268
The boy's arm gestured for his master. "One of my beauties, and quite the lethal lady, besides." Kahlan thought she detected in Jagang's gravelly growl a hint of the false bravado of a bluff. Almost in afterthought, he added, "You haven't really seen her."
She shrugged again. "Lethal? I wouldn't know."
"I wouldn't know because she didn't seem all that lethal. She didn't manage to harm any of us."
"Really? So sure, are we?"
Kahlan smiled her contempt into the boy's brown eyes. "You know I'm telling you the truth."
"You know it's the truth because she's one of your slaves, so you should be able to enter her mind. You can't, though. I know why you can't. Even though you aren't too bright, I don't suppose you'll need to think too long to imagine why not."
Kahlan shrugged. "Suit yourself."
As she turned her back on him, Kahlan told him the brutal, bitter truth and let him interpret it his own way. "Last I saw her, she was on her way into oblivion."
Half turned back to him, Kahlan lifted her hand against the full weight of the boy crashing toward her as he leaped for her throat. His small chest contacted her hand. His feet were clear of the ground. It felt not as if he were throwing himself at her, but no more than dandelion fluff, floating to her on a breath of air.
It was not necessary for Kahlan to invoke her birthright, but merely to withdraw her restraint of it. Her feelings could provide her no safe haven; only the truth would serve her now.
This was the enemy.
She could count each small rib under her fingers.
269
Kahlan did not hesitate.
From an ethereal state as part of her innermost essence, that power became all.
The boy's face was twisted by the hate of the man who had controlled him. In that singular moment, if she was the absence of emotion, then he was the embodiment of it. Kahlan stared back into that lost child's face, knowing that he saw only her merciless eyes.
Trees all around shook from the force of the concussion. Snow dropped from branches and boughs. The terrible shock to the air lifted a ring of snow that grew around the two of them in an ever-expanding circle.
Jagang had burned his bridges behind him as he fled the young mind.
270
Kahlan swayed on her feet as she stood over the crumbled body of the boy, feeling her emotions flood back in. As always happened, using her Confessor's power left her drained and exhausted. In the aftermath, the forest sat in silent judgment. Here and there, the virgin snow around the small body exhibited its red evidence.
A Mord-Sith would not live long after the touch of a Confessor. There had been no choice. She had done her best to warn Cara, to let her know to get clear, but in the end Kahlan couldn't allow her decision to be influenced by any consideration other than what had to be done. Hesitation could have meant disaster.
Kahlan looked around, and to the right saw Cara sprawled in the snow. If she had been touching the boy when Kahlan unleashed her power . . .
"Cara-are you all right?"
Kahlan smiled in thankful relief. "No, of course not. I only thought you might have broken your neck jumping away."
Warren helped them both to their feet. Grimacing, he rubbed his shoulders and then his elbows. From what Kahlan had often been told, being too close to a Confessor unleashing her power was a painful experience, sending a shock of agony through every joint. Fortunately, it did no real damage and the suffering faded quickly.
"Dear Creator," Warren whispered to himself. He looked back at Kahlan and Cara. "He was just a boy. Was it really necessary-"
"But Marlin was grown. Lyle was so small . . . so young. What real harm-"
"If I couldn't hold him," Cara said, "nothing could."
Warren sighed in misery. He sank to his knees at the boy's side. Warren whispered a prayer as his fingers stroked the boy's temple.
Kahlan could see the distant figures of their men, rushing up the hillside to rescue her. She started down toward them.
Cara stayed right with her. Warren struggled through the snow to catch up. He snatched Kahlan's arm and pulled her to a stop.
Kahlan schooled her anger as she studied Warren's blue eyes.
"I guess so, but-"
Warren pressed his hand gently to the side of Kahlan's arm. "I know how it seems. Prophecy is often-"
Warren didn't try to answer her rage.
"How do you know that? Kahlan, I can understand how you feel, but how can you be sure?"
"Kahlan, it's not so simple as you make it seem." Warren opened his hands in an expression of frustration. "I don't want to argue this with you, but I want you to understand that prophecy gets fulfilled in many ways. It often seeks its own solution. It could be that had Ann not sent for Richard, he would have, for some other reason, ventured down there and brought down the barrier. Who is to know the reason? Don't you see? It could be that it was bound to happen, and Ann was simply the means. If not her, then another."
Warren smiled sadly. "I am a prophet. I've always wanted to be a prophet in order to help people. I wouldn't put my faith in it if I truly thought it was the cause of harm." He smiled more brightly with a memory. "Don't forget, without prophecy, you would never have come to meet Richard. Aren't you better off having had him come into your life? I know I am."
"I-would rather have been condemned to a lonely life without love, than to know
that harm has come to him because he came into my life. I would rather never have met him, than to have come to know his value, and know that that value is being dashed on the rocks of this mad faith in prophecy."
"Why? She's the one who carried out Ann's orders."
"Verna?"
"She should have."
"What good is that going to do?"
Kahlan appraised his sparkling blue eyes. "You learned this studying prophecy?"
