Faith of the Fallen (71 page)

“Tomorrow, we’ll have this stew.” she said. His gray eyes were staring off into his private visions. “From the garden.”

She retrieved the cook pot after setting a wooden bowl on the table before him and spooned millet into his bowl until it was full. There was little left, but he needed it more than she. She had spent the morning waiting in line for the millet, and then had spent the afternoon picking all the worms out of it. Some of the women just cooked it until you couldn’t tell. Nicci didn’t like to feed that to Richard.

Standing close to the table, cutting up carrots, she could finally stand it no more. “Richard, I want to come to the site with you and see this statue that you’re carving for the Order.”

He was silent for a moment as he chewed and then swallowed. When he finally did speak, it was with a quiet quality that matched that inexplicable look in his eyes.

“I want you to see the statue, Nicci—I want everyone to see it. But not until I’m finished.”

“Why?”

He stirred his spoon around in his bowl. “Please, Nicci, will you grant me this? Let me finish it, then you will see it.”

Her heart pounded against her ribs. This was important to him.

“You aren’t carving what they told you to carve, are you?”

Richard’s face turned up until his gaze met hers.

“No, I’m not. I’m carving what I need to carve, what people need to see.”

Nicci swallowed. She knew: this was what she had been waiting for. He had been ready to give up, then he wanted to live, and now he was willing to die for this.

Nicci nodded, having to look away from those gray eyes of his. “I’ll wait until it’s ready.”

Now she knew why he seemed so driven, lately. That quality hinted at in her father’s eyes, and blazing in Richard’s, she felt was somehow tied to this. The very idea was intoxicating.

In more ways than one, this was a matter of life and death.

“Are you sure about this, Richard?”

“I am.”

She nodded again. “All right, I will honor your request.”

The next day, Nicci got an early start to buy bread. She wanted Richard to have bread with the stew she was cooking. Kamil offered to go for her, but she wanted to get out of the house. She asked him to keep an eye on Richard’s stew as it simmered on the banked coals.

It was an overcast day, and cool—a hint of the rapidly approaching winter. The streets were crowded with people out looking for work, with carts hauling everything from manure to bolts of coarse dark cloth, and with wagons, mostly carrying building materials for the palace. She had to step carefully to avoid the dung in the road and squeeze between all the people moving as slowly as the sludge of the open sewers as she made her way through the city.

There were crowds of needy people in the street, many come to Altur’Rang for work, no doubt, although there were few people at the workers’ group hall. The lines at the bakeries were long. At least the Order saw to it that people got bread, even if it was gray, tough bread. You had to go early, though, before they ran out. With more people all the time, the shops ran out earlier every week.

Someday, it was rumored, they were going to be able to provide more than one kind of bread. She hoped that this day, at least, they might have some butter, too. Sometimes, they sold butter. The bread, and the butter, were inexpensive, so she knew she could afford to buy a little for Richard—if they had any. They almost never had any butter.

Nicci had spent a hundred and eighty years trying to help people, and people seemed no better off now than they ever were. Those in the New World were prosperous enough, though. Someday, when the Order ruled the world, and those with the means were made to contribute their fair share to their fellow man, then everything would finally fall into place and all of mankind could at last live with the dignity they deserved. The Order would see to it.

The bread shop stood at an intersection of two roads, so the line turned around the corner onto another street. Nicci was around that corner, leaning a shoulder against the wall, watching the passing throngs, when a face in the crowd caught her attention.

Her eyes went wide as she straightened. She could hardly believe what she was seeing. What was
she
doing in Altur’Rang?

Nicci didn’t really want to find out—not now, when it seemed she was getting close to finding her answers. Matters seemed to be at a critical state with Richard. She felt sure that it would soon come to resolution.

Nicci flipped her dark shawl up over her head of blond hair and tied it snug under her chin. She sank back behind a wide woman and hugged the wall as she peeked out between the people in line.

