Blood of the Fold (100 page)

“
What’s the matter?” she asked.

Richard pointed. “Something’s coming.”

Kahlan cast him a frown over her shoulder and walked out onto the gravel. “You’re not afraid of this, are you?” She squatted and burrowed her hand into the gravel as the thing beneath came to her. She wiggled her hand around as if scratching a pet.

“
What are you doing!”

Kahlan grappled playfully with the thing under the gravel. “It’s just a stone hound. Wizard Giller conjured him up to frighten away a woman who was pestering him all the time. She was afraid to cross the gravel, and of course no one in their right mind would dare to go into the Path of the Dead.” Kahlan stood. “You mean … don’t tell me you were afraid of the stone hound.”

“
Well … no, not exactly … but …”

Kahlan put her fists on her hips. “You went into the Path of the Dead, and through those shields, because you were afraid of a stone hound? That’s why you didn’t go to the other doors?”

“
Kahlan, I didn’t know what the thing under the gravel was. I’d never seen anything like it before.” He scratched his elbow. “All right, so, I was afraid of it. I was trying to be cautious. And I couldn’t read the words, so I didn’t know that this door was dangerous.”

She shot a stymied look skyward. “Richard, you could have—”

“
I didn’t get killed in the Keep, I found the sliph, and I got to you. Now, come on. We need to get down to the city.”

She put her arm around his waist. “You’re right. I guess I’m just edgy from …” She lifted a hand toward the door. “From all that happened in there. That mriswith queen frightened me. I’m just thankful that you made it.”

Arm in arm, they hurried through the towering, arched opening through the outer wall.

As they rushed under the huge portcullis, a powerful red tail whipped around from beyond the corner, felling them both. Before Richard could get his wind back, wings were beating overhead. Claws ripped at him. He felt searing pain in his left shoulder as a claw hooked him. Kahlan was sent tumbling across the ground by the thrashing tail.

While he was being hauled closer to the gaping jaws by the claw embedded in his shoulder, he yanked his sword free. The rage inundated him instantly. He slashed through a wing. The queen recoiled, yanking the claw free from his shoulder. The wrath of the magic helped him ignore the pain as he sprang to his feet.

He stabbed with the sword as the beast lunged at him, snapping her jaws. She seemed all wings, teeth, claws, and tail, plunging at him as he scurried backward. Richard stabbed an arm, and the queen drew back in pain. Her tail lashed around, catching him across the middle, throwing him up against the wall. He hacked wildly at the tail, taking off the tip.

The red mriswith queen reared back on her hind feet, under the spiked portcullis. Richard dove for the catch lever and caught it with all his weight. With a squealing clatter, the gate plunged toward the raving beast. The queen twisted as the gate crashed down, just missing her back, but catching a wing, pinning it to the ground. She howled even louder.

Richard started in cold fright when he saw that Kahlan was on the ground—on the other side of the gate. The queen saw her, too, and with a mighty effort, ripped her wing out from under the gate, tearing it into long, ragged shreds.

“
Kahlan! Run!”

Groggy, she tried to crawl away, but the beast pounced. It snatched her by a leg, holding her fast.

The queen turned and spewed a fetid odor at him. Richard had no trouble understanding the meaning: revenge.

With mad effort, he pulled at the wheel that lifted the gate. It rose inches at a time. The queen was wriggling down the road, dragging Kahlan by her leg.

Richard released the wheel and, driven by the fury of the magic, swung the sword at the flat bars of the portcullis. Sparks and hot shards of steel smoked through the air. Screaming in rage, he swung the sword again at the iron, ripping another gash through the bars. A third swing and a piece was cut free. He kicked it over and plunged through the opening.

Richard charged down the road toward the retreating red beast. Kahlan clawed at the ground in a desperate attempt to get away. When it reached the bridge, the queen hopped up on the wall at the edge, snarling at him as he came at full speed.

The queen flapped its shredded wings, as if it didn’t realize it couldn’t fly. Still running, Richard screamed out as it turned, spreading its wings in readiness to leap off the bridge with its prize.

The tail swept across the road as Richard raced onto the bridge. He lopped off a six-foot section. The queen spun, holding Kahlan upside down by her leg like a stick doll. Richard, beyond reason, swung the sword in a blind rage as she snapped at him. Sprayed by the beast’s blood, he slashed off the front half of a wing, the bone splintering to white shards under his blade. She lashed her truncated tail at him as she flapped her other mangled wing.

