Faith of the Fallen

Inside the cramped tent, General Meiffert looked up from where he bent over a table with a map unfurled at a cockeyed angle. Lieutenant Leiden, of Kelton, was there along with Captain Abernathy, the commander of the Galean forces Kahlan had brought down with her weeks before.

Adie was sitting quietly in the corner, as the representative of the gifted, watching the goings-on with her completely white eyes. Blinded as a young woman, Adie had learned to see using her gift. She was a remarkably talented sorceress. Adie was quite proficient at using that talent to do the enemy harm. Now she was there to help coordinate the Sister's abilities with the needs of the army.

When Kahlan inquired, Adie told her, "Zedd be down at the southern lines, checking on details."

Kahlan nodded her thanks. "Warren went down there to help, too."

Kahlan scrunched up her freezing toes in her boots, trying to bring feeling back to them. She blew warm air into her cupped hands and then turned her attention to the waiting general.

"We need to get together a good-sized force-maybe twenty thousand men."

General Meiffert sighed his frustration. "So they are moving an army up past us."

"No," she said. "It's a trick."

The three officers frowned their puzzlement as they waited for an explanation.

"I ran into Jagang-"

"You what!" General Meiffert shouted in unbridled panic.

Kahlan waved a hand, allaying his fears. "Not like you're thinking. It was through the body of one of his slaves." She stuck her hands under her arms to warm them. "The important thing is that I played along with Jagang's scheme so that he would think we were falling for his plan."

Kahlan explained how Jagang's ruse of troop movements was meant to work and how its true design was to draw away a good-sized force so as to leave those remaining behind weaker. The men listened as she laid it all out while pointing to the locations on the map.

"If we were to send that many men out," Lieutenant Leiden asked, "wouldn't that be just what Emperor Jagang wanted?"

"It would be," she told him, "but that's not what we're going to do. I want those men to ride out of camp, to make it look as if we were doing what he expected."

She leaned over the map, using a piece of charcoal to sketch in some of the nearby mountains she had just traveled through, and showed.them a lowland pass around several.

Captain Abernathy spoke up. "We have my Galean troops-they're close to the number you need to serve as the decoy."

"That's what I was thinking," General Meiffert said.

"Done," Kahlan said. She pointed at the map again. "Circle around these mountains, here, Captain, so that when the Order attacks our camp, thinking to roll over us, your men can stick them in their soft side, right here, where they won't expect it."

Captain Abernathy, a trim man with a graying bushy mustache that matched his eyebrows, nodded as he watched Kahlan pointing out the route on the map. "Don't worry, Mother Confessor, the Order will believe we're gone, but we'll be standing ready to drive right into their ribs when they come for you."

Kahlan turned her attention back to the general. "We'll also need to secretly trickle another force out of camp to wait at the opposite side of the valley from Captain Abernathy, so that when the Order comes up the valley in the middle, we can drive into their ribs from both sides at once.

They won't want to let us cut off and trap part of their force, so they'll turn tail. Then our main force can drive steel into their vulnerable backs."

The three officers considered her plan in silence, while outside the confusion of noise went on. Horses galloped past, wagons creaked and bounced along, snow underfoot crunched as soldiers shuffled past, and men called out orders.

Lieutenant Leiden's eyes turned up toward Kahlan. "Mother Confessor, my Keltans could be that other force. They've all served together a long time, and work well in our own units under my command. We could begin slipping out of camp at once and gather down there to wait for the attack. You could send a Sister with us to verify a prearranged signal, and then I could take my men in when Captain Abernathy attacks from the opposite side."

Kahlan knew the man wanted to redeem himself in her eyes. He was also looking to establish for Kelton a measure of autonomy within the D'Haran Empire.

"That will be a dangerous spot, Lieutenant. If anything goes wrong, we can't come to your aid."

He nodded. "But my men are familiar with the area and we're used to traversing mountainous country in the winter. The Imperial Order is from a warmer land. We have the advantage of weather and terrain. We can do the job, Mother Confessor."

Kahlan straightened, letting out a breath as she appraised the man.

General Meiffert, she knew, would like the idea. Captain Abernathy would, too; Galea and Kelton were traditional rivals, so the two would just as soon fight their own way, and separately.