The Pillars of Creation (Sword of Truth 7)

“But—”

“Let’s go!” he called to his men.

As the emperor charged off, Jennsen seized Sebastian’s arm in exasperation, holding him back. “Do you really think it could be them? You’re a strategist—do you honestly think that any of this makes sense?”

He noted which way the emperor went, followed by a flood of men charging after him, then turned a heated glare on her.

“Jennsen, you wanted Lord Rahl. This may be your chance.”

“But I don’t see why—”

“Don’t argue with me! Who are you to think you know better!”

“Sebastian, I—”

“I don’t have all the answers! That’s why we’re in here!”

Jennsen swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I’m only worried for you, Sebastian, and Emperor Jagang. I don’t want your heads to end up on the end of a pike, too.”

“In war, you must act, not only by careful plan, but when you see an opening. This is what war is like—in war people sometimes do stupid or even seemingly crazy things. Maybe she and Lord Rahl have simply done something stupid. You have to take advantage of an enemy’s mistakes. In war, the winner is often the one who attacks no matter what and presses any advantage. There isn’t always time to figure everything out.”

Jennsen could only stare up into his eyes. Who was she, a nobody, to try to tell an emperor’s strategist how to fight a war?

“Sebastian, I was only—”

He snatched a fistful of her dress and yanked her close. His red face twisted in anger. “Are you really going to throw away what might turn out to be your only chance to avenge your mother’s murder? How would you feel if Richard Rahl really is crazy enough to be here?—Or if he has some plan we can’t even conceive of?—And you just stand here arguing about it!”

Jennsen was stunned. Could he be right? What if he was?

“There they are!” came a cry from far down the hall. It was Jagang’s voice. She saw him among a distant clot of his soldiers, pointing his sword as they all scrambled to turn a corner. “Get them! Get them!”

Sebastian seized her arm, spun her around, and shoved her on down the hall. Jennsen caught her footing and ran with wild abandon. She felt ashamed for arguing with people who knew what war was all about when she didn’t. Who did she think she was, anyway? She was a nobody. Great men had given her a chance, and she stood around on the doorstep of greatness, arguing about it. She felt a fool.

As they ran past tall windows—the very windows where the Mother Confessor and Lord Rahl had only moments before been seen—something outside caught her eye. A collective groan went up from beyond the panes of glass. Jennsen slid to a stop, her hands out, gathering up Sebastian to stop him, too.

“Look!”

Sebastian glanced impatiently toward the others racing away, then stepped closer to look out the window as she shook her hand, frantically pointing.

Tens of thousand of cavalry men had formed up into a huge battle line out across the palace grounds, stretching all the way down the hill, appearing to charge the enemy in a great battle. They all brandished swords, axes, and pikes as they rushed as a single mass, yelling bloodcurdling battle cries.

Jennsen watched in stunned silence, seeing nothing yet for them to fight. Still, the men, raising a great cry, ran forward with weapons raised. She expected to see them run down the hill toward something out beyond the wall. Perhaps they could see an enemy approaching that she could not from her angle up in the palace.

But then, in the middle of the grounds, with a mighty shock all along the line, there was a resounding crash as they met the wall of an enemy that was not there.

Jennsen couldn’t believe her eyes. Her mind groped to reconcile it, but the terrifying sight outside made no sense. She wouldn’t have believed what she was seeing, were it not for the shock of sudden carnage. Bodies, man and horse, were rent open. Horses reared. Others went down, tumbling over broken legs. Men’s heads and arms spun through the air, as if lopped off by sword and axe. All along the line, blood filled the air. Men were driven back by blows that exploded through their bodies. The dark and grimy force of Imperial Order cavalry was suddenly bright red in the muted daylight. The slaughter was so horrific that the green grass was left red in a swath down the hill.

Where there had been battle cries, now there were piercing screams of appalling suffering and pain as men, hacked to pieces, limbs severed, mortally wounded, tried to drag themselves to safety. Out in that field, there was no such place, there was only confusion and death.

