Toby shook his head. “No, Lord Rahl. It is we who are indebted to you.”
“What do you mean?”
Toby gestured off across the pass road to where the towering palace had stood. Richard could see that the entire structure had collapsed. An enormous pile of rubble was all that remained of a once-elegant structure. It was a reminder of the tremendous destructive power of Subtractive Magic.
On the lower side of the mountain’s prominence, where the palace had stood, the ground had sheared away and slid down to cover a number of the stone buildings. He could tell by the way the ground had dropped away on the downhill side that it had exposed the area closer to where the massive chamber beneath the palace had been. That was where Richard had been trapped. The Mord-Sith had been down in that chamber, so they would have known where Richard was. They had undoubtedly been the ones to direct rescue efforts.
It was fortunate that the rock of the mountain itself, having been sliced through and weakened by Subtractive Magic, had slumped down and off to one side the way it had, because it made it possible for his rescuers to dig in from the side, which would have been considerably closer to him, than to try to dig down from atop the enormous pile of rubble. Had they needed to do that, he knew, by the time they reached him it would have merely ended up being an effort to recover his body.
“I’m sorry that when the palace came down it buried so many of your homes,” Richard said.
“You destroyed that terrible palace of the queen,” Toby said.
“You mean Shota, the witch woman,” Richard corrected.
People all through the crowd nodded at that. They had been afraid to say her name aloud, but now that he had, they readily acknowledged it.
“That’s right,” Toby said as he kept turning his hat in his hands. “The people in those buildings heard the powerful uproar of your magic, and the sounds of the palace coming apart, so they were able to escape before the whole place came down. Those homes can and will be rebuilt. I’m thankful that none of the people who lived there were hurt and they are all safe.”
Richard nodded with relief. “That’s good to hear.”
Toby lifted his thumb to the side. “These are my two boys. They helped dig you out, as did many of the people of Bindamoon. We have lived our lives under the cloud of that witch and her sister witches, to say nothing of Iron Jack. Whenever she was here, in Bindamoon, we feared to even come out of our houses. Everyone feared that if she saw them, she might strike them down for any reason or no reason.”
“Well, she’s gone now, and Iron Jack is dead,” Richard said. “She no longer has a palace to come back to. I intend to see to it that she never comes back here.”
At that, everyone went to their knees. They all did it together, as if they were of one mind. The six Mord-Sith came around and in front of the people on the hillside, turned toward Richard, and went to their knees as well. Everyone bent forward, putting their foreheads to the ground.
Together, in one voice, they began.
“Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us.”
Richard hadn’t expected them all to give the devotion. He stood silent and tall as they continued.
“In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.”
As all the voices died out, silence slowly fell over the expanse of the hillside. And then they repeated the devotion. When they were finished, they spoke it for a third time.
Richard felt a catch in his throat. This devotion was his link to people, a link forged through his gift. They were the steel against steel for him; he was the magic against magic for them.
He had used that magic to bring down the hated palace of the woman they feared to name.
More than that, the devotion was his protection for their world, linking all the magic of the world in a web of security that kept the Golden Goddess from coming unimpeded to slaughter everyone and feed on them as he had seen happen back in the lower reaches of the People’s Palace.
His magic, and Kahlan’s, was the protection for their world, and it linked them all together. The devotion was an acknowledgment of that shared bond.
The two children Kahlan carried were the continuation of that magic, that power, that bond that was the protection for their world.
Richard swallowed. “Thank you all. I can’t begin to tell you what it means to me.”
A cheer went up to let him know that it meant something to them as well.
“We’ve never been before the Lord Rahl to give the devotion,” Toby said. “The queen—I mean Shota, the witch woman—wouldn’t allow the devotion to be given.”
“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, both to dig me out of that rubble, and to heal me. I was in good hands. But now, I need to chase down those witches and put an end to what they are doing to destroy all our futures.”
One of Toby’s sons pointed. “The stables are over there.” He grinned. “Since you are going after Shota, maybe you would like to take some of her horses to her?”
Richard returned a brief smile. “That’s the idea.”
29
With Vika and the rest of the Mord-Sith following right behind, the crowd followed them to the stables, eager to see to it that he had whatever he needed. Lord Rahl or not, Mord-Sith were fearsome, so they all preferred to follow at a respectful, and safe, distance. He hoped that these people had seen that Mord-Sith had been weapons used by evil men in the past, but that they were not the monsters they were once feared to be.
That deferential distance, though, pleased the Mord-Sith. Friends or not, this was the Lord Rahl, their charge. Their responsibility was to keep him safe. Nothing frustrated them more than when he, in their opinion, disregarded their protection and went out of his way to put himself in danger. In other words, live his life. He sometimes thought that they believed he should stay at the People’s Palace where they could watch over him and he could simply rule from there.
The stable grounds were larger than Richard had expected. There were fenced corrals with lush green grass. The mild temperature of the mountain fortress provided the same perfect growing conditions for the grass as it did for the herbs they grew in large fields.
Richard and the Mord-Sith made their way among the complex of supply buildings and barns. He was eager to get going. His worry for Kahlan was a constant distraction.
As they were crossing the stable grounds, behind them Glee suddenly poured out from hiding places among the buildings. The dark creatures had let Richard and the Mord-Sith pass so that they could attack the massive crowd following them.
Richard instantly recognized that it had the makings of a massacre, which was exactly what the Glee had planned. He also recognized the method to their battle plan.
As the gangly creatures continued to pour out from behind the buildings, people shrank back in terror. The Glee quickly filled the gap between Richard and the crowd. Their tactics had evolved. This time the creatures wanted to attack directly into the tightly packed throng of people, both to kill as many as possible and to make it harder for him to fight back and stop them.
Richard knew he had only one chance.
He gestured to the Mord-Sith. “Wait until I tell you!”
He drew his sword as he raced through the band of Glee intent on attacking the townspeople. Running at full speed, he crashed right through the horde of dark, slimy creatures, knocking some of them out of his way when he had to, before they had time to react. They expected him to take up a defensive position back where he had been. They hadn’t been expecting him to charge right through their midst. Though their legs were long, and they could run fast, Richard could run faster. Besides that, the sword whirling through the air, cutting them down from behind as he hurtled through their midst, surprised and distracted them, causing many to turn and slowing others down.