Stone of Tears tsot-2

by Terry Goodkind

  Captain Ryan swallowed. “Thank you, Mother Confessor.” With a shaking hand he slid his knife back in its sheath. “I grew up with him.” He lifted the hand toward the body at her feet. “We lived about a mile apart, on the same road. We used to go hunting and fishing together all the time. We helped each other with chores. We always went to feast day in our best coats of the same color. We always . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Bradley. There is nothing to ease the pain of betrayal, or loss, except time. As I told you, war is not fair. Were it not for the men of the Order making war, perhaps you would be fishing today, with your friend. Blame the Order, and avenge him, too, with all the rest.”

  He nodded. “Mother Confessor? What would you have done if you were wrong? What would you have done if Mosle wasn’t going to the enemy?”

  She regarded him until his gaze rose to meet hers. “I probably would have taken that knife you offered, and killed you.”

  She turned from his hollow expression and put a hand on the shoulder of the the man next to him. “Lieutenant Hobson, I know you had a difficult task. Prindin tells me you did it well.”

  He looked near tears, but still managed to stiffen his back with pride. She noticed that his beard hadn’t even started to grow in earnest yet. “Thank you, Mother Confessor.”

  She looked around at the hundreds of men standing about, watching. “I believe you all have work?”

  As if they had just awakened, everyone began moving again, slowly at first, and then with accelerating urgency.

  Hobson gave a salute of his fist to his heart and turned to other business. The men who had brought Mosle lifted his body and carried it off. Others went to Chandalen and the two brothers, asking for instructions. Captain Ryan stood alone with her, watching as everyone went about their work.

  Her legs felt limp and slack, like bowstrings left out in the rain all night. For a Confessor to use her power when she was rested and alert was taxing. To use it when she was already tired was perilously exhausting. She could hardly keep herself upright.

  She had been dead tired from riding all night to the enemy camp and back, to say nothing of the fight with them. She needed more sleep than she had gotten, and using her power had cost her even the benefit of the short nap, and then some. She had used what strength she had left to do something that should have been done without her.

  She thought maybe it must be the cold, and traveling in such difficult conditions, but she seemed more tired than usual lately. Maybe she could ask Prindin to make her some more tea.

  “Could I speak with you for a moment, Mother Confessor?” Captain Ryan asked.

  Kahlan nodded. “What is it, Captain?”

  He pushed his unbuttoned wool coat open, shoving his hands in his back pockets. He glanced away to watch some men filling waterskins. “I just want to say that I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

  “It’s all right, Bradley. He was your friend. It’s difficult to believe ill of a friend. I understand.”

  “No, that’s not it. My father always told me that a man had to admit his mistakes before he could do right in this world.”

  He shuffled his feet and looked around, finally bringing his blue eyes to her. “The mistake I made was believing that you wanted Mosle killed because he wouldn’t follow you. I thought you were being spiteful because he didn’t want to follow you. I made a mistake, and I’m sorry. Sorry I thought that of you. You were trying to protect us, even though you knew we would hate you for it. Well, I don’t hate you. I hope you don’t hate me. I’m honored to follow you into this battle. I hope that someday I’m half as wise as you, and have the guts you do, to use that wisdom.”

  She released a quiet sigh. “I’m hardly older than you, yet you make me feel like an old woman. I’m relieved, you understand. It’s a small pleasure in all this pain. You’re a fine officer, and will do right by this world.”

  He smiled. “I’m glad we’re on good terms again.”

  A man approached, and was waved forward by the captain. “What is it, Sergeant Frost?”

  Sergeant Frost gave a salute of his fist to his heart. “We sent a few men out, and in an abandoned barn they found some crushed chalk and other things needed to make whitewash. We have some wooden tubs we can mix it in. You said you wanted it in something big. They’re big enough to bathe in.”

  “How many of these tubs do you have?” Kahlan asked.

  “A dozen, Mother Confessor.”

