Blood of the Fold

He was brought out of his thoughts when Ulic and Egan appeared with General Reibisch at the door.

The general clapped a fist over his heart. "Lord Rahl, I'm relieved to see you've returned safely. Did you have any success?"

Richard shook his head. "The men you sent with me were as good as your word, but the conditions were impossible. We managed to track them for a ways, but they went up Stentor Street, into the center of the city. Once they did that, there was no way to tell which direction they took. Probably to the northeast, back to Nicobarese, but we swept a circle of the entire city anyway in case they went another direction, and could find no trace of them. A meticulous search of all the possibilities took quite a while and allowed the storm ample time to cover their trail."

The general grunted as he thought. "We questioned the ones they left behind at their palace. None knew where Brogan went."

"They could be lying."

Reibisch's thumb stroked the scar on the side of his face. "Take my word, they didn't know where he went."

Richard didn't want to know the details of what had been done on his behalf. "From the signs at the beginning we were able to discern that there were only three — undoubtedly Lord General Brogan, his sister, and that other one."

"Well, if he didn't take his men, then it would appear he was simply running. You probably scared the wits out of him, and he just bolted for his life."

Richard tapped a finger to the table. “Maybe. But I wish I knew where he went, just to be sure."

The general shrugged. "Why didn't you put a tracer cloud on him, or use your magic to follow his trail? That's what Darken Rahl did when he wanted to follow someone."

Richard knew that all too well. He knew what a tracer cJoud was, from its unfavorable end. This had all started when Darken Rahl had hooked a tracer cloud to him so he could come and collect him at his leisure in order to recover the Book of Counted Shadows. Zedd had stood Richard up on his wizard's rock to unhook the cloud. Though he had felt the magic flowing through himself, Richard didn't know how it worked. He had also seen Zedd use some of his magic dust to cover their trail, to keep Darken Rahl from following, but he didn't know how that worked, either.

Richard didn't really want to shake General Reibisch's faith in him by admitting he didn't know the first thing about magic; he wasn't feeling very comfortable with his allies at the moment.

"You can't hook a tracer cloud to someone when there's a sky full of storm clouds. You couldn't tell which was yours, in order to follow it. Lunella, Brogan's sister, is a sorceress; she would use magic to obscure their trail."

"That's a shame." The general scratched his beard, apparently believing the bluff. "Well, magic's not my specialty. We have you for that business."

Richard changed the subject. "How is everything going here?"

The general grinned wickedly. "There isn't a sword in the city that isn't ours. Some of them didn't like it, but once the alternatives were clearly explained, they all went along without a fight."

Well, there was that much. "The Blood of the Fold at the Nicobarese Palace, too?"

"They'll be having to eat with their fingers. We didn't let them keep so much as a spoon."

Richard rubbed his eyes. "Good. You've done well, General. What about the mriswith? Have there been any more attacks?"

"Not since that first bloody night. It's been real quiet. Why, I've even slept better than I have for weeks. Since you took over, I've not even had any of those dreams."

Richard looked up. "Dreams? What sort of dreams?"

"Well. ." The general scratched his head of rust-colored hair. "That's odd. I don't really remember them, now. I was having these dreams that troubled me greatly, but since you came I haven't had them. You know how it is with dreams, after a while they fade and you can't remember them."

"I guess." This whole thing was beginning to feel like a dream: a bad dream. Richard wished that was all it was. "How many men did we lose when the mriswith attacked?"

"Just shy of three hundred."

Richard stroked his forehead as he felt his stomach lurch. "I didn't think there were that many bodies. I wouldn't have thought it was that many."

"Well, that includes the others."

Richard took his hand away from his face. "Others? What others?"

General Reibisch pointed through the window.”The ones up there. Nearly eighty men on the road up by the Wizard's Keep were cut down, too."

Richard swung around and looked out the window. Only the silhouette of the Keep was visible against the deep violet sky. Would the mriswith be trying to get into the Keep? Dear spirits, if they were, what could he do about it? Kahlan told him that the Keep was protected by powerful spells, but he didn't know if the webs could hold back creatures like the mriswith. Why would they want to get into the Keep?