Naked Empire

by Angreal

  Richard's breath caught, and he coughed, then, unable to hold it back any longer. Nor could he hold back grimacing at the pain.

  Kahlan gripped his arms. "The antidote—what happened to the antidote! I sent it back with Owen. Didn't you get it?"

  Richard shook his head as he coughed again, the pain feeling as though it ripped him deep inside. He finally regained his breath. "Well, now, that is a problem. It wasn't the antidote. It was just water with a bit of cinnamon in it."

  Kahlan's face went ashen. "But..." She looked over at Nicholas's body, at his head lying upended at the end of a bloody trail across the floor.

  "Richard, if Nicholas is dead, how are we going to get the antidote?"

  "There isn't any antidote. Nicholas wanted me dead. He would have destroyed the antidote long ago. He gave you a fake to be able to capture you."

  Her face had gone from joy to horror.

  "But, without the antidote..."

  * * *

  CHAPTER 64

  There's no time to worry about the poison just now," Richard told her as he helped her to her feet.

  No time? She watched his step falter as he made his way across the room. He groped for the window ledge.

  At the small window opening in the outer wall of the fortification he signaled with the high, clear whistle of the common wood pewee—the whistle Cara thought was that of the mythical short-tailed pine hawk.

  "I used a ladder pole," he explained. "Cara is on her way."

  Kahlan tried to make her way over to him, but her body felt alarmingly unfamiliar to her. She staggered a couple of steps, her legs moving woodenly. She had the urge to get down on her hands and feet to walk. She felt like a stranger inside her own skin. It seemed foreign to have to breathe on her own, to have to look through her own eyes, to have to listen through her own ears. It was a strange, haunting sensation to feel her clothes against her skin.

  Richard held out his hand to help steady her. Kahlan thought that as wobbly as she was, she might still be more steady on her feet than Richard.

  "We're going to have to fight our way out," he said, "but we'll have some help. I'll get you the first sword I can."

  Richard blew out the flame of the single candle before a tin reflector on a small shelf.

  "Richard, I'm not yet used to being ... back inside myself. I don't think I'm ready to go out there. I can hardly walk."

  "We don't have a lot of choice. We have to get out. Learn as you go. I'll help you."

  "You can hardly walk yourself."

  Cara, at the top of a pole ladder Richard had cut, leaned forward and wriggled in through the small window.

  Halfway in, Cara gaped in delighted wonder. "Mother Confessor—Lord Rahl did it."

  "You don't need to sound so surprised," Richard griped as he helped the Mord-Sith the rest of the way in.

  Cara only briefly took note of the dead man sprawled across the floor before Kahlan threw her arms around the woman.

  "You can't imagine how glad I am to see you," Cara said.

  "Well, you can't imagine how glad I am to see you through my own eyes."

  "If only the trade you made had worked," Cara added in a whisper.

  "We'll find another way," Kahlan assured her.

  Richard slowly drew the door open a crack and peeked out. He shut the door and turned back.

  "It's clear. Doors to the left and around the balcony are the rooms with the women in them. Stairs to the right are the closest that lead down. Some of the rooms at the bottom are for officers; others are barracks for soldiers."

  Cara nodded. "I'm ready."

  Kahlan looked from one to the other. "Ready for what?"

  Richard took her by the elbow. "I need you to help me see."

  "Help you see? Is it progressing that fast?"

  "Just listen. We're going to move along the balcony to the left and open the doors. Do your best to keep the women calm. We're going to break them out of here."

  Kahlan was a bit confused by everything—it was completely different from the plans she had been hearing along with Nicholas. She knew she would just have to follow Richard and Cara's lead.

  Outside, on the simple wooden balcony, there were no lamps or torches. The moon was down behind the black sprawl of the mountains. Kahlan's sight when Nicholas had controlled her had been like looking through a greasy pane of wavy glass. The sparkling vault of stars overhead had never looked so beautiful. In that starlight, Kahlan could see simple buildings lined up around the outer wall of the fortification.

