Severed Souls (Sword of Truth 14)

She lifted his right hand and pulled it over, placing it over the hilt of his sword. He was only partially conscious and didn’t seem to have enough strength to grip it, so she pressed his fingers around the hilt for him.

When his fingers formed around the hilt, gripping it, she could see that something changed in him. He drew an even deeper breath.

When his eyes opened, they were filled with the magic from the sword, its power feeding strength into him.

Richard was the true Seeker, and the sword was bonded to him in every way. It responded to his touch in a way it responded to no other; it recognized its master.

“There is no time to lose,” Richard said. “We have to act quickly. Where’s the commander?”

Kahlan frowned and leaned in a little. “No time to lose? What do you mean?”

“Fister. Where’s Commander Fister?” The anger of the sword was now clearly powering his voice. “I need him.”

Kahlan didn’t know what Richard could be thinking, or if he really was thinking. It was possible that in the semiconscious state he was in, drifting in and out of comprehension of what was going on around him, he was having some kind of dream or delusion and it was purely the anger from the sword enabling him to voice those delusions.

Rather than question him, Kahlan turned to the scene of the fighting. She saw the big man not far away.

“Commander! Commander! We need you!”

When he heard Kahlan calling for him, he turned from angrily hacking a Shun-tuk to pieces. Almost immediately another half person rammed a shoulder into the commander’s side, attempting to tackle him and take him down. The crusty, chalky figure might as well have tried to topple an oak tree. The big commander casually put a headlock on the man and twisted. Kahlan heard tendons pop and bone crack. Commander Fister let the limp form drop in a heap. On his way toward Kahlan, without pause, he smashed the heavy pommel of his sword into the face of another Shun-tuk racing in toward him.

When there was a heavy clash at the perimeter defenses, the struggle of holding the weight of the enemy back allowed others the opportunity to slip by. It was not a planned, coordinated tactic, but rather individuals seeing an opening created by others and taking advantage of the opportunity.

All of the half people were ultimately out after souls for themselves, not dedicated to winning battles. In a way, that made them easier to fight, because they didn’t coordinate their attacks or make skillful, strategic moves, but at the same time it made them as unpredictable as a cloud of blood flies. They randomly came in from every direction, each interested only in biting and getting at your blood.

Kahlan saw the ghostly figures of Shun-tuk stalking through the camp, trying to stay hidden in the shadows as they hunted for an opportunity to catch a soldier unaware. Whenever they were spotted by soldiers of the First File they were swiftly cut to pieces, but the fact that they were getting into the camp at all was a very bad sign. You never wanted to let an enemy flank you and get in behind to attack from the rear while you fought the enemy in front.

Commander Fister raced in close and went to one knee beside Richard, across from Kahlan. With the help of the power from his hand on the sword, Richard sat partway up, propping himself on his other elbow, and seized the edge of the commander’s leather armor chest plate to pull him closer.

“Listen to me, this is what they have been waiting for—for the sickness to weaken me and put me down. They have been waiting for this opportunity to attack. Without me helping, they are going to overrun us like they did to you before.”

“No, Lord Rahl, I won’t let—”

“You weren’t able to stop them before, when you were captured, were you?”

The commander grudgingly shook his head.

“You have fewer men this time,” Richard said. “A great many were lost in that battle, and more yet while you were being held captive. The numbers you started with have dwindled dangerously low. We couldn’t fight them off before with all the men, so how do you expect that we will be able to fight them off this time, using the same tactics, but with even fewer men?

“We will lose such a fight—that’s why they are pressing us into it. They are making the rules and we are obliging them. They waited until I was weak and down, and then they attacked the rest of you. That’s their way: simple, brutal, and effective.

“We have to change the rules or we are going to lose.”

Commander Fister shared a look with Kahlan and then looked back at Richard. “I understand what you’re saying, Lord Rahl, and I’ve had the same worry, but I don’t know what we can do about it. We fight or we die. That’s the only way for us to survive—fight or die. There is no way to change that rule.”

