Terry Goodkind - Phantom - Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Kahlan only wished that Jagang could suffer a similar fate.

“At least their army has fled,” one of the senior officers said to Jagang as the emperor’s horse was led away. Another man took Kahlan’s mare.

The officer was missing half his left ear. It had long since healed over in a lump, becoming a distraction that was hard to ignore. Men who didn’t ignore it sometimes lost an ear.

“They have no defenders left,” another officer said.

“I’m sure they have gifted up there,” Jagang said, “but they shouldn’t present an obstacle that can stop us.”

“The reports of the scouts and spies say that the road up the side is narrow—too narrow for any kind of mass assault. There is also a drawbridge that they have raised. Bringing building materials up that road, and then defending ourselves while we tried to span the chasm, would be hard to do.

“As for the great door leading to the interior way up into the plateau, it has been closed. No one entertains any faith in breaching that door. It has stood for thousands of years against any assault. Besides, the reports from the gifted say that their powers are weakened near the palace.”

Jagang smiled. “I have some ideas.”

The man missing part of his ear bowed his head. “Yes, Excellency.”

As Jagang and his officers talked, Kahlan noticed a small cluster of men in the distance riding at breakneck speed through the camp. They were coming up from behind, from the south. At every checkpoint, the men brought their horses to a skidding halt, spoke briefly to sentries, and were ushered through.

Jagang had noticed the riders, too. His conversation with his officers dwindled away and soon all of them were watching with the emperor as the riders made it to the inner defenses and dismounted in a cloud of dust. They waited at the final ring of steel for permission to enter the emperor’s compound.

When Jagang signaled, the men were brought forward. They came with haste, despite how tired they looked.

The man at their lead was a wiry fellow, older, with a hard look in his dark eyes. He saluted.

“Well,” Jagang said, “what is it that’s so urgent?”

“Excellency, cities in the Old World have come under attack.”

“Is that so.” Jagang heaved an impatient sigh. “It’s those insurrectionists, mostly from Altur’Rang. Haven’t they been put down yet?”

“No, Excellency, it is not insurrectionists—although they are causing trouble as well, led by one called the blacksmith. Too many places have been attacked for it to be the doings of insurrectionists.”

Jagang eyed the man suspiciously. “What places have come under attack?”

The man pulled a scroll out from inside his dusty shirt. “Here is a list we have collected, so far.”

“ ‘So far’?” Jagang asked, arching an eyebrow as he unfurled the scroll.

“Yes, Excellency. The information is that there is a wave of destruction sweeping across the land.”

Jagang scanned the long list of places on the scroll. Kahlan tried not to appear obvious as she glanced at the report out of the corner of her eye. She saw two columns of towns and cities listed. There had to be more than thirty-five or forty places written on the scroll.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘sweeping across the land,’ ” Jagang growled. “These places are all random. They’re not located in a line, or cluster, or one area of the Old World. They’re all over the place.”

The man cleared his throat. “Yes, Excellency. That is the report.”

“Some of this has to be overstated.” To make his point, Jagang jabbed the paper with a fat finger. The silver rings on each finger flashed in the fading light. “Taka-Mar, for instance. Taka-Mar has been attacked? It couldn’t have been very effective for a malcontent mob of fools to attack such a place. There are troop garrisons there. It’s a transfer station for supply trains. There are ample defenses in place. There are even Brothers of the Fellowship of Order in charge of the place. They wouldn’t have allowed a rabble to have their way in Taka-Mar. This report most likely is overstated by nervous fools who are afraid of their own shadow.”

The man bowed apologetically. “Excellency, Taka-Mar was one of the places I saw with my own eyes.”

“Well?” Jagang roared. “What did you see, then? Out with it!”

“The roads into the city from every direction are lined with stakes topped with charred skulls,” the man began.

“How many skulls?” Jagang waved dismissively. “Dozens? As many as a hundred?”

“Excellency, there were numbers beyond counting, and I stopped counting at several thousand without having made much headway in a full tally. The city itself is no more.”

“No more?” Jagang blinked in confusion. “What do you mean, no more? Such a thing is impossible.”

“It has been burned to the ground, Excellency. There was not a single building left standing. The fires were so intense that the lumber cannot be salvaged. The orchards all the way out into the hills were all cut down. The fields of ripe crops for miles and miles in every direction have all been burned. The ground has been salted. Nothing will ever grow there again. A once fertile place will never support anything again. It looks like the Keeper himself destroyed the place.”

“Well, where were the soldiers! What were they doing during all this!”

“The skulls on stakes were the soldiers garrisoned there. Every last one of them, I’m afraid.”

Jagang cast a look at Kahlan, as if she were somehow responsible for the catastrophe. His glare told her that he somehow associated the trouble with her. He crushed the paper in his fist as he returned his attention to the messenger.

“What about the Brothers of the Order? Did they say what happened and why they weren’t able to stop it?”

“There were six Brothers assigned to Taka-Mar, Excellency. They were impaled on posts placed in the middle of different roads into the city. Each had been skinned from the neck down. A cap of office was left on each man’s head so that all could know who they were.

“The masses of people who fled the city say that the attack came at night. As terrified as they were, we weren’t able to get much useful information from them, other than that the men who attacked them were soldiers of the D’Haran Empire. They were all sure of that much. Every one of these people has lost their home.

“The attackers made no move to slaughter the escaping refugees if they offered no armed resistance, but they made it quite clear to the fleeing people that they intended to lay waste to all of the Old World and anyone who supports the Imperial Order.

“The soldiers told the people that it is the Order and their beliefs that has brought this strife upon them, and who will bring them and their land to ruin. The soldiers vowed that they would haunt the people of the Old World into their graves and then into the darkest corners of the underworld if they did not give up the teachings of the Order and their belligerent ways that flowed from those teachings.”

Kahlan only realized that she was smiling when Jagang rounded on her and backhanded her hard enough to knock her from her feet. She knew that he was going to beat her bloody that night.

She didn’t care. It was worth it to hear what she had just heard. She couldn’t stop smiling.

Nicci pulled her cloak tighter around herself as she leaned one shoulder up against the great stone merlon. She peered down through the crenellation to the road far below, watching the four riders making their way up the mountain toward the Keep. They were still quite a distance, but she thought she had a good idea who they were.