Witch's Oath

1

Kahlan’s scream not only felt as if it ripped Richard’s soul, it overwhelmed him with shock and terror. He couldn’t understand or remember how he had come to be hanging in a room full of skinned corpses also hanging by their wrists from the ceiling, but he realized it had to be a spell of some sort cast by the witch man, Moravaska Michec. More than that, what had happened or how it had happened didn’t really matter. All that mattered was what was, now.

A quick glance to his left showed Shale, manacles around her wrists, likewise hanging on a chain attached to the ceiling and facing in the same direction he was. She appeared to be unconscious and so could be of no help.

The same distance to his right and facing in the same direction, toward all the hanging corpses, Kahlan struggled in panic at what was happening, at what was about to happen. The smell of all the dead bodies hanging in a grid pattern throughout the room was not only sickening, it was overpowering.

Despite how much Kahlan thrashed around, making her wrists bleed all the more as the manacles cut into her flesh, Michec had a firm grip on her flesh, with his fat thumb on the outside and two fingers in under the slit he had cut in the skin at the side of her throat so that he could begin skinning her alive.

Richard clearly remembered Michec saying he had spelled the room to block their gift. That had to be the reason she hadn’t used her power on him. The thought of Moravaska Michec skinning Kahlan alive was more than Richard could take. He tried to reach his own gift, but when he did, it felt as if nothing was there. He simply felt empty.

As long as Michec’s spell blocked their gift, his gift could be of no help.

Directly across from Richard, Vika, as naked as Kahlan, hung helpless in manacles facing him. Despite the agony she was in from the gash Michec had made in her abdomen to pull out a length of her intestines, and the Agiel he had pushed into the open wound to increase the torture, she was clearly distraught watching Kahlan in the clutches of that evil man. A man who had once owned Vika.

“Master,” Vika called out in a weak voice, but a voice that Michec heard.

Annoyed, he turned a frown back over his shoulder at her, expecting to know why she would interrupt him.

“Master,” Vika managed again in a shaky voice.

“What!” he shouted in anger at being interrupted before he could begin skinning Kahlan alive.

“I’m trying to warn you. You’ve made a terrible mistake.”

The witch man’s expression darkened, but curiosity caused him to take a step back from Kahlan. He wiped his bloody fingers on his filthy robes as he turned toward Vika. His blocky features were tight with displeasure at being called away from what he was so eager to do to Kahlan.

Richard sagged in the manacles with relief that Vika had managed to stop him, if only for a moment, from what he had been about to do. Kahlan sagged as she watched, fearing his return.

Michec moved closer so that he could hear Vika’s weak voice. “Warn me about what?”

“Master, it is my duty to tell you that you have made a dangerous mistake.”

“What mistake?” When she failed to answer immediately, he pushed her Agiel in a little deeper, making her gasp as her head tipped back in agony. “What mistake!”

Richard could see the muscles in her legs tense. She clenched her teeth and held her breath for a moment, doing her best to endure the increase in agony caused by her Agiel.

Panting to get her breath, Vika finally brought her head back down. “The same mistake made by Darken Rahl. The same mistake made by Hannis Arc. The same mistake made by Emperor Sulachan. The same mistake made by so many others.”

Moravaska Michec, angry to be told he was making a mistake of any kind, stepped close and grabbed her Agiel. He twisted it back and forth, sweeping it around inside the wound in her belly, making her cry out involuntarily as her eyes rolled up in her head with the pain, unable to endure it, yet unable to do anything to stop it. Her legs trembled; her feet shook. Richard ached at seeing how helpless she was.

Michec released the Agiel and gripped one of the ropy braids of his beard between a dirty finger and thumb. One brow arched over a dark, angry eye. “What mistake would that be?”

Her muscles stood out iron hard from the torment of the Agiel jutting from the open wound. She finally managed to gasp in enough air to speak. She stared at him with wet, sky-blue eyes. “The mistake … of underestimating Lord Rahl.”

Michec gestured irritably toward Richard. “Him? He is not worthy to be called Lord Rahl.”

“Call him what you will. Call him a mere woodsman if you will. But it is my duty to warn you, Master, that you have made a fatal mistake.”

“First, I underestimated him, and now I’ve made a fatal mistake?”

Her jaw trembling in pain, tears running down her cheeks, Vika nodded.

Michec’s brow drew down over his cruel eyes. His arm lifted in a grand gesture. “And what fatal mistake do you imagine I’ve made?”

Vika had to pause to swallow back her agony. “You did not kill him when you had the chance. Richard Rahl does not make the mistake of trying to teach his enemies lessons. He does not keep them alive to lecture them and gloat. He simply kills them.”

Even though Vika was advising Michec to kill him, Richard had faith that she was doing it for good reason. He realized it was a distraction to make Michec stop before it was too late and he started skinning Kahlan alive, even though it meant he would turn his formidable wrath on her. Richard feared for Vika but was beyond grateful for her intervention.

When he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, a quick glance revealed that Shale was at last awake. In that quick glance they shared, they both knew the despair of their situation.

Michec stared at the Mord-Sith briefly, as if considering her words, or possibly what more painful torture he could inflict, then huffed a brief chuckle. The snakelike braids of his beard swung around with him as he turned and stared at Richard a moment. The greasy spikes of salt-and-pepper hair stood out against the pale greenish light from the glass spheres around the room. Michec flicked a hand dismissively toward Richard as he looked back at Vika.

“I appreciate your loyalty in trying to warn me of danger, but you underestimate me. The famous and powerful Lord Rahl is quite helpless against me. No one escapes a witch’s oath.”

“He is gifted. I have seen him kill with his gift.”

Michec’s derisive smile distorted his coarse features. “Gifted? I’ve blocked his gift”—he thumped a fist against his own puffed-up chest—“the same as I blocked your ability to use your Agiel against me, and I blocked the ability of the other Mord-Sith, and I blocked this witch woman’s gift, and I blocked the Mother Confessor’s power. No one but me can use their power in this room. So, you see? You are quite wrong. He is hardly a danger to me, now. His questionable ‘powers’ won’t help him. He is under the decree of a witch’s oath.”

“I am telling you, Master, you have made a fatal mistake. You arrogantly think to give him a show of your superiority, and in that arrogance, you have let your chance to kill him slip away. You will not get another chance.”

Michec turned a look of raw hatred toward Richard. He slowly closed the distance from Vika, his glare fixed on Richard the whole time. He paused briefly to glance once over at Kahlan with lust for what was being delayed. She glared back with loathing and defiance. He smiled, pleased by that look. He finally came to a stop before Richard to look up at his helpless prize.

“Dangerous, are you?” He planted his fists on his hips as he glared up at Richard with contempt. “Then maybe I should take the advice of my loyal Mord-Sith, and—”

As hard as he could, Richard kicked the witch man in the face. His boot connected with bone. Richard didn’t know if it was skull or jawbone, but Michec’s dead weight toppled back. He landed hard on his back and lay motionless, sprawled on the floor, his arms out to the side. He looked to be out cold.

Her brow bunching with the effort, Vika flashed Richard a shaky smile through her pain. “I bought you time. Now get out of here.”

“Richard …” Kahlan said.

He looked where she was looking and saw the dark shapes of the Glee cautiously stepping out of the shadows of the hanging, skinless corpses. Like those corpses, Richard also hung helpless from manacles around his wrists. Those creatures would not wait for Michec to come around and finally finish his work with Kahlan so they could have her.

He knew they would take the opportunity to have what they had come for—the babies in Kahlan’s womb.