and disrupted their orderly attack.

As the gifted on both sides gained control, they managed to nullify each other’s fiery attacks. Kahlan knew that the forward D’Haran lines had no hope of holding the onrushing flood of the Order. They had no hope of even slowing them. In the moonlight, she could see them beginning to abandon their positions.

“Why isn’t it working?” Kahlan whispered, half to herself. She leaned toward Verna. “Are you sure it was made properly?”

Watching the enemy’s headlong rush, and in the din of battle cries, Verna didn’t seem to hear the question. Kahlan checked her sword. She realized how futile it would be to try to fight. She felt Richard’s sword on her back, and considered drawing it, but decided that it would be better to run. She pushed Verna, urging her to their spent horse. Cara did the same with Sister Philippa.

Before she stepped into the stirrup, Kahlan noticed the Order slowing. She saw men stumbling. Some groped with outstretched arms. Others fell.

Verna pointed. “Look!”

An endless moan of frightened agony began rising up into the night, growing in intensity. Staggering men fell over one another. Some swung their swords at an invisible enemy, hacking instead their blinded fellow soldiers.

The progress of the men at the front slowed to a crawl. Soldiers kept coming, colliding with the stalled front line. Cavalry horses panicked, bucking off riders. Spooked horses ran off in every direction, oblivious of the men they trampled. Racing wagons overturned. Confusion swept the enemy’s ranks.

The advance buckled. The Imperial Order ground to a halt.

Zedd and Warren rode up and dismounted, both sweating despite the frigid night air. Kahlan gave Zedd’s bony hand a squeeze.

“You two saved our necks at the end, there.”

Zedd gestured to Warren. “Him, not me.”

Warren shrugged. “I saw your predicament.”

They all stared in wonder, watching the army gone blind.

“You did it, Verna,” Kahlan said. “You and your glass saved us.”

At last, she and Verna threw their arms around each other, tears of relief coursing down their cheeks.

Kahlan was one of the last to cross over the pass. The valley beyond was well protected by towering rock walls around the southern half. It was a long and difficult route around those mountains if the Order had any thoughts of attacking them here. While the troops of the D’Haran Empire had no intention of letting themselves get trapped in that valley, for the time being it was a safe place.

Big old spruces filled the lap of the surrounding mountains, so they were somewhat protected from the wind, as well. Tents carpeted the forest floor. It was good to see all the campfires and smell the woodsmoke—a sign that they were safe enough for the men to have fires. The aroma of cooking filled the late-night air, too. It had been a lot of work moving the army and their equipment over the pass, and the men were hungry.

General Meiffert looked as pleased as any general would when the army he feared lost was at last safe—at least for the time being. He guided Kahlan and Cara through the darkness dotted by thousands of campfires to tents he had set up for them. Along the way, he filled them in on how everything with the army had gone, and ran through a list of what few things they had had to leave behind.

“It’s going to be a cold night,” General Meiffert said when they had reached the tents he had set aside for them between two towering spruce. “I had a sack of pebbles heated by a fire for you, Mother Confessor. You, too, Mistress Cara.”

Kahlan thanked him before he left to see to his duties. Cara went off to go get something to eat. Kahlan told her to go ahead, that she just wanted to sleep.

Inside her tent, Kahlan found
Spirit
standing on a little table, the lamp hanging from the ridgepole lighting her proud pose. She paused to trace a finger down the flowing robes.

Kahlan, her teeth chattering, could hardly wait to crawl into bed and pull that sack of heated pebbles under the fur mantle with her. She thought about how cold she was, and then instead of climbing into her bed, went back outside and searched through the dark camp until she found a Sister. After following the Sister’s directions, going between tents until she reached the area with the thick young trees, Kahlan found the small lean-to shelter set among the boughs for protection from the wind and weather.

She squatted down, peering inside at the bundle of blankets she could just make out in the light coming from nearby campfires.

“Holly? Are you in there?”

A little head poked out. “Mother Confessor?” The girl was shivering. “What is it? Do you need me?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Come with me please.”

Holly climbed out, swaddled in a blanket. Kahlan took her little hand and walked her back to her tent in silence. Holly’s eyes grew big and round as Kahlan ushered in inside. Before the small table, the girl paused to stand still as a stump while she stared in wonder at
Spirit
.

“Like it?” Kahlan asked.

Trembling with the cold, Holly reverently ran her frail fingers down
Spirit
’s arm. “Where ever did you get something so beautiful?”

