“When we have time, I promise.”
“Where are we, anyway?”
“In the lower parts of the Keep, at the base of one of the towers.”
“Lower parts of the Keep?”
Richard nodded. “Down under the library.”
“Under the library! No one can go below the library level. There are shields that have kept every wizard from the lower Keep for as long as anyone knows.”
“Well, that’s where we are and that, too, we’ll have to talk about later. We have to get down to the city.”
They stepped out of Kolo’s room, and immediately they both flattened themselves against the wall. The red mriswith queen was in the pool beyond the railing. She spread her wings protectively over a clutch of hundreds of eggs the size of large melons as she trumpeted a warning that echoed around the inside of the huge tower.
From what little light that came in from the openings overheard, Richard could see that it was late afternoon. It had taken less than a day, at least he hoped just one day, to reach Aydindril. In the light, he could also see the vast extent of the clutch of splotchy gray and green eggs atop the rock.
“It’s the mriswith queen,” Richard hastily explained as he climbed the railing. “I have to destroy those eggs.”
Kahlan shouted his name, trying to call him back, as he vaulted the railing, into the dark, slimy water. Richard held out his sword as he waded through the waist-deep water toward the slick rocks in the center. The queen rose up on her claws, venting a clacking bellow.
Her head snaked close to him, her jaws snapping. In that moment, Richard swung the sword. The grotesque head recoiled. She huffed a cloud of acrid aroma at him that carried a clear message of warning. Relentlessly, Richard slogged ahead. Her jaws gaped, revealing long, sharp teeth.
Richard couldn’t let the mriswith have Aydindril. And if he didn’t destroy these eggs, then there would be even more mriswith to deal with.
“Richard! I tried to use the blue lightning, but it won’t work down here! Come back!”
The hissing queen snapped at him. Richard stabbed at the head when it came close, but she kept just out of reach and roared in anger. Richard was able to keep the head at bay while he groped for a handhold.
He found a crag to grasp, and scrambled up onto the dark, slimy rocks. He swung the sword, and when the menacing jaws pulled back, he hacked at the eggs. Stinking yolk oozed across the dark stone as he broke the thick, leathery shells.
The queen went wild. Her wings flapped, lifting her clear of the rock and out of the reach of Richard’s sword. Her tail lashed around, snapping like a huge whip. When the tail came close, Richard swung the sword to keep her at bay. He was more interested in destroying the eggs at the moment.
Her teeth snapped as she lunged at him. Richard thrust the sword, piercing her neck with a glancing strike, enough that the queen reeled back in pain and fury. Her frantically flapping wings knocked him sprawling across the rock. Richard rolled to the side to avoid the slashing claws. Her tail thrashed at him again, and her jaws snapped. Richard was forced to forget the eggs for the moment and defend himself. If he could kill her, it would simplify the task.
The queen squealed in anger. A moment later, Richard heard a crunching sound. He turned toward the noise and saw Kahlan smashing eggs with a board that had been part of the door to Kolo’s room. He scrambled across the slippery rock to put himself between Kahlan and the enraged queen. He slashed at the head when it tried to bite them, at the tail when it tried to sweep him from the rock, and at the claws when they tried to rip him apart.
“You just keep it way,” Kahlan said as she swung the board, smashing eggs and wading into the gooey, yellow muck, “and I’ll take care of these.”
Richard didn’t want Kahlan in danger, but he knew she was defending her city, too, and he couldn’t ask her to go hide. Besides, he needed her help. He had to get down to the city.
“Just hurry,” he said between dodging and attacking.
The huge red bulk flung itself at him, trying to crush him against the rock. Richard dove to the side, but the queen still came down on his leg. He cried out in pain and slashed with the sword as the beast gnashed at him.
The board suddenly whacked down on top of the fleshy slits atop the queen’s head. She staggered back in howling pain, her wings flapping wildly, and her claws raking the air. Kahlan hooked an arm through his and helped pull him away as the red body lifted. They both tumbled back into the stagnant water.
