Naked Empire (48 page)

Rikka snatched the paper from her hand and stood facing away as she read it. She cursed under her breath.

“We have to go get him,” Rikka said. “We have to get Zedd and Adie away from Jagang.”

Captain Zimmer shook his head. “There is no way we could accomplish such a thing.”

Rikka’s face went red with rage. “He’s saved my life before! Yours, too! We have to get him out of there!”

In contrast to Rikka’s anger, Verna spoke softly. “We all feel the same about him. Zedd has probably saved all of our lives more than once. Unfortunately, Jagang will do all the worse to him for it.”

Rikka shook the message before their faces. “So we are just going to let him die there? Let Jagang kill him? We sneak in, or something!”

Captain Zimmer rested the heel of his hand on a long knife at his belt. “Mistress Rikka, if I told you that I had a man hidden somewhere in this camp, in one of the hundreds of thousands of tents, and no one would bother you or ask you any questions, but would allow you to freely go about a search, how long do you think it would take you to find such a hidden man?”

“But they won’t be in just any tent,” Rikka said. “Look at us, here. This message came. Did it go to just any random tent in the whole camp? No, it went to a place where such things are handled.”

“I’ve been to the Imperial Order encampment too many times to count,” Captain Zimmer said as he cast his arm out toward the enemy over the mountains to the west. “You can’t even imagine how big their camp is. They have millions of men there.

“Their encampment is a quagmire of cutthroats. It’s a place of chaos. That disorder allows us to slip in, kill some of them, and get out fast. You don’t want to be there very long. They recognize outsiders, especially blond outsiders.

“Moreover, there are layers of different kinds of men. Most of the soldiers are little more than a mob of thugs that Jagang turns loose from time to time. None of them are allowed beyond a certain point within their own camp. The men guarding the areas with higher security are not nearly so stupid and lazy as the common soldiers.

“The men in those protected areas aren’t as numerous as the common soldiers, but they are trained professionals. They are alert, vigilant, and deadly. If you could somehow manage to get through the sea of misfits to reach the island at the core where the torture and command tents are, those professional soldiers would have you on the end of a pike in no time.

“Even they are not all the same. The outer ring of this core, besides having these professionals guarding it, is where the Sisters are. They both live there and use magic to watch for intruders. Beyond them are further rings, starting with the elite guards, and then, finally, the emperor’s personal guards. These are men who have been fighting with Jagang for years. They kill anyone, even the elite guard officers, if they become at all suspicious of them. If they even hear word of someone saying disparaging things about the emperor, they hunt them down and have them tortured. After being tortured, if they live through it, they are then put to death.

“I’m not saying that my men and I would be unwilling to risk our lives trying to get Zedd out of there; I’m saying that we would be giving our lives up for nothing.”

The mood in the tent could not have been more hopeless.

The general gestured with the paper when Rikka handed it back. “Any idea what a Slide is, Prelate?”

Verna met his blue-eyed gaze. “A soul stealer.”

The general frowned. “A what?”

“In the great war—three thousand years ago—the wizards of that time created weapons out of people. Dream walkers, like Jagang, were one such weapon. The best way I can explain it to you is that a Slide is in some ways like a dream walker. A dream walker can enter a person’s mind and seize control of them. A Slide, I believe, is something like that, only he seizes your spirit, your soul.”

Rikka made a face. “Why?”

Verna lifted her hands in frustration. “I don’t really know. To control their victim, perhaps.

“Altering gifted people was an ancient practice. They sometimes changed gifted people with magic to suit a specific purpose. With Subtractive Magic they took away traits they didn’t want, and then they used Additive Magic to add to or enhance a trait they did want. What they created were monsters.

“I’m not really well versed in the subject. When I became Prelate I had access to books I had never seen before. That’s where I saw the reference to Slides. They were used to slip into another person’s being and steal the essence of who they where—their spirit, their soul.

“Altering people in such a way as to create these Slides is a long-dead art. I’m afraid that I don’t know a great deal about the subject. I do remember reading that the ones called Slides were exceedingly dangerous.”

“Long-dead art,” the general muttered. He looked like he was making a great effort to restrain himself. “Those wizards of that time made such weapons as Slides, but how could Jagang? He’s no wizard. Could it be that he’s lying?”

Verna thought about the question a moment. “He has gifted people under his direct control. Some are able to use underworld magic. As I said, I don’t know a great deal about it, but I suppose it’s possible that he was able to do it.”

“How?” the general demanded. “How could Jagang do such things? He’s not even a wizard.”

