XXVIII. BATTERED
Richard walked the whole way there with his hand on his sword, dragging the blade through the sands behind him. He had not slept in nearly two days, but he no longer felt the effects of exhaustion. The sword's magic pounding in his ears cast the night in red, and he was aware of nothing save the ground before his feet. There was no stopping his relentless march down to the Great Rift. The dark night seemed to call to him, the ground splitting open like a crooked smile to greet him. As the crack in the earth widened further, green smoke and hot, acrid smelling fumes poured out of the depths, whipping his hair back and making him cough.
When there was nowhere left to go but down into the rift itself, Richard stopped a moment on a rocky precipice, dangling there above the abyss. He stood on the edge of something unspeakably foul, while overhead the stars remained oblivious, twinkling as bright as always.
He raised his sword in warning, though to what, he did not know. All was silent as the grave. Fury flowed like his own lifeblood through his veins; it twisted and became a knot in his chest. He wondered how he'd ever pay the price for all the harm he'd brought to Kahlan. And for all the harm he'd bring on the world if the chasm before him could not be shut. Even his life would not be enough. He wanted to cast himself into the rift and forget; instead he raised his voice along with his sword.
"Darken Rahl!" he said, taking an unsteady step towards the edge of the precipice. Bits of gravel crumbled beneath his boots and rolled away into oblivion. The sword set his blood to burning, and he knew not where his words came from. It seemed that the sword spoke for him there at the door to the dead. "Brother!" he roared. "Come fight me!"
The wind blew his voice back at him and gave no answer. For a long time he stood waiting, his ears straining for some sign that he'd been heard. Still there was only silence. Defeat began to creep in around the edges, and Richard turned away. He scanned the rough, shadowy ridges for some other way down into the rift with weary resignation. Though he still gripped the sword, it felt like the dead weight of despair.
He heard the screeling before he saw it.
Halfway to another ledge, Richard froze. The magic of the sword came pouring back into him with a force that nearly left him unconscious. An awful cackle filled the air, and though his back was turned, he saw the screeling behind him as if it appeared inside his mind, skittering out of the depths below like an overgrown insect. The Sword of Truth had never been enough to kill a screeling before, not without Zedd's magic to aid him, but he welcomed the creature all the same. It was something to turn the blistering wrath of the sword on besides himself.
He turned to where he knew it would emerge, his thoughts dissolving into the pulsing, living magic of the sword. With a single sweep, he knocked the screeling's head from its body as it leapt out of the rift in a flurry of gnashing teeth and claws and bitter, blackened skin.
The head thudded to the ground and rolled to a halt, leaving a trail of blood across the stone. Richard stood staring, his breath coming in gasps, his jaw gaping open. His sword alone had been enough. A second screeling crawled from the rift, and he buried his astonishment and attacked. As he hacked off a limb, his blade caught the glow of the Underworld, silver mirroring green.
Richard stopped counting screelings after the first dozen when they began to come two and three at a time, and then in great waves of six and seven. Harsh cackling filled the air, surrounding him. He might have felt fear and faltered then, were it not for the magic of the sword leaving him with nothing but the overwhelming need to kill. All the anger he had carried round for months was there, at last coalescing into something every bit as sharp and purposeful as the sword itself. It took him to a place far beyond himself, where the sword told him where to place his feet, when to cut, to thrust, even the right moment in which to breathe. Fury became strength. Sweat dripped from his hair and burned in his eyes, and he welcomed even the twinge of irritation he felt at that, funneling it straight into the sword to fuel the magic. He pulled more and more from the sword until the ground was littered with the heads and limbs of screelings hacked to bits, and a silence stretched in which no more came.
He waited then, breathing hard, staring down into the broken earth. A low, primal rumble issued forth from the Great Rift, and he closed his eyes, turning all his thoughts to the sword in his grasp. He knew now that it was not for screelings that he'd come, but for this.
