Now, with summer finally upon them, Jagang was beginning his campaign anew. He planned his troops to now visit those cities his envoys had been to.
The door burst open. It was not the wind, but Rikka. The Mord-Sith looked like she hadn’t slept in days.
Cara went to her side, to be ready to offer assistance if requested, but didn’t directly lend a hand for support. A Mord-Sith did not look favorably upon help in front of others.
Rikka stepped up to the table, opposite Kahlan, and tossed two Agiel down atop the map.
Kahlan closed her eyes for a moment, then looked up into Rikka’s fierce blue eyes. “What happened?”
“I don’t know, Mother Confessor. I found their heads impaled on pikes. Their Agiel were tied to the pikes.”
Kahlan held her anger in check. “Are you satisfied, now, Rikka?”
“Galina and Solvig died as Mord-Sith would want to die.”
“Galina and Solvig died for nothing, Rikka. After the first four, we knew it wouldn’t work. With the dream walker in their minds, the gifted are not vulnerable to Mord-Sith in the way that would otherwise be the case.”
“It could have been something else. If we can catch their gifted where the Mord-Sith can get at them, then we might be able to take them out. It’s worth the risk. Their gifted can cut down thousands of soldiers with a sweep of their hand.”
“I understand the wish, Rikka. Wishing, however, does not make it possible. We have six dead Mord-Sith to show us the reality of what is. We will not throw away the lives of any more because we refuse to recognize the truth of it.”
“I still think—”
“Those of us here have important things to decide; I don’t have time for this.” Kahlan put her fists on the table and leaned toward the woman. “I am the Mother Confessor, and the wife to Lord Rahl. You will do as I say or you will leave. Do you understand?”
Rikka’s blue eyes shifted to Cara. Cara stood as expressive as a stone. Rikka looked back at Kahlan and let out a long sigh.
“I wish to remain with our forces and do my duty.”
“Fine. Now, go get yourself something to eat while you still have a chance. We need you to be strong.”
For a Mord-Sith, Rikka’s little nod was about as close to a salute as it came. After she was gone, Kahlan swatted at the plague of mosquitoes and returned her attention to the map.
“So,” she said, removing the two Agiel from the map, “who has any suggestions?”
“I’d say we have to keep at their edges,” Zedd offered. “Obviously, we can’t be throwing ourselves in front of them. We can do nothing but to continue to fight them as we have been doing.”
“I agree,” Verna said.
General Meiffert rubbed his chin as he stared down at the map spread out before them on the table. “What we have to worry about is his size.”
“Well, of course we have to worry about the size of the Order,” Kahlan said. “They have enough men to split up and still be too huge to handle. That’s what I’m talking about—what we’re going to do when he splits. If I were him, that’s what I’d do. He knows how it would complicate our lives.”
There was an urgent knock. Warren, over by the window, not bothering to look at the map with the rest of them, opened the door.
Captain Zimmer stepped in, giving a quick salute of his fist to his heart. Panting as he entered, he brought with him a swirling rush of warm air that smelled like a horse. Ignoring the rest of them, Warren returned to his brooding at the window.
“He’s splitting his force,” Captain Zimmer announced, as if their fear had given birth to the reality.
Most in the room sighed unhappily with the news.
“Any direction, yet?” Kahlan asked.
Captain Zimmer nodded. “From the looks of it, he’s sending maybe a third, possibly a little more, up the Callisidrin Valley toward Galea. The main force is heading to the northeast, probably to enter and go north up the Kern Valley.”
They all knew the eventual goal.
Zedd made a fist. “There’s no joy in being right, but that’s just what Kahlan and I talked about. That was our guess.”
General Meiffert was still rubbing his chin as he studied the map. “It’s an obvious move, but with the size of his force the obvious is not a liability.”
No one wanted to broach the issue, so Kahlan settled the matter. “Galea is on its own. We’re not sending any troops to help them.”
