The impact of magic had knocked the mriswith from its feet.
The woman looked up, her eyes wide, her muscles slack.
“Mistress,” she whispered, “command me.”
Men were crashing through the trees. The mriswith was staggering to its feet.
“Protect me!”
The sorceress sprang up, spinning with a hand out. The night ignited.
Lightning ripped through the trees in an arc. Tree trunks exploded as the twisting line of light sliced across them. Splintered wood spun through the air, trailing smoke. Men were no less naked before the rending violence than were the trees. Not so much as a scream escaped their lungs, nor would it have been heard above the pandemonium.
The mriswith vaulted toward her. Scales, like the feathers of a bird hit by a rock from a sling, filled the air.
The night roared with fire. The air was rife with flame, flesh, and bone.
Kahlan wiped blood from her eyes, trying to see, as she scooted backward across the snow. She had to get away. She had to find Adie.
She bumped into something. She thought it must be a tree. A fist snatched her by the hair. She reached for her power, realizing too late that it was gone.
Kahlan spit blood from her mouth. Her ears rang. And then there was pain. She couldn’t push herself up. Her head felt as if a tree had fallen on it. She heard a voice above her.
“Lunetta, put a stop to this at once.”
Kahlan turned her head in the snow and saw the sorceress she had touched with her power seem to grow bigger, to come apart. Her arms went in two different directions. That was all Kahlan could recognize as a cloud of red misted the air where the woman had been.
Kahlan slumped into the numbing snow. No. She couldn’t give up. She twisted up onto her knees, pulling her knife. Brogan’s boot caught her in the middle.
Looking up at the stars, she tried to draw a breath. She couldn’t. Cold panic swept through her as she tried to get air. It wouldn’t come. Her stomach muscles clenched in spasms, but she couldn’t get a breath.
Brogan knelt beside her, pulling her up by her shirt. Breath finally came in convulsing coughing, choking, pulls.
“At last,” he whispered. “At last, I have the prize of prizes—the Keeper’s most precious pet, the Mother Confessor herself. Oh, you have no idea how I’ve dreamed of this day.” He backhanded her across the jaw. “No idea at all.”
Kahlan labored for air as Brogan twisted the knife from her grip. She fought to keep her mind from going black. She had to remain conscious if she was to think, if she was to fight.
“Lunetta!”
“Yes, my lord general, I be here.”
Kahlan felt the buttons on her shirt pop off as he ripped it open. She weakly lifted an arm to check his hands. He batted the arm away. Her arms felt too heavy to lift.
“First, Lunetta, we must take her before her power returns. Then we will have all the time we want to question her before she pays for her crimes.”
He leaned closer in the moonlight, leaning a knee into her gut, holding her down. She fought to get air back into her lungs, but then it rushed out with a scream as his brutal fingers wrenched her left nipple.
She saw the knife come up in his other hand.
With wide eyes, she saw a white glimmer before Brogan’s grin. In the moonlight, three blades poised before his bloodless face. Kahlan’s eyes, along with Brogan’s, turned to see two mriswith above them.
“Releassse her,” the mriswith hissed, “or die.”
Kahlan covered the piercing pain in her breast when he had done as he was told. Her eyes watered with the intensity of hurt. At least it helped clear them of the blood.
“What be the meaning of this,” Brogan growled. “She be mine. The Creator wishes her punished!”
“You will do as the dreamssss walker commandsss, or you will die.”
Brogan cocked his head. “He wishes this?” The mriswith hissed confirmation. “I don’t understand.…”
“You question?”
“No. No, of course not. It will be as you advise, sacred one.”
Kahlan was afraid to sit up, hoping they would tell Brogan to let her go, next. Brogan stood, backing away.
Another mriswith appeared with Adie, shoving her to the ground beside Kahlan. The sorceress’s touch on Kahlan’s arm said without words that she was all right, if bruised and cut. Adie put an arm around Kahlan’s shoulders and helped her sit up.
Kahlan hurt everywhere. He jaw throbbed where Brogan had hit her, her stomach ached, and her forehead stung. Blood was still running into her eyes.
