“Are you so sure? What if it’s not? Besides, as I said, we don’t have the luxury of time to devote to it. We have more important things to worry about.”
“The Mother Confessor is right,” Captain Meiffert insisted.
“I have to believe truth will win out. Otherwise, what is there left to do? Lie to people to get them to join our side?”
“It seems to be working for those who oppose us,” Kahlan pointed out.
Richard wiped his wet hair back from his forehead. “Look, there’s nothing I would like better than to simply call General Reibisch down here. Really, there isn’t. But we can’t.”
Captain Meiffert wiped water from his chin. The man seemed to have anticipated the reason for Richard’s reluctance and was ready with a reply.
“Lord Rahl, we have enough men here. We can send word to the general, and before he comes into sight, we can take the Dominie Dirtch from the Anderith army and safely let our men through.”
“I’ve run that very thought through my mind a thousand times,” Richard said. “One thing keeps ringing a warning in my head.”
“What’s that?” Kahlan asked.
Richard turned sideways on his small folding stool so he might speak to her as well as the captain.
“We don’t know for sure how the Dominie Dirtch work.”
“So, we ask someone here,” Kahlan said.
“It’s not a weapon they use. We can’t count on their expertise. Yes, they know that if they’re being attacked they ring the things and the enemy will be killed.”
“Lord Rahl, we have a thousand men, once they all return from watching the vote. We can take the Dominie Dirtch in a wide swath and General Reibisch will be able to safely bring his army through. Then we can use his men to take the rest, all along the frontier, and the Imperial Order will not be able to get through. Perhaps they will even approach, thinking they will be able to pass, and then we will have the opportunity to use the Dominie Dirtch against them.”
Richard turned the candle on the table round and round in his fingers as he listened, and then in the silence that followed.
“There’s one problem with that,” he said at last, “and that is what I’ve already said: we aren’t sure how they work.”
“We know the basics of the things,” Kahlan said, her frustration growing.
“But the problem is,” Richard said, “that we don’t know enough. First of all, we can’t take all the Dominie Dirtch all along the frontier. There are too many—they run along the entire border. We could only take some, like you suggested, Captain.
“Therein lies the problem. Remember when we came through? How those people were killed when the Dominie Dirtch rang?”
“Yes, but we don’t know why they rang,” Kahlan said. “Besides, what difference does that make?”
“What if we capture a stretch of the Dominie Dirtch,” Richard said, looking back and forth between Kahlan and Captain Meiffert, “and then tell General Reibisch it’s safe to bring his army in. What if, when all those men are just about there, Anderith soldiers somewhere else, ones still in control of the Dominie Dirtch, ring theirs?”
“So what?” Kahlan asked. “They will be too far away.”
“Are you sure?” Richard leaned toward her for emphasis. “What if that rings them all? What if they know how to ring the entire line?
“Remember when we came in, how they said they all rang, and everyone out in front of the Dominie Dirtch was killed? They all rang together, as one.”
“But they didn’t know why they all rang,” Kahlan said. “The soldiers didn’t ring them.”
“How do you know that one person somewhere along that entire line didn’t ring their Dominie Dirtch, and caused them all to ring? Maybe accidentally, and they’re too afraid to admit it for fear of their punishment, or perhaps one of those young people stationed there, out of boredom, just wanted to try it?
“What if the same thing happens while our army is out there before those murderous things? Can you imagine? General Reibisch has near to a hundred thousand men—maybe more by now. Can you imagine his entire force killed in one instant?”
Richard looked from Kahlan’s calm face to the captain’s alarmed expression. “Our entire army down here in the South, at once, dead. Imagine it.”
“But I don’t think—” Kahlan began.
“And are you willing to risk the lives of all those young men on what you think? Are you so sure? I don’t know that the Dominie Dirtch work together like that, but what if they do? Maybe one rung in anger rings them all. Can you say it won’t?
“I’m not willing to put the innocent lives of those brave men to such a deadly gamble. Are you?” Richard looked back to Captain Meiffert. “Are you? Are you a gambler, Captain? Could you so easily wager the lives of all those men?”
