Wizard's First Rule (79 page)

When they got close enough, the wind brought something other than flapping tarps and banging tin; it brought the putrid smell of death. Richard checked that his sword was loose in its scabbard.

Bodies, puffy and swollen, nearly ready to burst, stretched buttons, and oozed fluid that attracted clouds of flies. The dead lay in corners and up against buildings, like autumn leaves blown into piles. Most had ghastly wounds; some were pierced through with broken lances. The silence seemed alive. Doors, smashed in and broken, hung at odd angles from a single hinge, or lay in the street with personal belongings and broken pieces of furniture. Windows in every building were shattered.
Some of the buildings were nothing more than cold, charred piles of beams and rubble. Richard and Kahlan both held their cloaks across their noses and mouths, trying to shield themselves against the stench as their eyes were pulled to the dead.

“Rahl?” he asked her.

She studied different tumbled bodies from a distance. “No. This is not the way Rahl kills. This was a battle.”

“Looks more like a slaughter to me.”

She nodded her agreement. “Remember the dead among the Mud People? That is what it looks like when Rahl kills. It is always the same. This is different.”

They walked along through the town, staying close to the buildings, away from the center of the street, occasionally having to step over the gore. Every shop was looted, and what wasn’t carried off was destroyed. From one shop, a bolt of pale blue cloth, with evenly spaced dark stains, had unwound itself across the road, as if it had been thrown out because its owner had ruined it in death. Kahlan pulled his sleeve, and pointed. On the wall of a building was written a message-in blood.
DEATH TO ALL WHO RESIST THE WESTLAND
.

“What do you suppose that means?” she whispered, as if the dead might hear her.

He stared at the dripping words. “I can’t even imagine.” He started off again, turning back twice to frown at the words on the wall.

Richard’s eye was caught by a cart sitting in front of a grain store. The cart was half loaded with small furniture and clothes, the wind whipping at the sleeves of little dresses. He exchanged a glance with Kahlan. Someone was left alive, and it looked as if they were preparing to leave.

He stepped carefully through the empty doorframe of the grain store, Kahlan close at his back. Streamers of sunlight coming through the door and window sent shafts through the dust inside the building, falling on spilled sacks of grain and broken barrels. Richard stood just inside the doorway, to one side, with Kahlan to the other, until his eyes adjusted to the dark. There were fresh footprints, mostly small ones, through the dust. His eyes followed them behind a counter. He gripped the hilt of his sword, but didn’t draw it, and went to the counter. People cowered behind, trembling.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said in a gentle voice, “come out.”

“Are you a soldier with the People’s Peace Army, here to help us?” came a woman’s voice from behind the counter.

Richard and Kahlan frowned at each other. “No,” she said. “We are… just travelers, passing through.”

A woman with a dirty, tearstained face and short, dark, matted hair pushed her head up. Her drab brown dress was ragged and torn. Richard took his hand away from his sword so as not to frighten her. Her lip quivered, and her hollow eyes blinked at them in the dim light as she motioned others to come out. There were six children—five girls and one boy—another woman, and an old man. Once they were out, the children clinging woodenly to the two women, the three adults glanced at Richard, then stared openly at Kahlan. Their eyes went wide, and they all shrank back as one against the wall. Richard frowned in confusion; then he realized what they were staring at. Her hair.

The three adults collapsed to their knees, heads bowed, each with their eyes to
the floor; the children buried their faces silently in the women’s skirts. With a sideways glance at Richard, Kahlan quickly motioned with her hands for them to get up. They had their eyes fixed on the floor and couldn’t see her frantic gesturing.

“Get up,” she said, “there is no need for that. Get up.”

Their heads came up, confused. They looked at her hands, urging them to get to their feet. With great reluctance, they complied.

“By your command, Mother Confessor,” one woman said in a shaking voice. “Forgive us, Mother Confessor, we… did not recognize you… by your clothes, at first. Forgive us, we are only humble people. Forgive us for…”

Kahlan gently cut her off. “What is your name.”

The woman bowed deeply from the waist, remaining bent. “I am Regina Clark, Mother Confessor.”

Kahlan grabbed her by her shoulders and straightened her. “Regina, what has happened here?”

Regina’s eyes filled with tears, and she cast a shrinking glance toward Richard as her lip trembled. Kahlan looked back to him.

“Richard,” she said softly, “why don’t you take the old man and the children outside?”

He understood; the women were too afraid to talk in front of him. He gave a helping arm to the stooped old man, and herded four of the children out. Two of the youngest girls refused to leave the women’s skirts, but Kahlan nodded to him that it was all right.

The four children clung together in a clump as they sat on the step outside, eyes empty and distant. None would answer when he asked their names, or even look at him except with frightened peeks to make sure he didn’t come any closer. The old man only stared blankly ahead when Richard asked his name.

“Can you tell me what happened here?” Richard asked him.

His eyes widened as he looked out over the street. “Westlanders…”

Tears welled up and he wouldn’t say anything else. Fearing to get any more forceful, he decided to let the old man be. Richard offered him a piece of dried meat from his pack, but he ignored it. The children shrank back from his hand as he held it out with the same offer. He put the meat back in his pack. The oldest girl, just nearing womanhood, looked at him as if he might slay them, or eat them, on the spot. He had never seen anyone so terrified. Not wanting to frighten her or the other children more than they were, he kept his distance, smiled reassuringly, and promised he wouldn’t hurt them, or even touch them. They didn’t look as if they believed him. Richard turned toward the door often; he was uncomfortable and wished Kahlan would come out.

At last she did, her face an intense mask of calmness, a spring wound too tight. Richard stood and the children ran back into the building. The old man stayed where he was. She took Richard’s arm, walking him away.

