Richard woke with a start when he heard the door being unlocked. It was a rude awakening, because Kahlan had visited him in his dreams. He didn’t remember his dreams, but he did know that those dreams involved her. He felt suffused with her presence, as if he had really been with her, only to be pulled away by being awake. Once he was awake, her essence immediately began draining away. The loss of even her dream presence to cold, empty consciousness was disheartening. The world seemed to have been much richer in his dreams. Even though he didn’t remember them, those dreams seemed sweet, like music in the distance. Just the feel of them was enough for him to know that he would rather not be in the waking world.
Richard started to sit up only to realize how much he ached from sleeping on the stone floor. Given how foggy his head felt, he doubted that he had more than a few hours’ sleep. When he saw guards spilling into the stone room, Richard staggered to his feet, trying to stretch his cramped muscles as he did so.
Six swept into the room like an ill wind. Against her wiry black hair and flowing black robes, her skin looked ghostlike. Her blanched blue eyes fixed on him as if there was nothing else in her world but him. Richard felt that look come down on him as if it were the weight of a mountain. That look, her presence, crushed his will.
He swam in the feeling inundating him. As she came closer, he fought to keep his head above the dark waters of abdication of his will. It felt like fighting for his life in a raging river whose powerful current was pulling him under.
“Come along, we have to get to the caves. We don’t have much time.”
Rather than ask what she meant by not having much time—a question he doubted he would have been able to summon the strength to ask—he instead asked something else, something for which he had the strength, something still strong in his thoughts.
“Do you know where Kahlan is?”
Six stopped and turned halfway back to peer at him. “Of course. She is with Jagang.”
Jagang. Richard was stunned senseless. Six not only remembered Kahlan, but knew where she was. She seemed pleased by the pain she had so obviously just caused him.
Six turned and marched for the door. “Now, come on. Hurry.”
Something was wrong. He didn’t know what, but he could feel it in her power over him. She held him under her spell of seductive influence, like a balmy leash of iron strength, yet it was not the same as before. He could feel that something was different. There was a trace of distress in her demeanor.
But that was hardly what concerned him. Jagang had Kahlan. He could not imagine how Six even knew who Kahlan was because he was so stunned by the meaning of those words:
She is with Jagang
.
If not for the pull of Six dragging him along in her wake, Richard would surely have collapsed to the floor. He could not conceive of a worse nightmare than Jagang having Kahlan. His thoughts tumbled in blind panic as he followed the witch woman through the dark twists and turns of the stone passageways. He had to do something. He had to help Kahlan. Not only was she in the hands of Sisters of the Dark, but they were in collusion with Richard and Kahlan’s worst enemy.
The thought uppermost in Richard’s mind—other than his fear for Kahlan—was that he knew where Jagang was. The emperor was on his way up into D’Hara, toward the People’s Palace. And now Kahlan was with him.
So deep was he in thought that he found that they were outside before he even realized it. He understood at once what had Six so agitated. There were troops pouring into the grounds from every direction. These were the troops they had seen camped in the valley the night before.
Six cursed under her breath as she looked for a way to escape the courtyard. At every entrance soldiers flooded in. The passageway back into the castle, back to the stone room, was already closed off by a wall of men marching into the castle grounds.
These were all grimy men, some wearing plate armor, some chain mail, but most wore dark leather for protection. Studded leather straps crossing their chests held leather pouches with supplies, or sheathed knives at the ready. Hung on heavy leather belts they carried axes, maces, flails,
and swords. They were as menacing as any men Richard had ever seen. The guards, in chain-mail shirts covered with red tunics, were not foolish enough to make an attempt to stop such men, especially not in such numbers.
Richard knew without a doubt that these men pouring onto the grounds of the castle were Imperial Order troops.
“By agreement,” a muscular man said as he strode up to Six, “we have come to see that Tamarang is secure for the cause of the Imperial Order.”
“Yes, of course,” Six said. “But…this is considerably earlier than you were supposed to arrive.”
