Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Just beyond him, the eyes of the man with the broken nose went wide as he, too, stiffened with shocked surprise. Kahlan used the knife planted in the chest of the first man as an anchor, for leverage. With that grip to help her, she spun around the man already stabbed. At the same time, she brought the knife in her right hand around with her, in an arc. The blade slashed open the throat of the man with the broken nose. In two beats of her hammering heart she had killed them both.

Kahlan drove her left boot into the first man as he fell, in order to pull free the embedded knife and to spring herself in the opposite direction — toward the officers. On the third beat of her heart she hit the first officer like a Ja'La tackle. As she flew into him, she plunged the knife in her right hand deep into his belly, jerking up as she did so to rip him open.

At the same time she stabbed the other knife square into the throat of the man immediately to the side and a little behind the first officer. He had been the ranking officer and the one she was really targeting. She hit him with such force that the blade not only drove through the man's throat but, hitting the space between the vertebrae, pierced all the way through his neck. His spinal cord cut, his entire dead weight dropped straight down so fast that Kahlan's grip on the knife twisted her off balance and pulled her with him.

At the same time, before she could catch herself or yank the knife back, the power from the collar hit Kahlan like a lightning bolt.

At the same time, the other three special guards tackled her, taking her the rest of the way off her feet and ramming her face-first into the soft ground. With the collar making her arms numb and useless, and her legs unable to respond to her wishes, the men had no trouble disarming her.

When Jagang shrieked the order, they hauled her to her feet. Kahlan panted from the effort of the brief battle. Her heart still raced. Even if she had failed to escape, she wasn't entirely disappointed. She hadn't really thought that her chances of making it were that good to begin with. She had expected, though, to at least kill a couple of officers, and she had accomplished that. She was disappointed only that the special guards had not killed her rather than capture her.

Jagang dismissed the confused officers, explaining that it was a bit of magic that had gotten loose. He assured them that he had everything well in hand. They were men used to violence and seemed to take the sudden death of two fellow officers by an invisible hand, if not in stride, at least with a level of self-control, reassured by the demeanor of their emperor.

As they made their way out of the emperor's compound, they collected a number of men who rushed in to remove the bodies. The guards who came to see what the commotion was all about were dismayed to see such a murder within their layers of defenses. They all glanced to Jagang to gauge his mood and, seeing him calm, swiftly went about the business of carrying off the four dead men.

Once they had departed, Jagang finally turned a glare on Kahlan. "I see that you were closely watching the games. You appear to have been paying more attention to the strategy than the bare flesh of muscular men."

Kahlan met the gazes of the three special guards holding her. "Just keeping a promise."

Jagang slowly let out a deep breath, as if trying to keep from murder himself. "You are quite a remarkable woman — and a formidable opponent."

"I'm the bringer of death," she told him.

He glanced at the four bodies being carried out into the night. "So you are."

He turned his intense attention to the three men holding Kahlan. "Is there a reason that I should not send you three off to be tortured?"

The men, who had been smug about having taken her down, suddenly didn't seem so smug. They glanced nervously at one another.

"But Excellency," one of them said, "The two men who failed you paid With their lives. The three of us stopped her. We didn't let her escape."

"I am the one who stopped her," he said through barely restrained rage. "I stopped her with the collar she wears around her neck." He considered them silently for a moment, letting his flash of rage calm down a little. "But I am called Jagang the Just for good reason. I will allow you three to live for the time being, but let this be a lesson to you. I warned you that she was dangerous. Now, perhaps, you can see that I know what I'm talking about."

"Yes, Excellency," the three said over one another.

Jagang clasped his hands behind his back. "Release her."

He passed a withering glare over each man before taking Kahlan's arm and leading her back toward the opening of the tent. She was still reeling from the shock of the collar. Her joints ached, her legs and arms burned from inside.