Captain Zimmer finally waggled a finger at the map. “We need to put our forces in front of their main force to slow them down. If we stay on their heels instead, we will only be cleaning up the mess they make.”
“I’d have to agree.” The general shifted his weight to his other foot. “We have no choice but to try to slow them. We’ll have to keep giving ground, but at least we can slow them. Otherwise, they are going to move up through the center of the Midlands with the speed and power of a spring flood.”
Zedd was watching the young wizard off by himself at the window. “Warren, what do you think?”
Warren looked up at the sound of his name, as if he hadn’t been paying attention. Something about him didn’t look well. He took a breath and straightened, his face brightening, making Kahlan think she had been mistaken. Hands clasped behind his back, Warren strode to the table.
He peered at the map from over Verna’s shoulder. “Forget Galea—it’s a lost cause. We cannot help them. They will suffer the sentence imposed upon them by the Mother Confessor—not because she spoke the words, but because her words were simple truth. Any troops we sent to help would be forfeit.”
Zedd cast a sidelong glance at his fellow wizard. “What else?”
Warren finally moved closer to the table, wedging himself between Verna and the general. With authority, he firmly planted his finger on the map, far to the north—almost three-quarters of the way to Aydindril from where they were camped.
“You have to go there.”
General Meiffert frowned. “Up there? Why?”
“Because,” Warren said, “you can’t stop Jagang’s army—his main force. You can only hope to slow them as they move north, up into the Kern Valley. This is where you must make a stand, if you hope to delay them next winter. Once they move through you, they will be upon Aydindril.”
“Move through us?” General Meiffert asked in an surly manner.
Warren looked up at him. “Well, do you suppose you are going to be able to stop them? It wouldn’t surprise me if by then they have three and a half to four million men.”
The general let out an ill-tempered breath. “Then why do you think we should be at that spot—right in their way?”
“You can’t stop them, but if you harry them sufficiently as they move north, you can keep them from reaching Aydindril this year. At this spot, they will be running out of time before the weather closes in. With a bit of stiff resistance, you can grind them to a halt for the winter, buying Aydindril one more season of freedom.”
Warren looked up into Kahlan’s eyes. “The following summer, a year from now, Aydindril will fall. Prepare them for it in whatever way you are able, but make no mistake: the city will fall to the Order.”
Kahlan’s blood ran cold. To hear him say the words aloud staggered her. She wanted to slap him.
To contemplate the Imperial Order taking their attack into the heart of the Midlands was horrifying. To accept, as foreordained, the Imperial Order seizing the heart of the New World was unthinkable. Kahlan’s mental image of Jagang and his bloodthirsty thugs strolling the halls of the Confessors’ Palace sickened her.
Warren leaned around the general to look at Zedd. “The Wizard’s Keep must be protected—you know that better than I. It would be the end of all hope if their gifted were to gain the Keep and the dangerous things of magic stored there. I think the time has come to keep that above all else in our thinking. Holding the Keep is vital.”
Zedd smoothed back his unruly white hair. “I could hold the Keep by myself, if I h
ad to.”
Warren looked away from Zedd’s hazel eyes. “You may have to,” he said in a quiet voice. “When we get to this place”—he tapped the map again—“then you can do no more with the army, Zedd, and you must go to safeguard the Wizard’s Keep and the things of magic kept there.”
Kahlan could feel the blood heating her face. “You’re talking about this as if it’s all settled—as if it has been decided by fate and there is nothing we can do about it. We can’t win if we hold such a defeatist attitude.”
Warren smiled, his shy manner suddenly surfacing. “I’m sorry, Mother Confessor. I didn’t mean to give you that impression. I am only offering my analysis of the facts of the situation. We aren’t going to be able to stop them—there’s no use deluding ourselves about that. They grow larger by the day. We must also take into account that there are going to be lands, such as Anderith and Galea, which fear the Order and will join them rather than suffer the brutal fate of those who refuse to surrender.
