Blood of the Fold (18 page)

His laughter dying out, General Reibisch rose to his feet. “Quite a trick, young man. But I’ve seen a lot of tricks since I’ve been stationed in Aydindril. Why, I one day had a man entertain me by having birds fly out of his trousers.” The scowl returned. “For a moment, I almost believed you, but a trick doesn’t make you Lord Rahl. Maybe in Trimack’s eyes, but not in mine. I don’t bow down to street-corner magicians.”

Richard stood stone still, the focus of all eyes, while he frantically tried to think of what to do next. He hadn’t expected laughter. He couldn’t think of any other magic he could use, and this man didn’t seem to know real magic from a trick, anyway. Unable to come up with a better idea at the moment, Richard sought to at least make his voice sound confident.

“
I am Richard Rahl, son of Darken Rahl. He is dead. I am now Lord Rahl. If you wish to continue to serve in your post, you will bow down and recognize me. If not, then I will replace you.”

Chuckling once more, General Reibisch hooked a thumb behind his belt. “Perform another trick, and if I judge it worthy, I’ll give you and your troupe a coin before I send you on your way. I’m inclined to give you one for your temerity, if nothing else.”

The soldiers moved closer, the mood shifting with them to an edge of menace.

“
Lord Rahl does not do ‘tricks,’” Hally snapped.

Reibisch put his meaty hands on the table as he leaned toward her. “Your outfits are quite convincing, but you shouldn’t play at being a Mord-Sith, young lady. If one of them ever got her hands on you, she would not take kindly to your pretense; they take their profession seriously.”

Hally drove her Agiel down on his hand. With a shriek, General Reibisch leapt back, his face a picture of shock. He pulled a knife.

Gratch’s growl rattled the windowpanes. His green eyes glowed as he bared his fangs. His wings spread with a snap, like sails in a gale. Men backed away, cocking arms holding weapons.

Inwardly, Richard groaned. Things were rapidly spinning out of control. He wished he had done a better job of thinking this through, but he had been sure that appearing invisible would awe the D’Harans into believing. He should have at least given thought to an escape plan. He didn’t know how they were going to get out of the building alive. Even if they managed, it might be at great cost; it could be a bloodbath. He didn’t want that. He had only started into this Master Rahl business to prevent people from being hurt, not to cause it. Shouts rose around him.

Almost before he realized what he was doing, Richard drew his sword. The unique ring of steel filled the room. The sword’s magic surged into him, rising to his defense, inundating him with its fury. It was like being hit by a furnace blast that burned to the bone. He knew the feeling well, and urged it onward; there was no choice. Storms of rage erupted within. He let the spirits of those who had used the magic before soar with him on the winds of wrath.

Reibisch slashed the air with his knife. “Kill the frauds!”

As the general leapt over the table toward Richard, the room suddenly resounded with a peal of thundering noise. Shards of glass filled the air, refracting light in glittering flashes.

Richard ducked into a crouch as Gratch bounded over him. Pieces of window mullions spiraled over their heads. Officers behind the table pitched forward, many cut by the glass. Dumbfounded, Richard realized the windows were exploding inward.

Blurs of color streaked through the rain of glass. Shadows and light in midair crashed to ground. Startled, through the sword’s rage, Richard felt them.

Mriswith.

They became solid as they hit the floor.

The room burst into battle. Richard saw flashes of red, streaks of fur, and sweeping arcs of steel. An officer smashed face-first atop the table, blood splashing across papers. Ulic heaved two men back. Egan hurled another two over the table.

Richard ignored the tumult around him as he seized the calm center within. The cacophony faded away as he touched cold steel to his forehead, silently beseeching his blade to be true this day.

He saw only the mriswith, felt only them. With every fiber of his being, he wanted nothing else.

The closest sprang up, its back to him. With a scream of fury, Richard unleashed the wrath of the Sword of Truth. The tip whistled as it came around, the blade found its mark: the magic had its taste of blood. Headless, the mriswith collapsed, its three-bladed knives clattering across the floor.

