Faith of the Fallen

Along the way southeast to Altur'Rang, in the cities they passed through, Richard saw many carvings on buildings, and many more freestanding in public squares, or in front of entrances. They depicted horrors: people being whipped by a grinning Keeper of the underworld; people stabbing out their own eyes; suffering people twisted, deformed, and crippled; people like packs of dogs, running on all fours, attacking women and children; people reduced to walking skeletons or covered in sores; woeful people throwing themselves into graves. In most such scenes the pitiful people were watched over by the Light of the all-perfect Creator represented by the flame.

The Old World was a celebration of misery.

Along the way south, they had stopped in a number of cities when Richard could find menial work temporary enough not to require waiting on lists. He and Nicci went for stretches eating cabbage soup that was mostly water. Sometimes they had rice or lentils or buckwheat mush, and, on occasion, the luxury of salt pork. Sometimes, Richard was able to catch fish, birds, or the odd hare. Living off the land in the Old World, though, was difficult. A lot of other people had the same idea. They both had gotten thinner on their long march. Richard began to understand the carvings of the skeletal people.

Nicci had set their destination, but dictated little else, leaving most decisions to him, complying without complaint. Week in and week out, they walked, occasionally paying a few copper pennies to ride in wagons headed their way. They crossed rivers straddled by cities large enough to have numbers of stone bridges, and went through town after town. There were vast fields of wheat, millet, sunflower, and any number of other crops, though much of the land lay fallow. They saw flocks of sheep and herds of cattle.

Farmers sold the travelers goat cheese and milk. Ever since the gift had awakened in him, Richard was able to eat meat only when not doing any fighting. He thought it might be part of the requirement to balance his need to sometimes take life. Since he wasn't doing any fighting, he could eat meat without it making him sick. Unfortunately, they could rarely afford meat. Cheese, which he had once loved, he could hardly stomach since his gift had come to life in him. Unfortunately, it was often eat cheese, or starve.

But it was the size of the Old World, and in particular its population, that most unsettled him. Richard had naively thought that the New and the Old Worlds must be somewhat alike. They were not. The New World was but a flea on the back of the Old.

From time to time on their journey south, vast columns of men at arms moved past them on their way north to the Midlands. Several times, it had taken days for all the soldiers to march past. Whenever he saw the rank upon rank of troops, he felt a wave of relief that Kahlan was trapped in their mountain home. He would hate to think of her fighting in an army facing as many men as he saw going to the war.

By spring, when she could finally get out of the mountain home, and all those Imperial Order troops could truly begin their siege of the New World, whatever resistance the D'Haran Empire put up would be crushed. Richard hoped General Reibisch chose not to go up against the Order. He hated to think of all those brave men being slaughtered under the weight of the coming onslaught.

At one small city, Nicci had gone to a stream to wash their clothes while Richard worked the day mucking out stalls at a large stable. A number of officials had come to town and there were more horses than the stablemaster could handle. Richard had been at the right place at the right time to get the job. Not long after the officials arrived and took all the rooms at the inns, a large unit of the Imperial Order troops marched in behind them and set up camp at the city limits.

Fortunately, Nicci was on the other side of the city doing their washing. Unfortunately, a squad of men passing through the city, and doing some drinking, decided to accept volunteers. Richard kept his head down as he carried water to the horses, but the sergeant saw him. At the wrong place at the wrong time, Richard was «volunteered» into the Imperial Order. The new volunteers were quartered in the center of the immense encampment.

That night, after it was dark and most of the men were asleep, Richard unvolunteered himself. It took him until three hours before sunrise to extract himself from his service to the Imperial Order. Nicci had gone to the stable and found out what had happened to him. Richard found her at their camp, pacing in the darkness. They quickly collected their things and marched south for the rest of the night. They went cross country, since the moon was out, rather than on the roads, in case a patrol came looking for him. From then on, whenever Richard saw soldiers he did his best to become invisible.