Nicci, too, immediately went on the attack. The three of them now had a single purpose—to fight their way out of the midst of the royal guards.
“We need to get to the ramp!” Nicci shouted at Richard.
He pulled his sword out of a man falling past him and frowned at Nicci. “The ramp? Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
Richard didn’t argue. He changed the direction of the fight, covering Jillian as he battled his way through the endless mass of big men, making sure that none of them could get at her.
As they stabbed and hacked their way through, Kahlan knew that she had to stay clear of Richard so that he would have the room he needed. Most of the men were going after him. None could see Kahlan, so she pulled Jillian well back out of Richard’s way so that the guards couldn’t snatch her to use as a shield to get at Richard. Kahlan was
better able to protect her than Nicci. Kahlan tried to shield Jillian while she also covered Nicci’s back as she went after men who weren’t paying attention.
As one of the men behind lifted a sword on Jillian, someone ran him through from behind.
As the dying man fell away, Kahlan found herself staring into the smiling face of a man with the strangest golden eyes.
“I’m here to help you, pretty lady.”
Even in the near darkness, the man’s sword gleamed.
He was dressed like an Order soldier, but he wasn’t one of them. As Jillian backed against Kahlan when another man stabbed at her with a sword, the man with the golden eyes spun and with a backhanded swing caught the attacker along the side of the head. When the gleaming sword hit, the guard’s head exploded in bits of bone and brain.
Kahlan blinked in astonishment.
Richard saw what was happening and rushed up. The stranger, suddenly looking enraged, thrust that gleaming sword right at Richard.
Richard then did the strangest thing: he just stood there.
Kahlan knew for certain that this time Richard was going to be run through, but the blade, which only an instant before had shattered a man’s head, this time did the most bewildering thing. Just before it impaled Richard, it veered off to the side of him, as if he’d been been protected by an invisible shield of some sort.
The man, even more enraged, thrust again, but again the sword simply turned aside, slipping right by Richard. The stranger looked not only surprised, but worried. The worry turned to a look of cold rage.
“It’s mine!”
Kahlan couldn’t imagine what the man was talking about. Before she had a chance to wonder at it, she saw Nicci collapse, holding her throat.
A new clot of royal guards charged in with such speed and numbers that Richard was forced to turn and engage them or be killed. A new battle was suddenly in full force. Men yelling battle cries rushed in, swords swinging. Richard fought furiously, but he was forced to fall back. As the wave of men poured in, the space between Richard and Kahlan began to widen.
Kahlan started to attack the men swarming in around Richard, but the stranger grabbed her upper arm, pulling her back away. “We have to go. Now. He can handle those men. He’s giving us a chance to get away. We have to take it.”
“I’m not leaving him to—”
Kahlan suddenly gasped in a breath as the pain came on with full force. The sword fell from her grip. Her hands went to her throat, clawing at the collar. She screamed even though she tried not to. The searing pain was so sharp, so violent, that it was impossible not to scream.
She dropped to her knees, just as Nicci had done. Tears of agony streamed from her eyes.
“Come on!” the stranger yelled. “We have to get away—hurry!”
Kahlan was incapable of doing anything to get away. It was all she could do to pull a breath through the ripping agony.
Through vision blurred by tears, she could see the horror, the rage, on Richard’s face as he tried in vain to get to her.
Yet more of the elite royal guard poured in, intent on taking out the point man who had humiliated the emperor and started the riot. Even as his sword killed with every thrust and men fell dying all around him, more and more men charged in and Richard was driven back.
Kahlan fell face-first onto the hard ground. The pain
seared down the nerves of her back and then her legs, making them twitch. She had no control over her muscles.
The stranger grabbed Kahlan’s arm. “Come on! We have to get away now!”
When she was unable to respond, he started dragging her.
