Stone of Tears (85 page)

Without surprise, they were nothing but a bunch of naked boys and one woman. If they tried a second time what had worked once, they would all die. They had to cleave their way through the Order, to the other side of the valley. D’Harans hacked in at the white forms. Her ankle was grasped by a powerful hand. She hewed it off and shook her foot to shed the disembodied hand.

They were in danger of being swallowed into the belly of this beast.

Disregarding the death cries of her men, disregarding her promise not to leave the protective ring of the fiercest Galean swordsmen, disregarding her promise not to deliberately put herself into peril, Kahlan charged Nick into the thick of the battle, and beyond—into the enemy.

Her sword stabbed to each side, into any enemy close enough. Teeth gritted, she swung at flesh and bone. Her wrist tingled from the jarring impacts, and her arm was so weary she feared she would not be able to lift the sword much longer.

Frightened that she would be taken down, her men poured ahead, toward her, with renewed resolve. They drove the dark wave back, rolling over it as she urged her horse forward into the sea of dark leather uniforms.

She stood in the stirrups, holding her sword high. “For Ebinissia! For her dead! For her spirit!”

It had the desired effect. Men of the Order who were confused by the white enemy, but were nonetheless determined to crush them, whatever they were, stopped and stared openly at a white, naked woman atop a horse suddenly in their midst. Their faith, that the attack was from men and not spirits, faltered. They gaped in open astonishment. She swept her gaze around at all the eyes peering up at her.

She swung the white sword in a circle over her head as a breeze ruffled her white hair back off her shoulders. “In the name of their spirits, I have come to avenge them!”

Leather clad men fell to their knees, dropping their swords, pressing prayerful hands together. They held those hands up to her. They wailed for protection. They called for her mercy. They cried for forgiveness. Had they been sober, she wondered, would the illusion be so convincing? As it was, the effect was apocalyptic.

“We grant no quarter!”

As all faces stared up toward her, as eyes shed tears of trepidation, weapons set upon them from behind. The sudden, violent, merciless wave of hard steel terrified them, convinced them that the spirits would have them all. They broke and ran, dropping weapons, screaming in fear of the underworld.

They had done what they had come to do. Time was now against them. They needed to escape.

They charged onward, a deadly, swift, river of white that poured over and around the tents and fires and wagons and men, surprising ever more of the lethargic enemy, killing as many as they could while rolling ahead. White death moved into the mist once again.

Kahlan glanced behind, and saw the pairs of draft horses, their riders holding the chains up between them. She waved them into the stream of white, urging them to move faster. They started unhooking one end of the chains from the hame hooks and looping the chain over the horn on the other horse, to give each horse freedom, now that they needed to make a quick escape.

In the distance, in the fog to the right, she saw a line of picketed horses. She saw Brin and Peter come together, snap the end of the chain over the other hook again and urge Daisy and Pip into gallops. She thought to scream at them, to order them to keep with the others, that they couldn’t hope to get them all, that they had done enough and must leave now, that it was too late. But she knew they wouldn’t hear her.

Brin dropped the loops of chain. They spread the horses to pull the steel taut as they peeled away toward the picket line of horses. The hooves of the big horses thundered across the ground. She took a last look at Brin and Peter, knowing it would be the last time she ever looked upon them in this world, and then turned her attention ahead.

She pointed with her sword. “There are the rest of the supply wagons!”

The men knew what to do. As she charged the column past, the wagons were doused with lamp oil. Wheels were staved in, and torches thrown. The wagons erupted in flame. More torches set fire to tents. The men brough awake by the noise and fire found blades sweeping at them. The fires faded into an orange glow in the mist behind as they plunged onward into the fog.

Suddenly they broke free of the camp, and were in open snow. Away from the camp, and its fires, the darkness pressed around them. The men in front faltered, looking about as the jogged.

“Scouts forward!” she yelled. “Where are the scouts!”

Two men charged through the ranks, to the fore, pointing out the direction of the pass they sought. She looked for the others, turning from side to side. None came. She galloped Nick to the van, after the two scouts.

