Faith of the Fallen

Chapter 4

A sound woke her as suddenly as a slap. Kahlan lay on her back, still as death, her eyes wide, listening. It wasn’t so much that the sound had been loud, but that it had been something disturbingly familiar. Something dangerous.

Her whole body throbbed with pain, but she was more awake than she had been in what seemed like weeks. She didn’t know how long she had been asleep, or perhaps unconscious. She was awake enough to remember that it would be a grave mistake to try to sit up, because just about the only part of her not injured was her right arm. One of the big chestnut geldings snorted nervously and stamped a hoof, jostling the carnage enough to remind Kahlan of her broken ribs.

The sticky air smelled of approaching rain, though fits of wind still bore dust to her nostrils. Dark masses of leaves overhead swung fretfully to and fro, their creaking branches giving voice to their torment. Deep purple and violet clouds scudded past in silence. Beyond the trees and clouds, the field of blue-black sky held a lone star, high over her forehead. She wasn’t sure if it was dawn or dusk, but it felt like the death of day.

As the gusts beat strands of her filthy hair across her face, Kahlan listened as hard as she could for the sound that didn’t belong, still hoping to fit it into a picture of something innocent. Since she’d heard it only from the deepness of sleep, its conscious identity remained frustratingly out of her reach.

She listened, too, for sounds of Richard and Cara, but heard nothing.

Surely, they would be close. They would not leave her alone—not for any reason this side of death. She recoiled from the image. She ached to call out for Richard and prove the uninvited thought a foolish fear, but instinct screamed at her to stay silent. She needed no reminder not to move.

A metallic clang came from the distance, then a cry. Maybe it was an animal, she told herself. Ravens sometimes let out the most awful cries.

Their shrill wails could sound so human it was eerie. But as far as she knew, ravens didn’t make metallic sounds.

The carriage suddenly lurched to the right. Her breath caught as the unanticipated movement caused a stitch of pain in the back of her ribs.

Someone had put weight on the step. By the careless disregard for the carriage’s injured passenger, she knew it wasn’t Richard or Cara. But if it wasn’t Richard, then who? Gooseflesh tickled the nape of her neck. If it wasn’t Richard, where was he?

Stubby fingers grasped the top of the corded chafing strip on the carriage’s side rail. The blunt fingertips were rounded back over grubby, gnawed-down little halfbutton fingernails. Kahlan held her breath, hoping he didn’t realize she was in the carriage.

A face popped up. Cunning dark eyes squinted at her. The man’s four middle upper teeth were missing, leaving his eyeteeth looking like fangs when he grinned.

“Well, well. If it ain’t the wife of the late Richard Cypher.”

Kahlan lay frozen. This was just like her dreams. For an instant, she couldn’t decide if it was only that, just a dream, or real.

His shirt bore a dark patina of dirt, as if it was never removed for anything. Sparse, wiry hairs on his fleshy cheeks and chin were like early weeds in the plowed field of his pockmarked face. His upper lip was wet from his runny nose. He had no lower teeth in front. The tip of his tongue rested partway out between the yawning gap of his smirk.

He brought up a knife for her to see. He turned it this way and that, almost as if he were showing off a prized possession to a shy girl he was courting. His eyes kept flicking back and forth between the knife and Kahlan. The slipshod job of sharpening appeared to have been done on rough granite, rather than on a proper whetstone. Dark blotches and rust stained the poorly kept cheap steel. But the scratched and chipped edge was no less deadly for any of it. His wicked, toothless grin widened with pleasure as her gaze followed the blade, watching it carve careful slices of the air between them.

She made herself look into his dark, sunken eyes, which peered out from puffy slits. “Where’s Richard?” she demanded in a level voice.

“Dancing with the spirits in the underworld.” He cocked his head to one side. “Where’s the blond bitch? The one my friends said they saw before. The one with the smart mouth. The one what needs to have her tongue shortened before I gut her.”

Kahlan glared at him so he would know she had no intention of answering. As the crude knife advanced toward her, his stench hit her.

“You would have to be Tommy Lancaster.”

The knife paused. “How’d you know that?”

Anger welled up from deep inside her. “Richard told me about you.”