Nicci watched Sister Alessandra, her nose held high as her calculating gaze swept the faces of all the people on the street. She looked like a mountain lion on the prowl.

Nicci knew who Alessandra was hunting.

Ordinarily, Nicci would have been only too happy to cross paths with the woman, but not now.

Nicci sank back against the rough clapboards, staying low behind the people ahead of her, until Sister Alessandra had vanished into the vast sea of people crowding the street.

As Kahlan rode out of her home city of Aydindril for the last time, she pulled her wolf-fur mantle up over her shoulders for protection against the bitter wind. She recalled that the last time the weather had been about to close in for the winter was the last time she had seen Richard. With the world in such constant turmoil and the battle burning hot, her thoughts, by necessity, always seemed to be on urgent matters. The unexpected memory of Richard was a welcome, if bittersweet, respite from the worries of war.

She took a last look before cresting the hill, to see the splendor of the Confessors’ Palace on the distant rise. It made her ache with the sense of home whenever she saw the soaring white marble columns and rows of tall windows. Other people were stricken with awe or fear at the sight of the palace, but Kahlan’s heart was always warmed by it. She had grown up there, and it was a place of many happy memories for her.

“It won’t be forever, Kahlan.”

Kahlan glanced over at Verna. “No, it won’t.”

She wished she could believe that.

“Besides,” Verna said, offering a smile, “we will be denying the Imperial Order the people, and that is what they are really after. The rest is just stone and wood. What matters stone and wood, if the people are safe?”

Kahlan, despite her desolate tears, was overcome with a smile. “You’re right, Verna. That really is all that matters. Thank you for reminding me.”

“Don’t worry, Mother Confessor,” Cara said, “Berdine and the rest of the Mord-Sith, along with the troops, will watch over the people and see them safely to D’Hara.”

Kahlan’s smile widened. “I wish I could see Jagang’s face when he finally gets here next spring to be greeted by ghosts.”

The season of war was drawing to an end. If the summer with Richard in their mountain home had been a wonderful dream, then the summer of endless warfare had been a nightmare.

The fighting had been desperate, intense, and bloody. There were times when Kahlan thought she and the army could not go on, that they were finished. Each of those times, they had managed to pull through. There were occasions when she almost welcomed death, just to have the nightmare end, just to stop seeing people in agony and pain, to stop seeing all the precious lives in ruins.

Against the seemingly indomitable millions of the Imperial Order, the forces of the D’Haran Empire had managed to slow the enemy enough to keep them from taking Aydindril this year. With thousands of lives lost in the fighting, they had bought the hundreds of thousands of people of Aydindril and other cities that lay along the path of the Order the time they needed to escape.

As autumn had turned bitter, the immense force of the Imperial Order had reached a broad valley at a convergence of the Kern River and a large tributary, where the lay of the land provided space to accommodate their entire force. With winter closing in, Jagang knew better than to be caught unprepared. They had dug in while they had the opportunity. The D’Haran forces had set up their defensive lines to the north, bulwarking the way to Aydindril.

Just as Warren had forecast, Aydindril was more than Jagang’s army could take in this season of war. Jagang, once again, had proven his prudent patience; he had chosen to preserve the viability of his army so he would be able to press on successfully when conditions allowed. In the short run, it gave Kahlan and her forces breathing room, but in the long run, it would spell their doom.

Kahlan felt sweet relief that Warren’s prediction, of Aydindril falling the following year, at least would not be at the cost of a slaughter of the city’s citizens. She didn’t know what hardships the people would have to endure escaping to D’Hara, but it was better than the certain slavery and widespread death of remaining behind in Aydindril.

Some people, she knew, would refuse to leave. In cities along the Order’s march up the Midlands, some people put their faith in “Jagang the Just.” Some people believed that the good spirits, or the Creator, would watch over them no matter what. Kahlan knew they couldn’t save everyone from themselves. Those who wished to live, and were willing to see reason, stood a chance. Those who saw only what they wished to see, would, at the least, fall under the pall of the Order’s domination.