One of the mriswith selected two rings from a number looped over its wrist, and shoved them at the sorceress in tattered rags—Lunetta, Brogan had called her. “The other is dead. You must do it instead.”
Lunetta, looking puzzled, took the rings. “Do what?”
“Use your gift to put these around their neck, so they can be controlled.”
Lunetta pulled and one of the collars snapped, coming open. She seemed surprised, even pleased. Holding it out, she bent over Adie.
“Please, sister,” Adie whispered in her native tongue, “I be from your homeland. Help us.”
Lunetta paused, looking into Adie’s eyes.
“Lunetta!” Brogan kicked her rump. “Hurry up. Do as the Creator wishes.”
Lunetta snapped the metal collar around Adie’s neck, then shuffled over to Kahlan and did the same. Kahlan blinked at the childlike smile Lunetta gave her.
Kahlan reached up after Lunetta straightened, and felt the collar. In the moonlight, she thought she recognized it, but when she felt the smooth metal and could no longer find the seam, she was sure. It was a Rada’Han, like the Sisters of the Light had put around Richard’s neck. She knew that those sorceresses used the collar to control him. The purpose must be the same for them: to control their power. Kahlan suddenly feared that her power would not be returning in a few hours.
When they reached the coach, Ahern was there, at the point of a mriswith blade. He had told Kahlan, Adie, and Orsk to dive out of the coach on a curve and he would lead their pursuers away from her. A bold, and brave, move that, in the end, had failed.
Kahlan was suddenly relieved she had made everyone else go to Ebinissia, as planned. Kahlan had told Jebra to care for Cyrilla, and the rest of the men to carry out their plans to bring Ebinissia back from the ashes. Kahlan’s sister was home. If Kahlan died, Galea still had a queen.
Had she brought any of those gallant young men, these mriswith, these nightmare creatures of the wind, would have gutted them all, as they had done to Orsk.
She felt a pang of sorrow for Orsk, and then a claw shoved her into the coach. Adie was pushed in right behind her. Kahlan heard a brief conversation, and then Lunetta climbed in the coach, sitting across from Kahlan and Adie. A mriswith entered and sat beside Lunetta, its beady eyes taking account of them. Kahlan pulled her shirt closed and tried to wipe the blood from her eyes.
She heard more talking outside, something about replacing the runners on the coach with wheels. Through the window, she saw Ahern, at swordpoint, climb up to the driver’s seat. The man in the red cape followed him up, and then another of the mriswith.
Kahlan felt her legs trembling. Where were they taking them? She was so close to Richard. She clenched her teeth, holding back a wail. It wasn’t fair. She felt a tear roll down her cheek.
Adie’s hand slid between their legs, and by its little movement against her thigh, she read the comfort in that touch.
The mriswith leaned toward them as its slit of a mouth seemed to widen in a grim smile. It lifted the three-bladed knife in its claw, giving it a little wiggle before their eyes.
“Try to esssscape, and I will ssslice the bottoms of your feet.” It cocked its smooth head. “Understand?”
Kahlan and Adie both nodded.
“Speak,” it added, “And I ssslice out your tonguesss.”
They nodded again.
It turned to Lu
netta. “With your gift, through the collar, seal their power. Like I show you.” It put a claw to Lunetta’s forehead. “Understand?”
Lunetta smiled with comprehension. “Yes. I see.”
Kahlan heard Adie grunt, and at the same time she felt something tighten in her own chest. It was the place where she always felt her power. In dismay, she wondered if she would ever feel it return. She remembered the forlorn emptiness when the Keltish wizard had used magic to make her lose the connection with her power. She knew what to expect.
“She bleeds,” the mriswith said to Lunetta. “You must heal her. Skin brother would not be pleased if she were scarred.”
She heard the whip snap, and Ahern’s whistle. The coach lurched ahead. Lunetta leaned forward to heal her wound.
Dear spirits, where were they taking her?
40
Ann’s eyes stung with tears as a shuddering cry escaped her throat. She had long ago forsaken her determination to keep from crying out. Who but the Creator would hear, or care?