Verna clasped her hands before herself. “He has Sisters of the Light and the Dark. In theory, I suppose he has what he needs. He is a man who studies history. I know from personal experience that he puts great value in books. He has an extensive and quite valuable collection. Nathan, the prophet, was very concerned about this very thing, and destroyed a number of important volumes before they could fall into Jagang’s possession.

“Still, the emperor possesses a great many others—in fact, he has a huge collection. Now that he has captured the Keep, he has access to important libraries. Those books are dangerous, or they wouldn’t have been sealed away in the Wizard’s Keep in the first place.”

“And now Jagang has control of them.” General Meiffert ran his fingers back through his hair. He gripped the back of the chair set before the small table and leaned his weight on his arms. “Do you think he really has Zedd and Adie?”

The question was a plea for some thread of hope. Verna swallowed as she carefully considered the question. She answered in an honest voice, not wanting to be the founder of a false faith. Since she’d read the message from Jagang, she, herself, had been searching for that same thread of hope.

“I don’t think he’s a man who would find any satisfaction in bragging about something he hadn’t actually accomplished. I think he must be telling us the truth and wants to gloat over his accomplishment.”

The general released his grip on the chair and turned as he considered Verna’s words. Finally, he asked a question worse yet.

“Do you think he’s telling the truth that this Slide has Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor? Do you think this terrible creation, this Slide, will soon deliver the two of them to Jagang?”

Verna wondered if this was the reason for Ann and Nathan’s headlong rush down through the Old World. Verna knew that Richard and Kahlan were down there, somewhere. There could be no more urgent reason for Ann and Nathan to race south. Was it possible that this Slide had already captured them, or captured their souls? Verna’s heart sank. She wondered if Ann already knew that the Slide had Richard, and that was why she wasn’t saying much about her mission.

“I don’t know,” Verna finally answered.

“I think Jagang just made a mistake,” Captain Zimmer said.

Verna lifted an eyebrow. “Such as?”

“He has just betrayed to us how much trouble he’s having with the passes. He’s just told us how well our defenses are working and how desperate he is. If he doesn’t get through this season, his whole army will have to sit out another winter. He wants us to let him through.

“D’Haran winters are hard, especially on men such as his, men not used to the conditions. I saw with my own eyes good indications of how many men he lost last winter. Hundreds of thousands of men died from disease.”

“He has plenty of men,” General Meiffert said. “He can afford the losses. He has a steady supply of new troops to replace the ones who died from the fevers and sickness last winter.”

“So, you think the captain is wrong?” Verna asked.

“No, I agree that Jagang would like very much to get it over with; I just don’t think he cares how many of his men die. I think he’s eager to rule the world. Patient as he generally is, he sees the end at hand, the goal within his grasp. We’re the only thing standing in his way, keeping his prize from falling to him. His men, too, are impatient for the plunder.

“His choice to split the New World first by driving up to Aydindril has left him close to his goal, but in some ways, even more distant from it. If he can’t make it through the passes, he may decide to pick up his army and make a long march back south again, to the Kern River valley, to where he can then come over and up into D’Hara. Once his army takes to the open ground down south, there’s no way for us to stop them.

“If he can’t break through the passes now, it means a long march and a long delay, but he will still have us in the end. He would rather have us now and is willing to offer the lives of our men to close a deal.”

Verna stared off. “It’s a grave mistake to try to appease evil.”

“I agree,” General Meiffert said. “Once we opened the passes, he would slaughter every last man.”

The mood in the tent was as gloomy as the sky outside.

“I think we should send him back a letter,” Rikka said. “I think we should tell him that we don’t believe him that he has Zedd and Adie. If he expects us to believe him, he should prove it; he should send us their heads.”

Captain Zimmer smiled at the suggestion.

The general tapped a finger on the table as he thought it over. “If it’s as you say, Prelate, and Jagang really does have them, then there’s nothing we can do about it. He will kill them. After what Zedd did to Jagang’s force back in Aydindril, to say nothing of all the havoc he caused the Imperial Order last summer when the Mother Confessor was with us, I know it won’t be an easy death, but he will kill them in the end.”

“Then you agree that nothing else can be done,” Verna said.

General Meiffert wiped a hand across his face. “I hate admitting it, but I’m afraid they’re lost. I don’t think we should give Jagang the satisfaction of knowing how we truly feel about it.”

