The world became not only still but silent for him as the distance seemed to contract. His body was drawn as taut as the bow, the arrow becoming a projection of his fluid focused intent, the mark before the arrow his purpose for being. His conscious intent invoked the instant sum of the calculation needed to connect arrow and target.
The swirling sand seemed to slow as the races, wings spread wide, dragged through the thick air. There was no doubt in Richard's mind what the arrow would find at the end of a journey only just begun. He felt the string hit his wrist. He saw the feathers clear the bow above his fist. The arrow's shaft flexed slightly as it sprang away and took flight.
Richard was already drawing the second arrow from the quiver in Tom's fist as the first found its target. Black feathers exploded in the crimson dawn. The bird tumbled gracelessly through the air and with a hard thud hit the ground not far from the shape floating just above the ground. The bloody white form was free of the talons, but it was too late.
The four remaining races screamed in fury. As the birds pumped their wings, clawing for height, one railed at Richard with a shrill scream.
Richard called the target.
The second arrow was off.
The arrow ripped right into the race's open throat and out the back of the head, cutting off the angry cry. The flightless weight plummeted to the ground.
The form below the remaining three races began to dissolve in the swirling sand.
The three remaining birds, as if abandoning their charge, wheeled around, racing toward Richard with angry intent. He calmly considered them from behind feathers of his own. The third arrow was away. The race in the center lifted its right wing, trying to change direction, but took the arrow through its heart. Rolling wing over wing, it spiraled down through the blowing sand, crashing to the hardpan out ahead of Richard.
The remaining two birds, screeching defiant cries, plunged toward him.
Richard pulled string to cheek, placing the fourth arrow on target. The range was swiftly closing. The arrow was away in an instant. It tore through the body of the black-tipped race still clutching in its talons the bloody corpse of the tiny kid.
Wings raked back, the last angry race dove toward Richard. As soon as Richard snatched an arrow from the quiver an impatient Tom held out, the big D'Haran heaved his knife. Before Richard could nock the arrow, the whirling knife ripped into the raptor. Richard stepped aside as the huge bird shot past in a lifeless drop and slammed into the ground right behind him. As it tumbled, blood sprayed across the windswept rock and black-tipped feathers flew everywhere.
The dawn, only moments ago filled with the the bloodcurdling screams of the black-tipped races, was suddenly quiet but for the low moan of the wind.
Black feathers lifted in that wind, floating out across the open expanse beneath a yellow-orange sky.
At that moment, the sun broke the horizon, throwing long shadows out over the wasteland.
Jennsen clutched one of the limp white twins to her breast. Betty, bleating plaintively, blood running from a gash on her side, stood on her hind legs trying to arouse her still kid in Jennsen's arms. Jennsen bent to the other twin sprawled on the ground and laid her lifeless charge beside it. Betty urgently licked at the bloody carcasses. Jennsen hugged Betty's neck a moment before trying to pull the goat away. Betty dug in her hooves, not wanting to leave her stricken kids. Jennsen could do no more than to offer her friend consoling words choked with tears.
When she stood, unable to turn Betty from her dead offspring, Richard sheltered Jennsen under his arm.
"Why would the races suddenly do that?"
"I don't know," Richard said. "You didn't see anything other than the races, then?"
Jennsen leaned against Richard, holding her face in her hands, giving in briefly to the tears. "I just saw the birds," she said as she used the back of her sleeve to wipe her cheeks.
"What about the shape defined by the blowing sand?" Kahlan asked as she placed a comforting hand on Jennsen's shoulder.
"Shape?" She looked from Kahlan to Richard. "What shape?"
"It looked like a man's shape." Kahlan drew the curves of an outline in the air before her with both hands. "Like the outline of a man wearing a hooded cape."
"I didn't see anything but black-tipped races and the clouds of blowing sand."
"And you didn't see the sand blowing around anything?" Richard asked.
"You didn't see any shape defined by the sand?"
Jennsen shook her head insistently before returning to Betty's side.
"If the shape involved magic," Kahlan said in a confidential tone to Richard, "she wouldn't see that, but why wouldn't she see the sand?"
"To her, the magic wasn't there."
"But the sand was."