As much as she was of a mind to hold on to it, Kahlan felt her anger slipping away. "I'm not so sure how smart she is."
"Well," Warren said, "she was smart enough to figure out Jagang's plan, and in the middle of being attacked by his gifted minion to keep her wits about her and to trick him into thinking she had fallen for his scheme."
He looked surprised by the question. "I turned one hundred fifty-eight not long ago."
--]--- By the time Kahlan, Cara, Warren, and their escort of guard troops arrived back in camp several hours later, it was a scene of furious activity. Wagons were being loaded, horses hitched, and weapons readied. Tents were not yet being taken down, but soldiers in their leather and chain-mail armor, and still eating the remnants of their dinners, were gathered around officers, listening to instructions for when the
order was given to send a force out to intercept the enemy moving north. Other officers in tents Kahlan passed were bent over maps.
Kahlan dismounted and let a young soldier take her horse. She no longer rode a big warhorse. She, and most of the cavalry, had switched to smaller, more agile mounts. For a clash between large units, big warhorses added weight to a charge, but since the D'Haran Empire forces were so outnumbered, they had decided it would be best to trade weight far speed and maneuverability.
If the Order tried the same thing again, the D'Harans continued to harry them day and night, buzzing around them like angry hornets, but staying out of reach of a heavy swat. If the Imperial Order tired of not being able to sink their teeth into their enemy, and turned their forces to go after population centers, then Kahlan had her men jump on their tails and put arrows in their backs as they struggled to get free. Eventually, they would have to forget their thoughts of plunder and turn back toward the threat.
The more angry and frustrating the Imperial Order became, the more recklessly they behaved, launching impetuous attacks into well-ordered defenses, or heedlessly pressing men into doomed attacks trying to take ground they couldn't possibly take in such a fashion. It sometimes stunned Kahlan to watch so many of the enemy march into range below their archers, fall dead, only to have yet more men march right in behind them, continuously adding corpses to a battlefield already choked with the dead and dying. It was insanity.
Kahlan, with Cara at her side, crossed a river of men to get to the command tents sporting blue cloth strips. Unless you knew the day's color code, finding the command tents would be nearly impossible. Because of the fear of an infiltrator or an
enemy gifted finding and being able to kill a group of senior officers gathered together, they met in nondescript tents. Colored cloth strips marked many of the tents-the men used them as as system of finding their units when they had to move on short notice and so often-so Kahlan got the idea of using the same system to identify the command tents. They changed the color code often so no one color would become known as the officers' colors.
Adie was sitting quietly in the corner, as the representative of the gifted, watching the goings-on with her completely white eyes. Blinded as a young woman, Adie had learned to see using her gift. She was a remarkably talented sorceress. Adie was quite proficient at using that talent to do the enemy harm. Now she was there to help coordinate the Sister's abilities with the needs of the army.
Kahlan nodded her thanks. "Warren went down there to help, too."
"We need to get together a good-sized force-maybe twenty thousand men."
"No," she said. "It's a trick."
"I ran into Jagang-"
Kahlan waved a hand, allaying his fears. "Not like you're thinking. It was through the body of one of his slaves." She stuck her hands under her arms to warm them. "The important thing is that I played along with Jagang's scheme so that he would think we were falling for his plan."
"If we were to send that many men out," Lieutenant Leiden asked, "wouldn't that be just what Emperor Jagang wanted?"
She leaned over the map, using a piece of charcoal to sketch in some of the nearby mountains she had just traveled through, and showed .them a lowland pass around several.
"That's what I was thinking," General Meiffert said.
Captain Abernathy, a trim man with a graying bushy mustache that matched his
eyebrows, nodded as he watched Kahlan pointing out the route on the map. "Don't worry, Mother Confessor, the Order will believe we're gone, but we'll be standing ready to drive right into their ribs when they come for you."
The three officers considered her plan in silence, while outside the confusion of noise went on. Horses galloped past, wagons creaked and bounced along, snow underfoot crunched as soldiers shuffled past, and men called out orders.
Kahlan knew the man wanted to redeem himself in her eyes. He was also looking to establish for Kelton a measure of autonomy within the D'Haran Empire.
He nodded. "But my men are familiar with the area and we're used to traversing mountainous country in the winter. The Imperial Order is from a warmer land. We have the advantage of weather and terrain. We can do the job, Mother Confessor."
Richard had brought the lands together, so that they would all come to feel they were one, now. That was vital if they were to survive. She supposed that they were fighting for the same goal, so in that way they were working together-they would have to coordinate their attacks. Lieutenant Leiden did make sense, too; his troops were mountain fighters.
"Thank you, Mother Confessor."
Lieutenant Leiden clapped a fist to his heart in salute. "My men will make their queen proud."
General Meiffert grunted his agreement. "This will be a good opportunity to knock down their numbers. If it goes even half right, this time we'll bleed them good." He turned to the other two officers. "Let's get started. We need to have your men moving at once to give them enough time to be in position by morning. There's no telling how long they might wait to attack, but if it comes as soon as dawn, I want you in position and ready."
