Stone of Tears

Chapter 30

In a cramped daub and wattle house next to the hole in the city’s wall, Kahlan watched as Chandalen built a small fire for her in the central pit. The two brothers were nowhere to be seen.

“Warm yourself,” he said. “I will see if Prindin and Tossidin are close, and tell them where we wait.”

After he had left, she drew off her mantle, even though she knew it wasn’t a good idea to get too used to the warmth because it would only make the cold seem worse later. Drawn by the lure of the fire, she squatted close, rubbing her hands together over the flames, shivering as the warmth seeped into her bones.

The small room was one of only two that had been a large part of some family’s world. The table was broken but the crude bench sitting against the wall was not. A few pieces of clothing were scattered about, along with bent tin plates and a broken spinning wheel. Three bobbins were crushed into the dirt floor.

Kahlan retrieved a dented pot from among the rubble, deciding it was easier to use it than to unpack one of their own. She heaped it full of snow from outside the door, placed the pot on three stones in the fire, then warmed her icy fingers again, finally pressing them against the cold flesh of her face. There was tea in a crushed canister in the corner, but she instead pulled her own from her pack while she waited for the snow to melt, and the men to return.

Try as she might, she couldn’t get the faces of the dead young women out of her mind.

Several times, she added snow as that in the pot melted down. As the water was just starting to bubble, Prindin came through the door. He leaned his bow against the wall and with a sigh slumped down heavily on the bench.

Kahlan stood and glanced to the empty doorway. “Where’s your brother?”

“He should be here soon. We took different ways back, to be able to look at more tracks.” He craned his neck, looking through the doorway into the second room. “Where is Chandalen?”

“He went to find you and Tossidin.”

“Then he will be back soon. My brother is not far.”

“What did you find?”

“More dead people.”

He didn’t seem to want to talk about it at the moment, so she decided to wait until Chandalen returned with Tossidin before questioning him.

“I was just warming water. We’ll have some hot tea.”

He nodded, flashing her his handsome smile. “It would be good to have hot tea.”

Kahlan bent over the pot, shaking tea from a leather pouch with one hand, and holding her long hair back from her face with the other.

“You have a fine-looking bottom,” came his voice from behind.

She straightened and turned to him. “What did you say?”

Prindin pointed toward her middle. “I said you have a fine-looking bottom. It is a good shape.”

Kahlan had learned not to be startled or insulted by the strange customs of different peoples of the Midlands. Among the Mud People, for example, a man complimenting a woman on her breasts was the same as saying she looked to be capable of being a fit and healthy mother, able to nurse her future children. It was a compliment that brought smiles of pride from the flattered woman’s family, and was a sure way for a suitor to make friends with her father. At the same time, asking to see a woman with the sticky mud washed from her hair was likely as not to raise drawn bows—it was tantamount to asking the young woman for improper favors.

The Mud People treated matters of sex in an especially casual manner. Kahlan had more than once been brought to blushing by Weselan’s unexpected and cavalier descriptions of coupling with her husband. Worse, she was as likely as not to do it in his presence.

As she stared at Prindin, the visions of the young women’s faces, too, floated before her eyes.

Though Prindin had not complimented her on her breasts, it seemed to her that a woman’s hips could be construed to carry the same maternal compliment. She knew he meant no disrespect, but still, his beaming smile made the hairs on her arms stand on end. Maybe it was just the inappropriate timing, with the dead all about, that unnerved her. But he hadn’t seen the dead young women.

Prindin’s smile faded only a little as a frown came to his brow. “You look surprised. Doesn’t Richard With The Temper ever tell you how fine your bottom is?”

Kahlan fumbled for words, not sure how to bring this to an honorable halt. “He has never mentioned it, specifically.”

“Other men must have told you this before. It is too fine for them not to notice. The shape of your body is very good to look at. It fills me with desire to . . .” He frowned in puzzlement. “I don’t know your word for . . .”

Blood went to her face in a red rush as she took a step toward him. “Prindin!” She relaxed her fists and brought her voice back in check. “Prindin. I am the Mother Confessor.”

He nodded, his grin returning, but not quite as confident. “Yes, but you are a woman, too, and your shape . . .”

“Prindin!” He blinked at her as she ground her teeth. “In your land it may be proper to speak to a woman in this fashion, but in other places in the Midlands, it is not. In other places, speaking in this manner is offensive. Very offensive. More than that, I’m the Mother Confessor, and it’s not proper to speak to me in this way.”

His smile vanished. “But you are now one of the Mud People.”

“That may be true, but I’m still the Mother Confessor.”

His face blanched. “I have offended you.” He leapt up from the bench and fell to his knees before her. “Forgive me, please. I meant no disrespect. I meant only to show my favor for you.”