Verna’s head spun at the thought of Zedd and Adie being put to torture, of them being in the hands of Jagang and his Sisters of the Dark. She quailed at the thought of the D’Haran forces losing Zedd. There simply was no one with his experience and knowledge. There was no one who could replace him.

“We write Jagang a letter, then,” Verna said, “and tell Jagang we don’t believe he has Zedd and Adie.”

“The only thing we can do,” Rikka said, “is to deny Jagang what he wants most. What he wants is for us to give up.”

General Meiffert pulled out the chair at the table, inviting Verna to sit and write the letter. “If Jagang is angered by such a letter, he just might send us their heads. If he did, that would spare them terrible suffering. That’s the only thing we can do for them—the best we could do for them.”

Verna took stock of the grim faces and saw only resolve at what had to be done. She sat in the chair the general held for her, wiggled the stopper out of the ink bottle, and then took a piece of paper from a small stack in a box to the side.

She dipped the pen and stared at the paper for a moment, trying to decide how to phrase the letter. She tried to imagine what Kahlan would write. As it came to her, she bent over the table and began writing.

I don’t believe you are competent enough to capture Wizard Zorander. If you were, you would send us his head to prove it. Don’t bother me anymore with your whining for us to open the passes for you because you are too inept to do it yourself.

Reading over Verna’s shoulder, Rikka said, “I like it.”

Verna looked up at the others. “How should I sign it?”

“What would make Jagang the most angry—or worried?” Captain Zimmer asked.

Verna tapped the back of the pen against her chin as she thought. Then it came to her. She put pen to paper.

Signed, the Mother Confessor.

Richard scanned the site off in the broad, green valley, watching for any sign of troops. He looked over at Owen.

“That’s Witherton?”

Hands pressed against the rich forest floor at the crown of a low ridge, Owen pulled himself closer to the edge. He stretched his neck to see over the rise and finally nodded before pulling back.

Richard had thought it would be bigger. “I don’t see any soldiers.”

Owen crawled back away from the edge. In the shadowed cover among ferns and low scrub, he stood and brushed the moist crumbles of leaves from his shirt and trousers.

“The men of the Order mostly stay inside the town. They have no interest in helping to do the work. They eat our food and gamble with the things they have taken from our people. When they do these things they are interested in little else.” His face heated to red. “At night, they used to collect some of our women.” Since the reason was obvious enough, Owen didn’t put words to it. “In the daytime they sometimes come out to check on our people who work in the fields, or watch to see that they come back in at night.”

If the soldiers had once camped outside the city walls, they no longer did. Apparently, they preferred the more comfortable accommodations within the town. They had learned that these people would offer no resistance; they could be cowed and controlled by words alone. The men of the Imperial Order were safe sleeping among them.

The wall around Witherton blocked much of Richard’s view of the place. Other than through the open gates, there wasn’t much to see. The wall was constructed of upright posts not a great deal taller than the height of a man. The posts, a variety of sizes no bigger around than a hand-width, were bound tightly together, top and bottom, with rope. The wavy wall snaked around the town, leaned in or out in places. There was no bulwark, or even a trench before the wall. Other than keeping out grazing deer or maybe a roaming bear, the walls certainly didn’t look strong enough to withstand an attack from the Imperial Order soldiers.

The soldiers had no doubt made a point of using the gate into the town for reasons other than the strength of the wall. Opening the gates for soldiers of the Imperial Order had been a symbolic sign of submission.

Broad swaths of the valley were clear of trees, leaving fields of grain to grow alongside row crops in communal gardens. Tree limbs knitted into fencing kept in cows. There, the wild grasses were chewed low. Chickens roamed freely near coops. A few sheep grazed on the coarse grass.

The smells of rich soil, wildflowers, and grasses carried on a light breeze into the woods where Richard watched. It was a great relief to have finally descended from the pass. It had been getting difficult to breathe in the thin air up on the high slopes. It was considerably warmer, too, down out of the lofty mountain pass, although he still felt cold.

Richard checked the sweep of open valley one last time and then he and Owen made their way back into the dense tangle of woods toward where the others waited. The trees were mostly hardwoods, maple and oak, along with patches of birch, but there were also stands of towering evergreens. Birds chirped from the dense foliage. A squirrel up on the limb of a pine chattered at them as they passed. The deep shade below the thick forest crown was interrupted only occasionally by mottled sunlight.

Some of the men, swatting at bugs, stood in a rush when Richard led Owen into the secluded forest opening. Richard was glad to stand in the warmth of sunlight slanting in at a low angle.