“There are no horses here,” she said, watching fixedly ahead as she walked back the way they had come. “I think it best if we stay off the roads, stay to the less-traveled trails.”

“Kahlan, what’s going on?” He looked back over his shoulder. “What happened here?”

She glared at the bloody message on the wall as they went past,
DEATH TO ALL WHO RESIST THE WESTLAND.

“Missionaries came, telling the people of the glory of Darken Rahl. They came often, telling the town council of the things they would have when D’Hara rules all the lands. Telling everyone of Rahl’s love for all the people.”

“That’s crazy!” Richard whispered harshly.

“Nonetheless, the people of Horners Mill were won over. They all agreed to declare the town a territory of D’Hara. The People’s Peace Army marched in, treating everyone with the utmost respect, buying goods from the merchants, spending silver and gold with abandon.” She pointed back at the rows of lumber under tarps. “The missionaries were as good as their word; orders came down for lumber. A lot of lumber. To build new towns where people would live in prosperity under the glowing rule of Father Rahl.”

Richard shook his head in wonderment. “Then what?”

“Word spread; there was more work here than the town people could handle. Work for Father Rahl. More people came in to work the orders for lumber. While all this was going on, the missionaries told the people of the threat to them from Westland. The threat to Father Rahl from Westland.”

“From Westland!” Richard was incredulous.

She nodded. “Then the People’s Peace Army moved out, saying they were needed to fight the Westland forces, to protect the other towns that had sworn allegiance to D’Hara. The people begged for some to stay, for protection. In return for their loyalty and devotion, a small detachment was left behind.”

Richard ushered her back onto the trail ahead of him as he gave one last puzzled glance over his shoulder. “So it wasn’t Rahl’s army that did this?”

The trail was wide enough, so she waited until he was next to her before she went on. “No. They said everything was fine for a while. Then, about a week ago, at sunrise, a military unit of the Westland army swept in, killing the D’Hara detachment to a man. After that, they went on a rampage, killing people indiscriminately, and sacking the town. As the Westland soldiers killed, they yelled that this was what happens to anyone following Rahl, to anyone who resists Westland. Before the sun set, they were gone.”

Richard grabbed a fistful of shirt at her shoulder, jerking her to face him.

“That’s not true! Westlanders wouldn’t do this! It wasn’t them! It couldn’t be!”

She blinked at him. “Richard, I did not say it was true. I am merely telling you what I was told, what those people back there believe.”

He released his grip of her shirt, his face having a second reason for its flush. He couldn’t help himself from adding, “No Westland army did this.” He started to turn back to the trail, but she took his arm, halting him.

“That is not the end of it.”

By her eyes, he knew he didn’t want to hear the end of it. He nodded for her to go on.

“Those left alive began leaving at once, taking what they could carry. More left the next day, some after burying members of their families. That night, a detachment of Westlanders came back, maybe fifty men. There were only a handful of townspeople
left by that time. The people were told that resisters to Westland are not allowed to be buried, that they are to be left, for animals to pick clean, as a reminder to all of what will happen to any who resist the rule of Westland. To make their point, they collected all the men still left, even the boys, and executed them.” By Kahlan’s inflection of the word
executed
, and making no mention of the manner, he knew he didn’t want to know. “The little boy and the old man back there were somehow overlooked or they would have been killed too. The women were made to watch.” She paused.

“How many women were left?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, not many.” She peered back up the trail, staring off toward the town a moment before her intensely angry eyes returned to his. “The soldiers raped the women. And the girls.” Her eyes burned into his. “Each one of those girls you saw back there was raped by at least…”

“Westlanders did not do this!”

She studied his face. “I know. But who? Why?” Her expression cooled back to calm.

He stared back at her in frustration. “Isn’t there anything we can do for them?”

“Our job is not to protect a few people, or the dead; it is to protect the living, by stopping Darken Rahl. We do not have the time to give; we must get to Tamarang. Whatever trouble is about, we had best stay off the roads.”

“You’re right,” he admitted reluctantly. “But I don’t like it.”

“Nor do I.” Her features softened. “Richard, I think they will be safe. Whatever army it was that did this is not likely to return for a couple of women and children; they will be off to hunt bigger game.”

Some solace that was, that the killers would be off to hunt larger groups of people to hurt, in the name of his homeland. Richard thought about how he hated all this, and remembered how when he was back in Hartland, his biggest trouble was his brother always telling him what to do.

“A group of soldiers that big isn’t going to be traveling by trail through a thick wood such as this, they’ll stay to the roads, but I think it best if we start looking for wayward pines at night. No telling who could be watching.”

She nodded her agreement. “Richard, many people of my homeland have joined with Rahl, and done unspeakable crimes. Does that make you think less of me?”

He frowned. “Of course not.”

“And I would think no less of you were it Westland soldiers. It is no crime upon you, to have your countrymen do things you abhor. We are at war. We are trying to do as our ancestors have done in the past, Seekers and Confessors alike; dethrone a ruler. In this, there are only two we can count on. You and me.” She studied him with an intense, timeless expression. He realized he was gripping the hilt of his sword tightly. “A time may come when it is only you. We all do as we must.” It was not Kahlan who had spoken; it was the Mother Confessor.

It was a hard, uncomfortable moment before she released his eyes, turning at last and starting off. He pulled his cloak tight, chilled from without, and within.

“It was not Westlanders,” he muttered under his breath, following behind her.

“Light for me,” Rachel said. The little pile of sticks with rocks all around burst into flame, lighting the inside of the wayward pine with a bright red glow. She put the fire stick back in her pocket and with a shiver warmed her hands at the fire as she looked down at Sara lying in her lap.