Faith of the Fallen (Sword of Truth 6)

“I beg your pardon?”

“Too good. You and your Sisters have spent your lives trying to help people.”

“Well… I, we—why, of course we help people. That’s our calling.”

“Killing is not. Jagang will be intent on killing you all.”

“We know that, Zedd.” The general scratched his beard, his gaze darting back and forth between Verna and Zedd. “The Prelate and her Sisters have helped us with detecting a number of enemy scouts and such. Just the same as Sister Philippa, here, found you when you approached our camp, they’ve found others intent on harm. They’ve done their part, Zedd, and without complaint. Every soldier in this camp is glad to have them here.”

“All well and good, but when the army of the Imperial Order attacks, it will be different. They will use the gifted to lay waste to your forces.”

“They will try,” Verna insisted, trying to be convincing without shouting, which she was clearly itching to do, “but we are prepared to prevent such a thing,”

“That’s right,” Warren said, nodding his confidence. “We have gifted at the ready at all times.”

“That’s good, that’s good,” Zedd drawled, as if he might be reconsidering. “Then you have dealt with the simple threats. The albino mosquitoes and such.”

General Reibisch’s bushy eyebrows wrinkled together. “The what?”

Zedd waved his fork. “So, tell me, then—just to satisfy my curiosity—what are the gifted planning to do when the enemy charges our forces? Say, with a line of cavalry?”

“Lay down a line of fire before their cavalry,” Warren said without hesitation. “As they charge in, we’ll incinerate them before they can so much as launch a spear.”

“Ah,” Zedd said. “Fire.” He put the last forkful in his mouth. Everyone silently watched him chew. He paused in his chewing and looked up. “Big fire, I presume? Colossal gouts of flame, and all?”

“What mosquitoes is he talking about,” General Reibisch muttered under his breath toward Verna and Warren beside him on his bench opposite Zedd and Adie.

“That’s right,” Verna said, ignoring the general. He sighed and folded his arms across his barrel chest. “A proper line of fire.” Verna waited until Zedd swallowed. “Do you find something unsatisfactory about that, First Wizard?”

Zedd shrugged. “Well…” He paused, then frowned. He leaned toward the general, peering more closely. Zedd wagged a bony finger at the man’s folded arms.

“There’s one now. A mosquito is about to suck your blood, General.”

“What? Oh.” He swatted it. “They’ve been thick this summer. I think the season for them is drawing to an end, though. We’ll be happy to be rid of the little pests, I can tell you.”

Zedd waggled his finger again. “And were they all like that one?”

General Reibisch lifted his forearm and glanced down at the squashed bug. “Yes, the bloodthirsty little…” His voice trailed off. He peered more closely. With a finger and thumb he gingerly lifted the tiny insect by a wing, holding it up to have a better look.

“Well I’ll be…this thing is”—his face lost a shade of color—“white.” His grayish-green eyes turned up toward Zedd. “What was that you were saying about…?”

“Albino mosquitoes,” Zedd confirmed as he set his empty plate on the ground. He gestured with a sticklike finger at the general’s flat assailant. “Have you ever seen the albino fever, General? Have any of you? Terrible thing, albino fever.”

“What’s albino fever?” Warren asked. “I never heard of it. I’ve never read anything about it, either, I’m sure.”

“Really? Must be just a Midlands thing.”

The general peered more closely at the tiny white insect he was holding up. “What does this albino fever do to a person?”

“Oh, your flesh turns the most ghastly white.” Zedd waved his fork. “Do you know,” he said, frowning in thought as if distracted by something as he looking up at the ceiling of the tent, “that I once saw a wizard lay down a simply prodigious font of flame before a line of charging cavalry?”

“Well, there you go,” Verna said. “You know its value, then. You’ve seen it in action.”

“Yes…” Zedd drawled. “Problem was, the enemy had been prepared for such a simpleminded trick.”

“Simpleminded!” Verna shot to her feet. “I don’t see how you could possibly consider—”

“The enemy had conjured curved shields just for such an eventuality.”

“Curved shields?” Warren swiped back a curly lock of his blond hair. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. What are curved—”

“The wizard who laid down the fire had been expecting shields, of course, and so he made his fire resistant to such an expected defense. These shields, though, weren’t conjured to stop the fire”—Zedd’s gaze shifted from Warren’s wide eyes to Verna’s scowl—“but to roll it.”

“Albino fever?” The general waved his bug. “If you might, could you explain—”

“Roll the fire?” Warren asked as he leaned forward.

“Yes,” Zedd said. “Roll the fire before the cavalry charge—so that instead of a simple cavalry assault, the defenders now had deadly fire rolling back at them.”

“Dear Creator…” Warren whispered. “That’s ingenious—but surely the shield would extinguish the fire.”

Zedd twirled his fork as he spoke, as if to demonstrate the shield rolling the flames. “Conjured by their own wizard for the expected defense, the fire had been hardened against shields, so instead of fizzling, it stayed viable. That, of course, enabled the curved shield to roll the fire back without it extinguishing. And, of course, being hardened to shields, the wizard’s own quickly thrown up defensive shields couldn’t stop his own fire’s return.”

“But he could just cut it off!” Warren was becoming panicked, as if seeing his own wizard’s fire coming back at him. “The wizard who created it could call it and cut it off.”

“Could he?” Zedd smiled. “He thought so, too, but he hadn’t been prepared for the peculiar nature of the enemy’s shield. Don’t you see? It not only rolled the fire back, but in so doing rolled around the fire as it went, protecting it from any alteration by magic.”

“Of course…” Warren whispered to himself.

“The shield was also sprinkled with a provenance-seeking spell, so it rolled the fire back toward the wizard who conjured it. He died by his own fire—after it had seared through hundreds of his own men on its way to him.”

Silence settled into the tent. Even the general, still holding out the albino mosquito, sat transfixed.

“You see,” Zedd finally went on, tossing his fork down onto his plate, “using the gift in war is not simply an act of exercising your power, but an act of using your wits.”

Zedd pointed. “For example, consider that albino mosquito General Reibisch is holding. Under cover of darkness, just like right now, tens of thousands of them, conjured by the enemy, could be sneaking into this camp to infect your men with fever, and no one would even realize they were under attack. Then, in the morning, the enemy strikes a camp of weak and sick soldiers and slaughters the lot of you.”

Sister Philippa, over on the other side of Adie, swished her hand in alarm at a tiny buzzing mosquito. “But, the gifted we have could counter such a thing.” It was more a plea than an argument.

“Really? It’s difficult to detect such an infinitesimal bit of magic. None of you detected these minuscule invaders, did you?”

“Well, no, but…”

Zedd fixed a fierce glare on Sister Philippa. “It’s night. In the night, they simply seem to be ordinary mosquitoes, pesky, but no different from any other. Why, the general here didn’t notice them. Neither did any of you gifted people. You can’t detect the fever they carry, either, because it, too, is such a tiny speck of magic you aren’t watching for it—you’re looking for something huge and powerful and fearsome.

“Most of the gifted Sisters will be bi