Read Online Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind - Free Book Online Page A

down. There could be no doubt: someone was in the front room, sitting in his chair, waiting for him.
    Something caught his eye, making him look to the right. A squirrel sat on a rotting stump watching him. Please, he thought desperately to himself, please don’t start chattering to me to leave your territory. The squirrel watched him for a long moment, then jumped off the stump to a tree, scurried up, and was gone.
    Richard let out his breath, and raised himself back up to look in the window again. The door still stood as it had before. Quickly he reached inside and carefully lifted the pack and leather thong with the tooth off the bedpost, listening wide-eyed all the time for the slightest sound from beyond the door. His knife was on a small table on the other side of the bed. There was no chance of retrieving it. He lifted the pack through the window, being careful not to let it bump against any of the remaining shards of broken glass.
    With his booty in hand, Richard moved quickly but silently back the way hehad come, resisting a strong urge to break into a run. He looked over his shoulder as he went to be sure no one followed. He put his head through the loop of leather and tucked the tooth into his shirt. He never let anyone see the tooth; it was only for the keeper of the secret book to see.
    Kahlan waited where he had left her. When she saw him, she sprang to her feet. He crossed his lips with his finger to let her know to keep silent. Slinging the pack over his left shoulder, he put his other hand gently on her back to move her along. Not wanting to go back the way they had come, he guided her through the woods to where the trail continued above his house. Spiderwebs strung across the trail glistened in the last rays of the setting sun and they both breathed out in relief. This trail was longer and much more arduous, but it led where he was going. To Zedd.
    The old man’s house was too far to reach before dark and the trail was too treacherous to travel at night, but he wanted to put as much distance as he could between them and whomever waited back at his house. While there was light, they would keep moving.
    Coldly, he wondered if whoever was in his house could be the same person who had murdered his father. His house was torn up just like his father’s had been. Could they have been waiting for him as they had waited for his father? Could it be the same person? Richard wished he could have confronted him, or at least seen who it was, but something inside him had strongly warned him to get away.
    He gave himself a mental shake. He was letting his imagination have too free a rein. Of course something inside had warned him of danger, warned him to get away. He had already gotten away with his life when he shouldn’t have once this day. It was foolish to trust in luck once; twice was arrogance of the worst kind. It was best to walk away.
    Still, he wished he could have seen who it was, been sure there was no connection. Why would someone tear his house apart, as his father’s had been torn apart? What if it was the same person? He wanted to know who had killed his father. He burned to know.
    Even though he had not been allowed to see his father’s body at his house, he had wanted to know how he was killed. Chase had told him, very gently, but he had told him. His father’s belly had been cut open and his guts had been spread out all over the floor. How could anyone do that? Why would anyone do that? It made him sick and light-headed to think of it again. Richard swallowed back the lump in his throat.
    “Well?” Her voice jolted him out of his thoughts.
    “What? Well, what?”
    “Well, did you get whatever it was you went to get?”
    “Yes.”
    “So what was it?”
    “What was it? It was my backpack. I had to get my backpack.”
    She turned to face him with both hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. “Richard Cypher, you expect me to believe you risked your life to get your backpack?”
    “Kahlan,