  Richard and Cara moved along the balcony, opening doors. At each one, Cara quickly ducked inside. Some of the women came out in their nightshirts; some Kahlan could hear inside rushing to get dressed. In some of the rooms, babies cried.

  While Cara was in one of the rooms, Richard opened another door. He leaned close to Kahlan and whispered, "Go in and tell the women inside that we've come to help them escape. Tell them that their men have come to get them out. But they must be as quiet as possible, or we'll be caught."

  Kahlan rushed in, as best she could on unsteady legs, and woke the young woman in the bed to the right. She sat up, terrified, but silent. Kahlan reached around and shook the woman in the other bed.

  "We've come to help you escape. You mustn't make any noise. Your men are going to help. You have a chance to be free."

  "Free?" the first woman asked.

  "Yes. It's up to you, but I strongly advise you to take the chance, and to hurry."

  The women flew out of their beds and grabbed for clothes.

  Richard, Kahlan, and Cara moved farther down the balcony, asking the women who had already come out to help rouse the others. In a matter of a few minutes, hundreds of women were huddled together out on the balcony. There was no problem keeping them quiet; they were all too familiar with the consequences of causing trouble. They didn't want to do anything to get themselves caught trying to escape. Before long, they had made it all the way around the fortification balcony.

  Many of the women had very young babies—ones too young to be taken away. The babies were mostly sound asleep in their mothers' arms, but some of them started to cry. The mothers desperately tried to rock and cuddle them into silence. Kahlan hoped that it was a common enough sound that it wouldn't draw the attention of the soldiers.

  "Wait here," Richard whispered to Kahlan. "Keep everyone up here until we get the gate open."

  With Cara right behind him, Richard slipped carefully down the steps and started across the open yard. When one of the babies suddenly began bawling, soldiers came out of a building to see what was going on. They spotted Richard and Kahlan. The soldiers yelled, sounding an alarm.

  Kahlan heard the distinctive ring of steel as Richard drew his sword. Men rushed out of some of the doors, heading Richard and Cara off. Being used to dealing with these people, the men rushing toward Richard apparently weren't greatly concerned about violence. They were wrong, and fell as soon as they got close enough for Richard to strike. Some Richard took down as he ran; others Cara caught as they tried to come in from the side.

  The screams of some of the men as they fell woke the whole encampment. Men rushed out of barracks below, pulling on their trousers and shirts, dragging weapon belts behind.

  In the faint starlight, Kahlan spotted Richard by the dropgate. He took a mighty swing. Sparks showered across the wall as the sword shattered one of the heavy chains holding up the gate. Richard ran to the other side, to cut the other chain. Two men caught up to him there. In one fluid movement, Richard cut them both down.

  As Cara dropped other men who were rushing in at Richard, he swung the sword again. White-hot fragments of steel filled the air along with the ringing sound of metal shattering. The gate groaned and slowly started to fall outward. Richard heaved his weight against it and it picked up speed. With a resounding crash, it came down, raising clouds of dust.

  A great cry rose up as men outside, wielding swords, axes, and battle maces, charged in across the broken
bridge and into the fortification. The soldiers rushed to meet the invasion and there was a great clash of weapons and men.

  Kahlan saw, then, that soldiers were racing up the stairway on the opposite side of the balcony.

  "Come on!" Kahlan yelled to the women. "We have to get out now!"

  Holding the rail to keep her balance, Kahlan raced down the steps, all the women pouring down behind her, a number carrying screaming babies. Richard ran to meet her at the bottom. He tossed her a short sword with a leather-wound grip. Kahlan caught it by the handle just in time to turn and slash a soldier running up from beneath the balcony.

  Owen made his way through the fighting and over to the women. "Come on!" he called to them. "Get to the gate! Run!"

  The women, galvanized by his command, started running across the compound. As they reached the fighting, some of the women, instead of running out the gate, took the opportunity to leap on the backs of soldiers fighting Owen and his men. The women bit the men on the backs, beat at their heads, tore at their eyes. The soldiers were not restrained in dealing with the women, and several were brutally killed. It didn't stop others from joining the fight.

