Naked Empire (56 page)

“I’ve missed you, Zedd,” she whispered in his ear.

Outside the tent, mayhem had broken out. Orders were being shouted, men were running, and in the distance the clash of steel rang out.

The Sister burst back into the tent. She saw Zedd free and immediately released a bolt of power through his collar. The shock sent him sprawling.

Just then, a second, young, blond Sister in a drab brown wool dress charged in behind Sister Tahirah. Sister Tahirah spun around. The second Sister smacked her so hard it nearly knocked the woman from her feet. Without pause, Sister Tahirah unleashed a bolt of her power that lit the inside of the tent with a blinding flash. Instead of it blasting the second Sister back through the tent’s doorway, as Zedd had expected, Sister Tahirah cried out and crumpled to the ground.

“Got you!” the second Sister growled as she planted a boot on Sister Tahirah’s neck, keeping her on the ground.

Zedd blinked in astonishment. “Rikka?”

Rikka was already turning, her Agiel in her fist. She held it toward Chase.

“Rikka?” Captain Zimmer asked from the other side of the tent, sounding startled, not just to see who it was, but perhaps to see the Mord-Sith with her blond hair undone from its single braid and flying free.

“Zimmer?” She frowned at his black hair. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here!” He gestured to her dress. “What are you wearing?”

Rikka grinned that wicked grin she had. “The dress of a Sister.”

“Sister?” Zedd asked. “What Sister?”

Rikka shrugged. “One who didn’t want to give up her dress. She lost her head over the whole affair.” With her finger and thumb Rikka pulled her lower lip out. “See? I borrowed her ring, too. I spread the split and hung it here, so I’d look like a real Sister.”

Rikka pulled Sister Tahirah up by her hair and shoved her toward Adie. “Get that thing off her neck.”

“I will do no such—”

Rikka drove her Agiel up under the Sister’s chin. Blood gushed out over her lower lip. The Sister started choking on it as she gasped in agony.

“I said, get that thing off Adie’s neck. And don’t you ever question me again.”

Sister Tahirah scrambled to Adie to do as the Mord-Sith had commanded.

Chase planted his fists on his hips as he glared down at Zedd, still on the ground. “So what are we going to do now—draw straws to see who gets to rescue you?”

“Bags! Isn’t anyone listening? You people have to get out of here!”

Rachel shook a finger at Zedd. “Now, Zedd, you know you’re not supposed to say bad words in front of children.”

Sputtering in frustration, Zedd gaped up at Chase.

“I know,” the boundary warden said with a sigh. “She’s been a trial for me, too.”

“The sun’s about to set!” Zedd roared.

“It would be better if we could delay until it did,” Captain Zimmer said. “It would be easier to get out of camp in the dark.”

A humming noise filled the tent, making the very air vibrate, and then there was a sudden metallic pop. Adie cried out with relief as the collar fell away.

“Isn’t anyone listening?” Zedd scrambled to his feet and shook his fists. “I’ve ignited a sunset spell!”

“A what?” Chase asked.

“A sunset spell. It’s a protective device from the Keep. It’s a shield of sorts. When it recognizes that other shields are being violated and protected items are being taken, it insinuates itself among the stolen goods. When a thief opens it to see what it is, it activates the spell. At the first sunset the spell ignites and destroys everything that has been plundered.”

Sister Tahirah shook her fist at him. “You fool!”

Rikka seized his arm. “Then let’s get going.”

Chase grabbed Zedd’s other arm and pulled him back. “Now, hold on.”

Zedd yanked both arms free and pointed out through the slit in the side of the tent at the setting sun. “We’ve got mere moments until this place is a fireball.”

“How big a fireball?” Captain Zimmer asked.

Zedd threw up his hands. “It will kill thousands. It won’t destroy the camp by any means, but this whole area is going to be leveled.”

Everyone started talking, but Chase cut them all off with an angry command for silence. “Now listen to me. If we look like we’re escaping, we’ll be caught. Captain, you and your men come with me. We’ll pretend like Zedd and Adie are our prisoners. Rachel, too—that’s how I got in here; I found out they were holding children.” He flipped a hand toward Rikka and Sister Tahirah. “They will look like Sisters in charge of prisoners, along with us playing as the guards.”

