by Angreal
"Sounds wise," Verna said.
She had to get back to their camp. She had made the rounds herself to get a good look at their defenses, to see the men at the outposts, before their nightly meeting back at camp to go over the day's reports.
"The commander wants to destroy the wagon before it gets too close. I've checked, Prelate—there are no other Sisters at hand. If you don't want to see to this, we can have the men up above drop a rockslide on the wagon and crush it."
Verna had to get back to meet with the officers. "You had better tell your commander to take care of it in whatever manner he sees fit."
The soldier saluted with snap of a fist to his heart.
Verna pulled her horse around and put a foot into the stirrup. Why would the Imperial Order think they could get a wagon through, especially at night? Certainly, they weren't foolish enough to think it wouldn't be seen in the dark. She paused and looked at the soldier hurrying away.
"Wait." He stopped and turned. "I changed my mind. I'll go with you."
It was foolish to use the rocks they had ready overhead; they might need them if a full-scale attack suddenly charged up this pass. It was silly to waste such a defense.
She followed the man up the trail to the lookout point where his company waited. The men were all watching through the trees. The road out ahead and below them looked silver in the light of the rising moon.
Verna inhaled the fragrance of balsam firs as she watched the wagon making its way up the silvery road, being pulled by a single, plodding horse. Tense archers waited at the ready. They had a shielded lantern standing by to light fire arrows in order to set the wagon ablaze.
Verna didn't see anyone in the wagon. An empty wagon seemed pretty suspicious. She recalled the strange message from Ann, warning her to let an empty wagon through.
But they had already done that. Verna recalled that the girl with the message from Jagang had come in by this route and method. Verna's heart pounded in worry at the thought of what new message Jagang might be sending, now.
Perhaps it was Zedd's and Adie's heads.
"Hold," she called to the archers. "Let it through, but stand at the ready in case it's a trick."
Verna made her way down the narrow path between the trees. She stood behind a screen of spruce, watching. When the wagon was close enough, she opened a small gap in the weave of the vast shield she and the Sisters had spun across the pass. The pattern of magic was barbed with every nasty sort of magic they could conjure. This pass was small enough that the shields alone could hold it, and if the enemy did come, it was too small for any numbers to come all at once. Even without the formidable shield, the pass was relatively easy to hold.
When the wagon passed through the shield, Verna closed the hole. When it rolled close enough, one of the men ran out of the trees and look control of the horse. As the wagon drew to a halt, dozens of archers behind him and on the other side, behind Verna, drew their weapons. Verna had spun a web of magic and she was prepared to unleash it at the slightest provocation.
The tarp in the bed of the wagon eased back. A little girl sat up. It was the child who had brought the message the last time. Her face lit up at seeing Verna, someone she recognized.
Verna's heart skipped a beat at the thought of what the message might be, this time.
"I brought some friends," the girl said.
People lying in the back of the wagon pulled the tarp aside and started sitting up. They looked like parents with their frightened children.
Verna blinked in shock when she saw some of the people help Adie up. The sorceress looked to be exhausted. Her black and gray hair was no longer parted neatly in the middle, but was in as much disarray as Zedd's usually was.
Verna rushed over, leaning in to help the woman. "Adie! Oh, Adie, am I ever glad to see you!"
The old sorceress smiled. "I be awfully happy to see you, too, Verna."
Verna's gaze swept over the people in the wagon, her heart still pounding with apprehension. "Where's Zedd?"
"He escaped as well."
Verna closed her eyes with a silent prayer of gratitude.
Her eyes popped open. "If he escaped, then where is he?"
"He be on his way back to the Keep, in Aydindril," Adie said in her raspy voice. "The enemy has captured it."
"We heard."
"That old man intends to have his Keep back."
"Knowing Zedd, I feel sorry for anyone who gets in his way."
"Rikka be with him."