“Where are the others! They were ordered to be in the lead!”

The round, wet eyes that looked up at her answered her question without words.

“All right,” she said, “You two know the way. Get us out of here.”

Fifty men had scouted the pass they wanted. Fifty, to be sure there would be a good number left to show the way. Two were left.

With a silent growl she cursed the spirits. Shamefaced, she called the curse back. They had at least left her those two; without them, they would be left to wander in the fog, freezing and vincible to the men of the Order chasing them.

She pulled Nick to a halt beside the stream of naked men. She swooped her arm frantically.

“Move move move! Run, curse you, run! They’ll be on top of us!” The men on the draft horses, Brin and Peter not among them, came abreast of her. “Drivers! Watch for the scout ahead! He’ll show you the stakes to follow.” They nodded that they remembered.

Men in D’Haran uniforms, with white cloth swatches sewn into their epaulets to show that they were in fact the Galean men who had infiltrated the enemy camp in the uniforms of the sentries, ran past. “Don’t forget to pull up the stakes before you get up on the horses.”

They were to double or triple up on the draft horses and ride to one of the other small camps established around the enemy. Earlier in the day, they had made trails all over the valley so that without the sticks stuck in the snow to mark the proper trail, none would know the way to those camps.

The trail through the snow from all the men on foot would be easy for the enemy to follow. But they had plans to take care of that.

In the distance, back toward the Order, she saw the rear guard engaged in a pitched battle. Lieutenant Sloan was supposed to keep that from happening, and keep the rear moving. Cursing anew, she galloped her horse back. Without pause, she charged between the two forces, spun and charged through again, separating the two sides. The leather clad D’Harans fell back at the sight of the white spirit woman atop a white horse.

She waded in among the Galeans. “What’s the matter with you! You know the orders! Run, or you won’t make it!”

The men started moving, trying to drag a body with them.

“Where’s Lieutenant Sloan! He’s supposed to be back here!”

The men nodded to the body they were dragging. The side of the head was gone, and she could see the exposed brain. It was lieutenant Sloan. The D’Harans charged in again. She pulled the reins and Nick reared. The D’Harans fell back once more.

“He’s Dead! Leave him! Run! Run you idiots! If any of you stops again for anything, I’ll make you fight the rest of this war naked! Now run!”

This time they took off in ernest, kicking up snow, running for their lives. Again she swept past the line of drunken D’Harans, causing them to stumble backwards and fall over one another in panic. She had to stall these men to give her own time to gain enough of a lead.

She ran Nick through the D’Harans, trampling those who got in the way. The men scattered in momentary dread of the white, spirit woman, some calling to the spirits for protection. But others came back swinging weapons. If they caught Nick’s legs …

She fought back with her sword and her warhorse, as they closed around her. Her men were fading into the fog.
Run
, she bid them,
run.
She swung the sword at men who reached out. The next time she glanced back, she saw nothing but dark fog and mist. She was losing her sense of direction as she wheeled Nick around, charging at the men, trying to buy her own men the time they needed to escape.

She tried to break away, but the enemy swarmed around her, with more coming all the time. Some yelled at the others that she was just a woman, and not a spirit, and they weren’t going to let a woman get away. She felt more naked than she had felt all night.

Men threw themselves around Nick’s legs, and although he reared and kicked them off, even more took their place, staggering the big horse with their weight. Kahlan hacked furiously at the men, shearing off arms, splitting skulls, and stabbing bodies.

With a sea of men all around her, she suddenly realized that her situation was untenable. She knew that if they got her off her horse, she was finished, and her horse was being hobbled. Try as she might, she couldn’t get the men away.

For the first time that night, she truly feared she wasn’t going to make it. She was going to die, here, in the snow, in this mist shrouded valley. She would never see Richard again.

She felt an abrupt, icy pain in the bite on her neck. Darken Rahl’s bite. She thought she heard quiet laughter in the air.

