Her eyes came up. "Last night, I went to their camp, to discover who they were, and if they could be called upon to return to their homelands. They have no intention of doing anything but conquering all the lands and putting them under their rule. They have vowed to kill everyone who refuses to join them. Ebinissia refused."
The boys shouted and shook their fists. They, themselves, they said, would bring an end to the threat.
She spoke over their words, bringing them to silence as she did so. "The men who slaughtered your countrymen and countrywomen are called the Imperial Order. They fight on behalf of no country or land. They fight to conquer all lands, and to rule all lands. They answer to no government, to no king, to no lord, to no council. They believe themselves to be the fountain of law.
"They are made up of mostly D'Haran men, but others have joined them. I saw among them Keltans."
Waves of angry whispers swept back through the crowd. Kahlan let it go on for a moment."I saw also, among them, men from other lands. And I saw Galeans."
This time shocked and angry voices called out that it wasn't true, and said she was wrong.
"I saw them with my own eyes!" They fell once more to silence. She quieted her tone. "I wish that it were not true, but I saw them. Men of many lands have joined with them. More men will join with them if they believe they can be part of the victory, part of the new law, if they believe they can be in on the plunder and awarded positions of authority and power.
"The city of Cellion lies hardly more than a hand of days ahead. The Imperial Order will have their surrender and allegiance, or their death.
"Other cities, towns, villages, and farms will suffer these men if they are not stopped. Eventually, all will come under their sword. I am going to Aydindril to marshal the forces of the Midlands against the Imperial Order, but that will take time. In that time, their numbers will swell with those who would think to be on the side of might. Right now, there is no one able to stop these men from killing everyone in their path who resists them.
"Except you."
Kahlan stiffened her back as she let what she had said sink in, and in preparation for what she was going to tell them next. She let the silence settle once more over valley.
"As the Mother Confessor of the Midlands, and absent the luxury of conferring with the Central Council, I have had to do that which no Mother Confessor for a thousand years or more has had to do. On my authority, alone, I have committed the Midlands to war. The army of the Imperial Order is to be killed to a man. No negotiation or compromise will be offered by the Midlands. Under no circumstances will the Order's surrender be accepted.
"I have given an oath on behalf of the Midlands that no quarter shall be granted."
Astonished faces stared at her.
"Whether I live or die, this decree is irrecoverable. Any land or people who willingly join with the Imperial Order cast their lot under the shadow of this edict.
"It is not in the name of Galea that I call upon you to fight. In the office of the Mother Confessor, I call upon you to fight for the Midlands. For it is not Galea that is under threat, but all lands, and all free people."
There was confident grumbling that they were up to the task. Some in the ranks called out their assurance that they were the men to do it, that they were in the right, and would triumph.
Kahlan nodded to them all. "You think so? I want each of you to look to the faces around you." They mostly stared at her. "Do as I say! Look to all the faces around you! Look to your comrades!"
A little confused, they began looking around, twisting to see those to the sides and those behind, smiling and laughing among themselves, as if it were a game.
When they seemed to have finished with the task, she went on. "A few of you will remember the faces you have looked upon today. Remember, and grieve. The rest, if you take up this battle, will not be around to remember. They will die in the struggle."
In the cold silence, Kahlan heard the distant chatter of a squirrel, and then the sound of that, too, died away.
The smiles were all gone as she finally spoke again. "These men, the Imperial Order, are led by, and are mostly D'Haran troops. D'Haran soldiers are trained from the time they are half your age. They fight internal conflicts in their land, put down riots and rebellions; they do not simply practice battle tactics, they live them day in and day out. They know only a life of fighting. They have been exposed to it in every form. I have taken the confessions of many D'Harans. Most do not know the meaning of peace.
"Since Spring, when Darken Rahl sent them against the Midlands, they have been at what they do best: war. They have fought in battle after battle. All who have come before them have fallen.
"They relish fighting. They delight in it. They are as close to fearless as men come. They hold contests, often lethal, to win the right to be in the van of battle, to win the right to be the first to strike a blow at the enemy, to win the right to be the first to fall."
She surveyed the young faces. "You have confidence in your training, your battle tactics?" The faces nodded, looking to one another, smiling their knowing confidence. Kahlan pointed to one, a sergent, by the look of his coat's braids. "Tell me then.
"You are now in the field of battle, having chased down these men, and here comes the enemy, back at you. You are in charge of the pikes and archers. Here they come. Thousands of them, yelling, running, coming to rend your force in two, to break your army's back. You see they have heavy spears, called by them argons, with long, thin barbs. If they pierce you, they are nearly impossible to remove. They cause ghastly wounds that are almost always fatal. Here they come, with their argons. Thousands of men. What is your tactic?"
The young man held his chin out, knowingly. "Form a tight rank of the pikes formed into a box or wedge to protect the archers. The pikemen face the pikes out and overlapping the shields, present the enemy with a tight, impenetrable wall. The shields protect the pikemen who protect the archers. The archers take them down before they can get close enough to use their argons. The few who do fall on the pikes. Their drive is repelled and, in all likelihood, they have lost a good many men in the failed attempt, making another less likely."
