The horses skidded to a halt before him, snorting and stamping, tossing their armored heads. Plumes of steam rose from their nostrils when they blew great hot breaths in the icy air. Powerful muscles flexed beneath glossy hides as they pawed the ground. The eager beasts stood at the ready, their tails lashing side to side, slapping their flanks like whips.

Kahlan swept the scene with a careful gaze. Men were rushing up from all directions. Those gathering around stared in wonder. The horsemen were Galeans.

Kahlan had provisionally taken the place of her half sister, Cyrilla, as queen of Galea, until Cyrilla was well again-if that ever happened.

Kahlan's half brother, Harold, was the commander of the Galean army, and didn't want the crown, feeling himself more fit to serve his land in the soldier's life. Kahlan had Galean blood in her veins, although, to a Confessor, matters of blood were irrelevant. They were not so irrelevant to Galeans.

Kahlan swung her right leg forward over the horse's neck and dropped to the ground. Her boots resounded like a hammer strike announcing the Mother Confessor's arrival. Cara, in her red leather, and similarly cloaked in a fur mantle, likewise jumped down off her horse.

Battle-weary men all around stood in rapt silence. This was not merely the Mother Confessor. This was Lord Rahl's wife.

For just an instant, as Zedd stared into her green eyes, he thought she might run into his arms and break down in helpless tears. He was wrong.

Kahlan pulled off her gloves. "Report."

She wore stealth-black light leather armor, a royal Galean sword at her left hip, and a long knife at her right. Her thick fall of hair cascaded boldly over the wolf's fur mantle topping a black wool cloak. In the Midlands, the length of a woman's hair denoted rank and social standing. No Midlands woman wore hair as long as Kahlan's. But it was the hilt of the sword sticking up behind her shoulder that held Zedd's gaze.

"Kahlan," he whispered as she stepped closer, "where's Richard?"

Whatever pain he had seen for that instant was gone. She swept a brief glare Verna's way, as the young Prelate still hurried toward them between the wounded, then met Zedd's gaze with eyes like green fire.

"The enemy has him. Report."

"The enemy? What enemy?"

Again her glare slid to Verna. Its power straightened Verna's back and slowed her approach.

Kahlan returned her attention to Zedd. Her eyes softened with a vestige of sympathy for the anguish she must have seen on his face. "A Sister of the Dark took him, Zedd." The respite of warmth in her voice and eyes faded as her countenance returned to the cold, empty mask of a Confessor. "I would like a report, please."

"Took him? But is he-is he all right? You mean she took him as a prisoner? Do they want ransom? He's still all right?"

She touched the side of her mouth and Zedd saw then that she. had a swollen cut. "He's all right as far as I know."

"Well, what's going on?" Zedd threw up his skinny arms. "What's this about? What does she intend?"

Verna finally made it up to Zedd's left side. Captain Meiffert and General Leiden ran up to the other side of Adie, on his right.

"What Sister?" Verna asked, still getting her breath back. "You said a Sister took him. What Sister?"

"Nicci."

"Nicci. ." Captain Meiffert gasped. "Death's Mistress?"

Kahlan met his gaze. "That's the one. Now, is someone going to give me a report?"

There was no mistaking the command, or the rage, in her voice. Captain Meiffert lifted an arm to the south.

"Mother Confessor, the Imperial Order forces, all of them, finally moved up from Anderith." He rubbed his brow as he tried to think. "Yesterday morning, I guess it was."

"We wanted to pull them up here, into the valley country," Zedd put in.

"Our idea was to get them out of the grassland, where we couldn't contain them, up into country where we had a better chance to do so."

"We knew," Captain Meiffert went on, "that it would be a fatal mistake to let them get by us and stream into the Midlands unopposed. We had to draw them into action to prevent them from unleashing their might against the populace. We had to engage them and bog them down. The only way to do that was to taunt them into following us out of the open, where they had the advantage, into terrain that helped even the odds."

Kahlan nodded as she scanned the dismal scene. "How many men did we lose?"

"I'd guess maybe fifteen thousand," Captain Meiffert said. "But that's just a guess. It may be more."

"They flanked you, didn't they." It didn't sound like a question.

"That's right, Mother Confessor."

"What went wrong?"

The Galean troops behind her formed a grim wall of leather, chain mail, and steel. Officers with incisive eyes watched and listened.

"What didn't?" Zedd growled.

"Somehow," the captain explained, "they knew what we planned. Although, I guess it wouldn't be all that hard to figure out, since anyone would know it was our only chance against their numbers. They were confident they could defeat us, regardless, so they obliged our plan."

"Like I asked, what went wrong?"

"What went wrong!" General Leiden interrupted heatedly. "We were outnumbered beyond all hope! That's what went wrong!"

Kahlan settled her cool gaze on the man. He seemed to catch himself and fell to one knee.

"My queen," he added in formal address before falling silent.

Kahlan's gaze lost some of its edge as it moved back to Captain Meiffert.

Zedd noticed the captain's fists tightening as he went on with his report. "Somehow, Mother Confessor, near as we can tell they managed to get a division across the river. We're pretty sure they didn't use the open ground to the east-we had preparations should they try that, as we feared they might."

"So," Kahlan said, "they reasoned you would think it impossible, so they sent a division across the river-probably a great deal more, willing to bear their losses in the crossing-went north through the mountains, unsuspected, unseen, and undetected, and crossed back to this side of the river. When you got here, they were waiting for you, holding the ground you had planned to hold. With the Order hot on your heels, you had nowhere else to go. The Order intended to crush you between that division holding this defendable ground and their army on your tail."

"That's the gist of it," Captain Meiffert confirmed.

"What happened to the division waiting here?" she asked.

"We wiped them out," the captain said with a cool rage of his own.

"Once we realized what had happened, we knew it was our only chance."

Kahlan gave him a nod. She knew full well what a mighty effort his simple words conveyed.

"They cut us to pieces from behind as we did so!" General Leiden's temper was getting frayed around the edges. "We had no chance."

"Apparently you did," she answered. "You gained the valley."

"What of it? We can't fight a force their size. It was insane to throw men into that meat grinder. What for? We gained this valley, but at a terrible price. We won't be able to hold a force that huge! They had their way with us from the first until the last. We didn't stop them, they just got tired of hacking us to pieces for the night!"

Some men looked away. Some stared at the ground. Only the crackle of fires and the moans of the wounded filled the frigid night air.

Kahlan glanced around again. "What are you doing sitting here, now?"

Zedd's brow went up, along with his own anger. "We've been at it for two days, Kahlan."

"Fine. But I don't allow the enemy to go to bed with victory. Is that clear?"

Captain Meiffert clapped a fist to his heart in salute. "Clear; Mother Confessor."