Holding his hand as they walked was her only connection to the world. She couldn't see the slaughter. She couldn't hear the screams. She couldn't smell the fires. Yet she knew that those things had to be happening around her.

In her silent world, she prayed as she walked, prayed that the good spirits would keep safe the souls of those who had died here this day, and for those who still lived she prayed for the good spirits to give them strength.

He guided her around rubble, and around the heat of fires. He held her hand tight when she stumbled over debris. It seemed they walked for hours through the ruins of the vast city.

Occasionally they stopped, and she lost the connection to his hand as she stood still and alone in her silent world. She could neither see nor hear, so she didn't know the exact reason for the stop, but she suspected that Nathan was having to talk their way out. Sometimes those stops dragged on and on, and her heart raced at the thought of what unseen danger Nathan warded. Sometimes, the stop was followed by his arm around her waist pulling her into a run. She felt confident in his care, and comfort, too.

Her hip sockets ached from walking, and her weary feet throbbed. He at last placed both hands on her shoulders, turned her, and helped her sit. She felt cool grass under her.

Her vision suddenly returned, along with her hearing and sense of smell. Rolling green hills spread away before her. She looked around and saw only countryside. There were no people anywhere. The city of Renwold was nowhere to be seen.

She dared to feel the budding of sweet relief, not only at having escaped the slaughter but at having escaped her old life.

The terror had burned so deep into her soul that she felt as if she had been recast in a furnace of fear, and had come out a shiny new ingot, hardened for what lay ahead.

Whatever she had to face, it could be no worse than what she would have faced had she stayed. If she had chosen to stay, it would have been a turning away from helping others, and from herself.

She didn't know what he was going to ask her to do, but every day of freedom she had was one she wouldn't otherwise have had if not for the prophet. "Thank you, Nathan, for choosing me." He was staring off in thought, and didn't seem to hear her.

Sister Verna turned to the commotion and saw a scout leaping from his lathered horse before it had skidded to a stop in the near darkness. The scout panted, trying to catch his breath, at the same time as he relayed his report to the general. The general's tense posture visibly relaxed at the report. He gestured in a jaunty fashion for his officers to stand down their concern, too.

She couldn't hear the scout's report, but she knew what it would be. She didn't have to be a prophet to know what the scout would have seen. The fools. She had told him as much.

The smiling General Reibisch approached her, his heavy eyebrows arched with his good humor. When he came into the ring of firelight, his grayish-green eyes searched her out. "Prelate! There you are. Good news!

Verna, her mind on other, more important matters, loosened the shawl around her shoulders.

"Don't tell me, general; my Sisters and I won't have to spend the whole night calming nervous soldiers and casting spells to tell you where panicked men have run off to hide while they await the end of the world."

He scratched his rust-colored beard. "Ah, well, I do appreciate your help. Prelate, but no, you won't. You're right, as usual." She snorted an I-told-you-so.

The scout had been watching from atop the hill, and from there could see the moonrise before any of them down in the valley.

"My man said that the moon didn't rise red, tonight. I know you told me it wouldn't, and that three nights of it was all there would be, but I can't help being relieved to know things are back to normal. Prelate." Back to normal. Hardly.

"I'm glad, general, that we will all get a good night's sleep for a change. I hope, too, that your men have learned a lesson, and that in the future, when I tell them that the underworld isn't about to swallow us all, they will have a little more faith."

He smiled sheepishly. "Yes, Prelate. I believed you, of course, but some of these men are more superstitious than is healthy for their hearts. Magic scares them." She leaned a little closer to the man and lowered her voice. "It should." He cleared his throat. "Yes, Prelate. Well, I guess we better all get some sleep." "Your messengers haven't returned yet, have they?"

"No." He traced a finger down the lower part of the white scar running from his left temple to his jaw. "I don't expect they've even reached Aydindril yet."

Verna sighed. She wished she could have heard word first. It might have made her decision easier. "I suppose not."

"What do you think. Prelate? What's your advice? North?" She stared off, watching the sparks from the fire spiral up into the darkness, and feeling its heat on her face. She had more important decisions to make.

"I don't know. Richard's exact words to me were, 'Head north. There's an army of a hundred thousand D'Haran soldiers heading south looking for Kahlan. You'll have more protection with them, and they with you. Tell General Reibisch that she is safe with me. »

"It would have made things easier if he would have said for sure." "He didn't say for us to go north, back to Aydindril, but it was implied. I'm sure he thought that's what we would do. However, I take seriously your advice in matters such as this."

He shrugged. "I'm a soldier. I think like a soldier."

Richard had gone to Tanimura to rescue Kahlan, and had managed to destroy the Palace of the Prophets, along with its vault of prophecies, before Emperor Jagang could capture it. Richard had said that he had to return to Aydindril at once, and that he didn't have time to explain, but only he and Kahlan had the magic required that would allow their immediate return. He said he couldn't take the rest of them. He had told her to go north to meet up with General Reibisch and his D'Haran army.

General Reibisch was reluctant to return north. He reasoned that with a force this large already this far south, it would be strategically advantageous to blunt an invasion of the New World before it could drive into the populous areas.

''General, I have no argument with your motives, but I fear that you underestimate the threat. From the information I've managed to gather, the Imperial Order's forces are large enough to crush even an army of this size without losing stride. I don't doubt your men's ability, but by sheer numbers alone the Order will swallow you whole.

"I understand your reasoning, but even with as many men as you have, it won't be enough, and then we wouldn't have them to lend their weight to a gathering of a larger force that might have a chance against the Order."

The general smiled reassuringly. 'Prelate, what you say makes sense. I've listened to reasoned arguments like yours my whole career. The thing is, war isn't a reasonable pursuit. Sometimes, you simply have to take advantage of what the good spirits give you and throw yourself into the fray." "Sounds like a good way to be annihilated."

"Well, I've been doing it a long tine, and I'm still alive. Just because you choose to meet the enemy, that doesn't mean you have to stick your chin out and let him have a good swing at it." Verna squinted at the man. "What have you in mind?" "Seems to me that we're already here. Messengers can move a great deal faster than an army. I think we should move to a more secure location, one more defendable, and sit tight." "Where?"

"If we go east, into the high country of southern D'Hara, then we could be in a better position to react. I know the country there. If the Order tries to come up into the New World through D'Hara, the easy way through the Kern River valley, then we are there to stop them. We can fight on more equal terms in tighter country like that. Just because you have more men, that doesn't mean you can use them all. A valley is only so wide."