Blood of the Fold (102 page)

She sat up on his stomach. “Lord Rahl! You did it! You took the cape off like I told you! You heard my warning after all!”

She fell on him again, clutching him in red arms. Richard held his breath as he went under. Though the icy water wouldn’t have been his choice, he was glad for the excuse to wash off some of the stinking mriswith blood. He gasped for air when she grabbed his shirt in her fist and hauled him up. She sat in his lap, legs around his middle, and hugged him again.

“
Berdine,” he whispered, “my shoulder is hurt. Please don’t squeeze so hard.”

“
It’s nothing,” she announced in true Mord-Sith disregard for pain. “We were so worried. When the attack came, we thought we would never see you again. We thought we had failed.”

Kahlan cleared her throat. Richard held out an introductory hand. “Kahlan, these are my personal guards, Cara, Raina, and this is Berdine. Ladies, this is Kahlan, my queen.”

Berdine, making no attempt to get off his lap, grinned up at Kahlan. “I’m Lord Rahl’s favorite.”

Kahlan folded her arms as her green-eyed glare darkened.

“
Berdine, let me up.”

“
You still smell like a mriswith.” She shoved him back in the water and again hauled him up by his shirt. “That’s better.” She pulled him closer. “You ever run off like that again without listening to me, I’ll do more than give you a bath.”

“
What is it about you and women and baths?” Kahlan asked in an even tone.

“
I don’t know.” He looked out over the battle still raging, and then back to Berdine’s blue eyes. He hugged her with his good arm. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you. The price of my foolishness was too great.”

“
Are you all right?” she whispered in his ear.

“
Berdine, get off me. Let me up.”

She flopped off his lap to the side. “Kolo said that the mriswith were enemy wizards who traded their power for the ability to become invisible.”

Richard gave her a hand up. “I nearly did, too.”

She stood in the water on her tiptoes and pulled his shirt collar aside, inspecting his neck. She let out a relieved sigh. “It’s gone. You’re safe. Kolo said how the change came, how their skin began to scale over. He said that that ancestor of yours, Alric, created a force to battle the mriswith.” She pointed. “Gars.”

“
Gars …?”

Berdine nodded. “He gave them the ability to sense mriswith, even when they were invisible. That’s what gives the gars’ eyes that green glow. Because of this interrelationship of magic all the gars share, those who dealt directly with the wizards accrued dominance over the others, becoming something like the wizards’ generals among the gar nation. These intermediary gars were greatly respected by the other gars, and got them to fight with the people of the New World against the enemy mriswith, driving them back to the Old World.”

Richard stared in astonishment. “What else did he say?”

“
I haven’t had time to read any more. We’ve been kind of busy since you left.”

“
How long?” He stepped out of the fountain and addressed Cara. “How long have I been gone?”

She glanced to the Keep. “Nearly two days. Night before last. Today, at dawn, the sentries came in a lather and said the Blood of the Fold were right on their heels. They attacked shortly after. The fighting has been going on since this morning. At first, it was going well, but then the mriswith …” Her voice trailed off.

Kahlan put an arm around his waist to steady him as he spoke. “I’m sorry, Cara. I should have been here.” He stared in a daze at the sea of dead. “This is my fault.”

“
I killed two,” Raina announced without any attempt to mask her pride.

Ulic and Egan came at a run and spun to a stop in defensive positions. “Lord Rahl,” Ulic said over his shoulder, “are we ever glad to see you. We heard the cheer, but every time we got to you, you were somewhere else.”

“
Really?” Cara said, lifting an eyebrow. “We managed.”

Ulic rolled his eyes and turned toward the battle.

“
Are they always like this?” Kahlan whispered in his ear.

“
No,” he whispered back. “They’re on their best behavior for you.”

Richard saw white flags flying among the Blood of the Fold. No one paid them any heed.

“
D’Harans give no quarter,” Cara explained when she saw where he was looking. “It is to the finish.”

Richard hopped down off the fountain. When he strode off, his guards immediately followed.

Kahlan caught up with him before he had taken three strides. “What are you doing, Richard?”

“
I’m putting a stop to this.”

“
You can’t do that. We have sworn to kill the Order to a man. You must let it be done. That’s what they would have done to us.”

“
I can’t do it, Kahlan. I can’t. If we kill them all, then others of the Order will never surrender, knowing it would mean death. If I show them that we will take them prisoner instead of killing them, then they’ll be more willing to quit. If they are more willing to quit, we win without losing the lives of so many of our men, and that makes us stronger. Then, we win.”

Richard started shouting orders. They were carried through the ranks of his men, and the din of battle slowly began subsiding. The eyes of thousands began turning to him.

“
Let them through,” he told a commander.

Richard went back to the fountain and stood on the wall, watching the commanders of the Blood of the Fold lead their men to him. All around, D’Harans, bristling steel, stood guard. A corridor opened, and the crimson-caped men stepped forward, glancing from side to side as they came.

An officer halted at their lead before Richard. His voice was hoarse, and subdued. “Will you accept our surrender?”

Richard folded his arms. “Depends. Are you willing to tell me the truth?”

The man glanced about at his quiet, bloody men. “Yes, Lord Rahl.”

“
Who told you to attack the city?”

“
The mriswith gave us instructions, and many of us were instructed in our dreams, by the dream walker.”

“
Do you wish to be free of him?”

