The Third Kingdom

“Yes I do.” She was still glaring from under a lowered brow. “That’s why I ran—to protect her by drawing the attackers away from her. That was the best way to keep her safe.”

Richard straightened. “What are you talking about?”

“Is she hurt? No. Are there monsters back there ripping her to pieces? No. Why do you suppose that is?”

When Richard didn’t answer, she leaned toward him. “They aren’t back there killing her because they were after me. When they came into the room they didn’t even look at her. They were both looking at me with those glowing red eyes. As they came toward me I moved to the side of the room to see what they would do. Their gazes stayed locked on me. Do you know what they did then?”

“They came after you instead of her,” Richard guessed in a considerably quieter voice.

“That’s right. They didn’t even seem to see her. They were focused only on me. They came after me. I tried every bit of magic I knew to stop them. I admit that I don’t know a lot about such things or have much experience, but I tried everything I know. Nothing worked.

“Then I remembered what Henrik said about what your friends did, so I threw a fist of air like they had done. It didn’t harm those two the way it should have, but it did knock them back just long enough for me to get to the door. When I did that, they left the Mother Confessor and came after me. Once I saw that they really were after me and not her, I ran to get them to chase after me so I could lead them away from her. They weren’t interested in the Mother Confessor. They both came after me.”

She tapped her chest. “Me, not her. Me. So yes, I ran, but I ran to protect her the only way I could—by getting those monsters to chase me so I could lead them away from her.

“I was afraid. Even though I was afraid, I knew that I had to think of something. I wondered if I could somehow trap them in a dead-end tunnel. Then, when I got down here, I had the idea to get them into that room and slip past them like I had before, and then I would collapse the hallway in to bury them down here in this room.”

In the light from the lanterns carried by the men waiting back a ways up the passageway, Richard looked around. It was indeed a dead end, with only the one room at the end. If he hadn’t gotten there in time her plan might have worked. Of course, it might not have. She very easily could have been slaughtered.

Yet, of all the people in the small village, she was the only one who had thought of something to stop the threat. She was the only one with a plan and she acted on it.

Richard ran his fingers back through his hair as he let out a sigh. “Sammie, I’m sorry. You’re right. You did a very brave thing. Thank you for doing what you did to protect Kahlan.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” she said as she showed him a small smile. “I can see in your eyes that you are in the grip of the magic of the sword. I can also see that its anger is all that’s keeping you on your feet. I need to heal you. It can’t wait any longer.”

As he nodded, he realized that his wounds had opened back up in all the fighting. The blood running down his arms dripped off his fingers. Now that the urgent demand of fighting off the attack was over, he was feeling increasingly light-headed and the pain was again pressing in on him.

“Listen, Sammie, there are a lot of your people back there who are hurt. Some are hurt pretty badly. They need your help. Please, tend to them first.”

He was frantic to have help for Kahlan, but he knew that helping some of the others was more urgent. Without help, many would die. He thought he could wait.

Sammie’s gaze swept over the remains on the floor outside the room where she had intended to trap her pursuers. She didn’t merely look worried for her people who were injured; Richard thought that she looked somehow older than she had earlier.

She started back out of the dead-end tunnel. “We’d better hurry, then,” she said back over her shoulder.

“Right,” Richard said as he sheathed his sword.

When the blade slid home, the anger from it extinguished. His own rage went out with it.

In that instant, the entire weight of the ordeal and the staggering pain of all his wounds set in with a vengeance. The sword had been all that had been holding it back.

He couldn’t feel his fingers.

It felt like the tunnel was collapsing in on him and the suffocating weight of it was crushing him.

He managed to take one step, and as he did the world tilted as the floor began rushing toward him. Everything seemed strangely distant, as if he were looking through a long, dark tube at the world off in the distance. The concerned shouts he heard somewhere around him sounded eerily muffled.

Before the floor reached him, the blackness closed in and shut the world away.

CHAPTER

18