Faith of the Fallen

Chapter 37

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.

“Where are you!”

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.

“Here!” Kahlan shouted in answer to Cara.

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.

With angry resolve, Kahlan stabbed at the canvas, punching her knife through. Just then, the tent hit something and they were bounced into the air. The hard landing knocked the wind from her lungs. A gasp pulled in suffocating smoke. Again, Kahlan plunged her knife into the heavy canvas and slashed an opening as her entire shroud erupted into flame.

She yelled again to Cara. “I can’t get—”

The tent hit something solid. Her shoulder whacked hard into what felt like a tree stump and she was flipped up and over the top of it. Had she not been wearing her stiff leather armor, the blow surely would have broken her shoulder. Crashing down on the other side, Kahlan tumbled free and across the snow. She spread her arms to stop herself from rolling.

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.

Yet more Order troops wheeled their big warhorses, striking down at the D’Harans scrambling both to escape the blows and to mount a defense. One of the warhorses charged Kahlan’s way, its rider leaning out, swinging a flail.

Kahlan sheathed both her knife and sword. She snatched up the lance of the man who had been dragging the tent. She brought the long weapon up and spun around just in time to plant the butt end in a frozen rut and let the charging warhorse take the steel-tipped point in his chest.

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.

Without pause, she dove under the legs of another horse to dodge a blade when the horse’s rider slashed down at her. She sprang up on the other side and hacked the rider’s leg open to the bone twice before turning just in time to ram her sword up to its hilt into the chest of another horse sidling in, trying to crush her against the first. As the animal reared with a wild scream, Kahlan yanked her sword free and tumbled away just before the big horse crashed to the ground. The rider’s leg was trapped, and he was at an awkward angle to defend himself Kahlan made the best of the opportunity.

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 worked beside General Meiffert to tug and cut the canvas. At last they ripped open the heavy material, freeing Adie and Verna. The two women were rolled up together, nearly in each another’s arms. Adie’s head was bleeding, but she pushed away Kahlan’s concerned hands. Verna emerged from the cocoon and stumbled to her feet, still dizzy from the wild ride.

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.

Kahlan seized Verna by the arm. “I thought they were false alarms!”

“They were!” Verna insisted. “Obviously, they tricked us.”

All around, soldiers were engaged in pitched battle with Imperial Order cavalry. Men shouted in fury as they threw themselves into battle; some screamed as they were wounded or killed; others called out orders, commanding a defense, while the men on horseback ordered in their attack.

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.

They were using the same tactics the D’Harans had used. They were doing what Kahlan had taught them to do.

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.

Kahlan fell to her knees once more to help General Meiffert free Cara.

He had found her amid the snare of rope and folds of canvas. From time to time one of them had to turn to fight off sporadic attackers. Kahlan could see Cara’s red boots sticking out from under the canvas, but they were still.

Tent line was tangled around Cara’s legs. With Kahlan and the general working together, they cut through the mire of rope and were finally able to unroll Cara. She held her head as she moaned. She wasn’t unconscious, but she was groggy and unable to get her bearings. Kahlan found a lump in her hair, at the right side of her head, but it wasn’t bleeding.

Cara tried to sit up. Kahlan pressed her down on her back.

“Stay there. You were hit on the head. I don’t want you to get up just yet.”

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.

Kahlan caught Verna’s attention and motioned for her help. Seizing the woman’s cloak at her shoulder, Kahlan pulled Verna close to speak into her ear so as to be heard above the noise of battle.

“See how she is, will you? Help her?”

Verna nodded and then huddled at Cara’s side as Kahlan and the general turned to a fresh charge of cavalry. As one man galloped in close, wielding his lance around, General Meiffert dodged the strike and then leaped up onto the side of the horse, catching hold of the saddle’s horn. With a grunt of angry effort, he drove his sword through the rider. The surprised man clawed at the blade in his soft middle. The general yanked his sword free, then grabbed the man by the hair and dragged him out of the saddle. As the dying man fell away, General Meiffert sprang up into the saddle, in his place.

Kahlan snatched up the fallen cavalryman’s lance.

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.

As horses bucked and reared when Kahlan stabbed them with her lance, many of their riders fell. Some were injured from the fall onto scattered equipment or the frozen ground, but most came under the swarming attack of the D’Harans.

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.

Kahlan called out orders to men on either side, and, as she joined the line, commanded them into position to block an Imperial Order cavalry unit of about two hundred who were trying to make good their escape. The enemy might have been emulating the raids the D’Haran cavalry had made on the Imperial Order’s camp, but Kahlan wasn’t about to allow them to succeed at it. She intended them to fail.

