Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

A group of officers returned with Jagang. Soldiers behind them pulled already saddled horses along with them. Other men were already taking chests, chairs, tables, and smaller items out of the emperor's tent and loading it all into crates in the waiting wagons. As soon as the tent had been emptied, the lines came down, followed by the poles, and at last the tent itself. In a matter of moments what had looked like a small town of tents, with the emperor's large tent at the center, was just an empty field.

Jagang gestured for a man to hand Kahlan the reins to a horse. "Today you will ride with me."

Kahlan wondered what she would be doing the next day, but she didn't ask. It sounded like he had plans for her. She couldn't begin to guess at them but she feared what was in store for her.

She stuffed a boot in a stirrup and swung up into the saddle, then scanned the sea of men, estimating her chances if she made a run for freedom. She might be able to make it past the men, because, with the exception of the two Sisters and Jagang, the men couldn't remember her long enough to recall that they saw her. Out among those men, as daunting as such a thought was, she was as good as invisible. To them it would appear as if a riderless horse was running away, and they probably wouldn't want to get trampled for no good reason.

The Sisters, watching her carefully, mounted up as well, one to each side of her to make sure that she didn't get a chance to bolt. Even if she was invisible to the soldiers, Kahlan knew that the Sisters could use the collar to drop her where she was. They didn't need to be close, either; she had learned that the hard way. Her legs still ached from what they had done a little earlier. It was a good thing that she was to ride, because right then she didn't think she would make it far on foot.

The sea of men had already begun moving away in a dark, surging tide. The dawn light sparkled off millions of weapons, making the army look liquid. As if floating in the tightly formed raft of the emperor's personal guards and retinue of Sisters, servants, and slaves, they began to drift out into the vast churning ocean of men moving north toward the horizon.

They rode with the hot, rising sun to their right. Kahlan, between the Sisters, in among the emperor's personal guards, moved along in the mass of men streaming northward. She had a good view of it all from high in her saddle. At least she didn't have to carry the Sisters' things on her back, as she had always had to do before.

The early chatter among the soldiers soon died out with the monotonous effort of the march. Talking became too difficult for them. It wasn't long before Kahlan was sweating in the heat. Men carrying heavy packs plodded onward, eyes to the ground in front of them. To stop would probably mean being trampled. There had to be a force of millions that she could see behind them, driving north with them.

Throughout the day wagons, or men on horses, worked their way through the men, passing out food. Wagons dispersed throughout the army at intervals carried water. There was soon a line of men, marching along, waiting their turn to get some water from each of the wagons rolling among them.

Near midday a small wagon arrived in the center of the emperor's people. It had hot food that was passed out to all the officers. The Sisters passed Kahlan the same as what the rest of them were offered — flat bread wrapped around some kind of salty, mushy meat. It didn't taste very good, but Kahlan was starving and glad to have it.

By nightfall everyone was exhausted from the arduous march. They had eaten on the move and had stopped for nothing. They were covering more ground than she thought an army of this size capable of doing in a day. She felt as if she were coated with much of the ground they had covered. She didn't know if she would be any happier for rain that would knock down the dust, because then they would have to contend with mud.

Kahlan was surprised when she saw out ahead of them what looked like the emperor's compound. Flags atop tents flapped in the hot wind as if to welcome the emperor home. She realized that the wagons with all the emperor's equipment must have ridden on ahead and set up camp. The army was so vast and covered so much area that it took hours, if not days, for them all to pass the same spot, so the wagons would not have had to ride out ahead of the protection of the army. Men would merely have opened a path for them to race ahead through the marching men and before dark start setting up camp so that by the time the emperor arrived everything would be ready.