It took careful steps, the head hovering low to the ground as it advanced, glowing eyes never leaving him.
The thing was stalking.
With a cry, Friedrich scrambled to his feet and took off running as fast as his legs would fly. His age mattered little when powered by such a fright. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed the beast bounding down the trail behind him, easily closing the distance.
Worse yet, in that brief glance back, Friedrich saw more pairs of glowing yellow eyes emerging from the woods to join in the pursuit.
They were coming out for the night’s hunt.
Friedrich was their prey.
The howling beast hit his back with such force that it drove the wind from his lungs. He pitched face-first to the ground, hitting with a grunt, sliding through the dirt. As he tried to scramble away, the powerful beast pounced on him. Raging with snarling snapping teeth, it lunged, caught his backpack, tearing it open in a mad effort to get at his bone and muscle.
Friedrich vividly envisioned being torn apart.
He knew he was about to die.
Chapter 54
Friedrich screamed in terror as he struggled frantically to escape. Right over his shoulder the thing howled with vicious fury as snapping teeth tore though his backpack, trying to rip him apart. His backpack, stuffed full of his things, was now a bulwark between Friedrich and the huge teeth tearing at him. The weight of the savage beast held him down, and the clutching forelegs kept him from being able to wriggle away, much less get up and run.
With desperate urgency, Friedrich forced his hand under himself, trying to reach his knife. His fingers caught the handle and pulled it free. Immediately, he struck out, slamming his blade into the beast. It hit hidecovered shoulder bone, doing little damage. He stabbed again, but failed to make contact. Fighting for all he was worth, he slashed as he rolled, missing the beast, trying to get away when it ducked his blade.
Just as he was about to escape to the side, if only to spare himself momentarily, more of the beasts bounded into the fray. Friedrich screamed again, slashing with his knife, trying to protect his face with his other arm at the same time. He managed to get up on his hands and knees, only to have another of the beasts pounce and knock him sprawling.
Friedrich saw the book tumble out of the inner pocket he’d stitched into his pack. Their teeth had ripped open the sealed compartment. The beasts lunged for the book. The one that snatched it up in its jaws snarled and shook its head like a hound with a hare.
Just as another of the howling creatures roared toward him, wet fangs stretching wide, the head abruptly spun crazily away. Hot blood splashed across the side of Friedrich’s face and neck. It was totally unexpected and completely disorienting.
“In the water!” a man yelled at him. “Jump in the water!”
It was all Friedrich could do to roll and twist, trying to keep himself from the snapping snarling beasts. He certainly had no intention of going into the water; he had no desire to be set upon by such ferocious animals in water. That was a favorite trick of beasts in the swamp—get you in the water, then they had you. Going in the water was the last thing Friedrich wanted.
The world seemed to go mad with steel flashing by his face, just over his head, up along the side of him, whistling through the air, slicing beasts apart with each mighty swing, defending him just before they were on him. Reeking, slippery innards spilled across the ground, slopped across his legs.
The man above stepped over Friedrich, straddling him. His sword slashed and stabbed with swift, fluid grace that Friedrich found spellbinding. The stranger stood his ground over Friedrich, cutting through the creatures as they charged, seemingly dozens of them, all snarling and howling.
Friedrich saw yet more of the wild beasts bound out of the woods. With frightening speed and terrifying determination, they leaped at the man standing over him, throwing themselves at him with wild abandon. Friedrich saw another swordsman to the side slice into the onslaught. He thought he saw a third person behind, but with all the furious activity, he wasn’t sure how many rescuers there might be. The strident snarling, ringing howls, and roaring growls, all so close, were deafening. When one of the heavy beasts crashed sideways into him, Friedrich stabbed it, only to see that it was already headless.
As the second person raced in close to join the fray, the man standing over Friedrich stepped to the side, reached down with one hand, snatched a fistful of his shirt, lifted him to his feet, and, with a grunt, heaved him out into the lake. Friedrich had no time to get his balance and only an instant to gasp a breath before he hit the water. He plunged under, unable to tell up from down in the dark depths.
