Temple of the Winds

Chapter 5

“I’ll kill her,” Kahlan rasped in a hoarse voice as she stared off at nothing. “With my bare hands. I’ll strangle the life out of her!”

Cara turned toward the bedroom. “I will take care of it. Better if you let me take care of her.”

Kahlan hooked Cara’s arm. “Not her. I’m talking about Shota.” She gestured toward the bedroom door. “She doesn’t understand any of this. She doesn’t know about Shota.”

“You know this witch woman, then?”

Kahlan bitterly huffed out a breath. “Oh yes, I know her. She’s been trying to prevent Richard and me from being together since the first.”

“Why would she do that?”

Kahlan turned away from the bedroom door. “I don’t know. She gives a different reason every time, but I sometimes fear that it’s because she wants Richard for herself.”

Cara frowned. “How would getting Lord Rahl to marry this little strumpet gain Shota Lord Rahl?”

Kahlan flicked a hand. “I don’t know. Shota is always up to something. She’s caused us trouble at every turn.” Her fists tightened with resolve. “But it won’t work, this time. If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to end her meddling. And then Richard and I are going to be married.” Her voice dropped to a whispered oath. “If I have to touch Shota with my power and send her to the underworld, I will end her meddling.”

Cara folded her arms as she considered the problem. “What do you wish done with Nadine?” Her blue eyes turned toward the bedroom. “It still might be best to . . . get rid of her.”

Kahlan squeezed the bridge of her nose between a finger and thumb. “This isn’t Nadine’s doing. She’s simply a pawn in Shota’s plotting.”

“One foot soldier can sometimes cause you more trouble than a general’s battle plan if he . . .”

Cara’s words trailed off as her arms came unfolded. She cocked her head, as if listening to a wind in the halls.

“Lord Rahl is coming.”

The ability of the Mord-Sith to sense Richard through their bond to him was uncanny, if not unnerving. The door opened. Berdine and Raina, wearing leather of the same cut and skintight style as Cara’s, but brown rather than red, strutted into the room.

Both were a bit shorter than Cara, but no less attractive. Where Cara was leggy, muscular, and without a spare ounce of fat, blue-eyed Berdine had a more curvaceous shape. Berdine’s wavy brown hair was plaited in the characteristic long braid of a Mord-Sith, as was graceful Raina’s fine, dark hair. All three shared the same ruthless confidence.

Raina’s incisive, dark-eyed gaze took in Cara’s red leather, but she made no comment. Both she and Berdine wore grim, forbidding expressions. The two Mord-Sith turned to face one another from either side of the door.

“We present Lord Rahl,” Berdine said in an officious tone, “the Seeker of Truth and wielder of the Sword of Truth, the bringer of death, the Master of D’Hara, the ruler of the Midlands, the commander of the gar nation, the champion of free people and bane of the wicked”—her penetrating blue eyes turned to Kahlan—“and the betrothed of the Mother Confessor.” She lifted an introductory arm toward the door.

Kahlan couldn’t imagine what was going on. She had seen the Mord-Sith display a variety of temperaments, from imperious to mischievous, but she had never seen them acting ceremonial.

Richard strode into the room. His raptor gaze locked on Kahlan. For an instant, the world stopped. There was nothing else but the two of them, joined in a silent link.

A smile widened on his lips and gleamed in his eyes. A smile of unbounded love.

There was only her and Richard. Only his eyes.

But the rest of him . . .

She felt her mouth drop open. In astonishment, Kahlan put a hand over her heart. As long as she had known him, he had worn only his simple woods clothes. But now . . .

His black boots were all she recognized. The tops of the boots were wrapped with leather thongs pinned with silver emblems embossed with geometric designs, and covered new, black wool trousers. Over a black shirt was a black, open-sided tunic, decorated with symbols snaking along a wide gold band running all the way around its squared edges. A wide, multilayered leather belt bearing several more of the silver emblems and a gold-worked pouch to each side cinched the magnificent tunic at his waist. The ancient, tooled-bather baldric holding the gold and silver wrought scabbard for the Sword of Truth crossed over his right shoulder. At each wrist was a wide, leather-padded silver band bearing linked rings encompassing more of the strange symbols. His broad shoulders bore a cape that appeared to be made of spun gold. He looked at once noble and sinister. Regal, and deadly. He looked like a commander of kings. And like a vision of what the prophecies had named him: the bringer of death.