The eyes glittered with menace. His grin widened. “Yeah? What did he tell you?”

“That you were an ugly toothless pig who wets his pants whenever he grins. Smells like he was right.”

The smirking grin turned to a scowl. He raised up on the step and leaned in with the knife. That was what Kahlan wanted him to do—to get close enough so she could touch him.

With the discipline borne of a lifetime of experience, she mentally shed her anger and donned the calm of a Confessor committed to a course of action. Once a Confessor was resolved to releasing her power, the nature of time itself seemed to change.

She had but to touch him.

A Confessor’s power was partly dependent on her strength. In her injured condition, she didn’t know if she would be able to call forth the required force, and if she could, whether she would survive the unleashing of it, but she knew she had no choice. One of them was about to die. Maybe both.

He leaned his elbow on the side rail. His fist with the knife went for her exposed throat. Rather than watching the knife, Kahlan watched the little scars, like dusty white cobwebs caught on his knuckles. When the fist was close enough, she made her move to snatch his wrist.

Unexpectedly, she discovered she was snugly enfolded in the blue blanket. She hadn’t realized Richard had placed her on the litter he’d made. The blanket was wrapped around her and tightly tucked under the stretcher poles in order to hold her as still as possible and prevent her from being hurt when the carriage was moving. Her arm was trapped inside what was about to become her death shroud.

Hot panic flared up as she struggled to free her right arm. She was in a desperate race with the blade coming for her throat. Pain knifed her injured ribs as she battled with the blanket. She had no time to cry out or to curse in frustration at being so unwittingly snared. Her fingers gathered a fold of material. She yanked at it, trying to pull some slack from under the litter she lay atop so she could free her arm.

Kahlan had merely to touch him, but she couldn’t. His blade was going to be the only contact between them. Her only hope was that maybe his knuckles would brush her flesh, or maybe he just might be close enough as he started to slice her throat that she could press her chin against his hand.

Then, she could release her power, if she was still alive—if he didn’t cut too deep, first.

As she twisted and pulled at the blanket, it seemed to her an eternity as she watched the blade poised over her exposed neck, an eternity to wait before she had any hope of unleashing her power—an eternity to live. But she knew there was only an instant more before she would feel the ripping slash of that rough blade.

It didn’t happen at all as she expected.

Tommy Lancaster wrenched backward with an earsplitting shriek. The world around Kahlan crashed back in a riot of sound and motion with the abrupt readjustment to the discontinuation of her intent. Kahlan saw Cara behind him, her teeth clenched in a grim commitment of her own. In her pristine red leather, she was a precious ruby behind a clod of dirt.

Bent into the Agiel pressed against his back, Tommy Lancaster had less hope of pulling away from Cara than if she had impaled him on a meat hook.

His torment would not have been more brutal to witness, his shrieks more painful to hear.

Cara’s Agiel dragged up and around the side of his ribs as he collapsed to his knees. Each rib the Agiel passed over broke with a sharp crack, like the sound of a tree limb snapping. Vivid red, the match of her leather, oozed over his knuckles and down his fingers. The knife clattered to the rocky ground. A dark stain of blood grew on the side of his shirt until it dripped off the untucked tails.

Cara stood over him, an austere executioner, watching him beg for mercy. Instead of granting it, she pressed her Agiel against his throat and followed him to the ground. His eyes were wide and white all around as he choked.

It was a slow, agonizing journey toward death. Tommy Lancaster’s arms and legs writhed as he began to drown in his own blood. Cara could have ended it quickly, but it didn’t appear she had any intention of doing so.

This man had meant to kill Kahlan. Cara meant to extract a heavy price for the crime.

“Cara!” Kahlan was surprised that she could get so much power into the shout. Cara glanced back over her shoulder. Tommy Lancaster’s hands went to his throat and he gasped for air when she rose up to stand over him. “Cara, stop it. Where’s Richard? Richard may need your help.”

Cara leaned down over Tommy Lancaster, pressed her Agiel to his chest, and gave it a twist. His left leg kicked out once, his arms flopped to the side, and he went still.