Kahlan reached back and touched the hilt of the Sword of Truth sticking up behind her shoulder. It was comforting, sometimes, to touch it. The Confessors’ Palace was no longer her home. Home was wherever Richard and she were together.

The fighting was often so intense, the fear so palpable, that there were times—days at a stretch—when she never thought of him. Sometimes, she had to devote all her physical and mental effort to just staying alive one more day.

Some men, feeling the war was hopeless, had deserted. Kahlan could understand the way they felt. All they ever did, it seemed, was to fight for their lives against overwhelming odds as they backed their way up through the Midlands.

Galea had fallen. That there was no word from any city in Galea probably said it all.

They had lost Kelton, too. Many of the Keltans in Winstead, Penverro, and other cities had fled, first. Most of Kelton’s army were still with them, though some had rushed home in desperation.

Kahlan tried not to think too long on everything that had gone wrong, lest she give up. They had saved a good many people—gotten them out of the way of the Order. At least for the time being. It was the best they could do.

Along the long retreat north, tens of thousands of their joint forces had lost their lives in the fierce battles. The Order had lost many times that number. In the high summer heat, the Order had lost a quarter million men to fever alone. It made little difference; they continued to grow and to roll onward.

Kahlan recalled the things Richard had told her, that they could not win, that the New World was going to fall to the Order, and if they resisted, it would only cause greater bloodshed. She was reluctantly coming to understand that hopeless outlook. She feared she was only getting people killed to no good end. Yet giving up still was out of the question for her.

Kahlan looked over her shoulder, past the long column of men escorting her, past the trees and up the mountain, to the great dark mass of the Wizard’s Keep looming up on the mountain overlooking Aydindril.

Zedd would have to go there; they could not stop the Imperial Order from having Aydindril, but they dared not let them have the Keep.

It was dusk, ten days later, when Kahlan and her company rode back into the D’Haran camp. It was obvious from the first instant that something was wrong. Men were running through camp, swords drawn. Others were rushing pole weapons to the barricades. Men were donning leather and chain mail as they ran to their posts. It was a tense scene, but one Kahlan had seen repeated so often that it seemed almost routine.

“I wonder what this is all about,” Verna said with a scowl. “I’ll not like it if Jagang spoils my dinner.”

Kahlan, not wearing her leather armor, suddenly felt naked. It was uncomfortable to wear on long rides, so, going through friendly territory, she had tied it to her saddle. Cara moved close as they dismounted. They handed the reins to soldiers as men closed in protectively.

Kahlan couldn’t remember what color cloth would be used to mark the command tents. She had lost track of the exact number of days she had been gone. It had been somewhat over a month. She took the arm of an officer among the men who had swept in around her.

“Where are the commanders?”

He pointed with his sword. “Down that way, Mother Confessor.”

“Do you know what’s going on?”

“No, Mother Confessor. The alarm sounded. As a Sister rushed past, I heard her say it was genuine.”

“Do you know where my Sisters, or Warren, are?” Verna asked the officer.

“I’ve seen Sisters running around everywhere, Prelate. I’ve not seen Wizard Warren.”

Darkness was settling in, leaving only the fires to guide them through camp. Most of the fires, though, had been doused at the alarm, so the camp was becoming a black maze.

Horses with D’Haran riders flashed past, headed out on patrol. Foot soldiers raced out of camp to scout. No one seemed to know what the threat was, but that wasn’t unusual. Besides being frequent and varied, attacks were usually confusing, in addition to being frightening.

It was over an hour before Kahlan, Cara, Verna, and their heavy ring of guards made it through the sprawling camp that was the size of a city, to the officers’ tents. None of the officers were there.

“This is a foolish way to go about it,” Kahlan muttered. She found her tent, with
Spirit
standing on the little table, and tossed her saddlebags inside, along with her armor. “Let’s just wait here so people can find us.”

