XII. IGNITE
An arrow whistled through the air, passing too near to her. Richard felt the magic of his sword intensify with the threat of the arrow, setting a fire burning beneath his skin. He fought the urge to grab Kahlan and pull her behind him, forcing himself to turn blade first into the nearest man instead. The D'Haran fell at his feet, crumpling towards the gaping wound in his side, and Richard swung the Sword of Truth around to meet another. The air stank of blood and bodies burning in a bright blaze of wizard's fire.
The attack had come suddenly – hard eyed D'Harans leaping out from behind a bend in the road not halfway through the day's march. He'd had time to do no more than shout Kahlan's name in warning before the men were upon them, swinging blades and calling for death. He was vaguely aware of Cara somewhere to his right, bringing the biggest to the ground, blood leaking from the man's ears and eyes as she leaned into him with her Agiels. But it was Kahlan he kept an eye on as he fought. The hot, angry magic of the sword was like a siren's song sung in his veins every time he glanced her way, swelling in some desperate, furious crescendo as he brought death to yet another man.
She'd been dizzy and weak that morning, but now she seemed as sure and deadly with her daggers as she'd ever been. Though there was a slight swell to her belly now, she still managed to arch backwards out of the sweep of a mace, coming up to fling a dagger into another man's chest. He dropped lifeless to the ground, and then only the hulking menace with the mace remained before her. In a blink her leg had lifted, her boot smashing into his fist. The mace tumbled from his grasp, and for a fleeting moment, Kahlan met Richard's eyes over the doomed D'Haran's shoulder. The look she gave was half chastising and half something he couldn't quite read, and he realized Kahlan hadn't missed a thing. She knew how closely he watched her and why. Richard didn't care. She shouldn't be fighting like this. His heart wouldn't stop racing until she was safe.
He slew the red faced soldier nearest him, warm blood splattering across his fingers and forearm, just as her hand closed around the throat of the last man standing. Her eyes blackened and her magic tore through the air, stripping the dead leaves from a nearby tree as she took the man's soul.
Richard watched him cleave to her side the way he had Annabelle's, gazing up at his new mistress in rapture. He was a large, war hardened man with massive shoulders and a ragged scar cutting across half his face, but he knelt at her feet like a man in prayer. Richard gripped the sword harder and looked away, trying not to remember Annabelle.
Cara and Zedd drew closer, stepping over and around the dead respectively, and the three of them hurried to Kahlan's side. "Are you all right?" he asked just as Zedd voiced his concern as well.
Kahlan smiled faintly. "I'm fine," she said in a breathless voice, turning her attention back to the man at her feet. Her expression hardened, "Why did you attack us?"
"Forgive me, Mistress!" wailed the ruined man. "But you travel with Richard Rahl." He nodded towards a fallen D'Haran dressed in a more elaborate version of the red and black uniform he wore, "Captain Mercer wanted to kill the false Lord Rahl."
"False Lord Rahl?" interjected Cara, brandishing her Agiel but a breath from his heart. "Perhaps I should let you feel my Agiel, so you understand just how well the bond still works?"
"If it would please my mistress," he said, his pale blue eyes never straying from Kahlan's face, eager to submit to the agony of an Agiel if it might give her pleasure. Richard stared at him in disgust.
Kahlan ignored the offer and said, "Explain what you mean by the false Lord Rahl."
The soldier nodded, stumbling over his words in his haste to answer her, "Many D'Harans believe the rumor of Richard Rahl's birth to be fabricated – that he is no more than a farm boy making a desperate play for the throne of D'Hara."
"I'm not making any play for D'Hara!" said Richard, but the man ignored him, his gaze never straying from Kahlan's face.
Her eyes flashed sharp as her daggers. "And so you thought to kill him?" she asked.
"Yes." He cowered at the look on her face, tugging on the ragged ends of his greasy hair. "Or capture one of his companions to lure him into a trap."
"Capture?" Cara scoffed loudly. "No one captures a Mord-Sith."
The confessed man pawed at the dirt, groveling his way closer to his mistress. Richard lifted the point of his sword – if the man so much as touched Kahlan's skirts, he would be asking for death. "Please," he whined. "Say you forgive me, Mistress? I want to stay and serve you."