Breaking the surface, gasping for air, splashing for the shore, Friedrich finally found footing on the muddy bottom and was just able to keep his head above the surface of the water. To his surprise, none of the beasts came in after him. Several raced to the shore, but stopped short, unwilling to enter the water despite how much they hungered to have him. When they saw he was out of reach, they returned to the attack and were killed as soon as they joined the others charging the big man.
The beasts leaped at the three from all sides, the fierce battle raging on with frightening intensity. As fast as the animals attacked, they were dispatched decisively—beheaded, stabbed, or rent open with mighty swings of a sword.
With sudden finality, the dark figure swung upward, lopping the head off a beast as it leaped through the air toward the second person. The night finally fell silent, but for the heavy breathing of the three people up on the trail.
The three stepped out of the pile of unmoving carcasses, to sit wearily on the bank, exhausted, heads hanging as they caught their breath.
“Are you all right?” the first of the three, the one who had saved Friedrich’s life, asked. His voice was still filled with the terrible rage of battle. His blood-slick sword, still in his hand, glinted in starlight.
Friedrich, stunned and shivering, suddenly weak with relief, took several steps toward the shore, water sluicing off him, until he was standing waist-deep in the lake before the man.
“Yes, thanks to you. Why’d you throw me in the water like that?”
The man raked his fingers back through thick hair. “Because,” he said between deep breaths pulled not just from exertion, but driven by wrath, “heart hounds won’t go in water. It was the safest place for you.”
Friedrich swallowed as his gaze played over the dark heaps of hounds. “I don’t know how to thank you. You saved my life.”
“Well,” the man said, still catching his breath, “I happen not to like heart hounds. They’ve scared the wits out of me on more than one occasion.”
Friedrich feared to ask where the man would have seen such fearsome creatures before.
“We were way back up the trail when we saw them come out after you.” It was a woman’s voice. Friedrich stared at the figure in the middle who had spoken as she caught her breath. He could just make out her long fall of hair. “We were worried that we wouldn’t reach you before the heart hounds had you,” she added.
“But . . . what are heart hounds?”
The three figures stared at him.
“The more important question,” the first man said at last in a quiet, measured, but commanding voice, “is why were heart hounds here at all. Do you have any idea why they might have been after you?”
“No, sir. I’ve never seen such creatures before.”
“It’s been a long while since I’ve seen heart hounds,” the man said, sounding troubled. Friedrich almost thought that he’d been going to say more about the hounds, but instead he asked, “What’s your name?”
“Friedrich Gilder, sir, and you have my undying gratitude—all of you do. I haven’t been that scared since—well, since I don’t know when.” He looked to the three faces watching him, but it was too dark to clearly make out their features.
The first man put an arm around the woman, in the middle, and in a whisper asked if she was al
l right. She answered with the kind of nod against his shoulder that Friedrich knew conveyed true concern and intimate familiarity. When his fingers reached past, touching the shoulder beyond her, the third figure nodded.
These weren’t at all likely to be Imperial Order soldiers. Still, there were always other risks in such a strange land. Friedrich took a chance.
“May I ask your name, sir?”
“Richard.”
Friedrich took a cautious step closer, but, for some reason, by the way the silent third person watched him, he feared to step up out of the water any closer to Richard and the woman.
Richard swished his blade clean in the water, then stood. After wiping both sides dry on his leg, he slid the sword home into its scabbard at his hip. In the dim light, Friedrich could see that the lustrous silver-and-gold-wrought scabbard was secured with a baldric over Richard’s right shoulder. Friedrich was pretty sure that he remembered the look of that baldric and scabbard. Friedrich had carved for nearly his whole life and also recognized a certain effortless grace with a blade—no matter what kind of blade. Artful control was required to wield edged steel with mastery. When it was in Richard’s hands, he truly seemed in his element. Friedrich well remembered the sword the man was wearing that day. He wondered if this could possibly be that same remarkable weapon.