Richard could see Kahlan crying out in pain, clawing at the collar around her neck. His heart hammered in dread as he fought. Despite his frantic attempts to break through the wall of men in leather and chain mail it was proving impossible for him to get to her. In fact, it was all he could do to hold his own against the increasing numbers of men descending on him.
A deadly variety of weapons came in at him from every direction—swords, knives, axes, and spears. He had to shift his tactics to fend off each of them. He stabbed a man wielding a sword and on the backswing broke a spear. He ducked under an axe as it whistled past just overhead. He knew that if he made even one mistake it could cost him his life.
Through it all, despite fighting as hard as he had ever fought in his life, he was increasingly forced to give ground. It was the only way to keep from being overpowered. Time and again he went back on attack with wild fury, cutting into the enemy line, but as he did ever more men appeared to take the place of those who fell to his blade. In those flurries of frantic exertion the best he could do was to hold his ground. Whenever he took a breath he lost ground.
Kahlan was so close, but so far.
Now, Jagang was taking her from him again.
Richard reprimanded himself for not doing more to try to take out Jagang. He should have tried harder. If only that man hadn’t stepped in front of Jagang at exactly the wrong moment, Richard’s arrow would have done its job. But even as he told himself that he should have done more, should have tried something else, he knew that he couldn’t dwell on what he might have done differently. He had to come up with something that he could do now.
In all-too-brief glimpses he could see Nicci on the ground as well. Like Kahlan, she was also in desperate distress. Richard knew that it was urgent that he help them. Samuel certainly wasn’t doing anything worthwhile.
The distraction of Richard’s concern was throwing his timing off. He missed connecting with a thrust, leaving the man alive to come back at him. Only swift action saved him from the blade doing more than making a shallow slash across the side of his shoulder. Several times he nearly lost his life as he tried to catch a glimpse of Kahlan. He had nearly missed a move until it was almost too late. He knew that he had to focus. He couldn’t help Kahlan, Nicci, and Jillian if he was dead.
His arms, though, felt like lead.
His hands were slick with blood. His grip on his sword kept slipping.
A man spun an axe in his fingers as he lifted it, as if to show Richard that he was now up against an expert. The man caught the handle and started to swing the axe down with lethal intent. At the last instant, Richard ducked to the side, then, with a cry of effort, swung his own weapon. The strike took the man’s arm off. Richard used his foot to topple the startled man back out of the way, then ducked under a wild swing of a sword at his head and thrust his own weapon into the man’s lower abdomen.
The sword he was using worked, but it was not his sword. Samuel had his sword.
What Samuel was doing there Richard feared to imagine. Seeing him standing over Kahlan, though, he didn’t really have to imagine.
Richard remembered Zedd telling him, when he had first given him the Sword of Truth, that he couldn’t use it against Darken Rahl because he had put the boxes of Orden in play. Zedd said that during that yearlong period the power of Orden protected Darken Rahl from the Sword of Truth.
Richard knew that it was foolish to do what he’d just done, but he had to test his theory. He had to know the truth of it if he was to succeed in what lay ahead. The boxes of Orden really were in play in his name, and the Sword of Truth couldn’t harm him for that reason.
When he thought he couldn’t go on, he used the sheer rage he felt for Kahlan’s dire jeopardy to force himself to continue anyway. He didn’t know how long he could sustain such an effort. He knew only that when he stopped, he would die.
Just then, another man cut his way in from behind Richard, protecting his left side from a trio of men attacking from that direction. Out of the corner of his eye Richard saw red paint.
He slashed his blade down across the face of a man as soon as the man made the mistake of cocking back his arm. As he fell to the side with a cry, Richard used the opening to snatch a quick glance to his left.
It was Bruce.
“What are you doing here?” Richard yelled over at the man between the clash of steel.
“What I’m always doing—protecting you!”
Richard could hardly believe that Bruce, a regular Imperial Order soldier, was fighting beside him, fighting off the emperor’s royal guard. The man was committing treason to
fight beside Richard. He supposed that winning against the emperor’s team was the bigger treason. Bruce fought with a fury of his own. He knew that this was a game that they couldn’t afford to lose. What he lacked in finesse he made up for in sheer tenacity.
