Blood of the Fold

Richard's gaze met the eyes of three of the lieutenants. "You, you, and you Collect whatever size force you need." Without turning, he lifted a thumb behind to gesture toward Kahlan. "Get the Mother Confessor, my queen, to the palace, and protect her."

The look in Richard's eyes made any statement of the mission's gravity absolutely unnecessary, and any warning of the consequences of failure superfluous.

Kahlan cried out a protest. Richard drew his sword.

"Now."

The men bounded to do as bidden, sweeping Kahlan back with them as she screamed at him. Richard didn't look, nor did he hear her words.

He was already lost in the living rage. Magic and death danced dangerously in his eyes. Silent men inched back in a widening circle.

Richard wiped the blade in the blood on his arm to give his sword a taste. The rage twisted tighter.

His head turned, the eyes of death seeking the walking dead. Through the twin storms of the sword's wrath and his own anger, he heard nothing but the howling fury inside, yet he knew he needed more. In staccato succession he felled all the barriers and loosed all the magic, holding back nothing. He was one with the spirits within, with the magic, with the need. He was the true Seeker, and more.

He was the bringer of death come to life.

And then he was moving, through the men trying to get to the front, through the dark-leather-clad soldiers grunting with determination as they grappled with crimson-caped men in shiny armor who had broken through the lines, through shopkeepers who had taken up swords, through young men of the city with pikes, and boys with cudgels.

As he stalked forward, he cut down the men of the Blood of the Fold only when they tried to bar his way. He was after something more deadly than them.

Richard vaulted up onto an overturned wagon in the center of the melee. Men swarmed around him to keep harm away. His raptor's gaze scanned the scene. Harm was his purpose.

Before him, the sea of red capes inundated the dark shore of dead D'Harans. The numbers of D'Haran dead were appalling, but he was lost in the magic and thought for anything but his enemy was mere dross in the cauldron of his wrath.

Somewhere in the dim recesses of his mind, he cried out at the sight of so much death, but the cry was lost on the winds of his rage.

Richard felt their presence, and then he saw them. Fluid movement, scything into living flesh, reaping a harvest of death. The Blood of the Fold surged in behind them, overwhelming over the decimated D'Harans.

Richard brought the Sword of Truth up, touching the crimson blade to his forehead. He gave the whole of himself over.

"Blade," he whispered in supplication, "be true this day."

Bringer of death.

"Dance with me, Death," he murmured. "I am ready."

The Seeker's boots thumped onto the street. Somehow, the instincts of all those who had used the blade before had fused with his own. He wore their knowledge, experience, and skill like a second skin.

He let the magic guide him, but it was driven before the storms of anger, and his will. He turned loose the hunger to kill, and slipped through the lines of men Deft as death, his blade found its first mark, and a mriswith went down.

Don't squander your strength killing those others can kill, the spirit voices told him. Kill only those they can't.

Richard heeded the voices, and let his inner sense fee! the mriswith around him, some concealed in their capes. He danced with death, and death occasionally found them before they saw him coming. He killed without wasted effort or extra thrusts. Each commitment of his blade found flesh.

Richard stalked along the lines, seeking the scaled creatures that led the Blood of the Fold. He felt the heat of the fires as he moved through the streets, hunting. He heard the hisses of surprise as he spun into them. His nostrils filled with the stink of their blood. It became one long blur of fighting.

Still, he knew it wasn't going to be enough. With a feeling of drowning in dread, he knew it wasn't going to be enough. There was only one of him, and if he made the slightest mistake, there wouldn't even be that. It was like trying to wipe out a whole ant colony by stepping on one ant at a time.

Already, yabree were coming closer than he had intended to allow. Twice, they sang along his flesh, leaving red tracks. But worse, all around, his men were dying by the hundreds, with the Blood of the Fold merely coming in behind to slaughter the wounded. The fighting stretched on endlessly.

Richard glanced at the sun, and saw that it was halved at the horizon. Night was descending like a shroud over the last gasps of the dying. He knew that, for him, too, there would be no morning.

Richard felt a stinging slice along his side as he spun. A mriswith's head bum apart in a red spray as he caught it with his sword. He was tiring, and they were getting too close. He brought the blade up, ripping open the belly of another. He was deaf to their death howls.