Chainfire (Sword of Truth 9)

“None of us or any of the soldiers has been up this way.

“Here, where we are now, there are no tracks. Look around. You’ll see only my fresh tracks from this morning when I was searching. Other than that, there are no footprints from anyone else coming through here—in fact, there’s no sign that anyone has ever been here. At least, it would appear that no one has ever been here before.”

Victor idly rubbed his thumb on the steel shaft of the mace hanging from his belt. “But you think otherwise?”

“Yes. Even though there are no tracks, someone did come this way. And, they left evidence.” Richard leaned out and with one finger touched a smooth rock about the size of a loaf of bread. “As they hurried past, they stumbled on this rock.”

Victor seemed caught up in the story. “How can you tell?”

“Look carefully at the markings on the rock.” As Victor leaned in a bit, Richard pointed. “See here, the way the top of the rock, where it was exposed to the air and weather, has the pale tannish yellow discoloration of lichen and such? And here—like the hull of a boat below the waterline—you can see the dark brown rime that shows where the belly of the rock had been lying beneath the ground.

“But it’s not lying that way now. It’s not settled into its socket in the ground, its recent resting place. It’s now lifted a little out of that socket and turned partway over. See how a section of the dark bottom is now exposed? Were it out of the ground for longer, the dark color would be worn away and the lichen would begin to grow there, too. But it hasn’t had that much time yet. This is recent.”

Richard waggled his finger back and forth. “Look at the ground, here, on this side of the rock. You can see the socket where the rock originally rested, but now the rock has been shoved back a little, leaving a void between this side of the rock and the wall of the cavity. On the back side, away from us, because the rock was recently disturbed, you can still see a ridge of dirt and debris that has been pushed up.

“The open socket on this side and the ridge on the far side shows that whoever stumbled on this rock and disturbed it was moving away from our camp, going north.”

“But then where’s their trail?” Victor asked. “Their footprints?”

Richard raked back his wet hair. “The trail has been erased with magic. I searched; there is no trail.

“Look at the rock. It’s been disturbed, kicked partway out of its resting place in the ground. But there is no scuff mark on it. While the rock wasn’t moved much, it was moved. A boot grazing this rock enough to move it like this would have to leave a mark. Yet there is no mark, just as there are no other footprints.”

Nicci pushed her hood back. “You’re twisting everything you find around to fit what you want to believe, Richard. You can’t have it both ways. If magic was used to erase their trail, then why is it that are you able to detect their trail by this rock?”

“Probably because the magic they used erases footprints. The person who used that magic must not know a great deal about tracks or tracking. I don’t think they’re very familiar with the outdoors. When they used magic to erase their footprints, they probably never gave any thought to putting disturbed stones back in place.”

“Richard, surely—”

“Look around,” he said as he swept his arm out. “Look at how perfect the forest floor is.”

“What do you mean?” Victor asked.

“It’s too perfect. Twigs, leaves, bark are too evenly distributed. Nature is more erratic.”

Nicci, Victor, and Cara peered at the ground. Nicci saw only a normal-looking forest floor. Here and there small things—pine seedlings, spindly weeds, an oak sapling with only three big leaves—sprouted up through the litter of twigs, moss, bark, and fallen leaves sprinkled over the bed of pine needles. She didn’t know all that much about tracks or tracking, or forests, for that matter—Richard always left blazes on trees when he wanted her to be able to find and follow his trail—but it didn’t look like anyone had been through the place, nor did it look overly perfect, as Richard suggested. As she looked around, it appeared the same as other places she eyed for comparison. Victor and Cara seemed equally confounded.

“Richard,” Nicci said with strained patience, “I’m sure there could be any number of explanations as to why a rock looks disturbed to you. For all I know, it could be disturbed, as you suggest. But maybe an elk or a deer kicked it as they went by and over time their tracks have been worn away.”

Richard was shaking his head. “No. Look at the socket. It’s still well formed. You can read by how much the edges have degraded that it happened only a few days ago. Time—especially in the rain—erodes such edges and works to fill in the gap. Any deer or elk kicking this rock would have left tracks that would be just as recent. Not only that, but a hoof would have scuffed it, the same as a boot. I’m telling you, three days ago someone stumbled on this rock.”

Nicci gestured. “Well, that dead branch over there could have fallen on it and disturbed it.”

“If it did, then the lichen growing on the rock would show the scar of the impact and the branch would show evidence that it had hit something hard. It doesn’t—I already looked.”

Cara threw up her hands. “Maybe a squirrel jumped from a tree and landed on it.”

“Not nearly heavy enough to have moved this rock,” Richard said.

Nicci drew a weary breath. “So what you’re saying is that the fact that there are no tracks from this woman, Kahlan, proves that she exists.”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying, not the way you’re putting it, anyway. But it does confirm it if you look at everything together—if you put it all into context.”

Nicci’s hands fisted at her sides. There were important matters that had to be addressed. They were running out of time. Instead of dealing with urgent matters in need of their attention, they were out in the middle of the woods looking at a rock. She could feel the blood going to her face.

“That’s ridiculous. All you’ve shown us, Richard, is proof that this woman you imagined is just that—imagined. She doesn’t exist. She left no tracks—because you only dreamed her! There’s nothing mysterious about it! It’s not magic! It’s simply a dream!”

Richard abruptly rose up before her. He changed in a heartbeat from a man of calm intensity to a figure of heart-stopping presence, power, and awakening anger.

But rather than confront her, he took a step past her, back toward the way they’d come from, and stopped. Still and tense, Richard stared back through the woods.

“Something’s wrong,” he said in low warning.

Cara’s Agiel spun up into her fist. Victor’s brow tightened as his fingers found the mace hanging from his belt.

In the distance back through the dripping forest, Nicci heard the sudden, wild alarm cries of ravens.

The cries that came next reminded her of nothing so much as the sounds of bloody murder.

Chapter 6

Richard bounded back through the woods, back toward the waiting men, back toward the screams. He raced headlong through a blur of trees, branches, brush, ferns, and vines. He leaped over rotting logs and used a well-planted boot to bound over a boulder. He dodged his way through stands of young pines and a cluster of flowering dogwood. Without slowing, he batted aside tamarack limbs and ducked under balsam boughs. Nets of dead branches on the lower trunks of young spruce trees snatched at his clothes as he charged past. More than once, dead limbs jutting out, spearlike, from larger trees nearly impaled him before he sidestepped at the last instant.

Running at such a reckless speed through dense woods, let alone in the rain, was treacherous. It was hard to recognize hazards in time to avoid them. Any one of a number of protruding branches could easily gouge out an eye. One slip on wet leaves or moss or rocks could cause a skull-splitting tumble. Driving a foot down into a crevice or fissure at a dead run would likely shatter a leg. Richard had once known a young man who had done just that. His broken leg and ankle had never me