The foul wind picked up and the rumble grew into a roar. Richard opened his eyes to a dark shape looming before him, twice the size of a man. It was covered in thick, mangy fur. Black lips pulled back in a slow slide over fangs the equal of his arm, and sharp cunning shone in its golden eyes.
This was the creature from the black book of Ashkari. The one they'd called the Ripper. He stood alone, facing the Keeper's hound.
The hound sniffed the air, a rumble like an avalanche building in its throat. And then it leapt.
Richard swung the sword around to meet claws like iron, and his body reverberated with the force of the blow. Rancid breath enveloped him, the hound's spittle in his face. Fear was in his heart, and he gripped the sword hard enough to open blisters the length of his palm.
Richard dropped to the ground as the hound lunged for him, rolling away just in time as claws raked the wounded earth where his heart had been. The incline of the ground beneath his feet as he rose was far too steep – the beast was trying to force him backwards into the rift.
The hound came at him again, and he only just blocked the blow. He managed near misses again and again as he swiftly lost ground. Green fumes enveloped him, and the rocks began to break away beneath his feet. He listened to the sound of falling gravel, staring up into the amber eyes of the beast. If he backed up another step, it would be too far. He would fall.
Richard clenched the sword, struggling to pull even more fury from it, trying to reclaim the strength that had helped him fight the screelings. It wasn't enough. The hound met him with a snarl, moving closer slowly like a cat toying with a mouse. Richard's mind raced, filling with thoughts of Kahlan, and a fresh wave of fury hit him. This was the monster that would kill her and their unborn child. This was the Keeper's servant.
He let the knowledge enrage him, magic pouring through his veins until the sword held him at the brink of sanity, and he snarled back at the beast. With an angry shout, he swung the sword, regaining the ground he'd lost as he fought his way back up into the world. It began in earnest then, a deadly dance along the edge of the rift, teeth and claws against steel, parrying blow after blow.
He had no sense of how long it lasted. He didn't have the luxury of such thoughts. He knew only anger at the threat before him, at the danger to Kahlan and their daughter. The sword took care of the rest.
And so Richard fought on into the night, trading each slash the Sword of Truth managed to make in the hound's flesh for a cut of his own. Blood stained his hands and mixed with the sweat that stung his eyes, leaving him half blind and furious. He thrust all his weight forward in a lunge that should have skewered the hound, only to miss when it leapt easily out of the way, batting him to the ground with a massive paw.
The force of the blow crushed the breath from his body, and Richard stared stunned at the stars for a moment too long. In the next, they were eclipsed by the body of the beast looming over him. Hot, fetid breath bathed his face, and the smell of death clung closer than his own skin. A huge paw pinned his arm to the ground, and the night of fighting caught up with him; he could not lift his sword.
He was going to die, he thought, and the only sorrow he felt was at the memory of Kahlan's face. He saw her in his mind, sweeter than the moonlight and five times more beautiful than anyone had a right to be, and then claws tore at the flesh of his shoulder, shredding skin. He writhed and cried out, his fingers grappling with the hilt of his sword as pain flared through him like wildfire. With the last of his strength, he wrenched his arm free and thrust his blade up, burying it in the hound's exposed belly before the teeth could come gnashing down. Warm blood rained on him as the hound threw back its mangy head, a howl of agony ripped from its throat.
Richard rolled out of the way of the bulk of the beast, twisting his sword as he forced it deeper into the gaping wound. He staggered to his feet and pulled the sword free with his good arm. "I have a message for your master," he said as the golden eyes began to dim. "You'll see him soon enough. Tell him he will never have her." He stood there shaking, and watched the hound die.
Bloody and battered, Richard turned his back on the rift. It was done. He doubted he had the strength to walk even halfway back to the cave where Kahlan slept, but at least it was done. The Keeper's hound was no more. He shoved the mess of bloody, matted hair back off his brow, squinting bleary eyed into the darkness. The magic of the sword refused to settle. It burned like a warning in his skin; someone still watched him.
As his eyes adjusted to seeing other than the hound, he realized nearly one hundred men stood in silent rows before him. By their leather and blades he knew them. D'Harans. All of them.