At first she saw only D’Haran troops. She knew their leather and mail and armored uniforms all too well. Each of the breastplates bore an ornate, embossed letter R, for the House of Rahl. Soon though, she was able to pick out Kel-tans among the D’Harans. She saw one group of a dozen men from Westland, each with an arm around the next fellow’s shoulders as they danced in a circle and at the same time drank from mugs. She saw men of other lands, too; a few from Nicobarese, some Sandarians, and to her horror, a handful of Galeans. Maybe, she thought, they were simply D’Harans in the uniforms of men they had killed. Somehow, she didn’t believe that.

Sporadic quarrels were going on throughout the camp. Men argued over a lay of the dice, food, casks, or even bottles of drink. Some of the disputes erupted into fights with fists and knives. She saw one man stabbed in the gut, to the uproarious laughter of onlookers.

At last she spotted what she was looking for: the tents belonging to the commanders. Though they hadn’t bothered to put up their flags, she knew by their size what they were. Outside the largest, a small table had been set up next to a roaring fire with spitted meat over it. Lanterns on poles surrounded the group of men gathered there.

As she approached, a huge man who sat with his feet up on the table was yelling, “… and I mean right now, or I’ll have your head! A full one! You bring a full cask or I’ll have your head on a pike!” When the soldier scurried off, the table of men erupted in laughter.

Kahlan brought her huge warhorse right up to the edge of the table. She sat tall and still as she appraised the half-dozen men sitting around the table. Four were D’Haran officers; the one with his boots resting on the table had been the man who had been yelling; one was a Keltish commander in an ornate uniform unbuttoned to reveal a filthy shirt soaked with wine and meat drippings; and one man wore plain, tan robes.

With a large knife, the man with his feet up on the table carved a long strip of meat from a bone. He tossed the bone over his shoulder to a snarling pack of dogs behind him. He tore the strip of meat in half with his teeth and pointed with the knife to his right, to the young man in plain robes, as he added a swig from a mug to the meat already in his mouth. He spoke around it all.

“Wizard Slagle here told me he thought he smelled a Confessor.” He peered up with bloodshot eyes. “And where is your wizard, Confessor? Huh?” Everyone at the table laughed with him. Ale ran down his thick, blond beard. “Bring anything to drink, Confessor? We’re nearly out. No? Well, not to mind.” With the knife, he pointed over to the Keltish commander. “Karsh here tells me there’s a nice city a week or so down the mountains, and they’re bound to have some ale for us thirsty boys, after they welcome us to their town and swear allegiance.”

Kahlan’s eyes slid to the wizard. It was for him she had come. She coolly calculated whether or not she could make the jump from the horse to the wizard and touch him with her power before she was caught by that big knife. The man wielding the knife didn’t look to be able to react too quickly. Still, she judged it to be poor odds. She was willing to give her life to the task, but only if she could be reasonably sure of success.

But it was for him she had come. The wizard was this army’s eyes. He saw things before they could, and things they couldn’t see, like her. And D’Harans feared things magic, and spirits. A wizard was their defense against magic and those spirits.

Her gaze moved from the wizard’s deep-set eyes and drunken, leering smirk to what he was doing with his hands. He was whittling. Before him on the table was a pile of shavings. She remembered the piles of wood shavings in the palace at Ebinissia, outside the girls” rooms.

The wizard waggled the stick he had whittled. For the first time, she noticed what it was. It was a larger-than-life phallus. His smirk grew.

The man with the knife pointed it to the wizard. “slagle’s got something for you, Confessor. Been working on it for two hours, since he realized you were coming for a visit.” He made a feeble attempt to hold back his laughter, but it came in fits through his restraint and he finally gave in to it.

Two hours. They had just told her the limits of this wizard’s power. She had left the Galeans four hours ago, but nearly an hour of that had been spent at her task up on the ridges. That meant the Galean boys weren’t yet close enough for the wizard to know of them, but were only concealed from discovery by a dangerously thin margin. Any closer, and the wizard would know of them. Long before they could bring any surprise to bear.

She waited for the D’Haran man’s laughter to sputter out before she spoke. “You have me at a disadvantage.”

“Not yet! But I will!” The men roared and hooted again.

With every beat of her heart, she became more calm. She pushed her hood back. She wore her Confessor’s face. “What is your name, soldier?”

“Soldier!” He lurched forward and stuck the knife in the table. “I’m no soldier. I’m General Riggs. I’m supreme commander of all our troops. All our men, old and new, answer to me.”

And in whose name are you fighting, General Riggs?”

He swept his hand around. “Why, the Imperial Order is fighting a war on behalf of those who join us. A war against all the oppressors. Against all who fight us. Those who don’t join us are against us, and will be crushed. We fight to bring order.

“Under the Imperial Order, all who join us will find protection, and in turn they will help protect all. All the lands will join with us, or they will be swept aside. It is a new order for which we struggle. The Imperial Order. They command all the lands, and I command them.”

Kahlan frowned, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. “I am the Mother Confessor, and I command the Midlands, not you.”

“Mother Confessor!” He clapped the wizard on the back. “You didn’t tell me she was the Mother Confessor! Well, you don’t look like any mother I’ve seen. But after tonight, you’ll be a mother sure enough. You have my word on that!” He roared with laughter.

“Darken Rahl is dead.” That brought the laughter to an end. “The new Lord Rahl has declared the war ended and called all the D’Haran troops home.”

General Riggs rose to his feet. “darken Rahl was a man of limited foresight, a man too much concerned with his ancient magic and too little concerned with order. He was too preoccupied with his own quests, his old religions. Magic, until it is eradicated, is a tool of men, not a master of them.

“Darken Rahl failed to use the opportunity he had. We will not fail. Darken Rahl himself, in the underworld, knows this, and repents. He is allied to our struggle, now. The good spirits have declared it! We no longer bow to the house of Rahl, but they, as all houses, districts, and kingdoms, to us. The new Lord Rahl will join us, too, or we’ll crush him and any heathen dogs who follow him. We will crush all the heathen dogs!”

“In other words, General, you fight for no one other than yourself. Your purpose is simply to murder people.”

“I do not fight for myself! This is a larger purpose than one man. We offer all the opportunity to join with us. If they don’t join with us, it’s because they’re aligned with our enemies, and we must kill them!” He threw his hands up. “It’s useless trying to explain such matters of state and canon to a woman. Women have no intellect for rule.”

“Men have no exclusive talent to rule, General.”

“It’s profanity for men to bow down to a woman for protection! Right men concern themselves only with getting under a woman’s skirts, not with hiding behind them! Women rule from their nipples, offering only their sympathetic pap. Men rule from their fist. They make and enforce the law. They provide and protect.