Kahlan screamed as she stretched toward Richard, her fingers spread, just out of reach. He drove the sword into the red belly. A red claw pulled Kahlan away as he tried to snatch her hand. Richard sheared the other wing off at the shoulder. Blood sprayed the air as the raging beast twisted this way and that, trying to get at him. It kept her from her hunger to rip Kahlan apart.

Richard took off another section of tail when it came close enough. As the reeking blood sprayed everywhere, the queen’s reactions became sluggish, allowing Richard to inflict still more wounds.

Richard lunged and seized Kahlan’s wrist, and she his, as he drove the sword hilt-deep up into the underside of the heaving red chest. It was a mistake.

The mortally wounded mriswith queen had a death grip on Kahlan’s leg. The red beast teetered, and with a nightmarishly slow twist, tumbled off the bridge over the yawning abyss. Kahlan shrieked. Richard tightened his hold on her with all his strength. The pull on his arm as the queen fell slammed his stomach against the wall above the dizzying drop.

Richard swung the sword over the edge and with one powerful stroke sheared the arm that held Kahlan’s leg. The red beast spiraled down between the sheer walls that dropped for thousands of feet, to disappear in the distance far below.

Kahlan hung by his hand over the same drop. Blood was running down his arm and over their hands. He could feel her wrist slipping through his grip. His thighs were the only thing keeping him from going over the wall.

With a mighty effort, he lifted her a couple of feet. “Grab the wall with your other hand. I can’t hold you. You’re slipping.”

Kahlan slapped her free hand onto the top of the stone wall, taking some of the weight. He tossed the sword to the road behind and got his other hand under her arm. Richard gritted his teeth and, with her help, pulled her up over the wall and onto the road.

“
Get it off!” she cried. “Get it off!”

Richard pried the claws open and extracted her leg. He tossed the red arm over the edge. Kahlan fell into his arms, panting in exhaustion, too weary to speak.

Through the throb of pain, Richard felt the heady warmth of relief. “Why didn’t you use your power … the lightning?”

“
It wouldn’t work down inside the Keep, and out here that thing knocked me senseless. Why didn’t you use yours—some of that fearful black lightning, like back at the Palace of the Prophets?”

Richard considered the question. “I don’t know. I don’t know how the gift works. It has something to do with instinct. I can’t make it work at will.” He stroked a hand down her hair as he closed his eyes. “I wish Zedd were here. He would be able to help me control it—learn to use it. I miss him so.”

“
I know,” she whispered.

Over their labored breathing, he could hear the distant cries of men and the ring of steel. He realized he smelled smoke. The air was hazy with it.

He helped Kahlan up, ignoring the fierce ache in his shoulder, and they rushed down the road to a switchback where there was a view of the city below.

As they stumbled to an abrupt halt at the edge, Kahlan gasped.

In shock, Richard sank to his knees. “Dear spirits,” he whispered, “what have I caused?”

“
It’s Lord Rahl!” Voices carried the shout back through the horde of D’Haran troops. “Rally! It’s Lord Rahl!”

A cry swelled in the late-afternoon air. Thousands of voices rose above the din of battle. Weapons thrust into the smoky air with the roar of the shouts. “Lord Rahl! Lord Rahl! Lord Rahl!”

Grim-faced, Richard marched through the soldiers at the rear of the battle. Wounded, bleeding men staggered to their feet and joined in the throng following him.

Through the haze of acrid smoke, Richard could see down the slope of the streets to the frantic fighting at the van of dark uniformed D’Harans. Beyond, a sea of red flooded into the city, driving them back. Blood of the Fold. To each side and all around, they came, relentless, unstoppable.

“
There must be well over a hundred thousand,” Kahlan said, seemingly to herself.

Richard had sent a force of a hundred thousand to search for Kahlan. They were weeks away from the city. He had divided the force in Aydindril nearly in two, and sent half away. And now came the Blood of the Fold, to take advantage of his mistake.

But still, there should have been enough D’Harans to hold against that many. Something was deadly wrong.

With a growing crowd of wounded dragging along behind, Richard reached the rear of what seemed the largest battle. The Blood of the Fold were pressing in from all sides of the city. Flames snapped skyward from Kings Row. It the center of the sweep of dark uniforms stood the white splendor of the Confessors’ Palace.

Officers came at a run, their joy at seeing him tempered by what was happening just beyond. The screams from the site of the fighting burned through his nerves.

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.