"Rikka! What was she doing over there? I ordered her not to do that!" Verna realized how that must have sounded. "We thought it would be pointless, that she wouldn't have a chance and we would just lose her for nothing."
"Rikka be Mord-Sith. She has a mind of her own."
Verna shook her head. "Well, even though she wasn't supposed to do that, now that I see you again and know Zedd has escaped as well, I'm glad that that obstinate woman didn't listen to me."
"Captain Zimmer be on his way back as well."
"Captain Zimmer!"
"Yes, he and some of his men decided to come to rescue us as well. They be coming back the way they travel, unseen in the night." Adie gestured to the surrounding trees. "They be up around us, protecting the wagon on our way in. The captain feared that some of the enemy might stop the wagon and capture us all over again. He wanted to make sure we be safe."
The captain and his men had special signals that allowed them to move through the pass without being attacked by their own men, or the Sisters, by mistake. The nature of the way Captain Zimmer and his men worked was that they were, for the most part, outside regular command. Kahlan had set it up that way so they could act on their own initiative. While it could at times be aggravating, those men accomplished more than anyone ever expected.
"Zedd wanted me to help these people escape." Adie gave Verna a meaningful look. "There be others we could not help."
Verna glanced over at the people huddling together at the back of the wagon. "I can only imagine what Jagang has been doing with people like that."
"No," Adie said. "I doubt you can."
Verna changed to an even more horrifying subject. "Has Jagang been able to find anything from the Keep, so far, that he will use against us?"
"Thankfully, no. Zedd set a spell that destroyed the things stolen from the Keep. There be a big explosion in the middle of their camp."
"Like the one back in Aydindril that killed so many of them?"
"No, but it still caused much destruction and killed some important people—even some of Jagang's Sisters, I believe."
Verna never thought she would see the day that she would be pleased to hear that Sisters of the Light had died. Those women were controlled by the dream walker, and even when they had been offered freedom, they had been too afraid to believe those trying to rescue them. They had chosen to remain Jagang's slaves.
With a sudden thought, Verna grabbed a fistful of Adie's robes. "Could the spell Zedd ignited possibly have taken out Jagang?"
With her completely white eyes, Adie looked back up Dobbin Pass toward the Imperial Order camp. "I wish I had better news, Prelate, but Captain Zimmer, on the way out, told me that just as we were about to be rescued, an assassin managed to get deep into the inner camp."
"An assassin? Who was it? Where was he from?"
"None of us knows. He appeared much like others from the Old World. The intruder be driven by a single-minded determination to get to Jagang and kill him. He somehow made it into the inner defenses, killed some people, and took the uniform of the elite guards so he might get to Jagang. The guards somehow recognized he not be one of their own. They hacked the man to pieces before he could get close to the emperor.
"Jagang left the area until his men could check over their defenses and make sure there be no more assassins about. Many of the Sisters went with him, helping with his safeguards. That be when Zedd set off the sunset spell. We did not know Jagang had left the area, but it would have make no differe
nce. Zedd had to use the spell when it be put before him. The spell be triggered by the sun setting."
Verna nodded. For a moment, she had been hoping ...
"Still, you and Zedd escaped, and that's what matters for now. Thank the Creator."
"A surprising number of people showed up all at once to rescue us." Adie lifted an eyebrow. "I do not recall seeing the Creator among them."
The warm breeze ruffled Verna's curly hair. "I suppose not, but you know what I mean."
The crickets in the woods kept up their steady chirping. Life seemed to be a little sweeter, their situation a little less hopeless.
She let out a sigh. "I hope the Creator will at least help Zedd and Rikka take back the Keep."
"Zedd will not need the Creator's help," Adie said. "Another man showed up to help get us out. Chase be an old friend of Zedd, me, and Richard. Chase will have those holding the Keep praying for the protection of the Creator."
"Then we can look forward to the day the Keep is back in our hands and Jagang is denied help in breaking through the passes into D'Hara."