Horrified, Jennsen looked up into Sebastian’s baffled expression. Before either could say a word, the building shook as if struck by lightning. Following close on the heels of the thunderous boom, the hall filled with billowing smoke. Flames boiled toward them. Sebastian snatched her arm and dove with her into a side hall opposite the window.

The blast roared down the hall, driving chunks of wood, whole chairs, and flaming drapery before it. Fragments of glass and metal shrieked by, slicing through walls.

As soon as the smoke and flames had rolled past, Jennsen and Sebastian, both with weapons to hand, raced out into the hall, running in the direction Emperor Jagang had gone.

Whatever questions or objections she had were forgotten—such questions were suddenly irrelevant. It only mattered that—somehow—Richard Rahl was there. She had to stop him. This was finally her chance. The voice, too, urged her on. This time, she didn’t try to put the voice down. This time, she let it fan the flames of her burning lust for vengeance. This time, she let it fill her with the overwhelming need to kill.

They raced past tall doors lining the hall. Each of the deep-set windows that flashed by had a small window seat. The walls were faced with frame and panel wood painted a shade of white warmed with a bit of rose color to it. As they came to the intersection of corridors and rounded the corner, Jennsen didn’t really notice the elegant silver reflector lamps centered in each of those panels; she saw only the bloody handprints smeared along the walls, the long splashes of blood on the polished oak floor, the disorderly tangle of still bodies.

There were at least fifty of the burly assault soldiers scattered haphazardly down the hall, each burned, many ripped open by flying glass and splintered wood. Most of the faces weren’t even unrecognizable as such. Shattered rib bones protruded from blood-soaked chain mail or leather. Along with the weapons that lay scattered, the hall was awash with gore and loose intestines, making it look like someone had spilled baskets of bloody dead eels.

Among the bodies was a woman—one of the Sisters. She had been nearly torn in two, as had been a number of the men, her slashed face set in death with a fixed look of surprise.

Jennsen gagged on the stench of blood, hardly able to draw a breath, as she followed Sebastian, jumping from one clear space to another, trying not to slip and fall on the human viscera. The horror of what Jennsen was seeing was so profound that it didn’t register in her mind; at least, it didn’t register emotionally. She simply acted, as if in a dream, not really able to consider what she was seeing.

Once past the bodies, they followed a trail of blood down a maze of grand halls. The distant sound of men shouting drifted back to them. Jennsen was at least relieved to hear the emperor’s voice among them. They sounded like hounds locked on the scent of a fox, baying insistently, refusing to lose their prey.

“Sir!” a man called from far back through a doorway to the side. “Sir! This way!”

Sebastian paused to look at the man and his frantic hand signals, then pulled Jennsen into a resplendent room. Across a floor covered with an elegant carpet of gold and rust-colored diamond designs, past windows hung with gorgeous green draperies, a soldier stood at a doorway into another hall. There were couches like none Jennsen had ever seen, and tables and chairs with beautifully carved legs. While the room was elegant, it was not imposingly so, making it seem like a place where people might gather for casual conversations. She followed Sebastian as he

ran for the soldier at the door on the opposite side of the room.

“It’s her!” the man called to Sebastian. “Hurry! It’s her! I just saw her pass by!”

The hulking soldier, still trying to catch his breath, sword hanging in his fist, peeked out the doorway again. Just before they reached him, as he peered down the hall, Jennsen heard a dull thump. The soldier dropped his sword and clutched at his chest, his eyes going wide, his mouth opening. He fell dead at their feet, no sign of any wound.

Jennsen pushed Sebastian up against the wall before he could go through the doorway. She didn’t want him encountering whatever had just dropped the soldier.

Almost at the same time, from the way they had come, she heard the snapping hiss of something otherworldly. Jennsen dropped to the floor, stretching out over Sebastian, holding him against the edge of floor and wall, as if he were a child to be protected. She closed her eyes tight, crying out with fright at the thunderous blast behind her that shook the floor. A barrage of rubble shrieked through the room.

When it finally went still and she opened her eyes, dust drifted through the destruction. The wall around them was peppered with holes. Somehow, she and Sebastian were not hurt. It only served to confirm what she already believed.

“It was him!” Sebastian’s arm shot out from under her to point across the room. “It was him!”