Faith of the Fallen

"We'll get him back, dear one," he whispered in tender compassion. His sticklike hand reverently cupped her face. "We'll get him back."

Everything seemed to be swimming. Kahlan fell into his protective arms and dissolved into tears.

CHAPTER 34

Warren carefully pulled the snow-laden pine bough aside for her. Kahlan peered through the gap.

"There," he said in a low voice. "You see?"

Kahlan nodded as she squinted off into the narrow valley far below. The scene was frosted whitewhite trees, white rocks, white meadows. Enemy troops moving up the distant valley floor looked like a dark line of ants marching across powdered sugar.

"I don't think you need to whisper, Warren," Cara said from behind Kahlan's other shoulder. "They can't hear you. Not from this far."

Warren's blue eyes turned to the Mord-Sith. Cara's red leather would have stood out like a beacon, were she not sheathed in wolf fur that made her melt into the background of snow-dusted brush. Kahlan's own fur mantle was soft and warm against the sides of her face. Sometimes, since Richard had made it for her, the feel against her skin was evocative of his gentle caress protecting her and keeping her warm.

"Oh, but their gifted can hear us, Cara, even from this distance, if we are too vociferous."

Cara's nose wrinkled. "What's that mean?"

"Loud," Kahlan whispered in a way as if to suggest Cara should use a little more caution and be more quiet.

Cara's face distorted with her displeasure at the thought of magic. She shifted her weight to her other foot, went back to watching the line of troops slowly flowing up the valley, and kept silent.

After she'd seen enough, Kahlan gestured, and the three of them started back through the ankledeep snow. At their elevation in the mountains, they were right at the base of oppressive gray clouds, making it feel as if they were looking down from another world. She didn't like the world she had seen.

They trudged up the slope dense with pine and naked aspen, to the thickly wooded top of the ridge, where the backbone of rock broke through the snow here and there like half-buried bones. Their horses waited a good distance back down off the rocky slope. Farther back down the mountain, where Warren and Kahlan were sure they would not be detected by any gifted who might be protecting the Order troops, waited an escort of D'Haran guards General Meiffert had handpicked to protect Kahlan and the two with her, who were also protecting her.

"So you see?" Warren asked in little more than a whisper. "They're still at it-moving more and more men up this way, trying to get around us without us being aware of it."

Kahlan held up the fur to shelter her face as a light breeze dragged a curtain of snow past them. At least it wasn't snowing again, yet.

"I don't think so, Warren."

His questioning, handsome face turned her way. "Then what?"

"I think they want it to look like they're sending troops past us so we will send men way out here after them."

"A diversion?"

"I think so. It's just close enough to us to be likely we would discover them, yet far enough away and through difficult enough terrain that it would require us to split our forces in order to do anything about it.

Besides, every one of our scouts came back."

"Isn't that good?"

"Sure it is. But what if they have gifted with them, as you believe?

How is it that not one of our scouts failed to make it back to report these massive troop movements?"

Warren thought that over a moment as the three of them carefully made it over a high spot, sliding on their bottoms down the far side of the slippery sloping rock.

"I think they're fishing," Cara said as her boots thumped down on solid ground behind them. "Their gifted don't try to net the small fry, hoping to draw bigger fish close."

Kahlan brushed the snow from her backside. "Like us."

Warren looked skeptical. "You think this is all just some sort of elaborate trap to snare officers or gifted?"

"Well, no," Kahlan said. "That would only be a bonus for them. I think their main intent is to spur us into splitting our forces to deal with what they want us to believe is this threat."

Warren scratched his head of curly blond hair. His blue eyes twitched back in the direction the three of them had come down off the ridge, as if trying to look again at what he could not see.

"But if they're sending great numbers of troops north-even if it is to draw away some of our forces-shouldn't that concern us?"

"Of course it should," Kahlan said. "If it were true."

Warren glanced over at her as they struggled through deeper snow drifted under crags they passed beneath on their way up a steep little rise.

Her legs were weary with the effort. Warren held out his hand to help her up a high step. He did the same for Cara. Cara gestured that she didn't need the hand, but she didn't level a scowl at him, either. Kahlan was always pleased to see evidence that Cara was learning that offers of modest aid were simply a courtesy and not necessarily accusations of weakness.