Naked Empire

Chapter 55

Whenever a breath of wind sighed among the branches above, silvery streamers of moonlight cascading down through the forest canopy glided about in the darkness like ghosts on the prowl. Kahlan peered around, barely able to make out the somber shapes of the looming trees as she tried to see if there was anything that did not belong. She heard no chirps of bugs, no small animals scurrying among the leaf litter, no mockingbirds singing throughout the night as there had been. Carefully picking her way over the mossy ground, she did her best to see in the gloom so as not to step in holes and cracks in the rocky places or pools of standing water in the low areas.

Ahead of her, Richard slipped through the open forest like a shadow. At times he seemed to disappear, causing her to fear that he might no longer be with them. He had ordered everyone following behind him not to talk and to walk as quietly as possible, but none of them could move through the woods as silently as he did.

For some reason, Richard was as tense as his bowstring. He felt that something was wrong, but he didn’t know what. While it might seem a beautiful moonlit night in the woods, the way Richard was acting, on top of the haunting silence, had draped a pall of foreboding over everyone.

Kahlan was at least pleased that the skies had cleared. The rains of recent days had made travel not just difficult, but miserable. While it hadn’t really been cold, the wet made it feel so. Taking shelter had not been an option. Until they had the final dose of the antidote, they had no choice but to press on.

The antidote from Northwick had improved Richard’s condition a little, in addition to stopping the advance of the symptoms of his poisoning, but now the temporary improvement was dissipating. Kahlan was so worried for him that she had no appetite.

They now had well over double the number of men with them, and many more than that were making their way toward the city of Hawton by different routes. Those other groups of men planned to eliminate the lesser detachments of Imperial Order soldiers stationed in villages along the way.

Richard, Kahlan, and their smaller group were pushing toward Hawton as rapidly as possible, deliberately avoiding contact with the enemy so as to get there before Nicholas and his soldiers knew they were on their way.

Stealth would afford them the best chance of recovering the final dose of the antidote.

Once they had the antidote, then they could gather with the rest of the men for an attack. Kahlan knew that if they could first eliminate Nicholas it would make it much easier, and less risky, to defeat the remaining Imperial Order troops. If she could somehow find a way to get close to Nicholas she could touch him with her power. She knew better than to suggest such an idea to Richard; he would never go along with it.

To a certain extent, Kahlan felt responsible for what these people had suffered under the Imperial Order. After all, if not for her freeing the chimes, the boundary protecting Bandakar would still be in place. Yet, if these people could rid themselves of the Imperial Order, the changes that had come about also meant the true freedom they had never really enjoyed and, with it, the opportunity for better lives.

The change in the people in Northwick had been heartening to witness.

That night, the men Richard and Kahlan had brought had stayed up most of the night talking to the people there, explaining the things Richard and Kahlan had explained to them. The morning after the annihilation of the soldiers who had taken over their city and held them in the grip of fear, the people had celebrated by singing and dancing in the streets. Those people had learned not only just how precious freedom really was, but also that their old ways provided no real tools for improving the quality of their lives.

After Richard had dissolved the ancient illusions of the Wise One’s wisdom and the meaningless tenets the speakers substituted for knowledge, and after the killing of the enemy soldiers, the men of Northwick had not been shy about volunteering to help rid their land of the Imperial Order.

Freed from the enforced blindness of a repressive mindset, many now hungered aloud for a future of their own making.

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 near by 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 return 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.”