The creature recoiled in surprise and pain, drawing back the stump. In that seemingly frozen instant, she immediately used the opening to drive the blade through its chest before it could use its other claw on her. The tall, dark shape dropped to its knees. The sword, still through its body and jutting out its back, was pulled down and almost out of her hands as the creature sank to the floor, already dead. Kahlan grunted with the effort of putting her boot against it and pulling the blade back out as the dark shape toppled over.
Dozens more Glee came charging out from among all the hanging bodies. Bloody sword in hand, Kahlan turned to the sorceress, now alert and on her feet.
“Do something! Richard’s not breathing! He can’t help! I can’t stop them all! You have to do something!”
Shale was already lifting her hands. With her eyes closed, her fingers twisted this way and that as she held her hands up before herself. When she opened her eyes, they had turned a strange yellowish color. Her long dark hair fell forward over her shoulders as her head and brow lowered, as if having no need to rush.
The dark material of the top she wore bunched above the leather forearm shields. Beads and small chains with strange amulets hung below a black leather bodice. A loose wrap skirt of dusky dappled colors was open at her left hip, revealing dark traveling trousers tucked into boots. The trousers had a variety of pockets and equipment straps.
Kahlan always thought of Shale as the sorceress who had healed her and saved the lives of her unborn children. She felt a bond to the woman because of that. But in that instant, her hands lifted up before her dark glower, her fingers swaying snakelike, Shale looked every inch a lethal witch woman. It was a frightening glimpse of pure menace.
As Kahlan swung back around toward the advancing threat, sword at the ready, the floor suddenly came alive with snakes that seemed to materialize up out of the stone. The sight was as alarming as it was impossible.
She gasped as the writhing creatures slithered around her feet as they rushed toward the Glee. They brushed against her ankles as they went over her boots. Some of them glided in waves right over Richard’s legs. There were so many the floor seemed to have suddenly come alive with movement.
Most were frighteningly big. While they weren’t all the same color or type, most of the biggest were white. A few had brown patterns of scales. Some of the smaller black vipers had yellow bands with white and red rings. Others were a rust color, and a few of the smallest were no bigger around than her finger and as black as death. They were all shockingly fast.
Kahlan didn’t know what kind of snakes were white, but these all had the broad heads and snouts of vipers. Red, forked tongues licked at the air as their bodies moved in writhing waves as they raced ahead. She saw that rather than round pupils, all of these snakes had slitted pupils.
Kahlan stood motionless, sword in hand, fearful that if she moved, the snakes still slithering around her ankles would turn and strike at her. As much as she hated and feared snakes, these didn’t seem the least bit interested in her. From all around, the hundreds of vipers were all headed toward the Glee.
Shale hadn’t moved. She stood with her hands lifted, her fingers slowly twisting with the effort of doing something that appeared extremely difficult. The witch woman’s eyes had turned a darker yellow, and Kahlan could have sworn that they, too, had vertical slits for pupils, but before she could get a good look in the dim light, she had to turn back to the howling threat charging in toward them.
As a tall dark shape in the lead dove toward her, Kahlan brought the sword around in a mighty arc, lopping off its head. She had to turn and pull her hips sideways to avoid being knocked down as the headless monster toppled past her. The head bounced along atop the mass of snakes. In reaction to it landing on them, the snakes, with lightning quickness, turned and struck at the head with their fangs, so that as it tumbled along the floor, it became balled up in snakes.
Shale stood with her hands lifted, motionless other than her writhing fingers. Kahlan stole a quick glance and saw that all the Mord-Sith looked to be unconscious. Vika looked to be dead, as if she could no longer will herself to fight for life.
But far worse, that quick glance told her that Richard had clearly stopped breathing. At first, she had thought maybe he was holding his breath in concentration, but he would surely have responded to her calls, if not the threat from the Glee, if he could.
The mass of tall, slimy creatures slowed their advance, seeming unsettled by all the snakes racing toward them across the floor. First a few and then all the Glee came to an uneasy halt. They didn’t look like they necessarily feared snakes, but the numbers and their behavior clearly had them concerned.
As they came to a halt, the racing snakes in the lead were finally close enough to strike. They lifted up and drew their heads back, the rest of their bodies whipping around forward for support, and then, jaws opened wide, they struck with lightning speed. As yet more came in, they threw themselves at the Glee. Fangs sank into the soft, dark flesh. The vipers struck at ankles, at legs, and the larger ones that could strike higher went for arms and the lean, muscular bodies.
When the vipers sank their fangs into the Glee, they didn’t let go to strike again. Instead, they held on, their heads flexing as they pumped venom into their victims. The Glee, at first confused, then alarmed, were now in full fright, as each of them had dozens of vipers on them with more striking all the time. In mere moments, they were all covered with wriggling snakes. Arms weighed down by snakes that had sunk fangs into them became too heavy to lift. As they staggered back, the snakes wouldn’t let go. The stricken Glee dragged the weight of snakes with them as yet more leaped up to join in the mass attack.
