Into Darkness Page 9

  As they were going up a cobblestone street that rose gently toward the palace, Iron Jack suddenly stepped out from a side alleyway to once again block their path.

  “This is as close to the palace as you will be getting until the queen says otherwise,” he announced.

  Richard grew calm in a way that she knew all too well. Trouble was about to begin. She saw, then, several more men waiting in the shadows behind Iron Jack. Without being obvious about it, she pulled her knife from its sheath at her side. She saw Shale do the same.

  She was surprised to see Richard reach over and grip the hilt of his sword. He couldn’t possibly have forgotten that it was bound into the scabbard by magic, so she couldn’t imagine what he was doing.

  He stood for a moment, head bowed, eyes closed, the muscles in his jaw flexing, his right hand on the hilt of the sword at his left hip, the muscles in his arm relaxed. She realized he was letting the power of the sword flow into him, letting its rage join with his. She suspected he was also summoning his own gift.

  And then he began to draw the sword.

  The blade came out silky smooth. Its distinctive ring echoed through the canyons of buildings as the blade, stained black by the world of the dead, emerged from the scabbard. The gleaming black steel greeted the dawn, ready to do battle.

  Iron Jack looked stunned. “You can’t do that! I myself sealed the sword and scabbard into one with powerful magic!”

  Richard glared at the man. “I am the Lord Rahl.”

  “Not my lord. I answer to no one but the queen.”

  “You, and the queen, answer to me and to the Mother Confessor,” Richard said in a deadly voice.

  Vika stepped up beside Richard. She made a show of spinning her Agiel up into her fist.

  The rest of the Mord-Sith moved protectively around Kahlan. Each of them had her Agiel in her fist at the ready. They looked fed up with Iron Jack’s nonsense and seemed more than pleased that Richard was as well. So was Kahlan.

  Growing up, she had never had any interest in flaunting her authority. Her mother instilled a sense of responsibility as a Confessor, not self-importance. It was simply something she had been born with, not something she had that she would hold over others. As Mother Confessor, she knew how to wield that authority when it was necessary. And when it was necessary, she found that she didn’t especially like that authority dismissed or disrespected, because respect for the Mother Confessor was not about her, it was about everything she represented.

  Richard was much the same. He had never lusted after power. He never sought to be the Lord Rahl. But he had come to accept the responsibility and he, too, was fed up with his authority being ignored in something so important. He was, after all, the leader of the D’Haran Empire, and as such he ruled over these people. Including Iron Jack and the queen.

  They were about to find out why.

  As Iron Jack watched, Richard drew the sword across the inside of his forearm, giving the blade a taste of blood, something that made the sword’s anger lust for more. Kahlan could see the sword’s magic dancing in the Seeker’s eyes.

  Richard brought the blade up to touch his forehead. He closed his eyes.

  “Blade, be true this day,” he whispered.

  “Is that supposed to scare me?” Iron Jack asked.

  “This blade can’t harm an innocent,” Richard said. “It can only harm an enemy. I suggest you decide for yourself if you should be afraid.”

  Iron Jack ran a hand down his red beard as he took a step back. Rather than accepting Richard’s command to stand down, he suddenly lifted his hands with an attack of his own.

  When he did, every one of the Mord-Sith around Kahlan toppled to the ground as if a rug had been pulled out from under them. Iron Jack had attacked, not with a blade, but with his gift. As they struggled unsuccessfully to get back to their feet, they were visibly in pain from the magic Iron Jack had used. He smiled in satisfaction at seeing them on the ground.

  They all knew that Iron Jack had magic, but any of the Mord-Sith, when he used that magic against them, should have been able to capture his magic and use it against him. That none of them could clearly spoke to the unique power of his gift.

  Shale moved closer to Kahlan, her knife at the ready, obviously not willing to put her faith in her gift against such a man.

