Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodkind [101]
“The heart hounds are gone,” she said. She looked drier than she had last night.
“How long?” he asked, rubbing the cramps out of his arms.
“Twenty, maybe thirty minutes. When it got light they suddenly went off in a rush.”
Kahlan gave him a tin cup of hot tea. Richard gave her a questioning look.
She smiled. “I held it over the candle until it was hot.”
He was surprised at her inventiveness. She gave him a piece of dried fruit and ate some herself. He noticed the war axe leaning against her leg, and thought to himself that she knew how to stand watch.
It was still raining gently. Strange birds called out sharply in rapid, ragged shrieks from across the swamp, while others answered in the distance. Bugs hovered inches above the water, and occasionally there was an unseen splash.
“Any change in Zedd or Chase?” he asked.
She seemed reluctant to answer. “Zedd’s breathing is slower.”
Richard quickly went and checked. Zedd seemed hardly alive. His face had a sunken, ashen look. He put an ear to the old man’s chest and found his heart to be beating normally, but he was breathing slower, and he felt cold and clammy.
“I think we must be safe from the hounds now. We had better get going, and see if we can find them some help,” he said.
Richard knew she was afraid of the snakes—he was, too, and told her so—but she didn’t let it interfere with what they had to do. She put her trust in what he said, that the snakes wouldn’t come near the sword, and crossed the water without hesitation when he told her to go. They had to traverse the water twice, once with Zedd and Chase, and a second time to retrieve the parts for the litters, as they could only be used on dry land.
They hooked up the poles to the horses, but couldn’t use them yet as the tangle of roots on the swamp trail would cause too jolting a ride. They would have to wait until they were on a better road, once they were clear of the swamp.
It was midmorning before they reached the better road. They stopped long enough to lay their two fallen friends in the litters and cover them with blankets and oilcloth. Richard was pleased to discover that the pole arrangement worked well; it didn’t slow them at all, and the mud helped them slide along nicely. He and Kahlan ate lunch on their horses, passing food back and forth as they rode next to each other. They stopped only to check on Zedd and Chase, and continued on through the rain.
Before night came they reached Southaven. The town was little more than a collection of ramshackle buildings and houses fit crookedly in among the oaks and beech, almost as if to turn themselves away from the road, from queries, from righteous eyes. None looked ever to have seen paint. Some had tin patches that drummed in the steady rain. Set in the center of the huddle was a supply store, and next to it a two-story building. A clumsily carved sign proclaimed it to be an inn, but offered no name. Yellow lamplight coming from windows downstairs was the only color standing out from the grayness of the day and the building. Heaps of garbage leaned drunkenly against the side of the building, and the house next door tilted in sympathy with the rubbish pile.
“Stay close to me,” Richard said as they dismounted. “The men here are dangerous.”
Kahlan smiled oddly with one side of her mouth. “I’m used to their kind.”
Richard wondered what that meant, but didn’t ask.
Talking trailed off when they went through the door, and all faces turned. The place was about what Richard expected. Oil lamps lit a room filled with a fog of pungent pipe smoke. Tables, all arranged in a haphazard fashion, were rough, some no more than planks on barrels. There were no chairs, only benches. To the left a door stood closed, probably leading to the kitchen. To the right, in the shadows, leading up to the guest rooms, was a stairway minus a handrail. The floor, with a series of paths