As hard as he could, Richard kicked the witch man in the face. His boot connected with bone. Richard didn’t know if it was skull or jawbone, but Michec’s dead weight toppled back. He landed hard on his back and lay motionless, sprawled on the floor, his arms out to the side. He looked to be out cold.
Her brow bunching with the effort, Vika flashed Richard a shaky smile through her pain. “I bought you time. Now get out of here.”
“Richard …” Kahlan said.
He looked where she was looking and saw the dark shapes of the Glee cautiously stepping out of the shadows of the hanging, skinless corpses. Like those corpses, Richard also hung helpless from manacles around his wrists. Those creatures would not wait for Michec to come around and finally finish his work with Kahlan so they could have her.
He knew they would take the opportunity to have what they had come for—the babies in Kahlan’s womb.
2
Richard looked from the dark, glistening shapes of the cautious Glee back in among the shadows and hanging corpses to the unconscious form sprawled on the floor in front of him. Had he been able to brace against something solid when he kicked Michec in the head he might have been able to kill him. Hanging helpless, he had done the best he could. At the least, the big man was out cold for the moment.
Richard knew he had only a small window of time before either Michec came around or the Glee decided that this was their opportunity to take what they wanted.
Richard pressed his knees together and lifted his legs out in front of him, then let them fall back. He did it several more times to get his whole body to start swinging back and forth, each time pumping his legs to get each arcing movement higher and higher. The chain grated in protest as the top link pivoted from the fat eyebolt in the ceiling. Once he was swinging back and forth as much as he could, he threw his legs around to his right and kept contorting his body, changing that pendulum motion to rotation. As he swung his legs, he twisted his whole body around, swinging faster and faster, building momentum.
Once all the slack was gone out of the chain as he continued to turn it with his body, the links couldn’t resist the strain and they started folding over on top of one another. The more he spun, the more it twisted the chain and the harder it was to keep the rotation going. As he spun the chain, it continually increased the pressure of the manacles on his wrists. They cut painfully into the flesh. He gripped the chain above the manacles to try to take some of the pressure off his wrists as he spun. Richard ignored the pain and kept swinging his legs around and around to force the chain to turn, hoping something would have to give way. As he did, the links continued to bunch and knot up.
Suddenly, the pressure was too much, and the eyebolt in the ceiling beam let out a snapping sound as the rusty threads finally broke their bond to the wood. With the threads broken free, the twisting force caused the bolt to begin to turn, unscrewing it from the wooden beam. The age and corrosion of the threads caused them to want to bind up and made it difficult to keep up the turning force. Despite the difficulty, Richard knew he couldn’t stop, or he might never get it going again. He kept swinging his legs around and around to keep the eyebolt unscrewing. He didn’t dare rest for fear it would bind up and stick.
Although Michec still lay unconscious on the floor, Richard knew the man could come around at any moment. But right then there was a bigger concern. With each rotation he could see the Glee advancing across the room to get to Kahlan. He knew that with one powerful swipe of their claws they could rip her open. By Kahlan’s rapid breathing, he knew she was well aware of that imminent threat.
All of a sudden, the turning eyebolt broke free of the beam. Richard crashed to the floor. He quickly scrambled to his feet as several of the dark shapes were going for Kahlan.
He grabbed the heavy chain in both hands and started swinging it around over his head. The first two Glee saw that he was now free and a threat, so they turned away from Kahlan toward him, eager to attack. Richard whipped the chain around and cracked it against the side of the head of one of them. The big eyebolt at the end of the chain split its skull and sent the creature sprawling.
Before the second could get to him, he swung the chain again. Because the second Glee raced in closer, he couldn’t hit it in the head with the eyebolt at the end of the chain. Instead, the chain caught the side of its neck. The heavy eyebolt and the rest of the chain continued their flight, and the chain wrapped twice around the creature’s neck. Richard immediately yanked the chain before the Glee could grab it or get its balance. The force of that pull twisted its head around, breaking its neck. Like the first one, the second fell dead before being able to vanish.
Suddenly there were more Glee coming for both him and Kahlan. He shortened his grip on the chain and stood far enough in front of her that he wouldn’t accidentally hit her as he continued swinging it around. The speed of the heavy chain was deadly. He took down the Glee as fast as they could come.
“Shale!” Kahlan yelled. “Do something to help him!”
“My gift doesn’t work any more than yours does,” the sorceress called back. “Don’t you remember? Michec blocked our power in this room.”
Richard knew there would be no help coming. It was all up to him to stop the threat or Kahlan would die. They all would die.
As masses of the Glee converged and all came for him, he threw himself into the battle. He kept the chain spinning overhead fast as he could, whipping it against the creatures as soon as they were close enough. The eyebolt at the end of the chain whistled as it swept through the air. Almost as fast as he downed one and another got close enough, he cracked the heavy eyebolt against its skull. Most slowed and stayed back out of range. Others came for him, thinking they could duck under and evade the chain. He saw sharp white teeth snapping at his face. He caught the chain and doubled it over so he could swing it at them like a bat. That doubled the weight of each impact.
As he was fighting off a number of Glee at the same time, one of them somehow suddenly got in close. Before it could claw him or bite his face, Richard threw a loop of the chain over its head and around its neck. He put his knee between the thing’s shoulder blades and hauled back on the chain, letting out a yell with the effort until he felt and heard the windpipe crush in. Once it did, he kicked another of the tall, dark creatures back and immediately hit it in the head with the doubled-over chain.
Richard lost himself in a world of seemingly endless, bloody battle. The rhythm of what he was doing soon became what he knew so well. It became the dance with death.
He killed the creatures as fast as they could come at him. Those that were severely injured and were able vanished back into their world. The air in Richard’s world was filled with howls and shrieks of the enraged creatures and of the wounded and dying. The floor was slick with blood and slime of the dead.
Panting from the effort, Richard paused, looked around for more of the enemy, more targets. He suddenly realized that there were no more Glee still standing. A number of them lay dead, many sprawled over the top of others. The last of the howls and shrieks still seemed to echo in his head.
He raced back to the witch man to strangle him with the chain before he could wake up.
Michec was gone.
3
Richard quickly looked around, hoping to be able to find and catch Michec before he could get away, but he was nowhere to be seen. He gritted his teeth in rage that the witch man was no longer there on the floor. He had to kill the man before he could do anything else to them—before he could kill them first.