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!”

“No mercy!” every D’Haran within earshot called out in answer.

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.

Kahlan left the soldiers with the lances and pikes, now that a defensive line had been established and the enemy was trapped, and ran back through the fires and choking smoke to find Verna, Adie, and Cara. She had to dodge wounded soldiers of both armies on the ground. The fallen attackers who still had fight in them snatched at her ankles. She had to stab several who tried to rise up to grab her. Others afoot who suddenly appeared, she had to cut down.

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.

There seemed to be Imperial Order men scattered throughout the camp.

She doubted there had been an attack by foot soldiers; they were probably cavalrymen who had lost their mounts. Horses were often easier moving targets to hit with arrows and spears than were men. In the gathering darkness it was hard to make out enemy soldiers. They were able to sneak through the camp undiscovered as they hunted targets of value, such as officers, or maybe even the Mother Confessor.

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.

Her training under her father had been a good foundation for the esoteric tactical precepts that Richard had taught her when she was recovering from her wounds back in Hartland. Richard’s way had seemed so strange, then; now, it seemed so natural. In much the same way a lighter horse could outmaneuver a big warhorse, her lighter weight became her edge.

She didn’t need the weight because she simply didn’t clash with the enemy in the traditional manner, as they expected. She was a hummingbird, floating out of their reach, swooping in between their ponderous moves to efficiently deliver death.

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.

She finally found Verna, bent over Cara, but didn’t see the general anywhere. Kahlan snatched Verna’s sleeve.

“How is she?”

“She threw up, but that seemed to have helped, once it passed. She will probably be woozy for a while, but I think she’s otherwise all right.”

“She has a thick skull,” Adie said. “It not be cracked, but she should lie still for a time—at least until she recovers her balance.”

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.

“Cara, I’m right here. I’m fine. Lie still for a few minutes.”

“I want at them!”

“Later,” Kahlan said. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance.” She saw that the blood was cleaned from Adie’s head. “Adie, how are you? How is your head?”

The old sorceress gestured dismissively. “Bah. I be fine. My head be thicker than Cara’s.”

Soldiers had gathered, forming a protective wall of steel. Verna, Adie, and Kahlan crouched over Cara, keeping an eye on the surrounding area, but the fighting immediately around them seemed to have ended. Even if pockets of battle remained, with the large number of D’Haran soldiers who had protectively closed ranks, the four women were safe for the time being.

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.

“I’ve been down checking with the front lines. This is a raid, much like what we’ve been doing to them. It looked bigger than it really was. When they spotted the Mother Confessor, they called their men into this area, so the damage was mostly focused in this section.”

“Why didn’t we know?” Kahlan asked. “What went wrong with the alarm?”

“Not sure.” He was shaking his head, still getting his breath. “Zedd thinks that they learned our codes, and that when we blew the alarm, they must have used Subtractive Magic to alter the magic woven into the sound that tells our gifted that it’s a real attack.”

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.”

“I’m guessing you’re right.” He flexed his fist in frustration. He looked down then and noticed Cara scowling up at him. “Cara. Are you all right? I was so—I mean, we thought you might be badly hurt.”

“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.”

General Meiffert gave her a quick smile and then turned a serious face to Kahlan.

“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.”

Kahlan felt her flesh go cold with dread. “They’re coming, aren’t they?”

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.”

Kahlan stared, dumbfounded. The Order had never attacked at sunset before. The prospect of the onslaught of hundreds of thousands upon hundreds of thousands of Imperial Order troops storming in from the darkness was bloodcurdling.

“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.

“Jagang. He counted on me not being fooled by those troops going around in a circle. He wanted me to think I had outsmarted him. He played me for a fool.”

Cara made a face. “What?”

Kahlan felt sick at the implications. She pressed a hand to her forehead as the awful truth inundated her.

“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.”

“You mean,” Cara asked, “that whole time you were talking to him, pretending to believe he was moving troops north, he knew you were pretending?”

“I’m afraid so. He outsmarted me.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” General Meiffert said. “He hasn’t succeeded, yet. We don’t have to let him have it his way. We can move our forces before he can pounce.”

“Can’t we call back the men we sent out?” Verna asked. “Their numbers would help.”

“They’re hours away,” General Meiffert said, “traveling through back country on the way to their assigned locations. They would never get back here in time to help us tonight.”

Rather than dwell on how gullible she had been, Kahlan put her mind to the immediate problem. “We need to move fast.”