Richard whirled to the lizardlike creature at his other side. Hally leapt between them, into his way. Still turning, he used his momentum to shoulder her aside as he swept his sword around, cleaving the second mriswith before the head of the first had hit the ground. Reeking blood misted the air.

Richard spun ahead. In the grip of fury, he was one with the blade, with its spirits, with its magic. He was, as the ancient prophecies in High D’Haran had named him, as he had named himself,
fuer grissa ost drauka
: the bringer of death. Anything less would mean his friends’ deaths, but he was beyond reasoned thought. He was lost in need.

Though the third mriswith was dark brown, the color of the leather, Richard still picked it out as it darted through the men. With a mighty thrust, he drove his sword home between its shoulder blades. The mriswith’s death howl shuddered in the air.

Men froze at the sound, and the room fell silent.

Grunting with effort, and with rage, Richard heaved the mriswith aside. The lifeless carcass slid off the blade and across the floor, slamming into a table leg. The leg snapped, and the corner of the table collapsed under a flutter of papers.

Teeth gritted, Richard swept his sword back around to the man standing just beyond where the mriswith had been a moment before. The point halted at his throat, rock steady and dripping blood. The magic raged out of control, craving for more in its hunger to eliminate the threat.

The Seeker’s deadly glare met General Reibisch’s eyes. Those eyes saw for the first time who stood before him. The magic dancing in Richard’s eyes was unmistakable; to see it was to see the sun, to feel its heat, to know it without question.

No one made a sound, but even if they had, Richard wouldn’t have heard it; his entire focus was on the man at the point of his sword, at the point of his vengeance. Richard had leapt headlong over the edge of lethal commitment into a cauldron of seething magic, and returning was an agonizing struggle.

General Reibisch went to his knees and gazed up the length of the blade into Richard’s hawklike glare. His voice filled the ringing silence.

“
Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.”

They weren’t false words to save his own life, they were the reverent words of a man who had seen something he truly hadn’t expected.

Richard had chanted those same words countless times at devotions. For two hours each morning and afternoon everyone at the People’s Palace in D’Hara went to a devotion square when the bell tolled and, bowing forehead to the ground, chanted those same words. Richard, as commanded, had said those same words the first time he had met Darken Rahl.

Looking down at the general, now, and hearing those same words, Richard was repulsed, and yet another part of him was relieved at the same time.

“
Lord Rahl,” Reibisch whispered, “you saved my life. You saved all our lives. Thank you.”

Richard knew that if he were to try to use the Sword of Truth against him now, it wouldn’t touch his flesh. In his heart, Richard knew this man was no longer a threat, or his enemy. The sword, unless he turned it white and used the love and forgiveness of the magic, couldn’t harm anyone who was not a threat. The wrath, though, responded not to reason, and denying it the attempt was agony. Richard finally exerted his dominion over the rage and drove the Sword of Truth into its scabbard, driving back the magic, the anger, at the same time.

It had ended as swiftly as it had begun. To Richard, it almost seemed an unexpected dream, a twitch of violence, and it was over.

Across the sloping tabletop lay a dead officer, his blood running down the incline of polished wood. Glass littered the floor, along with scattered papers and stinking mriswith blood. The roomful of soldiers, and those in the hall, were on their knees. Their eyes, too, had seen the unequivocal.

“
Is everyone else all right?” Richard realized his voice was hoarse from screaming. “Is anyone else hurt?”

Silence echoed in the room. A few of the men were nursing injuries that looked painful, but not life-threatening. Ulic and Egan, both panting, both with their swords still in their scabbards, both with bloody knuckles, were standing among the men on their knees. They had been at the People’s Palace; their eyes had already seen.

