Men behind Richard hit the line of evil’s guardians with unrestrained violence. People armed only with their hatred for moral clarity fell bloodied, terribly injured, and dead. The line of people collapsed before the merciless charge. Some of the people, screaming their contempt, used their fists to attack Richard’s men. They were met with swift and deadly steel.
At the realization that their defense of the Imperial Order’s brutality would actually result in consequences to themselves, the crowd began scattering in fright, screaming curses back at Richard and his men.
Richard’s army did not pause as they tore through the ring of protectors, now on the run, but continued on to the maze of buildings among grassy open spaces dotted with trees. The soldiers who were outside began to realize that this time they would have to protect themselves, that the people of the city could no longer do it for them. These were men used to slaughtering defenseless, docile victims. For more than a year of occupation they had not had to fight.
Richard was the first on them, taking down men on his way into their midst. Cara charged in at his right, Tom at his left, the deadly point of a spear driving into soldiers only now pulling free their weapons. These were men used to overwhelming their cowering opponents with sheer numbers, not with fighting resolute opposition. They did so now, and for their lives.
Richard moved through them as if they were statues. They thrust a blade at where he had been, while he cut where they were going and met them there with razor-sharp steel. He came up behind others as they looked both ways, losing track of him, only to have him reach around and draw his sword across their throats. Others he beheaded before they realized he was about to strike.
He wasted no effort with exaggerated movements and wild slashes. He cut with deadly proficiency. He didn’t try to best men to show them he was better; he simply killed them. He didn’t give them any chance to fight back; he cut them down before they could.
Now that he was committed to the fight, he was committed to the dance with death, which meant one thing: cut. It was his duty, his purpose, his hunger to cut the enemy down quickly, resolutely, and utterly.
They were not prepared for this level of violence unleashed.
As his men fell on the soldiers, a great cry rose up. As men fell, their screams filled the morning.
Seeing a man who looked like an officer, Richard wheeled around him and laid his blade across the man’s throat.
“Where is Nicholas and the Mother Confessor?”
The man answered by trying to grab Richard’s arm. He wasn’t nearly quick enough. Richard pulled his sword across the man’s throat, nearly severing his head, as he spun to a man coming at him from behind. The man skidded to a stop in an effort to avoid Richard’s blade, only to be stabbed through the heart.
The battle raged on, moving back between the buildings as they took down those men who met the attack. Yet more men, layered in leather, mail, hides, and weapon belts, came out of the barracks at hearing the clash. They were fierce-looking men looking better suited to murder than any men Richard had ever seen.
As they came onward, Richard seized anyone who looked like an officer. None of them were able to give him an answer. None of them knew the whereabouts of either Nicholas or Kahlan.
Richard had to fight off the dizziness as well as the soldiers. By focusing on the dance with death and the precepts the sword had taught him in the past, he was able to surmount the effects of the poison. He knew that such efforts couldn’t long replace the required strength of endurance, but for the moment he was able to do as he had to.
It was somewhat surprising to see how well his men were doing. They helped one another as they moved deeper into the enemy lines. By fighting in that way, using one another’s strengths, they were often able to survive together where one alone would not have.
Some of his men had not survived; Richard saw several lying dead. But the surprised enemy was being slaughtered. The Imperial Order soldiers were not charged with righteous, resolute determination. Richard’s men were. The Order soldiers were little more than a gang of thugs allowed to run loose. They now faced men calling them to account. The men of the Order fought a disorderly attempt to spare their own individual lives, without thought to a coordinated defense, while Richard’s men fought to a singular purpose of exterminating the enemy’s entire force.
Richard heard Cara calling urgently for him from the narrow space between two buildings. At first, he thought she was in trouble, but when he rounded the corner he saw then that she had a husky man on his knees. She held his head up by a fistful of his greasy black hair. One ear displayed a row of silver rings. Cara had her Agiel at his throat. Blood ran down his chin.
“Tell him!” she yelled at the man when Richard ran up.
“I don’t know where they are!”
In a fit of fury, Cara slammed the tip of her Agiel to the base of the man’s skull. He flinched, his arms shaking with the shattering shock of pain that brought a gasp rather than a scream. His eyes rolled back in his head. Holding him by his tangled hair, Cara bent him back over her knee to hold him upright.
“Tell him,” she growled.
“They left,” he mumbled. “Nicholas left last night. They carried a woman away with them, but I don’t know who she was.”
Richard went to a knee and grabbed the man’s shirt. “What did she look like?”
The man’s eyes were still rolling. “Long hair.”
“Where did they go?”
“Don’t know. Gone. In a hurry.”
“What did Nicholas tell you before he left?”
The man’s eyes slowly came into focus. “Nicholas knew you were going to attack at dawn. He told me the route you would take into the city.”
Richard could hardly believe what he was hearing. “How could he possibly know that?”
He hesitated. The sight of Cara’s Agiel made him talk.
“I don’t know. Before he left, Nicolas told me how many men you had, told me when you would attack, and by which route. He told me to get people from the city to shield us from your attack. We gathered our most fanatical supporters and told them that you were coming to murder us, that you wanted to make war.”
“When did Nicholas leave? Where did he take this woman?”
Blood dripped from the man’s chin. “I don’t know. They just left in a hurry last night. That’s all I know.”
“If you knew we were coming, why didn’t you make a better defense?”
“Oh, but we did. Nicholas told me to take care of the city. I assured him tha
t such a small force as yours cannot possibly defeat us.”
Something was terribly wrong. “Why not?”
For the first time, the man smiled. “Because you don’t know how many men we really have. Once I knew where your attack was coming, I was able to call in all my forces.” The man’s smile widened. “Do you hear that horn in the distance? Here they come.” A belly laugh rolled up. “You are about to die.”
Richard gritted his teeth. “You first.”
With a mighty thrust, he ran his sword through the officer’s heart. The man’s eyes widened in shock. Richard gave the blade a twist as he withdrew it to be sure the job was done.
“We’d better get the men out of here,” Richard said as he took Cara’s arm and ran for the corner of the buildings.
“Looks like we’re too late,” she said when they came out from behind cover and saw the legions of men pouring in all around them.
How did Nicholas know when and where they were going to attack? There had been no one around—no races, not so much as a mouse had been there when they had made their plans as they moved through the countryside. How could he have known?
“Dear spirits,” Cara said. “I didn’t think they had this many men in Bandakar.”
The roar of the soldiers was deafening as they charged in. Richard was already spent. Each deep breath he pulled was agonizingly painful. He knew that there was no choice.
He had to find a way to get to Kahlan. He had to hold out at least that long.
Richard whistled in a signal to gather his men. As Anson and Owen ran up, Richard looked around and saw most of the others.
“We have to try to break out of here. There’s too many of them. Stay together. We’re going to try to punch through. If we make it, scatter and try to make it back to the forest.”
With Cara at one side, Tom at the other, Richard charged at the head of his men toward the enemy lines. Thousands of the Imperial Order soldiers poured out from the city around them and into the open. It was a frightening sight. There were so many that it almost seemed as if the ground itself were moving.