The general nodded his agreement. “We could fall back on our other plans—about breaking up and scattering into the mountains.”

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.”

“Broken up like that, we would be easy pickings,” Kahlan agreed.

“That’s a last resort. It may work later, but not now. For now, we need to keep the army together if we’re to survive the winter—and if we’re to keep the Order distracted from its designs at conquest.”

“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.”

Kahlan gestured over her shoulder. “What about that valley we talked about, back there? The high pass is narrow—it can be defended on this side by two men and a dog, if need be.”

“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.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Verna asked. “Let’s get moving.”

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.”

“Torches will work well enough with a steady line of men,” Adie said. “They must only follow the one in front, and even if the fight be bad, they can do it.”

Kahlan remembered the handprint made of glowing dust. “The gifted could lay down a glowing track to guide the men.”

“That would help,” the general said. “We’re still left with our basic problem, though. While our men are trying to break down and move all our equipment and supplies, and waiting their turn to go over the pass, the Order will arrive. We’ll find ourselves in a pitched battle trying to defend ourselves while withdrawing at the same time. A withdrawal requires the ability to move faster than the enemy, or at least keep him at bay while pulling back; the pass doesn’t provide that.”

“We’ve kept ahead of them before,” Verna said. “This isn’t the first attack.”

“You’re right.” He pointed to his left. “We could try to withdraw up this valley, instead, but in the dark and with the Order attacking, I think that would be a mistake. Darkness is the problem, this time. They’re going to keep coming. In daylight, we could establish defenses and hold them off—not at night.”

“We already have defenses set up, here,” Cara said. “We could stand where we are and fight them head-on.”

General Meiffert chewed his lower lip. “That was my first thought, Cara, and still an option, but I don’t like our chances in a head-on, direct confrontation like this, not at night when they can sneak great numbers of men in close. We couldn’t use our archers to advantage in the dark. We can’t see their numbers or movements accurately, so we wouldn’t be able to position our men properly. It’s a problem of numbers: theirs are almost unlimited, ours aren’t.

“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.”

Everyone was silent as the implications truly sank in.

“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.”

The general appraised her eyes. “That still leaves us with the problem of how we’re going to get over that pass before they annihilate us.”

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.”

“What do you wish me to do?”

“Use your special glass.”

The general screwed up his face. “Her what?”

“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.”

Kahlan turned back to the general. “What did the scouts say about how much time we have until the Order is upon us?”

“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.”

“If we just run for the hills,” Adie said, “we be as good as dead. Together, we be alive and at least be a threat to the enemy. If we scatter, the Order will take the opportunity to attack and capture cities. If our only choice is to scatter, or stand our ground and fight, then we can only choose to stand and fight. Better to try, than to die one at a time out in the mountains.”

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.

“If we have to fight him, in a full battle, here, now,” Kahlan said in resignation, “we will probably lose the war by dawn.”

“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.”

The four of them were silent a moment, each considering the horror of that reality, of who would remain behind to die. Furious activity continued around them. Men were rushing around, putting out fires, collecting panicked horses, tending to wounded, and battling the few remaining invaders they had trapped. The Order soldiers were greatly outnumbered. Not for long, though.

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.

Kahlan looked again to Verna. “We have an hour before they’re upon us. You have to try, Verna. Do you think you have any chance at making your special glass and then deploying it before the enemy is upon us?”

“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?”

“Take them all,” Kahlan said. “If this doesn’t work, nothing else is going to matter.”

“I’ll take them all, then. Every one,” Verna said. “It’s the only chance we have.”

“You get started,” Adie told Verna. “Go down near the front lines, on this side of the valley where you will be upwind from the attack. I will begin collecting the Sisters and get them down there to help you.”

“We need glass,” Verna said to the general. “Any kind. At least a few barrels full.”

“I’ll have men down there with the first barrel right away. Can we at least help to break it up for you?”

“No. It won’t matter if what you throw in the barrels breaks, but beyond that, it must be done by the gifted. Just bring whatever glass you can collect, that will be all you can do.”

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.

“I’ll get the men moving now,” the general told Kahlan as he scrambled to his feet. “The scouts can mark the trail; then we can start moving the heavier supplies first.”

If it worked, they would slip out of Jagang’s grasp.

Kahlan knew that if Verna failed, they could all very well lose their lives, and the war, by morning. General Meiffert paused with one last hesitant look, one last chance for her to change her mind.

“Do it,” she said to the general. “Cara—we have work.”