Richard dropped into a crouch as he landed.
There are hooded, lanky, glowing demon forms dancing all around him, heads thrown back, scary teeth bared, chanting and thumping their feet.
Richard can smell blood. He sees Jit. The lower half of her face is covered in blood, and blood sloshes around in the bowl she is holding.
[I half-expect Terry to insert something about how Richard can tell that Jit is not a good person.]
He looks around, and sees Kahlan across the chamber - trapped in the vine wall. She looks unconscious.
He delivers a chest slam with the heel of his palm and Jit goes flying. He doesnt want to use his sword on her because Nicci has told him that using magic on Hedge Maids is a really bad idea.
The glowing Jit creatures are mad at him. They try to get in his way but Richard swings the Sword of Truth at them and they fade away when it hits them. They reappear, but they clearly dont like being hit with the sword.
His attention was riveted on Kahlan. The front of her was covered in blood. He could see ripping bite marks on her abdomen, with rows of smaller, needle-sharp punctures on her shoulders and neck. The blood running down her had at first hidden the fact that she was naked.
[That is a silly amount of blood]
This sends Richard crazy. He sets on the bony creatures - not Jits ones - with the sword, shattering limbs, skulls. There seems like no end to the hordes of snatching figures coming from every direction, but Richard is in his fighting trance. Some of them get in close enough to bite him, but most get smashed.
Suddenly, Jit pops up in front of him and throws some black dust in his face.
[Yesssss, Jit still in the game.]
Richards body seizes up. Jit is clicking and squealing away. A demon bites deep into his stomach, and another holds a bowl to catch the blood. When some has drained in, the second demon rushes to Jit, and, although she had trouble drinking, she downs the lot.
One of the Jit creatures says that Richard will soon, like Kahlan, be among the walking dead.
Richard accepts this as typical villain banter, and wonders why Jits mouth is sewn shut.
------------------------------------
It came to him. Richard understood Regulas last message. He just didnt know if it could do him any good.
[Regula being the Omen Machine.]
His torso and legs are wrapped in thorny vines, but his arms are starting to feel strong again. Kahlan is still unconscious.
Jit is fiddling with snake skins, feathers, powders and stuff over a fire. Smoke from the fire transforms into underworld creatures as it rises.
As Jit worked, and the frolicking creatures taunted him, Richard surreptitiously pulled off small pieces of his shredded shirt, and rolled them between his finger and thumb
.
He puts little wads of fabric into Kahlans ears, and then does the same for himself. Still surreptitiously, I guess.
He remembered what the machine had told him.
Your Only Chance is to Let The Truth Escape
He grins at Jit. Jit scowls back. He says that if they let Kahlan go, he will do whatever they want. They say they dont need his cooperation.
Richard says they need to know the truth.
Jit steps up to Richard, grinning, and Richard uses his free hand
[Of course, his free hand. You always allow captives a free hand] to grab his knife
[Oh, and knives]. He deliberately
doesnt think about hurting Jit, because that will trigger her defences.
-------------------------------
In a blink, before the Hedge Maid could have second thoughts or guess what he intended, Richard whipped the knife past her face, carefully avoiding cutting her...With deadly precision, he instead made the tip of the razor-sharp blade sweep in just between her parted lips...and sever the leather strips holding her mouth closed.
Jits eyes go wide. Her mouth snaps open, seemingly against her will.
She screams. It is a black scream, a scream of death, a scream from the underworld.
All the glass shatters, everything gets flung up in the air, blood runs from the ears of the people trapped in the walls. The demons start to dissolve.
All Jits evil, all her dedication to death, is pouring out of her.
Her face began to melt as her own evil, the death at her core, escaped its prison. Blood veins broke, muscle ripped apart, and her skin split open until her bones were exposed.
Richard begins to think that his earplugs wont be enough. His body is straining, and he knows that Kahlan, weaker than him, will be struggling quite a bit. A tear rolls down his cheek and he passes out.
--------------------------
If he lives, Cara said, Im going to kill him.
[Alas, she is not serious, and a twist that could have redeemed this book goes unused.]
Kahlan and Richard are wrapped in blankets, both still covered in blood, in the back of a wagon. Nicci reckons she can heal them. Zedd finds the earplugs and wonders what they are for.
Nicci explains, knowing as she does about evil shit, that a Hedge Maids scream is the sound of the Underworld - it is death to all who hear it, even to the Hedge Maid herself. Almost from birth, their mouths are sewn shut.
Cara asks if the husbands just let the mothers do this. Nicci responds that Hedge Maids suck the blood out of their mates post-coitus. Cara seems impressed.
Richard and Kahlan, because of Richards shabby earplugs, still got a bit of Jits death scream. Nicci thinks that she can heal them, now that Jit is dead, but she will need to be in a containment field - the Garden of Life.
Cara asks why this must be so.
They have been touched by death. We need a containment field to shield them while we do what we need to do. We need to heal them, but to do so we must also remove that touch of death that is lodged within them. If we try to do that here, that touch of death will call the Keeper of the dead to them and they will die. So we must wait until we can do it in a containment field, in the Garden of Life.
Oh, Cara said. That makes sense.
[If you insist, but its SO FUCKING BORING.]
Henrik is in the wagon too. He needs a bit of medical attention, but not as urgently as Kahlan and Richard.
Zedd is proud that Richard figured out how to slay Jit. Nicci says that the machine told him how. Zedd asks why it would do that. Nicci dunno, really.
Cara tells everyone to hurry the fuck up.
THE END
--------------------------------------
Body Count: 125 - 2 soldiers, 1 assassin, 7 children, 1 aristocrat, 1 psycho woman, 1 large black dog, 1 Queen, 1 unborn Prince, 1 Jit prisoner, 7 Jit Creatures, 1 bitch Queen, Jit, an estimated 100 demons.
Maimed Count: 8.5 - Jit Creatures hand, Kahlan's hand and head, Ludwig will be a bit sore, Vika brought to brink of death and back, Henrik permanently traumatised and covered in scratches, Kahlan likewise, Richard stupidly cutting his own arm, Richard bitten in the stomach.
Sexy Time Count: 4.5. I don't know what is up with this low count, everybody. I'm as disappointed as anyone.