276
The two officers bowed and started to leave.
"Mother Confessor?"
Captain Abernathy's thumb twiddled a bone button on the front of his dark coat. "I'm sorry, Mother Confessor. I, too, thought they should have been here by now. I can't imagine what could be keeping the prince."
"Perhaps, Mother Confessor. If there are storms, that could have delayed him. That is probably the reason, and in that case I don't imagine he should be much longer. Our men train in the mountains in such conditions."
Captain Abernathy confidently met her gaze. "I know for a fact that the prince was eager to collect his men and get down here to help. Galea spans the Callisidrin Valley. The prince personally told me that it was to our own best interest to halt the Imperial Order down here, rather than letting them advance further up into the Midlands, where our lands and our families would come under the terror of the enemy."
"I know the weather was bad when I came down," Kahlan said. "It is winter, after all. I'm sure Prince Harold will soon be here to help his queen and the fellow people of the D'Haran Empire."
After the men had saluted and horned off to their work, Adie put her hands to her knees and levered herself to her feet.
Kahlan nodded wearily. "Thank you, Adie."
"You have used your power," the old sorceress said. "I be able to see it in your face. You must rest."
"They will not get done if you fall ill, or worse-which could happen." Adie's thin fingers gripped Cara's arm. "See to it that the Mother Confessor be left alone for a while, so she can at least rest her head on the table, if nothing else."
277
Kahlan was exhausted. Using her Confessor's ability sapped her strength. She needed time to recover. The hard ride back had only made matters worse. She went around the table and sat down heavily in the folding chair. She opened her fur mantle and set it back on her shoulders. Richard's sword was still strapped to her back, its hilt jutting up above her shoulder. She didn't bother to remove the sword.
278
Mother Confessor?"
Kahlan rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Verna wore a long, gray wool dress and a dark brown cloak. At her throat, the dress had a bit of white lace that softened the austerity of the outfit. Verna's brown hair had a carefree wave and spring to it, but her brown eyes held a troubled look.
"If you have a moment, I would like to talk to you."
She sighed, wondering if this was going to be a "talk" about Ann and prophecy. Kahlan wasn't in the mood.
"A couple of hours. It will soon be dark."
"How do you feel?" Adie asked.
"Both groups be on their way, more than an hour ago," Adie said. "The first group, the Galeans, all left together in big columns. The Keltans dribbled out in small groups not as likely to be noticed by any spies watching."
She knew they had to fear an attack by the Imperial Order as soon as morning. At least that should give their men enough time to travel to their positions and be ready. Waiting for an attack made her stomach feel queasy. She knew the men, too, would be on edge and likely get little sleep.
279
"What is it, then, Verna?"
"Who is `we'?"
"Actually, Mother Confessor, I thought of it. Some of my Sisters helped me with it, but I'm the one who thought it up. The blame falls to me."
"Well, you see, we have a problem getting things past the enemy's gifted. They have Sisters of the light, but also Dark, and we don't have their power. When we try to send things-"
Verna pursed her lips. "Weapons."
"Zedd showed us how to turn simple things into devastating weapons. We can use our power to fling them or even with our breath blow on some small thing, like these pebbles, and use our magic to send them out faster than any arrow, even an arrow from a crossbow. The pebbles we flung out in this way cut down waves of advancing soldiers. The pebbles traveled so swiftly that sometimes each would pierce the bodies of half a dozen men."
Kahlan recognized the weary look of the weight of responsibility in Verna's brown eyes. "That's right. The Order learned how to look for things of magic, or even things propelled by magic. Most of our conjuring that is in any way similar has become useless."
Verna nodded. "It is so. We do the same against them. Things they used at first, we now know how to counter so we can protect our men. Our warning horns, for example. We learned that we must code them with a trace of magic to know they are genuine."
"So what is this thing you thought up?"
Kahlan gave Verna a grim smile. "We do. They're called soldiers."
Verna didn't smile. "No. I meant something the gifted could do to disable enemy troops without risk to our own men."
"Pour a little on the paper, please." Verna was holding her stomach as if she were having indigestion. "But be careful not to touch it with your finger or get it on your skin-and whatever you do, don't blow on it. Be careful not to even breathe on it."
"What is it? Some kind of magic dust?"
Kahlan's eyes turned up. "Glass. You thought up glass?"
Verna leaned over, her finger hovering above the little greenish-gray mound. Cara leaned in beside her in order to look down at the dangerous thing on the piece of paper.
"Dear spirits," Adie said before whispering a prayer in her own language.
"Mother Confessor, we can't get our magic past the defenses of the Order's gifted. They are prepared for magic, even if it's a simple pebble but uses magic to hurl it at their troops.
"But we sent dust clouds at them before," Kahlan said. "Dust to make them sick and such. They mostly countered it."
"All right." Kahlan scratched an eyebrow. "But what will it do to them?"