Kahlan would never have thought he could look more handsome than he always did. More commanding. More imposing. She was wrong.

As her jaw worked, trying to bring forth words that weren’t there, he crossed the room. He bent and kissed her temple.

“Good,” Cara announced. “She needed that; she had a headache.” She lifted an eyebrow to Kahlan. “All better now?”

Kahlan, hardly able to get her breath, hardly hearing Cara, touched her fingers to him, as if to test it this was a vision, or real.

“Like it?” he asked.

“Like it? Dear spirits . . .” she breathed.

He chuckled. “I’ll take that for a yes.”

Kahlan wished everyone was gone. “But, Richard, what is this? Where did you get all this?”

She couldn’t take her hand from his chest. She liked the feel of his breathing. She could feel his heart beating, too. And she could feel her own heart pounding.

“Well,” he said, “I knew you wanted me to get some new clothes—”

She pulled her gaze from his body and looked up into his gray eyes. “What? I never said that.”

He laughed. “Your beautiful green eyes said it for you. When you looked at my old woods outfit, your eyes spoke quite clearly.”

She took a step back and gestured to the new clothes. “Where did you get all this?”

He clasped one of her hands and with the fingers of his other lifted her chin to gaze into her eyes. “You’re so beautiful. You’re going to look magnificent in your blue wedding dress. I wanted to look worthy of the Mother Confessor herself when we’re married. I had it made in a hurry so as not to delay our wedding.”

“He had the seamstresses make it for him. It was a surprise,” Cara said. “I never told her your secret, Lord Rahl. She tried her best to get it out of me, but I didn’t tell her.”

“Thank you, Cara.” Richard laughed. “I bet it wasn’t easy.”

Kahlan laughed with him. “But this is wonderful. Mistress Wellington made all this for you?”

“Well, not all of it. I told her what I wanted, and she and the other seamstresses went to work. I think she did a fine job.”

“I will give her my compliments. If not a hug.” Kahlan tested the cape between a finger and thumb. “She made this? I’ve never seen anything like it. I can’t believe she made this.”

“Well, no,” Richard admitted. “That, and some of the other things came from the Wizard’s Keep.”

“The Keep! What were you doing up there?”

“When I was there before, I came across these rooms where the wizards used to stay. I went back and had a better look at some of the things that belonged to them.”

“When did you do this?”

“A few days ago. When you were busy meeting with some of the officials from our new allies.”

Kahlan’s brow tightened as she appraised the outfit. “The wizards of that time wore this? I thought wizards always wore simple robes.”

“Most of them did. One wore some of this.”

“What kind of wizard wore an outfit like this?”

“A war wizard.”

“A war wizard,” she whispered in astonishment. Though he largely didn’t know how to use his gift, Richard was the first war wizard to have been born in nearly three thousand years.

Kahlan was about to launch into a raft of questions, but remembered that there were more consequential matters at the moment. Her mood sank. “Richard”—she looked away from his eyes—“there is someone here to see you . . .”

She heard the bedroom door squeak.

“Richard?” Nadine, standing in the doorway, expectantly twisted her kerchief in her fingers. “I heard Richard’s voice.”

“Nadine?”

Nadine’s eyes went as big as Sanderian gold crowns. “Richard.”

Richard smiled politely. “Nadine.” His mouth smiled, anyway.

His eyes, though, held no hint of a smile. It was as discordant a look as Kahlan had ever seen on his face. Kahlan had seen Richard angry, she had seen him in the lethal rage from magic of the Sword of Truth, when the magic danced dangerously in his eyes, and she had seen him with the deadly calm countenance invoked when he turned the blade white. In the fury of commitment and determination, Richard was capable of looking frightening.

But no look she had ever seen on his face was as terrifying to Kahlan as the one she saw now.