She slashed away at the men grabbing for her. Powerful fingers clutched her legs. The pain of those fingers urged her into frantic stabbing. Nick managed to spin, the men’s feet flying outward, but they held on tight. She slashed and hacked the arms. More caught hold of her horses bit, taking control from her. A horse was valuable plunder, and they didn’t want it killed, as long as they thought they were in control of the situation.

A big soldier grabbed the horn of her saddle, dragging himself up. “Don’t kill her! It’s the Mother Confessor! Don’t kill her! She must be alive when she’s beheaded!”

She slashed the side of his neck, A fountain of hot blood gushed across her thigh. Another yelled, “Don’t kill her! Bring the bitch down!” A cheer went up from the reaching men.

She swung at the grasping hands. Fingers raked her legs. Eyes all around leered up at her. She slashed wildly as Nick stumbled sideways, trying to pull his head free, but the men held his bit tight.

A man leapt up from behind and snatched her by the hair. She let out a cry as he yanked her backwards off the saddle. Hands grappled her as she tumbled to the ground. Everyone went down in a pile under her. Big hands seized her by her legs, her waist, her ankles, and her breasts.

Fingers wrapped around the blade, trying to wrench it from her. She twisted the hilt, severing the fingers. She swung and stabbed ferociously. Bodies pressed her to the cold ground, pressed the wind from her lungs. She bit the fingers covering her mouth. A huge fist struck her across the jaw.

They finally seized her flailing arms.

There were too many.

Dear Richard, I love you.

Kahlan struggled to draw a breath, but with the weight of men on her, she couldn’t. Tears stung her eyes. More men piled on. A beefy elbow in her middle pressed into her, feeling as if it would squash her in two. Drunken breath bathed her face.

Her vision dwindled to a small spot. Everything around the center was going black, and the center was shrinking. She swallowed a mouthful of blood. Her own.

She heard what sounded like the distant rumble of thunder. At first, she could only feel the vibration in her back against the ground, but then the sound swelled, growing louder, sharper. The screams of men reached her ears.

Some of the men over her looked up. Their weight lifted a bit, and she sucked air into her lungs. It was the sweetest breath she had ever drawn.

As the giant of a man atop her, the one who had struck her face, turned to the sound of thunder, turned his fierce eye from her, she saw that his other had a scar across it, and down his cheek. That empty eye was sewn shut. Somehow, her left hand squirmed free. She seized his throat.

She heard a metallic rattle. The thunder, she suddenly realized, was horses’ hooves. Erupting out of the fog, Brin and Peter, atop Daisy and Pip, galloped at a full charge down the line of D’Harans, mowing them down with the chain. They raced toward her like a landslide felling trees. The men stared in frozen shock. Kahlan’s fingers clutched around the one eyed man’s throat.

And then she released her power.

The magic slammed into him.

Thunder without sound rattled all the chain mail.

The staggering jolt made the men flinch back. They all cried out with the pain of being so close as the magic was loosed. A ring of snow lifted, sweeping outward in a circle.

Nick was standing over her, and he jumped with the pain, too. His hind leg came down on a man’s head right next to her ear. Bone crunched under the weight. Hot blood and gore splattered the side of her face.

The one eye of the man above her gaped at her. “Mistress!” he whispered. “Please command me.”

“Protect me!” she screamed.

He sat up abruptly, his massive muscles bulging. He held the hair of a man in each fist. He tossed them back as if they were mere children.

Her sword arm was free. She swung at a man to the other side, the blade ruining his face. The one eyed man roared as he tossed men aside. The draft horses rushed onward at a full charge.

She was free of the hands. She leaped to her feet. The chain was almost upon them.

“Help me up on my horse!”

The one eyed man grabbed her ankle in his big fist and, with one arm, boosted her up into the saddle. Somehow she still had the sword in her hand. She leaned forward and swung it at the man holding the bit, holding his prize. The sword’s tip sliced open the side of his face and half the length of his arm. He staggered back with a shriek. She snatched up the reins. The one eyed man bellowed as he lopped off heads and ripped open chests with his huge war axe.