Kahlan shrugged, as if impressed. "Well stated." He beamed. The men around him grinned with pride in their knowledge of their business. "I have seen some of the most experienced armies of the midlands use those very same tactics when the D'Harans first came over, last spring, when the boundary went down."
"Well, there you have it," the man said. "They lose their charge against the archers and on the point of our pikes."
She gave him a small smile. "The D'Haran van, those men I told you about, the biggest, the fiercest, the ones who won the right to be the first at you? Well, they have developed special tactics of their own, for use against your plans. First of all, they have arrow shields, so as they run in, they are protected from the brunt of the archers work.
"And I guess I forgot to tell you one other thing about those argons of theirs. These spears have iron sheathed shafts for most of their length, and a unique purpose. As the enemy is charging in, mostly unaffected by your archers, they heave their argons at you."
"We have shields," the man pointed out. "Their argons expended, they will be on the point of our pikes."
She folded her arms, nodding to him. "The van, the men who won the right to be the first wave, are big men. I doubt the smallest has arms less than twice the average of yours. The argons are needle sharp. Thrown by those powerful arms, they penetrate and stick in your shields. The long barbs prevent them from being withdrawn."
The confident smiles were fading as she looked from face to face as she went on. "You now have argons stuck solidly in your shields. You drop your pikes, drawing swords to hack the heavy spears away. But the shafts are covered in iron, and don't yield. The spears are heavy, and the butts drag the ground. D'Harans can run almost as fast as their spears fly. As they reach you now, they jump on the shafts of the spears stuck in your shields, d
ragging them to the ground, leaving you on your knees, and naked to their heavy axes."
Arms still folded, she leaned toward them. "I have seen men split from scalp to navel by those axes."
Men glanced sideways at one another, their confidence shaken.
She nodded mockingly as she unfolded her arms. "I am not giving you conjecture. I have seen a D'Haran force take down an experienced army nearly ten times their size in just this fashion. In the space of an hour, the battle turned from a rout of the D'Harans to a rout of their foes."
"A D'Haran charge of the argon is almost as devastating as a classic cavalry charge, except they have far greater numbers than any cavalry. And their own cavalry is anything but typical. You don't even want to know about them.
"They lost half their number in the slaughter of Ebinissia, and they are in camp, now, singing and drinking. Would you, if you lost every other one of you, be of good cheer?
"I know you believe you can win a battle against a force ten times your size, and I know also that such a thing can be done. But it is those experienced D'Haran troops who, on a battlefield, fighting by the tactics of common war, could bring about such a feat.
"Please believe me, I mean no disrespect to your bravery, but in the field of war, you are not their equal. Not yet. You could not defeat an army half their size were the battle fought the way your enemy would fight.
"That does not mean you cannot win. It means only that you must do it in another way. I believe you can win, and I am going tell you what you must do, and lead you in the first strike, to start you in this. The Imperial Order is not invincible. They can be defeated."
"From this day forward, I shall never again call you 'boys.' From this day forward, you are men.
"You think of yourselves as soldiers of your homeland, Galea. But you are not. In this, you are not. You are soldiers, men, of the Midlands. For it is not just Galea who will be conquered, but all of the Midlands, if these men are not stopped. I call upon you to stop them."
The tightly packed crowd of soldiers, tempered by what they had heard, shouted that they would do the job. She watched from under her eyebrows as they confidently pledged to fight to the end. There were angry whispers from some in the crowd, to her right. Men were jostling each other and arguing. Some men wanted to speak, and others were seeking to prevent it.
"If you should choose to join in this battle, you will follow orders without question," she said. "But for this time only, you may speak your mind freely, without retribution. If you have something to say, then let all hear it now, or else hold it to your grave."
One man pulled his arm free of another. He glowered up at her. "We're men. We don't follow women into battle."
Kahlan blinked at him. "You follow Queen Cyrilla."
"She is our Queen, we fight on her behalf. She does not lead us in battle. That is left to men to do."
Kahlan narrowed her eyes. "What is your name?"
He glanced around at his fellows, and then held his chin up. "I am William Mosle. And we have been trained by Prince Harold himself."
"And I," Kahlan said, "Was trained by his father, King Wyborn. King Wyborn was my father, too. I am half sister to Queen Cyrilla and Prince Harold."
There were astonished murmurs throughout the crowd. Without taking her eyes from Mosle, she lifted a hand to silence them. "But that does not count for command. You are soldiers. Your duty is to follow the orders of your commanders, and then the Queen, and she must follow commands of the central Council of the Midlands. The Council of the Midlands follows the orders of the Mother Confessor.
"For now, I fill that office. My family name is, like your Queen's, Amnell, but I am of Confessor blood, first, and last. I am the Mother Confessor of the Midlands, and as such, if I say you are to march into a lake, then it is your duty to march until you are breathing water and seeing fishes. Does that make it clear enough for you, soldier?"
A few other men were shoving at Mosle, urging him to go on with their grievances. "It means you can order us, it doesn't mean you know what you are doing."