This wasn’t a deadly rage that gripped his eyes, or a lethal commitment. This was somehow worse. The depth of disinterest in that empty smile, in his eyes, was frightening.

The only way Kahlan could imagine it being worse would be if such a gaze were directed her way. That look, so devoid of fervor, if directed at her, would have broken her heart.

Nadine apparently didn’t know him as well as did Kahlan; she didn’t see anything but the smile on his lips.

“Oh, Richard!”

Nadine dashed across the room and threw her arms around his neck. She seemed ready to throw her legs around Richard too. Kahlan shot an arm out to stop Cara before the Mord-Sith could take more than a step.

Kahlan had to force herself to stand her ground and hold her tongue. Despite everything she and Richard meant to each other, she knew that this was something beyond her say. This was Richard’s past, and as well as she knew him, some of that past—his romantic past, anyway—was largely unknown territory. Up until that moment it had seemed unimportant.

Fearing to say the wrong thing, Kahlan said nothing. Her fate was in Richard’s hands, and those of a beautiful woman who at that moment had hers around his neck—but worse, her fate seemed once again in Shota’s hands.

Nadine began planting kisses all over Richard’s neck even as he tried to hold his head away from her. He placed his hands on her waist and pushed her away.

“Nadine, what are you doing here?”

“Looking for you, silly,” she said in a breathless voice. “Everyone’s been puzzled—worried—since you disappeared last autumn. My father missed you—I’ve missed you. None of us knew what happened to you. Zedd’s missing, too. The boundary came down and then you came up missing, and Zedd, and your brother. I know you were upset when your father was murdered, but we didn’t expect you to run away.” Her words were running together in breathless excitement.

“Well, it’s a long story, and one I’m sure you wouldn’t be interested in.”

True to Richard’s words, she didn’t seem to hear a bit of it, and simply rambled on.

“I had so much to take care of, first. I had to get Lindy Hamilton to promise to get the winter roots for Pa. He’s been beside himself without you to bring him some of the special plants he needs that only you can seem to find. I’ve done my best, but I don’t know the woods like you. He’s hoping Lindy will be able to fill in until I can get you home. Then I had to think what to take, and how to find my way. I’ve been looking so long. I came to speak with somebody named Lord Rahl, hoping he could help me find you. I never in all the world dreamed I’d find you before I even talked to him.”

“I am Lord Rahl.”

This, too, she seemed not to hear. She stepped buck and looked him up and down. “Richard, what are you doing in that outfit? Who are you pretending to be? Get changed. We’ll go home. Everything’s fine, now that I’ve found you. We’ll be back home soon, and everything will be back to the way it was. We’ll be married and—”

“What!”

She blinked. “Married. We’ll be marred, and have a house and everything. You can build us a better one—your old house won’t do. We’ll have children. Lots of children. Sons. Lots of sons. Big and strong like my Richard.” She grinned. “I love you, my Richard. We’re going to be married, at last.”

His smile, as empty as it had been, was gone, and in its place a serious scowl grew. “Where did you ever get an idea like that?”

Nadine laughed as she playfully ran a finger down his front. She finally glanced about. No one else was so much as smiling. Her laughter died out and she sought refuge in Richard’s gaze.

“But, Richard . . . you and me. Like it was always supposed to be. We’ll be married. At last. Like it was always meant to be.”

Cara leaned toward Kahlan to whisper in her ear. “You should have let me kill her.”

Richard’s glare wiped the smirk from the Mord-Sith’s mouth and drained the blood from her face. He turned back to Nadine.

“Where did you get such an idea?”

Nadine was appraising his clothes again. “Richard, you look foolish dressed like this. Sometimes I wonder if you have a lick of sense. What are you doing playing at being a king? And where did you get such a sword? Richard, I know you would never steal, but you don’t have the kind of money such a weapon would cost. If you won it in a bet or something, you can sell it so that we—”

Richard gripped her by the shoulders and gave her a shake. “Nadine, we were never engaged to be married, or even close. Where did you get a crazy idea like that? What are you doing here!”