“I lived in the Old World as it fell, bit by bit, to the Imperial Order. I’ve studied Jagang’s methods. I know the man’s patience. He methodically conquered the entire Old World when such a feat seemed inconceivable. He spent years building roads just to be able to accomplish his plans. He never wavers from his goal. There are times when you can anger or humiliate him into a rash action, but he quickly comes to his senses.
“He quickly comes to his senses because he has a cause that is paramount to him.
“You must understand something important about Jagang. It’s the most important thing I can tell you about the man: he believes with all his heart that what he is doing is right. He revels in the glory of conquest and victory, to be sure, but his deepest pleasure is being the one who has brought what he sees as righteousness to those he views as heathens. He believes that mankind can only advance, ethically, if they are all brought under the moral authority of the Order.”
“That’s just nonsense,” Kahlan said.
“You may think so, but he truly believes he is serving the cause of the greater good for mankind. He believes piously in this. It is a sacred moral truth to him and his ilk.”
“He believes that murder, rape, and enslavement are just?” General Meiffert asked. “He would have to be out of his mind.”
“He was raised at the feet of priests of the Fellowship of Order.” Warren lifted a finger to make sure they all noted his point. “He believes that all those things and more are justified. He believes that only the next world matters, because then we will be in the eternal Light of the Creator. The Order believes that you earn that reward in the next world by sacrificing for your fellow man in this world. All those who refuse to see this—that would be us—must either be brought to follow the Order’s ways, or die.”
“So,” General Meiffert said, “it’s his sacred duty to crush us. It’s not plunder he seeks, primarily, but his bizarre version of the salvation of mankind.”
“Exactly.”
“All right,” Kahlan said with a sigh. “So, what do you think this holy man of justice will do?”
“He basically has two choices, I believe. If he is to conquer the New World and bring all of mankind under the authority of the Order, he must take two important places, or he has not really succeeded: Aydindril, because it is the seat of power in the Midlands, and the People’s Palace in D’Hara, because it reigns over the D’Haran people. If those two fall, everything else will crumble. He could have gone for either. Emperor Jagang has now made his choice of which falls first.
“The Imperial Order is going for Aydindril in order to split the Midlands. Why else would they go north? What better way to defeat an enemy than to cleave them in two? After they have Aydindril, they will turn their swords to an isolated D’Hara. What better way to demoralize an enemy than to first go for their heart?
“I am not saying that it is preordained, but merely telling you the way the Order goes about its grisly work. This is the same thing Richard has already figured out. Given that we can’t realistically expect to stop them, I think it only wise to face the reality of what is, don’t you?”
Kahlan’s gaze sank to the map. “I believe that in the darkest hours we must believe in ourselves. I do not intend to surrender the D’Haran Empire to the Imperial Order. We need to wage the best war we can until we can turn it around.”
“The Mother Confessor is right,” Zedd insisted with quiet authority. “The last great war I fought, in my youth, seemed just as hopeless for a time. We prevailed, and drove the invaders back to the place from where they had come.”
None of the D’Haran officers said anything. It was D’Hara that was that invader.
“But things are different, now. That was a war pressed by an evil leader.” Zedd met the gaze of General Meiffert, Captain Zimmer, and the other D’Haran officers. “Every side in a war has good people, just as they all have the bad. Richard, as the new Lord Rahl, has given those good people a chance to flourish.
“We must prevail in this. As difficult as it may now be to believe, there are good people in the Old World, too, who would not wish to be under the boot heel of the Order, or to press a war for the Order’s reasons. Nonetheless, we must stop them.”
“So,” Kahlan said, gesturing at the map before Warren, “how do you think Jagang will press the war?”
Warren tapped the map again, to the south of Aydindril. “Knowing Jagang and the way he conquers his opponents, I think he will stick to his grand plan. He has a goal and will doggedly continue to move toward it. There is nothing we have shown him that he has not seen from other opponents for his whole life. With that experience, I’m sure he finds this war unexceptional. I don’t mean to discount our efforts—all war has its surprises, and we’ve given him some nasty ones. I would say, though, that it is going largely as he expected.
