Kahlan wished she had a blanket to keep warm in the night chill. She didn’t want a fire, though. The light would attract the attention of anyone close and the smoke would reveal their presence for a great distance. If they were going to sleep for longer, she would have asked Nicci to use her gift to heat some rocks. But it wasn’t that cold and she was already falling into the numbing embrace of sleep.
She lay on her side, curled up to stay as warm as she could while thinking about all the times she had slept in the woods with Richard. She thought about some of the wonderful times she had cuddled up to him.
As she began to cry softly, Hunter crept in close, purring, and curled up against her stomach.
Kahlan laid an appreciative hand over the warm little creature and fell asleep thinking of Richard.
CHAPTER
7
When Kahlan woke and squinted around she was relieved to see that the sky had just begun to lighten with the approaching dawn. She sat up and spotted Vale waking the other two Mord-Sith. Nicci squatted down beside the brook not far away, splashing cold water on her face.
With the faint light of dawn it was already light enough that they would be able to see where they were stepping without the need of Nicci creating a flame to light their way. Kahlan stretched as she yawned. Daylight would enable them to see if they were being attacked. They would be able to see well enough to run, or fight if they had to.
Although she knew that they had to have slept for a couple of hours, it felt like she had been asleep only a few minutes. She needed more, but at least she did feel somewhat better. As she stood she told herself that it would have to do.
“Nice bed you made for us,” Kahlan said in a weary voice to the three Mord-Sith. “We better get going.”
They returned the smile as Kahlan started out toward where Hunter was sitting up on a rock waiting for them. Once he saw them all up and moving in a line, he bounded off, expecting them to follow.
Kahlan’s back ached from sleeping on the ground, and she felt stiff all over. She put her hand on her middle and smiled when she felt the warmth still there from Hunter sleeping tight against her the whole time.
As the overcast day brightened under an iron-gray sky, they reached the far edge of a ridge, where they had a view out at the trackless forest ahead. It was disheartening to see the vast wilderness spread out below and the enormity of the mountains rising up beyond.
“When we were in the village of those people living by the witch woman, it was in a mountain pass,” Nicci said.
Kahlan nodded, feeling discouraged that the mountains were still far off beyond rugged woodlands. “That means we still have a long way to go.”
When hopelessness threatened to overwhelm her, she forced it away by keeping herself focused on what she would say to Red once they reached her. They couldn’t afford to fail.
Hunter trotted off down the slope, looking back over his shoulder as if to say, “Come on. Let’s go.”
Without a word, they all moved out to follow. The slope led them down into densely forested lowlands among craggy hills. Though they weren’t mountains, it was still difficult traveling.
Despite the difficulty of the terrain, Hunter found them a way through it all so that they were able to make good time until near midmorning, when they came to an impassable ravine that looked to be a long split completely through the rocky forest. It wasn’t far to the opposite side, but it was too wide to jump across.
The five of them stared down at the rushing water of the stream at the bottom. Though roots hung down the sides, they were not stout enough for handholds and the dirt certainly didn’t look stable enough to climb down. Kahlan could see no way for them to make it down the overhang. Even if they could, the opposite side didn’t look to have a way to climb back up.
Before Kahlan and the rest of them could begin to look for a better place they might be able to cross, she saw Hunter on the opposite side of the chasm. She frowned, wondering how he had gotten across. When he saw that she had spotted him, he started loping off to her left, as if he wanted them to go in that direction.
“Let’s see where he wants us to go,” Kahlan said as she started following the edge of the drop. “He obviously knows a way across.”
In places the edge of the cliffs had given way and taken trees with it. In another place they were forced to go through the woods to get around a spot where the tangled and thorny brush among trees growing right up to the edge was dense and impenetrable. Some of those trees leaned out over the drop, trying to find a patch of light for themselves. Vines hung from some of those trees, but they didn’t look strong enough that Kahlan would trust trying to use them to swing across.
