Blood of the Fold by Terry Goodkind Read Free Book Online Page A

dead, I’m not sure exactly who is in charge. The D’Harans, I would guess, which leaves us still at the mercy of the Imperial Order.
    “ With the Mother Confessor and the wizards gone, I fear our fate. I know she had to flee or be murdered, but yet …”
    Her voice trail off, so he finished for her. “Since the Midlands was forged and Aydindril founded to be its heart, none but a Mother Confessor has ruled here.”
    “ You know the history?”
    “ Kahlan told me some of it. She’s heartsick to have had to abandon Aydindril, but I assure you, we will not let the Order have Aydindril any more than we will let them have the Midlands.”
    Mistress Sanderholt looked away in resignation. “What was, is no more. In time, the Order will rewrite the history of this place, and the Midlands will be forgotten.
    “ Richard, I know you are anxious to be off to join her. Find a place to live your lives in peace and freedom. Don’t become bitter at what was lost. When you reach her, tell her that although there were people who cheered at what they thought was her execution, many more were desolate at hearing she was dead. In the weeks since she fled I’ve seen the side she didn’t see. Just as anywhere, there are evil, greedy people here, but there are good people, too, who will always remember her. Though we be subjects of the Imperial Order, now, as long as we live, the memory of the Midlands will live on in our hearts.”
    “ Thank you, Mistress Sanderholt. I know she’ll be heartened to hear that not everyone turned against her and the Midlands. But don’t give up hope. As long as the Midlands lives on in our hearts, there is hope. We will prevail.”
    She smiled, but in the depths of her eyes he could see for the first time into the core of her despair. She didn’t believe him. Life under the Order, brief as it had been, had been brutal enough to extinguish even the spark of hope; that was why she hadn’t bothered to leave Aydindril. Where was there to go?
    Richard retrieved his sword from the snow and wiped its gleaming blade clean on a mriswith’s hide clothes. He drove the sword home into its scabbard.
    They both turned at the sound of nervous whispers to see a crowd of kitchen workers gathered near the top of the steps, staring incredulously at the carnage in the snow, and at Gratch. One man had picked up one of the three-bladed knives, and was turning it over, examining it. Fearing to come down the steps, near Gratch, he insistently motioned for Mistress Sanderholt’s attention. She gestured irritably, urging him to come to her.
    He appeared to be hunched more from a life of hard labor than from age, though his thinning hair was graying. He descended the steps with a rolling gait as if carrying a heavy sack of grain on his rounded shoulders. He bobbed a quick bow of deference to Mistress Sanderholt as his gaze flicked from her, to the bodies, to Gratch, to Richard, and back again to her.
    “ What is it, Hank?”
    “ Trouble, Mistress Sanderholt.”
    “ I’m a little busy, at the moment, with trouble of my own. Can’t all you people pull bread from the ovens without me there?”
    His head bobbed. “Yes, Mistress Sanderholt. But this is trouble about—” He glared at a reeking mriswith carcass lying nearby. “—about these things.”
    Richard straightened. “What about them?”
    Hank glanced to the sword at his hip, and then diverted his eyes. “I think it was …” When he looked up at Gratch, and the gar smiled, the man lost his voice.
    “ Hank, look at me.” Richard waited until he complied. “The gar won’t hurt you. These things are called mriswith. Gratch and I are the ones who killed them. Now tell me about the trouble.”
    He scrubbed the palms of his hands on his wool trousers. “I looked at their knives, at those three blades they have. That appears to be what did it.” His expression darkened. “The news is spreading on a near panic. People have been killed. Thing is, no one saw what