He pressed a kiss against Nadine's cheek. "Well, it's been delightful, my little journey, but I'm afraid Marlin must be going. Too bad, for you, that the Seeker wasn't here with his sword. That would have ended it for Marlin."

"Cara!" Kahlan went for him, mentally beseeching the good spirits' forgiveness for what she was going to have to do to Nadine, too.

Cara sprang up. With impossible strength, Jagang heaved Nadine through the air. The woman cried out as she tumbled violently into Kahlan. Kahlan landed with a grunt onto her back on the stone. Her vision prickled with floating dots of light. She couldn't feel anything. She feared it might have broken her back. But sensation returned with tingling pain when she twisted to the side. She gasped to get her wind back as she struggled to sit up.

Cara, on the far side of the room, let out a shrill, piercing scream. She crumpled to her knees, covering her ears with her forearms as she shrieked.

Marlin leaped onto the ladder as she and Nadine wrestled to untangle themselves from each other.

Marlin, hands and feet to each side of the ladder, sprang up in spurts, like a cat going up a tree.

The torches puffed out, plunging them into darkness.

Jagang laughed as he ascended. Cara screamed as if she were being torn limb from limb. Kahlan finally managed to shove Nadine aside and shuffle on her hands and knees toward the sound of Jagang's mocking laughter. She could feel blood soaking all the way down her sleeve.

The iron door exploded outward, clanging against the stone on the other side of the hall, the sound resonating with a boom through the halls. A man cried out as it crushed him. With the door gone, a shaft of light bathed the ladder. Kahlan scrambled to her feet and went for it.

As she stretched up for the ladder, the pain in her shoulder caused her to recoil with a cry. She reached up and yanked out the sharp shard of stone. The blood dammed behind it gushed from the wound.

Fast as she could, Kahlan scuttled up the ladder in pursuit of Marlin. She had to stop him. There was no one else who could do it. With Richard gone, she was the magic against magic for all these people. Her wounded arm shook with the effort, and she could barely grasp the ladder. "Hurry!" Nadine called out from right behind. "He'll get away!" From below, Cara's shrieks seared Kahlan's nerves.

Kahlan had once felt the awesome agony of an Agiel for a fraction of a second. Mord-Sith endured the same pain whenever they held their Agiel, yet not the slightest grimace ever registered on their faces. Mord-Sith lived in a world of pain; years of torture had disciplined them in their ability to disregard it.

Kahlan couldn't imagine what it would take to cause a Mord-Sith to scream like that.

Whatever was happening to Cara, it was killing her, there was no doubt in Kahlan's mind.

Kahlan's foot slipped through a rung. Her shinbone whacked painfully against the rung above. She yanked her leg back in a rush to get to Jagang. Her flesh grazed the side, catching and driving a long splinter into her calf. She cursed in pain and charged up the ladder.

Clambering through the opening at the top, she slipped and fell to her hands and knees in a chaos of viscera. Sergeant Collins stared up at her with dead eyes. Jagged white ends of rib bones stuck up, holding back the ripped leather and mail of his uniform. His entire torso was rent from his throat to his groin.

A dozen or so men writhed in agony on the floor. Others were still as death. Swords were embedded to their hilts in the stone walls. Axes lodged there, too, as if stuck in soft wood.

An enemy with magic had scythed through these men, but not without cost; close by lay an arm, severed above the elbow, By what it was wearing, she recognized it as Marlin's. The fingers of the hand clenched and unclenched with measured regularity.

Kahlan pushed herself up and turned to the door. She clasped wrists with Nadine and helped her up into the hall. "Careful."

Nadine gasped at the bloody sight. Kahlan expected her to faint, or scream hysterically. She didn't.

Men bristling swords, axes, pikes, and bows were charging up the hall from the left. The hall to the right was empty, silent, and dark beyond a lone torch. Kahlan went right. To her credit, Nadine chased right after her. The screams coming from the pit sent shivers up Kahlan's spine.

