Kahlan knew what Cara meant: her dead baby. "And the men?"

"They came after us. This time, though, Lord Rahl didn't discuss it with them." She seemed especially pleased about that. "He knew in enough time that they were coming, so we weren't taken by surprise. When they came charging in, some with arrows noched and some with their swords or axes out, he shouted at them-once-giving them a chance to change their minds."

"He tried to reason with them? Even then?"

"Well, not exactly. He told them to go home in peace, or they would all die."

"And then what?"

"And then they all laughed. It only seemed to embolden them. They charged, arrows flying, swords and axes raised. So Lord Rahl ran off into the woods."

"He did what?"

"Before they came, he had told me that he was going to make them all chase after him. As Lord Rahl ran, the one who thought he would cut your throat yelled at the others to `get Richard, and finish him this time. Lord Rahl had hoped he would draw them all away from you, but when that one went after you instead, Lord Rahl gave me a look and I knew what he wanted me to do."

Cara clasped her hands behind her back as she scrutinized the gathering darkness, keeping watch, should anyone try to surprise them. Kahlan's thoughts turned to Richard, and what it must have been like, all alone as they chased him.

"How many men?"

"I didn't count them." Cara shrugged. "Maybe two dozen."

"And you left Richard alone with two dozen men chasing after him? Two dozen men intent on killing him?"

Cara shot Kahlan an incredulous look. "And leave you unprotected? When I knew that toothless brute was going after you? Lord Rahl would have skinned me alive if I had left you."

Tall and lean, shoulders squared and chin raised, Cara looked as pleased as a cat licking mouse off its whiskers. Kahlan suddenly understood:

Richard had entrusted Cara with Kahlan's life; the MordSith had proven that faith justified.

Kahlan felt a smile stretch the partly healed cuts on her lips. "I just wish I'd, known you were standing there the whole time. Now, thanks to you, I won't need the wooden bowl."

Cara didn't laugh. "Mother Confessor, you should know that I would never let R anything happen to either of you."

Richard appeared out of the shadows as suddenly as he had vanished. He stroked the horses reassuringly. As he moved down beside them, he quickly checked the neck collars, the trace chains, and the breaching to make sure it was all secure.

"Anything?" he asked Cara.

"No, Lord Rahl. Quiet and clear."

He leaned in the carnage and smiled. "Well, as long as you're awake, how about I take you for a romantic moonlight ride?"

She rested her hand on his forearm. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Not a scratch."

"That's not what I meant."

His smile vanished. "They tried to kill us. Westland has just suffered its first casualties because of the influence of the Imperial Order."

"But you knew them."

"That doesn't entitle them to misplaced sympathy. How many thousands have I seen killed since I left here? I couldn't even convince men I grew up with of the truth. I couldn't even get them to listen fairly. All the death and suffering I've seen is ultimately because of men like this-men who refuse to see.

"Their willful ignorance does not entitle them to my blood or life.

They picked their own path. For once, they paid the price."

He didn't sound to her like a man who was quitting the fight. He still held the sword, was still in the grip of its rage. Kahlan caressed his arm, letting him know that she understood. It was clear to her that even though he'd been justly defending himself, and though he was still filled with the sword's rage, he keenly regretted what he'd had to do. The men, had they been able to kill Richard instead, would have regretted nothing. They would have celebrated his death as a great victory.

"That was still perilous-making them all chase after you."

"No, it wasn't. It drew them out of the open and into the trees. They had to dismount. It's rocky and the footing is poor, so they couldn't rush me together or with speed, like they could out here on the road.

"The light is failing; they thought that was to their advantage. It wasn't. In the trees it was even darker. I'm wearing mostly black. It's warm, so I'd left my gold cape behind, here in the carriage. The little bit of gold on the rest of the outfit only serves to break up the shape of a man's figure in the near-dark, so they had an even harder time seeing me.

"Once I took down Albert, they stopped thinking and fought with pure anger until they started seeing blood and death. Those men are used to brawls, not battles. They had expected an easy time murdering us-they weren't mentally prepared to fight for their own lives. Once they saw the true nature of what was happening, they ran for their lives. The ones left, anyway. These are my woods. In their panic, they became confused and lost their way in the trees. I cut them off and ended it."

"Did you get them all?" Cara asked, worried about any who might escape and bring more men after them.

"Yes. I knew most of them, and besides, I had their number in my head.

I counted the bodies to make sure I got them all."

"How many?" Cara asked.

Richard turned to take up the reins. "Not enough for their purpose." He clicked his tongue and started the horses moving.

Richard rose up and drew his sword. This time, when its distinctive sound rang out in the night, Kahlan was awake. Her first instinct was to sit up. Before she even had time to think better of it, Richard had crouched and gently restrained her with a reassuring hand. She lifted her head just enough to see that it was Cara, leading a man into the harsh, flickering light of the campfire. Richard sheathed his sword when he saw who Cara had with her: Captain Meiffert, the D'Haran officer who had been with them back in Anderith.

Before any other greeting, the man dropped to his knees and bent forward, touching his forehead to the soft ground strewn with pine needles.

"Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us,"

Captain Meiffert beseeched in sincere reverence. "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."

When he had gone to his knees to recite the devotion, as it was called, Kahlan saw Cara almost reflexively go to her knees with him, so ingrained was the ritual. The supplication to their Lord Rahl was something all D'Harans did. In the field they commonly recited it once or, on occasion, three times. At the People's Palace in D'Hara, most people gathered twice a day to chant the devotion at length.

When he'd been a captive of Darken Rahl, Richard, often in much the same condition as Tommy Lancaster just before he died, had himself been forced to his knees by Mord-Sith and made to perform the devotion for hours at a time. Now, the Mord-Sith, like all D'Harans, paid that same homage to Richard. If the Mord-Sith saw such a turn of events as improbable, or even ironic, they never said as much. What many of them had found improbable was that Richard hadn't had them all executed when he became their Lord Rahl.

It was Richard, though, who had discovered that the devotion to their Lord Rahl was in fact a surviving vestige of a bond, an ancient magic invoked by one of his ancestors to protect the D'Haran people from the dream walkers. It had long been believed that the dream walkers-created by wizards to be weapons during that ancient and nearly forgotten great war-had vanished from the world. The conjuring of strange and varied abilities-of instilling unnatural attributes in people-willing or not, had once been a dark art, the results always being at the least unpredictable, often uncertain, and sometimes dangerously unstable. Somehow, some spark of that malignant manipulation had been passed down generation after generation, lurking unseen for three thousand years-until it rekindled in the person of Emperor Jagang, Kahlan knew something about the alteration of living beings to suit a purpose. Confessors were such people, as had been the dream walkers. In Jagang, Kahlan saw a monster created by magic. She knew many people saw the same in her. Much as some people had blond hair or brown eyes, she had been born to grow tall, with warm brown hair, and green eyes-and the ability of a Confessor. She loved and laughed and longed for things just the same as those born with blond hair or brown eyes, and without a Confessor's special ability.