Before either Cara or Kahlan could say anything, Richard, his face set in cold ferocity, sprinted up toward the carriage. He had his sword to hand.

The blade was dark and wet.

The instant Kahlan saw his sword, she comprehended what had awakened her. The sound had been the Sword of Truth announcing its arrival in the evening air. In her sleep, her subconscious recognized the unique ring of steel made by the Sword of Truth when it was drawn, and she instinctively grasped the danger that that sound represented.

On his way to Kahlan’s side, Richard only glanced at the lifeless body at Cara’s feet.

“Are you all right?”

Kahlan nodded. “Fine.” Belatedly, yet feeling triumphant at the accomplishment, she pulled her arm free of the blanket.

Richard turned to Cara. “Anyone else come up the road?”

“No. Just this one.” She gestured with her Agiel toward the knife on the ground. “He intended to cut the Mother Confessor’s throat.”

If Tommy Lancaster hadn’t already been dead, Richard’s glare would have finished him. “I hope you didn’t make it easy on him.”

“No, Lord Rahl. He regretted his last vile act—I made certain of it.”

With his sword, Richard indicated the surrounding area. “Stay here and keep your eyes open. I’m sure we got them all, but I’m going to check just to be certain no one else was holding back and trying to surprise us from another direction.”

“No one will get near the Mother Confessor, Lord Rahl.”

Dust rose in the gloomy light when he gave a reassuring pat to the shoulder of one of the two horses standing in their harnesses. “Soon as I get back, I want to get going. We should have enough moon—for a few hours, anyway. I know a safe place to make camp about four hours up the road. That will get us a good distance away from all this.”

He pointed with his sword. “Drag his body past the brush over there and roll him off the edge, down into the ravine. I’d just as soon the bodies weren’t found until after we’re long gone and far away. Probably only the animals will ever find them way out here, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

Cara snatched a fistful of Tommy Lancaster’s hair. “With pleasure.” He was stocky, but the weight gave her no difficulty.

Richard trotted soundlessly off into the gathering darkness. Kahlan listened to the sound of the body scraping across the ground. She heard small branches snapping as Cara pulled the dead weight through the brush, and then the muffled thuds and tumbling scree as Tommy Lancaster’s body rolled and bounced down a steep slope. It was a long time before Kahlan heard the final thump at the bottom of the ravine.

Cara ambled back to the side of the carnage. “Everything all right with you?” She casually pulled off her armored gloves.

Kahlan blinked at the woman. “Cara, he nearly had me.”

Cara flicked her long blond braid back over her shoulder as she scanned the surrounding area. “No he didn’t. I was standing right there behind him the whole time. I was nearly breathing down his neck. I never took my eyes from his knife. He had no chance to harm you.” She met Kahlan’s gaze.

“Surely, you must have seen me.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Oh. I thought you saw me.” Looking a little sheepish, she tucked most of the cuffs of the gloves behind her belt and folded the rest down over the front. “I guess maybe you were too low in the carriage to see me there behind him. I had my attention on him. I didn’t mean to let him frighten you.”

“If you were there the whole time, why did you allow him to nearly kill me?”

“He did not nearly kill you.” Cara smiled without humor. “But I wanted to let him believe it. It’s more of a shock, more of a horror, if you let them think they’ve won. It crushes a man’s spirit to take him then, when you’ve caught him dead to rights.”

Kahlan’s head was swimming in confusion and so she decided not to press the issue. “What’s going on? What’s happened? How long have I been asleep?”

“We have been traveling for two days. You have been in and out of sleep, but you didn’t know anything the times you were awake. Lord Rahl was fretful about hurting you to get you into the carnage, and about having told you . . . what you forgot.”

Kahlan knew what Cara meant: her dead baby. “And the men?”

“They came after us. This time, though, Lord Rahl didn’t discuss it with them.” She seemed especially pleased about that. “He knew in enough time that they were coming, so we weren’t taken by surprise. When they came charging in, some with arrows nocked and some with their swords or axes out, he shouted at them—once—giving them a chance to change their minds.”

“He tried to reason with them? Even then?”

“Well, not exactly. He told them to go home in peace, or they would all die.”

“And then what?”