Kahlan's face was blank. She flicked a bloodstained dagger towards the dead D'Harans. "Are there others out there still helping with your captain's plan?"
"No," said the man, stopping his wild pleading to answer her as swiftly as possible. Richard well remembered the feeling; as if every question held the weight of the world, and he could never hope to answer soon enough, well enough to be worthy of his mistress. "Captain Mercer hoped to claim D'Hara for himself by killing Richard Rahl," said the man. "But he did not hold much sway with the other officers. Only we were loyal to him. Still, many others think as he did and would be glad for the chance to dispose of the false Lord Rahl."
Kahlan nodded once and turned towards him, her expression changing completely. Her eyes brimmed with worry; her voice was soft and earnest. "Richard, we need to do something about this. You could get killed."
"They're all dead," he countered. "We need to find the Stone of Tears." They'd gone too long without so much as a hint of the stone. It was beginning to feel like the compass changed directions at whim. They'd traveled north and south, east and west though the shortest distance to anywhere was always a straight line. It made no sense. They couldn't go making things worse by wasting time chasing down phantom D'Harans.
"If you had claimed your throne," said Cara, spinning an Agiel lazily by its chain, "you would not have to put up with your own men trying to kill you."
"They're not my men," he said roughly. "D'Hara is nothing to me." Except it was everything. The reminder burned in his blood and on his chest; he was no better than his brother. He was a Rahl. A monster. And his people were monsters. He stepped towards the kneeling soldier, glowering down at him. The man could have captured Kahlan or killed her. Cost her their child. Fury ignited in his heart, and the magic of the sword thundered through him, demanding vengeance. "I should kill him," he growled.
Kahlan looked up in surprise and held out a hand. "Richard, wait."
"He attacked you!" he seethed. "He deserves to die."
"He's confessed, Richard," said Zedd quietly. "He's no harm to anyone now."
Richard whirled around to face his grandfather. "That's not true," he said through gritted teeth. "He can still do great harm."
Zedd's white brows knit together in a frown. A hush fell over their little group, and for a long moment, no one said anything. Kahlan's shoulders tensed, but she did not look his way. The sword's magic seemed about to choke him. "Go from here," she said to the soldier at her feet. "And take up honest work that serves the Creator." With a vow to her, the man was gone, and then suddenly she stood before him, the toes of their boots nearly touching. Richard could see the fire blazing in her blue eyes. "He is harm to no one," she said and walked away to wrench her dagger from the heart of a dead man.
Richard stood there, half blind with rage from the sword and nothing to spend it on. It stayed beneath his skin like a living thing, crawling there until the rage became pain and the pain was rage. He imagined this must be what it felt like to be flayed alive, and the only thought that crossed his mind was that he deserved it. Panting, he slammed the Sword of Truth back into its scabbard.
He jerked his head towards the fallen men, "Burn them, Zedd."
The bodies blackened at the wizard's hands, and as the air turned rancid with the stench of charred flesh and burning hair, Richard started walking again. He didn't wait for the others but stalked ahead, cradling the anger of the sword there like a splinter beneath his skin.
He had not gone far when he heard the sound of someone weeping.
They were traveling through a stretch of open countryside, full of rolling hills and fields running clear to the horizon, so Richard saw nothing until he crested the next hill. When he did, the sight waiting below stopped him in his tracks, damping the sword's fury with a dull wash of horror.
A man knelt sobbing in the middle of a narrow country lane, huddled over a young woman with a pretty face, who looked to be greatly with child. Her head had been hacked nearly all the way off. It lay at an odd angle against her shoulder, the smooth skin of her throat giving away abruptly to a brutal, ruinous gash.
The blood that blossomed all around her head was the brightest red. It left him feeling sick with grief, and his first thought was that Kahlan couldn't see this. But as he turned to stop her, she was already coming to a halt beside him.
"Dear spirits," she whispered, her hand flying to the slight swell in her own belly. And then she went hurrying down the hill, the white sleeves of her dress fluttering behind her. Richard followed after her as the man looked up, blinking at them through his tears. He didn't look much older than the woman, with an untidy shock of tawny hair and a nose a bit too long for his face. His eyes were swollen from crying; his hands and shirt red with blood from clutching her to his chest.
