XXIV. JOURNEY

Kahlan shifted on her side, tugging her pack turned pillow further forward in an effort to make herself more comfortable. She wasn't sure why she even bothered anymore. There was no longer such a thing as comfortable. She felt stretched and strained in every direction, grown so big, and yet it seemed somehow as if there was no longer any room left inside her for herself. Kahlan rubbed a hand over the taut, strained skin of her belly, feeling the form of her child, and thinking absently of flipping to sleep on her other side. After a moment, she abandoned the idea; it wasn't worth the effort it would take her to turn over. She swallowed a frustrated sigh, staring up at the patches of bright blue sky she could glimpse through the thicket in which they had taken shelter.

It felt claustrophobic, the bushes and branches so very near as she tried to sleep, and her belly so large that the tiny space that was left for her was barely enough for the air.

A moment later, almost as if he'd sensed her unease, Richard scrambled back into the thicket from his turn standing watch. As he crouched down beneath the mess of branches with their tiny, budding leaves, his gaze settled first on her. "Why aren't you sleeping?" he asked. He spoke in a quiet voice, but more than a whisper, which meant that the path ahead as far as he could see lay clear. He crawled towards her, settling onto his empty bedroll where it lay squished beside hers.

Kahlan exhaled loudly. "I don't know," she muttered. "I can't."

Richard frowned at that, "You need your rest." She nodded, her eyes suddenly swimming with tears. "Hey," he went on quickly. "It's all right. I promise I'll help you fall asleep, just let me wake Cara for her watch first." With a fleeting smile, he was rolling away onto his other side, and nudging the nearby body of the Mord-Sith.

Kahlan waited, blinking away frustrated tears as Cara slipped from the shelter, stopping only long enough to give Zedd a whack when he started to snore. Richard resettled beside her, shifting so they rested face to face. The sunlight filtering through the thicket covered his skin with a dappled pattern of dark and light.

"Why can't you sleep?" he asked softly. "Do you need anything?"

Kahlan shook her head. "No…I just can't," she said, hating how her voice came out as a whine. "I feel so huge." Spirits, all she wanted was to sleep. She ached all over from walking sunset to sunrise the night before. Her feet were blistered and swollen to the point where she had to choke back a sob every time Richard helped her pull her boots on.

"I know," he said, his brown eyes full of sympathy. "I know."

"I need her to be born already," said Kahlan. "I feel so big I can hardly move." Her eyes prickled with fresh tears. "I just need her to come out, Richard. I need…"

He pulled her towards him so her face was flat against his chest. It was probably at least in part to muffle the sound of her sobs, and keep her from revealing their hiding spot in the thicket, but Kahlan didn't care. His hand tangling in her hair and pressing her close was all she had to cling to right now.

"She'll be here soon," he promised. "This will all be over before you know it. It's already spring." In the three weeks they'd been traveling east, the trees had begun to bud, new leaves unfurling. A few early flowers were already pushing their way up through the dark earth. Their daughter would come soon after. Kahlan stiffened and lifted her head from his chest, panic seizing her.

"But we don't…we don't have," she gasped. "We don't even have a name for her, or…" She shook her head, tears streaming down her face. How could she have given no thought to a name for her daughter?

"We can name her," said Richard at once. "We can choose a name right now. What names do you like?"

"I don't know." She balled the fabric of his shirt up in her fist. "I can't think of any."

"Okay, well, do you like Laura?" he asked, pulling her closer. Kahlan shook her head again. That didn't feel like the right name at all. "Okay, okay, what about Tara? Or Ella?"

"No," she moaned. Richard hummed low in his throat, and rubbed his hand up and down her arm. He offered up name after name, even suggesting the names of her mother and sister, but it seemed all she could do was shake her head. Nothing sounded right. More tears streamed down her face, soaking his shirt and sticking to her skin, her mind full of visions of raising some poor, nameless daughter.

When she admitted as much, Richard chuckled and brushed at her damp cheeks. "She'll have a name," he promised. "You just need to meet her first. That's all. Once she's born, I'll put her in your arms, and when you see her face to face and hold her, you'll know what we should name our daughter. You'll know her name."