As they came out of the woods Kahlan saw Hunter sitting on a log of a tree that had fallen over the chasm. He waited in the middle until he was sure they had spotted him. Once he knew they were watching, he turned and crossed the rest of the way over to the other side, clearly letting them know that this was the way they needed to cross.
Hunter had no difficulty at all crossing the log. Not only was he smaller and lower, but he had claws if he needed them. If he did fall, he was quick enough to be able to catch the log with his claws. He didn’t look like he feared falling, though. He was catlike in that he seemed to have no fear of heights.
When Kahlan peered over the edge it made her pulse quicken.
“Hunter,” she called across the ravine, “we can’t walk over the log like you can.”
He sat on the other side watching her, as if to ask why not.
Kahlan knew she couldn’t do it. She could balance pretty well for a few steps on a log going across a narrow stream if it meant keeping from getting wet, but she couldn’t balance for such a distance over a drop that would be fatal. Making it even more difficult, the humidity and frequent drizzle left the log slippery. Just thinking about trying to cross on it made her heart beat even faster.
Kahlan turned to Nicci. “Any ideas? We can’t walk across like he did.”
“Sure we can,” Cassia said.
Without explaining, she straddled the log and started shimmying across, using her hands as well as her legs to hold on. In no time at all she had made it to the other side. She stood up and smiled at them.
“See? Easy.”
Vale shook her head as if it was silliness and walked across the log, arms stretched out to the sides, as if she had been doing such things her whole life.
“You don’t need to stand up and walk across like her,” Cassia called over the chasm. “It’s not that hard if you do it like I did.”
Kahlan knew they couldn’t afford a delay. She got down and straddled the log. The bark was rough. Gummy sap stuck to her hands as she worked her way along the log, trying to look at the two Mord-Sith waiting on the other side, rather than look down.
Cassia was right. In short order Kahlan and then Nicci and Laurin made it across. It turned out to be a lot less trouble than Kahlan had feared when she first saw Hunter trot across.
Once they were all on the other side, they plunged back into the woods, following after Hunter. Before long they came to yet another ridge, but this one overlooked a narrow valley below that seemed softer because it looked mostly to be leafy trees, rather than the spiky shapes of pine and spruce. Hunter quickened his pace as he galloped down the slope, apparently wanting to hurry them along.
Coming down the slope from the ridge and out of the rough rock, they reached an area of smoother ground. It grew thick with grasses dotted with white flowers. As they moved farther into the area, the grass became increasingly shaded by maple, ash, and oak trees. Once he saw they were following, Hunter bounded away. Kahlan frowned as she watched him disappear off into the trees out ahead. It wasn’t like him to run off like that and vanish out of sight.
She wondered if he might be checking some danger or investigating a strange smell, like the stench of half people. Whatever it was, Kahlan found it a bit disturbing the way he had so abruptly vanished into the woods. She
lifted the sword a few inches, checking that it was clear and its magic ready, then let it slide back down.
Emerging from a crowded area into a more open cathedral of monarch oaks, they all spotted something ahead. It looked like a person in an expanse of gravel beside a shallow stream.
Kahlan saw Hunter sitting on a rocky ledge in the shadows to the right, beside the crystal-clear water moving slowly past.
“I smell meat cooking,” Vale said.
Kahlan smelled it, too. She could see the wisps of smoke from the cook fire.
“It’s the witch woman,” Nicci said in a low voice, her gaze remaining locked on what she was seeing.
“Are you sure?” Kahlan whispered back. “From this distance I can’t make out who it is.”
“I don’t need to see her,” Nicci said. “I can sense her power with my gift. It’s hard to miss.”
“That’s disturbing,” Cassia muttered. “I hate magic.”
Without waiting to discuss a plan, Kahlan started toward the figure in the distance. Her plan was to find out if Red could help them, and if she could, to make sure she did. It was no more complicated than that.
