CHAPTER 46

Following behind the messenger, Verna stepped aside as a tight pack of horses raced by. Their bellies were caked with mud, their nostrils flared with excitement. The eyes of the cavalry soldiers bent over their withers showed grim determination. With the constant level of activity of recent weeks, she had to maintain a careful vigil whenever she stepped out of a tent lest she be run down by one thing or another. If it wasn't horses charging through camp, it was men at a run.

"Just up ahead," the messenger said over his shoulder.

Verna nodded to his young face as he glanced back. He was a polite young man. His curly blond hair and his mannerly behavior combined to remind her of Warren. She was defenseless against the wave of pain that cut through her with the memory of Warren being gone, at the emptiness of each day.

She couldn't remember this messenger's name. There were so many young men; it was hard to recall all their names. Though she tried her best, she couldn't keep track of them. At least for a while now they hadn't been dying at a terrifying rate. As harsh as the winters were up in D'Hara, such weather had at least been a respite from the battles of the previous summer, from the constant fighting and dying. With summer again upon them, she didn't think that the relative quiet was going to last much longer.For now the passes held against the Imperial Order. In such narrow and confined places, the enemy's weight of numbers didn't mean so much. If only one man would fit through a narrow hole in a stone wall, it meant little that there were a hundred waiting behind him to go through, or a thousand. Defending against one man, as it were, was not the impossible task that it was trying to fight the onslaught of Jagang's entire force.

When she heard the distant thunder, felt it rolling through the ground, she glanced up at the sky. The sun had not made an appearance in two days.

She didn't like the looks of the clouds building against the slopes of the mountains. It looked like they could be in for a nasty storm.

The sound might not have been thunder. It was possible that it was magic the enemy hammered against the shields across the passes. Such battering would do them no good, but it made for uneasy sleeping, so, if for no other reason, they kept at it.

Some of the men and the officers passing in the other direction gave her a nod in greeting, or a smile, or a small wave. Verna didn't see any Sisters of the Light. Many would be at the passes, tending shields, making sure none of the Imperial Order soldiers could get through. Zedd had taught them to consider every possibility, no matter how outlandish, and guard against it. Day and night Verna ran every one of those places through her mind, trying to think if there was anything they had overlooked, anything they had missed, that might allow the enemy forces to flood in upon them.

If that happened, if they broke through, then there was nothing to stop their advance into D'Hara except the defending army, and the defending army was no match for the numbers on the other side of those mountains. She couldn't think of any chink in their armor, but she worried constantly that there might be one.

It seemed that the final battle might be on them at any moment. And where was Richard?

Prophecy said that he was vital in the battle to decide the future course of mankind. With it appearing that they very well could be one battle from the end of it all, of freedom's final spark, the Lord Rahl ran the very real risk of missing the moment of his greatest need. She could hardly believe that for centuries Prophecy foretold of the one who would lead them, and when the time finally arrives, he's off somewhere else. Lot of good Prophecy was doing them.

Verna knew Richard's heart. She knew Kahlan's heart. It wasn't right to doubt either of them, but Verna was the one staring into the eyes of Jagang's horde and Richard was nowhere to be found.

From what little information Verna had gleaned from Ann's messages in the journey book, there was trouble afoot. Verna could detect in Ann's writings that the woman was greatly troubled by something. Whatever the cause, Ann and Nathan were racing south, back down through the Old World.

Ann avoided explaining, possibly not wanting to burden them with anything else, so Verna didn't press. She had enough trouble conceiving of why Ann would have joined with the prophet rather than collaring him. Ann said only that a journey book was not a good place to explain such things.

Despite the good work the man sometimes did, Verna considered Nathan dangerous in the extreme. A thunderstorm brought life-giving rain, but if you were the one struck by its lightning, it didn't do you much good. For Ann and Nathan to join forces, as it were, must be indicative of the trouble they were all in.

Verna had to remind herself that not everything was going against them, not everything was hopeless and dismal. Jagang's army had, after all, suffered a stunning blow at the hands of Zedd and Adie, losing staggering numbers of soldiers in an instant and suffering vast numbers of casualties.

As a result the Imperial Order had turned away from Aydindril, leaving the Wizard's Keep untouched. Despite the dream walker's covetous hands, the Keep remained out of his reach.

Zedd and Adie had the defense of the Keep well in hand, so it was not all trouble and strife; there were valuable assets on the side of the D'Haran Empire. The Keep might yet prove decisive in helping to stop the Imperial Order. Verna missed that old wizard, his advice, his wisdom, though she would never admit it aloud. In that old man she could see where Richard got many of his best qualities.

Verna halted when she saw Rikka striding across in front of her. Verna snatched the Mord-Sith's arm.

"What is it, Prelate?" Rikka asked.

"Have you heard what this is about?"

Rikka gave her a blank look. "What what's about?"

The messenger stopped on the other side of the intersection of informal roads. Horses trotted past in both directions, one pulling a cart of water barrels. Fully armed men crossed on the side road. The encampment, one of several, surrounded by a defensive berm, had evolved into a city of sorts, with byways through its midst for men, horses, and wagons.

"Something is going on," Verna said.

"Sorry, I haven't heard anything."

"Are you busy?"

"Nothing urgent."

Verna took a good grip on Rikka's arm and started her walking. "General Meiffert sent for me. Maybe you'd best come along. That way if he wants you, too, we won't have to send someone looking for you."

Rikka shrugged. "Fine by me." The Mord-Sith's expression turned suspicious. "Do you have any idea what's wrong?"

As Verna kept an eye on the messenger ahead of her weaving his way among men, tents, wagons, horses, and repair stations, she glanced over at Rikka. "Nothing that I know of." Verna's expression contorted a bit as she tried to put her queazy mood into words. "Did you ever wake up and just feel like there was something wrong, but you couldn't explain why it seemed like it was going to be a bad day?"

"If it's to be a bad day, I see to that it's someone else's, and I'm the cause of it."

Verna smiled to herself. "Too bad you're not gifted. You would make a good Sister of the Light."

"I would rather be Mord-Sith and be able to protect Lord Rahl."

The messenger stopped at the side of the camp road. "Back there, Prelate. General Meiffert said to bring you to that tent by the trees."

Verna thanked the young man and made her way across the soft ground, Rikka at her side. The tent was away from the main activity of the camp, in a quieter area where officers often met with scouts just back from patrols.

Verna's mind raced, trying to imagine what news scouts could have brought back. There was no alarm, so the passes still held. If there was trouble, there would be a flurry of activity in the camp, but it seemed about the same as any other day.