Valdora lifted the knife, greasy with blood. “Hurt?” A gap-toothed grin came to her as a chuckle fought its way out. “How do you like it when someone else chooses what will happen to you? That’s what you did. You chose how I would die. You denied me life. Life I could have had at the palace. I would still be young. You chose to let me die.”
Ann flinched as the knifepoint pricked her side. “I asked a question, Prelate. How do you like it?”
“No more than you, I would expect.”
The grin returned. “Gooood. I want you to know the pain I’ve lived with all these years.”
“I left you with a life the same as everyone else has. A life to live as you would. You were left with what the Creator gave you, the same as everyone else come into this world. I could have had you executed.”
“For casting a spell! I’m a sorceress! That’s what the Creator gave me, and I used it!”
Though Ann knew the arguments were pointless, she favored them over Valdora going back to her silent knifework.
“You used what the Creator gave you to take from others what they would not have given willingly. You thieved their affections, their hearts, their lives. You had no right. You sampled devotion like candies at a fair. You bound them to you with glamours and then cast them away to snare another.”
The knife pricked her again. “And you banished me!”
“How many lives did you bring to ruin? You were counseled, you were warned, you were punished. Still, you continued. Only after all this were you put out of the Palace of the Prophets.”
Ann’s shoulders throbbed with a dull ache. She was stretched out naked on a wooden table, her wrists bound with magic over her head at one end, and her ankles at the other. The spell chafed worse than coarse hemp rope. She was as helpless as a hog hung up to be bled.
Valdora had used a spell, something else she had learned who knew where, to block Ann’s Han. She could feel it there, like a warm fire on a winter’s night, just beyond a window, inviting, promising warmth, but out of reach.
Ann stared up at the window near the top of the wall in the little stone room. It was nearing daylight. Why hadn’t he come? He should have come to rescue her by now, and then she was to somehow capture him. But he hadn’t come.
It still wasn’t daylight. He still might come. Dear Creator, let him come soon.
Unless it was the wrong day. Panic raced through her mind. What if they had miscalculated? No. She and Nathan had gone over the charts. This was the right day, and besides, it was the events, more than the day itself, that fueled the prophecy. The fact that she had been captured said that it was the right day. If she had been captured a week before, then that would have been the right day. This day was within the window of opportunity. The prophecy was being fulfilled. But where was he?
Ann realized that Valdora’s face was gone. She wasn’t beside her. She should have kept talking. She should…
She felt a sudden, sharp, searing pain as the knife cut down the sole of her left foot. Her whole body jerked against the restraints. Sweat once again beaded on her brow and trickled through her scalp. Again the pain came, another cut, accompanied by another impotent cry.
Her screams reverberated from the stone as Valdora ripped a strip of flesh from the sole of her foot.
She was shaking uncontrollably; her head lolled to the side. The little girl, Holly, was looking into her eyes. Ann felt tears run over the bridge of her nose, and into her other eye, to finally fall away.
Trembling, she stared into Holly’s eyes, wondering what vile things Valdora was teaching such an innocent child. She would turn this small creature’s heart to stone.
Valdora held up the little white curl of flesh. “Look, Holly, how cleanly it comes off, if you do as I say. Would you like to try your hand, my dear?”
“Grandmamma,” Holly said, “must we do this? She has done nothing to harm us. She is not like the others; she never tried to hurt us.”
Valdora gestured with the knife for emphasis. “Oh, but she has, dear one. She hurt me. She stole my youth.”
Holly glanced at Ann as she shivered with the lingering pain. The little girl had an odd mask of calm, for one so young. She would have made an outstanding novice, and one day a fine Sister. “She gave me a silver. She didn’t try to hurt us. This is not fun. I don’t want to do it.”
Valdora chuckled. “Well, do it we will.” She wiggled the knife. “You listen to your grandmamma. She deserves it.”
Holly coolly considered the old woman. “Just because you’re older than me, that doesn’t make you right. I’ll watch no longer. I’m going outside.”
Valdora shrugged. “If you wish. This is between the Prelate and me. If you do not wish to learn anything, then go outside and play.”