When they got close enough Kahlan could see that there appeared to be something cooking on several spits above a bed of glowing coals. The witch woman stood bent over, tending to the coals with a stout stick.
As they got closer, Kahlan could see that Red was wearing an elegant gray dress that looked completely out of place in the wilds of the Dark Lands. It looked more like something one would wear to a palace ball. It made Kahlan, who was wet and filthy from mud, her hands dotted with spots of sticky sap, feel like a beggar.
The woman’s bewitching sky-blue eyes made her tight thatch of ropy red locks, by contrast, look all the more red. The gray dress, by its lack of color, served to make the dazzling color of the witch woman’s eyes and hair stand out all the more. Although it would seem to make sense, Kahlan knew that the woman’s red hair was not where she had gotten her name.
The witch woman at last looked up with those piercing blue eyes. “Ah, there you are, Mother Confessor. Right on time.”
“On time for what?” Kahlan asked suspiciously as she came to a halt not far away.
Red glanced around and spread her arms as if it were obvious. “Why, lunch, of course.”
“You were expecting us?” Kahlan asked.
Red frowned. “Yes, of course.” She gestured off toward the ledge outcropping where Hunter sat watching. “I sent your little friend to get you.”
Kahlan nodded. “I thought that might be the case.” She held a hand out to her right. “This is Cassia, Laurin, and Vale.” She lifted her other hand out. “This is Nicci.”
Red smiled indulgently. “Yes, I know, the sorceress you were supposed to kill.”
Kahlan ignored the reprimand. “I hope you don’t mind that I brought them with me.”
Red shrugged. “No, of course not. I have my own protection. I don’t begrudge you yours. In fact, considering the deteriorating state of affairs, I consider it a mark of wisdom.”
“That’s what I needed to talk to you about … the state of affairs and all that is at stake. At stake for all of us.”
“Yes, yes, now won’t you all pull up a rock, so to speak, and have a seat? Lunch is ready.”
Kahlan and Nicci shared a look.
“You made us all lunch?” Kahlan asked.
“Yes,” Red said. “I’ve been expecting the five of you, and I know that you are all hungry. I don’t think it’s wise to have a serious discussion about the world of the dead on an empty stomach.”
CHAPTER
8
Beside the stream, low rocks lay scattered through the area of gravel in more than enough numbers for each of them to have their choice of places to sit close to the fire. Kahlan had more urgent matters on her mind than lunch, but it did smell good and she was starving.
Red used a forked stick to push sizzling meat off the spits onto a flat rock where a pile of already cooked meat was cooling. It appeared by how much there was that she had been cooking all morning. Not only was there a variety of several different things, from what looked like boiled eggs to rabbit to fish, but there looked to be more than they could all eat. There were even some wild plums to the side.
Red gestured as she handed them each a sharpened, forked stick. “Go on, help yourselves. I know that you have been traveling hard and are all in need of a good meal.”
Cassia glanced at Kahlan. When Kahlan gave her a slight nod, Cassia and Laurin stabbed pieces of the rabbit meat. Kahlan started out with a couple of eggs. Nicci chose a piece of fish.
“Snake!” Vale said with delight as she found a long string of meat in the pile. “I haven’t had snake since I was young. It was always one of my favorites.”
“I know,” the witch woman said without looking up from setting aside the cooking rod. “That’s why I prepared it.”
“Thank you,” Vale said as she held up the string of meat between a finger and thumb. She bit off a long chunk from the bottom and chewed with obvious delight. “Delicious,” she told Red.
Red smiled.
Gravel crunched under Kahlan’s boots as she went to a rock on the opposite side of the bed of hot coals from where Red sat. Red’s rock of choice was taller than all the rest, so that once they were seated she looked down on them a little. Kahlan had seen enough queens holding court to get the point. As the Mother Confessor, she ruled over those queens, but at the moment that was about the last thing on her mind. She was content to let Red hold court if that was what pleased her.