Richard was shaking his head. “They’re fixated on me. We need to use that against them.”

The commander wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand holding a bloody sword. He stole a worried look over at the battle before once again looking back at Richard.

“I’m sorry, Lord Rahl, but I don’t follow.”

Kahlan thought that it was more like he didn’t want to follow. He wanted to get back to the battle. His blood was up for the fight, and he was thinking with that anger.

“What do they want?” Richard asked through gritted teeth, both from the pain and from the rage of the sword.

Samantha tried her best to keep her hands pressed to the sides of his head, but she was not having a great deal of success. It was the magic of the sword, mostly, added to what she had started, that was powering Richard at the moment.

“What do they want?” The commander glanced back over his shoulder, quickly appraising the battle, then heaved an unhappy sigh. “Lord Rahl, they want to kill us, that’s what they want. They want to bloody kill us all.”

Richard shook his head insistently. “No—yes, that too—but that’s not the point. You heard the prisoner. They sense my spirit. They know when the life force in me weakens, when I start going unconscious. They know when I am drifting closer to that pull of death. That’s why they attacked now—because they knew I was down.”

“So?”

“So, that’s what they want, what they are using, what they are counting on and waiting for. That’s their strategy. It’s no more complex than that. Wait until the prey is weakest and then attack. We need to use that to lay a trap.”

The big commander slicked a hand back over his closely cropped hair as he let out a sigh. “Seems to me, Lord Rahl, that it’s us that the mouse caught in the trap—especially you.”

“You have it backward. I’m not the mouse; I’m the bait.”

CHAPTER

19

Commander Fister’s brows drew together as he put an elbow on his bent knee and leaned closer.

“What?”

“I’m the bait.”

“Well, yes, we know that they want you. But we’re holding most of them back. Our lines will hold.”

“I don’t want them to hold.”

The man was confused, frustrated, but most of all alarmed by what he was hearing. “Lord Rahl, I think you had better let Samantha, here, heal you as best she can, let your head clear, and then we can talk. Right now I need to get back to my men.”

As the man started to stand to rejoin the battle, Richard lifted his sword a few inches from the scabbard. Commander Fist

er could not help but notice. He paused. Richard didn’t look to have the strength to pull it the rest of the way. He sank back a little as he looked up at Kahlan.

“Help me draw it.”

Kahlan was not liking the sounds of his plan and she hadn’t even heard it yet, but she did as he asked of her. She suspected that he was counting on the sword, once it was out of its scabbard, inundating him with the full force of its power to give him strength. Kahlan thought that maybe when he had his sword out and finally had that strength, he would recognize the dire circumstances of the battle. Then maybe he would be able to think straight and see that the commander was doing all he could—the best he could—in a very difficult situation, and Richard was needed in that fight.

As Kahlan glanced around at the furious battle raging mostly at the edge of their camp, she saw that there were also fights going on in some places inside their ranks. She wondered if maybe Richard wanted his sword out in order to join the fight. The men at the lines were hacking furiously at the Shun-tuk rushing in at them. Fresh enemy forces were continually pouring in. Such effort was tiring and couldn’t go on much longer before exhaustion caused the men to begin to lose their effectiveness.

Zedd was casting some sort of conjuring but it didn’t look to be halting a lot of the enemy. He stopped and knelt at wounded men and helped where he could. Nicci was doing the same. Kahlan could see at least half a dozen of their men down.

She didn’t see Irena. There were any number of places she could be where Kahlan wouldn’t see her. She hoped that Samantha’s mother hadn’t been taken by the Shun-tuk. Samantha had endured that once before and now that Irena was back with them, it had drawn Samantha even closer to her mother.

Kahlan closed both of her hands tightly around Richard’s big hand on the hilt as she helped him pull. As the Sword of Truth finally slid all the way out, the blade sent its clear, distinctive ring of steel out across the scene of the battle. The sound of it caused a few men of the First File to pause for just an instant and look over. She knew that seeing Richard with his sword out rallied their spirits.