Richard was surprised to hear the dead calm quality of his own voice. “What’s going on? These are D’Haran soldiers. Why are they being driven back? They are not outnumbered. Why are the Blood of the Fold this far into the city?”
The seasoned commander spoke only one word. “Mriswith.”
Richard’s fists tightened. These men had no defense against mriswith. One mriswith could cut down dozens of men in a matter of minutes. Richard had seen long lines of mriswith enter the sliph—hundreds of them.
The D’Harans may not have been outnumbered at the start, but they were now.
Already, the voices of the spirits were speaking to him, drowning out the screams of mortal pain. He glanced to the dull disc of the sun behind the smoke. Two hours of light left.
Richard’s gaze met the eyes of three of the lieutenants. “You, you, and you. Collect whatever size force you need.” Without turning, he lifted a thumb behind to gesture toward Kahlan. “Get the Mother Confessor, my queen, to the palace, and protect her.”
The look in Richard’s eyes made any statement of the mission’s gravity absolutely unnecessary, and any warning of the consequences of failure superfluous.
Kahlan cried out a protest. Richard drew his sword.
“Now.”
The men bounded to do as bidden, sweeping Kahlan back with them as she screamed at him. Richard didn’t look, nor did he hear her words.
He was already lost in the living rage. Magic and death danced dangerously in his eyes. Silent men inched back in a widening circle.
Richard wiped the blade in the blood on his arm to give his sword a taste. The rage twisted tighter.
His head turned, the eyes of death seeking the walking dead. Through the twin storms of the sword’s wrath and his own anger, he heard nothing but the howling fury inside, yet he knew he needed more. In staccato succession he felled all the barriers and loosed all the magic, holding back nothing. He was one with the spirits within, with the magic, with the need. He was the true Seeker, and more.
He was the bringer of death come to life.
And then he was moving, through the men trying to get to the front, through the dark-leather-clad soldiers grunting with determination as they grappled with crimson-caped men in shiny armor who had broken through the lines, through shopkeepers who had taken up swords, through young men of the city with pikes, and boys with cudgels.
As he stalked forward, he cut down the men of the Blood of the Fold only when they tried to bar his way. He was after something more deadly than them.
Richard vaulted up onto an overturned wagon in the center of the melee. Men swarmed around him to keep harm away. His raptor’s gaze scanned the scene. Harm was his purpose.
Before him, the sea of red capes inundated the dark shore of dead D’Harans. The numbers of D’Haran dead were appalling, but he was lost in the magic and thought for anything but his enemy was mere dross in the cauldron of his wrath.
Somewhere in the dim recesses of his mind, he cried out at the sight of so much death, but the cry was lost on the winds of his rage.
Richard felt their presence, and then he saw them. Fluid movement, scything into living flesh, reaping a harvest of death. The Blood of the Fold surged in behind them, overwhelming over the decimated D’Harans.
Richard brought the Sword of Truth up, touching the crimson blade to his forehead. He gave the whole of himself over.
“Blade,” he whispered in supplication, “be true this day.”
Bringer of death.
“Dance with me Death,” he murmured. “I am ready.”
The Seeker’s boots thumped onto the street. Somehow, the instincts of all those who had used the blade before had fused with his own. He wore their knowledge, experience, and skill like a second skin.
He let the magic guide him, but it was driven before the storms of anger, and his will. He turned loose the hunger to kill, and slipped through the lines of men.
Deft as death, his blade found its first mark, and a mriswith went down.
Don’t squander your strength killing those others can kill, the spirit voices told him. Kill only those they can’t.
Richard heeded the voices, and let his inner sense feel the mriswith around him, some concealed in their capes. He danced with death, and death occasionally found them before they saw him coming. He killed without wasted effort or extra thrusts. Each commitment of his blade found flesh.
Richard stalked along the lines, seeking the scaled creatures that led the Blood of the Fold. He felt the heat of the fires as he moved through the streets, hunting. He heard the hisses of surprise as he spun into them. His nostrils filled with the stink of their blood. It became one long blur of fighting.