"You know this woman," said Richard.
He snuffled and nodded his head. "Marla," he moaned. "She's my wife."
Cara and Zedd had come running down the hill to join them, and he thought even Cara seemed stunned by the sight of the dead woman. He motioned to her quickly, "Give her the breath of life."
But the Mord-Sith sidled forward, looking down at the body like she was appraising a horse for sale, an eyebrow raised and her lips pursed together. "I can't," she said after a moment. "Her body is ruined."
"No," said Richard. "It's not." The anger of the sword came for him like an undertow, yanking him back into something desperate and furious. Kahlan was standing still as a stone, her face blank and far too pale. His voice hitched, "Bring her back."
"I can't!" said Cara. "Her windpipe's been severed. Her soul will be unable to return."
But he looked down at the woman's swollen belly, and all he could see was Kahlan there in her place, her life's blood feeding the ground, their child dead inside her. "Give her the breath of life, Cara," he ordered.
She took a half-step towards the body and rocked back on her heel, hesitating. Overhead, the sky was a beautiful shade of blue that no one noticed. She glanced his way once more, but when he said nothing, she knelt down beside Marla's body in the blood and the dirt. Her hair swung forward as she exhaled, lips parting to release a shimmering, smoky breath into the dead woman's mouth.
They all waited for an answering breath that never came; the woman was dead and would stay that way. Cara straightened up and shot him a pointed look. For a long time, no one spoke.
And then Zedd stooped down, gripping the widowed man's shoulder with a bony hand. "Who did this to her?" he asked in a quiet, sympathetic voice. The young man looked up but kept sobbing, no words finding their way out.
"The D'Harans," said Richard. "It must have been them."
Cara spun around, "D'Harans would not do this."
"They start wars," he said. "They give birth to tyrants. Capture innocent girls and torture them into killing their fathers. They are monsters capable of this."
Cara's face went blank, and she said nothing more. It was the weeping man who finally spoke, "Wasn't D'Harans." He wiped at his tears, smearing his wife's blood across his cheeks. He didn't seem to notice. "Just one man…if you can call him that. Spirits only know what he was. He had sores all over him. Strips of rotting flesh hanging right off his face."
"A baneling," said Zedd. "One of the dead souls sent back by the Keeper to kill for a living."
"That's what it was then," said the man. "A baneling. We were just going for a walk. Marla, she'd been getting pains in her back a lot because it was getting so close to the birth." A sob broke through his words, and he was silent a moment, his shoulders shaking. "But taking walks helped it some, she said, so I was taking her for a walk. Just down the lane and back." He gestured towards a little two room cottage tucked away at the far end of the lane. It looked simple and secluded and rather like the sort of home Richard used to imagine he'd settle down in some day.
"Just a walk," said the man again in a wobbly voice. He stroked his dead wife's hair with a trembling hand. "There's not too many people round these parts, but everyone's always been friendly enough, so I didn't think anything of it when I first saw the man. His face frightened me, but Marla thought he must be ill and was going to offer him some of her ointments. He had an axe with him like for chopping firewood. It happened so fast. He pulled it out and he swung, he, he—" The man looked back at Marla's ruined throat and covered his face with his hands, letting out a keening cry.
Richard crouched down beside him, all too aware that Kahlan still had not moved. Her hand had fallen away from her stomach, and hung limply at her side. Her face showed nothing at all. "Did you see which way the baneling went?" he asked.
The young man lifted his head again, his gaze landing on the sword at Richard's hip. "You're the Seeker," he said in a tone of sudden realization. He twisted around to gape at Kahlan. "Then you're the Mother Confessor?"
She gave a nod, "I am."
Still leaking tears, he hunkered down into an awkward bow. "Forgive me, Mother Confessor, I…"
"It's all right," she interrupted softly. "There's no need for that. Do you have any idea which way the baneling went?"
The man snuffled, pointing a shaky arm down the lane away from the cottage. He wiped the snot from his nose onto his shirt sleeve. "That way."
