Faith of the Fallen (Sword of Truth 6)

Half a dozen dead men lay at the far end of the tent, covered with blankets. Here and there a bloody hand stuck out from under a cover. One man was missing a boot. Kahlan stared, unable to make her mind work, unable to understand how the soldier had lost a boot. It seemed so silly—dying and losing a boot. Tragedy and comedy together under a shroud.

Warren lay on his back on a pallet on the ground. Sister Philippa was on the far side of him, her tall frame bent over the youthful wizard, holding his hand. Sister Phoebe was on the near side, holding his other hand. Both women turned tearstained faces up to see Verna above them.

“Warren,” Sister Philippa said, “it’s Verna. She’s here. And Kahlan, too.”

The two Sisters quickly moved out of the way for Verna and Kahlan to take their places. They covered their mouths to hold in their cries as they fled the tent.

Warren was as white as the stacks of clean bandages lying nearby. His eyes were open wide as he stared up…as if he could no longer see. His curly blond hair was matted in sweat. His robes were soaked in blood.

“Warren,” Verna moaned. “Oh, Warren.”

“Verna? Kahlan?” he asked in a breathy whisper.

“Yes, my love.” Verna kissed his hand a dozen times.

Kahlan squeezed his other limp hand. “I’m here, too, Warren.”

“I had to hold on. Till you both came back. To tell you both.”

“Tell us what, Warren?” Verna asked through her tears.

“Kahlan…” he whispered.

She leaned in. “I’m here, Warren. Don’t try to talk, just—”

“Listen to me.”

Kahlan pressed his hand to her cheek. “I’m listening, Warren.”

“Richard is right. His vision. I had to tell you.”

Kahlan didn’t know what to say.

A smile came to his ashen face. “Verna…”

“What is it, my love?”

“I love you. Always have.”

Verna could hardly get her words past her choking tears. “Warren, don’t die. Don’t die. Please don’t die.”

“Give me a kiss,” Warren whispered, “while I still live. And don’t mourn what ends, but what a good life we’ve had. Kiss me, my love.”

Verna bent over him and met his lips with hers, giving him a gentle, loving kiss as her tears dripped onto his face.

Unable to bear the scene, Kahlan staggered out of the tent, finding Zedd’s protective arms waiting. She hid her weeping against his shoulder.

“What are we doing?” she cried. “What’s it all for? What good is any of it? We’re losing everything.”

Zedd had no answer for her tears at the futility of it all.

The minutes dragged on. Kahlan forced herself to be strong, to be the Mother Confessor. She couldn’t let the men see her giving up.

Silent men stood nearly, not wanting to look in the direction of the tent where Warren lay dying.

When General Meiffert materialized out of the darkness, the relief on Cara’s face was evident. He rushed up close to Cara, but didn’t touch her.

“I’m glad to see you safely returned,” he said to Kahlan. “How is Warren?”

Kahlan couldn’t speak.

Zedd shook his head. “I didn’t think he would live this long. I think he held on so he could see his wife.”

The general nodded sorrowfully. “We caught the man who did it.”

Kahlan came to full attention. “Bring him to me,” she growled.

Without hesitation the general hurried off to retrieve the assassin. When Kahlan gestured, Cara went with him.

“What did he say to you?” Zedd asked in a quiet voice so that others wouldn’t hear. “He wanted to tell you something.”

Kahlan took a purging breath. “He said, ‘Richard is right.’”

Zedd looked away in forlorn misery. Warren was his friend. Kahlan never knew Zedd to take a liking to anyone the way he had taken to Warren. They shared things she knew she could never understand. Despite his young appearance, Warren was over a hundred and fifty years old, close to the same age as Verna. To Zedd, who was always looked up to as the wise old wizard, it must have been a particular comfort to share wizardly matters with one who understood such things, instead of constantly needing explanation and direction.

“He said the same to me,” Zedd whispered tearfully.

“Why didn’t Warren use his gift?” Kahlan asked.