"That's right," Verna said. "It gets in their eyes, just as any dust would. At first, it will feel like dust in their eyes and they will try to blink it away. However, since the fragments are all still jagged and razor sharp, they will instead embed themselves
in the body's tissue. It will stick in their eyes, and build up under their eyelids, where it will make thousands of tiny cuts across their eyes with each blink. The more they blink, the more it eats away at their delicate eyes." Verna straightened and pulled her cloak together. "It will blind them."
"Are you sure?" Cara asked. "Might it just irritate them, like gritty dust?"
Cara, usually gleeful at the prospect of killing the enemy, did not seem so, now. "We would have but to line them up and butcher them."
"You want me to approve its use, don't you? That's why you're here."
"That's what you want, isn't it?"
Kahlan stared at the woman, understanding then why she was holding her hand over a pain in her stomach.
"A child? It was truly necessary to . . . kill a child?"
Verna, her face gone ashen, closed her eyes against the news.
Adie laid a gnarled hand on Kahlan's shoulder.
"But I would be wrong, Verna? Is that what you were going to add? I'd not be so sure, were I you. You didn't have to kill a little boy today."
"Adie," Kahlan asked, "do you think there would be anything you might be able to do for the woman who was accidentally blinded? Perhaps you could help her?"
Kahlan cocked her head as the two women moved toward the tent opening. "Did you hear that?"
"The horn?" Verna asked.
Verna squinted in concentration. She turned her head to the side, listening attentively.
Kahlan frowned. "We have? Why?"
Kahlan stood. "If we know they're false alarms, and they don't work, then why would the Order increase the attempts? That makes no sense."
Cara turned to go have a look. "Maybe it's just some scouts coming back in."
She heard men yelling. The clash of steel rang out-along with cries of pain.
The heavy canvas drove Kahlan to the ground as it caved in. She couldn't get a grip on anything solid as the tent rolled her over and began dragging her along. Hooves thundered past, pounding the ground right beside her head.
283
Tightly shrouded in stiff canvas, Kahlan couldn't see anything. She choked and gagged on the thick, acrid smoke burning her lungs. She pulled frantically at the canvas, trying to disentangle herself, but as she bounced and tumbled along the ground, she couldn't make any headway gaining her liberty. The heat of flames close to her face ignited in her a sense of panic. Her weariness forgotten, she kicked and struggled madly as she gasped for air.
It was Cara's voice. It sounded close, as if she, too, was being dragged along and strenuously engaged in her own fight for life. Cara was smart enough not to shout Kahlan's name or title when surrounded by the enemy; hopefully, Verna knew better, as well.
Kahlan's sword was trapped, pressed to her legs by the rolled canvas. She managed to wiggle her left hand up onto the knife at her belt. She yanked it free. She had to turn her face to try to keep away from the heat of the oily flames. The smothering smoky blindness was terrifying.
She yelled again to Cara. "I can't get-"
Kahlan saw General Meiffert reach up, seize a fistful of chain mail, and unhorse the man who had been dragging her tent. The man's eyes gleamed from behind long, curly, greasy hair. His stout body was covered with hides and furs over chain mail and leather armor. He was missing his upper teeth. As he lunged at the general, he lost his head, too.
284
As the grinning Order soldier with the flail leaped from the staggering horse, he drew his sword with his free hand. Kahlan didn't wait; as he was still alighting on his feet, she spun while drawing her own sword and landed a solid backhanded blow across the left side of his face.
For the moment, the immediate area was clear, enabling her to scramble over to the tent where the general was on his knees, yanking at the snarled mess of canvas and rope. More Order cavalry were thundering past, threatening to trample Verna, Adie, and Cara still trapped in the tangle of tent. At least the burning section had pulled away.
Kahlan helped Adie up. The scrape on her brow didn't look too serious. General Meiffert pulled frantically at the canvas. Cara was still inside, somewhere, but they no longer heard her.
"They were!" Verna insisted. "Obviously, they tricked us."
Some of the cavalry were setting fire to wagons, tents, and supplies. Others charged past, trampling men and tents. Pairs of riders teamed up to single out soldiers and take them down, then charged after another victim.
When a soldier, draped in filthy fur and weapons, cried out in bravado as he rushed at her wielding a raised mace studded with glistening bloody spikes, Kahlan took his hand off with a lightning-swift blow. He staggered to a stop and stared a her in surprise. Without missing a beat, she drove her sword into his gut and gave it a wrenching twist before pulling it free. She turned her attention elsewhere as he crashed down atop a fire. His screams melted in with all the others.
285
Cara tried to sit up. Kahlan pressed her down on her back.
Kahlan looked over her shoulder and saw Verna, nearby, singling out Imperial Order troops, each twitch of her hands casting a fiery spell to blast them from their horses, or a focused edge of air as sharp as any blade, yet more swift and sure, to slice them down. Without the gift themselves, or one of the gifted to protect them, the enemy's simple armor was no defense.
"See how she is, will you? Help her?"
