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Quick as a fox, Oba blew in her parted mouth. She didn’t react at all. He suspected that she was playing a game with him, teasing him. The haughty bitch.
She was going nowhere, now. She could not run, now. The voice had apparently given him a gift. Oba threw his head back and laughed at the sky. As the hounds far back in the shadows watched, he howled his delight at the stars.
Smiling, Oba bent back over Lord Rahl’s wife, staring into her eyes. She was probably by now bored with her Lord Rahl husband, and was ready for an adventuresome romp. The more Oba thought about it, the more he realized that this woman should be his. She belonged to the Lord Rahl. By all rights, Oba should keep her as his wife when he became the new Lord Rahl.
And, he would be the Lord Rahl; the voice had told him that such things were within his reach.
Oba gazed at the sweep of her features, the curve of her body. He wanted his woman. He’d been doing favors for the voice, and hadn’t had time to be with a woman for ages. The voice had been prodding him ever onward at a breakneck pace. It was about time Oba had the pleasure of a woman. His hand roamed lightly over the Mother Confessor’s body as he contemplated the satisfaction to come.
But he didn’t like the others watching him. They all refused to close their eyes and give him and the lady some privacy. Busybodies—all of them. Oba grinned. He supposed it might be a thrill to have her husband watch his wife’s new master. The grin faded. What business was it of Richard’s if she wanted a new man—a better man?
Oba bent over his brother and pushed his eyelids closed. He did the same for the old man. He paused, deciding to let the other woman watch. It would undoubtedly arouse her to see Oba in action. Such arousal was a small favor, but Oba was inclined to do such favors for attractive women.
Trembling with anticipation, knowing he could grant her the thrill he knew she craved, Oba bent to rip open the Mother Confessor’s clothes. Before his fingers could touch her, a violent flash of violet light threw him back. Oba sat up, stunned, confused, pressing his hands to the nerve-shredding agony shrieking through his head. The voice was crushing his mind with punishing pain.
Oba shoved at the ground with his feet, backing away from the Mother Confessor, and at last the pain eased. He sagged, panting with exhaustion after the brief bout. He felt downhearted that the voice would punish him so, dejected that the voice would be so cruel as to deny him so simple a pleasure, and after all the good things he had done.
The voice changed, then, cooing to him, whispering about the important calling it had for him—important works that only Oba was qualified to do. Through his melancholy, Oba listened.
Oba was important, or the voice would not rely on him. Who else but Oba could accomplish such things as the voice asked of him? Who else could the voice depend on to set things right?
Now, in the silence of the still night, the voice made clear what it was Oba was to do. If he did as he was asked, then there would be rewards. Oba grinned at the pledges. First, he had to do the favor; then the Mother Confessor would be his. That wasn’t so hard. Once she was his, he could do with her whatever he wanted, with the voice’s blessing, and no one would interfere. Pictures of it—along with the smells, the feel, the cries of her pleasure—came into his mind, and he nearly fainted with the promise of such rapture. Oba could wait for an encounter such as this would be.
He glanced over at the Mord-Sith. She could provide him some entertainment in the meantime. A man such as he, a man of action, great intellect, and heavy responsibilities, had to have a release of his pent-up tensions. Such diversions were a necessary outlet for a man of Oba’s importance.
He bent over the Mord-Sith, grinning into her open eyes. She was to be honored to be the first to have him. The Mother Confessor would have to wait her turn. He reached out to pull off her clothes.
Oba’s head suddenly flared with howling, blinding agony. He pressed his hands to his ears until it stopped—after he agreed.
The voice was right. Of course it was; he could see that, now. Only when Richard Rahl was dead could Oba take his rightful place. That made sense. It would be best to do things right. In fact, it would be wrong to bring pleasure to these women before he had done what needed doing. What had he been thinking? They didn’t deserve him, yet. They should first see him as the important man he was shortly to become, and then they would have to beg to have him. They didn’t deserve him until they begged.
He had to be quick. The voice said they would wake soon—that Lord Rahl would soon figure out how to break the spell of sleep.
