Naked Empire

"I used a ladder pole," he explained. "Cara is on her way."

Kahlan tried to make her way over to him, but her body felt alarmingly unfamiliar to her. She staggered a couple of steps, her legs moving woodenly. She had the urge to get down on her hands and feet to walk. She felt like a stranger inside her own skin. It seemed foreign to have to breathe on her own, to have to look through her own eyes, to have to listen through her own ears. It was a strange, haunting sensation to feel her clothes against her skin.

Richard held out his hand to help steady her. Kahlan thought that as wobbly as she was, she might still be more steady on her feet than Richard.

"We're going to have to fight our way out," he said, "but we'll have some help. I'll get you the first sword I can."

" Richard blew out the flame of the single candle before a tin reflector on a small shelf.

"Richard, I'm not yet used to being. . back inside myself. I don't think I'm ready to go out there. I can hardly walk."

"We don't have a lot of choice. We have to get out. Learn as you go.

I'll help you."

"You can hardly walk yourself."

Cara, at the top of a pole ladder Richard had cut, leaned forward and wriggled in through the small window.

Halfway in, Cara gaped in delighted wonder. "Mother Confessor- Lord Rahl did it."

"You don't need to sound so surprised," Richard griped as he helped the Mord-Sith the rest of the way in.

Cara only briefly took note of the dead man sprawled across the floor before Kahlan threw her arms around the woman.

"You can't imagine how glad I am to see you," Cara said.

"Well, you can't imagine how glad I am to see you through my own eyes."

"If only the trade you made had worked," Cara added in a whisper.

"We'll find another way," Kahlan assured her.

Richard slowly drew the door open a crack and peeked out. He shut the door and turned back.

"It's clear. Doors to the left and around the balcony are the rooms with the women in them. Stairs to the right are the closest that lead down.

Some of the rooms at the bottom are for officers; others are barracks for soldiers."

Cara nodded. "I'm ready."

Kahlan looked from one to the other. "Ready for what?"

Richard took her by the elbow. "I need you to help me see."

"Help you see? Is it progressing that fast?"

"Just listen. We're going to move along the balcony to the left and open the doors. Do your best to keep the women calm. We're going to break them out of here."

Kahlan was a bit confused by everything-it was completely different from the plans she had been hearing along with Nicholas. She knew she would just have to follow Richard and Cara's lead.

Outside, on the simple wooden balcony, there were no lamps or torches.

The moon was down behind the black sprawl of the mountains. Kahlan's sight when Nicholas had controlled her had been like looking through a greasy pane of wavy glass. The sparkling vault of stars overhead had never looked so beautiful. In that starlight, Kahlan could see simple buildings lined up around the outer wall of the fortification.

Richard and Cara moved along the balcony, opening doors. At each one, Cara quickly ducked inside. Some of the women came out in their nightshirts; some Kahlan could hear inside rushing to get dressed. In some of the rooms, babies cried.

While Cara was in one of the rooms, Richard opened another door. He leaned close to Kahlan and whispered, "Go in and tell the women inside that we've come to help them escape. Tell them that their men have come to get them out. But they must be as quiet as possible, or we'll be caught."

Kahlan rushed in, as best she could on unsteady legs, and woke the young woman in the bed to the right. She sat up, terrified, but silent.

Kahlan reached around and shook the woman in the other bed.

"We've come to help you escape. You mustn't make any noise. Your men are going to help. You have a chance to be free."

"Free?" the first woman asked.

"Yes. It's up to you, but I strongly advise you to take the chance, and to hurry."

The women flew out of their beds and grabbed for clothes.

Richard, Kahlan, and Cara moved farther down the balcony, asking the women who had already come out to help rouse the others. In a matter of a few minutes, hundreds of women were huddled together out on the balcony.

There was no problem keeping them quiet; they were all too familiar with the consequences of causing trouble. They didn't want to do anything to get themselves caught trying to escape. Before long, they had made it all the way around the fortification balcony.

Many of the women had very young babies-ones too young to be taken away. The babies were mostly sound asleep in their mothers' arms, but some of them started to cry. The mothers desperately tried to rock and cuddle them into silence. Kahlan hoped that it was a common enough sound that it wouldn't draw the attention of the soldiers.

"Wait here," Richard whispered to Kahlan. "Keep everyone up here until we get the gate open."