Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

"Hurry!" Samuel called down to her.

She didn't seem to even hear Samuel. She couldn't take her eyes off Richard. She knew she was leaving him there to die.

"Go!" Richard yelled with all his strength. "Go!"

Tears stung his own eyes. Despite how much he tried, he couldn't even rise up on his hands and knees. The magic searing through him wouldn't allow it.

The Sister cast a hand out at Samuel. A flare of light shot through the night.

Samuel used the sword to deflect the flash of light. It arced off into the night sky. The Sister looked surprised.

In the distance all around, the battle raged on. Closer in, the guards stunned by the initial blast of the Sister's power still hadn't recovered enough to get up. Apparently, the Sister didn't want them interfering. She had plans of her own.

The big warhorse tossed its head as it pawed the ground. Kahlan looked over at Nicci. She was curled up in a ball, shuddering in pain. Jillian lay on the ground beside her, stunned by the same blast of the Sister's magic. Despite her chance to escape, Richard knew that Kahlan was going to throw that chance away to try to help them.

He knew that there was nothing Kahlan could do for Nicci. If Kahlan stayed, she would die. It was as simple as that. As much as he hated the thought, at the moment Samuel was her only salvation.

"Run!" Richard cried out, his voice choked with tears.

"But I have to help Nicci and-"

"There's nothing you can do for her! You'll die! Run while you still can!"

Samuel reached down and seized her arm, helping to pull her up onto the horse behind him. As soon as she was up, Samuel wasted no time in kicking his heels against the horse. The horse bounded away at a dead gallop, throwing up dirt and rocks in its wake.

As the horse disappeared into the darkness, Kahlan looked back over her shoulder.

He never took his eyes off her, knowing that it was the last time he would ever see her.

In a moment, still looking back at Richard, she vanished into the dark confusion of the camp and was gone.

Richard sagged against the cold, hard ground, tears dripping from his face.

Out of the darkness, the Sister, making her way among the hundreds of stunned royal guards rolling on the ground, finally arrived to stand over him. He felt the level of pain increase, making it difficult to pull each breath. She wanted to make absolutely certain that he wasn't able to lift so much as a finger against her.

She peered down at him in surprised wonder. "Well, well, as I live and breathe, if it isn't Richard Rahl himself."

Richard didn't remember the Sister. She looked haggard. Her graying hair was unkempt. Her clothes were little more than rags. She looked more like a beggar than a Sister of the Light-or a Sister of the Dark, he didn't know which.

"His Excellency is going to be very pleased with me for bringing him such a prize. I think he will be more than pleased, as well, to have the chance at last to extract vengeance on you, my boy. I imagine that before the night is finished you will be just beginning a very long ordeal in the torture tents."

Memories of Denna flashed through Richard's mind.

CHAPTER 38

Even in his agony, unable to get up off the ground, Richard couldn't help being joyful that Kahlan no longer had that terrible collar around her neck. She was free of Jagang.

Richard knew that even if Samuel got himself caught or killed before they could escape the camp, Kahlan was invisible to these men. She would still be able to get away on her own. Knowing Kahlan, she would probably use that advantage to annihilate half the camp on her way out. No matter what happened to Richard, now, his relief for Kahlan was what mattered most to him.

Kahlan didn't know who she was, and she wouldn't know where to go, but she would be alive and out of immediate danger. Richard had come to the Order's encampment to help free her. He had succeeded in that much of it. Despite the peril he was now in, it was worth it to him to have managed to help her get away.

He looked beyond the Sister standing above him to Nicci. It was going very badly for her. He'd had one of those collars around his neck. He knew well the lonely agony she was in. Richard wished that he could help her as well, or at least let her know that she wasn't alone and abandoned. But he could do nothing.

He knew that Jillian was not going to fare any better. He reminded himself not to fixate on such terrible thoughts.

One problem at a time, he told himself. He had to find some way to help them both.

The pain abruptly lifted from his arms and legs. The rest of him still felt on fire. Even though he could at last begin to move, his head was still in so much pain that everything looked blurred and distorted.

"On your feet," the Sister above him said.

She sounded like she was in a vile mood. She had professed to be pleased that catching Richard would gain her a reward from Jagang, but she certainly didn't sound like a woman in good spirits over her unexpected luck.