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Now that they had arrived at their destination, there would be more time for Ja'La games. Kahlan imagined that there would be tournaments. She hoped that they would divert Jagang's attention from her, keep him occupied. She would have to accompany him—she was made to stay close—but that was better than being alone with him.
As they arrived at the emperor's tents she was at first a little puzzled that the compound specifically, and the camp in general, was so far from their distant objective. He was so close. It seemed that it was only a matter of another hour's ride or two and they would be there.
Kahlan didn't ask why they had stopped short, but she soon found out when officers arrived for a nightly briefing.
"I want all the Sisters on watch tonight," Jagang told them. "This close, there is no telling what sorts of wicked powers the enemy up there might send down on us."
Kahlan noticed that Sisters Ulicia and Armina, not far away, were relieved to overhear such orders. It meant they wouldn't be sent to entertain the men. In the long march of weeks, after being sent to the tents almost nightly as punishment for their transgressions against Jagang, they both looked to have aged years.
They had both been rather attractive women, but no more. They both had lost whatever beauty they once possessed. Their eyes, heavy with dark bags, were rather hollow and distant. Sister Armina's sky blue eyes seemed to always look startled, as if she still couldn't believe her fate. Creases had come to their faces, giving them both a heavy, drained, downcast look. They were always dirty, their hair perpetually tangled and their clothes torn. They often showed up in the morning with lurid bruises.
Kahlan didn't like to see anyone suffer, but she could not work up any sympathy for these two. Were it not for them, she would not be in the clutches of a man who was only counting the moments until she recovered her memory and he could begin in earnest to make her suffer what he had promised to be insufferable agony, both physically and mentally. He had promised her, more than once, that when she had her memory back he was going to impregnate her and she was going to bear him a child—a male, he always claimed. He always added a cryptic message about how when she had her memory back, she would then truly understand just what a monster such a male child would be to her.
As far as Kahlan was concerned, whatever Jagang did to those two women was not enough.
Beyond what they had done to her, by hearing bits and pieces Kahlan had put together the nature of their plot and what those two had planned to do to everyone. That alone made it impossible to treat them too brutally. If it was Kahlan's choice, though, she would simply have put them to death. Kahlan held no favor with torture; she simply believed that they did not deserve to continue to live. They had forfeited their right to live by the harm they had already done to others, and by what they planned to do to deprive everyone of their lives. By that measure, the entire army deserved to die.
Kahlan only wished that Jagang could suffer a similar fate.
"At least their army has fled," one of the senior officers said to Jagang as the emperor's horse was led away. Another man took Kahlan's mare.
The officer was missing half his left ear. It had long since healed over in a lump, becoming a distraction that was hard to ignore. Men who didn't ignore it sometimes lost an ear.
"They have no defenders left," another officer said.
"I'm sure they have gifted up there," Jagang said, "but they shouldn't present an obstacle that can stop us."
"The reports of the scouts and spies say that the road up the side is narrow—too narrow for any kind of mass assault. There is also a drawbridge that they have raised. Bringing building materials up that road, and then defending ourselves while we tried to span the chasm, would be hard to do.
"As for the great door leading to the interior way up into the plateau, it has been closed. No one entertains any faith in breaching that door. It has stood for thousands of years against any assault. Besides, the reports from the gifted say that their powers are weakened near the palace."
Jagang smiled. "I have some ideas."
The man missing part of his ear bowed his head. "Yes, Excellency."
As Jagang and his officers talked, Kahlan noticed a small cluster of men in the distance riding at breakneck speed through the camp. They were coming up from behind, from the south. At every checkpoint, the men brought their horses to a skidding halt, spoke briefly to sentries, and were ushered through.
Jagang had noticed the riders, too. His conversation with his officers dwindled away and soon all of them were watching with the emperor as the riders made it to the inner defenses and dismounted in a cloud of dust. They waited at the final ring of steel for permission to enter the emperor's compound.
When Jagang signaled, the men were brought forward. They came with haste, despite how tired they looked.
The man at their lead was a wiry fellow, older, with a hard look in his dark eyes. He saluted.
"Well," Jagang said, "what is it that's so urgent?"
"Excellency, cities in the Old World have come under attack."
"Is that so." Jagang heaved an impatient sigh. "It's those insurrectionists, mostly from Altur'Rang. Haven't they been put down yet?"
"No, Excellency, it is not insurrectionists—although they are causing trouble as well, led by one called the blacksmith. Too many places have been attacked for it to be the doings of insurrectionists."
Jagang eyed the man suspiciously. "What places have come under attack?"
The man pulled a scroll out from inside his dusty shirt. "Here is a list we have collected, so far." « "So far?" Jagang asked, arching an eyebrow as he unfurled the scroll.
"Yes, Excellency. The information is that there is a wave of destruction sweeping across the land."
Jagang scanned the long list of places on the scroll. Kahlan tried not to appear obvious as she glanced at the report out of the corner of her eye. She saw two columns of towns and cities listed. There had to be more than thirty-five or forty places written on the scroll.
"I don't know what you mean by 'sweeping across the land,' " Jagang gro
wled. "These places are all random. They're not located in a line, or cluster, or one area of the Old World. They're all over the place."
The man cleared his throat. "Yes, Excellency. That is the report."
"Some of this has to be overstated." To make his point, Jagang jabbed the paper with a fat finger. The silver rings on each finger flashed in the fading light. "Taka-Mar, for instance. Taka-Mar has been attacked? It couldn't have been very effective for a malcontent mob of fools to attack such a place. There are troop garrisons there. It's a transfer station for supply trains. There are ample defenses in place. There are even Brothers of the Fellowship of Order in charge of the place. They wouldn't have allowed a rabble to have their way in Taka-Mar. This report most likely is overstated by nervous fools who are afraid of their own shadow."
The man bowed apologetically. "Excellency, Taka-Mar was one of the places I saw with my own eyes."
"Well?" Jagang roared. "What did you see, then? Out with it!"
"The roads into the city from every direction are lined with stakes topped with charred skulls," the man began.
"How many skulls?" Jagang waved dismissively. "Dozens? As many as a hundred?"
"Excellency, there were numbers beyond counting, and I stopped counting at several thousand without having made much headway in a full tally. The city itself is no more."
"No more?" Jagang blinked in confusion. "What do you mean, no more? Such a thing is impossible."
"It has been burned to the ground, Excellency. There was not a single building left standing. The fires were so intense that the lumber cannot be salvaged. The orchards all the way out into the hills were all cut down. The fields of ripe crops for miles and miles in every direction have all been burned. The ground has been salted. Nothing will ever grow there again. A once fertile place will never support anything again. It looks like the Keeper himself destroyed the place."
