Confessor (Sword of Truth 11)

Kahlan knew for certain that this time Richard was going to be run through, but the blade, which only an instant before had shattered a man’s head, this time did the most bewildering thing. Just before it impaled Richard, it veered off to the side of him, as if he’d been been protected by an invisible shield of some sort.

The man, even more enraged, thrust again, but again the sword simply turned aside, slipping right by Richard. The stranger looked not only surprised, but worried. The worry turned to a look of cold rage.

“It’s mine!”

Kahlan couldn’t imagine what the man was talking about. Before she had a chance to wonder at it, she saw Nicci collapse, holding her throat.

A new clot of royal guards charged in with such speed and numbers that Richard was forced to turn and engage them or be killed. A new battle was suddenly in full force. Men yelling battle cries rushed in, swords swinging. Richard fought furiously, but he was forced to fall back. As the wave of men poured in, the space between Richard and Kahlan began to widen.

Kahlan started to attack the men swarming in around Richard, but the stranger grabbed her upper arm, pulling her back away. “We have to go. Now. He can handle those men. He’s giving us a chance to get away. We have to take it.”

“I’m not leaving him to—”

Kahlan suddenly gasped in a breath as the pain came on with full force. The sword fell from her grip. Her hands went to her throat, clawing at the collar. She screamed even though she tried not to. The searing pain was so sharp, so violent, that it was impossible not to scream.

She dropped to her knees, just as Nicci had done. Tears of agony streamed from her eyes.

“Come on!” the stranger yelled. “We have to get away—hurry!”

Kahlan was incapable of doing anything to get away. It was all she could do to pull a breath through the ripping agony.

Through vision blurred by tears, she could see the horror, the rage, on Richard’s face as he tried in vain to get to her.

Yet more of the elite royal guard poured in, intent on taking out the point man who had humiliated the emperor and started the riot. Even as his sword killed with every thrust and men fell dying all around him, more and more men charged in and Richard was driven back.

Kahlan fell face-first onto the hard ground. The pain seared down the nerves of her back and then her legs, making them twitch. She had no control over her muscles.

The stranger grabbed Kahlan’s arm. “Come on! We have to get away now!”

When she was unable to respond, he started dragging her.

CHAPTER 37

Richard could see Kahlan crying out in pain, clawing at the collar around her neck. His heart hammered in dread as he fought. Despite his frantic attempts to break through the wall of men in leather and chain mail it was proving impossible for him to get to her. In fact, it was all he could do to hold his own against the increasing numbers of men descending on him.

A deadly variety of weapons came in at him from every direction—swords, knives, axes, and spears. He had to shift his tactics to fend off each of them. He stabbed a man wielding a sword and on the backswing broke a spear. He ducked under an axe as it whistled past just overhead. He knew that if he made even one mistake it could cost him his life.

Through it all, despite fighting as hard as he had ever fought in his life, he was increasingly forced to give ground. It was the only way to keep from being overpowered. Time and again he went back on attack with wild fury, cutting into the enemy line, but as he did ever more men appeared to take the place of those who fell to his blade. In those flurries of frantic exertion the best he could do was to hold his ground. Whenever he took a breath he lost ground.

Kahlan was so close, but so far.

Now, Jagang was taking her from him again.

Richard reprimanded himself for not doing more to try to take out Jagang. He should have tried harder. If only that man hadn’t stepped in front of Jagang at exactly the wrong moment, Richard’s arrow would have done its job. But even as he told himself that he should have done more, should have tried something else, he knew that he couldn’t dwell on what he might have done differently. He had to come up with something that he could do now.

In all-too-brief glimpses he could see Nicci on the ground as well. Like Kahlan, she was also in desperate distress. Richard knew that it was urgent that he help them. Samuel certainly wasn’t doing anything worthwhile.

