"I know," Zedd whispered, staring off into a nightmare swirl of thoughts. "But I still fear greatly for them."

"What is it that worries you so?" Warren asked.

"Albino mosquitoes."

Panting in exhaustion, Kahlan had to dance backward through the snarl of hobblebush stitched through with thorny blackberry to dodge the swing of the sword. The tip whistled past, missing her ribs by an inch. In her mad dash to escape, she ignored the snag and tug of thorns on her pants. She could feel her heartbeat galloping at the base of her skull.

As he relentlessly pressed his attack, forcing her back over a low rise of ledge and through the swale beyond, mounds of fallen leaves kicked aloft by his boots boiled up into the late-afternoon air like colorful thunderheads. The bright yellow, lustrous orange, and vivid red leaves rained down over rocky outcrops swaddled in prickly whorls of juniper. It was like doing battle amid a fallen rainbow.

Richard lunged at her again. Kahlan gasped but blocked his sword. He pressed his grim attack with implacable determination. She gave ground, stepping high as she did so in order to avoid tripping over the snare of roots around a huge white spruce. Losing her footing would be fatal; if she fell, Richard would stab her in an instant.

She glanced left. There loomed a tall prominence of sheer rock draped with long trailers of woolly moss. To the other side, the brink of the ridge ran back to eventually meet that rock wall. Once the level ground tapered down to that dead end, the only option was going to be to climb straight up or straight down.

She deflected a quick thrust of his sword, and he warded hers. In a burst of fury, she pressed a fierce assault, forcing him back a dozen steps.

He effortlessly parried her strikes, and then returned her attack in kind.

What she had gained was quickly lost twice over. She was once again desperately defending herself and trading ground for her life.

On a low, dead branch of a balsam fir not ten feet away, a small red squirrel, with his winter ear tufts already grown in, plucked a leathery brown rosette of lichen growing on the bark. With his white belly gloriously displayed, he sat on his haunches at the end of the broken-off deadwood, his bushy tail raised up, holding the crinkled piece of lichen in his tiny paws, eating round and round the edges, like some spectator at a tournament eating a fried bread cake while he watched the combatants clash.

Kahlan gulped air as her eyes darted around, looking for clear footing among the imposing trunks of the highland wood while at the same time watching for an opportunity that might save her. If she could somehow get around Richard, around the menace of his sword, she might be able to gain a clear escape route. He would run her down, but it would buy her time. She dodged a quick thrust of his sword and ducked around a maple sapling into a bed of brown and yellow bracken ferns dappled by glowing sunlight.

Richard, driving forward in a sudden mad rush to end it, lifted his sword to hack her.

It was her opening-her only chance.

In a blink, Kahlan reversed her retreat and sprang ahead a step, ducking under his arm. She drove her sword straight into his soft middle.

Richard covered the wound with both hands. He teetered a moment, and then crumpled into the bed of ferns, sprawling flat on his back. Leaves lying lightly atop taller ferns were lifted by the disturbance. They somersaulted up into the air, finally drifting down to brightly decorate his body. The fierce red of the maple leaves was so vibrant it would have made blood look brown by comparison.

Kahlan stood over Richard, gasping to catch her breath. She was spent.

She dropped to her knees and then threw herself across his supine body. All around them, fern fronds, the color of caramel candy, were curled into little fists as if in defiance of having to die with the season. The sprinkling of lighter, yellowish, hayscented ferns lent a clean, sweet scent to the afternoon air. There were few things that could equal the fragrance of the woods in late autumn. In a spectacular bit of chance, a tall maple nearby, sheltered as it was by a protective corner in the rock wall, was not yet denuded, but displayed a wide spread of leaves so orange they looked tangy against the powder blue sky above.

"Cara!" Putting her left hand to Richard's chest, Kahlan pushed herself up on one arm to call out. "Cara! I killed Richard!"

Cara, not far off, laying on her belly at the edge of the ridge as she watched out beyond, said nothing.

"I killed him! Did you hear? Cara-did you see?"

"Yes," she muttered, "I heard. You killed Lord Rahl."

"No you didn't," Richard said, still catching his breath.

She whacked him across the shoulder with her willow-switch sword. "Yes I did. I killed you this time. Killed you dead."

"You only grazed me." He pressed the point of his willow switch to her side. "You've fallen into my trap. I have you at the point of my sword, now.

Surrender, or die, woman."

"Never," she said, still gasping for breath as she laughed. "I'd rather die than be captured by the likes of you, you rogue."

She stabbed him repeatedly in his ribs with her willow practice sword as he giggled and rolled from side to side.

"Cara! Did you see? I killed him this time. I finally got him!"

"Yes, all fight," Cara grouched as she intently watched out beyond the ridge. "You killed Lord Rahl. Good for you." She glanced back over her shoulder. "This one is mine, right, Lord Rahl? You promised this one was mine."

"Yes," Richard said, still catching his breath, "this one goes for yours, Cara."

"Good." Cara smiled in satisfaction. "It's a big one."

Richard smirked up at Kahlan. "I let you kill me, you know."

"No you didn't! I won. I got you this time." She whacked him again with her willow sword. She paused and frowned. "I thought you said you weren't dead. You said it was only a scratch. Ha! You admitted I got you this time."

Richard chuckled. "I let you-"

Kahlan kissed him to shut him up. Cara saw and rolled her eyes.

When Cara looked back over the ridge, she suddenly sprang up. "They just left! Come on, before something gets it!"

"Cara, nothing is going to get it," Richard said, "not this quickly.

"Come on! You promised this one was mine. I don't want to have gone through all this for nothing. Come on."

"All right, all right." Richard said as Kahlan climbed off him. "We're coming."

He held his hand out for Kahlan to help him up. She stabbed him in the ribs instead. "Got you again, Lord Rahl. You're getting sloppy."

Richard only smiled as Kahlan finally offered her hand. When he was up he hugged her in a quick gesture, and before turning to follow after Cara, said, "Good job, Mother Confessor, good job. You killed me dead. I'm proud of you."

Kahlan endeavored to show him a sedate smile, but she feared it came out as a giddy grin. Richard scooped up his pack and hefted it onto his back. Without delay, he started the descent down the steep, broken face of the mountain. Kahlan threw her long wolf's-fur mantle around her shoulders and followed him through the deep shade of sheltering spruce at the edge of the ridge, stepping on the exposed ledge rather than the low places.

"Be careful," Richard called out to Cara, already a good distance ahead of them, "With all the leaves covering the ground, you can't see holes or gaps in the rock."

"I know, 1 know," she grumbled. "How many times do you think I need to hear it'?"

Richard constantly watched out for them both. He had taught them how to walk in such terrain and what to be careful of. From the beginning, marching through the forests and mountains, Kahlan noted that Richard moved with quiet fluidity, while Cara traipsed along, bounding up onto and off of rocks and ledges, almost like an exuberant youngster. Since Cara had spent most of her life indoors, she didn't know that it made a difference how you walked in such terrain.