Faith of the Fallen

Chapter 39

Kahlan stuffed a boot in the stirrup, grabbed the saddle horn, and sprang up into her seat. The cold leather creaked as she leaned over and held a hand down in order to help Verna up. Once the Prelate squirmed in close behind Kahlan, two Sisters carefully handed the heavy wooden bucket up to her. Cara and Sister Philippa were on their horse and ready, the Sister balancing her bucket on her thigh.

“Get the children back across the pass,” Verna ordered.

Sister Dulcinia bobbed her head of gray hair. “I will see to it, Prelate.”

“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.”

Sister Dulcinia again promised to carry out the Prelate’s orders.

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.

Judging that they had waited as long as they dared, Kahlan motioned with her arm, signaling Cara to start out. The two of them shared a last look. Cara offered a brief smile, good luck—then raced away, Sister Philippa holding tight to the Mord-Sith’s waist with one arm and balancing the bucket on her thigh with the help of her other hand.

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.

“I wish we could use magic to protect ourselves,” Verna said in a quiet voice, almost as if in answer to what Kahlan was thinking. “We can’t, of course, or they would detect it.”

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.

The bitter cold long forgotten, her heartbeat throbbing in her ears, Kahlan sat still as death, staring out into the empty night, trying to envision every aspect of the task at hand, trying to go through it all in her mind first, so she wouldn’t be surprised by anything that might happen and then have to decide what to do. Better to anticipate, if you could, than to react.

As she quietly sat her horse, she let her anger build, too. Anger made a better warrior than fear.

Kahlan fed that anger with images of all the terrible things she had seen the Imperial Order do to the people of the Midlands. She let the memories of all the bodies she had seen pass through her mind, as if they came before the Mother Confessor to plead with stilled tongues for vengeance. She remembered the women she had seen wailing over murdered children, husbands, sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers. She remembered strong men in helpless anguish over the senseless slaughter of their friends and loved ones. In her mind’s eye, she saw those men, women, and children suffering at the hands of a people to whom they had done no harm.

The Imperial Order was but a gang of killers without empathy. They merited no pity; they would get none.

She thought about Richard in the hands of that enemy. She savored her promise to kill every one of them if she had to until she got Richard back.

“It’s time,” Kahlan said through gritted teeth. Without looking back over her shoulder, she asked, “Are you ready?”

“Ready. Don’t slow for anything, or we will end up its victims, too. Our only chance is to keep fresh air streaming over us to carry the glass dust all away from our bodies. When we get to the opposite side, after I’ve dumped it all, then we’ll be safe. By that time, the Order should be in a state of mass confusion, if not complete panic.”

Kahlan nodded. “Hold tight. Here we go.”

The horse, already in an excited state, probably from the approaching cries, sprang away too fast, nearly dumping Verna off the back. Her arm jerked tight around Kahlan’s middle. At the same time, Kahlan reached back and caught Verna’s sleeve, holding her on. As they raced away and Verna fought to regain her balance, the bucket lurched, but Verna was able to steady it. Fortunately, it didn’t spill.

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.

Kahlan’s heart galloped as fast as the horse as they thundered through the blackness of the valley. The enemy was much closer, now, than they had been when Cara passed through not long before. The horse’s hoofbeats partly drowned out the battle cries of countless enemy soldiers to their left.

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.

There was no telling precisely how far the enemy had already advanced, or, with the moonlight behind her, even her own exact direction. Kahlan worried that she might have sliced it too close to the bone, and that they could unexpectedly encounter a wall of bloodthirsty men. She wanted to be close, though, to deliver the blinding dust right in their faces, to be sure it had the best chance to work, to turn back the attack. She resisted the urge to guide her horse to the right, away from the enemy.

The night suddenly ignited with harsh yellow light. The clouds went from gray to bright yellow-orange. White snow blazed with garish color. An awful droning sound vibrated deep under her ribs.

A hundred feet in front of her and maybe ten feet above the ground, tumbling liquid yellow and blue light roared headlong across her route, dripping honeyed fire, trailing billowing black smoke. The seething sphere of wizard’s fire vividly illuminated the ground beneath it as it shot past.

Even though not directed at her, the sound alone was enough to make Kahlan ache to cringe away in dread.

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.

Then, in the light of that bright flame streaking across the valley floor, Kahlan caught sight of the horde, all with swords, maces, flails, axes, pikes, and lances raised in the air as they yelled their battle cries.

The men, grim, daunting, fierce, were all in the grip of a wild lust for the fight as they ran headlong out of the night.

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.

Kahlan realized with alarm that the enemy was much closer than she had expected. Throughout the ocean of men, torches meant to be used to set fires sparkled like moonlight off the vast sea flooding into the valley. At the horizon, that moonlight gleaming off uncountable weapons blurred into a flat line over which she almost expected to see ships sailing.

