Wasteland

4

Shale leaned in impatiently. “What could be taking her so long?”

Richard let out a frustrated sigh. “I can’t imagine. They should have been able to have the horses saddled and the supplies ready long ago.”

“Could the soldiers or stable workers be giving her any grief?” Kahlan asked.

Richard turned an incredulous look on her. “A Mord-Sith. Give a Mord-Sith grief.”

Kahlan let out an exasperated sigh. “I guess that was kind of a silly question.”

It had long since grown dark. For a time, the stars had been out, but as they waited clouds had rolled in. It was starting to smell like rain was on the way.

Richard leaned out a little, scanning the area, but he still couldn’t see Vika anywhere. What was just as troubling, he couldn’t see any sign that the stable workers were hurrying to carry out her instructions. He had long ago expected to see the freshly saddled horses brought out to the staging area while the supplies were collected and loaded.

Vika had walked over to the buildings, around the corner of one of them, and that was the last they saw of her.

“Maybe they’re having trouble getting supplies together,” Kahlan suggested. “Maybe they had to send someone down to the storehouses to get the kind of traveling food we need.”

Richard nodded as he watched the entire area, looking for any sign of Vika. “I suppose that could be the case. It could be that the kind of supplies she asked for have to be collected from a distant storehouse. But still, I can’t imagine Vika not coming back and telling us what the delay was all about.”

“Well, maybe she slipped and fell and hit her head or something,” Shale whispered. “Maybe she’s hurt and needs help.”

Richard bit his lower lip as he considered. The same thought had occurred to him as well, but he hadn’t heard anything. It seemed like if she had fallen, then in the quiet of the night they would have heard her calling out, or something. Besides that, there were a few stable workers occasionally coming and going from all the buildings. If she had fallen, it seemed like one of them would have seen her on the ground. A Mord-Sith in red leather would be hard to miss. Although, it had grown dark …

An impatient Berdine leaned close. “Lord Rahl, it couldn’t possibly have taken this long. This doesn’t make sense. She could have had a hundred horses saddled and out here by now.”

“More than that,” Kahlan added, “there hasn’t been any sign that the stable staff are seeing to her orders. They all seem to be calmly going about their other work. No one is rushing to take care of the things she would have asked for. Surely men would have come running when a Mord-Sith demanded horses to be saddled. Besides that, we would have seen other people rushing off to get supplies. No one is rushing anywhere.”

“You’re all right.” Richard scratched his eyebrow as he considered what to do. “Something is wrong, I can feel it. I need to find out what’s going on.”

He abruptly stood up. His feet were numb from squatting down for so long. He rotated each ankle in turn to get the blood started back into his feet as he looked around. All five of the Mord-Sith stood up with him. He turned to Kahlan and Shale, still crouched down behind the manure wagon.

“Berdine, you come with me. Shale, Rikka, Nyda, Cassia, Vale—in case there is some kind of trouble please stay close to Kahlan for now. For all we know, one of the Glee could have snatched her. It shouldn’t take long to find out what’s going on.”

The four Mord-Sith squatted back down near Kahlan. If there was any kind of trouble, he knew that in a heartbeat they would all bring their Agiel up into a fist and at the ready to defend her.

Richard gestured. “Come on, Berdine. It all looks peaceful enough, so something is obviously wrong. Keep a sharp lookout for anything that doesn’t look right to you. Be ready for one of those hateful things to pop out of nowhere.”

Berdine nodded and then fell in beside him after he went around the manure cart and started across the open stable area. The aroma of haystacks near each building was a pleasant change from the smell of manure. They hadn’t gone far when some of the men saw them. They all abruptly changed course from what they were doing and rushed over to Richard and Berdine.

“Lord Rahl!” one of them called back into the quiet night in case any of the other workers hadn’t seen him. “It’s Lord Rahl!”

So much for stealth, Richard thought. Men who had heard the call ran out of buildings. In short order there were fifteen or twenty men gathered around and more in the distance were coming.

“What can we do for you, Lord Rahl?” an older man with a flat cloth hat asked. “Do you wish some horses saddled and brought out?”

“Actually,” he said, still looking around for any sign of her, “I sent a Mord-Sith to do just that quite a while ago. Her name is Vika. Why didn’t you get the horses for her?”

The men all shared puzzled looks.

The older man pulled off his cap and smoothed back his thin crop of gray hair. “A Mord-Sith?” He frowned as he gestured at Berdine. “This would be the first of those ladies we’ve seen all night, Lord Rahl.” He turned one way, then the other, looking around at his men. “Anyone see the Mord-Sith?”

The men all shook their heads, mumbling that they hadn’t.

Richard gestured. “I thought I saw her go that way, by that building. Would some of you take a look, please, and make sure she didn’t fall and hurt herself or something.”

“Stranger things have happened,” the older man confirmed.

Men ran off to do Richard’s bidding. He saw some of then trot off to go between the buildings, checking where he said he had last seen her. It wasn’t long before they all straggled by, looking disappointed and shaking their heads. They all reported that they had found nothing.

Richard put his hands on his hips as he looked around. It didn’t make any sense. Vika couldn’t have vanished into thin air. A frightening thought that had been in the back of his mind was beginning to seem like the most likely explanation. Could it be that one of the Glee had snatched her and taken her back to the goddess? That seemed far-fetched, especially since he didn’t even know if that was possible. Finally, he had an idea.

“I need something to see with,” he said to the gathered men. “Bring me a torch or lantern, please.”

“We try not to have torches around the horses and all the hay,” the gray-haired man said as he replaced his hat on his head. “We have plenty of lanterns, though.”

When he gestured the order, one of the men rushed to retrieve a lantern. He pulled one off a hook on the corner of the closest building and rushed back to hand it to Richard.

“Thanks. You can all go back to what you were doing. I’ll take it from here.”

Lantern in hand, Richard marched off to have a look for himself. Berdine followed close on his heels.

Going around the building where he had last seen Vika, Richard started searching the soft ground looking for any sign. In the shadows between the buildings, and with the clouds, it was quite dark, but the lantern gave him enough light to see what he needed to see. There were a lot of footprints. Most of those prints were older, while a few were from the men who had just checked for Richard, looking for Vika.

Before long, the confusion of prints sorted themselves out in his mind and Richard found what he was looking for: prints from Vika’s boots. He recognized the size and the shape. None of the prints from the men’s boots looked similar. Had there been more light, he would have been able to also recognize Vika’s unique gait from the angle and depth of the impressions made by her boots, along with her height and weight.

He followed her footprints between the buildings to the end where she had turned behind the building to Richard’s left. He also saw larger prints from a man, but it was hard to tell if Vika had been following him or he had been following her.

Then Richard saw something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.