Verna waved her arm, signaling, and the four couples standing at the back of the wagon shuffled forward with their children.
"Welcome to D'Hara," Verna told them. "You will be safe, here."
"Thank you for helping get us out," one of the men said with a bow of his head to Adie. "I feel ashamed, now, of the terrible things I had been thinking of you."
Adie smiled to herself as she tightened her thin fingers on his shoulder. "True. But I could not blame you."
The girl who had brought the message the last time tugged on Verna's dress. "This is my mother and father. I told them how nice you were to me, before."
Verna squatted down and hugged the girl. "Welcome back, child. Welcome back."
* * *
CHAPTER 55
Whenever a breath of wind sighed among the branches above, silvery streamers of moonlight cascading down through the forest canopy glided about in the darkness like ghosts on the prowl. Kahlan peered around, barely able to make out the somber shapes of the looming trees as she tried to see if there was anything that did not belong. She heard no chirps of bugs, no small animals scurrying among the leaf litter, no mockingbirds singing throughout the night as there had been. Carefully picking her way over the mossy ground, she did her best to see in the gloom so as not to step in holes and cracks in the rocky places or pools of standing water in the low areas.
Ahead of her, Richard slipped through the open forest like a shadow. At times he seemed to disappear, causing her to fear that he might no longer be with them. He had ordered everyone following behind him not to talk and to walk as quietly as possible, but none of them could move through the woods as silently as he did.
For some reason, Richard was as tense as his bowstring. He felt that something was wrong, but he didn't know what. While it might seem a beautiful moonlit night in the woods, the way Richard was acting, on top of the haunting silence, had draped a pall of foreboding over everyone.
Kahlan was at least pleased that the skies had cleared. The rains of recent days had made travel not just difficult, but miserable. While it hadn't really been cold, the wet made it feel so. Taking shelter had not been an option. Until they had the final dose of the antidote, they had no choice but to press on.
The antidote from Northwick had improved Richard's condition a little, in addition to stopping the advance of the symptoms of his poisoning, but now the temporary improvement was dissipating. Kahlan was so worried for him that she had no appetite.
They now had well over double the number of men with them, and many more than that were making their way toward the city of Hawton by different routes. Those other groups of men planned to eliminate the lesser detachments of Imperial Order soldiers stationed in villages along the way. Richard, Kahlan, and their smaller group were pushing toward Hawton as rapidly as possible, deliberately avoiding contact with the enemy so as to get there before Nicholas and his soldiers knew they were on their way. Stealth would afford them the best chance of recovering the final dose of the antidote.
Once they had the antidote, then they could gather with the rest of the men for an attack. Kahlan knew that if they could first eliminate Nicholas it would make it much easier, and less risky, to defeat the remaining Imperial Order troops. If she could somehow find a way to get close to Nicholas she could touch him with her power. She knew better than to suggest such an idea to Richard; he would never go along with it.
To a certain extent, Kahlan felt responsible for what these people had suffered under the Imperial Order. After all, if not for her freeing the chimes, the boundary protecting Bandakar would still be in place. Yet, if these people could rid themselves of the Imperial Order, the changes that had come about also meant the true freedom they had never really enjoyed and, with it, the opportunity for better lives.
The change in the people in Northwick had been heartening to witness. That night, the men Richard and Kahlan had brought had stayed up most of the night talking to the people there, explaining the things Richard and Kahlan had explained to them. The morning after the annihilation of the soldiers who had taken over their city and held them in the grip of fear, the people had celebrated by singing and dancing in the streets. Those people had learned not only just how precious freedom really was, but also that their old ways provided no real tools for improving the quality of their lives.
After Richard had dissolved the ancient illusions of the Wise One's wisdom and the meaningless tenets the speakers substituted for knowledge, and after the killing of the enemy soldiers, the men of Northwick had not been shy about volunteering to help rid their land of the Imperial Order. Freed from the enforced blindness of a repressive mindset, many now hungered aloud for a future of their own making.