Kahlan cracked the shell of an egg and started peeling it off. “What are you doing here, in this place?” She deliberately glanced around. “What brings you here?”
“Why, you do, Mother Confessor.”
“There must be more to it,” Kahlan said, not buying the simplicity of the answer. “We were on our way to see you at your home. You would have seen me there. Why come here, instead?”
“Well,” Red said with a flick of her hand, “I’m afraid that my place is a bit of a mess right now. I don’t mind it, but I wouldn’t feel right receiving guests there.”
Kahlan looked up from under her brow as she popped the shell off the small end of the egg. “What do you mean, it’s a mess? It’s a mountain pass. How could it be a mess?”
She bit off half the egg and chewed as Red’s sky-blue eyes studied her for a moment.
“Do you remember me telling you how I got my name?”
Kahlan swallowed the egg as she peeled the second one. It was a great relief to be eating something warm and fresh.
“Yes, you said it was because there were times when you made that mountain pass run red with blood.”
A small smile spread on the woman’s lips. “That’s right.”
“Are you saying that you had some sort of trouble there?” Nicci asked.
The witch woman ignored Nicci and instead glanced at the Mord-Sith in their red leather outfits–outfits designed to obscure the shocking sight of blood. The sight didn’t bother Mord-Sith, but it did others. All three were taking bites of meat off their forked sticks, but their gazes stayed on the witch woman. Kahlan could read Mord-Sith well enough to know that they considered the witch woman to be a potential threat. She was used to having Mord-Sith protecting her and Richard. She was glad to have them along. Like most Mord-Sith, these three were as guileless as they were deadly.
Kahlan missed Cara something fierce, but not as fiercely as she missed Richard.
“You see,” Red finally went on, looking from the other four back at Kahlan, “the demon–”
“Demon?” Nicci interrupted again. “What demon?”
The witch woman’s unsettling gaze glided to Nicci. “The one who belongs in the underworld. The one who came into this world where he does not belong. The one who would unbalance the worlds of life and death.”
“You mean Sulachan,” Nicci said, not the least bit intimidated by the look the witch
woman was giving her.
“Of course.”
“So, what were you going to tell us about this demon, Sulachan?” Nicci asked.
“He seeks to bend the forces of the Grace until they break. In his time he–”
“We know,” Nicci said as she licked white flakes of fish from a finger. “What does this have to do with your home being a mess?”
Red idly rolled a red lock of hair around a finger as she studied Nicci with a hint of disapproval. “You are a very forward woman, aren’t you?”
Nicci shrugged as she stabbed another piece of fish from the pile on the rock. “We didn’t come for a social visit,” she said as she sat back down. “Every moment counts if we are to send the demon back to the underworld where he belongs. Time is precious–at least it is here in this world. I don’t think we have a lot of time to lose.”
Red conceded the point with a nod. “Well, from what I saw in the flow of time, he knew that you had escaped those he sent after you. He wanted all the soldiers annihilated. He wanted some, like Lord Rahl, the Mother Confessor, and anyone else gifted, captured and brought to him. He had plans for all of you and was furious that you escaped his grasp.
“The demon knew where you were headed, so he sent another force of his half people after you. A large force. He believed that this time they would not fail him.”
Kahlan glanced at Nicci out of the corner of her eye. This was news. She had expected that Sulachan might send more half people after them, but didn’t know that he had.
“So what happened?” Kahlan asked.
“The route you traveled to get to Saavedra took you through the only mountain pass in that area of the mountains. If the horde of half people wanted to get to you, they had to follow the same route and come through that same pass, my home, first.”
Kahlan swallowed some of her egg. Nicci paused eating her fish.
Cassia’s eyes widened. “You mean the half people chased you out of your home?”
The witch woman frowned at the Mord-Sith. “I don’t get ‘chased out’ of my home by anyone.”
“How close are they?” Nicci asked. “How much time until they reach us?”