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Nicci didn’t look to want to debate the subject. She looked like she had something on her mind.
“What is it?” he asked.
Nicci briefly gazed into his eyes. “First of all, I want you to know that I just came from your room. Kahlan is sleeping peacefully. I personally checked the room for anything out of place, anything out of the ordinary, any traces of magic of any kind, any problem at all. Kahlan slept peacefully through it all. Then I checked all the men guarding the room and the area. Rikka and Berdine were in the corridors. I told them to keep their eyes open for anything that seemed even slightly odd, any sign at all of anything.”
Richard frowned. “What’s going on?”
Her resolute gaze met his. “I was with Zedd, down with the machine, when it started softly, slowly, the way you described. It built speed, then it inscribed a prophecy on a metal strip. The strip came out cool, like you told us it did when the machine then said that it had had dreams. It then went quiet and still again. Zedd is staying down with it in case it issues any more omens. He asked me to bring the strip it inscribed to you. On the way, when I checked on Kahlan, like I told you, I asked Berdine to translate the strip for me.”
Richard was getting seriously suspicious. “So what does this one say?”
She took a breath to steel herself and then handed him the strip. “I would rather you translate it yourself. I don’t wish to be the messenger in this.”
Frowning, Richard took the strip and looked at the one rather simple emblem on the strip, followed by a more complex element.
He felt blood rush to his face in hot rage.
The strip said The hounds will take her from you.
He clenched his jaw. “That’s it, I’ve had it with that machine. I want it destroyed!”
As he headed for the door, Nicci and Cara raced to catch up with him.
CHAPTER 66
Kahlan woke to the feel of warm breath on her face. It made absolutely no sense.
The alarm of her inner voice warned her to keep her eyes closed and to remain perfectly still.
She frantically tried to understand what was going on, but she couldn’t make sense of it. She knew that it wasn’t Richard. He was worried about her and would never do something that would frighten her, especially when she was not feeling well.
Her left arm hurt. She only dimly recalled Zedd putting something on it and wrapping it in bandages. But her arm was not the immediate problem.
Her experience during the war, and even more, her training and experience as a Confessor, automatically took over. She ignored her still-throbbing headache, her nausea, the ache of her arm, and put her full focus on the problem at hand. Without opening her eyes, or moving, or changing her breathing, Kahlan began to take assessment.
Something was keeping her tightly pinned under the blanket. She tried to imagine what could be holding her down. As she put her mind to understanding it, she thought that it felt rather like someone on their hands and knees directly over her, with a hand and a knee to either side, pinning the blanket down.
She knew that the room was heavily guarded, so she was at a loss to imagine how anyone intending harm could have gotten in. She couldn’t think of a single person who would do such a thing as a joke. She realized that the smell of the thing was decidedly unpleasant and not human.
The heavy breathing had an element of a low growl to it.
Ever so carefully, she slitted her eyelids open just the tiniest bit.
Near to her, to each side, she could see something slender. Something slender and hairy. She realized that it could only be the front legs of an animal like a wolf or dog, possibly a coyote. In the dim light of the single lamp on the bedside table, it was hard to tell the color.
With that bit of information, the frantic, bewildered confusion began to clear. Her thoughts of what it could possibly be, thankfully, began to coalesce.
It was not a person on all fours over her. It was some sort of animal. By the weight of it on the bed, what ever it was had to be rather big, too big, she realized, to be a coyote.
And then she heard the distinctive low growl, and felt the hot breath again. By the smell of the thing, the legs she could see, and the panting growl she was pretty sure that it had to be a big dog, possibly a wolf.
She was having a great deal of difficulty conceiving of what it could be doing in her bedroom.
She recalled, then, the dog that had crashed into their bedroom door, the wildly aggressive dog that the soldiers had been forced to kill.
She didn’t know how this dog could have gotten into the room. She set aside the effort of trying to figure it out. It didn’t matter how it got in. It only mattered that it had, and that the animal was dangerous— she had no doubt of that.
With her body pinned under the blanket, there was no hope of leaping up and racing for the door. It was too close to her. She would never make it.
As she opened her eyelids just the slightest bit more, she could see the muzzle snarled back, and the long teeth. If she tried to jump up, slowed by being trapped under the blanket as she was, the beast would rip off her face before she had a chance to get her arms up to defend herself.
She realized that the animal was standing between her right side and her right arm. Her left arm was trapped close to her body, but her right arm was not; it was outside the animal’s legs.
She knew that she had only one chance. She also knew that she could not delay. Dogs and wolves both had a predator instinct. They were excited by prey trying to get away, by it running. As she lay perfectly still, the prey drive was being kept in check.
But only as long as she was perfectly still, and only for the moment. She knew that the dog could decide to act first.
She could hear the low, menacing growl getting deeper, getting a little louder. She could feel the vibration of it in her chest.
The dog was deciding to flush its prey.
She had no time to waste. She knew that once it sank its teeth into her, there would be no escape.
She had to take the initiative.
CHAPTER 67
Kahlan slowly pulled in a deep breath, preparing herself.
The dog sensed something. The growl rose in power. Suddenly, with all her strength, as fast as she possibly could, she used her right arm to whip the blanket up, over, and around the dog. It began to lunge. In an instant, though, before it could fully react, before it could drive forward and before its teeth could reach her face, she had the beast rolled up in the blanket.
The rotating momentum of throwing the blanket over and around it, of enveloping and trapping the animal, rolled them both over the side of the bed. They crashed to the floor, Kahlan on top of the powerful, struggling dog. Its legs, encased in the blanket, kicked frantically to escape.
Kahlan knew there were guards right outside the door. She tried to cry out for help, but her throat was so sore that her voice was gone. She couldn’t bring forth a scream.
Fortunately, she had just missed knocking the bedside lamp off onto the floor with them, so she could see what she was doing. From years of experience, Kahlan instinctively reached to the knife at her belt so that she could dispatch the wildly thrashing beast.
The knife wasn’t there.
She was confused at first as to why not, wondering if she had lost it when she rolled off the bed. Almost at the same time, she realized that she didn’t usually wear it in the palace. She kept it in her pack, now. As she fought the dog, she looked up in the dimly lit room to see where the door was, hoping that she could try to make an escape.
That was when she saw the glowing eyes of three more dogs near the door, heads down, ears back, teeth bared, drool hanging from their mouths. They were big, powerfully built, dark, short-haired dogs with thick, muscular necks.
She couldn’t imagine how in the world they had managed to get into the room. As she frantically looked around for a way to escape, she saw that one of the double doors at the back of the room was partially opened.
It was all s
he could do to keep the animal wrapped in the blanket under her at bay. Its hind legs kicked as it snapped and tried to bite. She had stuffed a wad of blanket in its mouth. The confusing fight was keeping the other dogs from joining in, at least for the moment. She knew that at any second they would attack.
As she looked up again, checking on where the three were, she saw one of them take a step closer.
She also saw her backpack not far to the right, near the foot of the bed. Her knife was in her pack.
There was no way she could hope to get through a door guarded by the three snarling hounds. Her only chance was to get her knife so she would at least have a fighting chance to defend herself.
Without pausing to consider the wisdom of it, she threw a leg over the squirming dog trapped in the blanket and stretched to the right for her pack. She just managed to catch the strap with her fingers.
As the lead dog of the three bounded toward her, she swung her pack with all her might. It knocked the dog from its feet and sent it sliding across the floor.
Without missing a beat, she sprang to her feet, kicked the dog in the blanket as hard as she could in the ribs, and bolted for the open door at the back of the room.
