The pillars of creation

In the bleak lamplight, Oba saw that she was wearing the strangest outfit he had ever seen-skintight red leather. Tall and shapely, she wore her long blond hair in a single braid. Something dangled from a thin chain around her right wrist as her hand rested on her hip. Though she was not taller than the men, her commanding presence alone made her seem to tower, like some austere fury come to judge the living in their last hours.

Her scowl was as dark with displeasure as any Oba's mother had ever worn.

But Oba was even more astonished to see her signal with a casual flip of her hand, dismissing the guard who had unlocked the door. If it surprised Oba, it didn't faze the guard. After a last glance around at the men, he pulled the heavy door closed behind himself and locked it. Oba could hear the guard's boots against the stone floor as he departed back down the hall.

The woman's cool scrutiny swept over the men around her, appraising each, dismissing each, until at last her glare descended on Oba. Her piercing stare carefully studied his face.

"Dear spirits. ." she whispered to herself at what she saw in his eyes.

Eyes.

Oba grinned. He knew she recognized that he was telling the truth about his paternity. She could see in his eyes that he was the son of Darken Rahl.

Eyes.

Understanding suddenly clicked into place for him like a knife into its sheath.

And then, bellowing like animals, the men all leaped toward her. Oba expected her to cry out in fright, or scream for help, or at least flinch. Instead, she stood her ground and casually met their attack.

Oba saw some kind of red rod, the one he had seen before hanging near her hand, spin up into her fist. As the first man reached her, she rammed the rod against his chest, pushing him back with a twist of her wrist. He dropped like a hay bale out of the loft-thud, onto the stone floor.

Nearly at the same time, the others pounced from all directions in a fluffy of flailing arms and fists. The woman sidestepped, effortlessly avoiding the trap of meaty arms as it snapped shut. As the men lurched around, hastily trying to renew their attack, she moved with cold grace, meeting each man swiftly and methodically, and with staggering violence.

Without turning, she drove her elbow back into the face of the closest man as he tried to seize her from behind. Oba heard bone crack as his head snapped back, throwing a long string of blood against the wall.

The third man, to the side, was checked by her strange red rod against his neck. He crumpled, holding his throat, crying out in a choking gurgling blubber. Blood frothed at his mouth as he twisted on the floor, reminding Oba of nothing so much as the way the snake in the swamp had wriggled in death. Eluding another lunge, the woman spun away, past and over the man on the floor. As she did so, she hammered the heel of her boot down, smashing his face to finish him.

As she swung around, she delivered three rapid strikes to the neck of the fourth man. His eyes rolled back in his head before he slowly started corkscrewing down. Her leg swept his feet from under him, pitching him face-forward. His forehead smacked the stone floor with a sickening crack.

Her economy of motion, the easy flowing evasion followed by a swift and brutal counterattack, was fascinating to watch.

The last man flew at her with his full weight behind the lunge. She wheeled around, backhanding him across the face so hard that it spun him around like a top. She snatched him by the hair at the back of his head, jerked him from his feet, and with a thrust of that strange red rod into his back, drove him to his knees.

It was crooked-teeth. He shrieked louder than Oba had ever been able to get anyone to shriek. Oba was amazed by her ability to inflict pain. She held crooked-teeth by the hair, on his knees before her, as he screamed in desperate agony, begging for release as he tried without effect to twist away from her. With a knee in his back, along with the red rod, she bent his head back to control him as easily as if he were a child.

And then, as she looked up very deliberately into Oba's eyes, she pressed the red rod against the base of the man's skull. His arms thrashed out in a crazy fashion as his entire body convulsed as violently as if he'd been struck by lightning. He went limp, blood running from his ears. Finished with him, the woman released her fist from his hair and let him pitch forward to the stone floor. It was clear to Oba by the boneless way he fell that he was already dead and didn't feel the heavy impact against the unyielding stone.

It was all over in what seemed like no more than five heartbeats, one for each man killed. Blood everywhere glistened in the light from the lamp. All five men lay sprawled in awkward positions around the room. The woman in red leather wasn't even breathing hard.

She stepped closer. "Sorry to disappoint you, but you won't escape that easily."

Oba grinned. She wanted him.

He reached out and grabbed her left breast.