Blood of the Fold

Scales the color of the snowy night undulated over rippling muscles. Smooth skin sheathed earless, hairless, blunt heads set with beady eyes. The beasts wore only simple hide clothes beneath capes that billowed and flapped in the wind, and in each clawed hand they gripped blood-slicked three-bladed knives.

They were the creatures he had seen impaled on the poles outside the Confessors' Palace — the creatures Lord Rahl had killed: mriswith. Having seen them slaughter all these experienced soldiers, Tobias couldn't imagine how Lord Rahl, or anyone, could have bested one, much less the number he had seen.

One of the creatures skulked toward him, watching with unblinking eyes. It glided to a stop, not ten feet away.

"Leave," the mriswith hissed.

"What?" Tobias stammered.

"Leave." It slashed the air with its clawlike knife, a quick gesture, graceful with murderous mastery. "Esssscape."

"Why? Why would you do this? Why do you want us to escape?"

The lipless mouth slit widened, mimicking a gruesome grin. "The dreamssss walker wants you to esssscape. Go now, before more skin walkerssss come. Go."

"But…"

With a scaled arm, the mriswith drew its cape against the wind, turned, and vanished into the blowing snow. Tobias peered into the night, but the wind had gone vacant and lifeless.

Why would such vile creatures want to help him? Why would they kill his enemies? Why would they want him to escape?

Comprehension came over him in a loving, warm rush. The Creator had sent them, of course. How could he have been so blind? Lord Rahl had said he killed the mriswith. Lord Rahl fought for the Keeper. If the mriswith were evil creatures Lord Rahl would fight on their side, not against them.

The mriswith had said the dream walker sent them. The Creator came to Tobias in his dreams. That had to be it; the Creator had sent them, "Lunetta." Tobias turned to her. She was cowering behind him. "The Creator comes to me in my dreams. That was what they were trying to tell me when they said the one from my dreams had sent them. Lunetta, the Creator sent them to help protect me."

Lunetta's eyes widened. "The Creator Himself has intervened on your behalf to thwart the Keeper's plans. The Creator Himself watches over you. He must have great things planned for you, Tobias,"

Tobias retrieved his sword from under the snow and straightened with a smile. "Indeed. I have kept His wishes above all else, and so He has protected me. Hurry, we must do as His messengers have told us. We must be off to do the Creator's work."

As he trudged through the snow, winding his way among the bodies, he looked up to see a dark shape suddenly leap before him, blocking his path.

"Well, well, Lord General, going someplace?" A menacing grin came to the face. "Do you wish to cast a spell on me, sorceress?"

Tobias still had his sword in his hand, but he knew he wouldn't be quick enough.

He flinched at the sound of a bone-jarring thunk. The one before him pitched face-first into the snow at his feet. Tobias looked up to see Galtero standing with the cudgel above the unconscious figure.

"Galtero, you have earned your rank this night."

The Creator had just given him a priceless prize, showing him, again, that nothing was out of the reach of the pious. Thankfully, Galtero had the presence of mind to use the cudgel, and not a blade.

He saw blood from the blow, but he saw the breath of life, too. "My, my, but this be turning out to be quite the good night. Lunetla, you have some work to do on behalf of the Creator before you heal this one."

Lunetta bent beside the still form, pressing her fingers into the blood-matted, wavy, brown hair. "Perhaps I ought to do a healing first. Galtero be stronger than he thinks."

' "That, my dear sister, would not be advisable, at least not from what I have heard. The healing can wait." He glanced to his colonel and gestured to the stables. "Are the horses ready?"

"Yes, Lord General, as soon as you are."

Tobias drew the knife Galtero had given him. "We must hurry, Lunetta. The messenger told us we must escape." He squatted down and rolled the unconscious figure over. "And then we be off after the Mother Confessor."

Lunetta leaned close, peering at him.”But Lord General, I told you, the wizard's web hides her identity from us. We cannot see the strands of a web like that. We will not know her."

A grin tightened the scar at the side of Tobias Brogan's mouth.

"Oh, but I have seen the strands of the web. The Mother Confessor's name be Kahlan Amnell."

CHAPTER 18

As she had feared, she was a prisoner. She flipped another page over after making the appropriate entry in the ledger book. A prisoner of the highest station, a prisoner behind a paper lock, but a prisoner nevertheless.