“Go, Mistress! Escape! Orsk will protect you!”

“I’m going! Run, Orsk! Don’t let them get you!”

The D’Harans abandoned her and her horse to turn to the new threats—Orsk and the chain. She thumped Nick’s ribs with her heels, urging him into a gallop just as Brin and Peter caught up with her. She stuffed her bare feet into the stirrups as the three of them raced away.

She spotted the trail that hundreds of feet had left in the snow and followed it across the valley, into the mist, leaving the men of the army of the Order to collect their wits. It took them mere seconds. They charged after her. There were more than enough still alive. Thousands.

Peter unhooked the chain that must have broken hundreds of bones, and necks. The end of the chain bounced behind. Brin’s bony fingers drew in the dragging slack and coiled it over the hame.

As she galloped into the night, she thought she could hear the sound of soft laughter fading behind. She shivered with the memory of the kiss Darken Rahl had left on her neck. She felt suddenly very naked again.

Though the mist was icy cold, feeling like sparkling flecks all over her, she was sweating. Blood ran from her swollen lip.

“I never thought I would see you two again,” she yelled over the sound of hooves.

Brin and Peter, in their too-big coats, grinned in the darkness. “We told you we could do the job,” Brin said.

She smiled for the first time that night. “You two are a marvel.”

She just caught sight of the hindquarters of the other draft horses disappearing into the fog. She pointed. “There are your men. Good luck.” With a wave, they turned away from her.

She galloped on alone, and a short distance later caught up with the men on foot. She first saw only one. He had a horrific gash on his leg and had fallen far behind. She knew she should leave him. She knew she should. The D’Harans were right behind.

As she rode up to him, he turned his head up as he struggled through the snow. He knew she had to leave him. Those were the orders. Her orders. Keep up, or be left behind. No exceptions.

As she rode by, she leaned over, extending her arm down. They clasped wrists and she yanked him up behind her.

“Hold on, soldier.”

He held his arms out, trying to balance as the horse ran, afraid to touch her. “But … where?”

“Around my waist! Put your arms around my waist!”

He still heald his arms out as he bounced. “But …”

“Haven’t you ever put your arms around a woman before!”

“Yes … but she had clothes on,” he whined.

“Do it, or you’ll fall off, and I’m not coming back for you.”

Reluctantly, carefully, he put his arms around her waist, stiffly trying to keep them away from anything important, or unfamiliarly exotic. Kahlan gave the back of his hands a pat of reassurance. “When you brag about this, don’t make it more than it is.” He let out a small, worried groan that made her smile.

As they rode on, she could feel his warm blood running down the back of her leg, dripping from her toes in the stirrup. She could hear the shouts of the enemy chasing behind.

He was losing a lot of blood. In exhaustion, he laid his head against the back of her shoulder. If they didn’t tie his wound closed, he would bleed to death in short order. She was naked, and had nothing to use as a bandage, even if they had the time to stop.

“Hold the wound closed with a hand,” she said. “Clamp it closed as tight as you can. And hold fast to me with your other arm. I don’t want you falling off.”

He took one arm from her waist and held the gash closed as she rode right on the heels of the men at the end of the line. They were cold and fatigued. The men of the Order were not far behind. As she looked back, they came into sight. She was shocked by the numbers. They hooted and hollered.

“Run! Run or we will be caught!”

A wall of rock, with scraggly trees growing from cracks and clefts, loomed up before them. The men ran up the narrow pass as if their lives depended on it. And they did.

As they began the climb up the rift, she rang the flat of her sword three times on the rock, giving the signal.

A man ahead turned as he ran. “We’re not there yet! It’s too soon! We’ll be caught along with the enemy!”

“Then you better run faster! If we wait too long, they will get through, too!”

She rapped the rock wall three more times, the ringing sound carrying into the dark, damp air. She hoped it would work; there, of course, had been no way to perform a test. The men ahead scrambled up the trail. Nick’s hooves slipped in places on the snow covered rock.