The undulating leading edge, bristling shields and spears, threatened to close off her path. Kahlan used her right heel, back against her horse’s flank, to guide him a little to the right so as to clear the wave of soldiers. After she had corrected his course, she thumped her heels against the animal’s ribs, urging him on.

And then she realized, as arrows zipped past and spears plunged to the ground just in front of her, that in the light of the wizard’s fire, the enemy could see her, too.

The ball of wizard’s fire that had revealed her to the enemy wailed off into the darkness, leaving her in shadow and lighting tens of thousands of men at a time as it passed over their heads. Far in the distance, behind the advancing horde, the fire finally crashed to the ground, igniting a conflagration in the midst of the cavalry. Horsemen were often held back, ready to charge forth when their men encountered the D’Haran lines. The distant mortal screams of man and beast rose into the night.

An arrow skipped off her leather leg armor. More zipped past. One stuck in the saddle just below her stomach as she leaned forward over the galloping horse’s withers. Apparently, in the moonlight they could still spot her and Verna racing past.

“Why aren’t they blind?” Kahlan called over her shoulder.

She could see a cloud billowing out behind them. It looked little different than the dust the horse raised as it galloped, except Kahlan saw that it was coming from the bucket Verna rested against her thigh as she tipped it toward the enemy lines, a little more, a little less, controlling the amount that poured out, keeping it in a steady stream. Cara had already been past, yet the men showed no ill effect.

“It takes a little while to work,” Verna said in Kahlan’s ear. “They have to blink a bit.”

Fire raced past right behind them. Fiery droplets splashed down onto the snow, splattering when they hit, hissing like rain on hot stones round a fire. The horse snorted as he raced onward in near panic. As she leaned over his withers, Kahlan stroked his neck reassuringly, reminding him that he wasn’t alone.

Kahlan let her gaze sweep along the advancing enemy line as she raced before them. She saw that the men were doing little blinking. Their eyes were wide in their fervor for the coming battle.

The wizard’s fire that had so spooked the horse from behind exploded through the enemy ranks. Liquid flames spilled across the mass of soldiers, touching off a shrill roar of ghastly cries. When burning men crashed into soldiers around them, fire splashed onto them, too, spreading the horror.

Around the fire, the advancing line buckled. Yet other men running headlong through the night trampled those on the ground, only to lose their own footing and topple.

Another sphere of wizard’s fire droned past to crash down, spilling its flame like water from a burst dam. So massive was the eruption that the surge swept men away, carrying them off in a flaming current.

A huge knot of fire erupted out of the enemy line not far in front of Kahlan, headed toward the D’Haran lines. Immediately, a small sphere of blue flame roared in from her right, meeting the ponderous globe of yellow flame in midair. The collision sent a shower of fire raining down around her as she rode past. Kahlan gasped and yanked the reins left as a fat gob of the plummeting fire crashed to the ground right before them, splattering flame everywhere.

They missed the fire by inches, but she now found herself closing with the enemy soldiers at an alarming rate. Kahlan could read some of the obscene oaths on their lips. She spurred the terrified horse to the right.

He turned a little but not enough to divert them from angling in toward the enemy lines.

Glowing bits of fire rained down on the men as well as the open ground.

The horse was running in a panic, too frightened to take direction from Kahlan. The stench of burning leather was adding fuel to the horse’s fear.

She glanced down and saw a bit of fire burning on the leather armor protecting her thigh. The small but fierce flame fluttered wildly in the wind. She dared not try to brush the glowing spot off lest it then stick to her hand. She feared to imagine what it would feel like when it finally burned through the leather. She would have to endure the pain when it did; she had no choice.

Verna didn’t realize what was happening. She was twisted sideways, still releasing the glass dust. Kahlan could see the plume of it carried away behind them. The long trail curved, carried by the breeze, into the enemy, past the front lines, back through the ranks of soldiers, off into the blackness. Farther back in the Order’s ranks, the torches lit the cloud as it mingled with the dust churned up from the frozen ground.

An arrow nicked the horse’s shoulder and skipped up into the air. A surge of men, seeing her coming, ran with wild abandon in an effort to block her way. Kahlan yanked on the reins, trying to haul the powerful horse’s head to the right. In the grip of terror, the horse galloped on. She felt helpless as she tried to get it to turn. It was doing no good. They were headed right toward a wall of men.

“We’re getting too close!” Verna yelled in her ear.

Kahlan was too busy to answer. Her arm was shaking with the effort of pulling on the right rein, trying to turn the horse’s head over and to the right, but the horse had the bit in his teeth and was stronger than she by far. Sweat trickled down her neck. She stretched her right leg back and dug her heel into the horse’s right flank to turn him. The men before them brought their pikes and swords around to bear. Fighting was one thing, but not having any control and just watching her fate come at her was different.

“Kahlan! What are you doing!”