Richard stole another look and saw that Samuel was starting to drag Kahlan away. Her face was a picture of terrified distress. Her fingers were bloody from clawing at the collar.
With an abrupt flash and heavy thud to the air, the soldiers all around Richard, including Bruce, were blown back as if by a blast. Yet there was no flame, no smoke, no flying debris, no ringing noise from a blast. Standing at the core of the event, Richard was left with his vision blurred and his flesh stinging from the force of the concussion.
In every direction, the forest of big royal guards lay felled across the dark ground, like toppled trees. In the distance the roar of battle raged on, but closer in it was eerily quiet. Most of the men looked to be unconscious. A few moaned as they tried to move, but their arms dropped after briefly lifting, as if even that much was an effort too great.
A spike of pain suddenly slammed into the base of Richard’s skull. It felt like he’d been hit from behind with an iron bar. The stunning pain dropped him to his knees. He recognized the sensation. He hadn’t been hit with iron; it was magic. Beside him, Bruce lay facedown on the ground.
Still on his knees, Richard saw, off in the distant darkness, a gaunt woman stalking toward him through the downed soldiers. She moved like a vulture watching wounded prey. Her shabby appearance made Richard suspect that she was one of Jagang’s Sisters.
Unable to endure the ringing pain in his head, Richard toppled over face-first. Hot agony flashed through every nerve in his body. Little clouds of dust were forced up into the night air with each of his panting breaths. He couldn’t
move his legs. He strained with all his might to get up, but he simply couldn’t make his body respond. With the greatest of effort he was finally able to move his head just a little.
As he lay on his belly, he tried desperately to push himself to his knees at least, but simply couldn’t. He looked across the battlefield scattered with fallen men at Kahlan. Even in obvious pain, she was looking back at him, worried for what was happening to him.
The Sister was still some distance off, but Richard knew that he was running out of time to do something.
“Samuel!” Richard yelled.
Samuel, trying to drag Kahlan by her arm, stopped in his tracks and looked back at Richard, his golden eyes blinking. Richard couldn’t help Kahlan. At least, not in the way he wanted to help her.
“Samuel, you idiot! Use the sword to cut the collar off her neck.”
Samuel, one hand holding Kahlan’s arm, with his other hand lifted the sword he coveted so much, frowning at it.
Richard watched as the Sister off through the darkness stalked ever closer. He remembered once, when being taken to the Palace of the Prophets, using the Sword of Truth to cut through an iron collar around Du Chaillu’s neck. He also remembered being in Tamarang with Kahlan and using the sword to slash through the prison bars. He knew the Sword of Truth could cut steel.
He also knew from when the Sisters had put the collar around his neck that the sword couldn’t cut through a Rada’Han. The collar had been locked on and held tight with the power of his own gift. It wasn’t so much the steel that the sword couldn’t cut, Richard suspected, but the binding power of the magic itself. The Rada’Han when used as intended became, in a sense, a part of the person it was locked on to. For that reason he knew that the sword wouldn’t be able to cut through Nicci’s collar.
But the collar around Kahlan’s neck was different. Her own gift wasn’t what bound it to her. It had simply been locked around her neck and used to control her. Richard also suspected that Six might have provided Samuel with a bit of extra help. It certainly wasn’t his wits that had gotten him this far. Any additional ability she’d given him might aid in this as well. Richard wasn’t sure that it would work, but he was sure that it was Kahlan’s only chance. He had to get Samuel to at least try.
“Hurry!” Richard screamed. “Slide the blade under the collar and pull! Hurry!”
Samuel frowned suspiciously at Richard for a moment. He looked down at Kahlan’s agony, then dropped to a knee and hurriedly slipped the sword under the collar.
Some of the soldiers on the ground looked like they might be starting to come around. They groaned as they held their heads in their hands.
