There was more to seeing than just using one's eyes.

While in some ways those times in the woods seemed like only days ago, in other ways it also seemed like forever ago, almost like another life. He was a long way from his Hartland woods. A long way from the peace and security he had known.

A long way from having the woman he loved back in his arms.

As Richard was finishing with Johnrock's paint, he spotted Commander Karg making his way through the ring of guards. After their complicity in the treachery of the night before, the men involved stayed well clear of the scowling officer. There were a few new faces among the guards, no doubt more trusted overseers. Commander Karg was leading an escort of troops, men dedicated to watching over the captive players to make sure that they played Ja'La and nothing more.

Mostly, though, the soldiers were there to watch over Richard. They were his special guards.

Last in line to be freed from his bonds, Richard was finally able to rub his sore neck after Commander Karg finally unlocked his iron collar. Without the heavy chain weighing him down, Richard felt light, almost as if he might float up into the air. It gave him a feeling of being weightless and inhumanly fast. He embraced the sensation, making it part of him.

The chanting of the soldiers in the distance had a primeval feel to it. It was beyond eerie. It gave Richard goose bumps.

The spectators were expecting blood.

This night, they were going to get their wish.

As he followed Commander Karg, leading his team toward the Ja'La field, Richard put the growing noise out of his mind. He found a quiet center of focus.

As they moved through passages in the encampment lined with throngs of soldiers, hands all around reached out, wanting to touch the members of the team as they passed. Some of the men on Richard's team smiled, waved, and touched the extended hands of the soldiers. Johnrock, being the biggest man and easy to spot, was the center of much of the attention. He grinned, waved, shook hands, and soaked it all in as he marched along. It seemed to Richard that what Johnrock had always wanted more than anything else was the adoration of the crowd. He loved pleasing them.

Words of both encouragement and hatred cascaded in from all sides. Richard turned his eyes ahead, ignoring the soldiers and shouting as he passed.

"Are you nervous, Ruben?" Commander Karg asked over his shoulder.

"Yes."

Karg gave him a patronizing smile. "That will go away when it starts."

"I know," Richard said as he glared out from under his brow.

The vast depression of the Ja'La field was a cauldron of noise, the spectators a froth of faces over a churning sea of black.

The crowd out beyond the dense ring of flickering torches at the edge of the field chanted-not words, but a guttural grunt meant to express not only encouragement for the players but for the spectacle itself. In time with the chanting the throng stamped a foot. The deep, primordial noise could be not only heard, but felt in the ground beneath Richard's feet, almost like rolling thunder. The effect was deafening and, in a way, intoxicating.

It was a primal call to violence.

Richard was already lost to those feelings. He let the raw, savage sounds feed those passions he had already unleashed within himself. As he made his way through the seething masses of men, he was in his own private world, lost to inner drives.

Commander Karg brought the team to a halt at one end of the field just before the torches. Richard saw archers, with arrows nocked, stationed all around the field. Near midfield, to his right, he spotted the area reserved for the emperor.

Jagang wasn't there.

Richard's insides tightened with a knot of panic. He had thought that, surely, Jagang would be at this game, that Kahlan would be near.

But the roped-off section was vacant.

Richard schooled his emotions, setting aside his dismay. Jagang would not miss this game. Sooner or later he would show up.

When the emperor's team strode onto the opposite end of the field the crowd erupted in a thunderous roar. These men were the best the Order had to offer. They were heroes to countless thousands of spectators. These were the men who could vanquish all who came before them, the players who crushed all opposition, the champions who were most deserving of victory. Many regarded the team as a tangible representation of their own power and virility.

As Richard and his men waited outside the torches, the other team, looking not merely determined but dangerous, stalked around the perimeter of the field, acknowledging the roar of the crowd with nothing more than bloodthirsty looks. The crowd loved such a visage of hate and menace, of things to come.

When the emperor's team finished circling the field and finally gathered toward the other side of the field to wait for the challengers, the archers and other dedicated guards parted. Commander Karg waved Richard and his team through the gap in the line. As Richard passed, the commander whispered a warning to Richard that he had better win.

Richard stepped out onto the field. His concern for his plan was eased when the resounding cheers for his team were nearly as deafening as they had been for the emperor's team. In the many games they had played since coming to the Imperial Order's encampment, Richard's team had won every game, and in so doing the respect of many. It didn't hurt that Richard was well known for having killed an opposing point man. Probably even more than that, though, was the sight of the team covered with frightening designs in red paint. It was theater that fit the games. Richard was counting on that support.

He was also troubled when he finally got a good look at all of his opponents. They were some of the biggest men Richard had ever seen. They reminded him of Egan and Ulic, the personal guards to the Lord Rahl. It occurred to Richard that he could use Egan and Ulic right about then.

Leaving his men gathered at the end of the field, Richard crossed the empty ground alone to the referee at center field with the fistful of straws. The point man for the emperor's team waiting beside the referee looked to be nearly a foot taller than Richard. His neck started at his ears and just kept getting wider until it met shoulders half again as wide as Richard's.

A neat row of red, swollen marks running diagonally up along the side of his face recorded where the links of the chain had caught him. As Richard waited, the towering point man, glaring at Richard the entire time, drew a straw first.

When Richard drew, he came up with a shorter straw. The onlookers roared their approval that the emperor's team would have the first chance to score. The man shot Richard a smirk before taking the broc and heading to his side of the field.

As Richard returned to his players waiting at their end of the field, his gaze swept over the endless masses of men, fists raised in wild emotion, all wanting the blood of either one side or the other. Men with arrows at the ready watched Richard's solitary walk back to his team. He could feel the fevered emotions of hundreds of thousands of men all pressing in, trying to see what would happen-men who had gotten where they were by trampling over endless corpses of innocent men, women, and children who had only wanted to live their own lives, to better themselves and their families.

Richard felt caught up in a world gone mad.

His gaze passed over the empty space where the emperor was supposed to be. Where Kahlan was supposed to be. Without Kahlan, even a Kahlan who didn't know him, the world was a cold and empty place.

Right then, Richard felt very small and alone.

In a numb haze, he took his place in the line with his men. When the horn blew and the enemy, bunched together in a tight formation, started coming, being down in the bowl of the Ja'La field was like standing in a valley, watching an avalanche descending on him. Right then, in that moment of desolation, Richard didn't know what he would do.