Nadine finally wilted under his glower. “Richard, I’ve come a long way. I’ve never been out of Hartland before. It was hard traveling. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Doesn’t that count for anything? I would never have left except to come get you. I love you, Richard.”

Ulic, one of Richard’s two huge personal bodyguards, ducked as he stepped through the doorway. “Lord Rahl, if you are not busy, General Kerson has a problem and needs to speak with you.”

Richard turned a hot glare toward the towering Ulic. “In a minute.”

Ulic, not used to Richard directing such a forbidding look, or tone, his way, bowed. “I will tell him, Lord Rahl.”

Puzzled, Nadine watched the mountain of muscle duck back out the doorway. “Lord Rahl? Richard, what in the name of the good spirits was that man talking about? What trouble have you gotten yourself into? You were always so sensible. What have you done? Why are you tricking these people? Who are you playing at being?”

He seemed to cool a bit and his voice turned weary. “Nadine, it’s a long story, and one I’m not in the mood to repeat just now. I’m afraid I’m not the same person . . . It’s been a long time since I’ve left home. A great many things have happened. I’m sorry you’ve come a long way for nothing, but what was once between us—”

Kahlan expected a sheepish glance her way. She never got one.

Nadine took a step back. She looked around at all the faces watching her: Kahlan, Cara, Berdine, Raina, and the silent hulk of Egan back near the door.

Nadine threw her hands up. “What’s the matter with all you people! Who do you think this man is? He’s Richard Cypher, my Richard! He’s a woods guide—a nobody! He’s just a simple boy from Hartland, playing at being somebody important. He’s not! Are you all blind fools? He’s my Richard, and we’re to be married.”

Cara finally broke the silence. “We all know quite well who this man is. Apparently, you do not. He is Lord Rahl, the Master of D’Hara, and the ruler of what was the Midlands. At least, he is the ruler of those who have so far surrendered to him. Everyone in this room, if not this city, would lay down their lives to protect him. We all owe him more than our loyalty; we owe him our lives.”

“We can all only be who we are,” Richard told Nadine, “no more, and no less. A very wise woman told me that, one time.”

Nadine whispered her incredulity, but Kahlan couldn’t hear the words.

Richard put his arm around Kahlan’s waist. In that gentle touch, she read the message of comfort and love, and suddenly felt profound sorrow for this woman standing before strangers, exposing such personal matters of the heart.

“Nadine,” Richard said in a quiet tone, “this is Kahlan, the wise woman I spoke of. The woman I love. Kahlan, not Nadine. Kahlan and I are soon to be married. We’re shortly going to leave to be wedded by the Mud People. Nothing in this world is going to change that.”

Nadine seemed afraid to take her eyes from Richard, as if she feared that if she did, it would become true.

“Mud People? What in the name of the spirits are Mud People? Sounds dreadful. Richard, you . . .” She seemed to gather her resolve. She pressed her lips together and suddenly scowled. She shook her finger at him.

“Richard Cypher, I don’t know what kind of foolish game you’re playing, but I’ll not have it! You listen to me, you big oaf, you go get your things packed! We’re going home!”

“I am home, Nadine.”

Nadine, at last, could think of no counter.

“Nadine, who told you all this . . . this marriage business?”

The fire had gone out of her. “A mystic named Shota.”

Kahlan tensed at the sound of that name. Shota was the true threat. No matter what Nadine said, or wanted, it was Shota who had the power to cause trouble.

“Shota!” Richard wiped a hand across his face. “Shota. I might have known.”

And then Richard did the last thing Kahlan would have expected: he chuckled. He stood there, with everyone watching him, threw his head back, and laughed aloud.

Somehow, it magically melted Kahlan’s fears. That Richard would simply laugh off what Shota might do somehow trivialized the threat. Suddenly, her heart felt buoyant. Richard said that the Mud People were going to marry them, as they both wanted, and the fact that Shota wished otherwise was worth no more than a chuckle. Richard’s arm around her waist tightened with a loving squeeze. She felt her cheeks tighten with a grin of her own.

