Erling nodded distantly. “My boy’s dead. Hattie, too. I had to… go out. I couldn’t carry them by myself.”
“We’ll have a cart sent right away. There are some soldiers on the next street over. I’ll send them right away to help you.”
Erling nodded again. “That would be kind of you.”
“The… rest of them? Are they—”
Erling’s bloodshot eyes turned up. “My wife, daughter, son, his wife, Darby, and little Lily—all dead.” His mouth worked as his eyes watered up. “Beth, she recovered. Got well again, she did. I couldn’t care for her. I just now took her to Hattie’s sister. So far, their home is still sound.”
Richard laid a hand gently on Erling’s arm. “I’m so sorry. Dear spirits, I’m so sorry.”
Erling nodded. “Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “Long as I’ve lived, you’d think it would be me, not the young’uns. The spirits weren’t fair in this. Not fair at all.”
“I know,” Richard said. “They’re at a place of peace now. We all go there, sooner or later. They’ll be with you again.”
Out in the alley, after they had made sure that Erling didn’t need anything, they all paused to gather their wits.
“Raina,” Richard said, “please run over to the next street, where we saw those soldiers. Get them over here right now. Tell them to get those bodies out of there for Erling.”
“Of course,” she said before dashing away. Her dark braid flew behind as she ran.
“I don’t know what to do,” Richard whispered. “What do you do for someone who has just lost his whole family? Everyone he loved? I felt a fool. I didn’t know what to say.”
Drefan squeezed Richard’s shoulder. “You said the right things, Richard. You did.”
“He took comfort in your words, Richard,” Nadine said. “That was all you could do.”
“All I can do,” Richard repeated as he stared off.
Kahlan squeezed his hand. Berdine’s hand touched his. He gripped it. The three of them stood linked in shared sorrow.
Richard paced as he waited for Raina to return. The sun was almost down. It would be dark before they got back to the palace. The least he could do was wait until Erling had help getting his dead son and daughter-in-law out of the house.
Kahlan and Berdine stood close together, leaning against the wall beside the Andersons’ yard. Drefan, hands clasped behind his back, looking to be lost in thought, strolled a ways back down the alley. Nadine went to the other side of the alley, alone, and leaned against the clapboard wall.
Richard paced as he thought about the Temple of the Winds and the magic stolen by Jagang’s order. Richard could think of no way to stop this slaughter. When he thought about Tristan Bashkar’s eyes on Kahlan, Richard’s blood boiled.
Richard paused. His head came up. Nadine was behind him. He had the oddest sensation.
The hair on the back of his neck stiffened.
Richard heard the air whine as he spun.
The world slowed. Sound dragged. He floated as he moved. The air felt as thick as mud. Everyone seemed a statue in his vision.
Time was his.
His arm stretched out as he drifted ahead. He commanded the thickness of the air. In the eerie silence, he could hear the feathers singing. He could hear the hiss of blade.
Time was his.
Nadine’s startled blink took forever.
He closed his fist.
With a slam of sound, the world crashed back with a wild rush.
In his fist, Richard held a bolt from a crossbow.
The blade wasn’t three inches from Nadine’s wide eyes.
A fraction of a second more and it would have killed her. That fraction of a second had been an hour to him.
“Richard,” Nadine panted, “how did you catch that arrow? I hope you can understand that it gives me the creeps. Not that I’m complaining,” she was quick to add.
Drefan was there, his jaw hanging open. “How did you do that?” he whispered.
“I’m a wizard, remember?” Richard said as he turned, looking in the direction from which the arrow had come. He thought he saw movement.
Kahlan clutched a trembling Nadine. “Are you all right?”
Nadine nodded and let out a belated, frightened cry as Kahlan pulled her into a reassuring embrace.
Richard’s eyes locked on a movement as his fist snapped the arrow in half. He took off running. Berdine raced after him.
Richard turned as he ran. “Find some soldiers! I want this whole area closed off! I want him caught!”
Berdine cut down a street, going after soldiers. Richard ran like the wind on a storm. Rage inundated him. Someone had tried to kill Nadine.
In that instant, Nadine wasn’t a woman sent by Shota to marry him, a woman who was causing him trouble; in that instant, she was simply an old friend from home. The full fury of the magic took him.
Buildings flashed by. Dogs barked as he raced past. People in the alley cried out and dived for safety. A woman screamed as she cowered against a small, crooked storage building.
Richard vaulted the low board fence where he had seen the movement. In mid-leap, he drew his sword. The air rang with the unique sound of steel.
He rolled as he landed, coming to his feet with the sword in both hands. He found himself face-to-face with a white goat. There was no man there. A crossbow lay on the ground, between the board fence and a squat goat shed.
Richard looked around in all directions. Sheets and shirts hung from lines. A woman, her hair wrapped in a blue scarf, stood on a balcony beyond the flapping laundry.
Richard slid his sword back into its scabbard and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Did you see a man here?” he yelled up at the woman.
She lifted her arm, pointing off to her right. “I saw someone running that way,” she called from the distance.
Richard dashed off in the direction the woman had pointed. The alley narrowed. Beyond the tunnel of buildings, the passageway opened onto a street. He looked both ways.
He seized the arm of a young woman. “A man came through here. Which way did he go?”
In fright she tried to pull away, at the same time holding her hat on with her other hand. “There be people all about. Which man?”
Richard released her arm. Up the street to his left, he saw a man righting an overturned handcart full of fresh greens. The man looked up when Richard skidded to a panting halt before him.
“What did he look like? The man who ran through here—what did he look like?”
The man straightened h
is broad-rimmed hat. “Don’t know.” He pointed. “I was looking for a good spot. I heard the sound as my cart fell over. I saw a dark shape, running up that way.”
Richard ran on. The ancient part of the city branched into a warren of alleys, streets, and twisting passageways. Only by keeping track of the golden glow in the western sky could he keep his bearings. That didn’t mean, though, that the man he chased had run in a specific direction. He was probably just running, trying to get away.
Richard came across a patrol of a dozen soldiers. Before they had time to salute, he was talking.
“A man came running through here, somewhere. Did any of you see him?”
“We saw no one running. What did he look like?”
“I don’t know. He attacked us with a crossbow and then ran. I want him found. Spread out and start searching.”
Before they could be on their way, Raina came running up the street with a good fifty men.
“Did you see where he went?” she asked, gasping for breath.
“No. I lost him in here somewhere. I want all of you to spread out and find him.”
One of the soldiers, a sergeant, spoke up. “Lord Rahl, a man who wants to escape would make himself obvious by running. A man with any sense at all would simply round a corner and walk away.”
The sergeant gestured back up the street to make his point. There were people everywhere going about their business, although a good many were staring at the excitement on their street. Any number of them could have been the man he was chasing.
“Any idea at all what this assassin looks like?”
Richard shook his head in frustration. “I never got a look at him.” He raked back his hair as he caught his breath. “Split up. Half of you go back in the direction we came from. Question everyone you can find, to see if anyone got a look at him, at a man running. He may be walking now, but until he got somewhere along in here he was running.”
Raina, Agiel in hand, took up her defensive position close beside him.
“The rest of you come with me,” Richard said. “We’ll pick up some more men. I want to keep searching. Maybe we’ll come across someone walking and he’ll panic and try to run again. If he does, I want him. Alive.”