Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodkind [367]
Three and a half days, and then Darken Rahl would die. Then Kahlan would be safe for sure. Forever. Then he would go back to Westland, be finished with the magic. Be finished with Kahlan. The thought of never seeing her again made him weak with pain.
Late in the afternoon, Scarlet spotted the army. She was better at seeing things from this height than he. They were still a long way off and Richard had to stare awhile. At first he saw only a wispy column of dust; then he saw the ranks, moving along a road.
“Well, what’s your plan? What do you want to do?” she called back to him.
“Do you think you could land us ahead of them, without letting them see us?”
A big yellow eye frowned back at him. “I’m a red dragon. I could land us in the middle of them, and they wouldn’t see me, if I didn’t want them to. How close do you want to be to them?”
“I don’t want them to see me. I have to get to Michael without his men seeing me. I need to avoid trouble.” Richard thought a moment. “Set us down a few hours’ march ahead of them. Let them come to us. It’ll be dark soon; then I can get to Michael.”
Scarlet held her wings spread, gliding in a spiral toward hills ahead of the advancing army. She came down behind some of the higher ground, flew up the valleys, keeping out of sight of the road, and landed in a small clearing of long brown grass. Her bright red scales, glossy and lustrous, stood out in the late-afternoon light. Richard slid off her shoulder.
Her head came around. “What now?”
“I want to wait until dark, until they set up camp for the night. After they eat, I’ll be able to sneak into Michael’s tent, and talk to him alone. I’ll think of a way to convince him of who I really am.”
The dragon grumbled, looked up at the sky, and toward the road. Her head swung back around, tilting, a big yellow eye peering at him.
“It will be dark soon. I must return to my egg. It needs to be warmed.”
“I understand, Scarlet.” Richard let out a deep breath, thinking. “Come back for me in the morning. I’ll wait for you in this field at sunrise.”
Scarlet looked up at the sky. “Clouds are gathering.” Her head came back down. “If there are clouds, I can’t fly in them.”
“Why?”
She grunted, a puff of smoke rising from her nostrils. “Because clouds have rocks in them.”
Richard frowned. “Rocks?”
Her tail swished impatiently. “The clouds hide things; it’s like fog, you can’t see. When you can’t see, you run into things, like hills and mountains. I may be strong, but running into rock when I’m flying would break my neck. If the cloud bottoms are high enough, I can fly under them. If the tops are low enough, I can fly over them, but then I won’t be able to see the ground. I won’t be able to find you. What if there are clouds and I can’t find you, or what if something else goes wrong?”
Richard rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, looking off toward the road. “If anything goes wrong, I’ll have to go back to my other three friends. I’ll try to stick to the main road, so you will be able to see me.” Richard swallowed hard. “If all else fails, I will have to go back to the People’s Palace. Please, Scarlet, if I can’t stop Rahl with what I do here, I must be in the People’s Palace three days from tomorrow.”
“Not much time.”
“I know.”
“Three days from tomorrow, and then I’m done with you.”
Richard smiled. “That’s our bargain.”
Scarlet peered up once more. “I don’t like the look of the sky. Good luck, Richard Cypher. I will return in the morning.”
She took a little run and lifted into the air. Richard watched her circle around him once, low, then fly off, getting smaller, disappearing between hills. A memory struck him: the memory of having seen her before. It had been the day he had first met Kahlan, right after the snake vine had bit him. He had seen her fly overhead just as she had done now, and disappear behind hills. He wondered what she had been doing in Westland that day.
Making his way through the tall, dry grass, Richard hiked to a nearby hill, climbing to the top of its sparsely wooded slope, where he could watch the