Richard waved an apology. “Nadine, I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you. It’s just that Shota has been playing her little tricks on us for a long time. It’s unfortunate that she’s used you in her scheme, but it’s just one of her wretched games. She’s a witch woman.”

“Witch woman?” Nadine whispered.

Richard nodded. “She’s taken us in with her little dramas in the past, but not this time. I no longer care what Shota says. I’m not playing her games anymore.”

Nadine looked perplexed. “A witch woman? Magic? I’ve been plied with magic? But she said that the sky had spoken to her.”

“Is that so. Well, I don’t care if the Creator Himself has spoken to her.”

“She said that the wind hunts you. I was worried. I wanted to help.”

“The wind hunts me? Well, it’s always something with her.”

Nadine’s gaze drifted from his. “But what about us . . . ?”

“Nadine, there is no ‘us.’ ” The edge returned to his voice. “You, of all people, know the truth of that.”

Her chin lifted with indignation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He watched her for a long moment, as if considering saying more than he finally did. “Have it your way, Nadine.”

For the first time, Kahlan felt embarrassed. Whatever the exchange had meant, she felt like an intruder hearing it. Richard seemed uncomfortable, too. “I’m sorry, Nadine, but I have things I have to take care of. If you need help getting home, I’ll see what I can do. Whatever you need—a horse, supplies, whatever. Tell everyone back in Hartland that I’m fine, and I send my best wishes.”

He turned to the waiting Ulic. “Is General Kerson here?”

“Yes, Lord Rahl.”

Richard took a step toward the door. “I’d best go see what his problem is.”

General Kerson instead entered from right around the doorway when he heard his name. Graying, but muscular and fit, and a head shorter than Richard, he cut an imposing figure in his burnished leather uniform. His upper arms bore scars of rank, their shiny white furrows showing through the short chain-mail sleeves.

He clapped a fist to his heart in salute “Lord Rahl, I need to speak with you.”

“Fine. Speak.”

The general hesitated. “I meant alone, Lord Rahl.”

Richard looked in no mood to dally with the man. “There are no spies here. Speak.”

“It’s about the men, Lord Rahl. A great many of them are sick.”

“Sick? What’s wrong with them?”

“Well, Lord Rahl, they . . . that is . . .”

Richard’s brow tightened. “Out with it.”

“Lord Rahl”—General Kerson glanced among the women before clearing his throat—“I’ve got over half my army, well, out of commission, squatting and groaning with debilitating bouts of diarrhea.”

Richard’s brow relaxed. “Oh. Well, I’m sorry. I hope they’re better soon. It’s a miserable state to be in.”

“It’s not an uncommon condition among an army, but to be this widespread it is, and because it is so widespread, something has to be done.”

“Well, be sure they get plenty to drink. Keep me informed. Let me know how they’re doing.”

“Lord Rahl, something has to be done. Now. We can’t have this.”

“It’s not like they’re stricken with spotted fever, general.”

General Kerson clasped his hands behind his back and took a patient breath. “Lord Rahl, General Reibisch, before he went south, told us that you wanted your officers to voice their opinions to you when we thought it important. He said that you told him that you may get angry if you didn’t like what we had to say, but you wouldn’t punish us for voicing our views. He said you wanted to know our opinions because we’ve had more experience at dealing with troops and with command of an army than you.”

Richard wiped a hand back and forth across his mouth. “You’re right, general. So what is it that’s so vital?”

“Well, Lord Rahl, I’m one of the heroes of the Shinavont province revolt. That’s in D’Hara. I was a lieutenant at the time. There were five hundred of us, and we came upon the rebel force, seven thousand strong, encamped in a scrag wood. We attacked at first light, and ended the revolt before the day was out. There were no Shinavont rebels left by sunset.”

“Very impressive, general.”

General Kerson shrugged. “Not really. Nearly all their men had their pants down around their ankles. You ever try to fight when the grips had your guts?” Richard admitted that he hadn’t. “Everyone called us heroes, but it doesn’t take a hero to split a man’s skull when he’s so dizzy with diarrhea that he can hardly lift his head. I wasn’t proud of what we did, but it was our duty, and we ended the revolt, and undoubtedly prevented the greater bloodshed that would have occurred if their force had gotten well and escaped us. No telling what they would have done, how many more would have died.