CHAPTER 10

Beyond the last, hissing torch, the hall disappeared into blackness. A soldier lay in a crumpled heap to the side, like dirty laundry waiting to be collected. His blackened sword lay in the center of the hall, its blade fractured into a tangled fray of twisted steel strips.

Kahlan paused and studied the still silence ahead. Just as there was nothing to be seen, there was nothing to be heard. Marlin could be anywhere, hiding around any intersection, crouched in any comer, with Jagang's self-satisfied smirk on his face as he lingered in the darkness to put an end to the pursuit. "Nadine, stay here."

"No. I told you, we protect our own. He wants to kill Richard. I'll not let him get away with it, not as long as I have a chance to help." "The only chance you will have is to get yourself killed." "I'm going."

Kahlan had neither the time nor desire to argue. If Nadine was going to go, at least she could make herself useful; Kahlan needed her hands free. "Then grab that torch."

Nadine yanked it from the bracket and waited expectantly. "I have to touch him," Kahlan told her. "If I touch him, I can kill him." "Who, Marlin or Jagang?"

Kahlan's heart pounded against her ribs. "Marlin. If Jagang could get into his mind, I expect he can get out. But who knows? If nothing else, at least Jagang will be gone, and his minion will be dead. That will end it. For now."

"That's what you were trying to do back in the pit? What did you mean about making a choice, one life for all the others?"

Kahlan grabbed her face, squeezing her cheeks. "You listen to me. This isn't just some Tommy Lancaster wanting to rape you; this is a man who is trying to kill us all. I have to stop him. If anyone else is touching him when I do, they will be destroyed along with him. If you or anyone else is touching him, I won't hesitate. Do you understand? I can't afford to hesitate. Too much is at stake." Nadine nodded. Kahlan released her. She redirected her anger to the task at hand. She could feel blood dripping from the ends of the fingers of her left hand. She didn't think she could lift her left arm, and she needed her right arm to touch Marlin. At least Nadine could hold a torch for her. Kahlan hoped that she wasn't making a mistake, hoped that Nadine wouldn't slow her. She hoped she wasn't letting Nadine come for the wrong reasons. Nadine took Kahlan's right hand and placed it to her bleeding left shoulder. "We don't have time to fix this, now. Hold that wound closed as tight as you can, until you need your hand, or you'll lose too much blood and not be able to do what you must."

A bit chagrined. Kahlan squeezed the wound. "Thanks if you're going to come, then stay behind me, and just light the way. If soldiers can't stop him, you can't hope to do better. I don't want you getting hurt for nothing." "Got it. Right behind you."

"Just remember what I said, and don't get in my way." Kahlan stretched up, looking back behind Nadine to the soldiers. "Use arrows or spears if you get a shot, but stay behind me. Get some more torches. We need to corner him."

Some of them trotted back to retrieve torches as Kahlan started away. Nadine held her torch out ahead of her as she trotted to keep up. The flame fluttered and roared in the wind of their flight, illuminating the walls, ceiling, and floor for a short distance around them, creating an undulating island of light in a sea of blackness. Close behind, men with torches created their own islands of light. Heavy breathing echoed through the hall as they ran, along with the thud of boots, the jangle of chain mail, the clang of steel, and the roar of flame. Above it all, in her mind, Kahlan could still hear Cara's screams. Kahlan halted at an intersection, panting to get her breath as she looked ahead, and then down the corridor that branched to the right. "Here!" Nadine pointed to blood on the floor. "He went this way!" Kahlan looked up the dark hall ahead. It led to the stairwells and up into the palace. The other corridor that branched off to the right led under the palace in a labyrinth of storerooms, abandoned areas once used in the excavation of the bedrock the palace was built atop, access tunnels to inspect and maintain the foundation walls, and drainage tunnels for the springs the builders had encountered. At the ends of the drainage tunnels, massive stone grates let the water out through the foundation walls, but prevented anyone from getting in. "No," Kahlan said. "This way-to the right." "But the blood," Nadine protested. "He went this way." "We've seen no blood until this place. The blood is a diversion. That way leads up into the palace. Jagang went this way, to the right, where there are no people."