Samuel gave the Sword of Truth a mighty pull. The night rang with the sound of steel shattering. Kahlan, free of the collar, collapsed in relief.
As she lay on the ground panting, recovering from the ordeal, Samuel ran a short distance to the big war horse that Commander Karg had ridden in on. He reached under the horse’s neck and caught the reins. After he had led the horse close, he hooked a hand under Kahlan’s arm.
Kahlan lay limp on the ground, still stunned from the pain of the collar, but she was beginning to move her legs, trying to get up. With Samuel pulling on her arm, she was finally hauled to her feet.
Richard, still unable to get up himself, looked to the side and saw the Sister, holding the tattered shawl closed, stepping over downed men as she came ever closer.
Kahlan staggered unsteadily, but then recovered enough to bend and snatch up a sword. She intended to come to Richard’s aid.
Richard couldn’t allow that.
“Run!” he yelled at her. “Run! There’s nothing you can do here! Get away while you still can!”
Samuel stuffed a boot in a stirrup and sprang up into the saddle.
Kahlan stood staring at Richard, tears in her beautiful green eyes.
“Hurry!” Samuel called down to her.
She didn’t seem to even hear Samuel. She couldn’t take her eyes off Richard. She knew she was leaving him there to die.
“Go!” Richard yelled with all his strength. “Go!”
Tears stung his own eyes. Despite how much he tried, he couldn’t even rise up on his hands and knees. The magic searing through him wouldn’t allow it.
The Sister cast a hand out at Samuel. A flare of light shot through the night.
Samuel used the sword to deflect the flash of light. It arced off into the night sky. The Sister looked surprised.
In the distance all around, the battle raged on. Closer in, the guards stunned by the initial blast of the Sister’s power still hadn’t recovered enough to get up. Apparently, the Sister didn’t want them interfering. She had plans of her own.
The big war horse tossed its head as it pawed the ground. Kahlan looked over at Nicci. She was curled up in a ball, shuddering in pain. Jillian lay on the ground beside her, stunned by the same blast of the Sister’s magic. Despite her chance to escape, Richard knew that Kahlan was going to throw that chance away to try to help them.
He knew that there was nothing Kahlan could do for Nicci. If Kahlan stayed, she would die. It was as simple as that. As much as he hated the thought, at the moment Samuel was her only salvation.
“Run!” Richard cried out, his voice choked with tears.
“But I have to help Nicci and—”
“There’s nothing you can do for her! You’ll die! Run while you still can!”
Samuel reached down and seized her arm, helping to pull her up onto the horse behind him. As soon as she was up, Samuel wasted no time in kicking his heels against the horse. The horse bounded away at a dead gallop, throwing up dirt and rocks in its wake.
As the horse disappeared into the darkness, Kahlan looked back over her shoulder.
He never took his eyes off her, knowing that it was the last time he would ever see her.
In a moment, still looking back at Richard, she vanished into the dark confusion of the camp and was gone.
Richard sagged against the cold, hard ground, tears dripping from his face.
Out of the darkness, the Sister, making her way among the hundreds of stunned royal guards rolling on the ground, finally arrived to stand over him. He felt the level of pain increase, making it difficult to pull each breath. She wanted to make absolutely certain that he wasn’t able to lift so much as a finger against her.
She peered down at him in surprised wonder. “Well, well, as I live and breathe, if it isn’t Richard Rahl himself.”
Richard didn’t remember the Sister. She looked haggard. Her graying hair was unkempt. Her clothes were little more than rags. She looked more like a beggar than a Sister of the Light—or a Sister of the Dark, he didn’t know which.
“His Excellency is going to be very pleased with me for bringing him such a prize. I think he will be more than pleased, as well, to have a chance at last to extract vengeance on you, my boy. I imagine that before the night is finished you will be just beginning a very long ordeal in the torture tents.”
Memories of Denna flashed through Richard’s mind.