Oba pulled his knife and crawled to his brother. Lord Rahl was still staring dumbly at the stars.
“Who’s the big oaf, now?” he asked his brother.
Lord Rahl had no answer. Oba put the knife to Richard’s throat, but the voice warned him back, and filled his mind instead with what he must do. He had to do it right. He had to hurry. There was no time for such common retribution. There were much better ways to do such things—ways that would punish the man for all the years he had kept Oba from his rightful place. Yes, that was what Richard Rahl needed: proper punishment.
Oba put his knife away and ran back over the nearby hill as fast as his legs would carry him. When he returned with his horse, the four were still lying there in the blue fog, staring up at the stars.
Oba did as the voice asked, and scooped up the Mother Confessor in his arms. She had now been promised to him. He would have her when the voice was done borrowing her. Oba could wait. The voice had promised him delights that Oba would never have dreamed up on his own. This was turning out to be a very beneficial partnership. For the paltry work involved, and the small delay, Oba would have everything that rightfully belonged to him: the rule of D’Hara and the woman who would be his queen.
Queen. Oba puzzled at that as he heaved her body over the back of the saddle. Queen. If she was a queen, then he would have to be a king. He supposed that would be better than “Lord” Rahl. King Oba Rahl. Yes, that made better sense. He worked quickly to lash her down.
Before he mounted up, Oba peered down at his brother. He couldn’t kill him. Not yet. The voice had plans. If Oba was anything, he had always been accommodating; he would oblige the voice. He put a foot in the stirrup. The voice tickled at him. He turned back, looking.
He wondered…
He cautiously returned to Richard’s side. Carefully, Oba reached out and experimentally touched the sword. The voice murmured indulgently.
A king should have a proper sword. Oba grinned. He deserved a small reward for all his hard work.
He pulled the baldric off over Richard Rahl’s head. He lifted the scabbard close, inspecting his gleaming new sword. The wire-wound hilt had a word woven into each side.
“TRUTH”
Well, wasn’t that just something.
He lifted the baldric over his head and placed the scabbard at his hip. He patted his new wife’s bottom before he mounted up. From the saddle, Oba grinned out at the night. He circled his horse around until the voice pointed him in the right direction.
Hurry hurry, before Lord Rahl woke. Hurry hurry, before he could be caught. Hurry hurry, away with his new bride.
He thumped his heels to the horse’s ribs and off they charged. The hounds bounded out of the woods, a king’s faithful escort.
Chapter 57
Standing outside the squat buildings made of sun-dried bricks, Jennsen idly surveyed the barren landscape broiling under a brutally blue sky. The rocks, the seemingly endless expanse of flat hardpan to her right, and the rugged range of mountains plummeting into the shimmering valley in the distance to her left, were all stained with variations of the same ruddy gray color as the sparse collection of square structures huddled nearby.
The bone-dry air was so hot that it reminded her of nothing so much as bending over a bonfire and trying to breathe. Blistering heat radiated from the rocks and buildings around her and rose from the ground beneath her feet as if there were a blast furnace below. Usin
g bare hands to touch anything baking under the ruthless sun was a painful experience. Even the hilt of her knife, shaded by her body, was so warm that it felt feverish.
Jennsen leaned a hip wearily against a low wall, nearly numb from the long and difficult journey. She patted Rusty’s neck and then stroked an ear when the horse neighed gently and put her head close. At least Jennsen was nearly at her journey’s end. She felt as if she had lost sight of how it had all begun that day so long ago when she had found the dead soldier at the bottom of the ravine and Sebastian had happened by.
What a long and tortured journey fate would deal her, she could never have guessed that day. She hardly knew herself anymore. Back then, she could never have guessed how much her life would change, or how much she would change.
Sebastian, pulling Pete behind, reached out and gripped her arm. “You all right, Jenn?” Pete nudged Rusty’s flanks, as if to ask the same question of the mare.
“Yes,” Jennsen said. She smiled for him and then gestured to the knot of black-robed men in the doorway of a nearby building. “Any luck?”
“He’s asking the others.” Sebastian sighed in annoyance. “They’re a strange people.”
