Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Richard couldn't help laughing. "Glory," he agreed as he again clapped Johnrock on the back. "And a point that counts."

As they formed up while waiting for the referee to deliver the broc, all of the men shouted their congratulations to a beaming Johnrock. He pumped his fist, eliciting a mighty team shout, before he took his usual place at Richard's right. Bruce took his left wing. The blockers formed a wedge heavily weighted out ahead of Johnrock. The play was meant to draw the defenders to the left side, where the defense was weakest.

As they charged up the field, the emperor's team started going to Richard's left, as he wanted, but at the last moment they hooked and crashed through the center of the heaviest part of the wedge. Such a tactic would not stop Richard or get them the broc. They were after something else. Richard knew there was going to be trouble when tacklers leaped over the forward blockers.

"Johnrock!" Richard yelled. "Cut right!"

Johnrock, instead, dropped his big shoulder into the teeth of the attack. Three tacklers dove low. The fourth hooked an arm around Johnrock's neck. A fifth man, racing at full speed, hit him from the side, applying force to the fulcrum at Johnrock's neck.

Richard felt like he was in a dream and couldn't make his legs move fast enough.

Even as he was running with all his strength, he could hear bone break.

CHAPTER 33

Her heart heavy, Kahlan watched as Richard knelt beside his fallen right wing man. The horn blew. The men from Jagang's team quickly left their victim slumped on his side to return to their end of the field to be ready to defend.

"Is he dead?" Jillian asked.

Kahlan circled an arm around the shoulders of the girl pressed in against her left side. "I'm afraid so."

"Why would they deliberately do such a thing?"

"It's the way the Order plays Ja'La dh Jin. Killing is a means to get what they want."

Kahlan could see the tears in Richard's eyes as his men hooked their arms under his and dragged him back away from the body. If he didn't go back to play immediately he would be ejected for delaying the game. Referee's assistants quickly set to work dragging the lifeless form of the big man off the field.

Kahlan could hear Jagang, half a dozen paces ahead of her, chuckle.

Nicci, at his side, briefly glanced back over her shoulder. Kahlan didn't quite know what to make of the liquid look in her blue eyes. It seemed part sadness for Richard, part bottled rage, and, somehow, part warning to Kahlan.

Kahlan hadn't been able to speak with Nicci again since that night after she had been so terribly hurt. Ever since Jagang had made his bet with Commander Karg he had been moody and short-tempered.

Last evening, as Nicci waited in the bedchamber and Kahlan waited in the outer room of his tent, he'd met outside with some of the members of his team. Kahlan hadn't heard everything, but it had sounded like he had given them orders that he wanted them to see to it that the point man for Karg's team didn't cause them any trouble.

Kahlan had had a sleepless night, worried that Richard might not live to see morning. Whatever had been planned had Jagang in a lusty mood for Nicci. Kahlan and Jillian had been ordered to stay where they were on the floor in the outer room. He wanted to be alone with his Slave Queen, as he called her.

Kahlan hadn't known what Jagang was doing to her. No matter what he was doing to her, Nicci never screamed. In his bed she always seemed to simply go numb, staring unblinking at nothing in this world as he went about his business. Kahlan understood what Nicci was doing. It was the only defense she had. As she drew inward, her outward indifference was her protection for her sanity. It would do her no good to let herself pay attention to everything that the brute was doing to her. On the other hand, her indifference enraged Jagang, often sending him into fits of violence.

Kahlan wondered if, when he started in on her, she would have the strength Nicci had.

That morning, Kahlan had wondered if the Sisters were going to have to be called yet again to save Nicci, or to heal her at least. When Jagang had emerged from the bedchamber, though, he had Nicci by her hair. He tossed her to the floor in front of him, looking pleased with himself, with her helplessness. Kahlan had been relieved that, while she looked a bit battered and bruised, at least she hadn't appeared grievously injured.

Out on the field Richard's team gathered, preparing for the next play. Kahlan glanced around as legions of men still cheered their satisfaction at the man's death. Others, though, yelled in anger, shaking fists at the emperor's team. The air fairly crackled with tension. As the game quickly went back into action, the crowd began to settle down, at least to a degree.