  Iron Jack defiantly spread his feet to show that he intended to block their passage. “As I said, no one sees the queen until she wishes it. You may have somehow overpowered the magic fusing your sword tight in its scabbard, but you will not overpower me.”

  The man again lifted his hands in anger.

  Suddenly, in the distance, Glee flooded out from around the corners of buildings. In a heartbeat they took out the men in the background, before they knew what had hit them. Tall, dark creatures, all teeth and claws, raced down the cobblestone passageway.

  The Glee weren’t materializing out of thin air the way they usually did. Steam didn’t rise from them as always before. They didn’t come streaming into Richard and Kahlan’s world all together for an attack.

  This time, they were using a new tactic: they had been hiding in ambush and Richard and Kahlan had walked right into their surprise attack.

  The Glee had just learned an important strategy. Ambush gives the attacker a tactical advantage. That kind of attacker gets to pick the place and the moment of attack, while the defender is caught unaware and forced to respond, which puts them at a disadvantage because action usually beats reaction.

  17

  Richard was pleased to see that Iron Jack’s ire was so fixated on him that he didn’t even notice what was happening back over his shoulder until one of the tall creatures raced in and crashed into him. As it did, it grabbed him from behind. The Glee’s new tactic of ambush meant never letting the opponent see you coming. Iron Jack hadn’t seen them coming. Before the stunned bearded man could grasp what was happening and react, dark, slimy arms had already circled around him from each side.

  Jack twisted frantically in an attempt to get out of the bear hug, but the powerful arms held him in tight against the Glee that had him. Shards of light flashed from the man’s hands as he tried to use some kind of power to get the better of his attacker. The Glee bent its head first one way and then the other to avoid each of the flashes of light, but another creature nearby was torn apart by the release of the man’s gift and fell dead.

  Before Iron Jack could do anything to get away, the Glee that had him sank its teeth into the back of the man’s neck to hold him. The creature then pulled its claws in opposite directions as Iron Jack was being held by the teeth in his neck. One claw ripped open Iron Jack’s chest. At the same time, the other claw pulled in the opposite direction to tear out his throat. He didn’t even have time to cry out before the Glee dropped him in a bloody heap to come charging for Richard.

  Fortunately, because they surprised Iron Jack first, Richard was ready, and the magic coursing through him from his sword was ready to respond with swift violence.

  As the Glee charged in, Richard had already begun his counterattack. The tip of the blade came around with such speed that it whistled as it sliced through the air. When the creature saw the sword, it reflexively lifted its arms to defend itself. Richard gritted his teeth with the effort of the swing.

  The blade took off both the creature’s claws and its head in that one lightning-quick strike. Richard held the blade up straight and took a step back, at the same time turning sideways and out of the way. The momentum of the clawless, headless body carried it past him to stumble across the cobblestones and collapse.

  With Iron Jack dead, the Mord-Sith were suddenly able to scramble to their feet, and none too soon. More Glee charged down the street. The Mord-Sith raced to cut them off before they could get to Kahlan. Needle-sharp teeth clacked in anger. Most of them held an arm and claws cocked back, ready to strike. They were met with either an Agiel in one hand or a knife in the other.

  Claws flashed through the air. Mord-Sit
h ducked under those claws as they swept by overhead and then sprang up to drive in for the kill. The Glee were clearly as vulnerable to an Agiel as any person would be. Wounded Glee fell in agonizing pain, holding arms across their injuries, or turned to scribbles and vanished, bleeding, back into their own world. Dead Glee simply dropped to the ground. Their blood ran down the slope in between the cobblestones.

  As Richard noted what the Mord-Sith were doing, he was already moving into the attack. He swung his sword with deadly effectiveness. The magic from his sword, the same magic he had summoned to help free the blade from the scabbard, raged through him, demanding the blood of the enemy. He gave it all the blood it could want of any Glee within range. As he drove his attack directly into the enemy, Glee fell all around him, many without a head, others cut nearly in two, and some run through with his blade.

