Faith of the Fallen

Chapter 52

Ann peered among the stand of birch trees crowded in the deep shadows of cliffs for which the place was named. The dense wood was thick with the trees, their peeling white bark covered with dark blotches making it disorienting and difficult to make sense of anything. To become disoriented, here, and wander into the wrong place, uninvited, was the last mistake you would ever make.

It had been in her youth that she’d last come here, to the Healers of Redcliff. She’d promised herself she would never return. She’d promised the healers as much, too. In the nearly thousand years since, she hoped they had forgotten.

Few people knew of the place, and even fewer ever came hero—with good reason.

The term “healers” was an odd and highly misleading designation for such a dangerous lot, yet it wasn’t entirely without merit. The Healers of Redcliff weren’t concerned with human ailments, but with the well-being of things that mattered to them. And very odd things indeed mattered to them.

To tell the truth of it, after all this time, she would be surprised to find them still in existence.

As much as she hoped their talents could help, and as desperately as she needed help, she hoped to find that the healers no longer stalked the Redcliff Wood.

“Visitooor . . .” hissed a teasing voice from the dim shadows in the crags of the cliff off behind the trees.

Ann stood still. Cold sweat dotted her brow. Among the confusion of lines and spots made by the trees, she could not make out what it was she saw move. She didn’t really need to see them. She had heard the voice. There were no others like theirs. She swallowed, and tried to sound composed.

“Yes, I am a visitor. I’m glad to find you well.”

“Only us few left,” the voice said, echoing among the rock walls. “The chiiiimes took most.”

That was what Ann had feared . . . what she had hoped.

“I’m sorry,” she lied.

“Tried,” the voice said, moving through the trees. “Could not heal the chiiiimes away.”

She wondered if they could still heal at all, and how long they would last.

“Comes sheeee for a healings?” teased a voice from the depths of the jagged clefts to the other side.

“Come to let you look,” she said, letting them know she had terms, too.

It would not be all their way.

“Costssss, you know.”

Ann nodded. “Yes, I know.”

She had tried everything else. Nothing had worked. She had no other choice, at least none she could think of. She was no longer sure if it mattered to her what happened, if it mattered if she ever came out of the Redcliff Wood.

She was no longer sure if she had ever done any real good in her entire life.

“Well?” she asked into the shadowy silence.

Something flashed back behind the trees, back in the shade under low rock ledges, as if inviting her further along the path, deeper into the twisting cleft in the mountains. Rubbing her knuckles, which still ached from the burns long healed, she followed the path, and the rustle of brush.

Shortly, she came to a small gap its the trees. Back through that gap, she could see the craggy opening of a cave.

Eyes watched from that dark maw.

“Comes sheeee in,” the voice hissed.

In resignation, Ann let out a sigh as she stepped off the trail, and into a place she had never forgotten, despite how much she had tried.

Kahlan’s hair whipped around, lashing at her face. She gathered it in a fist over the front of her armored shoulder as she made her way through the hectic camp. Thunderstorms collided violently with the mountains at the east side of the valley, throwing off lightning, thunder, and intermittent sheets of rain. Sporadic gusts bent the trees, and their leaves shimmered as if trembling in fright before the onslaught.

Usually, the camp was relatively quiet so as not to give any unwanted information to the enemy. Now, the noise of camp breaking up was jarring by contrast. The noise alone was enough to make her pulse race. If only that were all.

As Kahlan hurried through what to the untrained eye would look like mass confusion, Cara, in her red leather, shoved men out of the way to break a clear path for the Mother Confessor. Kahlan knew better than to try to get the Mord-Sith not to do it. At least it caused no harm. Most of the men, when they saw Kahlan in her leather armor with a D’Haran sword at her hip and the hilt of the Sword of Truth sticking up over her shoulder, moved out of her way without Cara’s help.

Horses nearby reared as they were being harnessed to a wagon. Men shouted and cursed as they struggled to get the team under control. The horses bellowed in protest. Other men ran through camp, leaping over fires and gear as they rushed to deliver messages. Men sprang out of the way as wagons sped along, splashing mud and water. A long column of lancers five men wide was already marching off into the threatening gloom. Their supporting archers were scrambling to fall in with them.

