Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Chapter 24

As he walked among the gathered soldiers, Richard acknowledged their greetings with a smile and a nod. He was in no mood to smile, but he feared that the men would misunderstand it if he didn’t. Their eyes were filled with expectation and hope as they watched him make his way among them. Many a man stood silently with a fist over his heart, not just in salute but in pride. Richard could not begin to explain to each of these men the horrific things Shota had shown him, and so he smiled as warmly as he was able.

Beyond the encampment, lightning flickered at the horizon. Even over the sounds of camp life, the thousands of men and horses, of the ring of blacksmiths’ hammers, the unloading of supplies, the provisions being distributed, the orders being shouted, Richard could hear the lightning’s ominous rumble rolling along the Azrith Plain. Angry thunderclouds gathered an ever-growing charge of black shadows under their skirts. The still, humid air was occasionally aroused by gusts that lifted flags and pennants to flapping attention. Almost as soon as it arrived, the wind would suddenly vanish, like an advance guard racing back to report to the gathering storm.

No one seemed to care about the threatening sky, though. They all wanted to get a glimpse of Richard as he made his way through the encampment. There was a time when this very army was bound and determined to kill or capture him. But that was before Richard had become the Lord Rahl.

Once he had taken on that responsibility, he had given these men the chance to stand for a worthy cause, rather than carry arms in service to tyranny. There had been some who had viewed that offer with open hatred. They turned instead to the cause of the Order and swept across the land with blind brutality, seeking to exterminate the very idea that any man had a right to his own life.

But the rest of them, most of them in fact, had not just taken up Richard’s challenge, they had embraced it with the kind of fervor that only men who had lived under repression could. These men, the first in generations to be offered real freedom, truly grasped its meaning for their lives. They held on tenaciously to the chance to live in the kind of world Richard had shown them was possible. There was no greater nor more meaningful a gift these men could in turn give their families and loved ones than that chance to live life free, to live for themselves. Many had died in that noble effort.

Much the same as the Mord-Sith, these men followed him now because they chose to, not because they were forced to. When they called him “Lord Rahl” it had meaning to them that it had never carried before.

But these men now faced the edged steel that enforced a belief that said they and their loved ones had no right to their own lives. Richard did not doubt the hearts of these men, but he knew that they could not prevail in a battle against the vast numbers of Imperial Order invaders. This day of all days, he had to be the Lord Rahl. If there was to be a chance at a future worth living, Richard had to be the Lord Rahl in the purest sense, the Lord Rahl who cared about those he led. He had to make them see what he saw.

Verna, hurrying along beside him, tightened her grip on his arm as she leaned a little closer. “You can’t imagine how uplifting it is for these men to see you before the battle they will be facing, Richard, the battle that prophecy has been foretelling for thousands of years. You just can’t imagine.”

Richard doubted that the men could imagine what he was about to ask of them.

He glanced over at Verna’s smile. “I know, Prelate.”

Because they were steadily making headway south to meet the threat from the Imperial Order, the ride from the People’s Palace to catch up with them had taken considerably longer than the last time he had come to see these soldiers. Once the Order turned north up into D’Hara, this army was all that stood against them. These men were the last hope of the D’Haran Empire. That was their calling, their duty.

And Richard knew without doubt that they would lose that battle.

Richard’s task was to convince them of the certainty of their impending defeat and death.

Cara and Nicci, right behind him, were practically walking on his heels. He didn’t think they needed to be that close to protect him, but he also knew that neither woman would likely take his word for it. When he glanced back over his shoulder, Nicci gave him a tight smile.

He wondered what she would say once she heard what he was about to tell the soldiers. He supposed that she would understand. Of all those who would hear what he had to say, she was the one person he believed would understand. In fact, he was counting on it. Her understanding and support were sometimes all that kept him going. There were times when he had been ready to give up and Nicci had given him the strength to go on.

Richard knew that Cara, on the other had, would welcome what he was about to say, if for entirely different reasons.