Still, he knew it wasn’t going to be enough. With a feeling of drowning in dread, he knew it wasn’t going to be enough. There was only one of him, and if he made the slightest mistake, there wouldn’t even be that. It was like trying to wipe out a whole ant colony by stepping on one ant at a time.
Already, yabree were coming closer than he had intended to allow. Twice, they sang along his flesh, leaving red tracks. But worse, all around, his men were dying by the hundreds, with the Blood of the Fold merely coming in behind to slaughter the wounded. The fighting stretched on endlessly.
Richard glanced at the sun, and saw that it was halved at the horizon. Night was descending like a shroud over the last gasps of the dying. He knew that, for him, too, there would be no morning.
Richard felt a stinging slice along his side as he spun. A mriswith’s head burst apart in a red spray as he caught it with his sword. He was tiring, and they were getting too close. He brought the blade up, ripping open the belly of another. He was deaf to their death howls.
He remembered Kahlan. There was going to be no morning. For him. For her. Death was coming for them like the darkness.
With effort, he forced her from his mind. He couldn’t afford the distraction. Turn. Blade up, taking off a claw. Twist, slice to the gut. Spin, blade down on a smooth head. Thrust. Duck. Cut. The voices spoke to him, and he reacted without question or pause.
With choking consternation, he realized that they were being pushed to the center of Aydindril. He turned and looked beyond the large square swept with the turmoil, disorganization, and confusion of the brawl of battle, to see the Confessors’ Palace not a half mile away. Soon, the mriswith would break through the lines and pour into the palace.
He heard a loud roar and saw a mass of D’Haran soldiers behind the enemy lines charge into the Blood of the Fold from a side street, turning their attention from the fight at the front. From the other side, a like number poured in, pinching off a large number of crimson-caped men in the wide thoroughfare. The D’Harans hacked into the pocket of the Blood of the Fold, cutting them to pieces.
Richard stilled to a statue when he saw Kahlan leading the charge from the right. She was leading not only D’Haran troops, but men and women of the palace staff. His blood ran cold as he remembered how the people at Ebinissia had joined in the defense of the city at the end.
What was she doing? She was supposed to be at the palace, where it was safe. He could see that while it was a bold move, it was going to be fatal. There were too many of the Blood and she would be trapped in the middle of them.
Before that could happen, she pulled the men back. Richard lopped off the head of a mriswith. Just as he thought she must have retreated to safety, she made another stabbing attack from another street, at a different place in the line.
The crimson-caped men at the front turned to the new threat, only to be set upon from behind. The mriswith blunted the effectiveness of the tactic, and soon sliced into the new front with the same deadly efficiency they had been using all afternoon.
Richard cut a line straight through the mass of crimson capes toward Kahlan. After fighting mriswith, men seemed slow and dull by comparison. Only the distance made it a struggle. His arms were weary, and his strength was flagging.
“Kahlan! What
are you doing!” The rage of the magic powered his voice as he snatched her by the arm. “I sent you to the palace where you would be safe!”
She pulled her arm away. In her other hand she held a sword slick with blood. “I will not die cowering in a corner of my home, Richard. I will fight for my life. And don’t you yell at me!”
Richard spun when he felt the presence. Kahlan ducked as blood and bone glutted the air.
She turned and shouted orders. Men wheeled to the attack at her word.
“Then we die together, my queen,” Richard whispered, not wanting her to hear his resignation.
Richard felt the massing of mriswith as the lines were pushed back to the square. The sense of their presence was too overpowering to pick out individuals. Over the heads of the sea of red capes and polished armor, he could see something green in the distance advancing toward the city. He couldn’t make meaning of it.
Richard shoved Kahlan back. Her protest was cut short when he spun into the line of scaled creatures as they became visible right before them. He danced through their charge, cutting them down as fast as he could move.
