Soul of the Fire (Sword of Truth 5)

“You see? What good is it, then?”

“It is good to know such things,” she said as she rolled a little fuzz ball across the blanket. “It might help.”

Richard scratched his forehead. She was working up her courage to tell him something more important, more troubling. The vision was a pretext, he reasoned. He softened his tone, hoping to ease it out of her.

“Du Chaillu, thank you for your warning. I will keep it in mind that it might somehow help me.”

She met his eyes and nodded.

“How did you find me?” he asked.

“You are the Caharin.” She was looking noble again. “I am the Baka Tau Mana spirit woman, the keeper of the old laws. Your wife.”

Richard understood. She was bonded to him, much like the D’Harans—like Cara. And like Cara, Du Chaillu could sense where he was.

“I was a day south of here. You nearly missed finding me. Have you begun to have difficulty telling where I am?”

She looked away from his eyes as she nodded. “I could always go and stand looking out at the horizon, with the breeze in my hair and the sun or stars upon my face, and I could point, and say, ‘The Caharin is that way.’”

She took a moment to again find her voice. “It has become harder and harder to know where to point.”

“We were in Aydindril until just a few days ago,” Richard said. “You would have had to start on your journey long before I came to this place.”

“Yes. You were not in this place when I first knew I must come to you.” She gestured over her shoulder. “You were much, much farther to the northeast.”

“Why would you come here to find me if you could sense me to the northeast, in Aydindril?”

“When I began to feel you less and less, I knew that meant there was trouble. My visions told me I needed to come to you before you were lost to me. If I had traveled to where I knew you were when I started, you would not be there when I arrived. I consulted my visions, instead, while I still had them, and journeyed to where they told me you would be.

“Toward the end of our journey, I could feel you were now in this place. Soon after, I could no longer feel you. We were still a goodly distance away, so all we could do was to continue on in this direction. The good spirits answered my prayers, and allowed our paths to cross.”

“I am pleased the good spirits helped you, Du Chaillu. You are a good person, and deserve their help.”

She picked at the blanket again. “But my husband does not believe in my visions.”

Richard wet his lips. “My father used to tell me not to eat mushrooms I found in the forest. He would say he could see me eating a poison mushroom and then getting sick and dying. He didn’t really mean he could see it was going to happen, but that he feared for me. He was warning me what might happen if I ate mushrooms I didn’t know.”

“I understand,” she said with a small smile.

“Was yours a true vision? Maybe it was a vision of something that’s only possible—a vision of a danger—but not a certainty?”

“It is true some visions are of things that are possible, but not yet settled in the fates. It could be that yours was that kind.”

Richard took up her hand in both of his. “Du Chaillu,” he asked in a gentle voice, “please tell me now why you have come to me?”

She reverently smoothed the little colored strips running down her arm, as if reminding herself of the prayers her people sent with her. This was a woman who bore the mantle of responsibility with spirit, courage, and dignity.

“The Baka Tau Mana are joyous to be in their homeland after all these generations separated from the place of our hearts. Our homeland is all the old words passed down said it was. The land is fertile. The weather favorable. It is a good place to raise our children. A place where we can be free. Our hearts sing to be there.

“Every people should have what you have given to us, Caharin. Every people should be safe to live as they would.”

A terrible sorrow settled through her expression. “You are not. You and your people of this land of the New World you told me about are not safe. A great army comes.”

“Jagang,” Richard breathed. “You had a vision of this?”

“No, my husband. We have seen it with our own eyes. I was ashamed to tell you of this, ashamed because we were so frightened by them, and I did not want to admit our fear.

“When I was chained to the wall, and I knew the Majendie would come any day to sacrifice me, I was not this frightened because it was only me, not all my people, who would die. My people were strong and they would get a new spirit woman to take my place. They would fight off the Majendie, if they came into the swamp. I could die knowing the Baka Ban Mana would live on.

“We practice every day with our weapons, so none may come and destroy us. We stand ready, as the old laws say, to do battle for our lives against any who come against us. There is no man but the Caharin who could face one of our blade masters.

“But no matter how good our blade masters, they could not fight an army like this. When they at last put their eye toward us, we will not be able to fight off this foe.”

“I understand, Du Chaillu. Tell me what you saw?”

“What I have seen I have no way of telling you. I do not know how to tell you that you might understand how many men we have seen. How many horses. How many wagons. How many weapons.

“This army stretches from horizon to horizon for days as they pass. They are beyond count. I could no more tell you how many blades of grass are on these plains. I have no word that can express such a vast number.”

“I think you just have,” Richard murmured. “They didn’t attack your people, then?”

“No. They did not come through our homeland. Our fear for ourselves is but for the future, when these men decide to swallow us. Men like this will not forever leave us to ourselves. Men like these take everything; there is never enough for them.

“Our men will all die. Our children will all be murdered. Our women will all be taken. We have no hope against this foe.

“You are the Caharin, so you must be told these things. That is the old law.

“As spirit woman to the Baka Tau Mana, I am ashamed that I must show you my fear and tell you our people are frightened we will all perish in the teeth of this beast. I wish I could tell you we look with bravery to the jaws of death, but we do not. We look with trembling hearts.

“You are Caharin, you would not know. You have no fear.”

“Du Chaillu,” Richard said with a startled guffaw, “I’m often afraid.”

“You? Never.” Her gaze withdrew to the blanket. “You are just saying so that I might not be shamed. You have faced the thirty without fear and defeated them. Only the Caharin could do such a thing. The Caharin is fearless.”

Richard lifted her chin. “I faced the thirty, but not without fear. I was terrified, as I am right now of the chimes, and the war facing us. Admitting your fear is not a weakness, Du Chaillu.”

She smiled at his kindness. “Thank you, Caharin.”

“The Imperial Order didn’t try to attack you, then?”

“For now, we are safe. I came to warn you, because they come into the New World. They passed us by. They come for you, first.”

Richard nodded. They were headed north, into the Midlands.

General Reibisch’s army of nearly a hundred thousand men was marching east to guard the southern reaches of the Midlands. The general had asked Richard’s permission not to return to Aydindril, his plan being to watch the southern passes into the Midlands, and especially the back routes into D’Hara. It made sense to Richard.

Fortune now put the man and his D’Haran army in Jagang’s path.

Reibisch’s force might not be large enough to take on the Imperial Order, but D’Harans were fierce fighters and would be well placed to guard the passes north. Once they knew where Jagang’s forces were going, more men could be sent to join Reibisch’s army.

Jagang had gifted wi

zards and Sisters in his army. General Reibisch had a number of the Sisters of the Light with him, too. Sister Verna—Prelate Verna, now—had given Richard her word that the Sisters would fight against the Order and the magic they used. Magic was now failing, but so would the magic of those aiding Jagang, except, perhaps, the Sisters of the Dark and the wizards with them who knew how to conjure Subtractive Magic.

General Reibisch, as well as Richard and the other generals back in Aydindril and D’Hara, had been counting on the Sisters to use their abilities to keep track of Jagang’s army when it advanced into the New World, and with that knowledge, aid the D’Haran forces in selecting an advantageous place to take a stand. Now, magic was failing, leaving them blind.

Luckily, Du Chaillu and the Baka Tau Mana had kept the Order from surprising them.

“This is a great help, Du Chaillu.” Richard smiled at her. “It is important news you bring. Now we know what Jagang is doing. They didn’t try to come through your land, then? They simply passed you by?”

“They would have had to go out of their way to attack us now. Because of their numbers, the edges of their army came near but, like a porcupine in the belly of a dog, our blade masters made it painful for them to brush against us.