They had all decided that the men of the Order were evil and deserved death, even if they themselves had to do the killing.

When Tom glanced down to see Betty going back to browsing on weeds, Richard noticed that the man's brow was beaded with sweat. Cara fanned herself with a handful of big leaves from a mountain maple. Richard was about to ask them how they could be sweating when it was such a cool day when he realized that it was the poison making him cold. With icy dread, he recalled how the last time he had gotten cold, the poison had nearly killed him that awful night.

Anson and another man, John, took off their packs. They were the ones planning to slip in among the field-workers returning to town at nightfall.

Once they sneaked into town, the two men planned to recover the antidote.

"I think I'd better go with you," Richard said to Anson. "John, why don't you wait here with the others."

John looked surprised. "If you wish, Lord Rahl, but there is no need for you to go."

It wasn't supposed to be a foray that would result in any violence, only the recovery of the antidote. The attack on the Imperial Order soldiers was to be after the antidote had been safely recovered and they had assessed the situation, the number of men, and the layout.

"John is right," Cara said. "They can do it."

Richard was having difficulty breathing. He had to make an effort not to cough.

"I know. I just think I had better have a look myself."

Cara and Kahlan cast sidelong glances at each other.

"But if you go in there with Anson," Jennsen said, "you can't take your sword."

"I'm not going to start a war. I just want to get a good look around at the place."

Kahlan stepped closer. "The two of them can scout the town and give you a report. You can rest-they will only be gone a few hours."

"I know, but I don't think I want to wait that long."

By the way she appraised his eyes, he thought she must be able to see how much pain he was in. She didn't argue the point further but instead nodded her agreement.

Richard pulled the baldric and sword belt off over his head. He slipped it all over Kahlan's head, laying the baldric across her shoulder.

"Here. I pronounce you Seeker of Truth."

She accepted the sword and the honor by planting her fists on her hips.

"Now don't you go starting anything while you're in there. That's not the plan. You and Anson will be alone. You wait until we're all together."

"I know. I just need to get the antidote and then we'll be back in no time."

Beside getting the antidote, Richard wanted to see the enemy forces, how they were placed, and the layout of the town. Having the men draw a map in the dirt was one thing, seeing it for himself was another; these men didn't know how to evaluate threat points.

One of the men took off his light coat, something a number of the men wore, and held it out to Richard. "Here, Lord Rahl, wear this. It will make you look more like one of us."

With a nod of thanks, Richard drew the coat on. He had changed out of his war wizard's outfit into traveling clothes, so he didn't think he would look out of place with the way the men from the town of Witherton looked.

The man was nearly Richard's size, so the coat fit well enough. It also hid his belt knife.

Jennsen shook her head. "I don't know, Richard. You just don't look like one of them. You still look like Lord Rahl."

"What are you talking about?" Richard held out his arms, looking down at himself. "What's wrong with the way I look?"

"Don't stand up so straight," she said.

"Hunch your shoulders and hang your head a little," Kahlan offered.

Richard took their advice seriously; he hadn't thought about it, but the men did tend to hunch a lot. He didn't want to stand out. He had to blend in if he didn't want to raise the suspicions of the soldiers. He bent over a little.

"How's that?"

Jennsen screwed up her mouth. "Not much different."

"But I'm bending down."

"Lord Rahl," Cara said in a soft voice as she gave him a meaningful look, "you remember how it was to walk behind Denna, when she held the chain to the collar around your neck. Make yourself like that."

Richard blinked at her. The mental image of his time as a captive of a Mord-Sith hit him like a slap. He pressed his lips tight, not saying anything, and conceded with a single nod. The memory of that forsaken time was depressing enough that he would have no trouble using it to fall into the role.

"We had better be on our way," Anson said. "Now that the sun is falling behind the mountains, darkness comes quickly." He hesitated, then spoke again. "Lord Rahl, the men of the Order will not know you-I mean they probably will not realize you aren't from our town. But our people do not carry weapons; if they see that knife, they will know you are not from our town, and they will send up an alarm."

Richard lifted open the coat, looking at the knife. "You're right." He loosened his belt and removed the sheath holding the knife. He handed it to Cara for safekeeping.

Richard cupped a hand quickly to the side of Kahlan's face as a way of saying his good-bye. She seized the hand in both of hers and pressed a quick kiss to the backs of his fingers. Her hands looked so small and delicate holding his. He sometimes kidded her that he didn't see how she could possibly get anything done with such small hands. Her answer was that her hands were a normal size and perfectly adequate, and his were simply outsized.

The men all noticed Kahlan's gesture of affection. Richard was not embarrassed that they did. He wanted them to know that other people were the same as they in important, human ways. This was what they were fighting for-the chance to be human, to love and cherish loved ones, to live their lives as they wanted.

The light faded quickly as Richard and Anson made their way through the woods running beside fields of wild grasses. Richard wanted to work around to where the forest came in closer to the men out weeding in the gardens and tending to animals. With the nearby mountains to the west being so high, the sun vanished behind them earlier than what would normally be sunset, leaving the sky a swath of deep bluish green and the valley in an odd golden gloom.

By the time he and Anson had reached the place where they would leave the woods, it was still a little too light, so they waited a short while until Richard felt the murky light in the fields was dim enough to hide them. The town was some distance away and since Richard couldn't make out any men outside the gates, he reasoned that if soldiers were watching, then they couldn't see him, either.

As they moved quickly through the field of wild grass, staying low and out of sight, Anson pointed. "There, those men going back to town, we should follow them."

Richard spoke quietly back over his shoulder. "All right, but don't forget, we don't want to catch up with them or they might recognize you and make a fuss. Let them stay a good distance ahead of us."

When they reached the town walls, Richard saw that the gates were no more than two sections of the picket walls. A couple of posts no bigger than Richard's wrist had been tied sideways to stiffen two sections of wall and make them into gates. The ropes that tied the posts together served as the hinges. The sections were simply lifted and swung around to open or close them. It was far from a secure fortification.

In the murky light of twilight, the two guards milling around just inside the gates and watching workers return couldn't really see much of Richard and Anson. To the guards, they would appear to be two more workers.

The Order understood the value of workers; they needed slaves to do the work so that the soldiers might eat.

Richard hunched his shoulders and hung his head as he walked. He remembered those terrible times as a captive when, wearing a collar, he walked behind Denna, devoid of all hope of ever again being free. Thinking of that inhuman time, he shuffled through the open gates. The guards didn't pay him any attention.