It appeared that the open area in the dense woods had been created when a huge old maple had been hit by lightning. The maple split and fell in two directions, taking other trees down with it. Kahlan hopped down off her seat on the trunk of the fallen monarch. Betty, her tail wagging in a blur, greeted Richard, eagerly looking for attention, or a treat. Richard scratched behind her ears, the goat’s favorite form of attention.

More of the men came into the open from behind upturned roots that had been turned silver by years of exposure to the elements. A crop of spruce, none more than chest high, had sprung up in the sunny spot created when the old maple had died such a sudden and violent death. Spread among Kahlan, Cara, Jennsen, and Tom were the rest of the men—his army.

Back up in the pass, Ansons saying that he wanted to help rid his people of the Imperial Order soldiers seemed to have galvanized the rest of the men, and the balance had finally tipped. Once it had, a lifetime of darkness and doubt gave way to a hunger to live in the light of truth. The men all declared, in a breathtaking moment of determination, that they wanted to join with Richard to be part of the D’Haran Empire and fight the soldiers of the Imperial Order to gain their freedom.

They had all decided that the men of the Order were evil and deserved death, even if they themselves had to do the killing.

When Tom glanced down to see Betty going back to browsing on weeds, Richard noticed that the man’s brow was beaded with sweat. Cara fanned herself with a handful of big leaves from a mountain maple. Richard was about to ask them how they could be sweating when it was such a cool day when he realized that it was the poison making him cold. With icy dread, he recalled how the last time he had gotten cold, the poison had nearly killed him that awful night.

Anson and another man, John, took off their packs. They were the ones planning to slip in among the field-workers returning to town at nightfall. Once they sneaked into town, the two men planned to recover the antidote.

“I think I’d better go with you,” Richard said to Anson. “John, why don’t you wait here with the others.”

John looked surprised. “If you wish, Lord Rahl, but there is no need for you to go.”

It wasn’t supposed to be a foray that would result in any violence, only the recovery of the antidote. The attack on the Imperial Order soldiers was to be after the antidote had been safely recovered and they had assessed the situation, the number of men, and the layout.

“John is right,” Cara said. “They can do it.”

Richard was having difficulty breathing. He had to make an effort not to cough.

“I know. I just think I had better have a look myself.”

Cara and Kahlan cast sidelong glances at each other.

“But if you go in there with Anson,” Jennsen said, “you can’t take your sword.”

“I’m not going to start a war. I just want to get a good look around at the place.”

Kahlan stepped closer. “The two of them can scout the town and give you a report. You can rest—they will only be gone a few hours.”

“I know, but I don’t think I want to wait that long.”

By the way she appraised his eyes, he thought she must be able to see how much pain he was in. She didn’t argue the point further but instead nodded her agreement.

Richard pulled the baldric and sword belt off over his head. He slipped it all over Kahlan’s head, laying the baldric across her shoulder.

“Here. I pronounce you Seeker of Truth.”

She accepted the sword and the honor by planting her fists on her hips. “Now don’t you go starting anything while you’re in there. That’s not the plan. You and Anson will be alone. You wait until we’re all together.”

“I know. I just need to get the antidote and then we’ll be back in no time.”

Beside getting the antidote, Richard wanted to see the enemy forces, how they were placed, and the layout of the town. Having the men draw a map in the dirt was one thing, seeing it for himself was another; these men didn’t know how to evaluate threat points.

One of the men took off his light coat, something a number of the men wore, and held it out to Richard. “Here, Lord Rahl, wear this. It will make you look more like one of us.”

With a nod of thanks, Richard drew the coat on. He had changed out of his war wizard’s outfit into traveling clothes, so he didn’t think he would look out of place with the way the men from the town of Witherton looked. The man was nearly Richard’s size, so the coat fit well enough. It also hid his belt knife.

Jennsen shook her head. “I don’t know, Richard. You just don’t look like one of them. You still look like Lord Rahl.”

“What are you talking about?” Richard held out his arms, looking down at himself. “What’s wrong with the way I look?”

“Don’t stand up so straight,” she said.

“Hunch your shoulders and hang your head a little,” Kahlan offered.

Richard took their advice seriously; he hadn’t thought about it, but the men did tend to hunch a lot. He didn’t want to stand out. He had to blend in if he didn’t want to raise the suspicions of the soldiers. He bent over a little.

“How’s that?”

Jennsen screwed up her mouth. “Not much different.”

“But I’m bending down.”

“Lord Rahl,” Cara said in a soft voice as she gave him a meaningful look, “you remember how it was to walk behind Denna, when she held the chain to the collar around your neck. Make yourself like that.”

