Naked Empire

  Kahlan unexpectedly came up against Richard’s outstretched arm. She put a hand to her chest, over her galloping heart, then immediately turned and passed the signal to stop back to those behind. There was still no sound in the dark woods—not so much as the buzz of a mosquito.

  Richard slipped his pack off of his back, set it on a low rock, and started quietly searching through it.

  Kahlan leaned close to whisper. “What are you doing?”

  “Fire. We need light. Pass the word back for some of the men to get out torches.”

  While Richard pulled out a steel and flint, Kahlan whispered instructions to Cara, who in turn passed them back. In short order, several men tiptoed forward with torches.

  The men gathered in close, squatting down beside a low jumble of rock next to Richard. He picked a stick up off the ground and dipped it in a small container from his pack. He then wiped the stick across the top of a high point on the rock.

  “I’m putting some pine resin on this rock,” he told the men. “Hold your torches over it so that when I strike a spark and the resin flames up, it will light the torches.”

  Pine resin, painstakingly collected from rotting trees, was valuable for starting fires in the rain. A spark would ignite it even when wet. It burned hot enough to often be able to catch damp wood on fire.

  Richard had always seemed at home in the dark. Kahlan had never seen him need to have light like this. She stared intently out into the night, wondering what it was he thought might be out there that they couldn’t see.

  “Cara,” Richard whispered, “pass the word back. I want everyone to get out a weapon. Now.”

  Without hesitation, Cara turned to pass on the orders. After a seemingly endless span of silence, broken only by the soft whisper of steel sliding past leather, word came back and she leaned down toward Richard. “Done.”

  Richard looked up at Kahlan and Jennsen. “Both of you, as well.”

  Kahlan drew her sword, Jennsen her silver-handled dagger with the ornate letter R that stood for the House of Rahl.

  Richard struck the spark. The pine pitch flamed up with an angry hiss; the torches caught; light ignited in the heart of the dark forest.

  In the sudden, harsh glare, everyone turned and looked about to see what might be hiding in the darkness around them.

  Men gasped.

  In the trees all around them, perched on branches everywhere, sat black-tipped races. Hundreds of them. Beady black eyes watched the people.

  In that moment of sudden bright light, everything but the flickering flame was silent and still.

  With a burst of wild cries, the races launched their attack.

  From all around, all at once, the races descended on them. The night air suddenly filled with a riot of glossy black feathers, the sweep of huge wings, hooked beaks, and reaching talons. After such a long silence, the sound of piercing cries and beating wings was deafening.

  Everywhere, the people met the attack with fierce determination. Some of the men were knocked to the ground, or stumbled and fell. Others cried out as they tried to protect themselves with one arm while driving off the attack with the other. Men hacked at the races atop their friends and turned to ward off other screeching beasts that flew in toward them.

  Kahlan saw the red-striped breast of a race abruptly appear right before her face. She swung her sword, lopping off a wing, and spun around, bringing the sword up to hit another bird coming in from the other side. She stabbed a race on the ground at her feet as it reached in with its beak, like a vulture, to try to rip flesh from her leg.

  Richard’s sword was a blur of silver slashing through the winged attackers. A cloud of black feathers surrounded him. The birds were attacking everyone, but the assault appeared to be centered around Richard. It almost seemed as if the races were trying to drive the people back from Richard so that more of the birds could get at him.

  Jennsen frantically stabbed at birds going for him. Kahlan swung at others, knocking them to the ground, wounded or dead. With measured efficiency, Cara snatched them out of the air and swiftly wrung their necks.

  Everywhere, men stabbed, cut, and hacked at the onslaught of fierce raptors. Some men used their torches as weapons. The night was filled with the screams of the birds, with the flapping of wings, with the thud of weapons striking home. Birds tumbled and fell as they were hit. More dove in to take their place. The trees all around poured the monstrous birds down on them. Wounded and dying birds struggling on the ground made the forest floor a writhing sea of black feathers.

  The ferocity of the attack was frightening.

  And then, it was suddenly over.

  A few of the birds on the ground, wings spread, still tried to get up, their feathers making a silken rasp as they rubbed against the feathers of dead birds beneath them. Here and there men stabbed or chopped at a bird still alive on the ground at their feet. It wasn’t long before all the creatures finally went still. No more races came from the sky.

  Dead races mounded up against Richard like snow drifted in a storm.

  Men panted as they held torches aloft. They peered into the darkness beyond the light, looking for any sign of more trouble from above. But for the hissing of the torches, the night was silent. The branches of the trees all around appeared to be empty.

  Kahlan could see scratches and cuts on Richard’s arms and hands. She waded through the sea of dead birds to get to his pack sitting on a nearby rock. The forest floor around him was nearly knee-deep with dead races. She had to flip a dead bird off Richard’s pack. Pushing her hand down into his pack, she blindly searched until her fingers found a folded waxed paper that contained a salve.

  Cara rushed in close to Richard when she saw him unsteady on his feet. She grasped his arm, lending him support.

  “What in the world was that all about?” Jennsen asked, panting, still catching her breath as she pulled strands of red ringlets off her sweaty face.

