Faith of the Fallen

The four of them were silent a moment, each considering the horror of that reality, of who would remain behind to die. Furious activity continued around them. Men were rushing around, putting out fires, collecting panicked horses, tending to wounded, and battling the few remaining invaders they had trapped. The Order soldiers were greatly outnumbered. Not for long, though.

Kahlan's mind raced. She couldn't help being furious with herself at being gulled. Richard's words echoed through her mind: think of the solution, not the problem. The solution was the only thing that mattered now.

Kahlan looked again to Verna. "We have an hour before they're upon us.

You have to try, Verna. Do you think you have any chance at making your special glass and then deploying it before the enemy is upon us?"

"I will do my best-you have my word on that. I wish I could promise more." Verna scrambled to her feet. "I'll need the Sisters who are tending the wounded, of course. What about the ones working at the front lines? The ones countering enemy magic? Can I have any of them?"

"Take them all," Kahlan said. "If this doesn't work, nothing else is going to matter."

"I'll take them all, then. Every one," Verna said. "It's the only chance we have."

"You get started," Adie told Verna. "Go down near the front lines, on this side of the valley where you will be upwind from the attack. I will begin collecting the Sisters and get them down there to help you."

"We need glass," Verna said to the general. "Any kind. At least a few barrels full."

"I'll have men down there with the first barrel right away. Can we at least help to break it up for you?"

"No. It won't matter if what you throw in the barrels breaks, but beyond that, it must be done by the gifted. Just bring whatever glass you can collect, that will be all you can do."

The general promised her he would see to it. Holding her hem up out of her way, Verna ran off to the task. Adie was close on her heels.

"I'll get the men moving now," the general told Kahlan as he scrambled to his feet. "The scouts can mark the trail; then we can start moving the heavier supplies first."

If it worked, they would slip out of Jagang's grasp.

Kahlan knew that if Verna failed, they could all very well lose their lives, and the war, by morning. General Meiffert paused with one last hesitant look, one last chance for her to change her mind.

"Do it," she said to the general. "Cara-we have work."

CHAPTER 38

Kahlan pulled her horse up short. She felt the heat of blood rushing to her face. "What are you doing?" Cara asked as Kahlan threw her leg over the horse's neck and leaped to the ground.

The moon lit a layer of lacy clouds scudding past, giving a faint, serene illumination to the surrounding countryside. The thin layer of snow gathered the muted light of the moon to make it more luminous than it otherwise would be.

Kahlan pointed in the direction of the small figure she could just make out in the dim light. The skinny girl, surely not much past ten years, was standing at a barrel, ramming a metal rod down inside to smash the glass in the bottom. Kahlan handed the reins to Cara as soon as she had dismounted.

Kahlan stalked over to the Sisters working on the snowy ground. Running off in a haphazard line, to keep the wind at their backs, were over a hundred of the women, all focused intently on the work before them. Many had their cloaks tented around themselves and their work.

Not far down that line, Kahlan bent, put a hand under the Prelate's arm, and lifted her to her feet. Mindful of the serious nature of the work going on, Kahlan at least kept her voice quiet, since she wasn't able to make it congenial.

"Verna, what is Holly doing down here?"

Verna glanced over the heads of a dozen intervening Sisters kneeling before a long board, breeze at their backs, carefully griding glass chips with pestles in mortars. There being not nearly enough pestles and mortars, many of the women to the other side were using dished rocks and round stones to carefully crunch the glass chips. The concentration showed on each woman's face. The accident that had blinded a Sister had happened when the wind had changed, and a gust had blown her work back up in her face. The same thing could happen again at any time, although, as darkness had settled in, the wind had at least died down to a steady breeze.

Holly was bundled in an oversized cloak. She had a determined grimace as she lifted the rod and then let it drop down in the barrel set away from the Sisters' dangerous work. Kahlan saw that the rod had a faint greenish glow to it.

"She's helping, Mother Confessor."

"She's a child!"

Verna pointed off into the darkness, to what Kahlan hadn't seen. "So are Helen and Valery."

Kahlan pinched the bridge of her nose between her first finger and thumb and took a purging breath. "What madness would possess you to have children down here near the front helping to-to blind people?"