Faith of the Fallen   ::   Goodkind Terry

"This is what the Order is taking from you-your humanity, your individuality, your freedom to live your own life."

Richard briefly touched the sledgehammer to his forehead.

With a mighty swing, the steel head arced around. Nicci could hear the air whistle. The entire statue seemed to shudder as the sledgehammer struck the base with a thunderous boom.

In a moment of brittle silence, she heard the faintest sound, the ripping popping crackling whisper of the stone itself.

Then, the entire statue crashed down in a roar of fragments and billowing white dust.

The officials at the back of the plaza cheered. The guards hooted and hollered as they waved their weapons in the air.

They were the only ones. The crowd was dead silent as dust rolled out across the plaza. All their hope, embodied in the statue, had just been destroyed.

Nicci stared in a daze. Her throat constricted with the agony of it.

Her eyes watered. They all watched, as if having just witnessed a tragic, pointless death.

The guards moved toward Richard with their spears leveled, prodding him back to other guards waiting with heavy shackles.

Down closer to the steps, a clear voice rang out from the stunned crowd. "No! We'll not stand for it!"

In the gathering darkness, Nicci saw the man who had yelled. He was up close to the front, furiously trying to fight his way through the press of people to get to the plaza. -

It was the blacksmith, Mr. Cascella.

"We'll not stand for it!" he roared. "I'll not let you enslave me any longer! Do you hear? I'm a free man! A free man!"

The entire mass of people before the palace erupted in a deafening roar.

And then, as one, they lunged forward.

Fists in the air, voices raised in cries of rage, the mass of humanity avalanched toward the plaza. Ranks of heavily armed men marched down the steps to meet the advance. They vanished beneath the onslaught.

Nicci screamed with all her might, trying to get Richard's attention, but her voice was lost in the hurricane.



CHAPTER 68

Richard didn't know what stunned him more: to see his statue in rubble, or to see the crowd charging up the steps after Victor had declared himself a free man.

The mob rolled without pause over armed guards descending the steps to meet them. A number of people fell wounded or killed. The bodies were trampled beneath the surge of people. Those in front couldn't stop if they wanted to-the weight of tens of thousands behind them propelled them onward.

But they didn't want to stop. The roar was deafening.