
pack of wild hounds with a hare. She remembered the rain of brutal blows driving
her to the ground, heavy boots slamming into her once she was there, and the
sharp snap of bones. She remembered the blood, so much blood, on their fists, on
their boots. She remembered the searing terror of having no breath to gasp at
the agony, no breath to cry out against the crushing weight of hurt.
Sometime after-whether hours or days, she didn't know-when she was lying
under clean sheets in an unfamiliar bed and had looked up into his gray eyes,
she knew that, for some, the world reserved pain worse than she had suffered.
She didn't know his name. The profound anguish so apparent in his eyes
told her beyond doubt that she should have. More than her own name, more than
life itself, she knew she should have known his name, but she didn't. Nothing
had ever shamed her more.
Thereafter, whenever her own eyes were closed, she saw his, saw not only
the helpless suffering in them but also the light of such fierce hope as could
only be kindled by righteous love. Somewhere, even in the worst of the darkness
blanketing her mind, she refused to let the light in his eyes be extinguished by
her failure to will herself to live.
At some point, she remembered his name. Most of the time, she remembered
it.
13
Sometimes, she didn't. Sometimes, when pain smothered her, she forgot
even her own name.
Now, as Kahlan heard men growling his name, she knew it, she knew him.
With tenacious resolution she clung to that name-Richard-and to her memory of
hint, of who he was, of everything he meant to her.
Even later, when people had feared she would yet die, she knew she would
live. She had to, for Richard, her husband. For the child she carried in her
womb. His child. Their child.
The sounds of angry men calling Richard by name at last tugged Kahlan's
eyes open. She squinted against the agony that had been tempered, if not
banished, while in the cocoon of sleep. She was greeted by a blush of amber
light filling the small room around her. Since the light wasn't bright, she
reasoned that there must be a covering over a window muting the sunlight, or
maybe it was dusk. Whenever she woke, as now, she not only had no sense of time,
but no sense of how long she had been asleep.
She worked her tongue against the pasty dryness in her mouth. Her body
felt leaden with the thick, lingering slumber. She was as nauseated as the time
when she was little and had eaten three candy green apples before a boat journey
on a hot, windy day. It was hot like that now: summer hot. She struggled to
rouse herself fully, but her awaking awareness seemed adrift, bobbing in a vast
shadowy sea. Her stomach roiled. She suddenly had to put all her mental effort
into not throwing up. She knew all too well that in her present condition, few
things hurt more than vomiting. Her eyelids sagged closed again, and she
foundered to a place darker yet.
She caught herself, forced her thoughts to the surface, and willed her
eyes open again. She remembered: they gave her herbs to dull the pain and to