“Do you want that thing off your neck, first?” Rikka asked Zedd.

“No time for that now. Let’s go.”

Adie grabbed Zedd’s arm. “No.”

“What!”

“Listen to me, old man. There be those families and children in these tents around us. They will die. You go. Get to the Keep. I will get the innocent people out of here.”

Zedd didn’t like the idea, but arguing with Adie was a fool’s task, and besides, there was no time.

“We split up, then,” Captain Zimmer said. “Me and my men will play the part of guards and get the men, women, and children out of here, back to our lines, along with Adie.”

Rikka nodded. “Tell Verna that I’m going to go with Zedd to help take back the Keep. He will need a Mord-Sith to keep him out of trouble.”

Everyone looked around to see if there would be any arguments. No one said anything. It suddenly seemed settled.

“Done,” Zedd said.

He threw his arms around Adie and kissed her cheek. “Be careful. Tell Verna I’m going to take the Keep back. Help her defend the passes.”

Adie nodded. “Be careful. Listen to Chase—he be a good man to come all this way for you.”

Zedd smiled and then gasped as Chase grabbed his robes and yanked him out of the tent. “The sun is setting—let’s get out of here. Remember, you’re our prisoner.”

“I know the part,” Zedd grumbled as he was dragged out of the tent like a sack of grain. He smiled as Adie, already rushing away, looked over her shoulder one last time. She smiled back, and then was gone.

“Wait!” Zedd called. He quickly reached into one of the wagons and retrieved something he didn’t want to be destroyed. He slipped it into a pocket. “All right, let’s go.”

Outside the tent, the camp was in pandemonium. Elite guards, in a state of high alert and with weapons drawn, raced past on their way toward the command tents. Other men ran to the ring of barricades. Trumpets blared alarms and coded messages that directed men to tasks. Zedd feared his small group might be set upon and held for questioning.

Instead of waiting for that to happen, Chase reached out and snatched a soldier running past. “What’s the matter with you? Get me some protection for these prisoners until I can get them to a safe place! The emperor will have our heads if we allow them to be recaptured!”

The soldier quickly collected a dozen men and fell in around Rikka, Sister Tahirah, Chase, Rachel, and Zedd. Rachel was doing a convincing job of bawling in fear. For effect, Chase would occasionally give her a shake and yell at her to shut up.

Zedd glanced back over his shoulder, seeing the sun touch the horizon. He growled at Rikka, out ahead, for her to pick up her pace.

At the barricades, scowling guards looked them over carefully as they approached and then opened their ranks. They were preventing anyone from getting in, and were momentarily confused by such a company of their own men with prisoners making their way out. One man decided to step out to stop and question them.

Chase straight-armed him. “Idiot! Out of our way! Emperor’s orders!”

The man frowned as he stared at the procession sweeping past. While he considered what to do, they were past and gone, swallowed up in the larger camp.

In moments, they were out of the heart of the camp. In short order, regular soldiers, seeing Rikka at the lead, moved to block their path. A beautiful woman out among the regular soldiers was asking for trouble, and with the confusion the men saw in the command area, they believed they had an opportunity while those in authority were busy. Rikka and Chase kept their small group moving at a quick pace. The grinning soldiers closed ranks, blocking the way. One of the men, missing his two front teeth, took a step out in front of his men. With one thumb hooked behind his belt, he held up the other hand.

“Hold on there. I think the ladies would like to stay for a visit.”

Without pause, Rachel reached under the hem of her dress and pulled a knife. She didn’t slow or even look back as she flipped the knife up over her shoulder. In one fluid motion, without missing a step, Chase caught the knife by the tip and heaved it at the toothless man. With a thunk, the knife slammed hilt-deep into the man’s forehead.

As he was still toppling back, Rachel flipped a second knife up over her shoulder. Chase caught it and sent it on its way. As the second man twisted toward the ground, dead, the rest of the men backed away to let the small group, marching onward, in among them. Deadly fights within the Imperial Order camp were not a rarity.

