Faith of the Fallen

She shrugged. "Since Kadar was your better in bed, I would think you would be pleased."

"Get yourself back here right now!" the soldier roared in Jagang's voice. "Do you understand? Right now!"

Nicci bowed. "But, of course, Excellency."

As she straightened, she yanked the soldier's long knife from the sheath at his belt and slammed it hilt-deep into his muscled gut. She

`gritted her teeth with the effort of pivoting the handle sideways, sweeping the blade in a lethal arc through his insides.

She doubted the man felt his messy death writhing at her feet while she waited for her carriage to make its way around the square. He died with Jagang's chuckle on his lips. Since a dream walker could only be in a living mind, for the time being, the afternoon returned to quiet.

After her carriage rocked to a dusty halt, a soldier reached up and opened the door. She leaned out from the step, turning back to the crowd, holding the outside handrail in order to stand straight so that they all might see her. Her blond hair fluttered in the sunny breeze.

"Do not forget this day, and how your lives were all spared by Jagang the Just!

The commander would have murdered you; the emperor, through me, has instead' shown his compassion. Spread the word of the mercy and wisdom of Jagang the Just, and I will have no need to return."

The crowd mumbled that they would.

"Do you want us to bring the commander with us," a soldier asked. The man, Kadar Kardeef's loyal second, now wore Kardeef's sword. Like vegetables, fidelity's fresh vitality was fleeting, its final fate stench and rot.

"Leave him to roast as a reminder. Everyone else will return with me to Fairfield."

"By your command," he said with a bow. He circled his arm and ordered the men to mount up and move out.

Nicci leaned out farther and looked up at the driver. "His Excellency wishes to see me. Although he has not said as much, I'm reasonably sure he would like you to hurry."

Nicci took her place on the hard leather cushion inside, her back straight against the upright seat, while the driver let out a shrill whistle and cracked his whip. The team leaped forward, jerking the carriage ahead.

With a hand on the windowsill, she steadied herself as the ironbound wheels bounced over the hard, rough ground of the town square until they reached the road, where the carnage settled down into this familiar jolting ride.

Sunlight slanted in the window, falling across the empty cushion opposite her. The bold bright patch glided off the seat as the carriage negotiated a curve in the road, finally slipping up to come to rest in her lap like a warm cat. Darkly clad riders to each side, ahead, and behind stretched forward over the withers of their galloping mounts. A rumbling roar along with billowing plumes of dust lifted into the air from the thundering hooves.

For the moment, Nicci was free of Jagang. She was surrounded by two thousand men, yet she felt totally alone. Before long, she would have pain to fill the terrible void.

She felt no joy, no fear. She sometimes wondered why she felt nothing but the need to hurt.

As the carriage raced toward Jagang, her thoughts were focused instead on another man, trying to recall every occasion that she had seen him. She went over every moment she had spent with Richard Cypher, or as he was now known-and as Jagang knew him-Richard Rahl.

She thought about his gray eyes.

Until the day she saw him, she had never believed such a person could exist.

When she thought about Richard, like now, only one haunting need burned in her: to destroy him.

CHAPTER 9

Huge garish tents festooned the prominent hill outside the city of Fairfield, yet despite the festive colors erected amid the gloom, despite the laughing, the shouting, the coarse singing, and the riotous excess, this was no carnival come to town, but an occupying army. The emperor's tents, and those of his retinue, were styled in the fashion of the tents used by some of the nomadic people from Jagang's homeland of Altur'Rang, yet they were embellished far beyond any actual tradition. The emperor, a man vastly exceeding any nomadic tribal leader's ability to imagine, created his own cultural heritage as he saw fit.

Around the tents, covering the hills and valleys as far as Nicci could see, the soldiers had pitched their own small grimy tents. Some were oiled canvas, many more were made from animal skins. Beyond the shared basics of practicality, there was uniformity only in their lack of conformity to any one style.

Outside some of the shabby little tents, and almost as large, sat ornate upholstered chairs looted from the city. The juxtaposition almost looked as if it had been intentionally done for a comical effect, but Nicci knew the reality had no kinship to humor. When the army eventually moved on, such large, meticulously crafted items were too cumbersome to take and would be left to rot in the weather.