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Richard felt faint with panic. He didn't know what to do.
Magic. He should call his gift. But how was he to do that? He didn't know how to call forth magic. And yet, in the past he had been able to do it.
Rage.
In the past his gift had always worked through his anger.
Seeing the soldier holding Kahlan, hurting her, provided him with more than enough anger. Seeing another of those monsters come in close to her, leering down at her, touching her intimately, only fanned the wild flames of his anger.
His world went red with rage.
With every fiber of his being Richard tried to ignite his gift with the essence of that fury. He clenched his jaw, gritting his teeth with the monumental concentration of his wrath. He shook with rage, expecting an explosion of power to match that rage. He saw what he needed to do. It seemed so close. He imagined it cutting down the soldiers. He held his breath against the storm that was about to be unleashed.
It felt like falling unexpectedly, without any ground below him to catch his fall.
The rain continued to plunge from the gray sky as if to drown his effort. No magic arced through the empty space between Richard and the man who held Kahlan. No conjured lightning erupted. No justice was at hand.
In all his life, if there was anything there, this was the moment it would have come—that much he knew beyond any doubt. There could be no more urgent need, no more desire, no more wrath for the woman he loved. But no power was there, no redemption at hand.
He might as well have been born without the gift.
He had no gift. It was gone.
It felt to Richard as if the world was caving in around him. He wanted everything to slow down, to give him time to find a solution, but everything swirled in a terrible rush. It was all happening too fast. It was so unfair to have to die like this. He hadn't had a chance to live, to have a life with Kahlan. He loved her so much and he hadn't really been able to be with her, just the two of them, living in peace. He wanted to smile and laugh with her, to hold her, to go through life with her. Just to sit in front of a fire with her on a cold, snowy night, holding her close to him, safe and warm, as they talked about the things that mattered to them, about their future. They should have a future.
It was so unfair. He wanted to live his life. Instead, it was to end in this miserable place for no good reason. For nothing. He wasn't even able to make his death mean something, to die fighting for life. Instead, he was going to die here in the rain and mud, surrounded by men who hated all that was good in life, while Kahlan was forced to watch it happen.
He didn't want her to see this. He knew that she would never be able to get the sight of it out of her mind. He didn't want to leave her with that last, horrific memory of him struggling in the bloody throes of death.
He made another attempt to get up, as did most of the other men. The soldier behind him stepped on his calves, bearing down with all his weight. The pain felt distant. Richard was in a daze.
He wanted nothing in the world so much as to get Kahlan away from the men who were holding her, groping her. Kahlan screamed in rage at them, clawed at them, swung her fists at them, and at the same time cried in helpless terror for Richard.
He twisted with all his might against the leather thongs binding his wrists but, rather than part, they only cut deeper. He felt like an animal caught in a trap. His hands had gone numb. He could no longer feel the warm blood dripping off his fingertips.
He didn't want to die. What was he to do? He had to stop this. Somehow, he had to. But he didn't know how. In the past, anger was the means to reach his gift, to call forth its power. Now, there was nothing but a helpless confusion.
"Kahlan!"
He couldn't seem to help himself from being swept up in the terror of it, in the blind panic of it. He couldn't stop the headlong rush of it. Couldn't regain his sense of control over himself. He was being swept away in a river of events he could not control or stop. It was all so senseless. It was all so overwhelmingly pointless, so monumentally brutal.
"Kahlan!"
"Richard!" she cried as she again reached out for him. "Richard, I love you more than life! I love you so much. You're everything to me. You always have been."
Sobs caught her breath, turning them to gasps.
"Richard… I need you so badly."
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His heart was breaking. He felt that he was failing her.
A soldier seized Richard by the hair.
"No!" Kahlan screamed, holding out a hand. "No! Please no! Somebody please help him! Dear spirits, somebody, please!"
The soldier leaned down, a cruel smile twisting his grime-streaked face.
"Don't worry, I'll see to her… personally." He laughed in Richard's ear.
"Please," Richard heard himself say, "please… no."
"Dear spirit, please, somebody help him!" Kahlan cried to those around her.
She could do nothing and she knew it. There was no chance for him and she knew it. She was reduced to begging for a miracle. That, in itself, fed the flames of hot dread burning out of control within him. This was, the end of everything.
"She's a real looker," the soldier said as he leered across the way at Kahlan, proving what Richard knew—that no miracle was at hand.
"Please… leave her be."
The soldier behind him laughed. That was what he had wanted to hear.
Richard was choking on the sob welling up in his throat. He couldn't breathe past it. Tears ran down his face along with the rain. She was the only woman he had ever loved, the one person who meant everything to him, meant more than life itself to him.
Without Kahlan there was no life, there was only existence. She was his world.
Without Kahlan life was empty.
Without him, he knew, Kahlan's life would be just as empty.
He saw other women not far from Kahlan, all being held by soldiers, all screaming for their men. He saw them saying things much like the things Kahlan was saying, offering the same words of love, the same calls for someone to save them. The soldiers taunted the men kneeling in the mud with vile oaths.
Seeing the women in the hands of the soldiers, one of the kneeling men to Richard's right struggled hard enough to earn himself a lightning-quick stab to the gut. It didn't kill him, but it was enough to keep him from fighting while he was made to wait his turn. As he knelt stiff and still, his wide eyes stared down at his own pink, glistening insides slowly bulging out of the gash. The screams of the man's wife seemed like they could have split the clouds above.