Other long, massively thick snakes, with mottled patterns of brown, black, and tan, coiled themselves around legs, progressively rolling the coils up the legs of the victim, finally wrapping their fat bodies around the chest and neck. Once they had made it up the dark, slimy body, they began rhythmically constricting. With each breath the victim took, the snakes tightened their bodies. Kahlan could see the panic in the big glossy eyes of a Glee, the third eyelid blinking in as it struggled to breathe. Each time the Glee breathed out, the snake tightened, preventing the Glee from getting a full breath. In this way, the powerful snakes worked to progressively suffocate the victim.
Some of the Glee, with snakes already attached to them as yet more vipers leaped at them to strike, began to vanish, retreating back into their own world. The snakes that missed an intended target that was suddenly no longer there dropped to the floor and without pause turned their attack to others still there. As many of the Glee vanished back into their own world, they took the snakes, with fangs firmly sunken into them, back with them.
Others had become so fearful of the attacking vipers that they didn’t seem to have the presence of mind to flee. They fell back under the weight of snakes attached to them. Once on the floor, they were even easier prey. The Glee shrieked in pain and terror, swiping at vipers going for their faces. None of the invading Glee escaped the attack. Everywhere, snakes continued to attack, sinking their fangs into any victim they could get to.
As the last of the Glee still able were vanishing, Kahlan turned and fell on Richard. She pounded her fists against his chest.
“Richard! Richard! Come back! You have to come back!”
He didn’t respond. He seemed lifeless. Kahlan had thought he meant that he was going to go to the cusp of the world of the dead with Vika. Clearly, he hadn’t. He must have made some kind of miscalculation and crossed over into the world of the dead.
Or else he had done it deliberately.
And now he was trapped there.
“Shale, help him!”
Kahlan saw Shale, instead of responding to Kahlan’s urgent call, sinking to the floor. The witch woman looked to be blacking out from exhaustion. The effort of conjuring all those snakes to attack the Glee seemed to have taken everything she had.
“Well, well, snakes, is it?”
a gruff voice behind Kahlan said. “Witch women do seem to have a fondness for their snakes.”
Kahlan spun to the terrible voice she knew all too well.
Michec extended an arm down toward the writhing mass of snakes. One of the larger white vipers coiled itself around his arm, slithering up and around to settle itself over his shoulders. He stroked its head affectionately. The snake flicked its tongue and seemed to be content with its new master.
Michec casually swished a hand, and the hundreds of snakes massing around his feet began dissolving. He lowered the one draped over his shoulders to the floor, where it glided away until it, too, vanished.
10
Kahlan gripped the hilt of the sword tighter in both hands even though she remembered full well that it had somehow done Richard no good. If he hadn’t been able to use the sword effectively against the witch man, she didn’t know how she would be able to do any better. Still, it did make her feel better to have a weapon in her hands. She could feel the word “TRUTH” on the hilt made out of the gold wire wound through silver wire pressing against her palm. It was a reminder of all she and Richard had gone through since they met in the Hartland woods, all because of Darken Rahl, and now, all this time later, she faced one of his henchmen. It felt almost as if Darken Rahl himself was reaching out from the grave to continue to haunt them.
And like Darken Rahl, the witch man had some kind of powers that had counteracted the power in the sword and enabled him to capture Richard. She remembered Zedd telling him that the sword wouldn’t work against Darken Rahl. She could only imagine that the same protection against the Sword of Truth might extend to Michec.
Still, it was all she had, unless she could unleash her Confessor’s power on him. Not only was he keeping his distance, but it also seemed risky to attempt such a thing on someone with abilities she had never encountered before. She knew that there were rare people on whom her power had no effect, or an unpredictable effect. It could be that Michec was like that. If she had to, though, she fully intended to attempt it.
She started circling to Michec’s left to draw his attention away from Richard, Shale, and the Mord-Sith, who were all on the floor and unresponsive. It seemed that when Shale used her ability to the extent she had against the Glee, it sapped her strength until she could recover. That was something Kahlan understood all too well. When she used her power, it took her time to recover. She didn’t know what the problem was with Richard, and that worried her greatly.
For all practical purposes, she was the only protection for the others, and she was alone with this madman. By the look on his face, he clearly relished the idea of catching her by herself. As she slowly moved to the side, she watched for any opening in case she had to try to use her power on him.
She worried, too, that Michec might have had something to do with the condition of the others. The memory of being helpless with him about to skin her alive was all too fresh in her mind. Right then she felt very alone and vulnerable.
“Again with the sword?” Michec, seeming amused, arched an eyebrow over one eye. “You think yourself better with it than your husband? Well, should we see?”
He stomped a foot in her direction, bluffing that he was going to charge at her. Kahlan didn’t flinch back. Instead she thrust the sword out at him, hoping to catch him off guard. She didn’t know if the magic of the sword would work against him, but the razor-sharp blade was in itself formidable. He easily stepped back out of range of both her and the sword. Her caution kept her from following through and pressing the attack.
He grinned with menace. “Ah, a fighter. Good for you. I enjoy skinning fighters.” He gestured at all the corpses behind him. “Makes it so much more satisfying when they finally find themselves helpless. I like to look into their eyes when I begin and they know that there will be no stopping and no rescue.”
Kahlan didn’t need to imagine such terror; she had been there. She wanted nothing more than to kill this monster.