  “Put the tubs near each other, and pitch a tent around each. Use the largest tents you have, even if it is the command tents. Make the whitewash with hot water, and place the heated stones inside the tents, to keep it as warm as possible inside. Let me know when all this is seen to.”

  Keeping his obvious questions to himself, the sergeant saluted and rushed off to see it done.

  Captain Ryan gave her a curious frown. “What do you want with whitewash?”

  “We’ve just gotten back on good terms; let’s not spoil it for a bit. I’ll tell you after things are prepared. Are the wagons ready?”

  “Should be.”

  “Then I must see to them. Did you send the sentries and lookouts?”

  “First thing.”

  As she walked through the camp to the wagons, men came to her constantly. “The wagon wheels, Mother Confessor. As we destroy things we should stave in the wheels’ and their battle standards, shouldn’t we burn them, so they can’t rally their men around them?” and “Couldn’t we set fire to their baggage, so if the weather turns colder they’ll freeze?” and “If we were to throw manure in their barrels of drinking water, they would have to waste time melting snow,” and a hundred other ideas, from the absurd to the worthwhile. She listened to each with attention, giving her honest opinion, and, in a few cases, her orders to see it done.

  Lieutenant Hobson came at a trot holding out a tin bowl. That was the last thing she needed.

  “Mother Confessor! I kept some stew hot for you!”

  Beaming, he handed her the bowl as she walked. She tried to act grateful. He walked along next to her, watching, grinning. She forced herself to take a spoonful, and to tell him how wonderful it tasted. It was all she could do to keep that one spoonful down.

  After using her power, a Confessor needed time to recover. For some it was days; for her it took a couple of hours. Rest, if she could get it, was the best thing for a Confessor after using her power. The little rest she had gotten was now wasted. She could get no more now, and probably would get none this night either.

  The last thing a Confessor needed while recovering her power was food. It diverted her energy to the food instead of returning her strength. She had to think of a way out of eating the bowl of stew or it would end up on the ground, to the embarrassment of all.

  Thankfully, she reached the wagons before she had to take another mouthful. She asked Lieutenant Hobson to get Chandalen and the two brothers, and bring them to her.

  After he left, she set the bowl down on the splinter bar of the dray with the casks of ale and climbed up.

  She motioned Captain Ryan up on the wagon as she counted. “Get some men. Unload the top rows so we can get at them all. Right the casks on the bottom row, and withdraw the plugs.” As he motioned for men to help with the task, she asked, “Did Chandalen have you all make a troga?”

  A troga was a simple, stout piece of cord or a wire with a wooden handle on each end, and long enough so that when it was given a twist, it made a loop that was the right size to drop over a man’s head. It was applied from behind, and then the handles yanked apart. If it was made of wire, placed correctly at the neck joints, and the man wielding it had arms big enough, his troga could decapitate a person before the victim had a chance to make a sound. Even if it wasn’t wire, or his arms were not that strong, the victim still made no sound before he died.

  Captain Ryan reached behind his back, under his coat, and retrieved a wire troga, holding it up for her to see. “He gave us a little demonstration. He was gentle, but I’m stil
l glad I wasn’t the one he demonstrated on. He says he and Prindin and Tossidin will use these to take the sentries and lookouts. I don’t think he believes we can sneak up on them like he can. But many of us have spent a lot of time hunting, and we’re more clever . . .”

  Captain Ryan leapt with a yelp. Chandalen had poked him in the ribs, having come up unseen behind him. The captain comforted his ribs and scowled at a smiling Chandalen. Prindin and his brother climbed up to help unload the barrels.

  “You wish something, Mother Confessor?” Chandalen asked.

  Kahlan held her hand out. “Give me your bandu. Your ten-step poison.”

  His brow wrinkled into a scowl, but he reached into the pouch at his waist and pulled out the bone box, leaning over to hand it to her. The brothers fished out their boxes, too, and handed them to her.

  “How much will I be able to poison with it? How many casks can I make poison?”

  Chandalen stepped around Captain Ryan, balancing atop the sides of the round barrels. “You are going to put it in this drink?” Kahlan nodded. “But then we won’t have any more. We must have it with us. We may need it.”