Gratch folded his wings and grinned. At least there was one, Richard thought, who was bonded through friendship. Four dead mriswith lay sprawled on the floor; Gratch had killed one, and Richard three, fortunately before they were able to kill anyone else. It could have easily been much worse. Cara drew a hank of hair back from her face, while Berdine brushed glass fragment off her head, and Raina released her grip on a soldier’s arm, letting him slump forward to catch his breath.

Richard glanced past the severed torso of a mriswith on the floor. Hally, her red leather standing out in sharp contrast to her blond hair, stood stooped with her arms folded across her abdomen. Her Agiel dangled from its chain at her wrist. Her face was ashen.

As Richard looked down, a tingle of icy dread flushed across his flesh. Her red leather had hidden what he now saw; she was standing in a pool of blood. Her blood.

He vaulted the mriswith and caught her in his arms.

“
Hally!” Richard took up her weight and lowered her to the floor. “Dear spirits, what happened?” Before the words were out of his mouth, he knew; that was the way mriswith killed. The other three women were there, kneeling behind him as he put her head in his lap. Gratch squatted beside him.

Her blue eyes fixed on his. “Lord Rahl …”

“
Oh, Hally, I’m so sorry. I should never have let you—”

“
No … listen. I was foolishly distracted … and he was quick … but still … as he slashed me … I captured his magic. For an instant … before you killed him … it was mine.”

If magic was used against them, Mord-Sith could take control of it, leaving an opponent helpless. That was how Denna had captured him.

“
Ah, Hally, I’m so sorry I wasn’t fast enough.”

“
It was the gift.”

“
What?”

“
His magic was as yours … the gift.”

His hand stroked her cold brow, forcing him to keep his eyes on hers, and not look down. “The gift? Thank you for the warning, Hally. I’m in your debt.”

She gripped his shirt with a bloody hand. “Thank you, Lord Rahl … for my freedom.” She struggled to take a shallow breath. “As brief as it was … it was worth … the price.” She looked to her sisters of the Agiel. “Protect him… .”

With a sickening wheeze, the air left her lungs for the last time. Her sightless eyes stared up at him.

Richard drew her limp body to himself as he wept, a despairing response at being powerless to undo what had happened. Gratch put a claw tenderly to her back, and Cara a hand to his.

“
I didn’t want any of you to die. Dear spirits, I didn’t.”

Raina squeezed his shoulder. “We know, Lord Rahl. That is why we must protect you.”

Richard gently laid Hally to the floor, bending over her, not wanting the others to see the ghastly wound she had taken. A searching glance revealed a mriswith cape close by. He turned to a nearby soldier instead.

“
Give me your cloak.”

The man yanked his cloak off as if it were on fire. Richard closed Hally’s eyes and then covered her with the cloak as he fought back the urge to be sick.

“
We’ll give her a proper D’Haran funeral, Lord Rahl.” General Reibisch, standing beside him, gestured toward the table. “Along with Edwards.”

Richard squeezed his eyes closed and said a prayer to the good spirits to watch over Hally’s sprit, and then he stood.

“
After the devotion.”

The general squinted one eye. “Lord Rahl?”

“
She fought for me. She died trying to protect me. Before she’s put to rest, I want her spirit to see that it was to a purpose. This afternoon, after the devotion, Hally and your man will be put to rest.”

Cara leaned close and whispered. “Lord Rahl, full devotions are done in D’Hara, but not in the field. In the field, one reflection, as General Reibisch has done, is customary.”

General Reibisch nodded apologetically. Richard’s gaze swept the room. All eyes were on him. Beyond the faces, splashes of mriswith blood stained the whitewash. He brought his steely gaze back to the general.

“
I don’t care what you have done in the past. This day there will be a full devotion, here, in Aydindril. Tomorrow, you may go back to the custom. Today, all D’Harans in and around the city will do a full devotion.”

The general’s fingers fidgeted at his beard. “Lord Rahl, there are a great many troops in the area. They must all be notified and—”