The pillars of creation

Sebastian seized her arm, spun her around, and shoved her on down the hall. Jennsen caught her footing and ran with wild abandon. She felt ashamed for arguing with people who knew what war was all about when she didn't. Who did she think she was, anyway? She was a nobody. Great men had given her a chance, and she stood around on the doorstep of greatness, arguing about it. She felt a fool.

As they ran past tall windows-the very windows where the Mother Confessor and Lord Rahl had only moments before been seensomething outside caught her eye. A collective groan went up from beyond the panes of glass. Jennsen slid to a stop, her hands out, gathering up Sebastian to stop him, too.

"Look!»

Sebastian glanced impatiently toward the others racing away, then stepped closer to look out the window as she shook her hand, frantically pointing.

Tens of thousand of cavalry men had formed up into a huge battle line out across the palace grounds, stretching all the way down the hill, appearing to charge the enemy in a great battle. They all brandished swords, axes, and pikes as they rushed as a single mass, yelling bloodcurdling battle cries.

Jennsen watched in stunned silence, seeing nothing yet for them to fight. Still, the men, raising a great cry, ran forward with weapons raised. She expected to see them run down the hill toward something out beyond the wall. Perhaps they could see an enemy approaching that she could not from her angle up in the palace.

But then, in the middle of the grounds, with a mighty shock all along the line, there was a resounding crash as they met the wall of an enemy that was not there.

Jennsen couldn't believe her eyes. Her mind groped to reconcile it, but the terrifying sight outside made no sense. She wouldn't have believed what she was seeing, were it not for the shock of sudden carnage. Bodies, man and horse, were rent open. Horses reared. Others went down, tumbling over broken legs. Men's heads and arms spun through the air, as if lopped off by sword and axe. All along the line, blood filled the air. Men were driven back by blows that exploded through their bodies. The dark and grimy force of Imperial Order cavalry was suddenly bright red in the muted daylight. The slaughter was so horrific that the green grass was left red in a swath down the hill.

Where there had been battle cries, now there were piercing screams of appalling suffering and pain as men, hacked to pieces, limbs severed, mortally wounded, tried to drag themselves to safety. Out in that field, there was no such place, there was only confusion and death.

Horrified, Jennsen looked up into Sebastian's baffled expression. Before either could say a word, the building shook as if struck by lightning. Following close on the heels of the thunderous boom, the hall filled with billowing smoke. Flames boiled toward them. Sebastian snatched her arm and dove with her into a side hall opposite the window.

The blast roared down the hall, driving chunks of wood, whole chairs, and flaming drapery before it. Fragments of glass and metal shrieked by, slicing through walls.

As soon as the smoke and flames had rolled past, Jennsen and Sebastian, both with weapons to hand, raced out into the hall, running in the direction Emperor Jagang had gone.

Whatever questions or objections she had were forgotten-such questions were suddenly irrelevant. It only mattered that-somehow-Richard Rahl was there. She had to stop him. This was finally her chance. The voice, too, urged her on. This time, she didn't try to put the voice down. This time, she let it fan the flames of her burning lust for vengeance. This time, she let it fill her with the overwhelming need to kill.

They raced past tall doors lining the hall. Each of the deep-set windows that flashed by had a small window seat. The walls were faced with frame and panel wood painted a shade of white warmed with a bit of rose color to it. As they came to the intersection of corridors and rounded the corner, Jermsen didn't really notice the elegant silver reflector lamps centered in each of those panels; she saw only the bloody handprints smeared along the walls, the long splashes of blood on the polished oak floor, the disorderly tangle of still bodies.

There were at least fifty of the burly assault soldiers scattered haphazardly down the hall, each burned, many ripped open by flying glass and splintered wood. Most of the faces weren't even unrecognizable as such. Shattered rib bones protruded from blood-soaked chain mail or leather. Along with the weapons that lay scattered, the hall was awash with gore and loose intestines, making it look like someone had spilled baskets of bloody dead eels.

Among the bodies was a woman-one of the Sisters. She had been nearly torn in two, as had been a number of the men, her slashed face set in death with a fixed look of surprise.