Phantom: Chainfire Trilogy Part 2

Kahlan knew that that made sense. After leaving the People's Palace in D'Hara and swiftly traveling south through mostly remote country on a small riverboat, they still had encountered detachments of Emperor Jagang's troops more than once, or been through river settlements where those brutes had been. Word of such atrocities would have spread like an ill wind.

"Where is Tovi?" Sister Cecilia asked.

Holding the girl protectively away from the Sisters, Kahlan glared up at them. "She's just a child! Leave her be!"

A shock of pain slammed into her. It felt to Kahlan as if every fiber of every muscle had violently ripped. For an instant, she didn't know where she was or what was happening. The room spun. Her back hit the cupboards with bone-breaking force. Doors flew open. Pots, pans, and utensils cascaded out, bouncing and clattering across the wooden floor. Dishes and glasses shattered as they came crashing down.

Kahlan slammed facedown onto the floor. Jagged, broken shards of pottery slashed her palms as she tried unsuccessfully to break her fall. When she felt the end of something razor-sharp pressed against the side of her tongue in back she realized that a long sliver of glass had pierced her cheek. She clenched her jaw, snapping off the glass between her teeth so that it wouldn't slash open her tongue. With effort she managed to spit out the bloody, daggerlike piece of glass.

She lay sprawled on the floor, stunned, disoriented, unable to fully gather her senses. Grunts escaped her throat as she tried without success to move. She found that as those sounds slipped out, she couldn't draw a new breath back in. Each bit of air that escaped her lungs was a bit of air lost to her. Her muscles strained to pull the wind back into her lungs. The pain lancing through her middle was paralyzing, acting to counter her effort to get a breath.

In desperation she gasped, at last managing to pull in an urgent breath. She spat out more blood and sharp splinters of glass. She was just beginning to feel the twinge of pain from the fragment still stuck through her cheek. Kahlan couldn't seem to make her arms work, couldn't lift herself up from the floor, much less reach up to pull out the piece of glass.

She turned her eyes upward. She could make out the dark forms of the Sisters closing in around the girl. They lifted her and shoved her back against a heavy butcher block standing in the center of the room. A Sister held each arm as Sister Ulicia squatted down before the girl to meet her panicked gaze.

"Do you know who Tovi is?"

"The old woman!" the girl cried out. "The old woman!"

"Yes, the old woman. What else do you know about her?"

The girl gulped air, almost unable to get the words out. "Big. She was big. Old and big. She was too big to walk real good."

Sister Ulicia leaned close, gripping the girl's slender throat. "Where is she'? Why isn't she here? She was supposed to meet us here. Why is she none?"

"Gone," the girl cried. "She's gone."

"Why! When was she here? When did she leave? Why did she leave?"

"A few days back. She was here. She stayed with us for a while. But she left a few days back."

Sister Ulicia, with a cry of rage, lifted the girl and heaved her against'the wall. With all her effort, Kahlan struggled to her hands and knees. The girl crashed down to the floor. Ignoring how wobbly she felt, Kahlan crawled across the floor, across broken glass and pottery, and threw herself protectively across the girl's body. The girl, not knowing what was happening, cried out all the more.

Footsteps came toward her. Kahlan saw a cleaver lying on the floor nearby. The girl cried and struggled to get away, but Kahlan held her protectively against the floor.

As the shadows of the woman came closer, Kahlan's fingers closed around the wooden handle of the heavy cleaver. She wasn't thinking, she was simply acting: threat, weapon. It was almost like watching someone else doing it.

But there was a kind of deep inner satisfaction at having a weapon in her hand. Her fist tightened around the blood-slicked handle. A weapon was life. Flashes of lightning glinted off the steel.

When the women were close enough, Kahlan suddenly raised her arm to strike. Before she could begin to accomplish her task, she felt a gut-wrenching blow, as if she had been rammed by the butt end of a log. The power of that blow hurled her across the room.

A hard impact against the wall stunned her. The room seemed like it was far away, off at the far end of a long, dark tunnel. Pain swamped her. She tried to lift her head but couldn't. Darkness pulled her in.

The next time she opened her eyes, Kahlan saw the girl cringing before the Sisters as they towered over her.

"I don't know," the girl was saying. "I don't know why she left. She said she had to be on her way to Caska."

The room rang with silence.

"Caska?" Sister Armina finally asked.

"Yes, that's what she said. She had to get to Caska."

"Did she have anything with her?"