Confessor (Sword of Truth 11)

“That’s really Richard out there?” Jillian asked.

Nicci nodded.

“How can you tell? I mean, with the paint all over them, how can you be sure? I know Richard and I can’t tell.”

Nicci glanced down at Jillian. “It’s him.”

Her tone was of such calm certainty that it left no reason to question. Kahlan thought that Nicci would probably be able to recognize the man in total darkness.

“How does he know me?” she asked.

Nicci again stared into Kahlan’s eyes for a long moment. “This is not the place for a conversation. Just be ready.”

“For what?” Kahlan asked. “What do you think he’s going to do? What do you think he can do?”

“If I know Richard, I expect that he’s about to start a war.”

Kahlan blinked in surprise. “All by himself?”

“If he has to.”

Out on the field, the emperor’s team scored a point just before the horn blew, signaling the end of their turn. The crowd went crazy. Kahlan winced at the roar. The level of noise was withering.

Richard’s team was now behind by one point.

Waiting for the men to take their place and the horn to start the play for Richard’s team, the entire crowd started in chanting in a deep, harsh, rhythmic grunt. The horde stamped a boot between each of those grunts.

Who-ah. Thump. Who-ah. Thump. Who-ah. Thump.

It seemed like the whole world moved with each of those Who-ahs. The ground shook with each thump. Even Jagang and his royal guards joined in. It gave the night an eerie, savage, primeval feel, as if everything civilized had been abandoned to the spectacle of raw savagery.

The supporters of the emperor’s team wanted the men to rip the challengers apart rather than let them score. The supporters of Richard’s team wanted their men to crush those trying to stop them.

The chanting was a call for blood.

With only one timed turn left, Richard’s team had to score during this play or they would lose. If they scored only one point during their time at play, though, the game would be tied and go into overtime.

Kahlan caught glimpses of Richard, showing no emotion, as he gathered with his men. He gave them a brief, covert hand signal. As he turned, his gaze swept past. For an instant, their eyes met.

The power in that connection made Kahlan’s heart pound and her knees weak.

Just as fast as it had come, Richard’s scrutiny moved on. No one but Kahlan would have known that he had looked directly at her or, if they had, they wouldn’t have understood why.

Kahlan understood.

He was checking her position.

This was the moment for which he had painted himself with those strange symbols. This was the moment for which he had kept the score even. He had crushed every other team they had come up against so that he could be sure that he was here, in this place, at this moment.

She couldn’t imagine why, but it was for this moment.

He abruptly yelled a battle cry and started the charge.

Seeing him covered in the frightening red symbols, his tense muscles, his raptor glare, his focused power, his fluid movement…Kahlan thought that surely her hammering heart might burst.

CHAPTER 34

Every eye was on Richard as he ran with the broc tucked under his left arm. Kahlan, too, having taken a step forward, stood transfixed. The crowd, in tense expectation, held its collective breath.

Jagang’s team, at the other end of the field, began their rush across open ground to stop the charge. If they could keep Richard’s team from scoring they would win the championship. They were experienced players who knew that victory was within their grasp and they didn’t intend to let anything change that.

Richard, screened by blockers and his remaining wing man, cut to the right. He hugged the right boundary of the field as he ran at breakneck speed. The flames of torches whooshed and flapped as he flew by. Women reached out to try to touch him as they yelled along with everyone else.

Richard was suddenly right there, right in front of them, racing past the emperor. Jagang looked like he wanted to tackle Richard himself as he ran past.

Kahlan expected Richard to stop, to wheel on the emperor, and kill the man as he had so efficiently killed others, but he didn’t. He didn’t even glance to the side as he flew by.

Richard had his chance to attempt an assassination and hadn’t taken it.

Kahlan couldn’t imagine why not, if as Nicci thought, he really had intended to do something. Perhaps it was only wishful thinking on Nicci’s part…and on Kahlan’s.

In an instant Richard and his men were past and gone, charging up the field.

The men of Jagang’s team, watching them come and seeing that they were relatively close together in their headlong rush, rather than scattered all over the field as they sometimes had been in the past, converged to form into an impenetrable wall of bone and muscle sure to stop their advance.

In past turns at play the emperor’s team had kept Richard’s team from scoring. They knew that they would win if they merely contained their adversary and kept them from scoring during this turn. They appeared to want more, though. They didn’t simply want to win; they wanted to punish the challengers. They looked fiercely determined to end it in as brutal a fashion as possible.

As they ran, Richard’s men, rather than scattering, or even moving into positions designed to try to engage the formation of waiting blockers, instead suddenly and inexplicably came together. Even more surprising, they meshed into a single column. As the men ran they all stacked in close together, with the largest men in the front. At the same time, each man reached out and fastened a hand on the shoulder of the man in front of him, locking the entire column together. Their long, breakneck strides moved in unison.

In an instant, Richard’s entire team had connected itself together into a solid, human battering ram.

That column, Richard near the back, wasn’t moving as fast as each of the men could have run by himself, but they didn’t need to be fast, and what they gave up in a little speed was more than offset by their massive collective weight giving them staggering momentum.

Even though the individual big men of Jagang’s team braced themselves, the runaway line of men crashed through them like a tree trunk through a pauper’s door.

Jagang’s men were all accustomed to their huge size serving them in good stead but, despite how big they were, they were no match for the prodigious weight of Richard’s entire team body-slamming into them in such a focused manner. With such overpowering weight, the column punched through without being slowed, transferring the power of the collision to the defending blockers, sending them flying.

Some of Richard’s men in the front were peeled away by the violence of the contact, but as each broke off it exposed a new man in the lead so that the file itself remained intact as it plunged through the defending wall of men.

Once they were in the defenders’ territory and at the first scoring line, long before they reached the regular scoring zone, the column of men burst apart, crashing into the blockers converging on them. For an instant, it opened a pocket of safety for Richard.

He heaved the broc from that rear line. It was a long way to the goal. As the broc arced through the night air, illuminated by torches, the crowd leaned forward as one, all holding their breath, all eyes watching.

With a thunk, the broc landed solidly in the net, scoring two points.

The crowed exploded with a thunderous roar that made the air tremble and the ground shudder.

Richard’s team was now ahead by one point. The emperor’s team had no more turns of the hourglass; there was no way for them to win. Even though there was time left on the play for Richard’s team, they didn’t need it. The game was as good as won, even though it wasn’t yet over and the sand in the hourglass continued to drizzle down.

Emperor Jagang stood stone-faced. His guards, looking grim, put their weight into holding back the excited cro

wds to each side as the cheering went on unabated.

Jagang finally thrust an arm up high. The wild celebration began to die out as attention turned to see what the emperor would do. Jagang signaled for the referee.

Kahlan shared a brief look with Nicci. They couldn’t hear as the men conferred, heads together.

The referee, looking a little pale, gave the emperor a nod and then ran out to the center of the field, holding up a hand to indicate a ruling.

“The challenger went out of bounds as he ran along the sideline,” the referee called into the still night air. “The points don’t count. His excellency’s team still leads by one. Play must resume until time runs out.”