Blood of the Fold

Chapter 32

Kahlan leaped out of the wagon bed, rolling through the snow when she landed. She sprang to her feet and scrambled toward the shrieks as rocks still crashed down around her, rebounding into the trees on the low side of the narrow trail, snapping branches and thudding into the huge trunks of the old pines.

She jammed her back against the side of the wagon. “Help me!” she screamed to men already in a dead run toward her.

Arriving only seconds after her, they threw themselves up against the wagon, taking up the weight. The man cried out louder.

“Wait, wait, wait!” It sounded like they were killing him. “Just hold it there. Don’t lift anymore.”

The half dozen young soldiers strained to hold the wagon where it was. The rock that had piled down on top had added considerably to the burden.

“Orsk!” she called out.

“Yes, Mistress?”

Kahlan started. In the darkness, she hadn’t seen the big, one-eyed D’Haran soldier standing right behind her.

“Orsk, help them hold the wagon up. Don’t lift it—just hold it still.” She turned to the dark trail behind as Orsk muscled his way in beside the others and clamped his massive hands onto the lower edge of the wagon. “Zedd! Somebody get Zedd! Hurry!”

Pushing her long hair back over her wolf-hide mantle, Kahlan knelt beside the young man under the axle hub. It was too dark to see how badly he was injured, but by his panting grunts, she feared it was serious. She couldn’t figure out why he cried out louder when they started to lift the weight off him.

Kahlan found his hand and took it in both of hers. “Hold on, Stephens. Help’s coming.”

She grimaced when he crushed her hand in his grip as he let out a wail. He clutched her hand as if he were hanging from a cliff and her hand was the only thing keeping him from falling into death’s dark grasp. She vowed that she would not take her hand back even if he broke it.

“Forgive me . . . my queen . . . for slowing us.”

“It was an accident. It wasn’t your doing.” His legs squirmed in the snow. “Try to stay still.” With her free hand, she brushed hair back from his brow. He quieted a bit at her touch, so she held the hand to the side of his icy face. “Please, Stephens, try to be still. I won’t let them put the weight down on you. I promise. We’ll get you out from under there in a just a moment, and the wizard will set you back to right.”

She could feel him nod under her hand. No one near had a torch, and in the feeble moonlight ghosting through the thick branches she couldn’t see what the problem was. It seemed that lifting the wagon caused him more pain than when it was on him.

Kahlan heard a horse galloping up and saw a dark figure leap off as the horse skidded to a halt, twisting its head against the pull of the reins. When the man hit the ground, a flame ignited in his upturned sticklike hand, lighting his thin face and mass of wavy white hair sticking out in disarray.

“Zedd! Hurry!”

When Kahlan looked down in the sudden, harsh illumination, she saw the extent of the problem, and felt a wave of nausea surge up like a hot hammer.

Zedd’s calm, hazel eyes glided over the scene in quick appraisal as he knelt on the other side of Stephens.

“The wagon grazed a piling timber holding back the scree,” she explained.

The trail was narrow and treacherous, and in the darkness, on the curve, they hadn’t seen the piling in the snow. The timber must have been old and rotted. When the hub bumped it, the timber snapped, and the beam it had supported tumbled down, allowing a sluice of rock to come down on them.

As the rock drove the back of the wagon sideways, the iron rim of the rear wheel caught in a frozen rut beneath the snow and the spokes of the rear wheel snapped. The hub knocked Stephens from his feet and came down atop him.

Kahlan could now see in the light that one of the splintered spokes jutting from the hub canted at the end of the broken axle had impaled the young man. When they tried to hoist the wagon, it lifted him by that spoke driven at an angle up under his ribs.

“I’m sorry, Kahlan,” Zedd said.

“What do you mean you’re sorry? You must . . .”

Kahlan realized that although her hand still throbbed, the grip on it had gone slack. She looked down and saw the mask of death. He was now in the spirits’ hands.

The pall of death sent a shudder through her. She knew what it was to feel the touch of death. She felt it now. She felt it every waking moment. In sleep it saturated her dreams with its numb touch. Her icy fingers reflexively brushed at her face, trying to wipe away the ever-present tingle, almost like a hair tickling her flesh, but there was never anything there to brush away. It was the teasing touch of magic, of the death spell, that she felt.

Zedd stood, letting the flame float to a torch that a man nearby was holding out, igniting it into wavering flame. While Zedd held one hand out as if in command to the wagon, he motioned the men away with his other. They cautiously took their shoulders away, but remained poised to catch the wagon if it suddenly fell again. Zedd turned his palm up and, in harmony with his arm’s movement, the wagon obediently rose into the air another couple of feet.

“Pull him out,” Zedd ordered in a somber tone.

The men seized Stephens by his shoulders and hauled him off the spoke. When he was out from under the axle, Zedd turned his hand over and allowed the wagon to settle to the ground.

A man fell to his knees beside Kahlan. “It’s my fault,” he cried in anguish. “I’m sorry. Oh, dear spirits, it’s my fault.”

Kahlan gripped the driver’s coat and urged him to his feet. “If it’s anyone’s fault, then I’m to blame. I shouldn’t have been trying to make distance in the dark. I should have . . . It’s not your fault. It was an accident, that’s all.”

She turned away, closing her eyes, still hearing the phantoms of his screams. As was their routine, they hadn’t used torches so as not to reveal their presence. There was no telling what eyes might see a force of men moving through the passes. While there was no evidence of pursuit, it was foolhardy to be overconfident. Stealth was life.

“Bury him as best you can,” Kahlan told the men. There would be no digging in the frozen ground, but at least they could use the rock from the scree to cover him. His soul was with the spirits, and safe, now. His suffering was over.