Through his frenetic onslaught, he saw something else he could make no sense of: spots. He thought it must be that he was so tired he was beginning to see a sky full of spots.
He screamed with rage at a yabree that came too close. He lopped off the arm and then the head in quick succession. Another blade came at him and he ducked under it, coming up sword first. He backhanded another with the knife in his other hand. He had to kick the one behind before he had time to yank his sword free.
With cold fury, he realized that the mriswith had finally determined that he was their only threat, and were surrounding him. He could hear Kahlan screaming his name. He could see beady eyes everywhere. There was nothing he could do, and nowhere to run, even if he wanted to. He felt the sting of blades that came too close before he could stop them.
There were too many. Dear spirits, there were just too many.
He didn’t even see any soldiers close anymore. He was surrounded by a wall of scales and flashing three-bladed knives. Only the rage of the magic slowed them. He wished that he had told Kahlan he loved her, instead of yelling at her.
Something brown flashed in his side vision. He heard a howl from a mriswith, but it wasn’t one he killed. He wondered if confusion was what you felt when you died. He was dizzy from spinning, from swinging his sword, from the bone-jarring impacts.
Something huge dropped from above. Then another. Richard tried to wipe mriswith blood out of his eyes in an effort to tell what was happening. All around, mriswith howled.
Richard saw wings. Brown wings. Furry arms were flashing in his vision, twisting off heads. Claws rent scales apart. Fangs ripped into necks.
Richard stumbled back as a huge gar thumped to the ground right in front of him, tumbling the mriswith back.
It was Gratch.
Richard blinked as he glancing around. There were gars everywhere. More were coming, up in the air—that was the spots he had seen.
Gratch heaved a ripped mriswith into the Blood of the Fold, and lunged at another. The gars all around tore into them. More dropped from the darkening sky atop mriswith all along the lines. There were glowing green eyes everywhere. The mriswith shrouded themselves in their capes, becoming invisible, but it did them no good; the gars could still find them. They had nowhere to run.
Richard held the sword in both hands, gawking. Gars roared. Mriswith howled. Richard laughed.
Kahlan’s arms clamped around him from behind. “I love you,” she said in his ear. “I thought I was going to die, and I hadn’t told you.”
He turned and looked into her wet green eyes. “I love you.”
Richard heard shouts over the cries of battle. The green he had seen were men. There were tens of thousands of them, charging into the rear of the Blood of the Fold, pouring in around buildings, crushing the crimson-caped men back. The D’Harans on Richard’s side, free of the mriswith, rallied and tore into the Blood with the deadly competence they were known for.
A huge wedge of the men in green cleaved through the Blood of the fold, coming toward Richard and Kahlan. To each side, dozens of gars set upon mriswith. Gratch flailed into them, ramming them back. Richard climbed up on a fountain to better see what was happening. He took Kahlan’s hand and helped her up beside him. Men surged in to protect him, driving the enemy back.
“They’re Keltans,” Kahlan said. “The men in green uniforms are Keltans.”
At the van of the Keltish charge was a man Richard recognized: General Baldwin. When the general saw them on the fountain, he and a small guard peeled away from his main force of men, shouting orders as he departed, and cut a line through the crimson-caped men, their horses trampling men underfoot like autumn leaves. The general hacked at a few with his sword for good measure. He broke through the battle lines and reined in before Richard and Kahlan standing on the fountain.
General Baldwin sheathed his sword and bowed in his saddle, his heavy serge cape, fastened at one shoulder with two buttons, draped to one side, revealing the green silk lining. He came up and clapped a fist to his tan surcoat.
“Lord Rahl,” he said with reverence.
He bowed again. “My queen,” he said with even more reverence.
Kahlan leaned toward him when he came up, her tone ominous. “Your what?”
Even the man’s shiny pate reddened. He bowed again. “My most… glorious… esteemed queen, and Mother Confessor?”
Richard tugged the back of her shirt before she could speak. “I told the general here how I had decided to name you the Queen of Kelton.”
