Into Darkness Page 15

  Richard looked around and saw a variety of jars and canisters, along with a number of washbasins as well as a half-dozen lanterns on a well-worn, heavy wooden table supplementing the light from the small window. There were shelves under the cabinets with smaller bottles neatly lined up.

  “How long have I been asleep?” he asked.

  She let out a concerned sigh. “You were brought here two nights ago. Because of your injuries, we had to give you some things to keep you asleep. With so many wounds we feared infection. Some of the herbs we use work better when the person is sleeping. The medicated sleep helped you get over the worst of your injuries. They are now all nicely on the mend. Especially your nasty head wound. We couldn’t be sure everything inside was all right until you woke, but we can now see that your eyes are clear and you don’t appear dizzy.”

  “I truly appreciate your help,” Richard told her. “But I really need to search for the Mother Confessor. She was—”

  “I’m afraid she’s gone,” Vika told him. “The people told me that all the witches left with her.”

  Richard blinked. “Left with her?”

  “On horses,” Vika confirmed.

  Richard looked up at Rita. “You have horses here?”

  She gestured with gnarled fingers. “Over on this side of the road, opposite from where the palace once stood, there are stables—the queen’s stables. The witch women all left and took the Mother Confessor with them.”

  Richard sat up in a rush, holding the towel over himself. “She’s alive then?”

  “Yes,” Cassia said. “But we learned that they left with her that first night.”

  Richard put a hand to his head, trying to calculate how long it had been since he and Shota had their battle. “How long ago? How long have I been asleep, or unconscious … how long have they been gone?”

  The Mord-Sith shared sidelong glances.

  Vika’s expression revealed her worry. “Quite a while, now, I’m afraid.”

  Richard stood, still holding the small towel in front of himself. “How long is ‘quite a while’?”

  “Altogether it’s been over five days since they left,” Vika said.

  28

  He turned to Rita. “Are there more horses in the ‘queen’s’ stables?”

  She nodded. “Quite a few, but they belong to the queen. She never allows anyone in Bindamoon to use them. The people here must care for them for her. The man called Iron Jack saw to it that the queen’s orders were carried out and no one from town was ever caught riding them. He was very cruel in that task, as well as others.”

  “Well, no one need fear Iron Jack any longer.”

  She leaned in. “Oh? I have heard rumors that say he was killed by demons. Are the stories true?”

  “The man is dead, that much is true,” Richard said as he held the towel over himself. “He can never hurt any of you again.”

  “This is wonderful news,” one of the other women said. Several of the others nodded their agreement.

  Richard gestured with an arm. “Out. Everyone out. I need to get dressed. I must get to the Mother Confessor.”

  The healers glanced at one another with renewed concern.

  “I don’t know if that is such a good idea just yet,” Rita said as she held up a cautionary finger. “It would be best if you rested for a few more days in order—”

  “There are vastly more critical things than me getting more rest. I’ve been sleeping for days. Believe me, I am plenty rested. Now, please, all of you, out, so I can get dressed.”

  The healers grudgingly gave in and filed out, looking back over their shoulders with concerned looks as they left. They closed the wooden door behind themselves. The Mord-Sith stood at ease and showed no indication that they thought the orders included them as well.

  “You too,” Richard told them with a swish of his hand. “All of you, please wait outside.”

  Berdine grinned. “Lord Rahl, that is rather pointless now. I mean, after all of us helped—”

  “Out!” Richard could feel his face going red again. He briefly wondered if there was a way his gift could prevent that from happening. If there was, he wanted to learn the trick.

  The Mord-Sith all let out deep sighs, as if he was just being silly, but to his relief they finally left him to get dressed alone, closing the door on their way out.

  Richard found all of his clothes washed and neatly folded on a chair. His sword hung off one side of the back. His pack, bow, and quiver hung off the other side. His mind raced as he hastily got dressed. He needed to get to Kahlan, but Shota and her coven had quite a head start. He knew, though, that Kahlan would be doing what she could to slow them down, hoping that he would catch up—hoping, too, no doubt, that he was still alive.

  Finally dressed in his freshly cleaned clothes, his sword at his hip, and his pack and bow each hanging over a shoulder, he pulled open the door.

  He was not prepared for what greeted him outside.

  The healing house stood at the edge of the town on the opposite side of the pass road from the palace. The hillside before him gently descended down toward the western wall below where he stood outside the stone building. The entire hillside was packed with people, all silently staring up at him. It looked to him like the whole town was assembled there.

  The healers were off to his right, keeping watch, presumably in case he succumbed to his wounds and collapsed. The six Mord-Sith were there waiting for him just outside the door. Once he stepped out, they took up places beside him, with three to either side. Vika took her place immediately to his right, signifying that she was his lead protection.

  The people looking up at him stared in silence. He had no idea what was going on, but he was pretty sure that they had never seen a Lord Rahl before, so he thought that maybe that was it.