“It will take them the summer to advance to this place I’ve shown you, given his usual pace and the fact that you will be harrying them. Jagang, in general, has always moved slowly, but with unstoppable force. He will simply pour in enough men to crush the opposition. He feels that if he takes time to get to his enemy, it only gives them more time to tremble in fear of him. When he finally arrives, his enemies are often ready to crumble from the agony of the wait.
“If you put your force there, where I showed you, you will be able to protect Aydindril next winter, as Jagang will be content to bide his time. He has learned what a hardship the winters are in the New World. He will not needlessly press a winter campaign. But in the summer, when they move again, like they do now, then Aydindril will fall—whether or not you stand against the weight of their main force. When they move on Aydindril, we must hold the Wizard’s Keep. That is all we can do.”
The room was silent. The fire was cold, now. Warren and Verna had already packed their things and were ready to go, as was most of the rest of the army. Warren and Verna were losing their home. Kahlan glanced to the side, letting her gaze linger on the curtains she had long ago made for them. Their wedding seemed but a dim memory.
Her own wedding seemed but a distant dream. Every time she woke, Richard seemed almost a ghost to her. Mind-numbing, relentless, never-ending war seemed the only reality. There were occasional fleeting moments when she thought that she might have only dreamed him, that he couldn’t possibly have really existed, that their long-ago happy summer home in the mountains never happened. Those moments of doubt terrified her more than Jagang’s army.
“Warren,” Kahlan asked in a soft voice, “what then? What do you think will happen the following summer, after they have taken Aydindril?”
Warren shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe Jagang will be content to digest Aydindril for a while, to establish firm control over the Midlands. He believes it his duty to his Creator to bring all of mankind under the Order. Sooner or later, he will move on D’Hara.”
Kahlan finally directed her attention to Captain Zimmer.
“Captain, get your men ready. While we’re getting all our s
upplies and such on the way, you might as well go and remind Jagang that we have kept our blades sharp.”
The captain grinned and clapped his fist to his heart.
Kahlan swept her gaze across everyone in the room.
“I intend to make the Order shed blood for every inch they take. If that is all I can do, then I will do it until I breathe my last breath.”
Chapter 53
The dead-still air was sweltering and reeked of stagnant sewage. Richard wiped sweat from his brow. At least as long as his sturdy wagon was rolling through the streets he could enjoy a little breeze.
Distracted out of his concern over knowing Kahlan and Cara had to have long since left the safety of their mountain home, he noticed an unusual amount of activity for the middle of the night. Shadowy figures hurried down the dark streets to dart into dim buildings. Slashes of light briefly fell to the street until doors could be pulled shut. The moon was out, and in the darker alleys he thought he saw people watching him, waiting until he passed before they went on their way. Over the rumble of his wagon’s wheels he couldn’t hear anything they might be saying.
As he turned onto the road that would take him out to the charcoal maker, he had to pull his team up short as men with long pole weapons stepped out and blocked his way. A guard seized the horses’ bits. Other of the city guard swept out of the side street to point lances up at him.
“What are you doing out here?” one of the voices asked from the side of the wagon.
Richard calmly yanked up on the lever to set the brake.
“I have a special pass to move goods at night. It’s for the emperor’s palace.”
The words “emperor’s palace” were usually enough to have him on his way.
The guard waggled his fingers. “If you have a special pass, then let’s see it.”
This night, the guards wanted more. Richard pulled a folded piece of paper from a protective leather sleeve inside his shirt and held it down to the guard. Metal squeaked as the guard slid open a tiny door on his shielded lantern, letting a narrow slit of light fall across the paper. Several heads bent in to read the words and inspect the official seals. They were all genuine. They should be—they had cost Richard a small fortune.
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