  If they would only run for the gate, they could escape, but instead, they were attacking the soldiers with their bare hands. They had been held in bondage to these men for a very long time. Kahlan could only imagine what they had gone through and couldn't say she blamed them. She was still having difficulty moving, making her body do what she wanted it to do, or she would have joined them.

  Kahlan turned at a sound only to see a man charging in at her. She recognized his flattened nose. Najari—Nicholas's right-hand man. He was one of the men who had carried her to the fortification. He wore a wicked grin as he came for her.

  She could have used her power on him, but she feared to trust it right then. She instead brought the short sword out from behind her back and slammed it through Najari's gut. He stood stiffly right in front of her, his eyes wide. She could smell the stink of his breath. Kahlan wrenched the handle of the sword to the side. Mouth opened wide, he panted, fearing to draw a deep breath, fearing to move and cause any more damage. Kahlan gritted her teeth and swept the sword's handle around in an arc, ripping his insides apart.

  She stared into his startled eyes as he slid off her sword. He grunted in pain as he dropped to his knees, holding his wound together as best he could. He never got what Kahlan knew he intended, what Nicholas had promised him. He fell forward onto his face, spilling his insides across the ground at her feet.

  Kahlan turned to the attack. Richard was engaged in slashing his way through men trying to surround him as he fought to keep the gate clear. Others, Richard's men, came at the enemy from behind, cutting into them the way Richard had taught them.

  Kahlan saw Owen not far away. He was standing in the open, among the fallen and the fighting, staring across the raging battle to a man just outside one of the doors under the balcony.

  The man had a thick black beard, a shaved head, and a ring through one ear and one nostril. His arms were as big as tree limbs. His shoulders were twice as wide as Owen's.

  "Luchan." Owen said to himself.

  Owen started across the open area of the fortification, past men engaged in pitched battle, past those crying out and those falling to blades, past swords and axes sweeping through the air, as if he didn't even see them. His eyes were locked on the man watching him come.

  The face of a young woman appeared in the dark doorway behind Luchan He turned and growled at her to go back inside, that he was going to take care of the little man from her village.

  When Luchan turned back around, Owen was standing before him.

  Luchan laughed and put his fists on his hips. "Why don't you scurry back into your hole?"

  Owen said nothing, gave no warning, made no demands. He simply lit into Luchan with a vengeance —just as Richard had counseled him to do —slamming a knife into the big man's chest over and over before Luchan had a chance to react. He had underestimated Owen. It had cost him his life.

  The woman rushed out of the doorway and came to a halt over the body of her former master. She stared down at him, at his one arm splayed out to the side, at the other lying across his bloody chest, at the unseeing eyes. She looked up at Owen.

  Kahlan assumed that this was Marilee, and feared that she was going to reject Owen for harming another, that she would castigate him for what be had done.

  Instead, she rushed to Owen and threw her arms around him.

  The woman went to her knees beside the body and took the bloody knife from Owen's hand. She turned to the fallen Luchan and stabbed him half a dozen times with such force that it drove the knife in up to the hilt with every thrust. Watching her tearful fury, Kahlan didn't have to wonder how she had been treated by the man.

  Her anger spent, she stood again and tearfully hugged Owen.

  Kahlan needed to get to Richard. She was relieved that her ability to move as she intended was returning. She started making her way around the edge of the battle, staying close to the walls, past men who saw her and thought she would be an easy mark. They didn't know that from a young age she had been taught to use a sword by her father, King Wyborn, and that Richard had later honed her skill to deadly proficiency, teaching her how to use her lighter weight to give her lethal speed. It was the last mistake the men made.

  Off across the open area, a mob of soldiers, now fully awake and fully prepared to engage in battle, swarmed out of the barracks. They all charged for Richard. Kahlan knew right away that there were too many. Richard's men couldn't stop the flood of soldiers as they streamed across the encampment. All of them crashed in toward Richard.