The big D'Haran general wheeled the huge horse into the way of charging enemy cavalry, protecting Verna and Cara. Kahlan sheathed her sword and used the lance to good effect against the warhorses. Horses, even well-trained warhorses, didn't appreciate being stabbed in the chest. Many people considered them just dumb beasts, but horses were smart enough to understand that driving themselves onto a pointed lance was not what they wanted to do, and reacted accordingly.
From atop his Imperial Order warhorse, General Meiffert commanded his men to form a defensive line. After directing them into place, he charged off, roaring a string of orders as he went. He didn't tell his men who to protect, so as not to betray Kahlan to the enemy, but they quickly saw what it was he intended them to do. D'Harans grabbed up the enemy lances, or came running with their own pikes, and soon there was a bristling line of steel-tipped pole weapons presenting a deadly obstacle to any approaching cavalry.
The enemy's horses balked when they encountered a solid line of advancing pikes brandished by men shouting battle cries. Soldiers coming from behind the Order cavalry rained down arrows. D'Harans dragged trapped riders from their saddles, down into the bloody hand-to-hand fighting on the ground.
"I don't want one of them escaping camp alive!" she yelled to her men. "No mercy!"
The enemy, so confident and arrogant as they had charged in, relishing the prospect of spilling D' Haran blood, were now nothing more than pathetic men in the ungainly grip of despair as the D'Harans hacked them to death.
The enemy knew who she was, or at least they were pretty sure. Jagang had seen her, and no doubt had described the Mother Confessor to his men. Kahlan was sure to have a heavy price on her head.
When the lurking enemy spotted Kahlan making her way through the chaos, they came out from their hiding places to go after her with wild abandon. Others, she came upon and surprised. Remembering not only her father's training, but Richard's admonition, Kahlan cut fiercely into the enemy soldiers. She gave them no opening; no chance; no mercy.
Such moves were not at odds with the manner of fighting that her father had taught, but complemented it in a way that fit her. Richard had trained her not with a sword, but with a willow switch, a mischievous smile, and a dangerous glint in his eyes. Now, Richard's sword, strapped over the back of her shoulder, was an everpresent reminder of those playful lessons that had been not only unrelenting, but deadly serious.
"How is she?"
I "She has a thick skull," Adie said. "It not be cracked, but she should lie still for
Cara's hands groped as if having trouble finding the ground beneath her. Despite
her obvious dizziness, she was cursing the Prelate and trying to sit up. Kahlan, squatting beside Cara, pressed her shoulder to the ground.
"I want at them!"
The old sorceress gestured dismissively. "Bah. I be fine. My head be thicker than Cara's."
General Meiffert finally returned, charging through the line of D'Haran defenders as they parted for him. He leaped from his enemy warhorse. The horse tossed his head at the indignity of being ridden by the enemy, and ran off. The young D'Haran general crouched down on the opposite side of Cara. Winded, he started talking anyway.
"Why didn't we know?" Kahlan asked. "What went wrong with the alarm?"
Kahlan let out an angry breath. It was all starting to make sense to her. "That's why there have been so many false alarms. They were numbing us to them so that when they attacked, we would be unconcerned, falsely believing our own alarms were just another enemy false alarm."
"No," she said, casting a cool glare at Verna and Kahlan, each of whom used a hand to hold her shoulders down. She casually crossed her ankles. "I just thought you could handle it, so I decided to take a nap."
"It gets worse. This cavalry attack was a diversion. They hoped it might get you, I'm sure, but it was meant to make us believe it was just a raid."
He nodded. "The entire force. They're still a distance out, but you're right, they're coming. This was just to throw us into confusion and keep us distracted."
"They've changed their tactics," Kahlan whispered to herself. "He's a quick study. I thought I'd tricked him, but I was the one who was taken in."
"What are you mumbling about?" Cara asked, her fingers locked together over her stomach.
Cara made a face. "What?"
"Jagang wanted me to think I had his scheme figured out, so we would pretend to play along and send out our troops. He probably figured they wouldn't be sent after his decoy, but would be used instead against his real plan of attack. He didn't care about that, though. All along, he was planning on changing his tactics. He was waiting only until those troops left so that he could attack before they were in place and while our numbers were reduced."
"I'm afraid so. He outsmarted me."
"Can't we call back the men we sent out?" Verna asked. "Their numbers would help."
Rather than dwell on how gullible she had been, Kahlan put her mind to the immediate problem. "We need to move fast."
He ran his fingers back through his blond hair. The gesture of frustration unexpectedly reminded Kahlan of Richard. "But if we do that, we would have to abandon most of our supplies. In winter, without supplies, a number of our men wouldn't last long. Either way, killed in battle or dying of hunger and cold-you're just as dead."
"We dare not allow them to go uncontested into a city. It would not only be a bloodbath, but if they picked the right city, we would face a near impossible task of dislodging them." The general shook his head. "It could end up being the end of our hopes of driving them back to the Old World."
