Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodkind [288]
“Good. You have it right, my boy. Good night.”
In a spot thin of brush, Richard found a moss-covered log to sit on while he kept an eye toward the camp and the surrounding woods. He checked to make sure the moss was dry. He didn’t want to sit in damp moss and then have wet pants to make him colder. The moss was dry, so he rearranged his sword, sat down, and wrapped his cloak tight. Clouds hid the moon. If it wasn’t for the fire lending the little illumination it did to the surrounding woods, it would be the kind of dark that made you think you were blind.
Richard sat and brooded. He didn’t like the idea of Kahlan having to put on the dress and put herself at risk. He liked it less that it was his own idea. He wondered, and worried, at what she meant about her acting “odd,” and his playing along. He wondered, and worried even more at what she had said about pretending she was the most important person he had ever been around. He liked that not at all. He always pictured Kahlan in his mind as his friend, at the least. He didn’t like to picture her as the Mother Confessor. It was Confessor’s magic that made it impossible for them to be more than friends. He was afraid to see her as others saw her, as the Mother Confessor. Any reminder of what she was, her magic, only brought the hurt deeper into his heart.
It was the smallest of sounds that made him sit bolt upright.
The eyes were on him. They were close, and though he couldn’t see them, he could feel them. The knowledge that something was close, watching him, sent a chill across his skin. It made him feel naked. Vulnerable.
His eyes were wide, his heart pounding, as he looked straight ahead to where he knew the thing was. The silence, except for his heart beating in his ears, was oppressive. Richard held his breath, trying to hear.
Again came the soft sound of a foot being lowered stealthily to the forest floor. It was coming toward him. Richard’s wide eyes stared frantically into the blackness, trying to see a movement.
It was no more than ten paces away when the yellow eyes inched into view, hunkered low to the ground. The eyes were glowering right at him. The thing stopped. He held his breath.
With a howl, it sprang. Richard jumped to his feet, his hand going for the sword. When it bounded into the air, Richard saw that it was a wolf. The biggest wolf he had ever seen. It was to him before his hand even reached the hilt. The wolf’s front paws hit his chest square. The powerful impact drove him backward over the log he had been sitting on.
As he fell backward, his breath knocked from him, he saw behind him something more frightening than the wolf.
A heart hound.
The huge jaws snapped at his chest just as the wolf reached the heart hound and went for its throat.
Richard’s head hit something hard. He heard a yelp and the sound of teeth ripping tendon. Everything went black.
His eyes opened. Zedd was looking down at him, and had a middle finger to each side of Richard’s forehead. Kahlan was holding a torch. He felt dizzy, but stood anyway on wobbly legs, until Kahlan made him sit on the log.
With a frown of concern, she stroked her fingers on his face. “Are you all right?”
“I think so,” he managed. “My head… it hurts.” He thought he might throw up.
Zedd took the torch from Kahlan and held it behind the log, casting light on the body of a heart hound, its throat ripped out. Zedd looked down at Richard’s sword, still in its sheath.
“How is it the hound didn’t have you?”
Richard felt the back of his head; it hurt like daggers twisting. “I… don’t know. It all happened so fast.” Then he remembered, like a dream when waking. He stood up again. “A wolf! It was a wolf that has been following us.”
Kahlan stepped closer, put an arm around his waist to steady him. “A wolf?” The odd tone of suspicion in her voice made him look to her narrowed eyes. “Are you sure?”
Richard nodded. “I was sitting here, and then all of a sudden I knew it was watching me. It came closer, and I saw its yellow eyes.