Stone of Tears

“He is a Rahl. That says the same thing.”

Zedd smiled in spite of himself. “He is also my grandson, although he doesn’t know it yet. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t even know he is a Rahl. Or the Lord Rahl. Richard might not take well to the position he finds himself in. But someday, he is going to need you. I would take it as a personal favor, Commander General Trimack, if you would give him a little understanding.”

Trimack’s eyes surveyed the area, ever ready for any new danger. “I would give him my life.”

“I think understanding would serve him better in the beginning. He thinks of himself as nothing more than a woods guide. He is a leader by nature and by birth, but not by his own appraisal. He will not want anything to do with it, but it has come to him nonetheless.”

At last a smile came to Trimack’s face. “done.” He stopped and turned to the wizard. “I am a D’Haran soldier. I serve the Lord Rahl. But the Lord Rahl must also serve us. I am the steel against steel. He must be the magic against magic. Without the steel, he may still survive, but without the magic, we will not. Now tell me what a screeling is doing out of the underworld.”

Zedd sighed and at last nodded. “Your former Lord Rahl was meddling with dangerous magic. Underworld magic. He tore the veil between this world and the underworld.”

“Bloody fool. He’s supposed to serve us, not take us into eternal night. Someone should have killed him.”

“Someone did. Richard.”

Trimack grunted. “Then Lord Rahl is already serving us.”

“A few days ago, some would have viewed that thought as treason.”

“It is a greater treason to deliver the living to the dead.”

“Yesterday you would have killed Richard to keep him from harming Darken Rahl.”

“And yesterday he would have killed me to get at his foe. But now we serve each other. Only a fool walks into the future backward.”

Zedd nodded and offered a small, but warm, smile of respect, but then his eyes narrowed as he leaned closer. “If the veil is not closed, Commander, and the Keeper is loosed on the world, everyone will share the same fate. It won’t be just D’Hara, but the whole of the world that is consumed. From what I have read of the prophecies, Richard may be the only one who can close the veil. You just remember that, if harm tries to get a glance at Richard.”

Trimack’s eyes were ice. “steel against steel, that he may be the magic against magic.”

“Good. You have it right.”

Chapter 3

Zedd surveyed the dead and dying as he approached. It was impossible to avoid walking through the blood. His heart ached at seeing the hurt. Only one screeling. What if more came?

“Commander, send for some healers. There are more here than I can tend to.”

“Already done, Wizard Zorander.”

Zedd nodded and began checking the living. Soldiers of the First File were spread out among the bodies, pulling the dead, many of whom were their own, out of the way, and comforting the hurt. Zedd put his fingers to the sides of foreheads to feel the injuries, to feel what a healer could care for and what required more.

He touched a young soldier laboring to breathe through a gurgle of blood. Zedd grunted at what he felt. He glanced down and saw rib bones pulled through a fist-sized hole in his breastplate. Zedd’s stomach wanted to erupt. Trimack knelt on the other side of the young man. The wizard’s eyes flicked up at the commander, and the other nodded his understanding. The young man’s remaining breaths of life numbered in the few dozen.

“Go on,” the commander said in a quiet voice, I’ll stay with the lad.”

Zedd moved on as Trimack gripped the young man’s hand in his own and began telling a reassuring lie. Three women in long brown skirts sewn with rows of pockets came up in a rush. Their mature faces took in the scene without flinching.

With bandages and poultices pulled from their big pockets, the three women descended on the wounded and began stitching and administering potions. Most wounds were within the skill of the women to heal, or else beyond the skill of the wizard. Zedd asked one of the three, the one who looked least likely to pay heed to protests, to go see to Chase.

Zedd could see him sitting on the bench across the hall, his chin against his chest, Rachel sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around his leg.

Zedd and the other two healers moved among the people on the floor, helping where they could, passing on where they couldn’t. One of the healers called to him. She was hunched over a middle-aged woman who was trying to wave her away.

“Please,” she was saying in a weak voice, “help the others. I am fine. I need only to rest. Please. Help the others.”

Zedd felt the wetness of his blood-soaked robes against his knees as he knelt beside her. She pushed his hands away with one of hers. The other held her guts from spilling out of a ripping wound in her abdomen.

“Please. There are others who should be helped.”