"That's what I was thinking," he said. "It keeps the army together-and keeps the Order having to contend with us, rather than being able to turn their attention on any cities. If they try to move around us up into the Midlands, there are easy northern routes out of the valley from which we can strike. We have more men on
the way, and we can send for others; we need to stay together and maintain our engagement with the Order's army until those forces arrive."
He gave her a worried look. "The problem right now is that if we're to make it into that valley before the Order can pounce on us, we're going to need more time to do it. The pass is too narrow for wagons. The horses can make it, but not the wagons-they'll have to be dismantled. Most of our equipment is designed to be knocked down so the parts can be portaged, if need be. We'll have to leave a few that aren't. It won't take long to get started, but we're going to need time to funnel all the men and supplies over that narrow pass-especially in the dark."
Kahlan remembered the handprint made of glowing dust. "The gifted could lay down a glowing track to guide the men."
"We've kept ahead of them before," Verna said. "This isn't the first attack."
"We already have defenses set up, here," Cara said. "We could stand where we are and fight them head-on."
"We don't have enough gifted to cover every possibility-and in war it's always what you don't cover that gets hit. The enemy could pour through a gap, get in behind us in the dark, without us even realizing it, and then we're finished."
"I agree," Kahlan said. "The pass is the only chance we have to keep from losing a major battle tonight-along with a huge number of our men. The risk without real benefit of standing and fighting is a poor choice."
Kahlan turned to Verna. "We need you to slow the enemy down to give us the time we need to get our army over that pass."
"Use your special glass."
"A weapon of magic," Cara said. "To blind the enemy troops."
Verna looked thunderstruck. "But I'm not ready. We only made up a small batch. I'm not ready."
"The Order could be here within an hour, at the soonest, two at the latest. If we don't slow them down, we'll never make it out of this valley with our men and supplies. If we can't find a way to delay them, we can only run for the hills, or stand and fight. Neither is a choice I would make except in desperation."
Kahlan rubbed her fingers across her brow as she tried to think. Jagang had changed his tactics and decided to engage them in a night battle. He had never done that before because it would be so costly for him, but with his numbers, he apparently wasn't concerned about that. Jagang held life in little regard.
"I agree," the general finally said. "As far as I see it, we have no choice. We have to act quickly and get as many of our men over the pass as we can. We'll lose all those who don't get over before the Order arrives, but we'll manage to preserve some."
Kahlan's mind raced. She couldn't help being furious with herself at being gulled. Richard's words echoed through her mind: think of the solution, not the problem. The solution was the only thing that mattered now.
"I will do my best-you have my word on that. I wish I could promise more." Verna scrambled to her feet. "I'll need the Sisters who are tending the wounded, of course. What about the ones working at the front lines? The ones countering enemy magic? Can I have any of them?"
"I'll take them all, then. Every one," Verna said. "It's the only chance we have."
"We need glass," Verna said to the general. "Any kind. At least a few barrels full."
291
The general promised her he would see to it. Holding her hem up out of her way, Verna ran off to the task. Adie was close on her heels.
If it worked, they would slip out of Jagang's grasp.
"Do it," she said to the general. "Cara-we have work."
CHAPTER 38
The moon lit a layer of lacy clouds scudding past, giving a faint, serene illumination to the surrounding countryside. The thin layer of snow gathered the muted light of the moon to make it more luminous than it otherwise would be.
Kahlan stalked over to the Sisters working on the snowy ground. Running off in a haphazard line, to keep the wind at their backs, were over a hundred of the women, all focused intently on the work before them. Many had their cloaks tented around themselves and their work.
"Verna, what is Holly doing down here?"
Holly was bundled in an oversized cloak. She had a determined grimace as she lifted the rod and then let it drop down in the barrel set away from the Sisters' dangerous work. Kahlan saw that the rod had a faint greenish glow to it.
"She's a child!"
Kahlan pinched the bridge of her nose between her first finger and thumb and took a purging breath. "What madness would possess you to have children down here near the front helping to-to blind people?"
293
"Kahlan, Holly may be a child, but she is a gifted child, and she is far from stupid besides. That goes for Helen and Valery as well. Holly has seen more in her young life than any child should see. She knows what's going on tonight, with that attack, and with the attack that's coming. She was terrified-all the children were."
"What would you have me do? Send her back somewhere to be watched over by soldiers? Do you wish me to force her to be alone at a time like this so she could only tremble in terror?"
"She's gifted. Despite how horrific it seems, this is better for her, as it is for the others. She's with the Sisters, who understand her and her ability as other people can't. Don't you recall the comfort you derived from being with older Confessors who knew the way you felt about things?"
"The Sisters are the only family she and the other novices have, now. Holly is not alone and afraid. She may still be afraid, but she's doing something to help us, so that her fear is channeled into something that will assist in overcoming the cause of her fear."
"And you had to kill a child today. I understand. But don't let that terrible event make it harder on Holly. Yes, this is an awful thing she is helping to do, but this is the reality of the way things are. She could die tonight, along with the rest of us. Can you even imagine what those brutes would do to her, first? At least that much is beyond the imagination of her young mind. What she can comprehend, though, is fear enough.
