No. This was wrong. He didn’t see them.
He had to find them.
He willed his charges up from the gory feast, to search. Nicholas felt a pang of urgency. This was his future that had slipped away from him—his treasure slipping through his grasp. He had to find them. Had to.
He spurred his charges onward.
This way, that way, over there. Look, look, look. Find them, find them. Look. Must find them. Look.
This was not supposed to be. There had been enough men. No one could escape that many experienced men. Not when they came by stealth and attacked with surprise. They had been selected for their talents. They knew their business.
Their bodies lay sprawled all about. Beak and claw ripped at them. Screeches of excitement. Hunger.
No. Must find them.
Up, up, up. Find them. He had to find them.
He had suffered the agony of a new birth in those dark woods, those terrible woods, with those terrible women. He would have his reward. He would not be denied. Not now. Not after all that.
Find them. Look, look, look. Find them.
On powerful wings, he soared into the night. With eyes that saw in the dark, he searched. With creatures that could catch the scent of prey at great distance, he tried for a whiff of them.
Through the night they went, hunting. Hunting.
There, there he saw their wagon. He recognized their wagon. Their big horses. He had seen it before—seen them with it before. His minions circled in close on nearly silent wings, dropping in closer to see what Nicholas sought.
Not there. They weren’t there. A trick. It had to be a trick. A diversion. Not there. They had sent the wagon away to trick him, to send him off their trail.
With wings powered by anger, he soared up, up, up to search the countryside. Hunt, hunt. Find them. He flew with his five in an ever wider pattern to search the ground beneath the night. They flew on, searching, searching. His hunger was their hunger. Hunt for them. Hunt.
The wings grew weary as he drove them onward. He had to find them. He would not allow rest. Not allow failure. He hunted in expanding swaths, searching, hunting, hunting.
There, among the trees, he saw movement.
It was only just dark. They wouldn’t see their pursuers—not in the dark—but he could see them. He forced the five down, circling, circling, forced them in close. He would not fail this time to see them, to get close enough. Circling, holding him there, circling, watching, circling, watching, seeing them there.
It was her! The Mother Confessor! He saw others. The one with red hair and her small four-legged friend. Others, too. He must be there, too. Had to be there, too. He would be there, too, as the small group moved west.
West. They moved west. They had traveled to the west of where he had seen them last.
Nicholas laughed. They were coming west. The captors sent for them all lay dead, but here they came anyway. They were coming west.
Toward where he waited.
He would have them.
He would have Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor.
Jagang would have them.
It came to him, then—his reward. What he would have in return for the prizes he would deliver.
D’Hara.
He would have the rule of D’Hara in return for these two paltry people. Jagang would reward him with the rule of D’Hara, if he wanted those two. He would not dare deny Nicholas the Slide what he wanted. Not when he had what Jagang wanted most, more than any other prize. Jagang would pay any price for these two.
Pain. A scream. Shock, terror, confusion raged through him. He felt the wind, the wind that carried him so effortlessly, now ripping at him like fists snatching at feathers as he tumbled in helpless pain.
One of the five falling at blinding speed smacked the ground.
Nicholas screamed. One of the five spirits had been lost with its host. Back somewhere distant, in some far-off room with wooden walls and shutters and bloody stakes, back, back, back in another place he had almost forgotten existed, back, back, back far away, a spirit was ripped from his control.
One of the five back there had died at the same instant the race had crashed to the ground.
Scream of hot pain. Another tumbled out of control. Another spirit escaped his grasp into the waiting arms of death.
Nicholas struggled to see in the confusion, forcing the remaining three to hold his vision in place so he could see. Hunt, hunt, hunt. Where was he? Where was he? Where? He saw the others. Where was Lord Rahl?
A third scream.
Where was he? Nicholas fought to hold his vision despite the hot agony, the bewildering plummet.
Pain ripped through a fourth.
Before he could gather his senses, hold them together, force them with the power of his will to do his bidding, two more spirits were yanked away into the void of the underworld.
Where was he?
Talons at the ready, Nicholas searched.
There! There!
With violent effort, he forced the race over into a dive. There he was! There he was! Up high. Higher than the rest. Somehow up high. Up on a ledge of rock above the rest. He wasn’t down there with them. He was up high.
Dive for him. Dive down for him.
There he was, bow drawn.
Ripping pain tore through the last race. The ground rushed up at him. Nicholas cried out. He tried frantically to stop the spinning. He felt the race slam into the rock at frightening speed. But only for an instant.
With a gasp, Nicholas drew a desperate breath. His head spun with the burning torture of the abrupt return, an uncontrolled return not of his doing.
He blinked, his mouth open wide in an attempt to let out a cry, but no sound came. His eyes bulged with the effort, but no cry came. He was back. Whether or not he wanted to be, he was back.
He looked around at the room. He was back, that was the reason no cry came. No screech of a race joined his own. They were dead. All five.
Nicholas turned to the four impaled on stakes behind him. All four were slumped. The fifth man lay slouched in the far corner. All five limp and still. All five dead. Their spirits gone.
The room was as silent as a crypt. The bowl before him glowed only with the fragment of his own spirit. He drew it back in.