“Richard carved it for me.”

Holly finally pulled her gaze from the statue and looked up at Kahlan. “I miss Richard.” Kahlan could see Holly’s breath in the motionless air of the tent. “He was always nice to me. A lot of people were mean, but Richard was always nice.”

Kahlan felt an unexpected stab of anguish. She hadn’t expected the subject to turn to Richard.

“What was it you needed, Mother Confessor?”

Kahlan turned her thoughts away from her sorrow and smiled. “I was proud of the work you did to help save us today. I promised you that you would be warm. Tonight, you will be.”

The girl’s teeth were chattering. “Really?”

Kahlan laid the Sword of Truth on the far side of the bed. She stripped off some of her heavier clothing, doused the lamp, and then sat down on the straw-filled pallet. Light from nearby campfires lent a soft glow to the tent’s walls.

“Come. Climb into bed with me. It’s going to be very cold tonight. I need you to keep me warm.”

Holly only had to consider for a second.

As Kahlan lay down on her side, she pulled Holly’s back against her stomach and then drew the sack of heated pebbles up against the girl’s front. Holly hugged the sack and moaned with the thrill of warmth. The satisfied moan made Kahlan smile.

For a long time, she smiled, enjoying the simple pleasure of seeing Holly warm and safe. Having the girl there, holding her close, helped Kahlan to forget all the terrible things she had seen that day.

Far up in the mountains, a single wolf sang out in a long, lonely call. The cry echoed through the valley, trailing off, to be renewed again and again with forlorn persistence.

With his sword at her back, Kahlan’s thoughts turned to Richard. Thinking about him, wondering where he was and if he was safe, she silently wept herself to sleep.

The next day, snow moved down from the higher mountains to rampage across the southern regions of the Midlands. The storms raged for two days. The second night of the blizzard, Kahlan shared her tent with Holly, Valery, and Helen. They sat under blankets, ate camp stew, sang songs, told stories of princes and princesses, and slept together to keep warm.

When the snowstorm finally ended in a bleak golden sunrise, most of the taller tents had snow drifted to their eaves on their downwind side. The smaller ones were completely covered over. The men dug themselves out, looking like so many woodchucks come up out of their burrows for a peek.

Over the next several weeks, the storms continued to roll past, dumping more snow. In such weather, fighting, or even moving an army very far, was difficult. Scouts reported that the Imperial Order had withdrawn a week’s march back to the south.

It would be a burden to care for blinded men. Within a days walk all around the place where the special glass had been released, the D’Haran scouts reported that they had seen well over sixty thousand frozen corpses, now drifted over with the snow—blind men unable to care for themselves in the harsh conditions. The Imperial Order had probably abandoned them to their fate. A few dozen of the blind had managed to make it over the pass, looking for help, begging for mercy. Kahlan had ordered them executed.

It was hard telling the exact number blinded by Verna’s special glass; it could be that there were many who did in fact retreat with the Imperial Order, brought along to perform menial tasks. It was likely, though, that the corpses reported by the scouts were the bulk of those blinded. Kahlan could imagine that Jagang might not want them in his camp, using food and supplies, reminding his men of their stinging retreat.

She knew, though, that for Jagang retreat was but a momentary setback and not a reappraisal of his objectives. The Order had men enough to shrug off the loss of the hundred thousand killed since the fighting had started. For the time being, the weather prevented Jagang from striking back.

Kahlan didn’t intend to sit and wait for him. A month later, when the representative from Herjborgue arrived, she met with him immediately in the small trappers’ lodge they had found up in the trees to the west side of the valley. The lodge sat under the protection of towering, ancient pines, away from the open areas where the tents were congregated. The lodge had become Kahlan’s frequent quarters, and often also served as their command center.

It greatly relieved General Meiffert when Kahlan would stay in the lodge, rather than a tent. It made him feel as if the army was doing something about providing better accommodations for the Mother Confessor—the wife of Lord Rahl. Kahlan and Cara did appreciate the nights they slept in the lodge, but Kahlan didn’t want anyone to think she wasn’t up to the conditions the rest of them had to endure. Sometimes, she would instead have the girls sleep in the lodge along with some of the Sisters, and sometimes she insisted Verna sleep there with Holly, Valery, and Helen. It didn’t take a great deal of effort to persuade the Prelate.