“But they didn’t. We took them down because they were sick with dysentery and couldn’t keep their feet.” He swept his arm around, indicating the surrounding countryside. “I’ve got over half my men down. We’ve not a full force because General Reibisch went off to the south. What’s left isn’t in fighting condition. Something has to be done. A sizable enough foe attacks now, and we’re in trouble. We’re vulnerable. We could lose Aydindril.

“I’d be grateful if you knew something we could do to reverse the situation.”

“Why are you bringing this to me? Don’t you have healers?”

“The healers we have are for those kinds of problems caused by steel. We tried going to some of the herb sellers and healers here in Aydindril, but they couldn’t begin to handle the numbers.” He shrugged. “You’re the Lord Rahl. I thought you would know what to do.”

“You’re right, the herb dealers wouldn’t have anything in that kind of quantity.” Richard pinched his lower lip as he thought. “Garlic will take care of it, if they eat enough. Blueberries will help, too. Get plenty of garlic into the men, and supplement it with blueberries. There would be enough of those around.”

The general leaned in with a dubious frown. “Garlic and blueberries? Are you serious?”

“My grandfather taught me about herbs and remedies and such things. Trust me, general, it will work. They’ve got to drink plenty of tannin tea from quench oak bark, too. Garlic, blueberries, and the quench oak tea should take care of it.” Richard looked over his shoulder. “Right, Nadine?”

She nodded. “That would do it, but it would be easier yet if you gave them powdered bistort.”

“I thought of that, but we’ll never find any bistort this time of year, and the herb sellers wouldn’t begin to have enough.”

“It doesn’t take that much in powered form, and it would work best,” Nadine said. “How many men, sir?”

“Last report was in the neighborhood of fifty thousand,” the general said. “By now? Who knows.”

Nadine’s eyebrows lifted in surprise at the number. “I’ve never seen that much bistort in my life. They’d be old men before that much could be gathered. Richard’s right, then: garlic, blueberries, and quench oak tea. Comfrey tea would work, too, but no one will carry that kind of quantity. Quench oak is your best bet, but it’s hard to find. If there aren’t quench oaks to be had, arrowwood would at least be better than nothing.”

“No,” Richard said. “I’ve seen quench oak up in the high ridges, to the northeast.”

General Kerson scratched his stubble. “What’s a quench oak?”

“An oak tree. The kind of oak tree that will be what your men need. It has a yellow inner bark that you use to make the tea.”

“A tree. Lord Rahl, I can identify ten different kinds of steel just from the feel of it between my fingers, but I couldn’t tell one tree from another if I had extra eyes.”

“Surely you must have men who know trees.”

“Richard,” Nadine said, “quench oak is what we call it in Hartland. I’ve collected roots and plants on my way here that I know the names of, but are called different by the people I’ve met. If these men drink tea from the wrong tree, the best you can hope for is that it won’t harm them, but it won’t solve the problem. The garlic and blueberries will help their gut, but they need the liquid for what was drained out of the rest of them; the tea helps stop them from losing all that water and builds their health back up.”

“Yes, I know.” He rubbed his eyes. “General, get a detachment together, about five hundred wagons, and extra packhorses in case we can’t get the wagons close. I know where the trees are, I’ll lead you up there.” Richard laughed quietly to himself. “Once a guide, always a guide.”

“The men will appreciate it that Lord Rahl is concerned about their well-being,” the general said. “I, for sure, appreciate it, Lord Rahl.”

“Thanks, general. Get everything needed together, and I’ll meet you out at the stables shortly. I’d like to get up there, at least, before dark. Those passes are no place to be stumbling around in the dark, especially with wagons. The moon is near full, but even that won’t help enough.”

“We’ll be ready before you can walk out there, Lord Rahl.”

After a quick fist to his heart in salute, the general was gone. Richard flashed Nadine another of his empty smiles. “Thanks for the help.”

And then he turned his full attention to the Mord-Sith clad in red leather.