“I agree,” Verna said.

Kahlan gestured to include a number of the group of men who had set up a defensive guard around her. “Spread out and find the officers. Tell them that the Mother Confessor and the Prelate are at the command tents. We’ll wait here for reports.”

“Tell any Sisters you see,” Verna added. “And if you see Warren or Zedd, tell them, too, that we’ve returned.”

The men raced off into the night to carry out their instructions.

“I don’t like this,” Cara muttered.

“I don’t, either,” Kahlan said as she stepped into her tent.

Cara stood guard, along with a small army of men, as Kahlan took off her fur mantle and slipped on her leather armor. It had saved her from taking wounds often enough that she was not shy about wearing it. All it would take was one man to slip up close and thrust a sword into her, and that might well be the end. If she got lucky, and they ran it through a leg, or even her belly, she had a chance of being healed by a Sister, but if it was in some other place—heart, head, some major artery so that the loss of blood was too fast—then even the gifted wouldn’t be able to heal her.

The leather was extremely tough, and while not impervious to blades, spears, or arrows, it afforded a good degree of protection while allowing enough freedom of movement to enable her to fight. A blow with a blade had to be landed just right, or it would glance harmlessly off the leather. Many of the men wore chain mail, which afforded better protection, but it was too heavy for Kahlan to be practical for her to wear. In combat, speed and maneuverability were life.

Kahlan knew better than to risk her life needlessly. She was more valuable to their cause in her capacity as a leader than as a combatant. Still, while she rarely went directly into combat, the fighting had often enough come to her.

A sergeant finally arrived to give her a report.

“Assassins” was all he said.

That one chilling word was enough. It was what she had figured, and explained the state of the camp.

“How many casualties?” Kahlan asked.

“I only know for sure that one attacked Captain Zimmer. He was eating at a campfire with his men. The captain managed to miss a killing blow, but took a nasty wound in the leg. He’s lost a lot of blood. The surgeons are seeing to him right now.”

“What about the assassin?” Verna asked.

The sergeant looked surprised at the question. “Commander Zimmer killed the assassin.” He screwed up his face with the distaste of the rest of what he had to say. “The assassin was dressed in a D’Haran uniform. He walked through the camp without notice until he found a target—Captain Zimmer—and attacked.”

Verna let out a worried breath. “A Sister might be able help the captain.”

Kahlan dismissed him with a nod. The sergeant saluted with a fist to his heart before rushing off to his duties.

It was then that Kahlan spotted Zedd approaching. The front of his robes was wet and dark—undoubtedly with blood. Tears ran down his face. Gooseflesh tingled up Kahlan’s arms and legs.

Verna gasped when Zedd suddenly saw her and for an instant faltered before rushing toward them. Verna clutched Kahlan’s arm.

Zedd seized Verna’s hand. “Hurry” was all he said.

It was all he needed to say; they all understood.

Verna let out a mournful cry as she was pulled along after the old wizard. Kahlan and Cara ran behind as Zedd led them on a winding charge through the confusion of shouting men, galloping horses, squads in formation dashing in every direction, and unit officers taking roll call.

The roll call was needed because the assassins were in D’Haran uniforms so they could sneak up close to their quarry. It was necessary to account for every man in order to single out those who didn’t belong. It was tedious and difficult, but essential.

They rushed into the swirl of turmoil around the tents where wounded men were being treated. Men shouted orders as others brought in men crying out in pain, or men with their limp arms dragging the ground. Each tent could hold up to ten or twelve men.

Verna’s composure was frayed with panic. Zedd stopped her, holding her by her arms. His voice was choked with his emotion.

“A man stabbed Holly. Warren was nearby and tried to protect the girl. Verna, I swear to you on my dead wife’s soul… I did everything I could do. Dear spirits forgive me, but I must be the one to tell you…he is beyond my power to help him. He asked for you and Kahlan.”