Stone of Tears

A sudden shaft of light descended into the pit. Tyler saw the man on her and threw him off. A ladder dropped down.

Tyler! Keep them away from the ladder!”

Kahlan threw herself onto the ladder and scrambled up. The men piled on Tyler. She heard him groan and then his neck snap. Her foot slipped through a rung when a fist punched the back of her calf. Hands grabbed at her ankles. Kahlan kicked the face of the man right behind and then clambered up. He tumbled back, taking the others with him. They charged back up in a rush.

Kahlan stretched for the hand extended down. Chandalen clamped onto her wrist and yanked her through the doorway. He stabbed the man right behind her. As the man toppled back, Chandalen slammed the door closed. Panting, she fell into his arms.

“Come, Mother Confessor. We must get out of this place.”

There were dead guards everywhere, all killed silently, from behind, by Chandalen’s troga. He held her hand as they ran through the dank, dark halls and up stairs. She wondered how Chandalen had managed to find his way down here. Someone must have shown him the way.

Around a corner, they came to the sight of a bloody battle. Bodies were sprawled everywhere. Only one man was standing. Orsk. His great battle-axe dripped with gore. Orsk nearly leapt out of his skin with joy when he saw her. She was almost thrilled to see his scarred face.

“I made him wait,” Chandalen explained as he pulled her through the bloody mess. “I told him that I would bring you, if he waited and guarded this hall.”

Chandalen frowned at her. Kahlan realized he was staring at her hair, or what was left of it. He said nothing, though, and she was glad for that. It felt more than strange not to feel the weight of her hair; it was heartbreaking. She had loved her hair; so had Richard.

Kahlan bent and took a war axe from one of the dead guards. With her power not yet recovered, she felt better with a weapon in her hands.

Chandalen, dragging Kahlan along by her hand, with Orsk protecting the rear, burst through a door. Directly outside, the captain of the guards had a woman pressed up against the wall. Her arms were wrapped around his neck as she kissed him; his hands were up her dress.

As they charged past, and the startled captain looked up, Chandalen drove his long knife into the man’s ribs.

“Come!” he said to the woman. “We have her!”

The woman fell into line with the rest of them as they wound their way up through the palace. Puzzled, Kahlan looked back. The woman in the hooded cloak was the woman who had fainted—Jebra Bevinvier.

“What’s going on?” Kahlan asked Jebra.

“Forgive me, Mother Confessor, for fainting. I had a vision of you being beheaded. It was so horrifying that I fainted. I knew I must help, so that the vision would not come true.

You told me that you had a friend in the woods. I went and found him.”

They all flattened up against a wall and waited for a patrol to pass through an adjoining room. When their echoing footsteps faded, Chandalen turned with a hot look to Jebra.

“What were you doing with that man!”

She blinked in surprise. “He was the captain of the guards. He was making the rounds with a whole detachment. I convinced him to send the guards away for a while. I did the only thing I could think of to keep fifty men from trapping you down there.”

Chandalen grumbled that maybe it made sense. As they headed on, Kahlan told Jebra that she had done a brave thing, and that she understood what courage it took to do it. Jebra protested that she was no heroine, and didn’t want to be one.

At an intersection with a vaulted corridor, Mistress Sander-holt was waiting. Letting out a cry, Kahlan threw her arms around the woman. Mistress Sanderholt held her bandaged hands out.

“Not now, Mother Confessor. You must escape. This way is clear.”

As the others rushed in the direction Mistress Sanderholt indicated, Kahlan went the other way. They all turned and ran after.

“What are you doing!” Chandalen yelled. “We must escape!”

“I have to get something from my room.”

“What could be more important than escaping!”

“Grandfather’s knife,” she said as she ran.

When they realized they were not going to be able to change her mind, they all followed after as she led them up through the labyrinth of smaller and less frequently patrolled halls. Several times they did encounter guards. Orsk fiercely hacked them to pieces when they charged after her.

As she came around a corner at the top of a stairway, a surprised guard spun to her. With all her strength, Kahlan buried her axe in the center of his chest. His sword skittered across the floor as he went down on his back.

As he thrashed on the floor, Kahlan put a foot against his heaving stomach and tried to pull the axe out. Bubbles of air and blood frothed forth, but the axe was stuck tight in his breastbone, so she scooped up his Keltish sword instead. Chandalen lifted an eyebrow. Before they reached her room, she had cause to use the sword, and with similar, deadly effect.