Elite guards or not, the soldiers were confident in their numbers and, with a beautiful woman in their midst, sure of what they wanted. Men all around closed in.

Zedd snatched a quick glance back. “Now! Hit the ground!”

Rikka, Chase, Rachel, and Zedd dove to the dirt.

For an instant, everyone above them froze, staring in surprise. The soldiers who were accompanying them, weapons already drawn for the fight they expected, also stopped and stood in confusion.

Sister Tahirah saw her opportunity and cried out. “Help! These people are—”

The world ignited with brilliant white light.

An instant later a thunderous blast rocked the ground. A wall of debris followed, driven before a roar of noise.

Men were blown into the air. Some were cut down by flying wreckage. The elite guards that had escorted them tumbled through the air over Zedd.

Sister Tahirah had turned toward the flash. A wagon wheel shot toward them at incredible speed, hitting her chest-high, cutting her in two. The bloodied wheel sailed onward without even being slowed. The Sister’s shredded remains were flung across the ground along with the bodies of countless men.

As the blast from behind still rumbled, the screams of terribly wounded men rose into the lingering rays of sunset.

Zedd dearly hoped that Adie had not wasted any time in escaping.

Chase seized Zedd’s robes at one shoulder and hauled him to his feet as he swept Rachel up in his other arm. Rikka grabbed Zedd’s robes at the other shoulder and pulled him ahead. Together, Zedd’s two rescuers rushed with him into the carnage.

Rachel hid her face in Chase’s shoulder.

Zedd was about to ask Chase why in the world he would teach a young girl such things with knives when he recalled that he himself had been the one who had once commanded Chase to the task of teaching her everything the boundary warden knew.

Rachel was a special person. Zedd had wanted her to be prepared for what life might have in store.

“You should have let me make the Sister take off that collar when we had the chance,” Rikka said as they ran.

“If we had taken the time,” Zedd answered, “we would have been back there and caught up in that fireball.”

“I suppose,” she said.

As they slowed a bit to catch their breath, men ran in every direction. In the confusion and disorder, no one noticed that the four of them were making good their escape. As they hastily made their way through the vast Imperial Order encampment, Zedd put an arm around Rikka’s shoulders and pulled her closer.

“Thank you for coming to save my life.”

She flashed him a cunning smile. “I wouldn’t leave you to those pigs—not after all you’ve done for us. Besides, Lord Rahl has Cara protecting him; I’m sure he would want a Mord-Sith protecting his grandfather as well.”

Zedd had been right. The world was turned upside down.

“We have horses and supplies hidden,” Chase said. “On our way out of this place, we’d better take a horse for Rikka.”

Rachel looked back over Chase’s shoulder, her arms around his neck. She gave Zedd a serious frown as she whispered, “Chase is unhappy because he had to leave all his weapons behind and be so lightly armed.”

Zedd glanced to the battle-axe at one hip, the sword at Chase’s other, and two knives at the small of his back. “Yes, I can see where being so defenseless would make a man grumpy.”

“I don’t like this place,” Rachel whispered in Chase’s ear.

He patted her back as she laid her head on his shoulder. “We’ll be back in the woods in no time, little one.”

Amid the screams and death, it was as tender a sight as Zedd could imagine.

Verna paused when the sentry rushed up in the dark. She moved her hands up on the reins, closer to the bit, to keep her horse from spooking.

“Prelate—I think it might be an attack of some sort,” the soldier said in breathless worry.

She frowned at the man. “What might be an attack? What is it?”

“There’s something coming up the road.” He pointed back toward Dobbin Pass. “A wagon, I think.”

The enemy was always sending things at them—men sneaking through the darkness, horses encased in spells designed to blow a breach in their shields running wildly toward them, innocent enough wagons with archers hiding inside, powerful spell-driven winds laced with magic conjuring of every sort.

“Since it’s dark, the commander thinks it’s suspicious and we shouldn’t take any chances.”

“Sounds wise,” Verna said.

She had to get back to their camp. She had made the rounds herself to get a good look at their defenses, to see the men at the outposts, before their nightly meeting back at camp to go over the day’s reports.