Richard blinked at her. The mental image of his time as a captive of a Mord-Sith hit him like a slap. He pressed his lips tight, not saying anything, and conceded with a single nod. The memory of that forsaken time was depressing enough that he would have no trouble using it to fall into the role.

“We had better be on our way,” Anson said. “Now that the sun is falling behind the mountains, darkness comes quickly.” He hesitated, then spoke again. “Lord Rahl, the men of the Order will not know you—I mean they probably will not realize you aren’t from our town. But our people do not carry weapons; if they see that knife, they will know you are not from our town, and they will send up an alarm.”

Richard lifted open the coat, looking at the knife. “You’re right.” He loosened his belt and removed the sheath holding the knife. He handed it to Cara for safekeeping.

Richard cupped a hand quickly to the side of Kahlan’s face as a way of saying his good-bye. She seized the hand in both of hers and pressed a quick kiss to the backs of his fingers. Her hands looked so small and delicate holding his. He sometimes kidded her that he didn’t see how she could possibly get anything done with such small hands. Her answer was that her hands were a normal size and perfectly adequate, and his were simply outsized.

The men all noticed Kahlan’s gesture of affection. Richard was not embarrassed that they did. He wanted them to know that other people were the same as they in important, human ways. This was what they were fighting for—the chance to be human, to love and cherish loved ones, to live their lives as they wanted.

The light faded quickly as Richard and Anson made their way through the woods running beside fields of wild grasses. Richard wanted to work around to where the forest came in closer to the men out weeding in the gardens and tending to animals. With the nearby mountains to the west being so high, the sun vanished behind them earlier than what would normally be sunset, leaving the sky a swath of deep bluish green and the valley in an odd golden gloom.

By the time he and Anson had reached the place where they would leave the woods, it was still a little too light, so they waited a short while until Richard felt the murky light in the fields was dim enough to hide them. The town was some distance away and since Richard couldn’t make out any men outside the gates, he reasoned that if soldiers were watching, then they couldn’t see him, either.

As they moved quickly through the field of wild grass, staying low and out of sight, Anson pointed. “There, those men going back to town, we should follow them.”

Richard spoke quietly back over his shoulder. “All right, but don’t forget, we don’t want to catch up with them or they might recognize you and make a fuss. Let them stay a good distance ahead of us.”

When they reached the town walls, Richard saw that the gates were no more than two sections of the picket walls. A couple of posts no bigger than Richard’s wrist had been tied sideways to stiffen two sections of wall and make them into gates. The ropes that tied the posts together served as the hinges. The sections were simply lifted and swung around to open or close them. It was far from a secure fortification.

In the murky light of twilight, the two guards milling around just inside the gates and watching workers return couldn’t really see much of Richard and Anson. To the guards, they would appear to be two more workers. The Order understood the value of workers; they needed slaves to do the work so that the soldiers might eat.

Richard hunched his shoulders and hung his head as he walked. He remembered those terrible times as a captive when, wearing a collar, he walked behind Denna, devoid of all hope of ever again being free. Thinking of that inhuman time, he shuffled through the open gates. The guards didn’t pay him any attention.

Just as they were nearly past the guards, the closest one reached out and snatched Anson’s sleeve, spinning him back around.

“I want some eggs,” the young soldier said. “Give me some of the eggs you collected.”

Anson stood wide-eyed, not knowing what to do. It seemed ludicrous that these two young men were allowed to serve their cause by being bullies. Richard stepped up beside Anson and spoke quickly, remembering to bow his head so that he wouldn’t loom over the man.

“We have no eggs, sir. We were weeding the bean fields. I’m sorry. We will bring you eggs tomorrow, if it pleases you.”

Richard glanced up just as the guard backhanded him, knocking him flat on his back. He instantly took a firm grip on his anger. Wiping blood from his mouth, he decided to stay where he was.

“He’s right,” Anson said, drawing the guard’s attention. “We were weeding beans. If you wish it, we will bring you some eggs tomorrow—as many as you want.”

The guard grunted a curse at them and swaggered off, taking his companion with him. They headed for a nearby long, low structure with a torch lashed to a pole outside a low door. In the flickering light of that torch, Richard couldn’t make out what the place was, but it appeared to be a building dug partway into the ground so that the eaves were at eye level. After the two soldiers were a safe distance away, Anson offered Richard a hand to help him up. Richard didn’t think he’d been hit that hard, but his head was spinning.