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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 absence," 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.
"This is him," Kahlan confirmed.
"That's right." The lad sneered up at Verna. "I'm the one who knifed the enemy wizard. I'm a hero. The Order will bring relief and justice to the people, and I helped do it. Your kind is always trying to keep us down."
"Keep you down," Verna repeated in a dead tone.
"Those who are born with all the luck and advantages-they never want to share. I waited, but no one ever gave me a chance in life until the Order did. I'm a hero of downtrodden people everywhere. I've struck a blow against the oppressors of mankind. I've helped bring justice to those who are never given a chance. I killed an evil man. I'm a hero!"
The silence of everyone nearby was all the more grim with the backdrop of activity going on as men searched the camp for other assassins. Officers called out names, getting quick replies. Troops searching for invaders trotted through the night, their chain mail and weapons jingling like thousands of tiny bells.
The man on his knees gri
Verna passed her gaze among the eyes of all those gathered.
"I don't care what you do to him," she said, "but I want to hear his screams the entire night. I want this camp to hear his screams the entire night. I want the Order's scouts to hear his screams. That will be my tribute to Warren."
The young man licked his lips, realizing things weren't going as he had expected.
"That isn't fair!" the young assassin shouted in protest.
Panic began to tremble through his body. He had been prepared for a martyr's death, a quick end. This was something unforeseen.
"He died quick. I should have the same consideration! This isn't fair!"
"Fair? What isn't fair," Verna said with terrible calmness, "is that your mother ever opened her legs for your father. We shall now belatedly.correct her mistake. What isn't fair is that a good and kind man died at the hands of a sniveling little coward so lacking in sense that he is incapable of recognizing the lies he now spews out at us.
"You wish to trade your life for the one you have taken? You wish to die in a cause you foolishly believe to be noble? You shall have your wish, young man. But before you die, you shall fully understand what it is you have surrendered, how precious is your life, and how utterly wasted. You shall come to regret your mother's act of creation as much as do we."