The man rested a hand on the hilt of his sword as his dark eyes scrutinized the layout of the place. Richard recognized the quality of the weapons the man carried, how well made his armor was, and the way he immediately took charge. This was the commander of all these men.
“We made good time,” he said. “Some of the towns and cities along the way offered no resistance, so we were able to get here now, rather than after winter, as we had thought.”
“Well…please accept our welcome on behalf of the queen,” Six said. “I, well, I was just going to go look for her.”
The commander wore shoulder plates of formed leather, along with a pressed-leather breastplate embellished with designs. Looking to have served him well, the leather plate had cuts and scrapes from fending off weapons. He had rings lining the back of his left ear and a tattoo of scales down over the right half of his face, as if he were half man, half reptile.
“The Order operates for the good of the Order and our cause. Tamarang is now part of the Imperial Order. I trust all here are pleased to now be people of the Order?”
The sound of boots on stone covered the sound of birds singing at the impending sunrise. Men closed in all around, flowing into the courtyard walkway right up to Richard.
“Yes, of course,” Six said to the commander. She seemed to be regaining her composure. “The queen and I trust that you will honor the agreements made, that the castle is not to be entered by anyone from the Order, that the castle itself is to be left to Her Majesty, her advisors, and servants.”
The man stared into her eyes for a moment. “Makes no difference to me. The castle is of no use to us.” He blinked, as if somewhat surprised
to hear himself agreeing to such a thing. He puffed up his chest, regaining some of his fire. “But by our agreement, the rest of Tamarang is now a province of the empire of the Imperial Order.”
Six bowed her head in acknowledgment. Her thin smile was back. “By agreement.”
Richard noted but hardly heard the conversation. He had been using the loosened grip Six had on him to slip out of it. He used her distraction like an iron bar to pry her invisible claws off of him. He had managed to pry open that grip just enough to let his mind slip out.
It was time he did something for himself, for Kahlan.
Even though he had lost the gift, and had lost the Sword of Truth, he had not lost the lessons mastered from that weapon, much less the lessons learned throughout his life. He might not have had the gift, but he remembered the meaning of the symbols. He knew the rhythm of the dance with death.
He was still one with a blade.
Now he needed only to get his hands on a blade.
While Six and the officer decided the limits of where the men would go on the grounds, where they would stay out of, and what was theirs within the city itself, Richard glanced behind, noticing the wooden handles on the swords of the soldiers, and the leather handle on the sword of the subordinate officer right behind, just a little to Richard’s right.
He smiled at the man as he pulled a copper penny from his pocket and casually rolled it across his knuckles. He let the penny slip and fall, as if he were clumsy. He squatted down to pick it up, pressing one hand to the sandy dirt beside the path for balance as he reached out for the coin, letting grit stick to his palms and fingers. He scooped up the penny, getting as well a small amount of sandy dirt. The officer behind, watching his superior speaking to Six, glanced Richard’s way only as Richard wiped the dirt off the penny and then returned it to a pocket. Six presented a much more captivating subject than an awkward nobody. Richard acted like he was idly brushing his hands, but he was really covering his palms and fingers with the grit.
Once he began, he didn’t want his hands slipping on leather.
Without turning, he leaned back toward the lesser officer standing behind him. The man was intent on the bewitching figure of Six as she spun
her web, telling the men what she would like them to do. Out of his peripheral vision, Richard could see the hilt of the weapon hanging at the man’s hip. It was better made than the weapons carried by most of the men.
As Six and the commander were talking, Richard turned a little, feigning a stretch. In an instant, his hand was on the sword. In another instant the blade was free.
Having a weapon, a sword, in his hand, instantly flooded Richard with memories, forms, and skills he had spent long hours learning. The lessons might have in part come from otherworldly sources, but the knowledge was not magic. It was the experience of countless Seekers before Richard. Even though he didn’t have that weapon with him, he still had that knowledge.
