Faith of the Fallen

Kahlan knew he was only torturing himself by asking that question. She wished he hadn't asked; it could do him no good to hear the answer.

Captain Meiffert cleared his throat. "Well, yes, they did report on the condiions.

"And. .?"

The young officer launched into a cold report of the facts they knew.

"Jagang set up his troop headquarters in the capital, Fairfield. He took over the Minister of Culture's estate for himself. Their army is so huge that it swallowed the city and overflows far out onto the hills all around.

The Anderith army put up little resistance. They were collected and all summarily put to death. The government of Anderith for the most part ceased to exist within the first few hours. There is no rule or law. The Order spent the first week in unchecked celebration.

"Most people in Fairfield were displaced and lost everything they owned. Many fled. The roads all around were packed solid with those trying to escape what was happening in the city. The people fleeing the city only ended up being the spoils for the soldiers in the hills all around who couldn't fit into the city. Only a trickle mostly the very old and sickly-made it past that gauntlet."

His impersonal tone abandoned him. He had spent time with those people, too. "I'm afraid that, in all, it went badly for them, Lord Rahl. There was a horrendous amount of killing, of the men, anyway-in the tens of thousands.

Likely more."

"They got what they asked for." Cara's voice was as cold as winter night. "They picked their own fate." Kahlan agreed, but didn't say so. She knew Richard agreed, too. None of them were pleased about it, though.

"And the countryside?" Richard asked. "Anything known about places outside Fairfield? Is it going better for them?"

"No better, Lord Rahl. The Imperial Order has been methodically going about a process of `pacifying' the land, as they call it. Their soldiers are accompanied by the gifted.

"By far, the worst of the accounts were about one called `Death's Mistress. » "Who?" Cara asked.

" `Death's Mistress, they call her."

"Her. Must be the Sisters," Richard said.

"Which ones do you think it would be?" Cara asked.

Richard, cutting the mouth into the firewood face, shrugged. "Jagang has both Sisters of the Light and Sisters of the Dark held captive. He's a dream walker; he forces both to do his bidding. It could be either; the woman is simply his tool."

"I don't know," Captain Meiffert said. "We've had plenty of reports about the Sisters, and how dangerous they are. But they're being used like you said, as tools of the army-weapons, basically-not as his agents. Jagang doesn't let them think for themselves or direct anything.

"This one, from the reports, anyway, behaves very differently from the others. She acts as Jagang's agent, but still, the word is she decides things for herself, and does as she pleases. The men who came back reported that she is more feared than Jagang himself.

"The people of one town, when they heard she was coming their way, all gathered together in the town square. They made the children drink poison first, then the adults took their dose. Every last person in the town was dead when the woman arrived-close to five hundred people."

Richard had stopped carving as he listened. Kahlan knew that unfounded rumors could also be so lurid as to turn alarm into deadly panic, to the point where people would rather die than face the object of their dread.

Fear was a powerful tool of war.

Richard went back to the carving in his lap. He held the knife near the tip of the point, like a pen, and carefully cut character into the eyes.

"They didn't get a name for her, did they? This Death's Mistress?"

"I'm sorry, no, Lord Rahl. They said she is simply called by everyone

`Death's Mistress. » "Sounds like an ugly witch," Cara said.

"Quite the contrary. She has blue eyes and long blond hair. She is said to be one of the most beautiful women you could ever lay eyes upon. They say she looks like a vision of a good spirit."

Kahlan couldn't help notice the captain's furtive glance at Cara, who had blue eyes and long blond hair, and was also one of the most beautiful women you could ever lay eyes upon. She, too, was deadly.

Richard was frowning. "Blond. . blue eyes. . there are several it could be…. Too bad they didn't catch her name."

"Sorry, but they gave no other name, Lord Rahl, only that description …. Oh yes, and that she always wears black."

"Dear spirits," Richard whispered as he rose to his full height, gripping his carving by its throat.

"From what I've been told, Lord Rahl, though she looks like a vision of one, the good spins themselves would fear her."

"With good reason." Richard said, as he stared into the distance, as if looking beyond the black wall of mist to a place only he could see.

"You know her, then, Lord Rahl?"