Zedd wiped a finger across his cheek. “He was walking past, just as the man seized and stabbed Holly. Perhaps the assassin couldn’t find his target, or maybe he became lost and confused, or he could have just panicked and decided to stab someone and Holly was handy at that moment.”

Kahlan wiped her hands back across her cheeks. “Maybe he had been told to look for a wizard in such robes, and when he saw Warren, he stabbed Holly to cause a commotion so he could get at Warren.”

“That could be. Warren doesn’t really know. It all happened in an instant. Warren was right there, and just reacted. I asked, but he didn’t know why he didn’t use his power. Perhaps in that terrible flash of the knife, he feared to kill Holly in the process, since the man had her and was stabbing her. His instinct to save her just caused him to snatch for the knife. It was a fatal mistake.”

“Maybe Warren simply hesitated before using his power.”

Zedd shrugged painfully. “A split-second hesitation has been the end of a lot of wizards.”

“If I hadn’t hesitated,” Kahlan said as she stared off into bitter memories, “Nicci wouldn’t have had me. She wouldn’t have Richard, now.”

“Don’t try to fix the past, dear one—it can’t be done.”

“What about the future?”

Zedd’s gaze sought hers. “Meaning?”

“Remember at the end of last winter, when we left camp—when the Order began moving?” When Zedd nodded, she went on. “Warren pointed at this place on the map. He said we had to be here to stop the Order.”

“Are you suggesting he knew he would die here?”

“You tell me.”

“I’m a wizard, not a prophet.”

“But Warren is.” When he said nothing, Kahlan asked in a whisper, “What about Holly?”

“I don’t know. I was just arriving to talk to Warren. It had just happened. Soldiers were jumping the man. Warren yelled orders for them not to kill him. I guess he was thinking the assassin might have valuable information. I saw Holly, bleeding from her wounds, in shock. I immediately had Warren brought in here and started to work on him. Sisters rushed in and took Holly to another tent.”

Zedd’s heartsick gaze sank to the cold ground. “I did everything I know to do. It wasn’t enough.”

Kahlan enclosed his shoulders protectively in her arm. “It was out of your hands from the first, Zedd.”

It was disorienting to see her source of strength in a state of such painful weakness. It was irrational to expect him to be unemotional and strong in such circumstances, but it was still disconcerting. In that moment, Kahlan was overcome with a sense of all the loss Zedd had suffered in his life; it was all there in his wet hazel eyes.

Men made way for the returning General Meiffert and Cara. Behind them, two burly soldiers had a wiry young man—little more than a boy, really. He was muscular, but no match for the men who had him. His hair tumbled down across a forehead above dark contemptuous eyes. He wore a proud sneer.

“So,” the lad said, trying to sound tough, “I guess that in my service to the Order I knifed someone important. That makes me a hero of the Order.”

“Make him kneel before the Mother Confessor,” General Meiffert said with quiet command.

The two soldiers kicked the back of the young man’s knees to take him down. He snickered as he knelt before her.

“So, you’re the big important whore I’ve heard so much about. Too bad you weren’t around—I’d have loved to have cut you. I guess I showed some people I’m pretty good with a knife.”

“So in my a

bsence,” Kahlan said, “you cut a child, instead.”

“Just for practice. I’d have cut a lot more people if these big dumb oxen wouldn’t have lucked into jumping me. But I still did my duty to the Order and the Creator.”

It was the bravado of someone who knew he was about to pay the ultimate price for his actions. He was trying to convince himself that he had fulfilled a valuable service. He wanted to die a hero, and then go straight to the Creator for his reward in the afterlife.

Verna emerged from the tent. There was no hurry in her movements. Her face was ashen and drawn. Kahlan took hold of her arm, ready to help if Verna should need it.

Verna stopped when she saw the young man on his knees.

“This is him?” she asked.

Kahlan put her other hand tenderly to Verna’s back, silently offering support.