She thought a moment. “If there is anything my mother or I can do to help, just ask. All right?”
Richard smiled briefly over his shoulder. “Thanks, Samantha.”
She nodded as she dropped back to walk with her mother.
“You’re too nice to her,” Nicci whispered.
“Nasty habit of mine,” he said, “trying to be nice to nice people. I’ll have to try to be more like you and hurt their feelings instead. That always seems to work.”
Nicci smiled a little. “Point taken.”
“Maybe you should talk to her,” he said.
“Who?”
“Kahlan.”
“I told you, I know better than to poke at a hornet’s nest.” Nicci shook her head. “You didn’t see the look she gave me.”
“What kind of look?”
“Well, if looks could kill…”
“What did you do to her to make her give you a look like that?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Nicci said, opening her hands in a gesture of bewildered innocence. “What did you do? She isn’t talking to you either.”
Richard sighed. “I wish I knew.”
Nicci rested a hand on his shoulder briefly as they walked close together. “She’ll be all right, Richard. I’m sure she just needs to work out some things the oracle told her and she doesn’t want us bothering her while she thinks it all through.”
“That makes sense,” Richard said. “I only wished I believed it.”
Nicci sighed, then. “Me too.”
Richard glanced off through gaps in the trees toward the mountains in the distance. They were growing a deeper shade of steel blue. After the sun dropped behind the towering mountains to the west, darkness descended quickly. The thick clouds would only hasten the approaching darkness.
Richard dropped back, waiting for Commander Fister to pick up his pace and catch up with him.
“Is the Mother Confessor all right?” the commander asked. The commander, like all of the men, could tell that something was wrong and was concerned about what it could be. Kahlan was in many ways their strength. Her spirit always seemed to buoy their spirits. Now, all of them wore somber expressions.
Richard forced a smile for the man. “Kahlan? Oh, she’s fine. It’s just that this sickness is really exhausting, both physically and mentally.”
“Oh,” he said, brightened by the solution to the puzzle.
The sickness was bad enough, but the worry of something more being the issue after speaking with the oracle had the commander concerned.
It had Richard even more concerned.
Richard gestured to the silhouette of the mountains to the west. “With the sun behind the mountains, it’s going to be dark soon. We’re going to need to set up camp.”
Commander Fister nodded. “Like the scouts told us, up ahead we’ll run into a road leading to Saavedra, but that won’t be until sometime tomorrow morning. We can’t make it that far tonight.”
“The good news, though,” Richard said, “is that the road will make for easier traveling and we should be able to reach Saavedra tomorrow. But for today, we’re going to need a place to set up camp before we get caught trying to do it in darkness.”
“Already ahead of you, Lord Rahl. I’ve had a report of a suitable spot not far up ahead.”
“Good,” Richard said. “Give the word for some men to go on then, and clear the area.”
The commander clapped a fist to his heart and trotted off to see to it.
As he watched Kahlan’s familiar, beautiful shape and fall of long hair as she walked all alone, Richard’s heart ached for her. He wished he knew what was wrong. He wanted more than anything to set it right for her and see her special smile, the one she gave only to him.
He hated to see her cry more than just about anything in the world.
After Zedd’s murder, Richard had seen her cry enough to last him a lifetime.
The thought of what had happened to Zedd again brought a fresh flash of anger mixed with the ache of grief. Richard forced the anger aside. At the moment it was more important for him to be there for Kahlan.
CHAPTER
70
Commander Fister spotted Richard and hurried over to speak with him. “All clear, Lord Rahl. The men who scouted the area report that there isn’t anyone anywhere. Not even any evidence of anyone having been in the area.”
“Likely because this place comes directly down from the pass,” Nicci said, “and you know what kind of trouble the chasms were, to say nothing of getting permission from the oracle. Not really any reason for anyone to want to head up in that direction, either.”
“That makes sense,” Richard said. “This is a pretty deserted back door into Saavedra. If it wasn’t, the people of straw would be used to seeing travelers, and they aren’t.”