  “I guess they finally decided to try to get us,” Owen said.

  Jennsen patted Betty’s head when the goat stepped unhurt through the corpses of races to get in closer to her friends. “One thing for sure is that they finally found us again.”

  “There was an important difference this time,” Richard said. “They weren’t following us. They were here, waiting for us.”

  Everyone stared at him.

  “What do you mean?” Kahlan paused at daubing salve on his cuts. “They’ve followed us before. They must have seen us.”

  Betty moved in closer, leaning against Kahlan’s leg to stand and watch her and Richard talking. Kahlan wasn’t in the mood to be scratching the goat’s ears, so she pushed her out of the way.

  Richard laid a hand on Cara’s shoulder to steady himself. Kahlan noticed how he swayed on his feet. At times he was having difficulty standing.

  “No. They haven’t been following us. The skies have been empty.” Richard gestured to the dead birds all around him. “These races weren’t following us. They were waiting for us. They knew we were coming here. They lay in wait.”

  That was a chilling thought—if it was true.

  Kahlan straightened, holding the waxed paper in one hand; a finger of her other hand, loaded with salve, waiting. “How could they possibly know where we were going?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” Richard said.

  Nicholas glided back into his body, his mouth still opened wide in a yawn that was not a yawn. He stretched his neck to one side and then the other. He smiled with his delight in the game. It had been dazzling. It had been delicious. His widening grin bared his teeth.

  Nicholas staggered to his feet, wavering unsteadily for a moment. It reminded him of the way Richard Rahl swayed on his feet, dizzy with the effects of a poison that was inexorably doing its deadly work.

  Poor Richard Rahl needed the last dose of the antidote.

  Nicholas opened his mouth again in a yawn that was not a yawn, twisting his head, eager to be away, eager to learn more. He would ret
urn soon enough. He would watch them. Watch them as they worried, as they struggled in vain to understand what was happening, watch them as they approached. They would reach him in mere hours.

  The fun was truly about to begin.

  Nicholas wound his way across the room, stepping between the bodies sprawled everywhere. They had all died suddenly when the races were killed. Here and there the dead were stacked in piles atop one another, the way the races in those dark woods had been heaped around Richard Rahl.

  Such violent deaths. Those spirits had been horrified as they were slaughtered, but there was nothing they could do to stop it.

  Nicholas had controlled their souls, their fate. Now they were beyond his control; they now belonged to the Keeper of the dead.

  Nicholas ran his fingernails back through his hair, shivering with delight as he felt the slick oils glide through his fingers and against his palm.

  He had to drag three bodies aside before he could get at the door. He threw the heavy latch over and opened the thick door.

  “Najari!”

  The man stood not far away, leaning against the wall, waiting. His muscular form straightened.

  “What is it?”

  Nicholas opened his arm back in graceful indication, his fingers tipped with black nails stretching wide. “There is a mess in here that needs to be cleaned up. Get some men and have these bodies taken away.”

  Najari stepped to the door and stretched his neck to peer into the room.

  “The whole crowd we brought in?”

  “Yes,” Nicholas snapped. “I needed them all, and some more I had the soldiers fetch for me. I’m done with them all, now. Get rid of them.”

  When the races had attacked, each had been driven by the soul of one of these ungifted people, and each of those souls had been driven by Nicholas. It had been a stupendous achievement—the simultaneous command of so many with such precision and coordination. When the races had been killed, though, so, too, died the bodies back in the room with Nicholas.

  He supposed that one day he really should learn how to call back such spirits when their hosts died. It would save him from having to get new ones each time. But people were plentiful. Besides, if he were to find a way to call them back, then he would have to mind the people once their spirits returned, after they had learned his use of them.

  Still, it was annoying when Richard Rahl killed those Nicholas used to help him watch.

  “How much longer?” Najari asked.

  Nicholas smiled, knowing what the man was curious about. “Soon. Very soon. You must get these people out of here before they arrive. Then, keep our men out of the way. Let them do as they will.”

  Najari flashed a cunning smile. “As you wish, Nicholas.”

  Nicholas lifted an eyebrow. “Emperor Nicholas.”

  Najari chuckled as he started away to get his men. “Emperor Nicholas.”

  “You know, Najari, I’ve been thinking.”

  Najari turned back. “About what?”

  “About Jagang. We’ve worked so hard. What reason is there for me to bow to him? A legion of my silent army could swoop in upon him and that would be that. I wouldn’t even need an army. He could mount his horse one day, and I could be there in the beast, waiting to throw him and trample him to death.”

  Najari rubbed his stubble. “True enough.”

  “Of what use is Jagang, really? I could just as easily rule the Imperial Order. In fact, I would be better suited to it.”

  Najari cocked his head. “Then what of the plans we’ve already laid?”

  Nicholas shrugged. “Why change them? But why should I give the Mother Confessor to Jagang? And why let him have the world? Perhaps I will keep her for my own amusement…and have the world as well.”

  Chapter 56

  Richard pressed his back up against the clapboard wall. He had to pause a moment, waiting for the world to stop spinning. He was so cold he felt numb. As dark as it was, he was having difficulty seeing.

