He and another of the guards hurried back up the slope to get whoever it was they had. Kahlan could not imagine who the men had been talking about, and why it gave Jagang such satisfaction.
As they waited, the construction supervisors continued to expose more of the buried structure. In short order, a stretch of the stone nearly fifty feet long had been exposed. All of it that they had uncovered ran in a straight line, the arch uniform along the entire length.
Other men worked at widening the excavation around the smooth stonework. The more of it they uncovered, the more the shape—and scale—of it came into view. This was no small thing. If the stone really was a ceiling of something beneath, then that room, or tomb, would have to be nearly twenty feet across. Since it showed no sign of terminating, there was no telling how long it was. From what she could see of it, it looked something like a buried hallway.
At the sounds of muted cries and a scuffle, Kahlan looked up. The big guards were bringing a struggling, slender figure down the muddy slope.
Kahlan’s eyes went wide. Her knees went weak.
The men each held a thin, spindly arm of a girl not half their height.
It was Jillian, the girl from back in the ancient ruins in the city of Caska, the girl Kahlan had helped to escape. Kahlan had killed two of Jagang’s guards and Sister Cecilia so that Jillian could get away.
As the guards brought the helpless girl forward, her copper-colored eyes finally caught sight of Kahlan. Those eyes filled with tears at all that had been lost, at her failure to evade the men of the Order.
The guards brought her in close and stood her up before the emperor.
“Well, well,” Jagang said with a shallow, gruff chuckle, “look what we have here.”
“I’m sorry,” the girl whispered up at Kahlan.
Jagang glanced over at Kahlan. “I’ve had men searching for your little friend, here. Quite the dramatic escape you pulled off for her.” Jagang cupped Jillian’s chin, his thick fingers squeezing her cheeks. “Too bad it was all for nothing.”
Kahlan thought that it wasn’t for nothing. She had at least killed two of his guards and Sister Cecilia. She had at least done her best to gain freedom for Jillian. She had tried her best. Her efforts had cost her dearly, but she would do the same thing again.
Jagang seized the girl’s thin arm in his big hand and pulled her forward. Again he grinned at Kahlan. “Do you know what we have here?”
Kahlan didn’t answer. She was not about to join his game.
“What we have here,” he said in answer to his own question, “is someone who can help you behave.”
She gave him a blank look and didn’t ask.
Jagang unexpectedly pointed at the waist of one of Kahlan’s special guards, the one standing just to her right. “Where’s your knife?”
The man looked down at his belt as if he was afraid a snake might be about to sink its fangs into him. He looked back up from the empty scabbard.
“Excellency…I, I must have lost it.”
Jagang’s icy look made the man’s face pale. “You lost it, all right.”
Jagang spun and backhanded Jillian hard enough to send her flying through the air. She landed in the mud, screaming in shock and pain. A red stain spread in the puddle around her face.
Jagang turned back to Kahlan and held out his hand. “Give me the knife.”
His completely black eyes were so deadly looking that Kahlan thought she might have to take a step back out of sheer fright.
Jagang waggled his fingers. “If I have to ask again, I’ll kick her teeth in.”
In a flash Kahlan ran though everything she could think of. She felt like the man with the gray eyes must have felt when he deliberately fell face-first into the mud. She had no choice either.
Kahlan laid the knife in Jagang’s upturned palm.
He grinned in triumph. “Why, thank you, darlin.”
Without pause he turned, as if driving his fist in a mighty blow, and slammed the knife right though the face of the man it belonged to. The damp air rang with a loud crack as bone shattered. The man collapsed dead into the mud. The flood of blood was shocking in the gray light. The man never even had time to scream before he died.
“There’s your knife back,” Jagang called down to the corpse.
His attention focused on the stunned faces of Kahlan’s special guards. “I’d suggest that you keep better track of your weapons than he did. If she takes a weapon from any of you, and she doesn’t kill you with it, I will. Is that simple enough for you all to understand?”
As one they all said, “Yes, Excellency.”
Jagang bent and yanked the sobbing Jillian to her feet. He effortlessly held her up so that only her toes were touching the ground.
“Do you know how many bones are in the human body?”
Kahlan choked back her tears. “No.”
He shrugged. “Neither do I. But I have a way to find out. We can start breaking her bones, one at a time, counting each one as it snaps.”
“Please…” Kahlan begged, trying mightily to contain her sob.
Jagang shoved the girl at Kahlan as if he were giving her a life-size doll.
“You are now responsible for her life. Whenever you give me any cause to be displeased, I am going to break one of her bones. I don’t know the exact number of bones in her frail little body, but I’m sure that it’s a great many.” He arched an eyebrow. “And I do know that I’m easily displeased.
“If you do more than simply displease me I will have her tortured before your eyes. I have men who are experts in the fine art of torture.” The storms of gray shapes shifted in his inky eyes. “They are very good at keeping people alive for a long time as they endure unimaginable agony, but if she should happen to die under torture, then I will have to start in on you.”
Kahlan clutched the poor girl’s bleeding head tightly to her chest. Jillian sobbed softly to Kahlan how sorry she was for getting caught. Kahlan gently shushed her.
“Do you understand me?” Jagang demanded in a deadly calm voice.
Kahlan swallowed. “Yes.”
He grabbed Jillian’s hair in his big fist and started pulling her back. Jillian screamed with renewed terror.
“Yes, Excellency!” Kahlan shouted.
Jagang smiled as he released the girl’s hair. “That’s better.”
Kahlan wanted more than anything for the nightmare to end, but she knew that it was only just beginning.
CHAPTER 9
“Stop being a big baby and hold still,” Richard said.
Johnrock blinked frantically. “Don’t get it in my eyes.”