Stone of Tears

She pulled her warm mantle tighter around herself. This atrocity couldn’t have been at the hands of the armies from D’Hara; it was far too recent. The troops from D’Hara had been called home. Surely, they wouldn’t have done this after they had been told the war was ended.

Unable to stand for another moment not knowing what fate had befallen Ebinissia, she pushed her bow farther up on her shoulder and started down the hillside. Her leg muscles were at long last used to the wide-footed gait needed to walk on the snowshoes the men had made from willow and sinew. Chandalen charged after her.

“You must not go down there. There could be dangerous.”

“Danger,” she corrected as she hitched her pack up higher. “If there was danger, Prindin and Tossidin would not be out in the open. You may come, or you may wait here, but I’m going down there.”

Knowing argument was useless, he followed in a rare fit of silence. The bright afternoon sun brought no warmth to the bitterly cold day. There was usually wind at the fringe of the Rang’shada Mountains, but thankfully there was little this day, for a change. It hadn’t snowed for several days, and they had been able to make better time in the clear weather. Still, with every breath she took, the air felt as if it were turning the inside of her nose to ice.

She intercepted Prindin and Tossidin halfway down the slope. They brought themselves to a halt before her, leaning on their spears, breathing heavily, which was unusual for them as nothing seemed to tire them, but they were unaccustomed to the altitude. Their faces were pale, and their handsome twin smiles long gone.

“Please, Mother Confessor,” Prindin said, pausing to catch his breath from the strenuous climb, “you must not go to that place. The ancestor spirits of those people have abandoned them.”

Kahlan untied a waterskin from her waist and pulled it from under her mantle, where her body’s heat kept the water from freezing. She held it up to Prindin, urging him to take a drink before questioning him.

“What did you see? You didn’t go into the city, did you? I told you not to go inside the walls.”

Prindin handed the waterskin to his panting brother. “No.

We stay hidden, as you told us. We do not go inside, but we do not need to.” He licked a drop of water from his lower lip. “We see enough from outside.”

She took back the waterskin when Tossidin finished, and replaced the stopper. “did you see any people?”

Tossidin stole a quick glance over his shoulder, down the hill. “We see many people.”

Prindin wiped his nose on the back of his hand as he looked from his brother to her. “dead people.”

“How many? Dead from what?”

Tossidin tugged loose the thong holding his fur mantle tight at his neck. “dead from fighting. Most are men with weapons: swords and spears and bows. There are more than I know the words to count. I have never seen that many men. In my whole life, I have not seen that many men. There has been war here. War, and killing of those defeated.”

Kahlan stared at them for a moment as horror threatened to choke off her breath. She had hoped that somehow the people of Ebinissia had escaped, that they had fled.

A war. Had the D’Haran forces done this after the war was ended? Or was it something else?

Her muscles at last unlocked and she started down the hill, the mantle billowing open, letting in the icy air. Her heart pounded with dread at what had befallen the people of Ebinissia. “I must go down there to see what has happened.”

“Please, Mother Confessor, do not go,” Prindin called after her. “It is bad to see.”

The three men jumped to follow as she marched down the hill, the slope speeding her effort. “I have seen dead people before.”

They began encountering the sprawled corpses—apparently the sites of skirmishes—a good distance from the city walls. Snow had drifted against them, partially covering them. In one place, a hand reached up from the snow, as if the man below were drowning, and reaching for air. Most had not been touched by animals or birds, there being an overabundance for scavengers. All were soldiers of the Galean army, frozen in death where they had fallen, blood-soaked clothes frozen rock-solid to them, ghastly wounds frozen open.

At the south wall, where huge oak doors crisscrossed with iron strapping had stood, was a gaping hole through the stone, its edges melted and burned black. Kahlan stood staring at rock melted like wax from a candle that had guttered. She knew of only one power that could do that: wizard’s fire.

Her mind fought to understand what she was seeing. She knew what the results of wizard’s fire looked like, but there were no more wizards. Except Zedd and, she guessed, Richard. But this would not have been Zedd’s deed.