“The commander wants to destroy the wagon before it gets too close. I’ve checked, Prelate—there are no other Sisters at hand. If you don’t want to see to this, we can have the men up above drop a rockslide on the wagon and crush it.”

Verna had to get back to meet with the officers. “You had better tell your commander to take care of it in whatever manner he sees fit.”

The soldier saluted with snap of a fist to his heart.

Verna pulled her horse around and put a foot into the stirrup. Why would the Imperial Order think they could get a wagon through, especially at night? Certainly, they weren’t foolish enough to think it wouldn’t be seen in the dark. She paused and looked at the soldier hurrying away.

“Wait.” He stopped and turned. “I changed my mind. I’ll go with you.”

It was foolish to use the rocks they had ready overhead; they might need them if a full-scale attack suddenly charged up this pass. It was silly to waste such a defense.

She followed the man up the trail to the lookout point where his company waited. The men were all watching through the trees. The road out ahead and below them looked silver in the light of the rising moon.

Verna inhaled the fragrance of balsam firs as she watched the wagon making its way up the silvery road, being pulled by a single, plodding horse. Tense archers waited at the ready. They had a shielded lantern standing by to light fire arrows in order to set the wagon ablaze.

Verna didn’t see anyone in the wagon. An empty wagon seemed pretty suspicious. She recalled the strange message from Ann, warning her to let an empty wagon through.

But they had already done that. Verna recalled that the girl with the message from Jagang had come in by this route and method. Verna’s heart pounded in worry at the thought of what new message Jagang might be sending, now.

Perhaps it was Zedd’s and Adie’s heads.

“Hold,” she called to the archers. “Let it through, but stand at the ready in case it’s a trick.”

Verna made her way down the narrow path between the trees. She stood behind a screen of spruce, watching. When the wagon was close enough, she opened a small gap in the weave of the vast shield she and the Sisters had spun across the pass. The pattern of magic was barbed with every nasty sort of magic they could conjure. This pass was small enough that the shields alone could hold it, and if the enemy did come, it was too small for any numbers to come all at once. Even without the formidable shield, the pass was relatively easy to hold.

When the wagon passed through the shield, Verna closed the hole. When it rolled close enough, one of the men ran out of the trees and took control of the horse. As the wagon drew to a halt, dozens of archers behind him and on the other side, behind Verna, drew their weapons. Verna had spun a web of magic and she was prepared to unleash it at the slightest provocation.

The tarp in the bed of the wagon eased back. A little girl sat up. It was the child who had brought the message the last time. Her face lit up at seeing Verna, someone she recognized.

Verna’s heart skipped a beat at the thought of what the message might be, this time.

“I brought some friends,” the girl said.

People lying in the back of the wagon pulled the tarp aside and started sitting up. They looked like parents with their frightened children.

Verna blinked in shock when she saw some of the people help Adie up. The sorceress looked to be exhausted. Her black and gray hair was no longer parted neatly in the middle, but was in as much disarray as Zedd’s usually was.

Verna rushed over, leaning in to help the woman. “Adie! Oh, Adie, am I ever glad to see you!”

The old sorceress smiled. “I be awfully happy to see you, too, Verna.”

Verna’s gaze swept over the people in the wagon, her heart still pounding with apprehension. “Where’s Zedd?”

“He escaped as well.”

Verna closed her eyes with a silent prayer of gratitude.

Her eyes popped open. “If he escaped, then where is he?”

“He be on his way back to the Keep, in Aydindril,” Adie said in her raspy voice. “The enemy has captured it.”

“We heard.”

“That old man intends to have his Keep back.”

“Knowing Zedd, I feel sorry for anyone who gets in his way.”

“Rikka be with him.”

“Rikka! What was she doing over there? I ordered her not to do that!” Verna realized how that must have sounded. “We thought it would be pointless, that she wouldn’t have a chance and we would just lose her for nothing.”

“Rikka be Mord-Sith. She has a mind of her own.”

Verna shook her head. “Well, even though she wasn’t supposed to do that, now that I see you again and know Zedd has escaped as well, I’m glad that that obstinate woman didn’t listen to me.”

“Captain Zimmer be on his way back as well.”

“Captain Zimmer!”

