The Third Kingdom

A hand gently reached down with a reassuring touch to Richard’s bulging biceps.

“It’s all right. He’s dead. They’re both dead.” It was a woman’s voice he didn’t recognize. “You’re safe,” she said. “You can let go now.”

Still panting from the effort and the rage, Richard blinked as he looked up into several shadowed faces crowded in over him.

They were not soldiers. From their simple clothes, they appeared to be country folk. Two women and two men leaned in, looking down at him. Back beyond those four, a handful of other men crowded in closer. They, too, looked like country folk.

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3 (#ulink_f83c4ed0-545c-5d10-9628-300f79e7af59)

Richard gradually released the pressure on the dead man’s neck. As the remaining air hissed from his lifeless lungs, his head flopped crookedly to one side.

One of the men standing above him lifted the limp arm of the other, smaller of the two dead men atop Richard and pulled him off to the side. Even in death, there was still a bloody snarl frozen on the face.

A mask of blood had run down to cover the side of the man’s face. Fragments of bone stuck up from his matted hair. Richard saw that the back of his head had been bashed in with a large rock that one of the other men crowded in close still held in a tight grip.

As the man with the broken neck began to slowly slip off to the side, one of the women, the one who had touched Richard’s arm, used a foot to shove the bigger of the two dead men aside. It was a relief to have the suffocating weight finally off.

The woman picked up the bloody knife that the second attacker had dropped when his skull had been crushed in. Leaning close, she sliced at the rope binding Richard’s hands and they at last parted. She moved down and cut the rope tying his ankles together.

“Thank you,” Richard said. He was more than relieved to at last be free. “You saved my life.”

“For the moment,” a man in the shadows said.

“We hope you will return the favor,” another added.

Richard didn’t know what he meant, but he had bigger worries at the moment.

With an angry gesture, the woman with the knife hushed the men before turning her attention back to Richard.

He saw in the weak light of the full moon that illuminated the cloud cover that she was middle-aged. Fine lines creased her face in an agreeable way. It was too dark to tell the color of her eyes, but not the determination in them. Her expression, too, was one of grim resolve.

The woman leaned closer to press a hand to the bite wound on the side of his upper arm to try to stop the bleeding. Her gaze turned up to his as she held pressure in the wound.

“Are you the one who killed Jit, the Hedge Maid?” she asked.

Surprised by the question, Richard nodded as he looked around at all the stony faces watching him. “How do you know that?”

With her free hand, the woman pulled stray strands of her straight, shoulder-length hair back from her face. “A boy, Henrik, came to us a little while ago. He told us that he had been her captive, and that she intended to kill him like all the others she had killed. He said that two people rescued him and killed the Hedge Maid, but now they were in trouble and needed help.”

Richard leaned forward. “Was there anyone else with him?”

“I’m afraid not. Just the boy.”

Even though Richard had killed the Hedge Maid, he and Kahlan had both been grievously hurt. Their friends had brought a small army to get the two of them out of the Hedge Maid’s lair and take them home. Now, those friends were all missing. He knew that none of them would have willingly left Kahlan and him alone like this.

“Henrik was the one who told my friends what had happened and where they could find us,” Richard said. “They should have been with him.”

The woman shook her head. “I’m sorry, but he was alone. Terrified, and alone.”

“Did he tell you what happened, here?” Richard asked. “Did he tell you where those who were with us are now?”

“He was winded and in a panic to find help. He said there was no time to explain. He said we had to hurry and help you. We came right away.”

Now that Richard was free and the rush of the fight was over, the shock of pain had begun to bear down on him in earnest. He touched his forehead with trembling fingers.

“But did he say anything else at all?” Richard asked. “It’s important.”

The woman glanced around in the darkness as she shook her head. “He said that you had been attacked and needed help. We knew that we had to hurry. Henrik is back at our village. When we get back you can question him yourself. For now, we must get in out of the night.” She gestured urgently to the woman behind her. “Give me your scarf.”

The woman immediately pulled it off her head and handed it over. The woman kneeling beside Richard used the scarf as a bandage, wrapping it high around his upper arm several times. She swiftly knotted it, then stuck the knife handle under the knot and twisted it around to tighten the tourniquet. Richard gritted his teeth against the pain.

He couldn’t seem to slow his racing heart. He was worried about all those who had been with him, worried as to what could have happened to them. He needed to get to Henrik and find out what was going on. More than that, though, he was worried about getting help for Kahlan.

“We shouldn’t be out here any longer,” one of the men in back quietly cautioned, trying to hurry the woman.

“Almost done,” she said as she quickly appraised some of his more obvious injuries. “You need these wounds sewn closed and treated with poultice or they will be infected by morning,” she told Richard. “Bites like this are not to be ignored.”

“Please,” Richard said as he gestured with his other arm toward the wagon. “Help my wife? I fear that she is hurt worse.”

With a quick gesture from the woman, two of the men hurried to the wagon.

“Is she the Mother Confessor?” one of the men called back as he checked on her.

Richard’s sense of caution rose. “Yes.”

“I don’t think that we can do anything for her here,” he said.

The other man spotted the sword and picked it up from the ground. His gaze glided over the ornately wrought gold and silver scabbard before taking in the word TRUTH made of gold wire woven through the silver wire wrapping the hilt.

“Then you would be the Lord Rahl?”

“That’s right,” Richard said.

“Then there is no doubt. You are the ones we came looking for,” the man said. “The boy, Henrik, told us who you were. We came to find you.”

Richard’s concern eased at hearing that it was Henrik who had told them exactly who he and Kahlan were.

“Enough,” the woman said. She quickly turned back to Richard. “Glad we were in time, Lord Rahl. I’m Ester. Now we have to get you both back to safety.”

“Richard will do.”

“Yes, Lord Rahl,” she said absently, as if no longer listening as she pressed at wounds, checking their depth.

Ester motioned to some of the other men behind her. “You will need to help him. He’s badly hurt. We have to get out of here before those who did this come back.”

Several men, relieved to hear that she was finally ready to leave, rushed in to help Richard to his feet. Once up, Richard insisted on going to Kahlan. The men steadied him when he staggered to the wagon.