In anguish, Kahlan gathered her fur mantle at her throat as she glanced back over her shoulder at the little girl using both her spindly arms to lift the heavy steel rod and drop it again to break the glass in the bottom of the barrel. Holly's features were drawn tight as she concentrated on using her gift while at the same time lifting the weight of the rod.
Cara impatiently shifted her weight to her other foot. It wasn't indifference to the situation, but a matter of priorities. Madness or not, there was little tine left, and, as Verna said, they could all die before the night was finished. As cruel as it sounded, there were more important matters than the life of one child, or, for that matter, three.
Verna's bold expression finally faltered. "I don't know." She lifted a hand hesitantly, motioning out over the dark valley before them. "The wind is right, but the valley approach to our forces is quite broad. It's not that we won't have some, it's that we need to have enough so that when the enemy gets close, we can release the glass dust to float across the span of the entire field of battle."
"But you have some. Surely, what you have will do damage to the enemy."
Kahlan wiped a hand across her face. That was asking a lot, but with the darkness, she thought that it just might be possible that the Order would have to go slow enough to give Verna and her Sisters the time they needed.
Verna's mask of authority again emerged in the moonlight.
"What is it, then?"
Kahlan sighed. "Just promise me one thing." Verna raised an eyebrow as if willing to listen prudently. "When the attack comes, and you have to use this special glass, get the children out of here first? Get them to the rear, where they can be taken over the pass to safety."
As Verna hurried back to her work, Kahlan and Cara returned along the line of Sisters, past the end to where Holly was preparing glass to supply those gifted women. Kahlan couldn't help but to stop for a word.
When the girl rested the rod against the side of the barrel, Cara, absent any fondness for magic, aimed a suspicious frown at the faintly glowing metal. As Holly took her small hands from the metal, the greenish glow faded, as if a magical wick had been turned down.
Kahlan smiled warmly as she ran a gentle hand down the back of Holly's fine hair. "As are we all." Kahlan crouched down beside the girl. "When we get over into another valley, you can get warm by a nice fire."
Kahlan couldn't resist pulling the girl close and kissing her frigid cheek. Hesitant at first, the thin little arms surrendered to desperately encircle Kahlan's neck.
"Me too," Kahlan whispered back as she squeezed the girl tight. "Me too."
Kahlan nodded. "I get frightened, but I know we have a lot of good people who will keep us safe. Like you, they work as hard as they can so that we can all someday be safe, and not have to be scared anymore."
Kahlan groped for words of comfort. "I saw Ann not long ago, and she was fine. I don't think you need worry for her."
"She saved me. I love her and miss her so. Will she be with us, soon?"
Pleased with that news and seemingly relieved to know that she was not alone in her fears, Holly turned back to her work with renewed determination.
"They're coming," the wizard announced without preamble.
He gaped at her in astonishment. "Bags, woman, shall I tell them that it would be rather inconvenient for them to attack right now and to please come back to kill us later?"
"How long till they get here?" Kahlan asked.
That thin sliver of time was the only bulwark between them and catastrophe. Kahlan felt as if her heart rose into her throat, recalling suddenly the forsaken feeling of being mobbed and beaten to death. Verna sputtered in wordless frustration, anger, and dread.
"Yes, of course," she said. "But if they will be here that soon, we've not enough. Dear Creator, we don't have nearly what we'll need in order to drift it out all across the front. Too little is as good as none."
"Wait," Kahlan said.
Kahlan couldn't let Zedd down. He had so often carried them; now he needed another shoulder to help endure the weight. She presented him a look of fierce determination before she turned to the Prelate.
"Verna, what if we didn't release it in the way we planned? What if we didn't simply let it drift out, hoping for the breeze to. carry it where we need it?"
"Won't it take more of the glass-the amount you say you need-simply so that there is enough to let it drift all the way across the valley, and yet have enough to hang in the air, too?"
"What if," Kahlan asked, "we released it in a line along the face of the front? Right where it was needed. Then it would take less, wouldn't it?"
Kahlan glanced out over the empty plain faintly lit by the placid clouds veiling the moon. There was nothing to be seen out in the valley. Soon, there would be. Soon, the virgin snow would be trampled by the boots of over a million men.
Kahlan felt the suffocating dread she had felt when she first realized that all those men had caught her alone. She felt the anger, too.
They all stared at her.
Kahlan pulled her hair back from her face as she rapidly pieced together her plan, so that it was whole in her own mind, first.
"Dear Creator," Verna protested, "do you have any idea how dangerous that would be?"
"You're right-it wouldn't take nearly as much." Verna touched her lip as she stared off into the darkness while considering. "It's better than the way we were going to do it, that much is sure."
Verna abandoned her protests and ran off to collect what they had. Cara was about to unleash a tirade of objections when Zedd lifted a hand as if to ask she let him do the objecting, instead.
297
"As I was saying, someone else can-"
Kahlan deemed herself responsible for the peril they were in. It was she who had blundered and fallen for Jagang's trick. It was she who had come up with the plan and ordered the troops out. It was she who made Jagang's night attack possible.