“Yes, he and some of his men decided to come to rescue us as well. They be coming back the way they travel, unseen in the night.” Adie gestured to the surrounding trees. “They be up around us, protecting the wagon on our way in. The captain feared that some of the enemy might stop the wagon and capture us all over again. He wanted to make sure we be safe.”

The captain and his men had special signals that allowed them to move through the pass without being attacked by their own men, or the Sisters, by mistake. The nature of the way Captain Zimmer and his men worked was that they were, for the most part, outside regular command. Kahlan had set it up that way so they could act on their own initiative. While it could at times be aggravating, those men accomplished more than anyone ever expected.

“Zedd wanted me to help these people escape.” Adie gave Verna a meaningful look. “There be others we could not help.”

Verna glanced over at the people huddling together at the back of the wagon. “I can only imagine what Jagang has been doing with people like that.”

“No,” Adie said. “I doubt you can.”

Verna changed to an even more horrifying subject. “Has Jagang been able to find anything from the Keep, so far, that he will use against us?”

“Thankfully, no. Zedd set a spell that destroyed the things stolen from the Keep. There be a big explosion in the middle of their camp.”

“Like the one back in Aydindril that killed so many of them?”

“No, but it still caused much destruction and killed some important people—even some of Jagang’s Sisters, I believe.”

Verna never thought she would see the day that she would be pleased to hear that Sisters of the Light had died. Those women were controlled by the dream walker, and even when they had been offered freedom, they had been too afraid to believe those trying to rescue them. They had chosen to remain Jagang’s slaves.

With a sudden thought, Verna grabbed a fistful of Adie’s robes. “Could the spell Zedd ignited possibly have taken out Jagang?”

With her completely white eyes, Adie looked back up Dobbin Pass toward the Imperial Order camp. “I wish I had better news, Prelate, but Captain Zimmer, on the way out, told me that just as we were about to be rescued, an assassin managed to get deep into the inner camp.”

“An assassin? Who was it? Where was he from?”

“None of us knows. He appeared much like others from the Old World. The intruder be driven by a single-minded determination to get to Jagang and kill him. He somehow made it into the inner defenses, killed some people, and took the uniform of the elite guards so he might get to Jagang. The guards somehow recognized he not be one of their own. They hacked the man to pieces before he could get close to the emperor.

“Jagang left the area until his men could check over their defenses and make sure there be no more assassins about. Many of the Sisters went with him, helping with his safeguards. That be when Zedd set off the sunset spell. We did not know Jagang had left the area, but it would have make no difference. Zedd had to use the spell when it be put before him. The spell be triggered by the sun setting.”

Verna nodded. For a moment, she had been hoping…

“Still, you and Zedd escaped, and that’s what matters for now. Thank the Creator.”

“A surprising number of people showed up all at once to rescue us.” Adie lifted an eyebrow. “I do not recall seeing the Creator among them.”

The warm breeze ruffled Verna’s curly hair. “I suppose not, but you know what I mean.”

The crickets in the woods kept up their steady chirping. Life seemed to be a little sweeter, their situation a little less hopeless.

She let out a sigh. “I hope the Creator will at least help Zedd and Rikka take back the Keep.”

“Zedd will not need the Creator’s help,” Adie said. “Another man showed up to help get us out. Chase be an old friend of Zedd, me, and Richard. Chase will have those holding the Keep praying for the protection of the Creator.”

“Then we can look forward to the day the Keep is back in our hands and Jagang is denied help in breaking through the passes into D’Hara.”

Verna waved her arm, signaling, and the four couples standing at the back of the wagon shuffled forward with their children.

“Welcome to D’Hara,” Verna told them. “You will be safe, here.”

“Thank you for helping get us out,” one of the men said with a bow of his head to Adie. “I feel ashamed, now, of the terrible things I had been thinking of you.”

Adie smiled to herself as she tightened her thin fingers on his shoulder. “True. But I could not blame you.”

The girl who had brought the message the last time tugged on Verna’s dress. “This is my mother and father. I told them how nice you were to me, before.”

Verna squatted down and hugged the girl. “Welcome back, child. Welcome back.”