With a foot, Richard prodded at parts of heart hounds, searching. He bent and lifted a severed hound head. Friedrich saw then that the beast had something clenched in its teeth. Richard tugged at it, but it was impaled on the fangs. As he worked it out of the hound’s mouth, off the fangs, Friedrich’s eyes went wide when he realized that it was the book. The hound had torn it out of the backpack.
“Please.” Friedrich lifted a hand, reaching. “Is it . . . is it all right?”
Richard tossed the heavy head aside, where it thumped down and rolled into the trees. He peered closely at the book in the dim light. His hand lowered and he looked over at Friedrich standing in waist-deep water.
“I think you had better tell me who you are, and why you’re here,” Richard said. The woman rose up at the dark tone in Richard’s voice.
Friedrich cleared his throat and swallowed back his worry. “Like I said, I’m Friedrich Gilder.” He took a terrible chance. “I’m looking for a man related to a very old fellow I know named Nathan.”
Richard stood staring for a moment. “Nathan. Big man? Tall, long white hair to his shoulders? Thinks a lot of himself?” He sounded not just surprised, but suspicious as well. “Born-for-mischief Nathan?”
Friedrich smiled at the last part, and with relief. His bond had served him well. He bowed, as best he could standing in the water.
“Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.”
Lord Rahl watched as Friedrich finally straightened, and then extended a hand down. “Come out of the water, Master Gilder,” he said in a gentle voice.
Friedrich was somewhat confounded to be offered a helping hand by Lord Rahl himself, and yet didn’t know how he could refuse what could be judged an order. He took the hand and pulled himself up out of the water.
Friedrich went to a knee, bowing forward. “Lord Rahl, my life is yours.”
“Thank you, Master Gilder. I’m honored by your gesture, and value the sincerity, but your life is your own, and belongs to no one else. That includes me.”
Friedrich stared up in wonder. He had never heard anyone say anything so remarkable, so unimaginable, least of all a Lord Rahl. “Please, sir, would you call me Friedrich?”
Lord Rahl laughed. It was a sound as easy and pleasant as any Friedrich had ever heard. It made a smile well up through him, too.
“If you’ll call me Richard.”
“I’m sorry, Lord Rahl, but . . . I’m afraid that I just couldn’t bring myself to do such a thing. I’ve spent my whole life with a Lord Rahl, and I’m too old to change it, now.”
Lord Rahl hooked a thumb behind his wide belt. “I understand, Friedrich, but we’re deep in the Old World. If you utter the words ‘Lord Rahl’ and anyone hears you, we’re all likely to have a great deal of trouble on our hands, so I would greatly appreciate it if you would do your best to learn to call me Richard.”
“I’ll try, Lord Rahl.”
Lord Rahl held out an introductory hand. “This is the Mother Confessor, Kahlan, my wife.”
Friedrich went to a knee again, bowing his head. “Mother Confessor.” He wasn’t sure how to properly greet such a woman.
“Now, Friedrich,” she said with as much of a scolding tone as Lord Rahl’s, but in a voice that he thought revealed a woman of rare grace, command, and heart, “that title, too, will serve us ill, here.” It was as lovely a voice as Friedrich had ever heard, its lucid quality holding him spellbound. He had seen the woman once, in the palace; the voice fit his memory of her perfectly.
Friedrich nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” He thought he might be able to learn to call Lord Rahl “Richard,” but he was almost positive that he would never be able to call this woman anything other than “Mother Confessor.” The familiar name Kahlan seemed a privilege beyond him.
Lord Rahl gestured past the Mother Confessor. “And this is our friend, Cara. Don’t let her scare you—she’ll try. Besides being a friend, first, she is a valued protector, who remains always concerned for our safety above all else.” He glanced over at her. “Although, lately, she has been causing more trouble than help.”
