Naked Empire

The man stood for a time, as if considering. He looked like a soldier.

He didn't match the description of Nicholas that Owen had given her.

Finally, he started onto the arch of the bridge. Owen whispered that it looked like the commander he had seen with Nicholas. Kahlan waited, watching the man walk through the moonlight. He wore a knife at one side and a sword at his other hip.

When he had almost reached her, he came to a halt and waited.

Kahlan held her hand out. "The note said we were to trade. Me for what Nicholas has."

The man, his crooked nose flattened to the side, smiled. "So we were."

"I am the Mother Confessor. Either give me the bottle or you die here, now."

He pulled the square-sided bottle from his pocket and placed it in her hand. Kahlan saw that it was full of clear liquid. She pulled the cork and smelled it. It had the slight aroma of cinnamon, as had the other bottles of the antidote.

"He goes back with this," Kahlan said to the grim-looking man as she handed Owen the bottle.

"And you come with me," the man said as he grabbed her wrist. "Or we all die on this bridge. He may go, as agreed, but if you try to run you will die."

Kahlan glanced to Owen. "Go," she growled.

Owen looked over at the man with black hair, then back to her. He looked like he had a lot to say, but he nodded and then ran back over the bridge to where Tom and Jennsen stood waiting, watching.

When Owen reached the other two, the man said, "Let's go, unless you'd like to die here."

Kahlan yanked her arm back. When he turned and started out, she followed behind him as they crossed the rest of the way over the bridge. She scanned the shadows among the trees on the far side of the river, the thousand hiding places among buildings beyond, the streets in the distance.

She didn't see anyone, but that didn't really make her feel any better.

Nicholas was there, somewhere, hiding in the darkness, waiting to have her.

Suddenly, the night lit up from behind. Kahlan spun and saw the bridge enveloped in a boiling ball of flame. The fire turned black as it billowed up. Stones sailed into the air above the inferno. As the luminous cloud rose, she could see the bridge beneath the roaring fireball crumpling. The arches caved in on themselves and the entire structure began the long drop into the river.

With icy dread, Kahlan wondered if there were any more bridges across the river. How would she get back to Richard if she succeeded? How was help going to get to her if she didn't?

On the far side, Kahlan could see Tom, Jennsen, and Owen running back up the road toward where Richard slept. They were not about to waste time watching a bridge being destroyed. At the thought of Richard, Kahlan almost let out a sob.

The man unexpectedly shoved her. "Move."

She glared at him, at his self-satisfied smile, at the smug confidence she saw in his eyes.

As she walked ahead of this man and he occasionally shoved her, Kahlan's temper was on a low boil. She had the urge to use her power and take out the despicable brute, but she had to concentrate on the task at hand: Nicholas.

Walking up the street leading away from the river, she was just able to make out soldiers hanging back in the shadows on the dark side streets, blocking every escape route. It didn't matter. At the moment, she wasn't interested in escape, but in her objective. The man behind her. as arrogantly as he was behaving, was also wary and treated her with cautious contempt.

The farther she walked into the city on the far side of the river, the closer the clusters of small buildings were packed together. Side streets of narrow twisting warrens ran off among the ramshackle structures. What trees there were grew crowded in close to the street. Their branches hung out over her like arms raised to snatch her in their claws. Kahlan tried not to think about how deep she was getting into enemy territory, and how many men were surrounding her.

The last time she had been surrounded and trapped by such savage men she had been beaten and bad come perilously close to dying. Her unborn child had died. Her child. Richard's child.

She had also lost a kind of innocence that day, a simplistic sense of her invincibility. In its place had come the understanding of how frail life was, how frail her own life was, and how easily it could be lost. She knew how much it had hurt Richard to fear he might lose her. She remembered the terrible agony in his eyes every time he had looked at her. It was completely different from the pain she saw in his eyes from his gift. It had been a helpless suffering for her. She hated the thought of that pain returning to haunt him.

From the shadows to the right side, a man stepped out from behind a building. He wore black robes, covered in layers of what looked like strips of cloth, almost as if he were covered in black feathers. They lifted in the breeze created by his stride, lending him an unsettling, floating fluidity as he moved.

His hair was slicked back with oils that glistened in the moonlight.