Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

"I think you'd better take me, Ishaq. While Victor alerts everyone and sees to the preparations, you will be a representative of the mayor."

"All right," he said as he scratched the hollow of his cheek.

"Good," she said as she picked up the reins.

Before she could say anything else, Victor cleared his throat. "There is one other matter I've been meaning to talk to you about. But we've both been busy.»

Victor uncharacteristically looked away from her.

"What is it?" she asked him.

"Well, ordinarily I wouldn't say anything, but I think maybe you ought to know."

"Know what?"

"People are beginning to question Richard."

Nicci frowned. "Question him? What do you mean? Question him in what way?"

"Word has gotten around about why he left. People are worried that he is abandoning them and their cause to chase phantoms. They question if they should be following such a man. There is talk that he's — that he's, you know, deranged or something. What should I tell them?"

Nicci took a deep breath as she collected her thoughts. This was what she had feared. This was one of the reasons she had thought it important that he not leave-especially the way he did, right before the attack.

"Remind them," she said as she leaned toward him, "that Lord Rahl is a wizard, and a wizard can see things-such as hidden, distant threats-that they cannot. A wizard does not go around explaining his actions to people.

"The Lord Rahl has many responsibilities other than just this one place. If the people here wish to live free, to live their own lives as they wish, then they must choose to do so for their own sake. They must trust that Richard, as the Lord Rahl and as a wizard, is off doing what is best for our cause."

"And do you believe that?" the blacksmith asked.

"No. But there is a difference. I can follow the ideals he has shown me while at the same time working to bring Richard back to his senses. The two are not incompatible. But the people must trust in their leader. If they think he is a madman they may fall back on fear and give up. Right now we can't afford that risk.

"Whether Richard is sane or not it doesn't change the validity of the cause. The truth is the truth-Richard or no Richard.

"Those troops coming to murder us are real. If they win, then those who are not killed will be enslaved once more under the yoke of the Imperial Order. If Richard is alive, dead, sane, or mad, it does not change that fact."

Victor, his arms folded, nodded.

Nicci moved her leg back and pressed her heel into Sa'din's side, moving his rump closer to the wall. She turned the back of her shoulders to the blacksmith standing on that wall beside her. "Pull my dress down to my waist, and be quick about it-the sun will be setting soon."

Ishaq turned away, shaking his head.

Victor hesitated a moment, then sighed in resignation and did as she had instructed.

"All right, Ishaq, let's go. Lead the way." She looked back over her shoulder at Victor. "I will bring you the enemy, chasing the setting sun."

"What should I tell the men?" Victor asked.

Nicci shrouded herself in the cold exterior she had used so often throughout her life, the cold calm of Death's Mistress.

"Tell them to think dark and violent thoughts."

For the first time, Victor's glower twisted into a grim smile.

CHAPTER 26

The soldiers atop huge warhorses peered down at Nicci as Ishaq led her horse to a stop beside the community well in the small square at the eastern edge of the city. Her stallion, Sa'din, felt small in the presence of such huge beasts. Armored plate down the front of their heads lent them a threatening appearance. These were cavalry horses and the armor helped protect them from arrows as they charged enemy lines. They pawed the ground and snorted their disdain for the smaller horse come among them. Sa'din backed a step, just out of range of one of the warhorse's teeth when it snapped, but he didn't shy away.

If the horses looked to be frightening animals, the men were clearly their masters. Dressed in dark leather armor plates and shirts of chain mail and carrying an array of sinister weapons, these men were not merely brutish-looking but larger than any of the men defending the city. Nicci knew that they would have been selected for the mission because of the way they looked. The Order liked sending such intimidating messages to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies.

From dark windows, recessed doorways, narrow streets, and the shadows in alleyways people who had retreated out of the open watched the woman stripped to her waist, her wrists bound, being handed over to the soldiers. Nicci had endured the ride through the city by not thinking about it and instead focusing on her need to get this over with so she could catch up with Richard. That was what mattered. So people looked at her-what difference did it make? She had had to endure far worse at the hands of the men of the Order.