With the pressure of her heel in front of his right rear leg, she was finally forcing the horse to turn. It wasn’t enough. She wasn’t going to be able to divert the runaway horse. The enemy looked like a steel porcupine rushing at them.

Three strides away, the horse lowered his head.

“Good boy!” she cried.

Maybe he had a chance to clear the pikes. Kahlan took her weight off the saddle and angled forward, flattening her back. She bent her arms, giving the reins slack with her hands to either side of the horse’s neck.

She kept pressure on him with her lower legs, but let him have the freedom he needed.

She didn’t know if it would work with the extra weight. If only the pikes were shorter. Kahlan screamed for Verna to hold on.

Wizard’s fire suddenly streamed past in front of them, coming in low.

The men who had rushed ahead in a line to block Kahlan’s way dove to the ground. The entire line before them collapsed. The fire wailed past just over top of them, finally touching down off to Kahlan’s left. The cries of a thousand men filled her ears.

The horse stretched his lowered head, getting his hocks underneath his body. At the last instant, his neck shortened and his head came up as he sprang upward, using his powerful hindquarters to launch himself. His back rounded as they sailed over the leading edge of men. Verna cried out, her arm like a hook around Kahlan’s middle. They came down beyond the soldiers who had dropped flat. With her weight on the stirrups, Kahlan used her legs to absorb the shock—Verna couldn’t. With the extra load, the horse nearly stumbled as it landed, but kept his balance and continued running. They were at last clear of the Order soldiers.

“What’s the matter with you!” Verna yelled. “Don’t do that or I won’t be able to let it out evenly!”

“Sorry,” Kahlan called over her shoulder.

Despite the cold wind in her face, sweat ran from her scalp. The Order soldiers seemed to fall away to their rear quarter. Giddy relief washed over her as she realized they had made it past the bulge in the Imperial Order’s front lines.

In the distance behind them, a storm of fire lit the night. Zedd and Warren were showing them a good old-fashioned firefight, as Zedd had put it.

It was a terrifying demonstration, if insufficient to stop an enemy as large as the Order. As the Order’s gifted raced to the scene and threw up shields, it limited the death and devastation. The two wizards had bought Kahlan and Verna the time they had needed.

Kahlan heard Cara calling “Whoa!” as she galloped up close.

This time, with Cara’s horse heading them off, the lathered mount rapidly came to a halt: The horse was exhausted, as was Kahlan. As they dismounted beside Cara and Sister Philippa, Verna tossed the empty bucket to the ground. Kahlan was glad it was dark, so that the others couldn’t see her legs trembling. She was relieved to see that the spot of fire had expended itself before burning through.

The four of them watched as the night went mad with flame, most exploding against shields of magic, yet still doing damage to anyone too close. Zedd and Warren sent forth one tumbling sphere of fiery death after another. The cries of men could be heard all along the line. The fire was being returned, reaping death in the D’Haran lines, but the Sisters were throwing up their own shields.

Still the vast enemy army advanced. At most, the deadly flames only slowed them and disrupted their orderly attack.

As the gifted on both sides gained control, they managed to nullify each other’s fiery attacks. Kahlan knew that the forward D’Haran lines had no hope of holding the onrushing flood of the Order. They had no hope of even slowing them. In the moonlight, she could see them beginning to abandon their positions.

“Why isn’t it working?” Kahlan whispered, half to herself. She leaned toward Verna. “Are you sure it was made properly?”

Watching the enemy’s headlong rush, and in the din of battle cries, Verna didn’t seem to hear the question. Kahlan checked her sword. She realized how futile it would be to try to fight. She felt Richard’s sword on her back, and considered drawing it, but decided that it would be better to run. She pushed Verna, urging her to their spent horse. Cara did the same with Sister Philippa.

Before she stepped into the stirrup, Kahlan noticed the Order slowing.

She saw men stumbling. Some groped with outstretched arms. Others fell.

Verna pointed. “Look!”

An endless moan of frightened agony began rising up into the night, growing in intensity. Staggering men fell over one another. Some swung their swords at an invisible enemy, hacking instead their blinded fellow soldiers.

The progress of the men at the front slowed to a crawl. Soldiers kept coming, colliding with the stalled front line. Cavalry horses panicked, bucking off riders. Spooked horses ran off in every direction, oblivious of the men they trampled. Racing wagons overturned. Confusion swept the enemy’s ranks.

The advance buckled. The Imperial Order ground to a halt.

Zedd and Warren rode up and dismounted, both sweating despite the frigid night air. Kahlan gave Zedd’s bony hand a squeeze.

“You two saved our necks at the end, there.”

Zedd gestured to Warren. “Him, not me.”

Warren shrugged. “I saw your predicament.”

They all stared in wonder, watching the army gone blind.

“You did it, Verna,” Kahlan said. “You and your glass saved us.”

At last, she and Verna threw their arms around each other, tears of relief coursing down their cheeks.