Naked Empire

Owen started across the open area of the fortification, past men engaged in pitched battle, past those crying out and those falling to blades, past swords and axes sweeping through the air, as if he didn't even see them. His eyes were locked on the man watching him come.

The face of a young woman appeared in the dark doorway behind Luchan He turned and growled at her to go back inside, that he was going to take care of the little man from her village.

When Luchan turned back around, Owen was standing before him.

Luchan laughed and put his fists on his hips. "Why don't you scurry back into your hole?"

Owen said nothing, gave no warning, made no demands. He simply lit into Luchan with a vengeance — just as Richard had counseled him to do — slamming a knife into the big man's chest over and over before Luchan had a chance to react. He had underestimated Owen. It had cost him his life.

The woman rushed out of the doorway and came to a halt over the body of her former master. She stared down at him, at his one arm splayed out to the side, at the other lying across his bloody chest, at the unseeing eyes. She looked up at Owen.

Kahlan assumed that this was Marilee, and feared that she was going to reject Owen for harming another, that she would castigate him for what be had done.

Instead, she rushed to Owen and threw her arms around him.

The woman went to her knees beside the body and took the bloody knife from Owen's hand. She turned to the fallen Luchan and stabbed him half a dozen times with such force that it drove the knife in up to the hilt with every thrust. Watching her tearful fury, Kahlan didn't have to wonder how she had been treated by the man.

Her anger spent, she stood again and tearfully hugged Owen.

Kahlan needed to get to Richard. She was relieved that her ability to move as she intended was returning. She started making her way around the edge of the battle, staying close to the walls, past men who saw her and thought she would be an easy mark. They didn't know that from a young age she had been taught to use a sword by her father, King Wyborn, and that Richard had later honed her skill to deadly proficiency, teaching her how to use her lighter weight to give her lethal speed. It was the last mistake the men made.

Off across the open area, a mob of soldiers, now fully awake and fully prepared to engage in battle, swarmed out of the barracks. They all charged for Richard. Kahlan knew right away that there were too many. Richard's men couldn't stop the flood of soldiers as they streamed across the encampment.

All of them crashed in toward Richard.

Kahlan heard a deafening crack like lightning as the walls of the fortification lit with a flash. She had to turn away and shield her eyes.

Night turned to day, and at the same time, a darkness darker than any night was loosed.

A blazing white-hot bolt of Additive Magic twisted and coiled around and through a crackling black void of Subtractive Magic, creating a violent rope of twin lightning joined to a terrible purpose.

It seemed as if the noonday sun crashed down among them. The air itself was drawn into the fierce heat and light. Try as she might, Kahlan couldn't draw a breath against the force of it.

Richard's fury gathered it all into a single point. In an explosive instant, the thunderous ignition of light unleashed a devastating blast of staggering destruction radiating outward across the entire encampment, annihilating the Imperial Order soldiers.

The night fell dark and silent.

Men and women stood stunned among the sea of blood and viscera, gazing around at the unrecognizable remains of the enemy soldiers.

The battle was over. The people of Bandakar had carried the day. At last, the women fell to wailing and crying, ecstatic to be free. They knew many of the men who had come to free them, and clung to them in gratitude, overwhelmed with joy to be reunited. They hugged friends, relatives, and strangers alike. The men, too, wept with relief and happiness.

Kahlan rushed through the maze of rejoicing people crowded into the open area of the fortification. Men cheered her, thrilled that she, too, had been liberated. Many of the men wanted to talk to her, but she kept running to get to Richard.

He stood to the side, leaning against the wall, Cara helping to hold him up. He still gripped his blood-slicked sword in his fist, the blade's tip resting on the ground.

Owen, too, made his way over to Richard.

"Mother Confessor! I'm so relieved and thankful to have you back!" He looked over at a smiling Richard. "Lord Rahl, I would like you to meet.

Marilee."

This woman, who only a short time ago had savagely stabbed the corpse of her captor now seemed too shy to speak. She dipped her head in greeting.

Richard straightened and smiled that smile Kahlan so loved to see, a smile filled with the sheer pleasure of life. "I'm very happy to meet you, Marilee. Owen has told us all about you, and about how much you mean to him.