Into Darkness

26

Richard heard people grunting with effort. And then, as a large chunk of stone was rolled aside, his dark hole was suddenly lit by a small shaft of light. It made him squint in the sudden brightness.

“Lord Rahl!” He recognized Vika’s voice, and he could hear the desperation in it. “Lord Rahl!”

“I’m still here.”

“Thank the good spirits,” she murmured.

Richard briefly thought to ask her if the good spirits were up there helping them dig.

“Water,” he called in a weak voice, instead. “Can you get me some water?”

“Water? Yes, we will get some,” Vika said. “We’ve made a tunnel of sorts to get to you. It shouldn’t be long before we have you out. Just hold on, Lord Rahl. We’ll have you out soon.”

“I need water,” he mumbled.

“Rikka is running to get some. Hold on.”

He could hear people grunting as they either lifted stone out of the way if it was small enough to handle, or rolled it back if it was too big and heavy to pick up. Hammers rang out against steel chisels as men tried to break up the larger pieces in their path. Others shouted instructions as they worked. Richard realized that he could hear a surprisingly large number of voices.

The light coming into his cavity in the rubble lit what he thought would be his grave with even more light as the people frantically worked to open the way in to reach him. The shaft of light revealed all the dust swirling around him. Richard wondered if they would be too late. He could feel himself losing the strength to remain conscious. They had told him that he had been there for two days. Stuck in the dusty space under the slab without water, it seemed like forever.

From time to time he heard things above him collapse and large blocks tumble down the hill of debris. It sounded like more walls might occasionally be falling in, or maybe ceilings that had little support might finally have given way—or were starting to give way. He was well aware that if things shifted wrong, or something big enough were to fall, he would be crushed. The thought of that made his chest tighten with the embrace of panic. Every time he heard stone above groan, or fall, he held his breath, waiting for the end.

He constantly had to fight back dread at being trapped under a mountain of rubble, never to get out. To keep his mind from wandering into frightening thoughts, he remembered Kahlan’s face, trying to recall every detail.

Suddenly, a hand touched his shoulder. He jumped right out of his memory.

“Lord Rahl, it’s me,” Vika said.

She was close. Grunting and panting, she had somehow squirmed her way through the little tunnel they had made to his grave.

Richard reached up and put a hand over hers. It was bloody from digging through the rough, jagged stone chunks and rubble.

“I’m here,” she said, groaning with the effort of getting in close enough. He could hear her pulling something up along her body. “I brought you a waterskin.”

He squeezed her hand. “Today, Vika, you are my favorite. Be sure to tell Berdine.”

Vika laughed a little as she pulled her hand back. She pulled the waterskin the rest of the way up along her body and then pushed it through the final part of the opening, which was barely big enough for her arm. Once it was in, she pushed her arm back through and grabbed his hand. He didn’t know if she was reassuring him, or herself, but he held on to the hand as he guzzled water while holding the waterskin with his other.

“Take it easy. Don’t drink it all at once or it will make you sick.”

Richard nodded and pulled it away to get his breath.

“I have to go,” she said. “We need to make this hole big enough to pull you out.”

Richard felt too weak to answer, so he didn’t. Vika huffed as she worked her way back out of the tight hole. As soon as she was back out, the work resumed. He could hear people shouting and groaning with effort as they worked.

Richard took another drink, then had to rest again with the half-empty waterskin on his chest. It moved slowly up and down with his shallow breathing. The pull of the darkness was too great, and it gently took him again.

He was awakened by hands gripping his shirt and pulling on him. He cried out as they tugged, because his legs were trapped and it hurt when they tried to pull him. A wiry man wormed his way in under the slab beside Richard. His head was facing Richard’s feet.

“Hold on, Lord Rahl. Let me see if I can free up your legs so we can pull you out.”

He worked as quickly as he could, pulling the tightly packed rock and rubble out from around Richard’s legs. He found a shallow place to the side where he could push some of it. For some he had to wiggle his way back out, pulling larger chunks along with him. He was soon back to continue the excavation.

After working at it for a time, Richard was finally able to move his legs.

“All right,” the man said, “I think we have you clear. We’ll go easy. Let us know if you are still stuck, but we need to get you out. There’s no telling if the rest of what’s above you might shift and come down all of a sudden.”

“What’s your name?” Richard asked.

The man seemed surprised by the question. “I’m just a nobody, Lord Rahl.”

Richard smiled. “You are not a nobody. Right now, you are a very important somebody to me.”

“I am Toby, Lord Rahl,” he said in a gentle voice.

“Thank you for coming for me, Toby.”

Toby patted Richard’s shoulder as he backed out. “I’d do anything for the man what rid us of that cursed witch. Now you lie still, Lord Rahl, and let us do the work.”

The man squirmed the rest of the way back out of the shaft they had made. Once again thick fingers gripped Richard’s shirt. He felt himself beginning to move, and then they stopped pulling.

“Is everything free now, Lord Rahl?” Toby asked. “Nothing hurting when we pull?”

“I seem to be free. You can go ahead and give it another try. I’ll let you know if I’m having a problem.”

Once he was out a little farther, to the more open part of the little cave, other hands were able to reach in under his arms to help pull. Because they were on their stomachs, it was an awkward angle to pull from. They would pause and then someone would count down and say, “Pull.”

They kept repeating the coordinated tugging. Inch by inch Richard was gradually worked out of his tomb and back through a jagged tunnel of what he judged to be a jumble of unstable debris. At one point, his boot dislodged a rock and the narrow tunnel back where he had been under the slab collapsed with a roar that pushed out a cloud of dust.

That made them pull all the harder and faster. The farther they drew him out, the more hands they could get on him to help. Richard finally emerged to see dirty, grimy faces in torchlight all around him.

Berdine rushed in to give him a quick hug. Legs in red leather were all around him. He saw that it was now night. Some people had torches, while others had lanterns. The sea of faces in the flickering torchlight was an eerie, but welcome sight.

An older woman pushed the Mord-Sith back out of the way and worked herself in through the tight crowd while holding out a lantern in one hand. With bony but strong fingers, she turned his head one way to have a look, then the other.

“He needs help,” she announced back over her shoulder. “Lift him onto that litter and get him across the way and into the healing house so we can tend to him.”

People rushed to do as the old woman said, lifting him by his arms and legs just enough to slide a litter under him. Four big men lifted the litter.

Trying to be as gentle as they could, they carried him down off the sloping rubble pile and into the narrow streets. Richard bounced up and down in the litter as they trotted along, all the while the old woman urging them to hurry. Looking up, Richard could see by the torchlight that they went around corners and down narrow alleyways until they crossed the pass road that divided the town, over to the side where Richard and his group of nine hadn’t been.

They finally went through a doorway into one of the stone buildings and set him down on a raised platform.

The red leather reappeared around him; someone laid a hand on him as if to reassure themselves that he was alive. As they did, Richard’s mind went back into darkness.