  “I’ll leave a bit for emergencies. Every one we can kill in this way is one less to fight.”

  “But they might discover it’s poison,” Captain Ryan said. “Then we won’t even have them drunk.”

  “They have dogs,” Kahlan said. “That’s why I want to send them food, too. They will throw the dogs some of the meat, to make sure it’s good. I’m hoping they will be put at ease after testing the food on the dogs, and anxious enough for the ale that the idea of it being poisoned won’t come into their heads.”

  Chandalen counted the barrels silently, and then straightened. “There are thirty-six. Twelve for each of our bandu.” He scratched his head of black hair while he pondered. “It will not kill them, unless they drink much, but it will make them sick.”

  “How sick? What will it do?”

  “It will make them weak. They will be sick in their stomachs. Their heads will spin inside. Maybe, some will die in a hand of days from the poison sickness.”

  Kahlan nodded. “It will be a great help.”

  “But this is hardly enough for all their men,” Captain Ryan said. “Only some will drink this.”

  “Some will go to the unit who plundered it, and the rest will be divided among the men of rank first, with what’s left going to the soldiers. The men of rank are the ones I’m after.”

  All the top rows were unloaded, leaving only the bottom row, which the men stood up so the plugs could be removed.

  “Why are six of these barrels smaller?”

  “They’re rum,” the captain said.

  “Rum? The drink of nobility?” Kahlan smiled. “The commanders will take the rum first.” She straightened from peering into one of the open casks. “Chandalen, will they be able to taste it? Will the taste give them warning, if I put more in some?”

  He dipped a finger in a cask of rum, and sucked it clean. “No. This is bitter enough. Bitter things hide the taste of bandu.”

  Kahlan used her knife point to divide the poison from Chandalen’s box into sixths. She swished each sixth off her knife point into the round opening in one of the smaller casks—those with the rum.

  Chandalen watched what she was doing. “That much, in the smaller barrels, will probably kill them by morning, the next day for sure. But now you have none for the other six.”

  Kahlan handed Chandalen back his bone box with a little of the bandu left in the corners and climbed down from the dray. “Six of the casks of ale will have no poison so that we can be sure the rum will kill those who drink it.” She put a knife point laden with poison from Tossidin’s box into each of the next twelve. “Mix all the barrels up. I don’t want the rum on the bottom. The commanders might not see it and take the ale instead.”

  Kahlan went to the last twelve and opened Prindin’s box. She looked up. “You don’t have very much. What have you done with yours?”

  Prindin looked as though he wished she hadn’t asked that question. He gestured vaguely. “When we left, I was not thinking so good. You were in a hurry, and so I forgot to see that my bandu box was full.”

  Chandalen put his fists on his hips and glared down from atop the wagon. “Prindin, how many times have I said that you would forget to take your feet could you walk away without them?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kahlan said. Prindin looked relieved to have her interrupt Chandalen’s questioning. “This will make them sick. That is all that matters.”

  As she was putting it in the barrels, she heard men in the distance hailing her. When she had swirled the poison into the last barrel, she looked up to see two huge draft horses trotting toward her. She frowned at seeing men riding them bareback, and calling out to her.

  The two powerful draft horses looked shaggy in their thick, dun-colored winter coats, with heavy white feathering on their legs. They wore their harnesses and neck collars, but not their breeching. Several bends of chain were looped over the inside hame of each collar. The men about all stared at the odd sight.

  When the horses came to a halt before her, the riders unhooked the loops of chain and dropped them to the ground. She realized then that the horses were connected by that chain, attached to the hame hooks on their collars. She had never seen such a thing. The two riders slid to the ground.

  “Mother Confessor!” Their grins made their salutes look a little silly. The both of them were gangly, with short-cropped brown hair. Neither looked as if he could be fifteen. Their wool coats were unbuttoned in the warming day, and fit them like gunnysacks on lapdogs. They both looked about to burst with excitement. They halted before getting too close, but even their fear of her couldn’t wither their breathless excitement.

