Richard's blade swept past with lightning speed, slicing across the man's back, severing his spine. Richard went to a knee as he turned, whipping the sword around to impale another attacker rushing in at a dead run, trying to get to Richard before he could recover. The look on the man's face was a picture of horrified surprise as he ran instead onto Richard's sword, running it into his own chest up to the hilt. The heavy man atop Jennsen and Sabar convulsed, unable to draw a breath, as they threw him off.

Richard, still on one knee, yanked the sword free as the mortally wounded man fell past him.

As another man rushed into camp, looking around, trying to get his bearings, Cara slammed her Agiel against his neck. As he crumbled, she drove her elbow up to smash the face of a man following the first in, trying to grab her from behind while she was occupied. Crying out, his hands covered crushed bone and gushing blood. She spun and kicked him between the legs. As he fell forward, his hands going to his groin, she broke his jaw with her knee, turned, and dropped a third man by slamming her Agiel to his chest.

Another attacker threw himself at Sabar, knocking him back. Sabar lashed out with his knife, making solid contact. Another man saw the opening and snatched up Nicci's letter lying on the ground. Kahlan dove for the letter in his fist, but missed as he yanked his hand back before dashing away. Jennsen blocked his escape. He straight-armed her as he charged past.

Jennsen was knocked reeling, but came around to bury her knife between his shoulder blades.

Jennsen managed to keep hold of her knife, twisting it forcefully, as the man arched his back with a gasp of pain and then a bellow of anger that withered to a wet burble before it was fully out of his lungs. Jenn-sen's knife had found his heart. He staggered, stumbled, and fell onto the fire.

The flames whooshed to life as his clothing ignited. Kahlan tried to snatch the letter from his fist as he writhed in horrifying pain, but, with the intensity of the heat, she couldn't get close enough.

It was already too late, though; the letter she and Richard had only had a chance to partially read flared briefly before transforming to black ash that disintegrated and lifted skyward in the roar of flames.

Kahlan covered her mouth and nose, gagging on the stench of burning hair and flesh as she was driven back by the heat. Though it seemed like hours of fighting, the assault had only just begun and already men lay dead everywhere as yet more of the big men joined the attack.

As she recoiled from the flames and her futile attempt to recover the lost letter, Kahlan turned again toward the wagon, toward her sword.

She looked up and saw a man who seemed as big as a mountain charging right at her, blocking her way. He grinned at seeing that he had run down a woman without a weapon.

Beyond the man, Kahlan saw Richard. Their eyes met. He had taken his sword to the bulk of the attack, trying to cut it down before it could get to the rest of them, trying to end it before harm could get to any of the rest of them.

He couldn't be everywhere at once.

He wasn't close enough to get to her in time. That didn't stop him from trying. Even as he did, Kahlan discounted the attempt. He was too far away.

The effort was futile.

Looking into the eyes of the man she loved more than life itself, she saw his pure rage; she knew that Richard was seeing a face that showed nothing: a Confessor's face, as her mother had taught her. And then the racing enemy came between them, blocking their sight of one another.

Kahlan's vision focused on the man bearing down on her. His arms lifted like a bear lost in a mad charge. His teeth were gritted with determination.

A grimace twisted his face in his wild effort to reach her before she could dodge to the side, before she had a chance to escape.

She knew he was too close for her to have that chance and so she didn't waste any effort in a useless attempt.

This one had made it past the killing. He had avoided Jennsen and Sabar. He had figured his attack to skirt Richard's blade while making it past Cara's Agiel as she turned to another man. He hadn't charged in madly like the rest; he had delayed just enough to time his onslaught perfectly.

This one knew he was on the verge of having what he sought.

He was far less than a heartbeat away, plunging toward her at full speed.

Kahlan could hear Richard's scream even as her gaze met the gleam of the man's dark eyes.

The man let out a cry of rage as he lunged. His feet left the ground as he sailed through the air toward her. His wicked grin betrayed his confidence.

Kahlan could see his eyeteeth hooked over his cracked lower lip, saw the dark tooth in the front of the top row between his other yellow teeth, saw the little white hook of a scar, as if he had once been eating with a knife and had accidentally sliced the corner of his mouth. His stubble looked like wire. His left eye didn't open as wide as his right. His right ear had a big V-shaped notch taken out of the upper portion. It reminded her of the way some farmers marked their swine.

She could see her own reflection in his dark eyes as her right arm came up.

Kahlan wondered if he had a wife, a woman who cared for him, missed him, pined for him. She wondered if he might have children, and, if he did, what a man like this would teach his children. She had a momentary flash of the ugliness it would be to have this beast atop her, his wire stubble scraping her cheek raw, his cracked lips on hers, his yellow teeth raking her neck as he lost himself in what he wanted.

Time twisted.

She held out her arm. The man crashed in toward her. She felt the coarse weave of his dark brown shirt as the flat of her hand met the center of his chest.

That heartbeat of time she had before he was atop her had not yet begun. Richard had not yet managed to take a single frantic step.

The weight of the bear of a man against her hand felt as if it were but a baby's breath. To Kahlan, it seemed as if he were frozen in space before her.

Time was hers.

He was hers.

The rush of combat, the cries, the yells, the screams; the stink of sweat and blood; the flash of steel, the clash of bodies; the curses and growls; the fear, the terror, the heart-pounding dread… the rage… was no longer there for her. She was in a silent world all her own.

Even though she had been born with it and had always felt it there in the core of her being, the awesome power within, in many ways, seemed incomprehensible, inconceivable, unimaginable, remote. She knew it would seem that way until she let her restraint slip, and then she would once again be joined with a force of such breathtaking magnitude that it could only be fully comprehended as it was being experienced. Although she had unleashed it more times than she could remember, no matter how prepared she was the extraordinary violence of it always still astonished her.

She regarded the man before her with cold calculation, ready for that violence.

As he had charged in on her, time had belonged to this man.

Now time belonged to her.

She could feel the thread count of the fabric of his shirt, feel his woolly chest hairs beneath it.

The heart-pounding shock of the sudden attack, the violence of it, was gone now. Now there was only this man and her, forever linked by what was to happen. This man had consciously chosen his own fate when he chose to attack them. Her certainty of what was called for carried her beyond the need for the assessment of emotion, and she felt none-no joy, not even relief; no hate, not even aversion; no compassion, not even sorrow.

Kahlan shed those emotions to make way for the rush of power, to give it free run.