Soul of the Fire (Sword of Truth 5)

“I’ve been secluded, studying everything I could, trying everything I could. Last night was the first night I’ve even been out in public for weeks.” She looked up with a frown. “When the Minister announced the death of the Sovereign, he said something about the Lord Rahl. What was that about?”

Dalton realized the woman was so out of touch with the day-to-day business of life in Anderith that she didn’t even know about Lord Rahl and the vote. With this news, he now had urgent matters he had to attend to.

“Oh, you know, there are always parties contending for the goods Anderith produces.” He took her hand and helped her up. “Franca, thank you for coming and for confiding in me with this news. You have been more help than you could know.”

She seemed flustered to find herself being rushed out, but he couldn’t help it. He had to get to work.

She paused, her face inches from his, and looked him in the eye. It was an arresting gaze—power or no power. “Promise me, Dalton, that I won’t come to regret telling you the truth.”

“Franca, you can count—”

Dalton spun at a sudden racket behind him. Startled, he drew Franca back. A huge black bird had come in the open window. A raven, he believed it to be, although he had never seen one this close.

The thing sprawled across his desk, its wing tips nearly reaching each end of it. It used its wide-spread wings and its beak to try to help get its footing on the flat, smooth leather covering. It let out a squawk of angry frustration or perhaps surprise at its smooth and awkward roost.

Dalton rushed around the side of the desk, to the silver scroll stand, and drew his sword.

Franca tried to stay his arm. “Dalton, don’t! It’s bad luck to kill a raven!”

Her intervention, and the bird unexpectedly ducking, caused him to miss an easy kill.

The raven let out a racket of squawking and screeching as it scrambled to the side of his desk. Dalton gently, but forcefully, pushed Franca aside and drew back his sword.

The raven, seeing with its big eye what was coming, snatched up the little book in its beak. Holding tight the book once belonging to Joseph Ander, it sprang to wing inside his room.

Dalton slammed shut the window behind his desk, the one the bird had come in through. The bird came for him. Claws raked his scalp as he slammed shut the second window, and then the third.

Dalton took a swing at the fury of flapping feathers, just barely contacting something with his sword. The bird, cawing loud enough to hurt his ears, shot toward the window.

Dalton and Franca both covered their faces with an arm as the window shattered, sending shards of glass and bits of window mullion everywhere.

When he looked, he saw the bird glide to the branch of a nearby tree. It grasped the branch, stumbled, and grasped again, finally getting its footing. It looked to be injured.

Dalton tossed his sword on the desk and seized a lance from the display with the Ander battle flags. With a grunt of effort, he launched the lance through the broken window at the bird.

The raven, seeing what he was about, took to wing with the book. The lance just missed it. The bird vanished into the early-morning sky.

“Good, you didn’t kill it,” Franca said. “That would have been bad luck.”

Dalton, red-faced, pointed at the desk. “It stole the book!”

Franca shrugged. “Ravens are curious birds. They often steal things to take to a mate. They mate for life, ravens.”

Dalton tugged at his clothes, straightening them. “Is that so.”

“But the female will cheat on the male. Sometimes, while he is out collecting twigs for their nest, she will let another male take her.”

“Is that so?” he said, miffed. “And why should I care?”

Franca shrugged. “Just thought it an interesting fact you would like to know.” She stepped closer, surveying the damage to the window. “Was the book valuable?”

Dalton carefully brushed bits of glass from his shoulders. “No. Fortunately it was just a useless old book, written in a long-dead language no one nowadays understands.”

“Ah,” she said. “Well, there is that much good in it. Be thankful it was not valuable.”

Dalton put his hands on his hips. “Look at this mess. Just look at it.” He picked up a few black feathers and tossed them out the broken window. He saw there was a crimson drop on his desk. “At least it paid with its blood for its treasure.”

59

“The time has come,” Bertrand Chanboor, newly installed and consecrated Sovereign of Anderith, called to the immense crowd spread out below the balcony, overflowing the square into surrounding streets, “to take a stand against hatred!”

Since he knew the cheering would go on for a time, Dalton took the opportunity to glance down at Teresa. She smiled bravely up at him as she dabbed her eyes. She had been up most of the night, praying for the soul of the dead Sovereign, and for strength to the new one.

Dalton had been up most of the night strategizing with Bertrand and Hildemara, planning what they would say. Bertrand was in his element. Hildemara was in her glory. Dalton had the reins.

The offensive had begun.

“As your Sovereign, I cannot allow this cruel injustice to be thrust upon the people of Anderith! The Lord Rahl is from D’Hara. What does he know of our people’s needs? How can he come here, for the first time, and expect we would turn our lives over to his mercy?”

The crowd booed and hissed. Bertrand let it go on for a time.

“What do you think will happen to all you fine Haken people if Lord Rahl has his way? Do you think he would give a moment’s care to you? Do you think he would bother to wonder if you have clothes, or food, or work? We have labored to see to it you can find work, with laws like the Winthrop Fair Employment Law designed to bring the bounty of Anderith to all people.”

He paused to let the people cheer him on.

“We have been working against hatred. We have struggled against people who don’t care if children starve. We have worked to make life for all the people of Anderith better. What has Lord Rahl done? Nothing! Where was he when our children were starving? Where was he when men could not find work?

“Do we really want all our hard work and advancements to be suddenly wiped away by this heartless man and his privileged wife, the Mother Confessor? Just when we are reaching the most critical point in our reforms? When we have so much work yet to do for the people of Anderith? What does the Mother Confessor know about starving children? Has she ever cared for a child? No!”

When he started in again, he used his fist against the balcony railing to make each point. “The plain truth is that Lord Rahl cares only for his magic! His own greed is the reason he has come here! He has come to use our land for his own greed!

“He would poison our waters with his vile conjuring! No more could we fish, because his magic would make our lakes, our rivers, and our ocean into dead waters while his poisonous magic works its way for him to create his gruesome weapons of war!”

People were shocked and angered to learn such things. Dalton gauged the reaction to each word so that he might hone them for the speeches to come, and for the messages he would send out to blanket the land.

“He creates evil creatures so that he may press his unjustified war. Perhaps you have heard of people dying strange, unexplained deaths. Do you think it some random event? No! It is the magic of Lord Rahl! He creates these vile creatures of magic and then turns them loose to see how well they kill! These deadly creatures burn to death or drown innocent people. Others are dragged helpless by these marauders of the night up to rooftops and thrown to their deaths.”

Spellbound, people gasped.

“He uses our people to hone his dark craft for war!

“His dark sorcery would fill the air with a vile haze that would seep into every home! Do you want your children breathing Lord Rahl’s magic? Who knows the agonizing deaths of innocent children, breathing in his careless incantations? Who knows the def

ormities they will suffer should they swim in a pond he has used to steep a spell.

“This is what we invite should we fail to stand against this rape of our land! He would let us die a choking death so that he can bring in his powerful friends to steal our wealth. That is the true reason he comes to us!”

People were now properly alarmed.

Dalton leaned toward Bertrand and whispered out of the side of his mouth. “The air and the water frightened them the most. Reinforce it.”