Kahlan greeted Representative Theriault from the land of Herjborgue, inviting him into the cozy lodge. He was accompanied by a small guard unit, who waited outside. Herjborgue was a small country. Their contribution to the war effort was in the area of their only product: wool. Kahlan had need of the man.

After Representative Theriault knelt before the Mother Confessor, receiving the traditional greeting, he at last stood and pushed his heavy hood back on his shoulders. He broke into a broad grin.

“Mother Confessor, so good to see you well.”

She returned a sincere smile. “And you, Representative Theriault. Here, come over by the fire and warm yourself.”

By the stone fireplace, he pulled off his gloves and held his hands before the crackling flames. He glanced to the gleaming hilt of the sword sticking up behind her shoulder. His eye was caught by
Spirit
standing proudly on the mantel. He stared in wonder, as did everyone who saw the proud figure.

“We heard about Lord Rahl being captured,” he finally said. “Has there been any word?”

Kahlan shook her head. “We know they haven’t harmed him, but that’s about all. I know my husband; he’s resourceful. I expect he will find a way to get back to help us.”

The man nodded, his brow furrowed as he listened earnestly.

Cara, standing beside the table, reminded of her Lord Rahl by Kahlan’s words, idly rolled her Agiel in her fingers. Kahlan could tell by the look in Cara’s blue eyes, and by the way she casually let the weapon dangle once more by the small gold chain around her wrist, that the Agiel, being linked to the living Lord Rahl, still possessed its power. As long as it worked, they knew Richard was alive. That was all they knew.

The man opened his heavy traveling cloak. “How goes the war? Everyone anxiously awaits word.”

“As near as we can figure, we’ve managed to kill over a hundred thousand of their troops.”

The man gasped. Such numbers were staggering to someone from a place as small as his homeland of Herjborgue.

“Then, they must be defeated. Have they run back to the Old World?”

Rather than meet his gaze, Kahlan stared at the logs checkering in the wavering glow of the flames. “I’m afraid that losing that many men is hardly crippling to the Imperial Order. We’re taking their numbers down, but they have an army of well over ten times that many. They remain a threat, a week’s march to the south of here.”

Kahlan looked up to see him staring at her. She could tell by the look in his eyes that he was having difficulty trying to imagine that many people. His wind-reddened face had paled considerably.

“Dear spirits…” he whispered. “We’ve heard rumors, but to learn they are true…” With a despondent look, he shook his head. “How is it ever going to be possible to defeat a foe of that size?”

“Seems that I remember, a number of years back, you were in Aydindril to see the Council and you had a bit of trouble after a grand dinner. That big man from Kelton—I forget his name—was boasting and speaking ill of your small land. He called you some name. Do you remember that night?—what he called you?”

Representative Theriault’s eyes sparkled as he smiled.

“Puny.”

“Puny. That was it. I guess he felt that because he was twice your size, that made him your better. I recall men clearing off a table, and the two of you arm wrestling.”

“Ah, well, I was younger back then, and I had a few glasses of wine with dinner, besides.”

“You won.”

He laughed softly. “Not by strength. He was cocky. I was clever, perhaps, and quick—that’s all.”

“You won; that was the result. Those hundred thousand Order troops aren’t any less dead because they outnumbered us.”

The smile left his lips. “Point taken. I guess the Imperial Order ought to quit now, while they have men left. I recall how those five thousand Galean recruits you led went after that force of fifty thousand, and eliminated them.” He leaned an arm on the rough-hewn mantel. “Anyway, I see your point. When you are facing superior strength, you must use your wits.”

“I need your help,” Kahlan told the man.

His big brown eyes reflected the firelight as they turned toward her. “Anything, Mother Confessor. If it be in my power to do, anything.”

Kahlan bent and shoved another log onto the fire. Sparks swirled around before ascending the chimney.

“We need wool cloaks—hooded cloaks—for the men.”

He considered only briefly. “Just tell me the numbers, and I will see to it. I’m sure it can be arranged.”

“I’ll need at least a hundred thousand—our entire force down here at present. We’re expecting more men any time, so if you could add half again that number, it would go a long way to helping destroy the Order.”

As he went through mental calculations, Kahlan used the poker to set the new log to the back of the fire. “I know I’m not asking for something easy.”

He scratched his scalp through his thick gray hair. “You’ve no need of hearing how difficult it will be, that won’t help you win, so let me just say that you will have them.”

Representative Theriault’s word was a pledge as sound as gold, and as valuable. She stood and faced him.

“And I want them made from bleached wool.”