At first, she could only feel it, a rumbling deep in her chest, too low to hear, but too powerful not to be felt. She looked up along the mist slicked rock that disappeared above into the dark and fog. She couldn’t see it yet, but she could feel it.

She hoped the man was wrong, that it wouldn’t be too soon. When she heard the battle cries of the men coming from behind, she knew they had no choice.

And then, she could hear it; a booming roar, as if the ground itself were moving. She could hear tree trunks snapping. The thundering growl reverberated off the surrounding mountain walls. The ground vibrated.

“Run! Can’t you run any faster! Do you want to be buried alive? Run!”

She knew they were going as fast as they could, but they were on foot, and from atop her horse, it seemed painfully slow. Deadly slow.

Overhead, the rumbling roar grew louder as uncountable tons of snow crashed down toward them. She was thrilled that the men on top had been successful in starting an avalanche on command; but she was also terrified that she had given the command too soon.

A lump of wet snow slapped her face; another smacked her shoulder. Little clods rattled through the trees above them and bounced out over the edge. A cloud of fluffy snow misted her face. The roar was deafening.

A flow of thundering white sluiced over the ledge above. They drove through the forward flow, like running through a waterfall. Behind her, a tree trunk bounced on the trail, spinning out over the precipice. They just cleared the leading edge of the bulk of snow.

The men of the Imperial order behind were not so lucky. The plunging snow, charged with timber and boulders, cascaded down with ever gathering power. They were swept away in the tumbling, white death. The fury of sound muffled the screams of men it carried away, rolling them into the pounding slide, burying them alive.

Kahlan sagged with relief. They could not be followed, now. The pass was entombed.

The panting men slowed, but they couldn’t slow too much, or they would freeze. Their pace kept them warm. Their feet, she knew, despite being wrapped in white cloth for a little protection, were not warm. They had given her their best effort. They had given the Midlands their best effort. Many had given their lives.

Kahlan was so exhausted from lack of sleep, as well as the fatigue of battle, along with the emotional drain of fright, and the effort required to use her power, that she could hardly stay upright. Soon, she told herself, she could rest. Soon.

She patted the hand on her stomach. “We made it, soldier. We’re safe, now.”

“Yes, Mother Confessor,” He whispered groggily. “Mother Confessor, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I only killed seventeen. I’m sorry. I promised myself I’d get twenty. I only got seventeen,” he mumbled.

“I know heros of battle, decorated men, who have not bested half that number in combat. You have made me proud. You have made the Midlands proud. Feel only pride, soldier.”

He mumbled something she couldn’t understand.

She patted his hand again. “You’ll be to help soon. Hold on. You’ll be fine.”

He didn’t answer. She looked behind, down the trail, and saw only white, and heard only silence. In the distant, dark mountains, a wolf yipped.

A short time later, on a high plateau, they reached the camp. The men ahead in the line were already wrapped in blankets as they shivered around fires, warming their feet. Some were pulling on their clothes under the blankets. More men threw blankets around the men coming in ahead of her and tended the wounded. Some of the wounded were groaning in pain, feeling it for the first time, now that the heady furor of combat and escape had evaporated. She began to feel a throbbing in her lip.

In the flickering light of small fires, she could see Prindin and Tossidin, some distance away, running around searching the new arrivals. When they saw her on the horse, they both sighed with relief, giving her twin smiles.

Captain Ryan, dressed in a D’Haran uniform and with a bandage around his left hand, ran over. Other men took the reins, and yet others extended their hands to take the man behind her as she held him by an elbow, lowering the limp form down.

Prindin ran to meet her, her mantle in hand. He stood, holding the it open for her, waiting for her to dismount so he could put it around her shoulders. He grinned at her.

Without moving from the saddle, she slowly extended her hand. “I have had enough eyes on my flesh to last me the rest of my life. Throw it up here!”

Prindin shrugged self-consciously and tossed the mantle up to her. Tossidin swatted the back of his brother’s head. Silence fell over the gathered men. They all looked away in embarrassment as she put the mantle around her shoulders and tied it.