“I got them all,” Kahlan said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I have to get her,” Richard said, “or she’ll just lay more.”
But the mriswith queen, seeing all her eggs destroyed, switched from attack, to escape. Her wings beat madly, lifting her into the air. She lunged at the wall, fastened her claws to the stone, and began to climb toward a large opening high up on the tower.
Richard and Kahlan pulled themselves out of the reeking pool and onto the walkway. Richard started for the stairs that wound their way up around the inside of the tower, but when he put weight on his leg, he crashed to the floor.
Kahlan helped him stand. “You can’t get to her now. We broke all the eggs, we’ll just have to worry about her later. Is your leg broken?”
Richard leaned against the railing, rubbing the painful bruise as he watched the queen climb out the opening high up in the tower. “No, she just mashed it against the rock. We have to get down to the city.”
“But you can’t walk.”
“I’ll be all right. The pain is easing up. Let’s go.”
Richard took one of the glowing spheres to light the way and, with Kahlan giving him support, they started out of the belly of the Keep. She had never been in the rooms and halls he took her through. He had to hold her in his arms to help her get through the shields, and constantly caution her what she mustn’t touch, and where she must not step. She repeatedly questioned his warnings, but followed his insistent orders, muttering to herself that she had never known these peculiar places existed in the Keep.
By the time they had wound their way up through the rooms and halls to the top, his leg, though it still hurt, was working better. He could walk, if with a limp.
“At last, I know where we are,” Kahlan said when they came up to the long hall before the libraries. “I was worried we would never get out from down there.”
Richard headed toward the corridors he knew to be the way out. Kahlan protested that he couldn’t go that way, but he insisted that that was the way he always went, and she reluctantly followed. He held her to get her through the shield into the great hall at the entrance, and they were both glad for the excuse.
“How much farther?” she asked as she looked around the near barren room.
“Right here. This is the door out.”
When they went through the door to the outside, Kahlan turned around twice in astonishment. She snatched his shirt and gestured to the door. “There? You went in there! That’s the way you went into the Keep?”
Richard nodded. “That’s where the stone path led.”
She pointed angrily above the door. “Look what it says! And you went in there?”
Richard glanced up at the words carved in the stone lintel above the huge door. “I don’t know what those words mean.”
“Tavol de ator Mortado,” she said, reading the words aloud. “It means ‘Path of the Dead.’”
Richard glanced briefly at the other doors beyond the expanse of stone chips and gravel. He remembered the thing that had come for them under the gravel.
“Well, it seemed the biggest door, and the path led right to it, so I thought that was the way to go in. Kind of makes sense, when you think about it. I am named ‘the bringer of death.’”
Kahlan rubbed her arms in dismay. “We were frightened you would come up into the Keep. We were scared to death you would go in there and be killed. Dear spirits, I can’t believe you weren’t. Not even the wizards would go in this entrance. That s
hield just inside wouldn’t allow me to pass without your help; that alone means it’s perilous beyond. I can pass all the shields except those protecting the most dangerous places.”
Richard heard a crunching of rock, and saw movement in the gravel. He pulled Kahlan back onto the center of a stepping-stone as the thing took a snaking course toward them.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
Richard pointed. “Something’s coming.”
Kahlan cast him a frown over her shoulder and walked out onto the gravel. “You’re not afraid of this, are you?” She squatted and burrowed her hand into the gravel as the thing beneath came to her. She wiggled her hand around as if scratching a pet.
“What are you doing!”
Kahlan grappled playfully with the thing under the gravel. “It’s just a stone hound. Wizard Giller conjured him up to frighten away a woman who was pestering him all the time. She was afraid to cross the gravel, and of course no one in their right mind would dare to go into the Path of the Dead.” Kahlan stood. “You mean… don’t tell me you were afraid of the stone hound.”
“Well… no, not exactly… but…”
Kahlan put her fists on her hips. “You went into the Path of the Dead, and through those shields, because you were afraid of a stone hound? That’s why you didn’t go to the other doors?”