She kept the point of the blade up and at the ready. She could feel its power singing through every nerve fiber in her body. The sword wanted the man’s blood, but not as much as Kahlan did. She resolved that when he eventually came at her, she would try to run him through or use her power. What really concerned her was that he knew she was a Confessor but that didn’t seem to bother him in the least. If both the sword and her power failed to stop him, well then, at least she would not go down without a fight.
She noticed, then, as she forced herself to look into his cruel eyes, that his face didn’t look the same as she remembered. The shape was different. His features had always looked thick and blocky, but the area around his left jaw and ear appeared even thicker. She could see traces of blood left in the folds of his ear. It looked like he had wiped off blood that had been all over the side of his face.
She also saw that the filthy white robes he was wearing were stained with fresher blood up at the neck, as if it had run down onto his robes. That blood was not from a victim. It was his.
The injury had to have been from when Richard kicked the witch man in the head. She wondered just how much damage Richard had done. A kick that hard to his head, if in the right spot and if Richard had been able to make solid contact, would likely have broken the mandible. That would certainly explain why his speech sounded a little slurred, and also why he had been gone for a while. He had probably been hiding somewhere while he did what he could to repair the damage enough with his magic to keep going. As much as he tried not to show it, she could see by the way he kept his shoulder protectively forward that it was hurting him. She realized that might give her an opportunity.
But then, on the other hand, a wounded animal was more dangerous, and Michec certainly was an animal.
Together, with Michec glaring at her and Kahlan with the sword up at the ready and glaring back, they continued slowly revolving as if locked together. Michec seemed entertained by the dance as he waited for her to make the first move, or to make a mistake so he could overwhelm her.
Of course, it was also possible that he simply enjoyed the game.
As they slowly moved in unison, his dark eyes peering out from narrowed eyelids were about as intimidating as any she had ever seen. But she also thought she saw caution there. She hoped that Richard had managed to hurt the man more than she knew.
She also felt the weight of responsibility. It wasn’t just her life she was protecting; it was the twins’ and everyone else’s. If she tried something and it turned out to be the wrong move, they would all be dead.
For the moment, as she and Michec both stared each other down, each waiting for the right moment to strike, she decided that if she saw the right opening, she would have to act.
His gaze, then, flicked down to something that caught his attention. His intimidating glare took on a hint of confusion.
Kahlan glanced down, looking for what it was that had him so distracted. She didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
“See something you don’t like?” she asked. “Thinking twice about how this blade can cut you?”
He cocked his head as he appraised her with one eye. “I see you have managed to have your wounds healed while I was … away for a time.” He arched an eyebrow. “I will soon remedy your return to good health and have you screaming your lungs out down here where no one other than your husband can hear you and no one will ever help you.”
Her wounds? She didn’t know what he was talking about.
She glanced down again, and then she saw it.
In the heat of the confrontation, she hadn’t realized that her wrists were no longer cut up and bleeding from the manacles. They were completely healed and looked as if they had never been severely gashed. She reached up just long enough to feel that the left side of her face wasn’t bruised and swollen, nor was it throbbing in pain. The cut along the side of her neck was gone as well.
He gestured behind at all the skinless corpses without taking his eyes off her. “As you can see, I have quite a ta
lent. The time has come for me to demonstrate.”
11
Just then Kahlan caught movement out of the corner of her eye. It was Vika, naked, with her Agiel between her teeth and a knife in her fist, charging in at a dead run. She was a picture of muscled fury.
At the last instant she rammed the knife into Michec’s side, catching him off guard. Kahlan had thought that she would use the Agiel between her teeth, but she must have been more interested in cutting him open the way he had cut her.
He let out a terrible cry of pain and surprise as he fell away from her attack to escape her blade.
Michec twisted and spun to get some distance as she tried to cut him again, but missed. He clamped a hand over the wound. Kahlan could see the wet red stain under his hand growing on his filthy white robes.
He saw, then, the same thing Kahlan saw. As hard as it was to believe, Vika was completely healed. She didn’t have on a stitch of clothes and they could clearly see that she looked in perfect health. The flesh of her abdomen was flawless and looked never to have had so much as a scratch. Kahlan couldn’t imagine how her intestines could have been put back as well as they had and how such a gaping wound had completely closed.
In her hunger to cut Michec, Vika must have just had time to grab her knife from the sheath attached to her leather outfit. She screamed in fury as she scrambled to dive at him again and drive her blade into him again, but her bare feet slipped on the slime and blood all over the floor from the Glee. She leaped back up to her feet almost immediately.
The witch man moved faster than Kahlan would have thought his bulk would allow, spinning around twice so that Vika, on slippery footing in her bare feet, missed him when she took a swing and tried to slash him again. Though he escaped her stabbing him a second time, the first cut had obviously done damage. Because of his girth, Kahlan suspected that the blade had cut only fat and muscle. She didn’t think it had gone deep enough to damage internal organs. Vika had apparently been going for his kidney. Had she hit it, that would have stopped him or at least slowed him down enough for her to be able to finish him. As it was, he was still on his feet and while hurt, it was not enough to stop him.
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