"You know from being in the mind of Sister Ulicia the tactic she thought would deliver her the safety of the bond to Richard and protect her mind from you. Sister Ulicia knew that life is Richard's highest value, so she hatched the scheme that when she used the power of Orden to free the Keeper of the underworld from his prison in the world of the dead, she would grant Richard Rahl eternal life. That Richard wouldn't believe such a bargain was possible, much less accept it, was irrelevant in Ulicia's mind. She thought that until the offer was made and refused, her intentions to grant him eternal life gave her immunity from your ability as a dream walker.

"But you were already secretly embedded in Ulicia's mind. That's how you learned what matters most to Richard, his greatest value: life.

"That's a foreign concept to you. Life is not a value to the Order. They teach that our lives are a meaningless transitory state on our way to an eternal afterlife. They believe that this life is a mere vessel, a shell, to hold our soul until it can reach a higher plane of existence. The Order teaches that glory in the afterlife is our greatest value, and that that glory is earned through the sacrifice of this life to their cause. The Order, therefore, values death.

"You see those who value life as weak, inferior. You can't understand what life, all life, means to someone like Richard, but you do know how to use what you learned.

"You use that value to try to intimidate Richard from facing the larger challenge of defending all of life. By advancing the propaganda that he is a killer of women and children you believe that you can cow his courage, shame him out of attacking for fear that civilians might be killed, and thus limit him to defending himself.

"As an experienced warrior you are well aware that wars are not won defensively. Without the total commitment of the force necessary to crush the vicious beliefs of an aggressor, you can never hope to win a war because those beliefs are what bring about war in the first place.

"Richard also knows that wars are not won defensively, that to end war as quickly as possible and with the smallest possible loss of life, the only way is to stop the aggressor's ability to harm you and crush their devotion to beliefs that caused them to attack in the first place.

"Your aim, with such sensationalized charges against a man who so values life, is to discredit, dishonor, and disgrace him into fearing to act as he must if he is to win.

"You create a diversion with half-truths in order to turn all eyes away from the real implications of your beliefs and to win converts to the Order's twisted ideology. You accuse others of the things you are actually guilty of, knowing that it will stir emotions.

"But in the end, such dramatic charges are merely a cover-an attempt to latch onto an excuse to legitimize your routine killing of unimaginable numbers of people.

"You and I both know the truth of the endless corpses of women and children the Order leaves in its wake, but those are ignored in your contrived moral outrage. Your brutality, savagery, and cruelty against those who have done nothing to the people in the Old World frame the true nature of your beliefs. The enormity of your depravity is only compounded by blaming the victim with the crimes you bring to his people, the same as you blame me for my own rape.

"I was there the day Richard gave those troops their orders. I know the truth.

"The truth is that the minds of most people of the Old World have been irrevocably blackened by their fanatical devotion to ideas that result only in suffering and death. Those people are beyond redemption by reason. Richard knows that the only way to deal with evil, to break a people's bond to it, is to make holding on to such beliefs unendurable.

"The Order itself has made this a war to the end. Richard knows that his people cannot survive by trying to coexist with such evil, or by excusing those who nurture it.

"The Order seeks to exterminate liberty. The knife that the Order is trying to thrust into his heart is driven by devotion to the corrupt beliefs of the Order. Richard understands that he must eliminate the source of those beliefs or freethinking people everywhere will all die, murdered by men encouraged and fed by the people of the Old World.

"War is a terrible business. The faster it is ended the less suffering and death there will be. That is Richard's goal. The weak-minded would shrink from what must be done for fear of being criticized by the wicked. Richard is not going to be deterred by the words of hypocrites and haters.

"The truth is that his orders were that, whenever possible, his soldiers should avoid harming people, but ending the war is their overriding objective. To do that, they must destroy the Order's ability to wage war. As soldiers, that is the responsibility Richard Rahl charged them with-they are defending their people's right to exist. He told them that anything else is just whistling on the way to their graves.

"This war is merely an extension of the great war that raged so long ago, but never really ended. The Old World again has fallen prey to the evil ideas of the Order. How many lives have been wasted because of those beliefs? How many yet will be?

"The last time, those defending against such teachings did not have the courage to crush them into cold, lifeless ashes and as a result this ancient war has once again rekindled at the hands of the Fellowship of Order. Just as back then, it is sparked by those same mindless ideas that everyone must believe the same as they do or die.

"Richard understands that this time it must be ended once and for all, that the world of life must be liberated from the poison of the Order. He has the courage to do just that. He will not be dissuaded by your taunts. He doesn't care what other people think of him. He only cares that they can't again harm him and those he cares about.

"To make sure of that, those who preach the Order's hate will be hunted down and killed.

"The D'Haran army may not be anywhere near as large as the Imperial Order, but they will still strangle you. They will burn crops and orchards, destroy mills and stables, break dams and canals. Anyone who gets in the way of their halting the Old World's ability to wage war will be eliminated.

"Most importantly, those soldiers will cut the supply lines headed north. Ending your ability to kill these people is Richard's only objective. Unlike you, he does not need to teach anyone a lesson in dominance-but he will end yours.

"There will be no final battle to decide it all, as was your plan. Richard does not care how your men are stopped, only that they are-once and for all.

"Without supplies, your army will wither and die out here on this barren plain. That is victory enough."

Jagang smiled in a way that in turn gave Nicci pause. "Darlin, the Old World is a big place. They waste their efforts attacking crops. They can't be everywhere."

"They don't have to be."

He shrugged. "They may be able to attack supply trains from here and there, but that is simply the sacrifice our people make for the advancement of our cause. Casualties, no matter how many, are the cost of achieving moral ends.

"Because I understand the price that must be paid to take us to our final victory, I had already ordered a dramatic increase in the numbers of supplies being sent north to our valiant troops. We can send more men and supplies than Richard Rahl can hope to stop.

"The people of the Old World will sacrifice what they must in order to see to it that we have what we need to persevere. The price has been raised, but our people will gladly pay it. I expect that you're right, that many of those supply trains will be destroyed, but the D'Haran forces do not have enough men to stop them all."