  He turned and saw that Kahlan already had her knife to hand. It quickly became clear that she was the one the Glee wanted. They had come to rip the twins from her womb. She spun around when she heard one of them that had snuck around behind her and drove her knife into one of the big, glossy black eyes. The creature covered its eye as it shrieked. At the same time, it stumbled back awkwardly and, as it did, vanished to its own world. Even as she was pulling her blade back, Richard was there to protect her from others charging in to get her.

  Shale, too, turned her abilities, rather than her knife, to the attack. With her eyes rolled up in her head, she lifted her hands, her fingers slowly waggling. As she did, masses of white snakes appeared, slithering across the cobblestones, going for the Glee.

  The morning air was filled with the screams of the dark creatures as the snakes sank their fangs into them. From their awkward, jerky, contorted movements as they were struck by the snakes, it was clear to Richard that not only were the snakes venomous, but the venom acted so swiftly as to be almost immediate in its action. Glee, with snakes firmly attached to their legs, arms, and bodies, stumbled back, gurgling in choking pain as the venom quickly began to paralyze their lungs.

  Shocked people appeared in windows, looking down on the frantic battle. Some screamed and ran back into dark rooms. Some, their mouths hanging open and hands gripping the windowsills, leaned out to watch.

  Knowing the snakes were Shale’s and meant for the Glee, Richard ignored them. It was Kahlan most of the Glee were going for. She was the one they most wanted to kill. It was Kahlan he had to protect.

  In that moment, as the fury of the sword’s magic twisted together with his own and stormed through every fiber of his being, he lost himself to the madness of the battle. He became that madness. The Glee had come as hunters.Richard was now the hunter and they the prey.

  As he responded to the attacks, he suddenly came to comprehend in a new and clear way how the Glee moved, the extent, the range, and the limitations of their movements. He began to see exactly how they used their claws to strike, with their teeth being their backup weapon. It was often a quick flick of a strike, but other times they used those claws to intimidate their prey for a fraction of a second to make the prey freeze just before they struck. That allowed them to be more accurate and deadly when they did strike.

  The reason for the tactic, he saw, was that the Glee had most of their power when their arms were used in close combat. The farther they reached, the less power they had. The way they had killed Iron Jack had been their biggest strength—holding the prey in close as they tore it apart.

  Once he grasped the technique in their strikes and how they set up for an attack, he was able to predict how they would move, which claw they would use first, and when they would strike with it, or instead, if their claws were not able to be used to their best advantage, use their teeth to try to kill.

  He began to understand the fight with them in a whole new way. It all made sense in an entirely new light. He understood the battle from their perspective, rather than seeing it from his perspective, defensively.

  Once he had the full scope of the realization, those attackers, rather than seeming like frightening creatures coming for him and Kahlan in a crazy, hysterical frenzy, became instead a part of the larger dance with death.

  That meant he was no longer fighting them in the same ways he had previously. Now he was using their nature against them, turning it back on them, using their limitations and weaknesses as openings. For the first time, he was, in a sense, fighting them on their terms, and in that way, because he could anticipate what they would do next, he abruptly put them at a distinct disadvantage.

  In that moment, he came back at them in a new way, in a way that completely overwhelmed their multiple tactical advantages of teeth and claws. Their limitations in range and movement became his advantages and openings.

  In that moment, he stopped trying to kill them and switched instead to the quicker task of cutting off their powerful, deadly claws. It was a revelation. He didn’t need to kill them. He simply needed to deny them their primary weapon. If the Glee didn’t have those razor-sharp claws, they were nearly defenseless. They couldn’t grasp or cut or rip or hold prey in order to use their teeth.

  His sword spun through the air without pause, cutting at a dizzying pace. He moved around Kahlan, protecting her, disabling any enemy that came for her. She took out several with her knife as he momentarily moved around the other side of her. His sword lopped off claws as fast as they came within reach of his blade. He understood, now, where and how those claws would be coming, and which of the two were the actual threat. Severed claws tumbled through the air as he lopped them off at the wrist or forearm. The still-twitching claws littered the ground.