Although Cara looked as grim as ever, as if she might have to kill the entire army should they suddenly turn to treason and attack Richard, he could tell by the way her fingers worked at a seam of her red leather outfit that she was eager to at last see General Meiffert—Benjamin—again. Since the last time they had been with these men she was a little less reticent about letting her feelings for the handsome D’Haran general be known. Richard suspected that Nicci had something to do with that.

As overwhelmed as he felt about a world that seemed to be coming down around him, he was inwardly gratified that a Mord-Sith could ever come to have such feelings, and even more so that she would finally be willing to let them be known, at least to him. It was confirmation that, beyond the brutal training of these women, they were individuals who each had long-suppressed desires and aspirations that had not withered and died, and that the true person inside could again blossom. It was an affirmation of his belief in a better future, that there could be a better future, like finding a beautiful flower in a vast wasteland.

As Richard marched past rows of tents, wagons, picketed horses, blacksmith stations, and supply areas, he could see men approaching from all directions, abandoning their evening chores of caring for animals, repairing gear, tending to supplies, cooking, and setting up yet more tents. A glance to the thick overcast told him that they would be smart to at least finish setting up their tents.

Richard spotted General Meiffert among the sea of men in dark uniforms. He stood tall among officers outside a large command area. When Richard glanced back over his shoulder, he could see by Cara’s smile that she saw him as well.

The assembled officers and men of rank were too many to fit into a tent, so they had gathered among a scattered boulder field. Awnings had been strung together over the area, anchored to the massive boulders, so that the men in the command center would be protected should the rain start. It didn’t look to Richard like it would protect them from any wind, but it would at least keep them mostly dry as they worked on the details of directing an army this large.

Richard leaned a little toward Verna as thunder shook the ground. “Your Sisters will be there?”

Verna nodded. “Yes. I sent runners to tell them that you wanted them there along with all the officers. There are a few on distant reconnaissance, but the rest will be there.”

“Lord Rahl,” General Meiffert said as he clapped a fist to his heart.

Richard bowed his head. “General. Glad to see you well. The men all look in order, as always.”

“Thank you, Lord Rahl.” His blue eyes were already taking in Cara. He bowed at the waist to her. “Mistress Cara.”

Cara actually smiled. “You are a happy sight for my eyes, Benjamin.”

Had Richard not been so distressed about the things that had brought him to be there, he would have derived great pleasure from seeing them gaze into each other’s eyes. Richard remembered looking at Kahlan that way, remembered his inner joy at seeing her.

Captain Zimmer, his shaped leather armor serving to accentuate his powerful build, stood not far behind the general. Some of the other officers, in similar if less simple uniforms, waited in a cluster nearby, while most were already assembled under the awning. The groups of men, engaged in earnest conversation, all fell quiet and turned to see Lord Rahl, the leader of the D’Haran Empire. Richard didn’t have time for pleasantries, so he dove right in. Likewise, the regular soldiers who had gathered all around stood silently watching.

“Are all the officers and men of rank here, General?” Richard asked.

The man nodded. “Yes, Lord Rahl. Every one of them in camp, anyway. There are some out on long-range patrol. Had we known of your arrival and wishes I would have recalled them, but as it is we would need some time to get them back here. If you wish, I will send word at once for them to return.”

Richard lifted a hand to forestall the suggestion. “No, that’s not necessary. As long as most of them are assembled that will do. The rest can be briefed later.”

There were far too many men in the encampment for Richard to be heard and understood by them all. His intent was to speak in detail to the officers and men of rank, and then have them spread the word among their own men. There were enough officers gathered for that task.

The general, in a casual but clearly commanding manner, gestured to the men surrounding the command area, watching the great event. They immediately began to disperse, going back to their own work, while their commanders learned of their fate.