The distraction of Richard’s concern was throwing his timing off. He missed connecting with a thrust, leaving the man alive to come back at him. Only swift action saved him from the blade doing more than making a shallow slash across the side of his shoulder. Several times he nearly lost his life as he tried to catch a glimpse of Kahlan. He had nearly missed a move until it was almost too late. He knew that he had to focus. He couldn’t help Kahlan, Nicci, and Jillian if he was dead.

His arms, though, felt like lead.

His hands were slick with blood. His grip on his sword kept slipping.

A man spun an axe in his fingers as he lifted it, as if to show Richard that he was now up against an expert. The man caught the handle and started to swing the axe down with lethal intent. At the last instant, Richard ducked to the side, then, with a cry of effort, swung his own weapon. The strike took the man’s arm off. Richard used his foot to topple the startled man back out of the way, then ducked under a wild swing of a sword at his head and thrust his own weapon into the man’s lower abdomen.

The sword he was using worked, but it was not his sword. Samuel had his sword.

What Samuel was doing there Richard feared to imagine. Seeing him standing over Kahlan, though, he didn’t really have to imagine.

Richard remembered Zedd telling him, when he had first given him the Sword of Truth, that he couldn’t use it against Darken Rahl because he had put the boxes of Orden in play. Zedd said that during that yearlong period the power of Orden protected Darken Rahl from the Sword of Truth.

Richard knew that it was foolish to do what he’d just done, but he had to test his theory. He had to know the truth of it if he was to succeed in what lay ahead. The boxes of Orden really were in play in his name, and the Sword of Truth couldn’t harm him for that reason.

When he thought he couldn’t go on, he used the sheer rage he felt for Kahlan’s dire jeopardy to force himself to continue anyway. He didn’t know how long he could sustain such an effort. He knew only that when he stopped, he would die.

Just then, another man cut his way in from behind Richard, protecting his left side from a trio of men attacking from that direction. Out of the corner of his eye Richard saw red paint.

He slashed his blade down across the face of a man as soon as the man made the mistake of cocking back his arm. As he fell to the side with a cry, Richard used the opening to snatch a quick glance to his left.

It was Bruce.

“What are you doing here?” Richard yelled over at the man between the clash of steel.

“What I’m always doing—protecting you!”

Richard could hardly believe that Bruce, a regular Imperial Order soldier, was fighting besid

e him, fighting off the emperor’s royal guard. The man was committing treason to fight beside Richard. He supposed that winning against the emperor’s team was the bigger treason. Bruce fought with a fury of his own. He knew that this was a game that they couldn’t afford to lose. What he lacked in finesse he made up for in sheer tenacity.

Richard stole another look and saw that Samuel was starting to drag Kahlan away. Her face was a picture of terrified distress. Her fingers were bloody from clawing at the collar.

With an abrupt flash and heavy thud to the air, the soldiers all around Richard, including Bruce, were blown back as if by a blast. Yet there was no flame, no smoke, no flying debris, no ringing noise from a blast. Standing at the core of the event, Richard was left with his vision blurred and his flesh stinging from the force of the concussion.

In every direction, the forest of big royal guards lay felled across the dark ground, like toppled trees. In the distance the roar of battle raged on, but closer in it was eerily quiet. Most of the men looked to be unconscious. A few moaned as they tried to move, but their arms dropped after briefly lifting, as if even that much was an effort too great.

A spike of pain suddenly slammed into the base of Richard’s skull. It felt like he’d been hit from behind with an iron bar. The stunning pain dropped him to his knees. He recognized the sensation. He hadn’t been hit with iron; it was magic. Beside him, Bruce lay facedown on the ground.

Still on his knees, Richard saw, off in the distant darkness, a gaunt woman stalking toward him through the downed soldiers. She moved like a vulture watching wounded prey. Her shabby appearance made Richard suspect that she was one of Jagang’s Sisters.

Unable to endure the ringing pain in his head, Richard toppled over face-first. Hot agony flashed through every nerve in his body. Little clouds of dust were forced up into the night air with each of his panting breaths. He couldn’t move his legs. He strained with all his might to get up, but he simply couldn’t make his body respond. With the greatest of effort he was finally able to move his head just a little.