Temple of the Winds (Sword of Truth 4)

Her resolve hardened. She reached into the back of a wardrobe and pulled a knotted rope from a peg It was there in case of fire, so that the Mother Confessor could escape from the balcony.

Opening the glass doors gave her a shock of snarling wind and snow. Kahlan squinted against the storm and pulled the doors shut behind her. She drew up the hood and stuffed her hair inside it. It would do no good to have people recognizing the Mother Confessor—if anyone was even out on a night like this. But she knew that the guards up at the Wizards’ Keep would be.

She quickly secured the rope around one of the vase-shaped stone balusters and tossed the rest of the heavy coil out over the railing. In the darkness, she couldn’t see if it reached to the ground. She would have to trust that whoever had put the rope in the wardrobe had checked to make sure that it was long enough.

Kahlan swung a leg over the stone railing, gripped the rope in both hands, and started down.

Kahlan had decided to walk. It wasn’t that far, and besides, if she took a horse, she would have to leave it at the Keep and it might be found, giving her away, or else she’d have to turn it loose before she got there, only raising fears as to what had happened to her. A horse would also make it more difficult to get past the guards up at the Keep. The good spirits had provided her with a spring snowstorm, the least she could do was take advantage of it.

Tramping through the heavy, wet snow, she was beginning to wonder if going on foot was the wise thing to do. She stiffened her resolve. If she was already beginning to second-guess her decisions, she had no business going through with the rest of it.

Most of the buildings were shuttered. The few people she encountered were too worried about making their own way to be concerned with a huddled figure struggling into the wind. In the darkness, no one would even be able to tell if she was a man or a woman. Before long, she was out of the city and on the deserted road up to the Keep.

All the way up the road, she pondered the best way past the guards. These were D’Haran soldiers. It was always a mistake to underestimate D’Haran soldiers. It wouldn’t do to have them recognize her. They would report it.

Killing sentries was the easiest way to get past them, but she couldn’t do that; they were her men, now, fighting for their cause against the Imperial Order. Killing them was out of the question.

Whacking them across the skull to knock them unconscious was no good, either. That was never a dependable way to silence someone. In her experience, hitting a man across the head rarely had the desired result. Sometimes they would not be knocked unconscious and would scream at the top of their lungs before anything else could be done, raising an alarm and bringing other guards ready to kill the intruder.

Besides, she had seen men suffer and die from a blow on the head. She didn’t want that. You only hit someone on the head if you intended to kill them, because you most likely would.

The Sister and Marlin had probably used magic to get by the guards unseen. She didn’t have any magic that could do that. Her magic would destroy their minds.

That left either a trick, or stealth. D’Haran sentries were trained in every kind of trick, and probably knew more of them than she could even imagine.

She was down to stealth.

She wasn’t sure exactly where she was, but she knew she was getting close. The wind was coming from the left, so she stayed to the right of the road, downwind of them, crouching lower as she went on. When she got close enough, she would have to crawl.

If she laid down on the snow, spread her cloak out over her, and waited for a short time, the snow would cover her back and hide her. Then she would have to proceed slowly, and if she saw a soldier, simply lie still until he passed. She wished she had remembered to bring gloves.

Deciding that she was as close as she dared get, she moved off the right side of the road. She knew that the bridge would be the hardest part; it would funnel her into a relatively narrow space, with no option of moving away from the soldiers. But the soldiers feared the magic of the Keep, and would probably not be close to the bridge. They had been twenty or thirty feet from it when she had seen them before, and in the darkness and snow, visibility wasn’t great.

She was beginning to feel better about her chances of getting by unseen. The snow would provide enough cover.

Kahlan froze in her tracks as a sword blade appeared in front of her face. A darting glance revealed a sword to each side. Another man rested a lance on her back, at the base of her neck.

So much for stealth.

“Who goes there?” came a gruff voice from the man in front of her.

Kahlan had to think of a new plan, and fast. She quickly settled on a bit of truth, mixed in with their fear of magic.

“Captain, you nearly scared me to death. It’s me, the Mother Confessor.”

“Show yourself.”

Kahlan pushed back her hood. “I thought I’d be able to get past you unnoticed. I guess D’Haran sentries are even better than I thought.”

The men lowered their weapons. Kahlan was the most relieved to feel the lance lift from the back of her neck. That was the killing weapon in a challenge.

“Mother Confessor! You gave us a fright, you did. What are you doing up here again tonight? And on foot, no less?”

Kahlan sighed in resignation. “Get all your men together and I’ll explain.”

The captain tilted his head. “Over here. We have a shelter to get you out of the wind.”

Kahlan let them lead her to the other side of the road, where stood a simple three-sided structure meant to give some relief from wind and wet weather. It wasn’t big enough for her and all six men. They insisted she take the driest spot, farthest inside.

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She was torn between satisfaction that even in a snowstorm no one got past D’Haran guards, and wishing she had. It would have made it much easier. Now, she was going to have to talk her way out of it.

“All of you, listen carefully,” she began. “I don’t have a lot of time. I’m on an important mission. I need your confidence. All of you. You all know about the plague?”

The men grunted and nodded that they did, shifting their weight uncomfortably.

“Richard, Lord Rahl, is trying to find a way to stop it. We don’t know if there is a way, but he won’t give up, you know that. He would do anything it takes to save his people.”

The men were nodding again. “What’s that got to do with—”

“I’m in a hurry. Lord Rahl is sleeping right now. He’s exhausted from trying to find a cure for the plague. A cure that involves magic.”

The men straightened a bit. The captain rubbed his chin. “We know that Lord Rahl won’t let us down. He cured me a few days back.”

Kahlan looked to all the eyes watching her. “Well, what if Lord Rahl comes down with the plague himself? Before he can find an answer? Then what? We’re all dead, that’s what.”

The anxiety on their faces was clear. For D’Harans to lose a Lord Rahl was a calamitous event. It cast all their futures into doubt.

“What can be done to protect him?” the captain asked.

“What can be done is up to you men, here, tonight.”

“What can we do?”

“Lord Rahl loves me. You men all know how he protects me. He has those Mord-Sith shadowing me all the time. He sends guards with me wherever I go. He won’t let danger come within miles of me. He won’t let harm even get a view of me.

“Well, I don’t want him harmed, either. What if he gets the plague? Then we all lose him, that’s what.

“I may have a way to help him stop the plague before it can touch us all—before he can get it, as surely he will.”