“Lord Rahl,” Cara growled, “I told you that wasn’t my fault. I had nothing to do with it.”
“You’re the one who touched it.”
“Well . . . how was I supposed to know!”
“I told you to leave it be, but you had to touch it.”
“I couldn’t very well just leave it, now could l?”
Friedrich didn’t understand a word of the exchange. But even in the near darkness, he could see the Mother Confessor smile and pat Cara on the shoulder.
“It’s all right, Cara,” she whispered reassuringly.
“We’ll figure something out, Cara,” Lord Rahl added in a sigh. “We still have time.” He turned suddenly solemn and switched his line of thought as swiftly as he changed direction with that sword of his. He waggled the book. “The hounds were after this.”
Friedrich eyebrows went up in astonishment. “They were?”
“Yes. You were just the treat for doing a good job.”
“How do you know?”
“Heart hounds would never attack a book. They would have fought to the death over your heart, first, had they not been sent for another reason.”
“So that’s why they’re called heart hounds,” Friedrich said.
“That’s one theory. The other is that with those big round ears, they can find their victim by the sound of their beating heart. Either way, I’ve never heard of a heart hound going for a book when a human heart was there for the taking.”
Friedrich gestured to the book. “Lord—sorry, Richard—Nathan sent me with this book. He thought it was very important. I guess he was right.”
Lord Rahl turned back from staring at the hounds sprawled across the ground. If it had not been dark, Friedrich was sure he would have seen a frown, but he certainly could hear repressed anger in the man’s voice. “Nathan thinks a lot of things are important—usually prophecies.”
“But Nathan was sure about this.”
“He always is. He’s helped me before, I don’t deny that.” Lord Rahl shook his head with determination. “But, from the beginning, prophecy has been the cause of more trouble for us than I care to think about. Heart hounds mean we suddenly have immediate, deadly danger on our hands. I don’t need Nathan’s prophecies adding to my problems. I know some people think prophecy is a gift, but I regard it as a curse best avoided.”
“I understand,” Friedrich said with a wistful smile. “My wife was a sorceress. Her gif
t was prophecy. She sometimes called it her curse.” His smile faltered. “I sometimes held her as she wept over some foretelling she saw, but could not change.”
Lord Rahl watched him in the awkward silence. “She’s passed away, then?”
Friedrich could only nod as he sagged under the pain of the memories.
“I’m sorry, Friedrich,” Lord Rahl said in a quiet voice.
“So am I,” the Mother Confessor whispered in sad, sincere sympathy. She turned to her husband, clasping his upper arm. “Richard, I know we don’t have time for Nathan’s prophecies, but we can hardly ignore what heart hounds mean.”
Distress sounded heavily in Lord Rahl’s sigh. “I know.”
“What are we going to do?”
Friedrich saw him shake his head in the dim light. “We’ll have to hope they can handle it, for now. This is more urgent. We’ll need to find Nicci, and fast. Let’s just hope she has some ideas.”
The Mother Confessor seemed to accept what he’d said as sensible. Even Cara was nodding silent agreement.
“I’ll tell you what, Friedrich,” the Mother Confessor said in a voice steady with mettle. “We were about to set up camp for the night. With the heart hounds loose, you had better stay with us until we meet up with some of our friends in a day or two and have better protection. At camp you can tell us what this is all about.”
“I’ll listen to what Nathan wants,” Lord Rahl said, “but that’s all I can promise. Nathan is a wizard; he’s going to have to solve his own problems; we have enough of our own. Let’s make camp, first, somewhere safe. I’ll at least take a look at this book—if it’s still readable. You can tell me why Nathan thinks it’s so important. Just spare me the prophecies.”
“No prophecies, Lord Rahl. In fact, the lack of prophecy is the real problem.”
Lord Rahl gestured around at the carcasses. “This is the immediate problem. We’d better find a spot down there in the swamp, surrounded by water, if we want to live to see morning. There will be more where these came from.”
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