Her eyes widened. “The queen of…”
“Yes,” General Baldwin said as he glanced about at the battle. “It kept Kelton together, and our surrender unbroken. As soon as Lord Rahl told me of this great honor, that we were to have the Mother Confessor as our queen, just as Galea, showing how he honors us as our neighbors, I brought a force to Aydindril to help protect Lord Rahl and our queen, and to join in the battle against the Imperial Order. I didn’t want either of you to think we aren’t prepared to do our part.”
Kahlan finally blinked and straightened. “Thank you, General. Your help came just in time. I am most appreciative.”
The general pulled off his long black gauntlets and tucked them through his wide belt. He kissed Kahlan’s hand. “If my new queen will excuse me, I must return to my men. We have half our force spread out behind just in case these traitorous bastards try to escape.” He blushed again. “Pardon a soldier’s language, my queen.”
As the general returned to his men, Richard scanned the battle. The gars were searching, looking for more mriswith, and finding only a few. Those didn’t last long.
Gratch looked to have grown another foot since Richard had last seen him, and was now the size of any of the males. He seemed to be directing the search. Richard was dumbfounded, but his joy was tempered by the scale of the carnage before him.
“Queen?” Kahlan said. “You named me Queen of Kelton? The Mother Confessor?”
“It seemed a good idea at the time,” he explained. “It seemed the only way to keep Kelton from turning on us.”
She appraised him with a small smile. “Very good, Lord Rahl.”
As Richard finally sheathed his sword, he saw three spots of red break through the dark leather of D’Haran uniforms. The three Mord-Sith, Agiel in hand, came at a run across the square. Each wore her red leather, but it did a poor job this day of disguising the blood all over them.
“Lord Rahl! Lord Rahl!”
Berdine flew at him like a squirrel flinging itself for a branch. She landed on him, webbing him in arms and legs, knocking him back off the wall and into the fountain full of snowmelt.
She sat up on his stomach. “Lord Rahl! You did it! You took the cape off like I told you! You heard my warning after all!”
She fell on him again, clutching him in red arms. Richard held his breath as he
went under. Though the icy water wouldn’t have been his choice, he was glad for the excuse to wash off some of the stinking mriswith blood. He gasped for air when she grabbed his shirt in her fist and hauled him up. She sat in his lap, legs around his middle, and hugged him again.
“Berdine,” he whispered, “my shoulder is hurt. Please don’t squeeze so hard.”
“It’s nothing,” she announced in true Mord-Sith disregard for pain. “We were so worried. When the attack came, we thought we would never see you again. We thought we had failed.”
Kahlan cleared her throat. Richard held out an introductory hand. “Kahlan, these are my personal guards, Cara, Raina, and this is Berdine. Ladies, this is Kahlan, my queen.”
Berdine, making no attempt to get off his lap, grinned up at Kahlan. “I’m Lord Rahl’s favorite.”
Kahlan folded her arms as her green-eyed glare darkened.
“Berdine, let me up.”
“You still smell like a mriswith.” She shoved him back in the water and again hauled him up by his shirt. “That’s better.” She pulled him closer. “You ever run off like that again without listening to me, I’ll do more than give you a bath.”
“What is it about you and women and baths?” Kahlan asked in an even tone.
“I don’t know.” He looked out over the battle still raging, and then back to Berdine’s blue eyes. He hugged her with his good arm. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you. The price of my foolishness was too great.”
“Are you all right?” she whispered in his ear.
“Berdine, get off me. Let me up.”
She flopped off his lap to the side. “Kolo said that the mriswith were enemy wizards who traded their power for the ability to become invisible.”
Richard gave her a hand up. “I nearly did, too.”
She stood in the water on her tiptoes and pulled his shirt collar aside, inspecting his neck. She let out a relieved sigh. “It’s gone. You’re safe. Kolo said how the change came, how their skin began to scale over. He said that that ancestor of yours, Alric, created a force to battle the mriswith.” She pointed. “Gars.”
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