  The creatures shrieked as they lost their precious claws. Some held out stubs in disbelief, and tried to reach out to grasp so they could attack with their teeth, but without their claws, it was easy for Richard to take off the heads of those determined enough to continue to come for him rather than escape back into the safety of their world. Seeing what happened when they came in at him, and seeing so many of their fellows with stubs of arms and no claws as they vanished back into their own world, they began to rightly fear to swing their own claws and lose them.

  As they hesitated, the snakes struck and sank fangs into them. Once they had their fangs in the soft black skin, they would not let go. As that happened, Richard spun through their midst, taking the claws off the ends of their arms. Without their claws, they couldn’t effectively try to tear at the snakes to get them off.

  All around, panic spread among the shrieking and dying Glee. As their boldness and aggression turned to terror and timidity, those who still could started to turn to scribbles to flee back to the safety of their own world before Richard or the snakes could get to them.

  Without a target, Richard finally paused, panting to get his breath as he let the tip of his sword lower to rest on the cobblestones. He looked all around, searching for any threat. The rage of his sword still thundered through him, demanding more blood. The ground was littered with hundreds of claws and dozens of heads, as well as the bodies of those that couldn’t vanish before death.

  18

  With his sword, Richard gestured ahead for everyone to move on toward the palace and away from the scene of the brief but frenzied battle. While the Glee who went back to their own world would be testament to others of the trouble that awaited them here, tyrannical leaders, as the Golden Goddess apparently was, were often more than willing to throw the lives of countless followers into the fray.

  With the battle over, Richard didn’t want to be anywhere nearby in case the goddess, in a fit of anger, decided to send another wave of fighters. Attacking after a battle had seemingly ended was a good way to catch your opponent with their guard down. Richard didn’t want to let his guard down, so he urged everyone away from the scene of the fight.

  Though he might have won this skirmish, he knew that he had to solve the vastly bigger problem of stopping the goddess from sending any Glee at all. Winning a battle was of no use if he couldn’t win the war. Every battle
exposed them to the possibility that, this time, they might lose. If they lost, everyone in their world would ultimately lose.

  Even if Richard and Kahlan could get to the safety of the Keep, that wouldn’t provide any safety for everyone else. They would continue to be vulnerable. In the end, that was his weakness as a leader, and the goddess’s strength. There was virtually no way for normal people to protect themselves, especially if the Glee came in massive hordes, and Richard couldn’t protect everyone. People everywhere would be prey at the mercy of savage predators.

  He took Kahlan’s hand to help her balance as she stepped over the thick, tangled ring of severed claws and slimy bodies surrounding her. All those claws were now still, but it was a very visible reminder that they had been meant for her and her unborn babies. He knew that more would come. The Glee were relentless. He felt sick at not knowing if he was ever going to be able to stop them once and for all.

  Richard let go of Kahlan’s hand so she could help Shale, who looked weak and exhausted after unleashing masses of white snakes. The snakes she had conjured were gone now, either withdrawn by the witch woman after they were no longer needed or taken back to the home world of the Glee as they fled with the snakes still attached to them. Those snakes were in a way part of her, so when they were taken away with fleeing Glee, they were in a sense ripped away from her connection to them.

  In the aftermath of the effort, the witch woman looked like she might collapse. Cassia rushed in on the other side and helped Shale stay upright as she stepped among the mounds of claws and the remains of the dead.

  With the sword still in his hand, the magic of it still surged through him, filling him with rage. The sword hungered for an enemy; that was its way, its purpose. With the threat so fresh, the shrieks and howls still echoing through his head, Richard was not quite ready to relinquish the rage of the sword’s magic spiraling through him. He wanted it at full force and at the ready just in case.