Soul of the Fire

"You're right." Richard released a pent-up sigh. He felt the same, but it was a comfort to hear it from her. "Does Anderith have a large army?"

"Well… yes," Kahlan said. "But the real defense for Anderith is not their army. It's a weapon called the Dominie Dirtch."

While he thought the name sounded like High D'Haran, with everything else on his mind the translation didn't immediately spring to mind. "Is it something we can use to stop the Order?" Staring off, deep in thought as she considered his question, Kahlan plucked the tops of the grass.

"It's an ancient weapon of magic. With the Dominie Dirtch, Anderith has always been virtually immune to attack. They are part of the Midlands because they need us as trading partners, need a market for the vast quantities of food they grow. But with the Dominie Dirtch they're nearly autonomous, almost outside the alliance of the Midlands.

"It's always been a tenuous relationship. As Mother Confessors before me, I forced them to accept my authority and abide by the rulings of the' Council if they were to sell their goods. Still, the Anders are a proud people, and always thought of themselves as separate, better than others."

'That's what they may think, but not what I think-and not what Jagang will think. So what about this weapon? Could it stop the Imperial Order, do you think?" "Well, it hasn't had to be used on a big scale for centuries." Kahlan brushed the head of a stalk of grass across her chin as she thought it over. "But I can't imagine why not. Its effectiveness discourages any attack. At least in ordinary times. Since the last large conflict, it's only been used in relatively minor troubles."

"What is this protection?" Cara asked. "How does it work?"

"The Dominie Dirtch is a string of defense not far in from their borders with the wilds. It's a line of huge bells, spaced far apart, but within sight of one another. They stand guard across the entire Anderith frontier."

"Bells," Richard said. "How do these bells protect them? You mean they're used to warn people? To call their troops?"

Kahlan waved her stalk of grass the way an instructor might wave a switch to dissuade a student from getting the wrong idea. Zedd used to wave his finger in much the same way, adding that impish smile so as not to give Richard a harsh impression as he was being corrected. Kahlan, though, was not correcting, but schooling, and as far as the Midlands were concerned, Richard was still very much a student.

The word «schooling» stuck in his head as soon as it crossed his mind.

"Not that kind of bell," Kahlan said. "They don't really look much like bells, other than their shape. They're carved from stone that over the ages has become encrusted with lichen and such. They are like ancient monuments. Terrible monuments.

"Jutting up as they do from the soil of the plains, marching off in a line to the horizon, they almost look like the vertebra of some huge, dead, endlessly long monster."

Richard scratched his jaw in wonder. "How big are they?"

"They stand up above the grass and wheat on these fat stone pedestals, maybe eight or ten feet across." She passed her hand over her head. "The pedestals are about as tall as we are. Steps going up the bell itself are cut into each base. The bells are, I don't know, eight, nine feet tall, including the carriage.

“The back of each bell, carved as part of the same stone, is round… like a shield. Or a little like a wall lamp might have a reflector behind it. The Anderith army mans each bell at all times. When an enemy approaches, the soldier, when given the order, stands behind the shield, and the Dominie Dirtch-these bells-are then struck with a long wooden striker.

"They emit a very deep knell. At least behind the Dominie Dirtch it's said to be a deep knell. No one attacking has ever lived to say what it sounds like from that side, from the death zone."

Richard had gone from simple wonder to astonishment. "What do the bells do to the attackers? What does this sound do?"

Kahlan rolled the heads of the grass in her fingers, crumbling them.

"It sloughs the flesh right off the bones."

Richard couldn't even imagine such a horrific thing. "Is this a legend, do you think, or do you know it to be a fact?"

"I once saw the results-some primitive people from the wilds intent on a raid as retribution for harm to one of their women by an Anderith soldier."

She shook her head despondently. "It was a grisly sight, Richard. A pile of bloody bones in the middle of a, a… gory heap. You could see hair in it-parts of scalp. And the clothes. I saw some fingernails, and the whorled flesh from a fingertip, but I could recognize little else. Except for those few bits, and the bones, you wouldn't even know it had been human."

"That would leave no doubt; the bells use magic," Richard said. "How far out does it kill? And how quickly?"