General Meiffert held out an arm, inviting Richard and his escort in under the shelter. Richard first glanced at the sky, judging the chances to be good that the rain would soon start in earnest. In under the expansive tarp, hundreds of men were gathered tightly together. Richard tapped his fist to his heart, returning the collective, muffled thump of their sharp salutes.

“I am here today,” Richard began as he scanned all the eyes watching him, “about the gravest of issues . . . the coming final battle with the advancing army of the Imperial Order.

“There must be no confusion about what I will have to say. I need every one of you to understand what is at stake, what I am going to ask of you, and why. This is about all of our lives; I will not hold back anything from you and I will answer honestly and to the best of my ability anything you want to know. Please feel free to ask your questions, voice your objections, or even to disagree with certain points as I lay out what I’ve decided. I value your vast collective knowledge and skill. I trust in your ability and experience.

“But I have had to weigh and consider matters outside your purview and on everything put together I have made my decision. I can appreciate that, absent such information, you many not entirely understand my reasoning, so I will do my best to explain it, but there will be no dissent about my conclusion.”

Richard’s voice took on an edge of absolute resolve. “You will follow my orders.”

The men all shared looks. This was as stern a command as any Richard had ever given them.

In the afternoon hush, Richard began to slowly pace back and forth, choosing his words carefully. He finally gestured out to the crowd before him.

“As officers, as men of command, what is it that preoccupies your minds the most?”

After a moment’s confused silence, an officer to the side spoke up. “I suppose that we’re all thinking about what you’ve already mentioned, Lord Rahl: the final battle.”

“That’s right, the final battle,” Richard said as he came to a halt and turned to the men. “That’s the common way we all think, that everything will come down to that defining moment, the climax of everyone’s effort, and that there will be a final, grand battle to decide it all—who wins, who loses, who rules, who serves, who lives, who dies. This is the way Jagang thinks as well.”

“He wouldn’t be their leader if he didn’t,” an older officer said.

Sporadic chuckles rippled through the assembled men.

“True enough,” Richard said in a solemn voice. “Especially in the case of Emperor Jagang. His objective is to carry his cause to that final battle and in that concluding contest crush us once and for all. He is a very intelligent foe. He has gotten us to focus on that final battle. His strategy is working.”

The laughter had died out. The men looked a little displeased that Richard would give the man so much credit. Soldiers like these didn’t like to grant their enemy too much mastery lest their own men suffer a failing of courage at fighting him.

Richard had no interest in making Jagang seem less of a threat than he was. Quite the opposite; he wanted to give these men an accurate glimpse of what they were up against, and the true dimensions of the menace.

“Jagang is a devotee of a game called Ja’La dh Jin.” Seeing some of the men nod, Richard knew that they had become at least somewhat familiar with the game. “He has his own Ja’La team, much like the Fellowship of Order has its own army. Jagang’s overriding concern, when he sends his team in to play, is to win at Ja’La. To that end he collected the biggest, toughest players for his team. He does not view it as a contest, a competition, as some do. He intends not merely to be victorious in any Ja’La match, but to overwhelm the opposition.

“Jagang’s team once lost. His solution was not to try harder the next time, to train and coach his players, to do better the next time. He instead went out and got other players. He created a team of the biggest, strongest, fastest men. The translation of Ja’La dh Jin, by the way, is ‘the game of life.’

“In the beginning, when he was joining all the various kingdoms and lands of the Old World into one nation, Jagang lost battles. He learned the lessons of life. He got the biggest, meanest army he could and in the end he united the entire Old World under the banner of the Order. When he embarked on this war, at the behest of the Fellowship of Order, Jagang made sure that he would have at his disposal the resources necessary to insure that he would have a force large enough to do the job. You men would do no less.

“Jagang occasionally still lost battles. Again he learned. He responded by calling upon those resources to see to it that he had more men. That’s how he approaches the goal of winning the war on behalf of the Order. The result is that today he has a force so overwhelming that he can crush all opposition. He knows that he will win. So, he looks forward to the final battle.