The officer, apparently half thinking Richard was just being foolish, made a move to recover his weapon. Richard spun the sword and with a backward thrust ran him through.
Other men sprang into action. Swords came free in the cool dawn air. Big men freed huge crescent battle-axes from their belts, along with maces and flails.
Richard was suddenly in his element. The haze was gone from his mind. He had not expected the part of his mind that he had locked away for safekeeping to be called upon this soon, but the time had come and he had to act. This was his chance.
He knew where Kahlan was, and he had to get to her.
These men were in his way.
Richard swung, taking off an arm wielding an axe. The cry, the spray of blood, made the men nearby flinch. In that sliver of an instant, Richard made his move. He brought his sword up through another man lifting his sword. The man died before he even had his arm fully cocked back. Richard spun out of the way of weapons coming for him.
Despite the sudden cacophony of metal clanging, of men yelling, Richard was already in a silent world of purpose. He was in control. These men might have thought that they had an army against him, but in a way that was his advantage. He didn’t fight an army. He fought individuals. They thought like a collective mass, a collective element, allowing one another to move, as if the soldiers were trying to be one big fighting centipede.
That was a mistake. Richard used it to cut into them. While they hesitated, waiting for others to act, waiting for an opening, Richard was already moving through their lines, cutting them down. He let them swing and lunge,
using strength and effort, while he floated through the onslaught of steel. Every time he thrust, he made contact. Every time he swung his weapon, he cut. It was like going through thick brush, slashing aside the branches that reached out at him. He let the momentum of the sword power the next strike, keeping it in continuous motion rather than using effort, and precious time, to draw it back. If he brought the blade down, slicing through the side of a man’s neck, he continued the movement, bringing the weapon up behind to run a man through as he rushed in, and then, as he pulled the blade out, he spun away as swords, axes, and flails came down where he had been only a moment before. It was a fluid dance, moving through the grunting, diving, jumping men. Slice, slice, slice, letting the screams fill the morning air, letting the alarm of not being able to stop him cause others to hesitate in fear of what could be happening.
At all times, Richard kept his objective in sight. He was heading for the opening out of the wall. Even though he charged, wove, and feigned his way through the onslaught of men, he headed relentlessly for that opening, and his freedom. He had to get through, and then he could get to Kahlan.
Richard scythed down some of the men in his way while he spun past others. His object was not to kill as many as he could, but to get to his goal of that open doorway.
Even though orders were being shouted, soldiers were screaming in rage for a chance to get at him, and men were shrieking in pain as they were slashed open, disemboweled, or stabbed, there was quiet purpose in Richard’s mind. He cut from that void. He selected targets swiftly, and cut them down just as swiftly. He didn’t waste effort swinging, but cut with certainty. When he saw a leader among the men, a man who moved with more skill, a man others looked to in the attack, Richard cut into that strength. As he moved toward the opening in the wall, he slipped through gaps in their guard, all the time cutting. He didn’t allow himself to pause for an instant in his relentless advance. He didn’t allow the enemy to catch their breath as he cut into them. He cut without mercy, taking any man he could. Whether he looked fierce or afraid, Richard cut him down. They had expected him to be intimidated by their numbers, by their battle cries as they rushed him; he was not. He cut them down mercilessly.
At last he made the door, beheading the man just to the left and then the one to the right. The opening was at last free of Imperial Order soldiers. Richard dashed through.
Everything came to an abrupt halt. Beyond was a wall of archers, all with bows drawn, all aiming their arrows at him. Men with bows and men with crossbows were formed into a semicircle beyond the doorway, trapping him in that pocket of razor-sharp, steel-tipped arrows all aimed at him. Richard knew all too well that he didn’t stand a chance against the hundreds of arrows aimed at him, especially not at this close range.
The commander appeared in the doorway. “Very impressive. I’ve never seen the like of it.”
The man truly did sound amazed, but it was over. Richard heaved a sigh and tossed his sword down.