She caught his hand as he rubbed it in a circle over her belly, "I will?"

"You will," he promised. "When she's born."

"When she's born," echoed Kahlan quietly. She pushed away all thoughts of the prophecy surrounding the birth of their child. If she dwelt on that nightmare now, the tears would come back, and this time they would not stop no matter how long Richard shushed and soothed her. It took all her strength just to keep on traveling these days. She was losing the ability to focus on anything beyond putting one foot in front of the other. At least Richard seemed intuitively to understand.

"When we see her," he promised, pressing a tender kiss to her brow. "She'll be so beautiful, Kahlan." His fingers stroked her hair, his voice dropping to a low hum that seemed to reverberate somewhere deep inside of her. "So beautiful." She blinked, her eyelids at last growing heavy, his voice leading her into sleep.

xxx

The sun had set when she woke again, Richard's hand on her shoulder gently shaking her from slumber. Bowls were already filled with a tasteless mash of roots, accented by a few, bitter berries picked far too early. They'd let her sleep until the last possible moment, and they'd filled her bowl twice as full as any of their own. Kahlan was far past the point of protesting the ways they coddled her because of the child. She accepted her bowl with a thin smile, and the four of them ate in silence and growing darkness, the meal settling like a lump in her gut.

"Two more D'Harans rode by on my watch," said Cara, her voice breaking through the gloom.

Richard nodded; his spoon scraped along the bottom of his bowl. "I spotted three earlier myself. They're getting more and more frequent. We must be near the D'Haran border."

Cara nodded. "Not more than a day's ride, if we still had horses and could ride."

Kahlan's swallowed another mouthful of the bitter mash and tried not to feel like a useless lump of baggage. They had sold the horses over a week ago, for far less than they were worth, but it was either that or turn them free for nothing at all. The land was swarming with D'Harans, and it was far easier to slip past their patrols unnoticed when they crept along on foot. With horses, they would have been caught days ago, given that she couldn't ride fast enough to outpace anyone. The last thing the lawless, leaderless D'Harans needed was to discover that Richard Rahl was heading eastward towards D'Hara. Especially now that he was slowed to the pace of a helpless snail thanks to her and the child she carried. No one, not even Cara, had been so blunt about it, but she knew the way they traveled, the slowness and the secrecy, was entirely due to her. There were times she wanted to tell them to abandon her in the nearest ditch, she felt like such a burden, but at the same time, she found herself clinging to Richard more than she ever had before. She could not bear to let him out of her sight.

The others were still talking, deciding things without her as they now often did. "The rift isn't in D'Hara as far as we know," said Cara, setting down her empty bowl. "We need to turn north or south soon and start searching for it."

"Perhaps if we had the compass," began Zedd.

"We don't," said Richard harshly, his jaw set in a grim line. The missing compass had become the darkest cloud in the storm brewing between grandfather and grandson. Kahlan remembered well how angry Zedd had been when Richard confessed that the compass had been destroyed. He'd made no mention of her in his story, and had stood there bearing the blame for its destruction while Zedd vented his anger, shouting that he might as well take a torch to the Wizard's Keep next for all the respect he showed an ancient artifact of magic. When she could bear it no longer, Kahlan had spoken up and admitted she was the one to cast the compass into the fire.

Zedd had turned towards her, his face stony, but Richard had spoken before he could, his voice icy and terrible. "Say one word against her, and you will never see your great granddaughter." She still wasn't sure what exactly he'd been threatening. His words had been backed by the fury of the sword, and she hadn't dared to ask. Zedd had only nodded, and they'd rode due east all of that first day in brutal silence.

Richard was already getting to his feet. "We'll head southeast then and look for the rift," he said simply as he reached out his hand and helped her up as well. Her boots pinched her swollen feet as soon as she stood, but she tried to ignore it. The pain would only get worse as the night wore on.

"Southeast," she agreed, smiling at Richard. He sounded so much more certain of himself since abandoning the compass, and for that alone, she knew she could never regret what she had done, even though Zedd thought she'd lost her mind.