Kahlan let out a sigh and pulled some blood-stiffened hair back, hooking it behind an ear. "I don't have the time, today, to tell you of all the training I have had, or of all the fighting against impossible odds I have been through, or the men I have had to kill in that fighting.
"I would tell you only that last night, I went alone to the camp of the Imperial Order to save your life. The men of the Order, D'Harans, fear the things of the night, spirits, and for protection from that and to assist them, they had a wizard in their company. Had you, in your confidence of battle knowledge, tried to attack those men, that wizard would have known what you were doing, and probably used magic to kill you all."
Mosle's defiant expression didn't diminish, but some of the others broke into worried whispers. Fighting against steel was one thing, fighting against magic quite another.
Captain Ryan stepped forward. "The Mother Confessor killed the wizard," he said with pride. There were relieved sighs among the men. "If it hadn't been for her experience, we would have marched to our deaths without even having the chance to lay steel to steel. I, for one, intend to follow those I have sworn my life to serve: my land, my Queen, the Midlands, and the Mother Confessor.
"We are going to stop this threat against the Midlands, and we are going to do it by following those we are sworn to follow. We go into battle under the command of the Mother Confessor."
"I'm a soldier in the Galean army!" Mosle seemed only to get more defiant. "Not a soldier in any Midlands army! I fight for Galea, not to protect lands like Kelton!" Kahlan watched as other men shouted their agreement. "This army, the Imperial Order, or whatever they call themselves, is marching toward the border. Cellion is a border city, and most of it is on the other side of the river, in Kelton! Most of its citizens are Keltish! Why should we die for the Keltans!"Men in the crowd were starting to argue with one another. Captain Ryan's face was red. "Mosle, you're a disgrace to... !"
Kahlan held a hand out to silence him. "No, soldier Mosle is only speaking as he believes, as I asked him to. You men must understand me. I am not ordering you to do this. I am asking you to fight for the lives of innocent people of the Midlands. Tens of thousands of your fellow soldiers have already died in this battle. I would not ask you to lay down your lives for something you do not believe in. Most who go into this war will die.
"It is your decision to stay or not. You are not commanded to stay. But if you choose to stay, it will be under my command. I want no man with us who does not believe in what we do.
"Decide now, if you will be with us or not. If not, then you are free to go, because you will be of no help to your comrades."
Her voice turned as cold as the thin morning air. "If you decide to go with me into this war, then you will follow the orders of your superiors. In the Midlands, there is no one to outrank me. You will follow my orders without question, or your punishment will be unsparing. Too much is at stake to have to suffer men who can't follow orders.
"If I say you will do something, then you will do it, ever if you know it is to cost you your life, because it is to save many more lives. I give no orders without sound reason, but I won't always have time to explain them. Your duty is to trust in your superiors and do as you are told."
She held out a finger and swept it slowly over their heads. "Choose, then. With us, or not. But choose this day for all time."
Kahlan drew her hands back inside her warm fur mantle and waited in silence while men discussed and argued among themselves. Tempers flared, and angry oaths were given. Men gathered around Mosle, and others moved away from him.
"I'm leaving, then," Mosle called out to the others. He thrust his fist in the air. "I'll follow no woman into battle, no matter who she is! Who's leaving with me!"
About sixty or seventy men gathered about cheered their support for him.
"Go, then," Kahlan commanded. "Before you become caught up in a battle you do not believe in."
>
Having made their choice, Mosle and the men with him cast her glares of contempt. He swaggered forward. "We'll leave as soon as we can get our things together. We'll not be rushed out on your word."
The men in the crowd pushed in. Before it came to blows Kahlan held her hand up. "Stop! Let them be. They have made their choice. Let them get their things and be gone."
Mosle turned and pushed his way back through the throng, his new men in tow. As they left the gathered soldiers, Kahlan carefully counted their numbers. Sixty seven. Sixty seven who would leave.
She looked out at all the faces. "Any more? Do any more wish to leave?" No one moved a muscle. "Then do all of you wish to join in this fight?" A united cheer went up. "So be it. I wish I did not have to call upon you men to do this, but there is no one else to ask. My heart weeps for those of you who will die. Know that none of those who live will ever forget the sacrifice you make for them and the people of the Midlands."
From the corner of her eye, she watched the sixty seven men moving among the wagons, taking the supplies they thought they would need. "And now, to what must be done."
Slowly, she shook her head. "You men must understand what it is I call upon you to do. It is no glorious battle like you think, where you move, like pieces on a game board. No tactics to outwit an opponent in a grand engagement. We will not face them in the field of battle, but kill them in every other way."
"But Mother Confessor," someone near the front timidly called out, "it is the code of honor for soldiers to face one another in battle, to best him in a fair fight."
"There is nothing fair about having to fight in war. The only fair thing would be to live in peace. The purpose of war is singular: to kill.
"You must all understand this, for it is central to your survival. There is no honor in killing, no matter the method. Dead is dead. Killing your enemy in war is done to protect the lives of those for whom you fight. Their lives are no better protected by killing your enemy sword to sword than by slaying him while he sleeps, but only put at risk by it.
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