  Richard recognized Toby, but not the two big men in leather vests beside him. When Toby saw that Richard was looking at him, he glanced around, then took a few steps forward. He swiped the flat hat off his head and held the hat in both hands, nervously turning it around and around.

  “Toby,” Richard said, “I want to thank you and all the others who helped get me out from where I was trapped. You people saved my life. I am indebted to you all. I will never forget all you and the healers have done for me.”

  Toby shook his head. “No, Lord Rahl. It is we who are indebted to you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Toby gestured off across the pass road to where the towering palace had stood. Richard could see that the entire structure had collapsed. An enormous pile of rubble was all that remained of a once-elegant structure. It was a reminder of the tremendous destructive power of Subtractive Magic.

  On the lower side of the mountain’s prominence, where the palace had stood, the ground had sheared away and slid down to cover a number of the stone buildings. He could tell by the way the ground had dropped away on the downhill side that it had exposed the area closer to where the massive chamber beneath the palace had been. That was where Richard had been trapped. The Mord-Sith had been down in that chamber, so they would have known where Richard was. They had undoubtedly been the ones to direct rescue efforts.

  It was fortunate that the rock of the mountain itself, having been sliced through and weakened by Subtractive Magic, had slumped down and off to one side the way it had, because it made it possible for his rescuers to dig in from the side, which would have been considerably closer to him, than to try to dig down from atop the enormous pile of rubble. Had they needed to do that, he knew, by the time they reached him it would have merely ended up being an effort to recover his body.

  “I’m sorry that when the palace came down it buried so many of your homes,” Richard said.

  “You destroyed that terrible palace of the queen,” Toby said.

  “You mean Shota, the witch woman,” Richard corrected.

  People all through the crowd nodded at that. They had been afraid to say her name aloud, but now that he had, they readily a
cknowledged it.

  “That’s right,” Toby said as he kept turning his hat in his hands. “The people in those buildings heard the powerful uproar of your magic, and the sounds of the palace coming apart, so they were able to escape before the whole place came down. Those homes can and will be rebuilt. I’m thankful that none of the people who lived there were hurt and they are all safe.”

  Richard nodded with relief. “That’s good to hear.”

  Toby lifted his thumb to the side. “These are my two boys. They helped dig you out, as did many of the people of Bindamoon. We have lived our lives under the cloud of that witch and her sister witches, to say nothing of Iron Jack. Whenever she was here, in Bindamoon, we feared to even come out of our houses. Everyone feared that if she saw them, she might strike them down for any reason or no reason.”

  “Well, she’s gone now, and Iron Jack is dead,” Richard said. “She no longer has a palace to come back to. I intend to see to it that she never comes back here.”

  At that, everyone went to their knees. They all did it together, as if they were of one mind. The six Mord-Sith came around and in front of the people on the hillside, turned toward Richard, and went to their knees as well. Everyone bent forward, putting their foreheads to the ground.

  Together, in one voice, they began.

  “Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us.”

  Richard hadn’t expected them all to give the devotion. He stood silent and tall as they continued.

  “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.”

  As all the voices died out, silence slowly fell over the expanse of the hillside. And then they repeated the devotion. When they were finished, they spoke it for a third time.

  Richard felt a catch in his throat. This devotion was his link to people, a link forged through his gift. They were the steel against steel for him; he was the magic against magic for them.

  He had used that magic to bring down the hated palace of the woman they feared to name.

  More than that, the devotion was his protection for their world, linking all the magic of the world in a web of security that kept the Golden Goddess from coming unimpeded to slaughter everyone and feed on them as he had seen happen back in the lower reaches of the People’s Palace.

  His magic, and Kahlan’s, was the protection for their world, and it linked them all together. The devotion was an acknowledgment of that shared bond.

  The two children Kahlan carried were the continuation of that magic, that power, that bond that was the protection for their world.

  Richard swallowed. “Thank you all. I can’t begin to tell you what it means to me.”

  A cheer went up to let him know that it meant something to them as well.

  “We’ve never been before the Lord Rahl to give the devotion,” Toby said. “The queen—I mean Shota, the witch woman—wouldn’t allow the devotion to be given.”

  “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, both to dig me out of that rubble, and to heal me. I was in good hands. But now, I need to chase down those witches and put an end to what they are doing to destroy all our futures.”

  One of Toby’s sons pointed. “The stables are over there.” He grinned. “Since you are going after Shota, maybe you would like to take some of her horses to her?”

  Richard returned a brief smile. “That’s the idea.”

  29

  With Vika and the rest of the Mord-Sith following right behind, the crowd followed them to the stables, eager to see to it that he had whatever he needed. Lord Rahl or not, Mord-Sith were fearsome, so they all preferred to follow at a respectful, and safe, distance. He hoped that these people had seen that Mord-Sith had been weapons used by evil men in the past, but that they were not the monsters they were once feared to be.