Cara swung her pack over her shoulder. "When will we see these Sisters of the Dark?" she said, pulling out an Agiel and weighing it in her palm, a sharp gleam in her eyes.

"They're about," said Zedd solemnly. "The air feels thick with magic that is not my own. We just haven't had the misfortune of meeting any yet."

"Let's hope our luck holds out," said Richard as they began to walk.

They made their way over vast, rolling grasslands that whispered in the night wind. What trees there were grew few and far between, offering poor shelter from unfriendly eyes, but the hills shielded them somewhat. Here and there in the distance, the grasses gave way to sand dunes that glittered silver beneath the waxing moon. The air smelled of sweet new grass, and though the breezes were cool, it was not unpleasant out. Kahlan stumbled now and then as she walked, but Richard was always there, catching her, steadying her and whispering words of encouragement in her ear. She would walk to the very edges of the world for him if that was what the spirits demanded, and as the night wore on, it felt as if that truly was what they asked of her.

It was still a few hours before dawn though when Richard stopped abruptly, throwing a hand up in the air. "Listen," he whispered. She did, and heard only silence. "Riders from the south. Sounds like three horses." She thought in a flash of Sister Isobel and her companions, though she wasn't sure why. Richard jerked his head towards a few scrappy bushes sprouting up from the grassland, the only cover to be found. "Cara, Zedd, take Kahlan and hide. I'll meet them. Hopefully it'll be a good enough distraction that they won't think to look further."

Cara snatched his arm. "Don't be a fool. Get behind the bushes where you belong." Richard looked at her, his expression as stubborn as the Mord-Sith's, though Kahlan nodded in agreement, her heart pounding in her chest. If they were D'Harans, they'd be delighted to have his head on a platter.

"If they're D'Harans, only I will know what to say to them," said Cara. "And if they're Sisters of the Dark, only I am immune to their magic." The horses' hooves had grown loud enough that she could hear them now, and it seemed impossibly loud like a drum beating inside her head. She wondered how the Mord-Sith could find time to boast, even now. "Hide her," insisted Cara. "And leave it to me. We could use some information."

"Don't do anything stupid," warned Richard before at last relenting. He looped an arm around her waist, half carrying her towards the bushes at a run. Zedd followed behind, mumbling under his breath. He cast his hand in a wide arc over the scrawny bushes, and Kahlan felt a faint, tingling sensation all along her skin.

"If they're Sisters of the Dark, they'll see right through the spell," said Zedd as he dropped down on the ground beside them. "But if they're only more soldiers, this will help us blend into the shadows to their eyes."

Both the men lay flat on their stomachs, peering out from between the branches, but her belly was far too big for that. She lay on her back, craning her neck so that she could just manage to see a little, though all was upside down and obscured. She reached for Richard's hand and squeezed it hard, and she could tell by the way his very skin seemed to hum that his other hand gripped his sword.

The riders at last crested the hill and came into view, and Kahlan could tell at once by their bulk that they were D'Haran soldiers. They rode straight for Cara, who simply kept walking as if she'd failed to notice the three men charging towards her. Though Cara had always been short, it was the first time Kahlan thought she actually seemed small, a lone figure on the path before three giant war horses barreling down on her.

They reigned in at the last possible moment, the horses rearing and tossing their heads, and even then, Cara didn't flinch. Kahlan clenched Richard's hand, and he squeezed back.

"It's a Mord-Sith," said one of the men, her Confessor's training making the fear in his voice shine as bright and clear as the moon. "I didn't recognize you without your hair in a braid, Mistress…" He waited for a name; Cara gave none.

One of the others cleared his throat, "A Mord-Sith?" Kahlan squinted and craned her neck back even further, but the most she could make out were shadowy, hulking shapes on horseback. "Our orders are to kill any Mord-Sith we meet."

She didn't need daylight to know that Cara was smirking at that. "I'd like to see you try," she said.

"It's our orders," continued the first man, and though his voice was rough and promising death, somehow he did not seem unkind.

"Whose orders?" asked Cara.

"General Nox's orders."

Cara smirked again, "I'd like to see him try."

"You know him?" The voice seemed to come from the man on the middle horse, but watching upside down and through the bushes, it was impossible to say for certain.