The path to the lodge was set with stones so people heading for it would not have to walk in the mud, though one still had to run the gauntlet of mosquitoes. Rain swept in just as Kahlan and Cara made the door. Zedd was there, with Adie, General Meiffert and several of his officers, Verna, and Warren. They were all loosely gathered around the table pulled to the center of the room. Half a dozen maps lay atop one another on the table.

The mood in the room was tense.

“How long ago?” Kahlan asked without any greetings.

“Just now,” General Meiffert said. “They’re taking their time striking camp. They’re not organizing for an attack. They’re simply forming up to move out.”

Kahlan rubbed her fingertips against her brow. “Any word on the direction?”

The general shifted his posture, betraying his frustration. “The scouts say that by all indications they’re going north, but nothing more specific than that, yet.”

“They aren’t coming after us?”

“They could always change course, or send an army over here, but right now, it appears they aren’t interested in coming in here after us.”

“Jagang doesn’t need to come after us,” Warren said. Kahlan thought he looked a little pale. Small wonder. She imagined they were all a little pale. “Jagang has to know we are going to come at him: He’s not going to bother coming in here after us.”

Kahlan couldn’t dispute his logic. “If he goes north, he has to know we’re not going to sit here and wave good-bye.”

The emperor had changed his tactics—again. Kahlan had never seen a commander like him. Most military men had their preferred methods. If they had once won a battle in a certain way, they would suffer a dozen losses with the same tactics, thinking it had to work because it once had. Some were limited by their intellect. Those were easy enough to read; they usually waged an artless campaign, content to throw men into a meat grinder, hoping to clog it with sheer numbers. Some leaders were clever, inventing tactics as they went. Those often thought too much of themselves and ended up on the point of a simple pike. Others slavishly went about using textbook tactics, thinking of war as a kind of game, and that each side should oblige the other by following rules.

Jagang was different. He learned to read his enemy. He held to no favored method. After Kahlan had hit him with quick limited attacks driven into the center of his camp, he learned the tactic and, instead of relying on his overpowering numbers, sent the same kind of attack back at the D’Haran army to good effect. Some men could be driven to making foolish mistakes by shaming them. Jagang didn’t make the same mistake twice. He reined in his pride and changed his tactics again, not obliging Kahlan with foolhardy counterattacks.

The D’Harans had still managed to carve him up. They had taken out Imperial Order troops in unprecedented numbers. Their own losses, while painful, were remarkably low considering what they had accomplished.

Winter, though, had killed far more of the enemy than anything Kahlan and her men could conceive. The Imperial Order, being from far to the south, was unfamiliar with and ill prepared for winter in the New World. Well over half a million men had frozen to death. Several hundred thousand more had succumbed to fevers and sickness from the harsh life in the field.

The winter alone had cost Jagang nearly three-quarters of a million men. It was almost beyond comprehension.

Kahlan now commanded roughly three hundred thousand troops in the southern reaches of the Midlands. Under ordinary circumstances, that would be a force capable of crushing any enemy.

The men streaming up from the Old World had replaced the enemy losses several times over. Jagang’s army was now well over two and a half million men. It grew by the day.

Jagang had been content to sit tight for the winter. Fighting in such conditions was, for the most part, impossible. He had wisely waited out the weather. When spring had come, he still sat. Apparently, he was smart enough to know that warfare in spring mud was a deadly undertaking. In the muddy season, you could lose your supply wagons if they got strung out. Streams became impassable floods. Losing wagons was a slow death by starvation. Cavalry were next to useless in the mud. Losses to falls in a cavalry charge cost valuable mounts, to say nothing of the men. Soldiers could make an attack, of course, but without supporting services, it was likely to be a bloodbath for no real gain.

Jagang had sat out the spring mud. His minions had used the time to spread the word about “Jagang the Just.” Kahlan was infuriated when she got reports, weeks after the fact, about “envoys of peace” who had shown up in various cities throughout the Midlands, giving speeches about bringing the world together for the good of all mankind. They promised piece and prosperity, if they were welcomed into cities.

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 had 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 supplies 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.”