Her red face glowed in embarrassment. She had done it now; she had humiliated him.

“I understand, Prindin. I know your words are harmless, but you must not speak this way outside your land. Others would not understand your ways and would be greatly offended.”

He was nearly in tears. “I did not know. Please say you forgive Prindin.” He clutched at her pants, and gripped her upper thighs with his powerful fingers.

“Yes . . . of course . . . I know you meant no harm.” She took hold of his wrists, pulling them gently from her legs. “I forgive you . . .”

Chandalen came through the door, his face set in a grim cast. He took a quick glance at Prindin before looking up into her eyes.

“What is this?”

“Nothing.” She hastily helped Prindin to his feet as his brother entered the room. “But we’re going to have to have a talk about the proper way to speak to ladies in the Midlands. There are things you three will need to be taught, to keep you out of trouble.” She smoothed her pant legs and the lingering sting of where Prindin’s strong fingers had been, and then straightened herself. “Tell me what you’ve found.”

Chandalen cast a withering glare at Prindin. “What have you done?”

Prindin took a half step back, diverting his eyes. “I did not know it would be wrong. I told her she had a fine . . .”

“I said it was nothing,” Kahlan said, cutting him off. “It’s just a small misunderstanding. Forget about it.” She turned to the fire. “I made hot tea. Get some cups—there are some we can use on the floor over there—and we will have some tea while you tell me what you found.”

Tossidin made for the cups, thumping the back of his brother’s head along the way, adding a whispered reprimand. Chandalen shrugged off his mantle and squatted before the fire, warming his hands. The brothers brought the cups, Prindin rubbing the back of his head, and passed them around.

In an attempt to let them all know Prindin hadn’t lost any honor in her eyes, Kahlan directed her attention and first question to him. “Tell me what you found.”

Prindin glanced briefly at the other two before setting his face with a serious expression. “Ten, maybe twelve days ago, this killing was done. The enemy came mostly from the east, but there were many, and some came from farther to the north and south. They had war in the narrow places in the mountains with men from this city. Those men from the city not killed ran away as they were overrun and gathered their numbers here, and tried to make a stand. While they ran to here, they were chased by their enemy, fighting and dying as they ran.

“More and more of the invaders poured through the passes, sweeping around to the south, here, where they had a battle. After they defeated those men, and killed the ones they captured, the enemy came through the wall. When they were finished in this city, all of them, together, went east again.”

Tossidin leaned in a little. “Before they left, they took their dead from the city. They used wagons; there are many tracks from the wheels. It took them maybe two days to take all their dead from here. Many thousands. The people here must have fought like demon spirits. The ones who did this lost more men than they killed.”

“Where are the bodies?” she asked.

“In a bowl in a pass to the east,” Prindin said. “The wagons took the dead along the road, and then they were thrown down into the low place. They are piled so deep we do not know how low the ground is there.”

“What did they look like?” She took a sip of tea, holding the tin cup with both hands wrapped around it, soaking up the warmth. “How were they dressed?”

Prindin reached under his shirt and pulled out a folded cloth. He handed her the bloodred bundle. “There were poles, with these on them. Many of the men wore clothes with the same symbols on them, but we did not want to take the clothes from the dead.”

Kahlan unfolded the banner and stared in shock at the long red triangle draped over her hands. In the center was a black shield with an ornate silver letter on it. The letter R. It was a war banner, with the shield and symbol of the House of Rahl.

“D’Haran soldiers,” she whispered. “How could that be?” She looked up. “Were there Keltans, too?”

The three men looked at one another. They didn’t understand. They didn’t know the Keltans.

“There were some with other clothes,” Prindin said. “But most had this symbol on them, or on their shields.”

“And they went east?”

Tossidin nodded. “I do not know the way to tell you their numbers, but there were so many that if you stood in the same spot on the wide road they took, you would be there all day watching them pass.”

“Also,” Prindin said, “as they were going, others joined them, from the north where they had been waiting, and went with them.”

Kahlan’s eyes narrowed as she frowned in thought. “Did they have many wagons? Big wagons?”

Prindin snorted a laugh. “They must have hundreds. These men do not carry anything. They use wagons. They have victory, because they are many, but they are lazy. They ride in wagons, or use them to carry their things.”

“It takes a lot of supplies,” she said, “to support an army that big. And if they ride in wagons it keeps them fresh for fighting.”

“It also makes them soft,” Chandalen said defiantly. “If you carry what you need, like we do, then you grow strong. If you walk without carrying what you need, or ride in wagons, or on horses, then you grow soft. These men are not strong, like us.”

“They were strong enough to crush this city,” Kahlan said, looking up from under her eyebrows. “They were strong enough to win the battle and destroy their opponent.”

