Richard leaned toward the men and jabbed a finger at his temple. "Think! Are you so mired on the concept of a traditional final battle that you have forgotten its purpose? Are you putting the 'the way it's always been done' ahead of the reason for doing it? The sole reason for such a battle is to prevail over the enemy, to settle the matter once and for all. That concept of a final battle has evolved into thinking that it's the way it must be done because that is the way it has always been done.

"Stop being pointlessly tied to that idea. Think. Stop being blinded by what you have done before. Stop throwing yourselves into your graves as if by rote. Think — think — about how to accomplish our objective."

"You mean to say that you have a better idea than fighting them?" a younger officer asked. Like most of the men, he looked truly puzzled.

Richard took a breath in an effort to get a grip on his temper. He lowered his voice and looked among all the sober faces as he went on.

"Yes. Instead of doing the expected and throwing ourselves into a final battle, I simply want to destroy them. That is, after all, the root objective of a grand final battle. If such a battle will not accomplish that objective, then we must find another way.

"Unlike those who fight for the beliefs of the Order, none of us needs to brag about a glorious victory on the field of battle. There is no glory in such things. There is simply success or failure. Failure means a new dark age. Success means we live free. Civilization hangs in the balance. It's as simple as that.

"There is no narrowly defined field of battle in such a struggle for life, such a struggle for our very survival against men driven by a desire to murder us because they think we have no right to exist. Such a struggle is not a fight over a plot of ground, a war over turf, but is based in the minds of men, based in the very ideas that motivate them.

"Our loved ones will not be better served by a victory on a battlefield; they will only be served if we prevail in this struggle of ideas."

General Meiffert finally lifted a hand to speak. "Lord Rahl, if not by meeting them in combat, then how do you propose we accomplish such a task against a. foe that you have just explained is so vast that it is unbeatable? After all, even if it is their beliefs that drive them, it is their swords that we must deal with."

Men nodded, happy that their general had asked the question they all had in mind. It was also the question Richard had been waiting for. He had discouraged their hope of a victory in a traditional battle by throwing out their mindset. Now he had to show them how to win the war.

As the drumbeat of rain on the tarp overhead increased, Richard, hands clasped behind his back, appraised all the faces watching him. "You must be the thunder and lightning of freedom. You must be vengeance unleashed against a people with corrupt ideas that have not just allowed evil to dwell in their hearts, but authorized and advocated it.

"We must fight the war our way. We must fight it for what it really is — not armies on a field of battle acting as surrogates for ideas, but a war for the future of mankind.

"As such, it is a war in which the Old World is totally committed, in which everyone on their side has dedicated themselves to the struggle. They are passionate about their cause. They believe in what they are doing. They think they have right on their side, that they are acting morally, that they are fulfilling the Creator's wishes, and so they are justified in murdering whoever they wish in order to define how mankind will live.

"They are all investing their property, their labor, their wealth, and their lives in the struggle. Their people — not just their army — want to subjugate us and make us bend to their beliefs. They want us to be slaves to their faith, just as they are. They encourage their army to attack innocent people here, in the New World, in order to force their beliefs on us. They want us, as followers of the same faith as they, to sacrifice our lives to that faith, to live the lives they wish us to live, to dictate what our children will believe… by force if necessary.

"All the people who believe in the ways of the Order, who contribute, who encourage, who support, who pray for their soldiers to crush us, are part of their war effort. Each of those people adds something to their cause. As such, they are just as much the enemy as the soldiers swinging the swords for them. They are the ones who feed their blades with a supply of young men and everything they need to come after us, from food to moral support and encouragement."

Richard pointed south. "In fact, those people who make this war possible are perhaps even more of an enemy because each one is a silent enabler who wishes us harm from afar, who hates by choice, who believes that there is no consequence for them forcing their will on us.

"Loot and plunder goes back to reward their support. Slaves are sent back to labor for them. Blood and tears are extracted to enforce their demands for faith.

"These people have made the choice to believe, made the choice to think that they have a right to our lives, made the choice to do anything necessary to rule us. There must be consequences to the choices they have made, especially when their choices ruin the lives of others who have done them no harm."

Richard opened his hands. "And how are we to accomplish this?"

He drew his hands into fists. "We must bring this war home to the people who support and encourage it. It must not simply be the lives of our friends, our families, our loved ones who are thrown into the bloody cauldron these people of the Old World stoke. It must now be their lives as well.

"They see this as a struggle for the future of mankind. I intend to see that it is. I want them to fully understand that if they set out to murder and subjugate us — for whatever reason — then there will be consequences.

"From this day forward, we will fight a real war, a total war, a war without mercy. We will not impose pointless rules on ourselves about what is 'fair. Our only mandate is to win. That is the only way we, our loved ones, our freedom will survive. Our victory is all that is moral. I want any supporter of the Order to pay the price for their aggression. I want them to pay with their fortunes, their future, their very lives.

"The time has come to go after these people with nothing but cold black rage in our hearts."

Richard lifted a fist. "Crush their bones to blood and dust!"

There was a moment of silence as everyone took a collective breath, and then a thunderous cheer erupted, as if they had all secretly known that they had no chance to succeed and that they were doomed to face only death and failure in the end, but now they had been shown that there was a way. There was, at last, a real chance to save their homes and loved ones, to save the future.

Richard let the revelry go on for a time, then held up a hand to make them listen as he went on.

"The army of the Order has the support of the people of their homeland. The soldiers of the Order each know that their families, friends, and neighbors support them. The men of the Order need to hear from those back in the Old World. What I want the men of the Order to hear are wails of agony. I want them to know that their homes are being gutted, their cities and towns leveled, their businesses and crops destroyed, and their loved ones left with nothing.

"The Order preaches that life in this world is nothing but misery. Make it so. Strip away the thin veneer of civilization they so despise."

Richard looked to Verna and the women with her, Sisters of the Light, all. "They hate magic; make them terrified of it. They think those with magic must be destroyed; make them believe that they can't be. They want a world without magic; make them wish only not to anger us ever again. They want to conquer; make them want only to surrender."