Naked Empire

Richard saw every detail as the blade tore through flesh and bone, turning muscle, tendon, arteries, and windpipe inside out, following with precision the path to which the Seeker had justly committed it. Richard had dedicated everything to the swift journey of his sword. Now, he watched as that journey reached its destination, as the blade cleared the neck of Nicholas the Slide, as the man's head, its mouth still opened in the beginning of shock not fully comprehended, his beady eyes still trying to grasp the totality of what they were seeing, lifted into the air, beginning to turn ever so slowly as the sword below it passed along its deadly arc, as curved ropes of the man's blood began tracing a long wet line across the wall behind him.

Richard's scream ended as the sword's swing reached its limit. The world came crashing back around him.

The head hit the floor with a loud, bone-cracking thunk.

It was ended.

Richard recalled the rage. He had to get it under control immediately.

He had something yet more important to accomplish.

In one fluid motion, Richard slid the bloody blade home into its scabbard as he turned to the second body leaned up against the wall to the right.

The sight of her almost overcame him. To see her there, alive, breathing, seemingly unhurt, brought a wild rush of joy. His worst fears, fears he would not even allow into his conscious mind, evaporated in an instant.

But then he realized that she was not all right. She could not have slept through such an attack.

Richard fell to his knees and took her up in his arms. She felt so light, so limp. Her face was ashen and beaded with sweat. Her eyelids were half closed, her eyes rolled back in her head.

Richard sank back within himself, seeking strength to bring back the one he loved more than life itself. He opened his soul to her. All he wanted, all he needed, as he held her to him, was for her to live, to be whole.

Instinctively, in a way he did not fully understand, he let his power well up from a place deep inside his mind. He released himself into the torrent as it rushed onward. He let his love of her, his need of her, flood through their connection as he hugged her to his breast.

"Come home to where you belong," he whispered to her.

He let the core of his power course through her, intending it to be like a beacon to light her way. It felt as if he were searching through the dark, using the light of ability from deep within to help him. Even though he couldn't define the precise mechanism, he could consciously focus his purpose, his need, and what he wanted to accomplish.

"Come home to me, Kahlan. I'm here."

Kahlan gasped. Even though she hung limp, he felt the intensity of the life in his arms. She gasped again, as if she had nearly drowned and needed air.

At last, she stirred in his arms, her limbs moving, groping. She opened her eyes, blinking, and looked up. Astonished, she sank back into his arms.

"Richard… I heard you. I was so alone. Dear spirits, I was so alone.

I didn't know what to do…. I heard Nicholas scream. I was lost and alone.

I didn't know how to get back. And then I felt you."

She embraced him tightly, as if she never wanted to let go.

"You led me back through the darkness."

Richard smiled down at her. "I'm a guide, remember?"

She puzzled at him. "How could you do that?" Her beautiful green eyes opened expectantly. "Richard, your gift…"

"I figured out the problem with my gift. Kaja-Rang had given me the solution. I'd had the solution long before that, but I never realized it. My gift is fine, now, and the sword's power works again. I was being so blind that I will be ashamed to tell it all to you."

Richard's breath caught, and he coughed, then, unable to hold it back any longer. Nor could he hold back grimacing at the pain.

Kahlan gripped his arms. "The antidote-what happened to the antidote!

I sent it back with Owen. Didn't you get it?"

Richard shook his head as he coughed again, the pain feeling as though it ripped him deep inside. He finally regained his breath. "Well, now, that is a problem. It wasn't the antidote. It was just water with a bit of cinnamon in it."

Kahlan's face went ashen. "But.." She looked over at Nicholas's body, at his head lying upended at the end of a bloody trail across the floor.

"Richard, if Nicholas is dead, how are we going to get the antidote?"

"There isn't any antidote. Nicholas wanted me dead. He would have destroyed the antidote long ago. He gave you a fake to be able to capture you."

Her face had gone from joy to horror.

"But, without the antidote…"

CHAPTER 64

There's no time to worry about the poison just now," Richard told her as he helped her to her feet.

No time? She watched his step falter as he made his way across the room. He groped for the window ledge.

At the small window opening in the outer wall of the fortification he signaled with the high, clear whistle of the common wood pewee- the whistle Cara thought was that of the mythical short-tailed pine hawk.