With a cry of effort born of rage, and determined to end it, Richard managed to press in harder on Michec’s throat. He could feel his thumbs starting to compress the man’s straining muscles.
“Wait!” the witch man cried out. “Lord Rahl—wait. Listen.”
Richard didn’t answer. He didn’t care what Michec had to say. His actions and life had already revealed the truth about the nature of the man. Richard simply wanted him dead.
“I can see now that I was wrong. You really are rightly the Lord Rahl. I can see that now.”
Richard struggled all the harder.
“Lord Rahl! I was only following orders!”
Richard didn’t dare to waste any strength to ask the man whose orders he was following. To each side, the Mord-Sith grunted with the effort of holding the man’s powerful arms. He was so strong that he lifted all four a few inches off the floor.
“I will swear loyalty to you!” the witch man cried out. “I will swear loyalty to your empire! Let me go so I may serve you!”
Richard wanted to tell him that he could serve him best by dying, but he didn’t dare spare any effort to speak. Try as he might, with the conjured hands holding his wrists back, he couldn’t close his grip enough on the man’s throat to crush his windpipe and kill him.
“Let me live and I will serve you just as I served your father. I will protect and serve your wishes! Just let me go and my life will be yours to command. I can be useful to you! Please, Lord Rahl, allow me to serve you!”
In answer, teeth clenched tightly, Richard tried all the harder to crush Michec’s windpipe. He could see the Mord-Sith to each side losing their grip as the witch man managed to start to lift his arms and turn his hands up.
25
Richard’s muscles burned with exhaustion as he fought against the vines trying to pull his arms away. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to hold on much longer. The Mord-Sith to each side were having even worse problems. The danger to all of them increased with the strain of pulling every breath.
Richard should have been able to strangle the man by now. It was obvious that the witch man’s powers were somehow energizing him with desperate strength beyond that of a normal man so that he was able to overcome all of their efforts. It was clear that they were all now locked in a struggle to the death.
“Forgive me!” Michec cried out. “I was only following orders!”
Richard glared into Michec’s dark eyes as he struggled with all his might to strangle him. His hands shook with the effort. His muscles burned.
Richard didn’t want to give the man the satisfaction of asking whose orders, but the witch man told him anyway.
“I was only following the queen’s orders!”
Richard didn’t know what queen the man could be talking about, but he didn’t believe him. Michec would say anything to escape. Richard wondered if maybe he was talking about the Golden Goddess, but she was described as a goddess, not a queen.
Kahlan appeared to the right of Richard, covered with dust from the rock the witch man had blasted up at her, trying to kill her. Blood streamed down her face from several wounds.
A strange look of bemused calm came over the witch man’s swollen, red face. “If you think this witch’s oath begins and ends with me, you are a fool.”
That time, Richard couldn’t resist asking, “What are you talking about?”
“Ask your witch,” he said with a sneer.
Kahlan suddenly dropped in beside Richard, using her full weight to drive her blade between two of Michec’s ribs and into his heart. She let out of cry of rage as she pivoted the handle of her knife from side to side, slicing through his heart.
Michec’s eyes went wide.
Kahlan, gritting her teeth, keeping her knife pressed hilt-deep in his chest, put her face in close to his, looking into his startled eyes.
“Think to harm my babies, do you?” she growled. “I deliver you now into the hands of the Keeper of the underworld. He will take you into darkness you can’t begin to imagine. You will never see the light of Creation again. All those innocent souls you tortured to death will now torment you for all eternity.”
Michec’s mouth worked, trying to beg for mercy, to explain, but no words came forth. The panic and terror in his eyes was clear. He had never had a shred of mercy for the panic and terror of his victims, and now Richard, Kahlan and the others with them had none for him.
Vika, covered in stone dust and with a gash across her forehead that had her face covered in a mask of blood, knelt to Richard’s left. Without pause, she rammed her knife into the side of Michec’s neck. Blood oozed rather than spurted out from the artery she severed. His heart could no longer pump blood.
The surprise in Michec’s eyes slowly faded as the life went out of them until his stare was blank and empty. The bony hands holding Richard’s wrists released their grip on him as they crumbled into dust and vapor.
Shale, her eyes still closed, dropped to her knees, clearly drained from the effort of trying to pull back on the vines that had so powerfully held Richard’s wrists. Exhausted, she put a hand down on the rock for support.
Finally, Richard sat back on his heels, letting his cramping hands drop to his lap. He looked around to see everyone panting along with him from the effort. Despite being battered, and some of them bleeding, none of them seemed seriously hurt.
He finally circled an arm around Kahlan’s neck and pulled her close. He brushed hair back from her face and kissed her forehead, then hugged her tight, grateful that she was alive and not seriously hurt. She took her bloody hand from her knife in Michec’s chest and with both arms hugged him back, silently thankful to be alive and have the ordeal over.
At last, after a brief time to hold Kahlan tight, get his breath back, and be thankful that she was safe, Richard finally struggled to his feet. He helped Kahlan stand. All of the Mord-Sith untangled themselves from their grips on the dead man’s arms and legs.
“You did it, Lord Rahl,” Berdine said as she gazed hatefully down at the dead witch man. “You killed the butcher.”
Richard shook his head. “No, we all did. It took all nine of us. The Law of Nines had more power than even a witch man.”
The Mord-Sith looked pleased that he included them. Shale, with a hand on her knee to help her stand, managed to show a weary smile along with them.
They all backed away a short distance to stare at the dead man, all of them still having some difficulty believing the monster was finally dead. It had been a monumental struggle, but the witch man would no longer bring terror and pain to anyone.
Spotting something he didn’t like, Richard gestured to the bloody body slumped in the corner as he looked over at Shale.
“Burn him to ash, would you please?”
Shale looked a little surprised by the request. “Why? He’s dead. What do you think he can do, now?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out. You’re good at conjuring fire. Do that now. End it. Burn him to ash.”
Shale turned an uneasy look from Richard, to Michec, and back. She suddenly seemed both distressed and apologetic.
She shook her head. “Lord Rahl, I am a witch woman. I can’t burn another witch. Never. That act has terrible significance.”
Richard felt his anger heating. It made no sense to him.
“Even a man as evil as this?”
She couldn’t seem to look him in the eye, so she stared off at the dead Michec. “I know that he was a monster, but he is also a witch. I wanted him dead just as much as the rest of you, and I helped with that to the best of my ability, but I can’t burn a witch, not even a dead one. I just can’t.”