took Kahlan’s arm, walking her back toward the center campfire where she had been healed. She could feel the hard tension of rage in his muscles.
“Any ideas about what we do next?” she asked him, trying to take his mind off the haunting threat they had just heard.
Before he could answer, before he could say anything, Richard lost a step.
He went to a knee beside her. Kahlan circled her arm tightly around his waist, trying to help him down so that he wouldn’t fall on his face. He was too big and heavy for her to hold up. All she could do was to help in easing him down.
He reached a hand up. It was a plea for help—gifted help.
Zedd and Nicci were already there, grabbing hold of Richard’s arms and lifting him back to his feet as they kept him from falling over. At Kahlan’s urgent signal, several men rushed in to put a shoulder under his arms.
Zedd pressed his fingers to Richard’s forehead as the soldiers helped move him along. “It’s the poison,” he said in a grim voice, telling them what Kahlan already knew. “Get him back by the fire where I can see better and then let’s lay him down.”
Kahlan’s heart pounded with worry. She felt worse than helpless. An icy wave of dread washed through her. She knew that the pull of death had grown stronger and he might die.
“Richard,” she said, clutching his big hand tightly, “hold on. Zedd and Nicci are going to help you. Hold on. Don’t you dare leave me. Don’t you dare.”
He didn’t respond. His hand was cold and limp.
She tried very hard to hold back her tears.
And then, she heard the howls way off in the darkness of the woods as the half people started their charge.
As Kahlan held his hand, Richard hooked his other around the back of Nicci’s neck and pulled her down close as they lowered him onto a blanket on the ground near the fire. He gripped Zedd’s sleeve and pulled him close as well. He had managed to regain consciousness, if barely.
It took a great deal of effort for Richard to draw each labored breath through the obvious pain he was in. Kahlan knew that pain all too well. The intensity of it made her extremities tingle. The terrible weight of the pain felt as if it would crush her skull at the same time as nausea coursed through her body in dizzying waves.
At least until the blackness overcame her. Then it was worse because she was lost in a dark place, lonely beyond anything she had ever experienced. It was a terrifying, hopeless kind of loneliness that crushed her soul the way the pain felt like it would crush her skull.
But until the darkness overcame you, it stole your desire to speak. It made you not want to open your eyes because when you did the world spun and tilted in a stomach-churning blur. It made every sound feel sharp and stabbing, like knitting needles pushed in your ears. It took maximum effort simply to endure the agony and draw each breath. It was a struggle just to remain conscious.
She knew that the Hedge Maid had felt all of that when she had died, when that terrible, awful, horrifying scream had escaped her. All that lethal agony had been expressed in that one, long, shriek. Richard and Kahlan had been touched by the same call of death, and while not immediately fatal, they had felt much the same pain of what had taken Jit.
Kahlan knew, too, that such a feeling was part of the lure of death making you want to give up, to give in to it, to let it take you. It made you suffer, and in the suffering promised to make the agony stop, if only you would heed the call and step through the veil toward the blessed darkness. It was that beguiling call at the intolerable end of life that made death just beyond life seem so sweet, made it seem like a mere, simple, single step to the other side and then it would all so mercifully end.
Resisting that call was difficult in the extreme, especially when it meant you had to continue to endure the unendurable while telling yourself that you must.
Richard’s voice, when he was finally able to force himself to speak, betrayed all of that suffering and more.
“You two,” he said to Zedd and Nicci leaning close over him, “have Irena help you and the men fight off the Shun-tuk. They must be held back for a little longer.”
Zedd obviously thought Richard was too delirious to make any decisions. “I need to help you,” Zedd told his grandson. “I can’t leave you like this. I must help you now before it can take you. You can’t fight it on your own. The men can hold off the Shun-tuk. You can’t wait.”
Richard, his eyes closed, rolled his head from side to side. “The men won’t be able to hold them off.”
The certainty in his voice caused Kahlan to steal a quick glance around at the men rushing to the defensive lines. She met Nicci’s troubled blue eyes.
Nicci gripped Richard’s shoulder as she leaned in. “You need our help, Richard. If we don’t save you, we will all be lost. We must help you in order to help all the rest of us. Without you, we are lost.”
“Samantha can help me,” Richard told her. “The trackers can sense my weakness. They know that this is their chance. They will put all their effort into finishing us off quickly while they have the chance, while I can’t fight them. If you don’t help stop them, then we will be lost.”
Zedd’s bushy brows drew tight as he, too, stole a quick glance around at the frantic activity of men preparing to do battle. He looked back down at Richard.
“Samantha? Richard, this is too serious. She is little more than a child. Without the right help—”
The breathless young woman rushed in, then, sliding to a halt on her knees. “I’m here, Lord Rahl.” She gulped air as she gathered up one of his hands in both of hers and held it tightly to her. “I’m here.”
“Listen, Samantha,” Richard said, “you helped give me strength to hold it off before—fight off the sickness. Remember?”
In the firelight Kahlan could see the tears welling up in the young sorceress’s eyes. She was on the verge of panic.
“What? You want me to do this? Lord Rahl, there are people here much better able to help you than me.”
“After we came across that man in the woods, before we made it to the north wall. I grew weak and you helped me. You gave me strength. Remember?”
Samantha nodded as if her life depended on it. “Sure, I remember.”
“I need you to do that again,” he told her. He opened his eyes to look up at the others. “While she helps me, the rest of you need to keep the Shun-tuk from overrunning the camp and killing us all. You need to buy us a little time.”
“It’s that unholy half person who did this,” Irena said. “I told you that he had occult powers and Richard should not go near him, but you wouldn’t listen. Now look what has happened!
“I know a lot more about healing than Samantha. I should be able to do something to help. Get back and let me see if I can do something to help.”
She
