She nodded. “We are an hour or two from Horners Mill. Why?”
“We could save ourselves time if we had horses.”
She looked up the trail toward the town, as if she could somehow see it. “Horners Mill is a lumber town, a sawmill. They would have a lot of horses, but it may not be a good idea. I have heard their sympathies lie with D’Hara.”
“Why don’t we go have a look; if we had horses, it could save us a day at least. I have some silver, and a piece or two of gold. Maybe we could buy some.”
“I guess if we are careful, we could go have a look. But don’t you dare pull out any of your silver or gold. It is Westland-marked, and these people view anyone from across the western boundary as a threat. Stories and superstition.”
“Well, how will we get horses then? Steal them?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Have you forgotten so soon? You are with the Mother Confessor. I have but to ask.”
Richard covered his displeasure as best he could with a blank face. “Let’s go have a look.”
Horners Mill sat hard on the edge of the Callisidrin River, drawing both power for the sawmills and transportation for the logs and lumber from the muddy brown water. Spillways snaked through the work areas, and ramshackle mill buildings loomed over the other structures. Stickered stacks of lumber lay row upon row under roofs of open buildings, and even more lay under tarps, waiting for either barges to take them by river or wagons to take them by road. Houses squatted close together on the hillside above the mill, looking as if they had started life as temporary shelter and as the years had worn on, became unfortunately permanent.
Even from a distance, Richard and Kahlan both knew that something was wrong. The mill was silent, the streets empty. The whole town should have been alive with activity. There should have been people at the shops, on the docks, at the mill, and in the streets, but there was no sign of beast or man. The town hunched in quiet, except for some tarps flapping in the wind, and a few squeaking and banging tin panels on the mill buildings.
When they got close enough, the wind brought something other than flapping tarps and banging tin; it brought the putrid smell of death. Richard checked that his sword was loose in its scabbard.
Bodies, puffy and swollen, nearly ready to burst, stretched buttons, and oozed fluid that attracted clouds of flies. The dead lay in corners and up against buildings, like autumn leaves blown into piles. Most had ghastly wounds; some were pierced through with broken lances. The silence seemed alive. Doors, smashed in and broken, hung at odd angles from a single hinge, or lay in the street with personal belongings and broken pieces of furniture. Windows in every building were shattered. Some of the buildings were nothing more than cold, charred piles of beams and rubble. Richard and Kahlan both held their cloaks across their noses and mouths, trying to shield themselves against the stench as their eyes were pulled to the dead.
“Rahl?” he asked her.
She studied different tumbled bodies from a distance. “No. This is not the way Rahl kills. This was a battle.”
“Looks more like a slaughter to me.”
She nodded her agreement. “Remember the dead among the Mud People? That is what it looks like when Rahl kills. It is always the same. This is different.”
They walked along through the town, staying close to the buildings, away from the center of the street, occasionally having to step over the gore. Every shop was looted, and what wasn’t carried off was destroyed. From one shop, a bolt of pale blue cloth, with evenly spaced dark stains, had unwound itself across the road, as if it had been thrown out because its owner had ruined it in death. Kahlan pulled his sleeve, and pointed. On the wall of a building was written a message-in blood. DEATH TO ALL WHO RESIST THE WESTLAND.
“What do you suppose that means?” she whispered, as if the dead might hear her.
He stared at the dripping words. “I can’t even imagine.” He started off again, turning back twice to frown at the words on the wall.
Richard’s eye was caught by a cart sitting in front of a grain store. The cart was half loaded with small furniture and clothes, the wind whipping at the sleeves of little dresses. He exchanged a glance with Kahlan. Someone was left alive, and it looked as if they were preparing to leave.
He stepped carefully through the empty doorframe of the grain store, Kahlan close at his back. Streamers of sunlight coming through the door and window sent shafts through the dust inside the building, falling on spilled sacks of grain and broken barrels. Richard stood just inside the doorway, to one side, with Kahlan to the other, until his eyes adjusted to the dark. There were fresh footprints, mostly small ones, through the dust. His eyes followed them behind a counter. He gripped the hilt of his sword, but didn’t draw it, and went to the counter. People cowered behind, trembling.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said in a gentle voice, “come out.”