Holly strode from the room. Ann could have kissed her for her courage.
Valdora’s face glided closer. “Just you and me, now, Prelate.” Her jaw muscles flexed. “Shall, we, get—” She jabbed the knifepoint into Ann’s side to punctuate each word. “—down, to, business?” She tilted her head to better look into Ann’s eyes. “Near time to die, Prelate. I think I’d like to see you scream to death. Shall we try?”
“Over there!” Zedd tried to point, as best he could, confined as he was. “There’s a light in the Keep.”
Though dawn was beginning to lighten the sky, it was still dark enough to pick out the yellow glow coming from several windows. Gratch saw what Zedd was seeing, and banked toward the Keep.
“Bags,” he muttered, “if that boy is already in the Keep, I’ll…”
Gratch growled at Zedd’s obvious reference to Richard. He could feel the growl against his back pressed to the gar’s chest more than he could hear it. Zedd glanced to the ground, far below.
“I’ll have to save him. That’s all I meant, Gratch. If Richard is in trouble, I’ll have to get down there to save him.”
Gratch gurgled with satisfaction.
Zedd hoped Richard wasn’t in trouble. The effort of maintaining the spell to make himself light enough for Gratch to carry him for the last week had sapped nearly all his strength. He didn’t think he would be able to stand, much less use his power to save anyone. He would need days of rest after this.
Zedd stroked the huge, furry arms around him. “I love Richard, too, Gratch. We’ll help him. Both of us will protect him.” Zedd’s eyes widened. “Gratch! Watch where you’re going! Slow down!”
Zedd held his arms up before his face as the gar swooped down toward the rampart. Peeking between his arms, he could see the stone approach at alarming speed. He gasped as Gratch tightened his grip and flapped his wings, trying to halt their plummeting descent.
Zedd realized he was losing his grip on his spell. He was too exhausted to hold on any longer, and he was becoming too heavy for Gratch to carry. In desperation, he drew the spell back, like catching an egg rolling from the edge of a table.
Just in time, he snatched the spell before it winked out, and yank
ed it back.
Gratch’s flapping finally netted enough air to slow them, and he pulled up before they hit. With a graceful flutter of his huge, leathery wings, the gar set them on the rampart. Zedd felt the furry arms come off his sweat soaked robes.
“Sorry Gratch. I almost lost my grip on the magic. I almost got us both hurt.”
Gratch absently grunted acknowledgment. His glowing green eyes were searching the darkness. There were walls going everywhere up here, and a hundred places to hide. Gratch seemed to be searching them all.
A low growl rumbled in the gar’s throat. The green glow intensified. Zedd searched the dark recesses, but saw nothing. Gratch did.
Zedd flinched, when, with a sudden roar, the gar bounded into the darkness.
Massive claws ripped at the night air. Fangs tore at nothing.
Zedd began to see shapes seeming to come out of the air. Capes billowed open, and knives flashed as the things danced and spun around the gar.
Mriswith.
The creatures let out clicking hisses as they lunged at the great fur beast. Gratch caught them on claws, ripping their scaled hides open, spilling their blood and insides. Their howls as they died drew a shiver up Zedd’s spine.
Zedd felt the air move as one swept past, intent on the gar. The wizard threw his hand out, casting a ball of liquid fire that caught the mriswith, igniting its cape, and then spilled flame over the rest of it.
The rampart was suddenly alive with the creatures. Zedd, digging deep to bring up the power, snapped back a line of dense air, throwing several over the edge. Gratch threw one at the wall with such violence that it burst open when it hit.
Zedd wasn’t prepared for the pitched battle that was suddenly all around him. Through his numb exhaustion, Zedd’s frenetic quest for ideas couldn’t engender anything more ingenious than simple magic of fire and air.
A mriswith turned suddenly, bringing around its bladed claw. Zedd threw a line of air as sharp as an axe. It cleaved the mriswith’s head. He used a web to snare several away from Gratch and cast them over the side of the wall. At this outer rampart, it was a drop of several thousand feet—straight down.
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