  “What are your names?”

  “I’m Brin Jackson and this is Peter Chapman, Mother Confessor. We had an idea, and we wanted to show you. We think it’ll do the job. We’re sure it will. It’ll work some clever, it sure will.”

  Kahlan looked from one beaming face to the other. “What will do what job?”

  Brin almost leapt with joy at being asked. He hefted the chain lying in the snow between the big horses. “This!” He lugged a wad of chain to her and held it out. “This will do it, Mother Confessor. We thought of it ourselves! Peter and me.” He dumped the heavy chain on the ground. “Show her, Peter. Move ’em apart.”

  Peter’s head bobbed as he grinned. He sidestepped his horse until the heavy chain lifted off the snow. The sag of chain swung to and fro between the hame hooks on the collars. Kahlan and all the men with her frowned, trying to understand what the peculiar rig was for.

  Brin pointed at the chain. “You said we were going to leave the wagons, and we surely didn’t want to leave Daisy and Pip behind. Them’s our horses—Daisy and Pip. We’re drivers. We wanted to help, and make a good use of Daisy and Pip, so we took some of the biggest trace chains and asked Morvan, he’s the blacksmith, we asked Morvan to weld a couple of ’em together for us.” He nodded expectantly, as if that should explain it.

  Kahlan dipped her head toward him a little. “And now that he has?”

  Brin held his hands open in excitement. “You said we needed to take out their horses.” He couldn’t help giggling. “That’s what this is for! You said we’re going to attack at night. Their horses will be tethered to picket lines. We gallop Daisy and Pip down the picket line, one on each side, and the chain’ll break their legs out from under ’em! We’ll take out the whole line in one sweep!”

  Kahlan leaned back and folded her arms. She looked to Peter. He nodded, keen on the idea, too. “Brin, having horses chained together like that, at a gallop, and dragging a chain that will be catching things, heavy things, sounds to me very dangerous.”

  He wilted only a little. “But it could take out their horses! We can do it! We can get them for you!”

  “They have close to two thousand horses.”

  Peter wilted more. B
rin scrunched up his face as he looked at the ground for the first time. He scratched his shoulder. “Two thousand,” he finally whispered in disappointment.

  Kahlan glanced to Captain Ryan. He shrugged as if to say he didn’t know if it would work or not. The other men standing about rubbed their chins and shuffled their feet as they pondered the rig.

  “It will never do,” Kahlan said at last. Brin’s shoulders slumped more. “There are too many of them for you. You will need more horses set up like this.” Brin and Peter’s faces came up, their eyes widening. “Since you two know how to do it, I want you to get all the draft horses and their drivers together. This will be the best use of their skill.

  “Use all the equipment off the wagons or breeching you need. We’ll not be taking them anyway. Have the chains made up at once, and then I want you all to practice the rest of the day. I want you to set up things to drag the chains through. Heavy thing, so the horses will be used to what you’re going to do. You need to practice so each team of men and horses can work together.”

  Peter came forward and stood next to a beaming Brin. “We will, Mother Confessor! You’ll see! We can do it! You can count on us!”

  She gave them each a sobering look. “What you want to do is dangerous. But if you can do it, it will be a great benefit to us. It could save many of our lives. Their cavalry is deadly.

  “Take your gear and your practice seriously. Men will be trying to kill you when you do it for real.”

  They put their fists to their hearts, this time holding their chins up. “We’ll see to it, Mother Confessor. You can count on the drivers. We won’t let you down. We’ll get their horses.”

  After receiving her nod, they turned to their horses. Heads together, whispering in excitement, they went to their task. Kahlan watched a lone rider, in the distance, galloping through the camp. He stopped to ask a group of men something. They pointed in her direction.

  “They’ve only been with us a couple months,” Captain Ryan said. “They’re just boys.”

  Kahlan raised an eyebrow to him. “They are men, fighting for the Midlands. When I first saw you, I thought of you in much the same way you see them. Now I think you look a little older to me.”