Wizards First Rule   ::   Goodkind Terry

"Richard!" she whispered angrily. "Your father may have come home just like this. Maybe he went in just like you are about to do, and they were waiting for him."

She was right, of course. He ran his forgers through his hair, thinking. He looked back toward the house. Its back sat hard up against the woods with its door facing the clearing. Since it was the only door, anyone inside would expect him to come running in that way. That's where they would wait, if they were inside.

"All right," he whispered back, "but there's something inside I have to get. I'm not leaving without it. We can sneak around the back, I'll get it, and then we will be away from here."

Richard would have preferred not to take her, but he didn't want to leave her waiting on the trail, alone. They made their way through the woods, through the tangle of brush, skirting the house, giving it a wide berth. When he reached the place where he would have to approach the back of the house, he motioned her to wait. She didn't like the idea, but he would take no argument. If there was anyone in there, he didn't want them getting her as well

Leaving Kahlan under a spruce tree, Richard started cautiously toward the house, following a serpentine route to stay on the areas of soft needles instead of treading on dry leaves. When he finally saw the back bedroom window, he stood frozen, listening. He heard no sound. Carefully, his heart pounding, he took slow crouched steps. There was movement at his feet. A snake wriggled past his foot. fie waited for it to pass.

At the weathered back of his house, he gently put his hand on the bare wooden frame of the window and raised his head high enough to look inside. Most of the glass was broken out, and he could see that his bedroom was a mess. The bedding was slashed open. Prized books were torn apart and their pages strewn about the floor. To the far side of the room the door to the front room was opened partway, but not enough to see beyond. Without a wedge under it, that was the spot the door always swung to on its own.

Slowly, he put his head in the window and looked down at his bed. Below the window was the bottom bedpost, and hanging from it were his pack and the leather thong with the tooth, right where he had left them. He brought his arm up and started to reach through the window.

There was a squeak from the front room, a squeak he knew well. He went cold with fright. It was the squeak his chair made. He had never fixed the squeak because it seemed a part of the chair's personality, and he couldn't bring himself to alter it. Soundlessly, he dropped back down.