"Never heard of him," said Cara. "But if this is the best his men can do, it's no wonder D'Hara fell." She spread her arms wide, both hands empty of their Agiels, taunting him with her question, "Why aren't I dead yet?"

"Why isn't your hair in a braid?" countered the man. "And what happened to your uniform?" He leaned forward in the saddle, "General Nox also said these are strange times and to use our judgment, and I say you don't smell like your sisters."

"Yeah, where are your filthy witches?" chimed in another of the soldiers. "Your kind always travels with at least two."

"Witches?" said Cara sharply. "Sisters of the Dark?"

The man grumbled, "They call themselves that, yes."

Kahlan could practically hear Cara's lip curling back, "I'm here to kill them."

"So are we," said the man. They stared at each other in silent appraisal, and Kahlan realized how comfortable Cara seemed around these men. As if she belonged. "You could join us," he went on. "Unless you still insist on serving Darken Rahl like your sisters."

"Darken Rahl is dead."

"And still they serve."

"And who do you serve now?" asked Cara with a sneer, "Yourselves?"

"General Nox," said the man.

She scoffed, "I have no interest in serving petty generals pretending to be the next Lord Rahl."

The soldier bristled as if he'd been personally insulted. "General Nox knows he is not Lord Rahl," he snapped. "He makes no claim otherwise, but D'Hara is without a Lord Rahl, and he is the next best thing. You would do well to serve him."

"My Agiels still work," said Cara, the threat implicit in her words. "There must be a real Lord Rahl alive somewhere to serve."

The man snorted. "Only that bastard farm boy Richard Rahl. It'd be a mercy to kill him before he blunders his way to the throne."

Kahlan was amazed Cara didn't kill the man where he stood for that, but she stepped closer, grabbing his horse by its bridle. Her voice was low and dangerous when she spoke, "Our place is not to choose who we serve; it is only to serve.

He let out a harsh bark of a laugh. "If we still believed that, all four of us would be bowing down to a dead man alongside your worthless sisters."

Cara said nothing to that, but stared up at the men, toying with the chain on her Agiel. "You're in my way. Move before I decide to kill you."

The man looked over his shoulder the way they'd came riding. "Can't go that way," he said. "Scouts say the beast is out. General Nox has us on patrol, clearing all paths to the rift."

"The beast?" echoed Cara.

"Giant beast of a dog," said the soldier. "Twice as big as a man. It can snap your leg in two like a twig. I've heard your sisters are awfully fond of it." Kahlan closed her eyes, her mind filling with the hideous illustrations of the Keeper's hound Richard had found in the book from Ashkari.

Cara ran her hand up and down the length of her Agiel. "If it's such a problem, why haven't you killed it?"

"Plenty have tried," said the man. "Not one's managed to even come close. But it can't travel far from the rift, and it only comes out some nights. There's nothing to do but try and keep those foolish enough to be out at night from going too near, but looks like you're determined to be a fool."

"Maybe I'm just not afraid of a pup," said Cara. Kahlan couldn't stop the shudder that ran through her. She wanted to yank Cara safely back behind the bushes with the rest of them. They all knew it was far more than a harmless pup. It was the Keeper's personal hound, guardian of the Underworld, and somehow it was now free to enter the world of life. The child in her womb kicked, and tears pooled in her eyes, making it even harder to focus on the upside down scene. She wanted to scream or weep or wail at the horror that had come into the world, but instead she held her tongue and forced herself to focus all she had on the gentle sweep of Richard's thumb, traveling back and forth across her hand.

"I've already asked you to get out of my way," continued Cara, easing an Agiel free of its holster. "A Mord-Sith never asks twice."

One of the men began to grumble, but the one in the middle held up his hand, "Let her get eaten alive if that's what she wishes. The start of the rift's just over the next ridge." He looked down at Cara, "General Nox could have used a Mord-Sith on his side. Pity you won't live to see morning." And then, with a word to his horse, the man took off. The other two followed in his wake, leaving Cara standing alone in the grass. Kahlan clutched Richard's hand and struggled to breath; they had come at last to the cusp of the Great Rift.