Kahlan unexpectedly came up against Richard's outstretched arm. She put a hand to her chest, over her galloping heart, then immediately turned and passed the signal to stop back to those behind. There was still no sound in the dark woods—not so much as the buzz of a mosquito.
Richard slipped his pack off of his back, set it on a low rock, and started quietly searching through it.
Kahlan leaned close to whisper. "What are you doing?"
"Fire. We need light. Pass the word back for some of the men to get out torches."
While Richard pulled out a steel and flint, Kahlan whispered instructions to Cara, who in turn passed them back. In short order, several men tiptoed forward with torches.
The men gathered in close, squatting down beside a low jumble of rock next to Richard. He picked a stick up off the ground and dipped it in a small container from his pack. He then wiped the stick across the top of a high point on the rock.
"I'm putting some pine resin on this rock," he told the men. "Hold your torches over it so that when I strike a spark and the resin flames up, it will light the torches."
Pine resin, painstakingly collected from rotting trees, was valuable for starting fires in the rain. A spark would ignite it even when wet. It burned hot enough to often be able to catch damp wood on fire.
Richard had always seemed at home in the dark. Kahlan had never seen him need to have light like this. She stared intently out into the night, wondering what it was he thought might be out there that they couldn't see.
"Cara," Richard whispered, "pass the word back. I want everyone to get out a weapon. Now."
Without hesitation, Cara turned to pass on the orders. After a seemingly endless span of silence, broken only by the soft whisper of steel sliding past leather, word came back and she leaned down toward Richard. "Done."
Richard looked up at Kahlan and Jennsen. "Both of you, as well."
Kahlan drew her sword, Jennsen her silver-handled dagger with the ornate letter R that stood for the House of Rahl.
Richard struck the spark. The pine pitch flamed up with an angry hiss; the torches caught; light ignited in the heart of the dark forest.
In the sudden, harsh glare, everyone
turned and looked about to see what might be hiding in the darkness around them.
Men gasped.
In the trees all around them, perched on branches everywhere, sat black-tipped races. Hundreds of them. Beady black eyes watched the people.
In that moment of sudden bright light, everything but the flickering flame was silent and still.
With a burst of wild cries, the races launched their attack.
From all around, all at once, the races descended on them. The night air suddenly filled with a riot of glossy black feathers, the sweep of huge wings, hooked beaks, and reaching talons. After such a long silence, the sound of piercing cries and beating wings was deafening.
Everywhere, the people met the attack with fierce determination. Some of the men were knocked to the ground, or stumbled and fell. Others cried out as they tried to protect themselves with one arm while driving off the attack with the other. Men hacked at the races atop their friends and turned to ward off other screeching beasts that flew in toward them.
Kahlan saw the red-striped breast of a race abruptly appear right before her face. She swung her sword, lopping off a wing, and spun around, bringing the sword up to hit another bird coming in from the other side. She stabbed a race on the ground at her feet as it reached in with its beak, like a vulture, to try to rip flesh from her leg.
Richard's sword was a blur of silver slashing through the winged attackers. A cloud of black feathers surrounded him. The birds were attacking everyone, but the assault appeared to be centered around Richard. It almost seemed as if the races were trying to drive the people back from Richard so that more of the birds could get at him.
Jennsen frantically stabbed at birds going for him. Kahlan swung at others, knocking them to the ground, wounded or dead. With measured efficiency, Cara snatched them out of the air and swiftly wrung their necks.
Everywhere, men stabbed, cut, and hacked at the onslaught of fierce raptors. Some men used their torches as weapons. The night was filled with the screams of the birds, with the flapping of wings, with the thud of weapons striking home. Birds tumbled and fell as they were hit. More dove in to take their place. The trees all around poured the monstrous birds down on them. Wounded and dying birds struggling on the ground made the forest floor a writhing sea of black feathers.
