Severed Souls (31 page)

“So, since half people are still harmed by things like swords, or even hitting them with a rock, I told her about making trees explode. I told her that she needed to focus her power inside tree trunks to make them explode to try to help stop the half people who were after us.

“She was afraid. She had never done anything like that before. But she couldn't do it, so at that point all we could do was run.

“Then they managed to get around us and trap us. There were so many half people we couldn't fight them off and we were trapped. We both thought we were going to die. I pushed her into a crevice in the rock and then I squeezed in after her.

“In that moment, hiding down in that dark, narrow crack in the rock, just before they pulled us out and we were eaten, she said that she thought about everything that they were taking away from us, all the friends and loved ones these half people were going to kill, how they killed her father and how they would kill her mother, and she got so angry thinking about it that her ability suddenly broke through that mental block and she started blowing the trees apart in order to stop them.

“But it was nothing like I ever saw the gifted do in the war. It's hard to describe. I mean, this was on a scale you can't imagine.”

“Oh I think I can,” Nicci said with an even look.

“She blew the forest apart,” Richard said. “I don't mean she blew some of the trees apart, or even a bunch of trees. I mean she completely leveled everything in sight all around us. Everything. That storm of shattered splinters blasting out in every direction shredded every last one of the half people—thousands of them. Nothing was left standing other than a few splintered stumps.”

“Thousands,” Zedd repeated.

Richard nodded to his grandfather. “That's right. I've never seen anything like it.

“So, that's what I taught her—that she had to superheat the sap in a tree to make it blow apart.”

Nicci looked skeptical. “And that's all you told her?”

His mouth twisted as he remembered the rest of it. “I guess that I also told her that getting angry was how I was able to power my gift. I told her that focusing that anger was both an effective way to fight and to use magic.”

He looked around at the three faces watching him. “Why, what did she do this time?”

“She stood there all by herself,” Kahlan said, “and brought the cliff walls to the sides of the gorge down on the Shun-tuk. They were trapped in the bottom of the narrow pass. For a time, it looked like the whole mountain was coming down.”

“Really?” Richard looked around at the grim faces. “You mean she actually brought the cliffs down? But the soldiers were going to handle it.” He frowned at Kahlan. “What happened?”

Kahlan sighed. “Zedd and Nicci used magic to eliminate all the ones they could. They killed a great many. But there were many more that were not touched by regular magic. The soldiers needed to take care of the rest of them.

“That battle was going well, and, despite their numbers, your plan was working—it was ruthlessly effective, as a matter of fact. We had them trapped and we were cutting them down.

“But then some of the Shun-tuk with occult powers appeared and started to melt our men.”

Richard leaned forward. “Melt them? What do you mean, melt them?”

Kahlan lifted a hand in an uncomfortable gesture at the memory. “It was horrifying. The Shun-tuk used some kind of occult sorcery. In an instant the flesh on the men standing to either side of me seemed to boil as it melted right off them. At the same time their bones came apart. They were killed in a heartbeat. I knew that there was no way we could stop such half people. We had no defense against such occult sorcery.”

“The sword could stop them,” Richard said.

“I know,” Kahlan said. “I killed that one before he could kill any more of us. But I didn't know how many more there were like him. One more? A hundred? A thousand? Later, the sergeant sent to close off the rear reported the same thing.

“The Shun-tuk didn't care how many casualties they were taking. Once they had that bloodlust driving them, they kept coming no matter what, and those with that occult power were going to kill all our men to get at you and me.

“I had to make a split-second decision before we lost everything. I did the only thing I could do. I ordered a retreat. I turned the men back and we ran for our lives. The Shun-tuk were coming after us. We knew that we stood no chance against those Shun-tuk sorcerers.”

“So what happened?” Richard asked.

“Your little student happened,” Nicci said. “She stood there all by herself in the middle of the gorge with her eyes closed and blew the towering cliffs to either side of the defile completely apart. It looked like the end of the world. It seemed like the entire mountain caved in on the Shun-tuk. It buried the lot of them.” Nicci leaned back. “Now I know how she did it.”

Zedd's bushy brow drew down. “You think she did with rock what you do with trees?”

“She used what Richard taught her,” Nicci told him. “She basically did the same thing as blowing apart a tree. The principle is the same. She concentrated heat into the water seeping through all the cracks in the rock. As wet as it is, the rock is soaked through. With nowhere for the superheated water to escape, much like in the trunk of a tree, the force of it as it was turned to steam blew the rock apart. Actually, since rock is so much harder than wood, it creates a more powerful explosion.”

“Can you do such a thing?” Kahlan asked.

Nicci looked at her a long moment. “Maybe, on a small scale. But I couldn't do what she did, I know that much. I can't even imagine how much ability that girl has.”

“She said that her mother taught her how to heat a rock to keep warm at night,” Richard said. “She must have used the same technique, but on a larger scale. She's quite talented.”

Nicci shot him an angry glare. “She has a dangerous temper.”

He shrugged. “Sure, if you're one of the half people her temper is pretty dangerous. But she would never hurt us. She only wants to help.”

“That kind of temper—”

“That temper saved all of our lives,” Richard said. “She also saved my life along with hers that day in the woods. She also helped me get into the third kingdom, find all of you, and then I was able get all of you out of there. If not for that temper of hers, we'd all be dead.”

“I suppose.” Nicci folded her arms. “We don't know nearly enough about her, though, or about her mother. We haven't been together long enough for you to tell me much about what you learned or what happened in the third kingdom, and we've been almost continually on the run so I haven't been able to ask any questions of Irena. I want to know what Samantha and her mother are capable of, what kind of abilities they have.”

“As far as I know,” Richard said, “they're sorceresses.”