It would be Kahlan who had lost the war for them, this very night, if they didn't get their army back across that pass to safety.
Zedd let out an angry breath. The fire was back in his eyes. He flicked out his hand, pointing. "Warren is back there waiting for me. The two of us will move to separate locations and give you your diversion."
At last, Zedd surrendered to a grim, cunning grin. "Nothing fancy, this time. No clever devious tricks, like they no doubt expect. This time, we'll give them a good old-fashioned firefight."
"Wizard's fire it is, then."
As she secured her cloak, she nodded assent to Zedd's brief instructions. She checked the straps on her leg armor, making sure they were tight, remembering how the enemy's strong fingers had clawed at her legs, trying to unhorse her.
"All right," the winded Prelate said. "Let's go."
Verna yanked them back. "How do you propose to ride and sprinkle this out? It's too much. Besides, you don't know its properties."
"Stop acting like an obstinate child. Let's go."
The willowy Sister Philippa rushed to Cara's side and lifted the bucket. "Mistress Cara is right, Prelate. You and the Mother Confessor can't do both buckets. You two take one; Mistress Cara and I will take the other."
298
"All right," Kahlan said as she pulled on her gloves.
Verna tossed a handful of the fluffy snow, checking the wind. It had held its direction and was light, but steady. At least that much was in their favor.
Sister Philippa, noting what Kahlan had done, fastened her cloak securely at her neck and waist. "That makes sense."
"I guess there's no time to argue this foolishness," Zedd grumbled as he seized Spider's mane and pulled himself up, laying across the horse's back on his belly. He swung a leg over Spider's rump and sat up. "Let me have a minute or two to get ahead of you and let Warren know, then we'll start showing the Imperial Order some real wizard work."
"After all this work, someone had better have some dinner waiting for me on the other side of that pass back there."
The wizard gave them a jaunty wave and galloped off into the darkness.
CHAPTER 39
"Get the children back across the pass," Verna ordered.
"Whatever more of the glass you can have ready by the time the Mother Confessor and I ride out, you should release into the wind for good measure, then get yourselves spread out behind our lines to help if the Order breaks through. If we fail, the Sisters must do their best to hold the enemy off while as many as possible make it across the pass to safety."
They all waited a few minutes in silence while giving Zedd the head start he needed to reach Warren with instructions. There seemed nothing else to say. Kahlan concentrated on what she had to do, rather than worrying whether or not it would work. In the back of her mind, though, she was aware of how notoriously imperfect were such last-minute battle plans.
As the sound of hoofbeats from Cara's horse faded into the night, Kahlan for the first time realized that, in the distance, she could hear the collective yells of hundreds of thousands of Imperial Order troops. The countless voices fused into one continuous roar as their attack drew ever closer. It almost sounded like the moan of an ill wind through a canyon's rocky fangs. Her horse snorted and pawed the frozen ground. The awful drone made Kahlan's pulse race even faster. She wanted to race away, before the men got too close, but she had to wait, to give the glass dust Cara and Sister Philippa released time to drift out of the way.
Kahlan nodded, hardly hearing the woman. Verna was just saying anything that came to mind so as not to have to sit and listen to the enemy coming for them.
300
As she quietly sat her horse, she let her anger build, too. Anger made a better warrior than fear.
The Imperial Order was but a gang of killers without empathy. They merited no pity; they would get none.
"It's time," Kahlan said through gritted teeth. Without looking back over her shoulder, she asked, "Are you ready?"
Kahlan nodded. "Hold tight. Here we go."
Even as the muscular gelding was obeying her command and racing away, his ears were turned to the approaching clamor. He was skittish carrying the unfamiliar burden of two riders. He was well trained and had seen battle often enough, so he probably was also edgy because he knew what the war cries signified. Kahlan knew he was strong and quick. For what she had to do, speed was life.
Terrifying bits of memories of fists and boots flashed unbidden into her mind as she heard men coming toward her in the dark, screaming for blood. She felt her vulnerability as never before. Kahlan turned those memories from fear to anger at the outrage of these brutes coming into her Midlands and murdering her people. She wanted every one of them to suffer, and every one of them dead.
301
The night suddenly ignited with harsh yellow light. The clouds went from gray to bright yelloworange. White snow blazed with garish color. An awful droning sound vibrated deep under her ribs.
She knew enough about wizard's fire, how it clung tenaciously to the skin, to be more than wary of it. Once that living fire touched you, it couldn't be dislodged. Even a single droplet of wizard's fire would often eat through flesh down to bone. There was no one either brave or foolish enough not to fear it. Few people touched by such conjured flame lived to recount the horror of the experience. For those who did, revenge became a lifelong obsession.
In the moonlight, Kahlan could see for the first time since she had joined up with the army the full extent of the enemy forces. The reports had told the story, but could not fully convey the reality of the sight. The numbers were so far removed from her experience as to defy comprehension. Eyes wide, jaw hanging open, she gasped in awe.