“In addition, Emperor Jagang was a dream walker, a man with powers handed down to him through ancient magic. He used that ability to invade the minds of others not only to gain knowledge, but to control them. Today, as you know, he controls a number of gifted people, Sisters of the Light and the Dark among them. He thus commands both forces of steel and magic.”

“Lord Rahl,” one of the older officers said, interrupting Richard’s pacing speech, “you dismiss our men too easily. Most of our army is made up of D’Haran forces and the rest we have trained. These men know what is at stake. They are not green recruits. They are experienced soldiers who know how to fight. We also have Verna and her Sisters, who had proven themselves. Along with these skilled soldiers and Sisters of the Light, we have right on our side.”

“The Imperial Order is not predestined to lose just because they are evil. In the long run evil will turn in on itself, but for our lives and the lives of those we protect that is little comfort. Evil can still dominate mankind for a thousand years, two thousand, or even more before it eventually dies of its own poison.”

Richard started pacing again as he spoke with great passion. “There are times in history when things might have gone either way but for the valiant efforts of some individuals, I grant you that. In fact, I am counting on it. This is the time when we decide what will be our future. This is the time when we must do what must be done, despite how painful it will be, if we and our children are to have a future. Our future, freedom’s future, hinges on us and what we do, on whether or not we succeed.”

“Lord Rahl,” the older officer said with quiet assurance, “the men know that our backs are to the wall. They will fight, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

Richard realized that the men weren’t understanding what he was getting at. He stopped and faced the men as he clasped his hands behind his back. In the back of his mind he could see the ghostly image that Shota had shown him of the bloody end of it all. It was like a weight trying to drag him under.

Richard finally spoke. “I’ve always said that I can’t lead us into a final battle with the Order or we would lose. Things have happened since last I was with you men that make me believe that now more than ever before.”

Rumblings of discontent matched the rumblings of thunder filling the gloomy afternoon air. Before they could object or take him off on a tangent, Richard went on.

“The army of the Order is very soon going to be advancing up into D’Hara from the south on their way to the People’s Palace. You men are advancing south to meet them. They know that. They expect that. They want that. We are marching to Jagang’s orders. He is controlling our tactics. He is drawing us into a battle he knows we can’t win and that he can’t lose.”

Voices of protest erupted, all shouting that the future wasn’t fixed, that they could prevail.

Richard held up a hand to halt the voices. “While the future isn’t fixed, reality is what it is. As soldiers you plan your tactics according to what you know, not what you wish.

“Even if by some miracle we were able to win this looming battle, it would turn out not to be decisive. Such a battle would end up merely being a fight we won at a great cost, while the Order would simply come right back at us again with an even larger force. Even if we were to win the impending battle—which I know we can’t—we would then have to fight another battle against even more men, and then another.

“Why? Because each time we fight them we lose men and get weaker. We have little reserves to call upon. Each time Jagang needs them, he gets a steady stream of nearly limitless reinforcements and only gets stronger.

“We would lose in the end for one very simple reason: no war is ever won defensively. While a defensive battle can be won, a war cannot be won defensively.”

“So,” an officer asked, “what do you propose? That we sue for peace?”

Richard dismissed the idea with a casual, if irritated, gesture. “The Order would grant no peace terms. Maybe long ago, in the beginning, they would have accepted our surrender, allowed us to bow and kiss their boots, allowed us to put on the chains of slavery, but not now. Now they want only a victory bought and paid for with our blood. But what difference would it have made? Either way, the end result would be the same: the murder and subjugation of us and our people. How we lose, for the most part, is irrelevant. Surrender or defeat ends with the same result. One way or the other all is lost.”

“Then . . . what?” the man stammered in a heated voice. “Fight on until we are finally killed or captured?”

The men stared at the red-faced officer who had spoken. These men had been fighting the Order for a long time. They were not hearing anything they didn’t already know. Still, fighting the invaders was all they could do. It was their duty. It was the only thing they knew.