“Are you a soldier with the People’s Peace Army, here to help us?” came a woman’s voice from behind the counter.
Richard and Kahlan frowned at each other. “No,” she said. “We are… just travelers, passing through.”
A woman with a dirty, tearstained face and short, dark, matted hair pushed her head up. Her drab brown dress was ragged and torn. Richard took his hand away from his sword so as not to frighten her. Her lip quivered, and her hollow eyes blinked at them in the dim light as she motioned others to come out. There were six children—five girls and one boy—another woman, and an old man. Once they were out, the children clinging woodenly to the two women, the three adults glanced at Richard, then stared openly at Kahlan. Their eyes went wide, and they all shrank back as one against the wall. Richard frowned in confusion; then he realized what they were staring at. Her hair.
The three adults collapsed to their knees, heads bowed, each with their eyes to the floor; the children buried their faces silently in the women’s skirts. With a sideways glance at Richard, Kahlan quickly motioned with her hands for them to get up. They had their eyes fixed on the floor and couldn’t see her frantic gesturing.
“Get up,” she said, “there is no need for that. Get up.”
Their heads came up, confused. They looked at her hands, urging them to get to their feet. With great reluctance, they complied.
“By your command, Mother Confessor,” one woman said in a shaking voice. “Forgive us, Mother Confessor, we… did not recognize you… by your clothes, at first. Forgive us, we are only humble people. Forgive us for…”
Kahlan gently cut her off. “What is your name.”
The woman bowed deeply from the waist, remaining bent. “I am Regina Clark, Mother Confessor.”
Kahlan grabbed her by her shoulders and straightened her. “Regina, what has happened here?”
Regina’s eyes filled with tears, and she cast a shrinking glance toward Richard as her lip trembled. Kahlan looked back to him.
“Richard,” she said softly, “why don’t you take the old man and the children outside?”
He understood; the women were too afraid to talk in front of him. He gave a helping arm to the stooped old man, and herded four of the children out. Two of the youngest girls refused to leave the women’s skirts, but Kahlan nodded to him that it was all right.
The four children clung together in a clump as they sat on the step outside, eyes empty and distant. None would answer when he asked their names, or even look at him except with frightened peeks to make sure he didn’t come any closer. The old man only stared blankly ahead when Richard asked his name.
“Can you tell me what happened here?” Richard asked him.
His eyes widened as he looked out over the street. “Westlanders…”
Tears welled up and he wouldn’t say anything else. Fearing to get any more forceful, he decided to let the old man be. Richard offered him a piece of dried meat from his p
ack, but he ignored it. The children shrank back from his hand as he held it out with the same offer. He put the meat back in his pack. The oldest girl, just nearing womanhood, looked at him as if he might slay them, or eat them, on the spot. He had never seen anyone so terrified. Not wanting to frighten her or the other children more than they were, he kept his distance, smiled reassuringly, and promised he wouldn’t hurt them, or even touch them. They didn’t look as if they believed him. Richard turned toward the door often; he was uncomfortable and wished Kahlan would come out.
At last she did, her face an intense mask of calmness, a spring wound too tight. Richard stood and the children ran back into the building. The old man stayed where he was. She took Richard’s arm, walking him away.
“There are no horses here,” she said, watching fixedly ahead as she walked back the way they had come. “I think it best if we stay off the roads, stay to the less-traveled trails.”
“Kahlan, what’s going on?” He looked back over his shoulder. “What happened here?”
She glared at the bloody message on the wall as they went past, DEATH TO ALL WHO RESIST THE WESTLAND.
“Missionaries came, telling the people of the glory of Darken Rahl. They came often, telling the town council of the things they would have when D’Hara rules all the lands. Telling everyone of Rahl’s love for all the people.”
“That’s crazy!” Richard whispered harshly.
“Nonetheless, the people of Horners Mill were won over. They all agreed to declare the town a territory of D’Hara. The People’s Peace Army marched in, treating everyone with the utmost respect, buying goods from the merchants, spending silver and gold with abandon.” She pointed back at the rows of lumber under tarps. “The missionaries were as good as their word; orders came down for lumber. A lot of lumber. To build new towns where people would live in prosperity under the glowing rule of Father Rahl.”