  That deferential distance, though, pleased the Mord-Sith. Friends or not, this was the Lord Rahl, their charge. Their responsibility was to keep him safe. Nothing frustrated them more than when he, in their opinion, disregarded their protection and went out of his way to put himself in danger. In other words, live his life. He sometimes thought that they believed he should stay at the People’s Palace where they could watch over him and he could simply rule from there.

  The stable grounds were larger than Richard had expected. There were fenced corrals with lush green grass. The mild temperature of the mountain fortress provided the same perfect growing conditions for the grass as it did for the herbs they grew in large fields.

  Richard and the Mord-Sith made their way among the complex of supply buildings and barns. He was eager to get going. His worry for Kahlan was a constant distraction.

  As they were crossing the stable grounds, behind them Glee suddenly poured out from hiding places among the buildings. The dark creatures had let Richard and the Mord-Sith pass so that they could attack the massive crowd following them.

  Richard instantly recognized that it had the makings of a massacre, which was exactly what the Glee had planned. He also recognized the method to their battle plan.

  As the gangly creatures continued to pour out from behind the buildings, people shrank back in terror. The Glee quickly filled the gap between Richard and the crowd. Their tactics had evolved. This time the creatures wanted to attack directly into the tightly packed throng of people, both to kill as many as possible and to make it harder for him to fight back and stop them.

  Richard knew he had only one chance.

  He gestured to the Mord-Sith. “Wait until I tell you!”

  He drew his sword as he raced through the band of Glee intent on attacking the townspeople. Running at full speed, he crashed right through the horde of dark, slimy creatures, knocking some of them out of his way when he had to, before they had time to react. They expected him to take up a defensive position back where he had been. They hadn’t been expecting him to charge right through their midst. Though their legs were long, and they could run fast, Richard could run faster. Besides that, the sword whirling through the air, cutting them down from behind as he hurtled through their midst, surprised and distracted them, causing many to turn and slowing others down.

  As soon as Richard broke through and gained the ground between all the people and the Glee, he spun around to attack them head-on.

  “Now!” he called out to the Mord-Sith to be heard over the hisses and screeches of the Glee.

  His sword whistled through the air as he sliced through the advancing invaders, swiftly lopping off claws as they used them to attack. Dark, glossy heads thudded down on the ground, bounced, and rolled among the advancing Glee. All of the severed claws and heads were a distraction that turned them away from their intended target of the stunned crowd. Infuriated, they instead all charged in at him. The people unwittingly helped him by continually falling back or running away, opening up fighting space and keeping the Glee from reaching them.

  At the same time as Richard was hacking his way through the enemy coming at him, the Mord-Sith, now ordered into the battle, attacked from behind with Agiel in one hand and knives in the other. The Glee found themselves trapped between deadly attacks from the front and the rear at the same time. Many became confused, not knowing who to defend themselves from. Others began turning to scribbles to escape back into their own world to avoid certain death. Many more hesitated too long and it cost them their lives.

  What Richard had learned about fighting them from the previous attack served him well. He had learned how the Glee moved their arms and claws, where those claws were dangerous, and where they were useless on their backswings or when their arms were extended. They also fought as individuals, not as a cohesive force, which made it easier for him to take out individuals.

  Their main weakness was that each of them wanted to be the one to sink their claws and needle-sharp teeth into the helpless townspeople, not fight a battle. They each had their own agenda to be the first to get at the people and feed on them.
As such, they had no regard for protecting one another, working together, or forming a united front. He scythed his way through their ranks, and claws, arms, and heads began to litter the ground as he perfected his technique of taking advantage of their weaknesses.

  It became almost a game to him, a dance with death in which they had no chance to touch him as he spun and dodged through their midst.

  At their rear, the Mord-Sith attacked them from behind and took down unsuspecting Glee, bringing surprised cries of pain as they were stabbed, or hit with the horrific power of an Agiel. Hearing the shrieks of pain, many turned to the new threat, which left them vulnerable to Richard’s blade. Many realized that mistake too late to save themselves.

  The creatures in the center of that hammer and anvil paused in confusion. They hadn’t expected to be suddenly trapped between two dangerous threats interrupting their single-minded lust for the slaughter of the townspeople. They began to realize that what they had at first thought would be overwhelming numbers was not nearly enough and was dwindling by the second. As Glee fell dead, their assault began to fall apart. They had expected the panic of the townspeople to aid them in their attack, but now, instead, panic swept through their own ranks. They were quickly being overpowered by Richard’s whirling blade on one side and the Mord-Sith dodging and weaving in to press their lethal attack from the other.

  Even as the dark creatures were falling dead or seriously wounded all around them, the remaining Glee, gripped by terror, almost all at the same time turned to scribbles and vanished.

  As soon as they were gone, the Mord-Sith moved quickly among the wounded on the ground and cut their throats. Panting from the effort, Richard scanned the area for any further threat, prepared for another surprise attack.