Richard turned and took in Cara. Standing there in her red leather, her feet spread, her hands clasped behind her back, she looked like she believed she could take on the Order all by herself.

Richard gestured to the woman standing beside Cara. “Nicci, here, once served on their side.” When he heard the whispers about an enemy among them, he added, “Much the same as all of you were once in the service of tyranny when you served Darken Rahl, and some of you even his father, Panis Rahl. You had no choice. Darken Rahl did not care what you wanted to do with your lives. He only cared that you followed his orders. Now, when given a choice, you have committed to our cause. Nicci has as well.

“The men of the Order are different. You were fighting because you were made to under threat of violence or even death. They are fighting because they believe in a cause. They hunger to fight. They want to be a part of their war effort.

“Since she was there, with Jagang, Nicci has firsthand knowledge. She has seen things that may help put it into perspective for you.”

Richard turned again to Nicci. She looked like a statue, her skin smooth and fair, her blond hair tumbled down over her shoulders. There was nothing about her face, her figure, that Richard would have changed if he were the one to carve a statue of her. She was a picture of beauty, who had seen ugliness beyond imagining.

“Nicci, please tell these men what will happen to them if they are captured by the Imperial Order.”

Richard had no idea what she would say, what she knew, but he did know, especially from the things Jebra had told them, that the Order had only contempt for life.

“The Order does not execute their captives immediately.” With deadly calm, Nicci glided one step closer to all the men staring at her. She waited at Richard’s side until the silence was painful and she had the undivided attention of every man before her. “First,” she said, “every man captured is castrated.”

A collective gasp went up from the assembled men.

“After that, after they have suffered unendurable agony and humiliation, the ones still alive are put to torture. The ones who survive the torture are finally put to death in one brutal fashion or another.

“Those who surrender to the Order without a fight are spared such treatment. That is the design behind the cruelty toward captives—to strike fear into a potential adversary so that they will surrender without a fight. Their treatment of civilians in captured cities is just as brutal and it has the same goal in mind. As a result, many cities have fallen to the Order without a fight.

“You men have fought them long and hard. You would not be spared any of it. If you are caught by Jagang’s forces there is no hope for you. You will be made to wish with all your hearts that you had never been born. Death will be your only release.

“Not that it matters. Life under the Order is not much different than waiting for death at the hands of the Order. Life under the Order is a slow, grinding death in itself. It just takes longer; the misery of it stretches out over years.

“Only those who hate life, and everything good, prosper. The Order, in fact, fosters and encourages those who hate the good aspects of life. Their teachings are, after all, formed from a bitter hatred for the good. The environment such beliefs create is one of universal misery. The haters relish the misery of others, since the good angers them. If captured, these haters would be your masters.”

The men stood in stunned silence. In that silence, Richard heard the gentle patter of rain on the awning stretched overhead. The storm was rolling in on them.

Nicci spoke offhandedly into the silence. “The fried testicles of their enemies are a prized treat for the soldiers of the Imperial Order. The camp followers will scour a battlefield after a battle, looking for loot and any wounded enemy still alive that they can castrate. Those precious, bloody gems harvested from a living enemy are a valuable and sought-after commodity during the drunken celebration after a victory. The soldiers believe that such a delicacy gives them greater strength and virility. Afterwards, they turn their attention to their women captives.”

Richard pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and first finger. “Anything else?”

Nicci raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that enough?”

Richard heaved a sigh as he let his hand drop. “I guess so.”

He turned back to the men. “The simple truth is that there is no way you can win the coming battle. You are going to lose.”

Richard took a deep breath and finally uttered the unspeakable words he had come to say.

“That is why there will be no final battle. We will not fight Emperor Jagang and his army of the Imperial Order. As Lord Rahl, leader of the D’Haran Empire, I refuse to allow such an act of pointless self-destruction. We will not fight them.

“Instead, I have come to disperse our army. There will be no final battle. Jagang will have the New World unopposed.”

Richard saw tears filling the eyes of many a man.