Faith of the Fallen

"I won't break, Richard," she said as she caught his hand and pulled it back. "I'm all right, now. I'd like it if you got carried away."

She clutched his hair in her fists as his kisses covered her breasts and then her shoulders and then worked up her neck. His panting warmed her ear. His exploring fingers made her frantic with need. His body against hers felt wildly erotic. She no longer felt weary. Finally, he tenderly kissed her lips. She let him know by the way she returned the kiss that he needn't be all that tender.

As the rain drummed on the roof, as lightning lit the lines and the clenched-fist strength of the statue in the window and thunder rumbled through the mountains, Kahlan, without fearing it, without worrying about it, without wondering if she would be able, held Richard tightly as they made quiet, gentle, fierce love. They had never needed each other as much as that night. All her fears and worries evaporated in the heat of overpowering need welling up through her. She wept with the strength of her pleasure and the release of her emotions.

When later Richard lay in her arms, she felt a tear roll off his face, and she asked him if something was wrong. He shook his head and said distantly that he had for so long feared losing her that sometimes he had believed he might go mad. It seemed as if he could finally allow himself release from his private terror. The pain Kahlan had first seen in his eyes when she couldn't remember his name was at last banished.

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Their marches into the mountains ranged farther and farther. Sometimes they took packs and spent the night in the woods, often in a wayward pine, when they could find one. The rugged terrain offered a never-ending variety of vistas. In places, sheer rock cliffs towered over them. In other places, they stood at the brink of sheer drops and watched the sun turn the sky orange and purple as it went down while wispy clouds drifted through quiet green valleys below. They went to towering waterfalls with their own rainbows. There were clear, sunlit pools up in the mountains where they swam. They ate on rocks overlooking rugged sights no one but they ever saw.

They followed animal trails through vast woods of gnarled trees, and others among the dark forest floor where grew trees with trunks like huge brown columns, so big twenty men couldn't have joined hands around them.

Richard had Kahlan practice with a bow to help strengthen her arms.

They hunted small game for stews, or for roasting. Some they smoked and dried along with the fish they caught. Richard usually didn't eat meat, but occasionally he did. Not eating meat was part of the balance needed by his gift for when he was forced to kill. That need of balance was lessening because he wasn't killing. He was at peace. Perhaps the balance was now being served by his carving. As time passed, he was able to eat more meat.

When they were out on journeys, they usually ate rice and beans along with bannock and any berries they collected along the way, in addition to game they caught.

Kahlan helped clean fish and salt them down and smoke yet others for their winter stores. It was a job that she had never before undertaken. They collected berries, nuts, and wild apples and put a lot of those away in the root cellar along with root crops he had purchased before coming up into the mountains. Richard dug up small apple trees, when he found any, and planted them in the meadow by the house so that, he said, someday they would have apples close at hand.

Kahlan wondered how long he intended to keep them away from where they were needed. The silent question always hung there, seen by all, but unspoken. Cara never asked him, but she sometimes made some small mention of it to Kahlan when they were alone. She was Lord Rahl's guard, and glad to be close at hand, so she generally offered no objection. He was, after all, Lord Rahl, and he was safe.

Kahlan had always felt the weight of their responsibilities. Like the towering mountains all around, looming over them, always shadowing them, that responsibility could never be completely forgotten. As much as she loved the house Richard had built on the edge of the meadow, and as much as she loved exploring the rugged beautiful, imposing, and ever-changing mountains, with each passing day she mom and more felt that weight and the anxious need to be back where they were needed most. She fretted at what could be going on that they weren't aware of. The Imperial Order was not going to stay put; an army that size liked to move. Soldiers, especially soldiers of that ilk, became restless in long encampments, and sooner or later started causing trouble. She worried about all the people who needed the reassurance of Richard's presence, his guidance-and hers. There were people who their whole lives had depended on the Mother Confessor always being there to stand up for them.