“Kahlan, I didn’t know what the thing under the gravel was. I’d never seen anything like it before.” He scratched his elbow. “All right, so, I was afraid of it. I was trying to be cautious. And I couldn’t read the words, so I didn’t know that this door was dangerous.”
She shot a stymied look skyward. “Richard, you could have—”
“I didn’t get killed in the Keep, I found the sliph, and I got to you. Now, come on. We need to get down to the city.”
She put her arm around his waist. “You’re right. I guess I’m just edgy from…” She lifted a hand toward the door. “From all that happened in there. That mriswith queen frightened me. I’m just thankful that you made it.”
Arm in arm, they hurried through the towering, arched opening through the outer wall.
As they rushed under the huge portcullis, a powerful red tail whipped around from beyond the corner, felling them both. Before Richard could get his wind back, wings were beating overhead. Claws ripped at him. He felt searing pain in his left shoulder as a claw hooked him. Kahlan was sent tumbling across the ground by the thrashing tail.
While he was being hauled closer to the gaping jaws by the claw embedded in his shoulder, he yanked his sword free. The rage inundated him instantly. He slashed through a wing. The queen recoiled, yanking the claw free from his shoulder. The wrath of the magic helped him ignore the pain as he sprang to his feet.
He stabbed with the sword as the beast lunged at him, snapping her jaws. She seemed all wings, teeth, claws, and tail, plunging at him as he scurried backward. Richard stabbed an arm, and the queen drew back in pain. Her tail lashed around, catching him across the middle, throwing him up against the wall. He hacked wildly at the tail, taking off the tip.
The red mriswith queen reared back on her hind feet, under the spiked portcullis. Richard dove for the catch lever and caught it with all his weight. With a squealing clatter, the gate plunged toward the raving beast. The queen twisted as the gate crashed down, just missing her back, but catching a wing, pinning it to the ground. She howled even louder.
Richard started in cold fright when he saw that Kahlan was on the ground—on the other side of the gate. The queen saw her, too, and with a mighty effort, ripped her wing out from under the gate, tearing it into long, ragged shreds.
“Kahlan! Run!”
Groggy, she tried to crawl away, but the beast pounced. It snatched her by a leg, holding her fast.
The queen turned and spewed a fetid odor at him. Richard had no trouble understanding the meaning: revenge.
With mad effort, he pulled at the wheel that lifted the gate. It rose inches at a time. The queen was wriggling down the road, dragging Kahlan by her leg.
Richard released the wheel and, driven by the fury of the magic, swung the sword at the flat bars of the portcullis. Sparks and hot shards of steel smoked through the air. Screaming in rage, he swung the sword again at the iron, ripping another gash through the bars. A third swing and a piece was cut free. He kicked it over and plunged through the opening.
Richard charged down the road toward the retreating red beast. Kahlan clawed at the ground in a desperate attempt to get away. When it reached the bridge, the queen hopped up on the wall at the edge, snarling at him as he came at full speed.
The queen flapped its shredded wings, as if it didn’t realize it couldn’t fly. Still running, Richard screamed out as it turned, spreading its wings in readiness to leap off the bridge with its prize.
The tail swept across the road as Richard raced onto the bridge. He lopped off a six-foot section. The queen spun, holding Kahlan upside down by her leg like a stick doll. Richard, beyond reason, swung the sword in a blind rage as she snapped at him. Sprayed by the beast’s blood, he slashed off the front half of a wing, the bone splintering to white shards under his blade. She lashed her truncated tail at him as she flapped her other mangled wing.
Kahlan screamed as she stretched toward Richard, her fingers spread, just out of reach. He drove the sword into the red belly. A red claw pulled Kahlan away as he tried to snatch her hand. Richard sheared the other wing off at the shoulder. Blood sprayed the air as the raging beast twisted this way and that, trying to get at him. It kept her from her hunger to rip Kahlan apart.
