Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

The immediate problem, though, was not Jagang, it was these men. In one fluid movement, as she passed a soldier with his back to her, she lifted a knife from the sheath at his hip. She made the motion fit in with the swing of her arms, so that if the Sisters were looking they wouldn't have seen what she had done. The man glanced around, having felt something. Even though he looked directly at her for an instant, his gaze moved on and he went back to his conversation.

The men she had been moving among were all still the outer rings of the many layers around the emperor's compound, but she was now moving out beyond, in among the regular soldiers. They were drinking, laughing, gambling, and telling stories around fires. Horses were picketed among them. Wagons stood about at various places. Some men had already pitched crude tents, while others were content to cook over fires, or sleep.

She saw, too, women being taken into the tents. None went cheerfully. She saw other women emerge only to be snatched up by waiting men and dragged to the next tent. Kahlan remembered Jagang mentioning sending the Sisters out to the tents as punishment. Hearing the women in those tents weeping made Kahlan sweat in dread of her own fate when she finally returned to Jagang's tent. As terrifying a circumstance as being taken into those tents with those men would be, Kahlan could not feel sorry for the Sisters. If they ended up being raped by these men it was not enough punishment to Kahlan's mind. They deserved far worse.

One of the nearby men glanced up at her. Kahlan could see recognition flash in his eyes — eyes that fixed on her. He saw her. His mouth fell open, thrilled with his luck at what sort of woman had just stumbled into his arms, so to speak.

As he rose up, before he was fully erect, Kahlan sliced his belly open from one side to the other as she swiftly continued to move past, as if nothing had happened. The man, his face registering the shock of it, weakly tried to catch his guts as they spilled out in a heavy mass. He toppled over and crashed to the ground while making panicked grunts that weren't noticed as anything more than the other raucous noise all around. When he hit the ground, his insides spilled out. Men turned to look, some shocked, some laughing, all of them thinking the man had just lost a knife fight.

Kahlan didn't slow or look back. She kept moving, without breaking her stride, reminding herself of her task: get to the rock, get back to the tent. Make the circuit. Do as she had been told.

As a man appeared out of the crowd and rushed up to her, she tightened her muscles and used his momentum to drive the knife up under his ribs, ripping his vital organs apart. The lifting cut, like a punch, along with his descending weight, drove her fist through the gash and into his warm insides. By the way he went down like a sack of sand without so much as a word, she was pretty sure that she had managed to cut open his heart. As a memento of the brief encounter, she now wore a glove of his blood.

She wondered where she had learned to do such things. It felt like they came instinctively to her, the way emotions just came naturally, without the need to summon them. She couldn't remember anything about herself, but she remembered how to use a weapon. She supposed that she should just be glad she could.

In making her way out into the sea of men, she came to a dense island of activity. Men had all drawn back to leave an open field in the center of a low area, and teams of men were playing Ja'La there. Soldiers gathered all around in the tens of thousands cheered on one team or the other. The game was a violent affair, with the point man encountering the worst of it from the other team. When he went down, bloodied, half the men surrounding the field cheered wildly.

"Well, well," a man to her left said. "Looks like a fine whore come to pay me a visit."

As she began to turn toward him, another man to the right seized her wrist, twisted, and had her knife. In an instant, both men were on her, grabbing at her, pulling her back away from the crowd gathered to watch the Ja'La game.

Kahlan fought to get free, but they were a lot stronger, and had taken her by surprise. She silently raged at herself for being caught unawares like that. None of the men around noticed anything at all. They couldn't see her; she was invisible to them, but not to these two, who pressed in tight, to hide her from their fellow soldiers lest they have to fight for their fresh prize. She might as well have been alone with these two.