"Then Kahlan, you take Zedd and go after him," said Richard. "He can't have gotten far. Cara, you stay here and help me." They nodded, and Kahlan and Zedd hurried off together, leaving them alone with the dead woman and her weeping husband. The blood on the ground was starting to dry. A crow cawed loudly overhead as it flew by.
"Why didn't you send me after the baneling?" demanded Cara as soon as Zedd and Kahlan disappeared from view over the first hill. "She's already had to fight today."
Richard looked up with a humorless smile. "Are you worried about her, Cara?"
She gave an indignant huff. "I just don't like it when we have to slow down. Now she'll be tired again."
"Kahlan can handle it," he said and glanced back at the dead woman's belly, still trying to decide if he should even suggest what he was considering. "It's better for her to go and be tired than stay and see more of this."
The Mord-Sith frowned. "She sounded fine. She wasn't upset."
"She was. You have to look in her eyes to see it."
The man beside them spoke in a stuttering voice, "If I've given offense, forgive me. I should've recognized her. I should've bowed. My Marla would be scolding my ears off for forgetting to bow to the Mother Confessor." He wiped at his bleary eyes, smearing more blood across his cheeks.
"No." Richard reached out, gripping the man's shoulder. "It's nothing like that. You haven't offended Kahlan. It's just that…she's with child as well, and-" He trailed off with a helpless shrug; he had no words for what he'd seen in her eyes.
"Oh," gasped the man. "Oh, I see." Fresh tears spilled down his face. He rocked back and forth on his heels, moaning as he stared at his wife's body. "Why didn't it kill me too? If it kills to stay alive, why not me?"
"Banelings have to kill every day," said Cara with a shrug. "He probably intends to come back and kill you tomorrow."
The man let out a pitiful sob and crumpled around Marla, clutching her hair in his fists. "Cara," hissed Richard in a low voice. The Mord-Sith merely looked puzzled. She gave another shrug and wandered further down the path, her Agiels at the ready.
Richard turned back to the man. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Bran," he said in a hollow voice.
"Okay, Bran. I know we can't do anything for your wife, but…" Richard closed his eyes a moment. Spirits help him if he'd lost his mind here. He forced himself to keep going and said, "We might be able to save your child."
"What? How?" Bran sat up, suddenly alert. "Marla's dead. So the babe is too."
He pressed a hand to the pretty woman's cheek, her flesh soft and yielding against his. "She's still warm," he said quietly, his stomach roiling as he let his gaze drift to her nearly severed neck. "If the blade hadn't done so much damage to her throat, the breath of life would have brought her back. It should still do it for the child." His hand shook as he gestured at her swollen belly. "But I'd have to cut into her some to get the baby. I'm not sure it will work."
Bran was silent a moment, but then he nodded his head. "Do it. Marla would want you to try. She loved that baby more than anything."
"All right," said Richard. "You might want to look away." Bran turned his back but took up his wife's lifeless hand, clasping it between his own larger ones. Richard pulled his knife out of his belt. It felt unsteady in his hands, the tip trembling a little as he loomed over Marla's body. He couldn't bring himself to lift her skirts, so he slit the fabric instead, tearing a gash across her middle until the taut, smooth skin of her naked belly glowed in the sunlight.
"All right," he said again, this time to no one but himself. His throat felt dry, his tongue too large for his mouth. He forced all thoughts of Kahlan from his mind with an effort equivalent to heaving a boulder one handed into the sky. Slowly, Richard let his knife bite into the dead woman's flesh, trying to ignore the gush of blood and the warm, slimy feeling of her innards against his hands. The stench of blood was overwhelming. Gritting his teeth, he began to grope blindly for the child.
"How do you even know how to do this?" asked Cara incredulously. She'd wandered back and now sat peering right over his shoulder, her breath hot and irritating against his neck.
Richard's hands stilled. "I grew up on a farm. I helped a neighbor do this once to save a calf when the cow died." But he'd just been a wide-eyed boy watching from behind his fingers in shock and fear and amazement, and that had only been a cow. Now, when he felt what he was certain was a tiny foot against his palm, he almost started shaking. The knife clattered to the ground and Richard leaned forward, somehow managing to ease the lifeless body from its mother's torn womb without dropping it.