Richard took off another section of tail when it came close enough. As the reeking blood sprayed everywhere, the queen’s reactions became sluggish, allowing Richard to inflict still more wounds.
Richard lunged and seized Kahlan’s wrist, and she his, as he drove the sword hilt-deep up into the underside of the heaving red chest. It was a mistake.
The mortally wounded mriswith queen had a death grip on Kahlan’s leg. The red beast teetered, and with a nightmarishly slow twist, tumbled off the bridge over the yawning abyss. Kahlan shrieked. Richard tightened his hold on her with all his strength. The pull on his arm as the queen fell slammed his stomach against the wall above the dizzying drop.
Richard swung the sword over the edge and with one powerful stroke sheared the arm that held Kahlan’s leg. The red beast spiraled down between the sheer walls that dropped for thousands of feet, to disappear in the distance far below.
Kahlan hung by his hand over the same drop. Blood was running down his arm and over their hands. He could feel her wrist slipping through his grip. His thighs were the only thing keeping him from going over the wall.
With a mighty effort, he lifted her a couple of feet. “Grab the wall with your other hand. I can’t hold you. You’re slipping.”
Kahlan slapped her free hand onto the top of the stone wall, taking some of the weight. He tossed the sword to the road behind and got his other hand under her arm. Richard gritted his teeth and, with her help, pulled her up over the wall and onto the road.
“Get it off!” she cried. “Get it off!”
Richard pried the claws open and extracted her leg. He tossed the red arm over the edge. Kahlan fell into his arms, panting in exhaustion, too weary to speak.
Through the throb of pain, Richard felt the heady warmth of relief. “Why didn’t you use your power… the lightning?”
“It wouldn’t work down inside the Keep, and out here that thing knocked me senseless. Why didn’t you use yours—some of that fearful black lightning, like back at the Palace of the Prophets?”
Richard considered the question. “I don’t know. I don’t know how the gift works. It has something to do with instinct. I can’t make it work at will.” He stroked a hand down her hair as he closed his eyes. “I wish Zedd were here. He would be able to help me control it—learn to use it. I miss him so.”
“I know,” she whispered.
Over their labored breat
hing, he could hear the distant cries of men and the ring of steel. He realized he smelled smoke. The air was hazy with it.
He helped Kahlan up, ignoring the fierce ache in his shoulder, and they rushed down the road to a switchback where there was a view of the city below.
As they stumbled to an abrupt halt at the edge, Kahlan gasped.
In shock, Richard sank to his knees. “Dear spirits,” he whispered, “what have I caused?”
53
“It’s Lord Rahl!” Voices carried the shout back through the horde of D’Haran troops. “Rally! It’s Lord Rahl!”
A cry swelled in the late-afternoon air. Thousands of voices rose above the din of battle. Weapons thrust into the smoky air with the roar of the shouts. “Lord Rahl! Lord Rahl! Lord Rahl!”
Grim-faced, Richard marched through the soldiers at the rear of the battle. Wounded, bleeding men staggered to their feet and joined in the throng following him.
Through the haze of acrid smoke, Richard could see down the slope of the streets to the frantic fighting at the van of dark uniformed D’Harans. Beyond, a sea of red flooded into the city, driving them back. Blood of the Fold. To each side and all around, they came, relentless, unstoppable.
“There must be well over a hundred thousand,” Kahlan said, seemingly to herself.
Richard had sent a force of a hundred thousand to search for Kahlan. They were weeks away from the city. He had divided the force in Aydindril nearly in two, and sent half away. And now came the Blood of the Fold, to take advantage of his mistake.
But still, there should have been enough D’Harans to hold against that many. Something was deadly wrong.
With a growing crowd of wounded dragging along behind, Richard reached the rear of what seemed the largest battle. The Blood of the Fold were pressing in from all sides of the city. Flames snapped skyward from Kings Row. It the center of the sweep of dark uniforms stood the white splendor of the Confessors’ Palace.
Officers came at a run, their joy at seeing him tempered by what was happening just beyond. The screams from the site of the fighting burned through his nerves.