Zedd asked the officers to get the trail cleared and then went with the men to find a place to lay Stephens to rest.

Amid the mounting noise and activity, Kahlan suddenly remembered Cyrilla, and climbed back into the wagon bed. Her half sister was wrapped in a heavy layer of blankets and nestled among piles of gear. Most of the rock had fallen in the back of the wagon, missing her, and the blanket had protected her from the smaller stones the pile of gear didn’t stop. It was a wonder that no one had been crushed by one of the larger boulders that had crashed down in the darkness.

They had put Cyrilla in the wagon instead of the coach because she was still unconscious, and they thought that in the wagon they could lay her down so she would be more comfortable. The wagon was probably beyond repair. They would have to put her in the coach, now, but it wasn’t far.

In the bottleneck in the trail, men started gathering, some squeezing past at officers’ instructions and moving on into the night, while others brought out axes to cut trees and repair die support wall, while still others were told to throw the small stones and roll the larger rocks from the trail so diey could get the coach through.

Kahlan was relieved to see that Cyrilla was unhurt by any of the rocks, and relieved, too, that she was still in her near constant stupor. They didn’t need Cyrilla’s screams and cries of terror at the moment; there was work to be done.

Kahlan had been riding in the wagon with her in case she happened to wake. After what had been done to her back in Aydindril, Cyrilla panicked at the sight of men, becoming terrified and inconsolable if Kahlan, Adie, or Jebra wasn’t there to calm her.

In her rare spells of lucidity, Cyrilla made Kahlan promise, over and over, that she would be queen. Cyrilla worried for her people, and knew that she was in no state to help them. She loved Galea enough to refuse to burden her land with a queen in no condition to lead them. Kahlan had reluctantly assumed the responsibility.

Kahlan’s half brother, Prince Harold, wanted nothing to do with a monarchial burden. He was a soldier, as was his and Cyrilla’s father, King Wyborn. After Cyrilla and Harold had been born, Kahlan’s mother had taken King Wyborn as her mate, and Kahlan was bom. She was born a Confessor; the magic of the Confessors took precedence over petty matters of royalty.

“How is she?” Zedd asked as he tugged his robes off a snag while climbing into the wagon.

“The same. She was unhurt by the rockfall.”

Zedd put fingers to her temples for a moment. “There is nothing wrong with her body, but the sickness still holds reign over her mind.” He shook his head with a sign as he rested an arm on his knee. “I wish the gift could cure maladies of the mind.”

Kahlan saw the frustration in his eyes. She smiled. “Be thankful. If you could you would never have time to eat.”

As Zedd chuckled, she glanced to the men around the wagon, and saw Captain Ryan. She gestured him closer.

“Yes, my queen?”

“How far to Ebinissia?”

“Four, maybe six hours.”

Zedd leaned toward her. “Not a place we want to reach in the dead of the night.”

Kahlan caught his meaning and nodded. For them to reclaim the Crown city of Galea, they had a lot of work to do; the first of it was taking care of the thousands of corpses littering the city. It was not a scene they wanted to encounter in the middle of the night after a hard day’s march. She didn’t look forward to returning to the sight of that slaughter, but it was a place no one would expect to find them, and they could be safe there for a time. From that base, they could begin pulling the Midlands back together.

She turned back to Captain Ryan. “Is there anywhere near we can set up camp for the night?”

The captain gestured up the road. “The scouts said there’s a small, upland valley not far ahead. There’s an abandoned farm there where Cyrilla will be comfortable for the night.”

She drew a strand of hair back from her face and hooked it behind an ear, noting that Cyrilla was no longer referred to as “queen.” Kahlan was queen now, and Prince Harold had made sure all knew it. “All right, send word ahead, then. Get the valley secured and set up camp. Post sentries and scout the area. If the surrounding slopes are deserted, and the valley is cut off from view, then let the men have fires, but keep them small.”

Captain Ryan smiled and tapped a fist to his heart in salute. Fires would be a luxury, and hot food would do the men good. They deserved it, after the hard march. They were almost home; tomorrow they would be there. Then the worst of the work would begin: taking care of the dead, and putting Ebinissia back to order. Kahlan would not let the Imperial Order’s victory over Ebinissia stand. The Midlands would have the city back, and it would live again to strike back.

“Did you take care of Stephens?” she asked the captain.

“Zedd helped us find a place, and the men are taking care of it. Poor Stephens. He fought all through the battles against the Order, when we started with five thousand, saw four of every five of his companions killed, and he ends up dying in an accident after it’s over. I know he would have wanted to die defending the Midlands.”

“He did,” Kahlan said. “It’s not over; we won only a battle, though an important one. We are still at war with the Imperial Order, and he was a soldier in that war. He was helping with our effort, and died in the line of duty, just as much as those men kilted in combat. There is no difference. He died a hero of the Midlands.”

Captain Ryan stuffed his hands in the pockets of his heavy, brown wool coat. “I think the men would appreciate hearing those words, and would find courage in them. Before we move on, could you say something over his grave? It would mean a lot for the men to know their queen will miss him.”

Kahlan smiled. “Of course, Captain. It would be my honor.” Kahlan stared after the captain as he moved off to see to things. “I shouldn’t have been pushing on after dark.”

Zedd stroked a reassuring hand along the back of her head. “Accidents can happen in broad daylight. This very likely would have happened in the morning, had we stopped sooner, and then it would be blamed on being still half asleep.”

“I still feel to blame. It just doesn’t seem fair.”

His smile marked no humor. “Fate does not seek our consent.”