They all nodded or spoke up in weak voices. They also readily agreed to telling everything they knew about any plans that they knew of that the dream walker and the Imperial Order had.

Richard was so exhausted, and in such pain, that he could hardly stand. He drew anger from the sword to sustain himself.

“
If you wish to surrender and be subjects of D’Haran rule, then go to you knees, and swear loyalty.”

In the fading light, accompanied by the groans of the wounded, the remaining Blood of the Fold went to their knees and gave the devotion as they were instructed by the D’Harans who joined in.

In one mass voice that carried through the city, they all bowed heads to the ground and took the oath.

“
Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.”

As the men all tore off their crimson capes, casting them in fires as they were led away to be guarded for now, Kahlan turned to him.

“
You have just changed the rules of the war, Richard.” She looked out over the carnage. “So many have died already.”

“
Too many,” he whispered as he watched the empty-handed Blood of the Fold marching off into the night, surrounded by the men they had tried to kill. He wondered if he was crazy.

“‘
In your mercy we are sheltered,’” Kahlan quoted from the devotion. “Perhaps it is meant to be this way.” She put a comforting hand to his back. “I know it somehow feels right.”

Not far off, Mistress Sanderholt, holding a bloody meat cleaver, smiled her agreement.

Glowing green eyes gathered in the square. Richard’s black mood brightened when he saw Gratch’s gruesome grin. He and Kahlan hopped down and hurried to the gar.

It had never felt so good to be enfolded by those furry arms. Richard laughed with tears in his eyes as he was lifted from the ground.

“
I love you, Gratch. I love you so much.”

“
Grrratch luuug Raaaach aaarg.”

Kahlan joined the hug, and then received her own, separate embrace. “I love you, too, Gratch. You saved Richard’s life. I owe you everything.”

Gratch gurgled with satisfaction as he stroked a claw down her hair.

Richard swished at a fly. “Gratch! You have blood flies!”

Gratch’s self-satisfied grin widened. Gars used the flies to help flush out their quarry, but Gratch had never had any before. Richard didn’t want to swat Gratch’s blood flies, but they were becoming more than annoying. They were stinging his neck.

Gratch bent, scooped a claw through the gore of a dead mriswith, and smeared it across the taut, pink skin of his abdomen. The flies obediently returned to feast. Richard was astonished.

He peered around at all the glowing green eyes watching him. “Gratch, you look like you’ve had quite an adventure. You gathered all these gars together?” Gratch nodded with a clear look of gar pride. “And they did what you asked?”

Gratch thumped his chest with authority. He turned and grunted. The rest of the gars returned the odd grunt. Gratch smiled, showing his fangs.

“
Gratch, where’s Zedd?”

The leathery smile withered. The hulking gar sagged a bit as he looked over his shoulder, up at the keep. He turned back, his glowing green eyes dimming a bit as he shook his head sorrowfully.

Richard swallowed back the anguish. “I understand,” he whispered. “Did you see him killed?”

Gratch thumped his chest, lifted his fur out atop his head, apparently a sign for Zedd, pointed at the Keep, and put his claws over his eyes—Gratch’s sign for mriswith. Through his signs, and Richard’s questions, Richard was able to determine that Gratch had brought Zedd to the Keep, there had been a fight with many mriswith, Gratch had seen Zedd lying unmoving on the ground with blood running from his head, and then Gratch could no longer find the old wizard. The gar had then gone in search of help to fight the mriswith and protect Richard. He had worked hard to find the other gars, and to gather them to his purpose.

Richard hugged his friend again. Gratch held him in a long embrace, and then backed away, looking for the other gars.

Richard felt a lump rising in his throat. “Gratch, can you stay?”

Gratch pointed one claw at Richard, another at Kahlan, and then brought them together. He thumped his chest and then pointed behind at another gar. When it came forward to stand beside him, Richard realized it was a female.

“
Gratch, you have a love? Like I have Kahlan?”

Gratch grinned and thumped at his chest with both claws.

“
And you want to be with the gars,” Richard said.

Gratch nodded reluctantly, his smile faltering.

Richard put on his best smile. “I think that’s wonderful, my friend. You deserve to be with your love, and your new friends. But you can still visit us. We would love to have you and your friend any time. All of you, in fact. You’re all welcome here.”

Gratch’s smile returned.

“
But Gratch, can you do one thing for me? Please? It’s important. Can you ask them not to eat people? We won’t hunt gars, and you won’t eat people. All right?”

Gratch turned to the others, grunting in an odd guttural language that the others understood. They offered grumbling murmurs of their own, and a conversation of sorts seemed to ensue. Gratch’s growling words rose in pitch, and he thumped his massive chest—he was at least as big as any of them. They all finally offered a hooting assent. Gratch turned to Richard and nodded.

Kahlan hugged the furry beast again. “Take care of yourself, and come see us when you can. I’m always in your debt, Gratch. I love you. We both do.”

After a last embrace with Richard that needed no words, the gars took to wing and vanished into the night.

Richard stood beside Kahlan, surrounded by his guards, his army, and the specter of the dead.

Richard awakened with a start. Kahlan was curled up with her back to his chest. The wound in his shoulder from the mriswith queen ached. He had let an army surgeon put a poultice on it, and then, too exhausted to stand any longer, he had fallen onto the bed in the guest room he had been using. He hadn’t even taken off his boots, and the uncomfortable pain in his hip told him that he still wore the Sword of Truth, and he was lying on it.