“Only because they are many,” Chandalen argued, “like the Jocopo, not because they are strong, or good fighters.”

“Large numbers,” she said, quietly, “has a strength all its own.”

None of the three men disagreed with that.

Prindin downed the last of his tea before speaking. “Their numbers are all gone now. They stay together as they go east.”

“East.” She thought a moment while the three waited. “Did they go through a pass that has a thin rope bridge stretched above it? A bridge that can only be crossed by one person at a time, on foot?”

The brothers nodded.

Kahlan stood. “Jara Pass,” she whispered to herself as she turned to stare out the door. “It’s one of the few big enough for their wagons.”

“There is more,” Tossidin said as he stood, too. “Maybe five days after they left, more men came here.” He held up the spread fingers of both hands. “This many did the killing here.” He closed all but a lone little finger on his right hand. “This many came here after it was done.”

Kahlan glanced to Chandalen. “The ones who closed the doors.”

He nodded as the two brothers frowned.

“They searched the city,” Tossidin went on. “There were no people left here to kill, so they followed the tracks, followed those that went east, to join with them.”

“No,” Kahlan said. “They were no allies of those who did this. They didn’t go to join them. They’re going after them, though.”

Prindin considered this a moment. “Then if they catch the ones who did this, then they, too, will die. They have no numbers like those they chase. They will be like fleas trying to eat a dog.”

Kahlan snatched up her mantle and flung it around her shoulders. “Let’s get going. Jara Pass is wide and easy enough for large wagons, but it’s also very long and meandering. I know small passes—like the one that takes that rope bridge over the Jara, and then up through Harpies Cleft—that an army cannot travel, but we can, and it’s much shorter. What they travel in three or four days, we can travel in one.”

Chandalen stood, but did so in an easy manner. “Mother Confessor, following these men will not take us to Aydindril.”

“We have to go over one of the passes to get us to Aydindril. Harpies is as good as any.”

Chandalen still made no move to recover his mantle. “But that way lies an army of thousands. You wanted to get to Aydindril with as little trouble as possible. That way lies trouble.”

Kahlan squatted with her boot over a snowshoe, and began lacing on the binding. The faces of the dead young women wavered before her eyes. “I’m the Mother Confessor. I will not allow this to happen in the Midlands. It’s my responsibility.”

The men glanced uneasily at one another. The brothers moved to retrieve their snowshoes. Chandalen did not.

“You said your responsibility was to go to Aydindril as Richard With The Temper asked. You said you must do as he asked.”

Kahlan paused her work at the binding of the second snowshoe. Anguish seared though her. She considered Chandalen’s words, but only briefly. “I’m not abandoning that responsibility.” She finished the binding and stood. “But we’re Mud People. We have other responsibilities, too.”

“Other responsibilities?”

Kahlan tapped the bone knife that was tied to her arm, under her mantle. “To the spirits. The Jocopo, the Bantak, and now these men, have listened to spirits that would have them do great evil—spirits that come through the tear in the veil. We have responsibilities to the spirits of our ancestors, and their living descendants.”

She knew that to close the veil, she needed to reach Zedd, to get help for Richard. It was possible that Richard was the only one who could close the veil. Chandalen was right; they must reach Aydindril.

But the faces of the young women still filled her mind. The horror of what had been done to them still coursed through her.

The two brothers were sitting on the bench putting on their snowshoes. Chandalen stepped close to her and lowered her voice.

“What good will come of us catching this army? It is wrong.”

She looked into his brown eyes. They were not filled with defiance as they had been in the past, but with genuine concern.

“Chandalen, the men who did this killing, and went east, are perhaps fifty thousand strong. The ones who closed the doors in the palace and are chasing that army are perhaps five thousand. They are filled with anger, but if they catch the ones they’re chasing, they’ll be slaughtered, too. If I have a chance to prevent five thousand men from dying, then I must try for that chance.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “And if you are killed in this, then what greater evil will break its bounds?”

“That’s what you three are supposed to prevent—my being killed.”

She started for the door. Chandalen gently gripped her arm and brought her to a halt. He spoke calmly.

“It will be dark soon. We can rest here tonight, and cook food. We can leave in the morning after we are rested.”

“The moon will be up soon to light our way. We have no time to waste.” She leaned toward him. “I’m going on, now. If you’re as strong as you say, you’ll go with me. If you’re not, you may rest here.”

Chandalen put his hands on his hips. His lips tightened as he let out a deep breath. He appraised her with frustration.

“You cannot walk more than Chandalen. We go, too.”

Kahlan gave him a quick, tight smile, and swept through the door. The brothers snatched up their bows and jumped to fall in behind her while Chandalen bent to tie on his snowshoes.