  But it was more than the darkness.

  He knew that his sight was beginning to fail him.

  At night it was worse. He had always been able to see better at night than most other people. Now, he was no better able to see at night than Kahlan. That wasn’t a big difference, but he knew it was meaningful.

  The third state of the poison had begun.

  Fortunately, they were close to having the final dose.

  “This is the alleyway, here,” Owen whispered.

  Richard looked up and down the street. He didn’t see anything moving. The city of Hawton was asleep. He wished he could be, too. He was so exhausted and dizzy he could hardly put one foot in front of the other. He had to take shallow breaths to keep from coughing. Coughing brought on the worst pain. At least he wasn’t coughing up blood.

  Coughing now, though, could be fatal, so he swallowed, trying to stifle the urge. If they made any noise, it might alert the soldiers.

  When Owen moved into the alleyway, Richard, Kahlan, Cara, Jennsen, Tom, Anson, and a handful of their men followed in single file. There had been no lights burning in the windows facing the streets. As the small group moved through the alley close to the walls, Richard saw no windows. A few of the walls did have doors.

  At a narrow space between buildings, Owen turned in, following the brick path hardly wider than Richard’s shoulders.

  Richard seized Owen by the arm. “Is this the only way in?”

  “No. See there? The walkway goes through to the street in front, and there is another door inside that comes up on the other side of the building.”

  Satisfied that they had alternative escape routes, Richard gave Owen a nod. They took the dark stairwell down to a room at the bottom under the building. Tom struck flint to steel a number of times until he managed to light a candle.

  Once the candle was lit, Richard gazed around at the small, empty, windowless room. “What is this place?”

  “The basement of a palace,” Owen said.

  Richard frowned at the man. “What are we doing here?”

  Owen hesitated and glanced at Kahlan.

  Kahlan saw the look. She pushed Richard down until he sat and leaned back against the wall. A footsore Betty squeezed between them and lay down beside Richard, pleased to have a rest. Jennsen squatted close, on the other side of Betty. Cara closed him in from the other side.

  Kahlan knelt in front of him and then sat back on her heels. “Richard, I asked Owen to bring us here—to a place where we would be safe. We can’t all go into that building to get the antidote.”

  “I suppose not. That’s a good idea. Owen and I will go; the rest of you can stay here where no one will spot you.”

  He started to get up, but Kahlan pushed him back down. “Richard, you have to wait here. You can’t go. You’re dizzy. You need to save your strength.”

  Richard gazed into her green eyes, eyes that always captivated him, always made everything else but her seem unimportant. He wished they could be alone somewhere peaceful, like the home he had built for her back in the mountains where he had taken her to recover after she had been hurt…when she had lost their unborn child after being beaten nearly to death by those brutes.

  She was the most precious thing alive. She was everything. He wanted so much for her to be safe.

  “I’m strong enough,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “If you start coughing in that place where the soldiers are, then you’ll be caught and never get out—much less recover the antidote. You and Owen would both be caught. There is no telling how many soldiers are in there. What will happen to us if you’re caught? What would happen if…” Her voice trailed off. She hooked a stray strand of hair behind an ear. “Look, Richard, Owen went in there before; he can go in there again.”

  Richard saw desperation in her eyes. She was terrified of losing him. He hated that he was making her afraid.

  “That’s right, Lord Rahl,” Owen assured him. “I will get the antidote and bring it to you.”
br />   “While we’re waiting, you can get some rest,” Kahlan said. “Some sleep would do you more good than anything else until they bring back the antidote.”

  Richard couldn’t debate how tired he was. He still didn’t like the idea of not going himself.

  “Tom could go with him,” Cara suggested.

  Richard looked up into Cara’s blue eyes. He looked up into Kahlan’s eyes. He knew he had already lost this argument.

  “How far is this place?” Richard asked Owen.

  “A goodly distance. Here, we are just at the fringe of the city. I wanted to take us to a place where we would be less likely to encounter soldiers. The antidote is at most an hour distant. I thought it best if we were not too far into the city if we had to get back out, but we are close enough so that you will not have long to wait for the antidote.”

  Richard nodded. “All right. We’ll wait here for you and Tom.”

  Kahlan paced in the small, damp basement as the others sat against the wall, waiting in silence. She couldn’t stand the tension. It felt too much like a deathwatch.

  They were so close that it made it seem impossibly far. They had waited so long that the small amount of time left seemed an eternity that would never end. Kahlan told herself to calm down. Shortly, Richard would have the antidote. He would be better, then. He would be cured of the poison, then.

  But what if it didn’t work? What if he had already waited so long that he was beyond any cure? No, the man who had made the poison and the antidote had told Owen that this last dose would cure Richard of the poison for good. Because of the beliefs of these people, they would be certain that the poison was reversible. They would never have used it if they believed it would risk a life.

  But what if what they believed was wrong?

  Kahlan rubbed her shoulders as she paced, and admonished herself to stop inventing problems to worry about. They had enough real problems without letting her imagination get carried away. They would get the antidote and then they would address the problem with Richard’s gift. After that, they had to turn their attention to larger issues of Jagang and his army.