“And then they all laughed. It only seemed to embolden them. They charged, arrows flying, swords and axes raised. So Lord Rahl ran off into the woods.”

“He did what?”

“Before they came, he had told me that he was going to make them all chase after him. As Lord Rahl ran, the one who thought he would cut your throat yelled at the others to get Richard, and finish him this time. Lord Rahl had hoped he would draw them all away from you, but when that one went after you instead, Lord Rahl gave me a look and I knew what he wanted me to do.”

Cara clasped her hands behind her back as she scrutinized the gathering darkness, keeping watch, should anyone try to surprise them. Kahlan’s thoughts turned to Richard, and what it must have been like, all alone as they chased him.

“How many men?”

“I didn’t count them.” Cara shrugged. “Maybe two dozen.”

“And you left Richard alone with two dozen men chasing after him? Two dozen men intent on killing him?”

Cara shot Kahlan an incredulous look. “And leave you unprotected? When I knew that toothless brute was going after you? Lord Rahl would have skinned me alive if I had left you.”

Tall and lean, shoulders squared and chin raised, Cara looked as pleased as a cat licking mouse off its whiskers. Kahlan suddenly understood: Richard had entrusted Cara with Kahlan’s life; the Mord-Sith had proven that faith justified.

Kahlan felt a smile stretch the partly healed cuts on her lips. “I just wish I’d known you were standing there the whole time. Now, thanks to you, I won’t need the wooden bowl.”

Cara didn’t laugh. “Mother Confessor, you should know that I would never let anything happen to either of you.”

Richard appeared out of the shadows as suddenly as he had vanished. He stroked the horses reassuringly. As he moved down beside them, he quickly checked the neck collars, the trace chains, and the breaching to make sure it was all secure.

“Anything?” he asked Cara.

“No, Lord Rahl. Quiet and clear.”

He leaned in the carnage and smiled. “Well, as long as you’re awake, how about I take you for a romantic moonlight ride?”

She rested her hand on his forearm. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Not a scratch.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

His smile vanished. “They tried to kill us. Westland has just suffered its first casualties because of the influence of the Imperial Order.”

“But you knew them.”

“That doesn’t entitle them to misplaced sympathy. How many thousands have I seen killed since I left here? I couldn’t even convince men I grew up with of the truth. I couldn’t even get them to listen fairly. All the death and suffering I’ve seen is ultimately because of men like this—men who refuse to see.

“Their willful ignorance does not entitle them to my blood or life. They picked their own path. For once, they paid the price.”

He didn’t sound to her like a man who was quitting the fight. He still held the sword, was still in the grip of its rage. Kahlan caressed his arm, letting him know that she understood. It was clear to her that even though he’d been justly defending himself, and though he was still filled with the sword’s rage, he keenly regretted what he’d had to do. The men, had they been able to kill Richard instead, would have regretted nothing. They would have celebrated his death as a great victory.

“That was still perilous—making them all chase after you.”

“No, it wasn’t. It drew them out of the open and into the trees. They had to dismount. It’s rocky and the footing is poor, so they couldn’t rush me together or with speed, like they could out here on the road.

“The light is failing; they thought that was to their advantage. It wasn’t. In the trees it was even darker. I’m wearing mostly black. It’s warm, so I’d left my gold cape behind, here in the carriage. The little bit of gold on the rest of the outfit only serves to break up the shape of a man’s figure in the near-dark, so they had an even harder time seeing me.

“Once I took down Albert, they stopped thinking and fought with pure anger until they started seeing blood and death. Those men are used to brawls, not battles. They had expected an easy time murdering us—they weren’t mentally prepared to fight for their own lives. Once they saw the true nature of what was happening, they ran for their lives. The ones left, anyway. These are my woods. In their panic, they became confused and lost their way in the trees. I cut them off and ended it.”

“Did you get them all?” Cara asked, worried about any who might escape and bring more men after them.

“Yes. I knew most of them, and besides, I had their number in my head. I counted the bodies to make sure I got them all.”

“How many?” Cara asked.

Richard turned to take up the reins. “Not enough for their purpose.” He clicked his tongue and started the horses moving.