Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

"As I see it, the details of who used to be on his team don't matter all that much. We've each lost a game. That makes us even. That's all that really matters. We come into this contest on equal footing. They're no better than us."

The commander arched an eyebrow. "You think you are their equal?"

Richard didn't shrink away from the man's glare. "I am going to win us the chance to play the emperor's team, Commander, and then we will see what happens."

A sly smile curved into the scales. "Hoping for your choice of a woman, Ruben?"

Richard nodded without returning the smile. "As a matter of fact I am."

Commander Karg had no idea that Richard already knew the woman he wanted. He wanted Kahlan. He wanted her more than life itself. He intended to do whatever was necessary to get his wife away from the nightmare of captivity by Jagang and his Sisters of the Dark.

Staring down at Richard, Commander Karg finally conceded with a sigh. "I'll tell the guards that their lives depend on no one getting at my team while they sleep."

After the commander had vanished into the night, Richard lay back, at last letting his aching muscles relax. He watched guards in the distance rushing to set up a tight perimeter around the captive members of the team. The realization of what could be lost to nothing more than a conniving camp follower had spurred Commander Karg to action. At least the attack had served the purpose of making it possible for Richard to get the rest he needed. It wasn't easy sleeping when anyone who wanted to could sneak up and cut your throat.

Now, at least, he was temporarily safe, even if it had been necessary to surrender the knife. He still had the other one, though, the one he'd taken from the first woman. It was tucked away in his boot.

Richard curled into a ball on the bare ground in an effort to stay warm as he tried to go to sleep. The ground had long ago lost any heat from the previous day. Without a bedroll or blanket, he was forced to bunch up the slack in the chain to make a pillow of sorts. The next sunrise was not far off. Out on the Azrith Plain it wasn't going to be getting warmer any time soon.

Dawn would bring the first day of winter.

The noise of the camp droned on. He was so tired. Thinking about Kahlan, about the first time he'd met her, about how it had lifted his heart to at last see her alive again, about how happy it made him to look into her beautiful green eyes, finally allowed sleep to gently quiet his mind and take him.

CHAPTER 2

It was a soft, otherworldly sound, like a doorway into the world of the dead opening, that woke Richard from a deep sleep.

He looked up and saw a figure in a hooded cloak looming over him. Something about its bearing, its very presence, made the hair on the backs of his arms stand on end.

This was no timid, frail woman. Something in the demeanor told him that this was not even a knife-wielding attacker.

This was something far worse.

Richard knew without doubt that this was the third child of trouble and it had just found him.

He sat up and scooted back a little, gaining some precious distance. Somehow, Commander Karg's guards had failed to stop the intruder. He glanced their way and saw them casually walking their patrol. As closely spaced as they were, Richard didn't see how anyone could have gotten through their perimeter, yet this latest visitor had managed it.

The hooded figure glided closer.

The cleansing has begun.

Startled, Richard blinked. The eerie voice echoed in his mind, but he wasn't at all sure that he had actually heard it. The words just seemed to be there, in his head.

He carefully slipped two fingers down into his boot, groping for the wooden handle of the knife. When he found it, he started drawing it out.

The cleansing has begun, the figure said again.

It wasn't like a real voice. It was neither male nor female. The words didn't seem to have been spoken aloud, as by a voice, but rather sounded like a thousand whispers joined together. The words seemed like they had come from another world. Richard couldn't imagine how anything dead could speak, but the words didn't sound at all as if they had come from anything living.

He feared to imagine just what it was that stood before him.

"Who are you?" he asked, stalling for time while he appraised the situation.

A quick glance to each side revealed no one else in plain sight; as far as he could tell the visitor had come alone. The guards were facing the other way. They were watching for anyone who might try to get at the sleeping captives; they weren't looking inside the circle of wagons for trouble.

The figure seemed suddenly to be closer yet, within a mere arm's length. Richard didn't know how it had gotten that close to him. He hadn't seen it move. He wouldn't have allowed it to get that close if he had seen it moving toward him. And yet, it had.