  Kahlan heard a deafening crack like lightning as the walls of the fortification lit with a flash. She had to turn away and shield her eyes. Night turned to day, and at the same time, a darkness darker than any night was loosed.

  A blazing white-hot bolt of Additive Magic twisted and coiled around and through a crackling black void of Subtractive Magic, creating a violent rope of twin lightning joined to a terrible purpose.

  It seemed as if the noonday sun crashed down among them. The air itself was drawn into the fierce heat and light. Try as she might, Kahlan couldn't draw a breath against the force of it.

  Richard's fury gathered it all into a single point. In an explosive instant, the thunderous ignition of light unleashed a devastating blast of staggering destruction radiating outward across the entire encampment, annihilating the Imperial Order soldiers.

  The night fell dark and silent.

  Men and women stood stunned among the sea of blood and viscera, gazing around at the unrecognizable remains of the enemy soldiers.

  The battle was over. The people of Bandakar had carried the day. At last, the women fell to wailing and crying, ecstatic to be free. They knew many of the men who had come to free them, and clung to them in gratitude, overwhelmed with joy to be reunited. They hugged friends, relatives, and strangers alike. The men, too, wept with relief and happiness.

  Kahlan rushed through the maze of rejoicing people crowded into the open area of the fortification. Men cheered her, thrilled that she, too, had been liberated. Many of the men wanted to talk to her, but she kept running to get to Richard.

  He stood to the side, leaning against the wall, Cara helping to hold him up. He still gripped his blood-slicked sword in his fist, the blade's tip resting on the ground.

  Owen, too, made his way over to Richard.

  "Mother Confessor! I'm so relieved and thankful to have you back!" He looked over at a smiling Richard. "Lord Rahl, I would like you to meet Marilee."

  This woman, who only a short time ago had savagely stabbed the corpse of her captor now seemed too shy to speak. She dipped her head in greeting.

  Richard straightened and smiled that smile Kahlan so loved to see, a smile filled with the sheer pleasure of life. "I'm very happy to meet you, Marilee. Owen has told us all about you, and about how much you mean to him. Through all
that happened, you were always first in his mind and heart. His love for you moved him to act to change his entire empire for the better."

  She seemed to be overwhelmed by it all, and by his words.

  "Lord Rahl came to us and did something more important than saving us all," Owen told Marilee. "Lord Rahl gave me the courage to come and fight for you, to fight to save you—for all of us to fight for our own lives and the lives of those we love."

  Beaming, Marilee leaned in and kissed Richard on the cheek. "Thank you, Lord Rahl. I never knew my Owen could do such things."

  "Believe me," Cara said, "we had our doubts about him, too." She clapped Owen on the back of the shoulder. "But he did well."

  "I, too, have come to understand the value of what he has done," Marilee said to Richard, "of the things you seem to have taught our people."

  Richard smiled at the two of them, but then he could no longer hold back the coughing that so hurt him. The mood of joyous liberation suddenly changed. People rushed in around them, helping to hold him up. Kahlan saw blood running down his chin.

  "Richard," she cried. "No..."

  They eased him to the ground. He clutched at Kahlan's sleeve, wanting to have her close. Kahlan saw tears running down Cara's cheek.

  It seemed that he had spent all the strength he had left. He was slipping into the fatal grasp of the poison, and there was nothing they could do for him.

  "Owen," Richard said, panting to catch his breath when the spell of coughing stopped. "How far to your town?" His voice was getting hoarse.

  "Not far—only hours, if we hurry."

  "The man who made the poison and the antidote ... he lived there?"

  "Yes. His place is still there."

  "Take me there."

  Owen looked puzzled, but he nodded eagerly. "Of course."

  "Hurry," Richard added, trying to get up. He couldn't.

  Tom appeared in the crowd. Jennsen was there, too.

  "Get some poles!" Tom commanded. "And some canvas, or blankets. We'll make a litter. Four men at a time can carry him. We can run and get him there quickly."