Читаем Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3 полностью

Through it all, despite fighting as hard as he had ever fought in his life, he was increasingly forced to give ground. It was the only way to keep from being overpowered. Time and again he went back on attack with wild fury, cutting into the enemy line, but as he did ever more men appeared to take the place of those who fell to his blade. In those flurries of frantic exertion the best he could do was to hold his ground. Whenever he took a breath he lost ground.

Kahlan was so close, but so far.

Now, Jagang was taking her from him again.

Richard reprimanded himself for not doing more to try to take out Jagang. He should have tried harder. If only that man hadn't stepped in front of Jagang at exactly the wrong moment, Richard's arrow would have done its job. But even as he told himself that he should have done more, should have tried something else, he knew that he couldn't dwell on what he might have done differently. He had to come up with something that he could do now.

In all-too-brief glimpses he could see Nicci on the ground as well. Like Kahlan, she was also in desperate distress. Richard knew that it was urgent that he help them. Samuel certainly wasn't doing anything worthwhile.

The distraction of Richard's concern was throwing his timing off. He missed connecting with a thrust, leaving the man alive to come back at him. Only swift action saved him from the blade doing more than making a shallow slash across the side of his shoulder. Several times he nearly lost his life as he tried to catch a glimpse of Kahlan. He had nearly missed a move until it was almost too late. He knew that he had to focus. He couldn't help Kahlan, Nicci, and Jillian if he was dead.

His arms, though, felt like lead.

His hands were slick with blood. His grip in his sword kept slipping.

A man spun an axe in his fingers as he lifted it, as if to show Richard that he was now up against an expert. The man caught the handle and started to swing the axe down with lethal intent. At the last instant, Richard ducked to the side, then, with a cry of effort, swung his own weapon. The strike took the man's arm off. Richard used his foot to topple the startled man back out of the way, then ducked under a wild swing of a sword at his head and thrust his own weapon into the man's lower abdomen.

The sword he was using worked, but it was not his sword. Samuel had his sword.

What Samuel was doing there Richard feared to imagine. Seeing him standing over Kahlan, though, he didn't really have to imagine.

Richard remembered Zedd telling him, when he had first given him the Sword of Truth, that he couldn't use it against Darken Rahl because he had put the boxes of Orden in play. Zedd said that during that yearlong period the power of Orden protected Darken Rahl from the Sword of Truth.

Richard knew that it was foolish to do what he'd just done, but he had to test his theory. He had to know the truth of it if he was to succeed in what lay ahead. The boxes of Orden really were in play in his name, and the Sword of Truth couldn't harm him for that reason.

When he thought he couldn't go on, he used the sheer rage he felt for Kahlan's dire jeopardy to force himself to continue anyway. He didn't know how long he could sustain such an effort. He knew only that when he stopped, he would die.

Just then, another man cut his way in from behind Richard, protecting his left side from a trio of men attacking from that direction. Out of the corner of his eye Richard saw red paint.

He slashed his blade down across the face of a man as soon as the man made the mistake of cocking back his arm. As he fell to the side with a cry, Richard used the opening to snatch a quick glance to his left.

It was Bruce.

"What are you doing here?" Richard yelled over at the man between the clash of steel.

"What I'm always doing-protecting you!"

Richard could hardly believe that Bruce, a regular Imperial Order soldier, was fighting beside him, fighting off the emperor's royal guard The man was committing treason to fight beside Richard. He supposed that winning against the emperor's team was the bigger treason. Bruce fought with a fury of his own. He knew that this was a game that the} couldn't afford to lose. What he lacked in finesse he made up for in sheer tenacity.

Richard stole another look and saw that Samuel was starting to drag Kahlan away. Her face was a picture of terrified distress. Her fingers were bloody from clawing at the collar.

With an abrupt flash and heavy thud to the air, the soldiers all around Richard, including Bruce, were blown back as if by a blast. Yet there was no flame, no smoke, no flying debris, no ringing noise from a blast. Standing at the core of the event, Richard was left with his vision blurred and his flesh stinging from the force of the concussion.

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