Witch's Oath

3

Richard quickly looked around, hoping to be able to find and catch Michec before he could get away, but he was nowhere to be seen. He gritted his teeth in rage that the witch man was no longer there on the floor. He had to kill the man before he could do anything else to them—before he could kill them first.

“Did you see where he went?” he asked Kahlan and Shale.

Both shook their heads.

Before doing anything else, Richard rushed to Vika and yanked the Agiel from the gaping wound in her belly. She gasped. Holding the Agiel sent a jolt of pain up through his elbow, making him flinch. The blow of pain felt as if he had been hit in the back of the skull with an iron bar. It made his ears ring. He could not imagine the agony of having that weapon jammed inside an open wound.

He tossed the Agiel on the floor, then touched her bloody, trembling leg as he looked up into her wet eyes. “Hold on, Vika.”

“Kill me,” she pleaded. “Please, Lord Rahl. There is no hope for me now. Please, end it.”

“Just hold on,” he said. “I’m going to help you. Trust me.”

Angry that he couldn’t kill Michec right then and there, he dragged the heavy chain attached to his manacles over to his sword and baldric, which lay under where he had been hanging. He had to grab the arm of one of the dark, slimy creatures lying over the bottom half of the scabbard and flip it over and off the weapon. He started to pull the sword out of the scabbard with his hands, but because they were chained closely together, he had to hold the scabbard between his boots to be able to draw the blade the rest of the way out.

A familiar sensation stormed through him. He felt a fool.

With the hilt held in both hands, it was with great relief that he felt the anger of the sword’s magic join his to blossom into full rage. He immediately turned and swung the sword over the sorceress’s head. Sparks flew as the blade shattered the iron chain and sent links flying. Shale dropped to the floor.

“Hold your hands out,” he told her.

When she did, and she saw what he was about to do and that she didn’t have enough time to stop him, she gasped in fear as she turned her face away. The blade whistled through the air as it came down in an arc and hit the manacles with a glancing blow to the side of her wrists. It was enough to shatter the metal bands. Shards of hot steel skittered across the room bouncing along the rough stone floor.

Shale, somewhat surprised to still have her hands, was relieved to finally have the horrible devices off. She rubbed her bleeding wrists.

“Hold Kahlan for me,” he told the sorceress before she had the chance to thank him.

Shale hugged her arms around Kahlan’s legs to lift her weight a little. As soon as she did, Richard took a mighty swing at the chain holding Kahlan up by her wrists. The iron links blew apart when hit with the singular blade, as if made of nothing more than clay. Hot, broken bits of chain sailed off through the air.

Together Shale and Richard lowered Kahlan down to stand on the floor. She held her hands out as she turned her bruised and bleeding face away so Richard could break the manacles from around her wrists. In relief, once they were off, she threw her arms around his neck. Richard returned the hug as best he could with both of his wrists still in manacles, and while doing so let healing magic flow into her just long enough to ease her pain a little. The rest would have to wait.

When he released her to turn and look for any threat, she sank down to the floor in a squat, elbows in tight at her sides, holding her head in her hands, comforting the painful wounds Michec had inflicted but also thankful for at least the little healing Richard had done. He put a hand on her shoulder, relieved that she was safe, at least for the moment. Without looking up, Kahlan reached up to grip his hand a moment.

He understood the wordless meaning in that touch.

Then, with Shale’s help holding the Mord-Sith’s weight, Richard used his sword to break the chain holding her. As soon as he did, he immediately moved to help Shale carefully lower the Mord-Sith to the floor. Shale and Kahlan both held Vika’s arms as he shattered the manacles around her wrists.

As the metal shards were still bouncing across the stone floor, a sound made him turn toward the back of the vast room.

There, in the distance beyond the hanging, skinless corpses, he saw the air come alive with masses of scribbles as hundreds of Glee began to materialize, pouring out of nowhere into a mad dash toward them. They went around and among the hanging dead like a raging river flooding around rocks on their way to Richard, Kahlan, Shale and Vika.

Without pause, still in the haze of rage from the sword, he turned to face the threat. Shale seized Kahlan in a protective hug, turning her own back to the danger.

Still lost in the dance with death from fighting the last onslaught of Glee, Richard acted without forethought.

He went to his right knee. Holding the sword in both hands, he thrust it out toward the mass of dark shapes coming for them, teeth clacking, claws reaching, as they screeched with murderous intent.

From somewhere deep within, his war-wizard birthright, his instinct, his raging need took over. That inheritance of power shot through his grip on the hilt, adding destructive force to the sword’s rage. Light ignited from the tip of the sword. The room shook with a crack, as if the sword had been hit by lightning.

The horizontal wedge of light that flared from the tip of the sword came out razor thin and as sharp as his blade. The blindingly bright flash of flawless white illumination was so flat and thin as to be insubstantial, like a glowing pane of glass, yet at the same time it was pure menace.

Everything that razor-thin flare of light touched was instantly severed.

Corpses were sliced cleanly in half through bone and flesh as that flat blade of light effortlessly flared through them. The stiff bottom halves of the bodies thumped down to the floor.

That same wedge of light cut through the Glee like a hot knife through silk. There was no escaping the instantaneous, blindingly bright knife of light.

Dark, severed legs collapsed. The top halves of slimy torsos, arms still flailing, tumbled across the floor, spilling their insides as they crashed down. Some of the Glee clawed at the floor, trying to reach him. Since they were without legs and losing blood at a catastrophic rate, those efforts quickly died out as life left them. It all happened so fast that none of them managed to dive to the floor to evade the cutting light or vanish back into their home world.

The Golden Goddess would never hear from the attack force.

The instant that sheet of light ignited, everything before it was sliced in two. Almost as soon as it had ignited, the flat wedge of light extinguished. It had only lasted an instant, but that was all it had taken.

Even though the light was gone, the room still reverberated with the crack of thunder it had created. Slowly, even that sound died out, to leave the room in ringing silence. What looked like hundreds of Glee lay in a tangled, bleeding mass, a few arms still weakly clawing at the air. In another moment, even that residual muscle movement ceased, and the room went still as Richard, motionless on one knee, the manacles still around his wrists with the chain attached, head bowed, held the sword out toward the vanquished threat.

When he finally stood and turned back, he saw Shale standing stock-still in wide-eyed shock. Kahlan, who only a moment before had been bracing with the sorceress for the swift death about to descend upon them, let out a sigh as she sagged in relief.