"Cara," he urged. Bran had turned around and sat staring at the blue infant through watery eyes. Cara scooted closer, her lips parting to release another strange, smoky wisp of magic into the tiny, rosebud mouth of the babe.
For a moment that felt endless, there was nothing, and then the small mouth parted further and gasped in a breath of its own.
Richard looked down to find a little boy writhing in his arms, eyes slitting open as he let out an impressive shriek. "He's alive," he murmured, dizzy with relief. He passed Bran his newborn son, and the young man clutched the infant to his chest, weeping openly as he stumbled over his thanks again and again. Richard only nodded and turned back to Marla, tugging the ruined remains of her dress back up to cover her as best he could.
"He's here, Marla," said Bran through his tears. "He's here." He curled towards the body of his dead wife, lying down in the dirt beside her severed head. The infant wept and wailed along with his father – just a slimy, wriggling thing in his arms. Richard could not help but stare at them, the fury of the sword now long gone cold. It seemed he sat an eternity fighting against his tears before Zedd and Kahlan reappeared, dragging a tall, redheaded man between them.
They cast him to the ground and Cara leapt up, looming over the captive like a bird of prey, an Agiel in each fist.
"Spirits, what happened here?" gasped Kahlan, looking from Richard to the child and back again. He glanced down, only then remembering that his hands were coated in Marla's blood.
It was Bran who answered in a quavering voice. "They saved my son. The Seeker and his friend, they saved my son, Mother Confessor." He straightened up, holding the child out to her.
"They did?" Kahlan knelt down and brushed a finger against the infant's tiny cheek. "He's beautiful…" She breathed the words, and when she looked up again, her eyes were wet. Richard stared at her helplessly; all he wanted to do was hold her. He wiped his bloodied hands on the grass instead, and she gestured towards the silent prisoner. "Is this the man that murdered your wife?" she asked Bran. "We found him not far from here."
"Cleaning a bloodied axe," added Zedd, tossing the weapon onto the dirt road.
Bran stood up, still cradling his son to his chest. "Yes," he said in a cold, solemn voice. "His flesh is healed, but I would know that face anywhere. I'll never forget it as long as I live."
"The rot heals when they kill," said Zedd. The baneling had got to his feet and stood unmoving, make no effort to fight or plead for his life. His eyes were trained on Kahlan more faithfully than a confessed man's. Though Cara had him under her Agiels, Richard couldn't help the unease that crept over him as he watched the baneling watching Kahlan.
Kahlan seemed not to notice, and drew closer to Bran, asking his name and giving him the tender, understanding smile of the Mother Confessor comforting one of her people. She laid a hand on his arm, speaking softly, "If it's all right with you, Bran, I want to confess him. We've never had a confessed baneling before. Perhaps he knows something that could be of some use to us in sealing the rift."
Richard felt a swell of admiration for the swift, clever way her mind worked – he never would have thought of confessing a baneling for answers.
Bran just scowled at the man, and told her they could do whatever they needed to him. Cara stepped out of the way, but kept her Agiels up as Kahlan moved towards the baneling. He watched her with hard gray eyes, his face as slack and expressionless as his red hair was vibrant.
A chill ran down Richard's spine as the baneling's mouth suddenly spread in a hollow, mocking grin. "How grows the child, Mother Confessor?" he asked, shoving a large, rough hand against Kahlan's belly. "The Keeper will have it and you, soon enough."
Richard unsheathed the Sword of Truth, its anger pouring into his veins and mixing with his own outrage, both demanding the baneling's death. But Kahlan's hand was already clamped around the man's neck, and she yanked him to her by the throat.
"Not before I kill you," she hissed. Her bright blue eyes slammed to black, and the air crackled with the force of confession. But even as she released her power, dark, menacing laughter – laughter that he remembered from his dream – rippled through the air. The baneling disintegrated, crumbling into ash and pouring through her outstretched hand.
Sorry this chapter took so long, you guys! The next one might be a little late too. I'm graduating college on Saturday so I'm crazy busy right now packing, celebrating and saying goodbye to friends. But I'll post it as soon as I possibly can!