He shook his head. “If it was my own life, Lord Rahl, I would willingly risk it, but not for all those lives.”
The roar eased up as the rain slowed a little. Men went by outside the opening of the tent, taking feed to the horses. For the most part, the camp sat in pitch blackness; fires were forbidden except where essential.
“I can’t disagree with that.” Kahlan lifted her hands and then in frustration let them drop back into her lap. “But Jagang is coming. If we don’t win the people to our cause so they will stand against him he will take Anderith. He will be invincible behind the Dominie Dirtch and be able to stab into the Midlands at will and bleed us to death.”
Richard listened to the rain drumming on the tent roof and splashing outside the open doorway. It sounded like the kind of steady rain that was going to be with them for the night.
Richard spoke softly. “As I see it, we have only one option. We must go back to the library at the estate and see if we can find anything useful.”
“We haven’t yet,” Kahlan said.
“And with the people in charge now taking a stand against us,” Captain Meiffert said, “they might resist that.”
Richard made a fist on the table as he met the man’s blue-eyed gaze. Richard once again wished he had the Sword of Truth with him.
“If they resist, Captain, then you and your men will be called upon to do what you constantly train for. If they resist, and if we have to, we’ll cut down anyone who lifts a finger to oppose us and then we’ll level the place. We just need to get the books out of there first.”
Relief eased the expression on the man’s face. The D’Harans seemed to harbor a fear that Richard might be unwilling to act; Captain Meiffert looked assuaged to hear otherwise.
“Yes, Lord Rahl. The men will be ready in the morning, when you are.”
Kahlan’s point about there possibly being nothing of value at the estate was worrisome. Richard remembered the books in the library. While he couldn’t recall the details of the information, he remembered the subjects well enough to know that finding the answer was a long shot. Still, it was the only shot they had.
“Before I go”—Captain Meiffert pulled a paper from his pocket—“I thought you should know a number of people have requested an audience when you have time, Lord Rahl. Most of them were merchants wanting information.”
“Thank you, Captain, but I don’t have time now.”
“I understand, Lord Rahl. I took the liberty of telling them as much.” He shuffled his little notes. “There was one woman.” He squinted in the dim candlelight to make out the name. “Franca Gowenlock. She said it was extremely urgent, but would give no information. She was here most of the day. She finally said she had to return to her home, but she would be back tomorrow.”
“If it’s important, she’ll be back and I’ll talk to her.”
Richard looked down at Du Chaillu, to see how she was feeling. She looked comforted by Kahlan’s care.
Behind him rose a sudden commotion. The captain pitched backward with a cry as if felled by magic. The candle flame fluttered wildly at the intrusion of a wind, but stayed lit.
Richard spun to the sound of a d
ull thump. The candle wobbled across the top of the shuddering table, right up to the edge.
A huge raven had crashed sprawling onto the tabletop.
Richard scooted back in surprise, drawing his sword as he stood, wishing again that it were the Sword of Truth with its attendant magic. Kahlan and Du Chaillu shot to their feet.
The raven had something black in its big beak. With all the confusion—the wind, the candle nearly toppling, the flame fluttering, the table teetering, and the tent sides flapping—he didn’t immediately recognize the object in the raven’s beak.
The raven set it on the table.
The inky black bird, water beaded on glossy feathers like the night itself come into their tent, looked exhausted. The way it lay sprawled on the table with its wings open, Richard didn’t think it was well, or possibly it was injured.
Richard didn’t know if a thing possessed of the chimes could really be injured. He recalled the chicken-that-wasn’t-a-chicken bleeding. He saw a smear of blood on the tabletop.
Whenever that chime-in-a-chicken had been around, even if he couldn’t see it, the hairs at the back of Richard’s neck had stood up, yet, with this raven-that-wasn’t-a-raven right before him on the table, he hadn’t reacted that way.
The raven cocked its head, looking Richard in the eye. It was as deliberate a look as he’d ever gotten. With its beak, the bird tapped the center of the thing it had laid on the table.
Captain Meiffert sprang up then and swung his sword. At the same time, Richard flung up his arms, shouting “No!”