Most of the men stood in slumped poses, staring at the ground.

"Do any of the rest of you have children?"

A number of the men nodded or mumbled that they did.

Richard ran his hand back through his hair. "Why haven't the rest of you turned yourselves in, then? Why are you here and not trying to stop the suffering in the same way the others did?"

The men looked at one another, some seeming confused by the question while others appearing unable to put their reasons into words. Their sorrow, their distress, even their hesitant resolve, were evident on their faces, but they could not come up with words to explain why they would not turn themselves in.

Richard held up the small canvas bag with the gruesome treasure, not allowing them to avoid the issue. "You all knew about this. Why did you not return as well?"

Finally one man spoke up. "I sneaked to the fields at sunset and talked to a man working the crops, and asked what happened to those men who had returned. He said that many of their children had already been taken away.

Others had died. All the men who had come in from the hills had been taken away. None were allowed to return to their homes, to their families. What good would it do for us to go back?"

"What good, indeed," Richard murmured. This was the first sign that they grasped the true nature of the situation.

"You have to stop the Order," Owen said. "You must give us our freedom.

Why have you made us make this journey?"

Richard's initial spark of confidence dimmed. While they might have in part grasped the truth of their troubles, they certainly weren't facing the nature of any real solution. They simply wanted to be saved. They still expected someone to do it for them: Richard.

The men all looked relieved that Owen had at last asked the question; they were apparently too timid to ask it themselves. As they waited, some of the men couldn't help stealing glances at Jennsen, standing to the rear.

Most of the men also appeared troubled by the statue looming behind Richard.

They could only see the back of it and didn't really know what it was meant to be.

"Because," Richard finally told them, "in order for me to do as you want, it's important that you all come to understand everything involved.

You expect me to simply do this for you. I can't. You are going to have to help me in this or you and all of your loved ones are lost. If we are to succeed, then you men must help the rest of your people come to understand the things I have to tell you.

"You have gone this far, you have suffered this much, you have made this much of a commitment. You realize that if you do the same as your friends have been trying to do, if you apply those same useless solutions, you, too, will be enslaved or murdered. You are running out of options. You all have made a decision to at least try to succeed, to try to rid yourselves of the brutes killing and enslaving your people.

"You men here are their last chance.. their only chance.

"You must now hear the rest of what I have to tell you and then make up your minds as to what will be your future."

The haggard, ragtag men, all dressed in worn and dirty clothes, all looking like they'd had a very difficult time of living in the hills, either spoke up or nodded that they would hear him out. Some even looked as if they might be relieved by how directly and honestly he spoke to them. A few even looked hungry for what he might say.

CHAPTER 41

Three years ago from the coming autumn," Richard began, "I lived in a place called Hartland. I was a woods guide. I had a peaceful life in a place I loved among those I loved. I knew very little about the places beyond my home. In some ways I was like you people before the Order came, so I can understand some of what you felt about how things changed.

"Like you, I lived beyond a boundary that protected us from those who would do us harm."

The men broke out in excited whispering, apparently surprised and pleased that they could relate to him in this way, that they had something so basic in common with him.

"What happened, then?" one of the men asked.

Richard couldn't help himself; he couldn't hold back the smile that overwhelmed him.

"One day, in my woods"-he held his hand out to the side-"Kahlan showed up. Like you, her people were in desperate trouble. She needed help.

Rather than poison me, though, she told me her story and how trouble was coming our way. Much like you, the boundary protecting her people had failed and a tyrant had invaded her homeland. She also came bearing a warning that this man would soon come to my homeland, too, and conquer my people, my friends, my loved ones."

All the faces turned toward Kahlan. The men stared openly, as if seeing her for the first time. It looked to be astonishing to them that this statuesque woman before them could be a savage, as they thought of outsiders, and have the same kind of trouble they'd had. Richard was leaving out vast chunks of the story, but he wanted to keep it simple enough to be clear to these men.

"I was named the Seeker of Truth and given this sword to help me in this important struggle." Richard lifted the hilt clear of the scabbard by half the length of the blade, letting the men all see the polished steel.

Many grimaced at seeing such a weapon.

"Together, side by side, Kahlan and I struggled to stop the man who sought to enslave or destroy us all. In a strange land, she was my guide, not only helping me to fight against those who would kill us, but helping me to come to understand the wider world I had never before considered. She opened my eyes to what was out there, beyond the boundary that had protected me and my people. She helped me to see the approaching shadow of tyranny and know the true stakes involved-life itself.

"She made me live up to the challenge. Had she not, I would not be alive today, and a great many more people would be dead or enslaved."

Richard had to turn away, then, at the flood of painful memories, at the thought of all those lost in the struggle. At the victories so hard won.

He put his hand to the statue for support as he remembered the gruesome murder of George Cypher, the man who had raised him, the man who, until that struggle, Richard had always believed was his father. The pain of it, so distant and far away, came rushing back again. He remembered the horror of that time, of suddenly realizing that he would never again see the man he dearly loved. He had forgotten until that moment how much he missed him.

Richard gathered his composure and turned back to the men. "In the end, and only with Kahlan's help, I won the struggle against that tyrant I had never known existed until the day she had come into my woods and warned me.

"That man was Darken Rahl, my father, a man I had never known."

The men stared in disbelief. "You never knew?" one asked in an astonished voice.

Richard shook his head. "It's a very long story. Maybe another time I will tell you men all of it. For now, I must tell you the important parts that are relevant to you and those you love back there in your homes."

Richard looked at the ground before him, thinking, as he paced in front of the disorderly knot of men.

"When I killed Darken Rahl, I did it to keep him from killing me and my loved ones. He had tortured and murdered countless people and that alone earned him death, but I had to kill him or he would have killed me. I didn't know at the time that he was my real father or that in killing him, since I was his heir, I would become the new Lord Rahl.

"Had he known who I was, he might not have been trying to kill me, but he didn't know. I had information he wanted; he intended to torture it out of me and then kill me. I killed him first.