“There are sorceresses, and then there are sorceresses.”

Richard nodded. “I guess I have a few questions of my own.”

“There is still a lot about their village of Stroyza, and their purpose there, that I'd like to know about,” Zedd put in. “I would like to have some of the gaps filled in and get some details about them and the people where they live.”

“Richard, I brought you some stew!” Irena called out as she rushed toward them, holding it out in both hands.

“Now's your chance,” Richard said.

 

CHAPTER

43

“You need to eat,” Irena said as she leaned in with a tin bowl filled to the brim with stew. “It's good—lots of wild boar meat. It will help you to get your strength back.” She lifted it out toward him again. “Go on, eat.”

Richard thanked her as he took the bowl. He was starving.

He held out a hand. “Sit with us, Irena. We'd like to know more about you and your home of Stroyza. We wonder what you can tell us about the north wall, as your village called it.”

Her face, an older version of Samantha's, brightened at the invitation. As she was sitting, soldiers brought bowls of stew for everyone else. Kahlan smiled up at the soldier who handed her a bowl. Nicci took one but set it down on the ground beside her. Zedd started eating as soon as he had a bowl in his hands.

Richard was famished, so he had to take a bite, first.

“Mmm. Commander Fister, you make a great stew.”

He smiled, happy that the Lord Rahl liked it.

“That's what I told him,” Irena said. “I told him you would like it.”

Now that the soldiers had brought over more, she and Samantha each had a bowl as well. Their likeness was uncanny. Sitting there beside each other on a small blanket, both skinny, both with the same thick thatch of frizzy black hair, dark eyes, and narrow faces, they looked like an older and younger version of the same person.

The immature femininity of Samantha's smooth features gave her a sweet look. Those same features had hardened on Irena's face into a calculating countenance. Richard could see that behind Irena's smile and dark eyes was a woman who had led a hard life. Where Samantha still possessed the treasure of youthful optimism, Irena had traded that optimism for pragmatism, and it looked like it had been an eager trade.

After swallowing another bite, Richard gestured with his spoon toward Irena. “Tell me about Stroyza. I'd like to hear what you know about the third kingdom and the evil hidden behind that barrier. Tell me what you know of it.”

Irena shrugged. “We were given an ancient duty, passed down from one generation to the next, to watch over that barrier. Samantha told me that she showed you the viewing port, where we watched the north wall, as we called it. Our duty was to check that the gates still held.”

When she fell silent and went back to eating stew, Richard asked something more specific. “Have there always been gifted living at Stroyza?”

“Yes,” she said after swallowing a mouthful. “My husband had an older sister, Clarice. She was the sorceress who led the rest of us gifted in Stroyza, and the rest of the village, for that matter. She had been the matriarch for, my, I can't even remember how many years. Since well before Samantha was born. She was a hard woman, with an iron will, but fair.”

“And I take it she passed away?” Zedd asked.

“Yes, a little over a year and a half ago. The men who found her dead in the woods said that she was just sitting there, leaned up against a tree, looking like she had taken a nap and in the middle of it never woke back up.”

“Then my mother took her place,” Samantha said with obvious pride.

“So, there were no other gifted in Stroyza?” Zedd asked.

“Yes, I have—had—two sisters, both gifted, as were their husbands, although to a lesser extent. I never actually took Clarice's place, though. Stroyza is a small village. It wasn't like it needed a queen to rule over it.”

“So this Clarice thought of herself as the queen of the people of Stroyza?” Zedd asked.

Irena shrugged one shoulder. “At times. After her death, the six of us discussed matters when there was need. We didn't include Samantha in those discussions because she is still too young.” She thought better of it and smiled over at her daughter. “Well, she was too young. No longer, it seems. She is growing into a fine sorceress.”

Zedd reached out, patted Samantha's knee, and gave her a wink. “Yes she is.” Samantha beamed.

“So the six of you discussed things, like when you started hearing rumors about the Hedge Maid?” Richard asked, having heard all this before, when Samantha had originally told him. He wanted to hear Irena's version, though.

“That's right. Millicent's husband felt he had a gift of prophecy, and he had long warned of wicked forces loose in the Dark Lands. He considered the rumors to be proof of his ability, but I thought otherwise.”

“What do you mean, you thought otherwise?” Zedd asked, looking up from shoveling stew into his mouth.

Irena again shrugged the one shoulder. “The Dark Lands are a vast and dangerous place. In such a place there are always dark forces at work, always evil about. To state the obvious, that they will cause trouble, hardly seems prophecy to me.”

“And you believe that's because the evil behind the barrier has long been leaking out,” Richard said.

She blinked at him. “That's right. How did you know that?”

“It has been my experience,” he said, glancing at his grandfather out of the corner of his eye, “that barriers holding back evil do not fail all at once. Over time, they begin to degrade so that small bits of what is beyond can begin to slip through that barrier. It tends to go unnoticed because the barrier still stands and people have long since forgotten what to look for. They get complacent. As time passes, what slips through grows stronger, until there are precursor events.”

Samantha waggled a finger at him. “I bet you're right. I never thought of that, but I bet that's the reason for some in the Dark Lands to have strange powers.”

“Like the cunning folk?” Richard asked before taking a spoonful of stew.

“That's right,” Irena said, giving him a funny look, as if wondering what else he might already know. “The occult powers locked away behind the barrier thousands of years ago were incredibly powerful. After all, some of those half people have occult powers that can bring the dead back to life again.”

“Well, make them move about, anyway,” Richard said. “Those powers can animate them and so they can be sent to attack people, but I don't think they are actually alive.”

“We read that in the writing on the walls in the tunnels back in Stroyza,” Samantha told her mother. “The tunnel outside the viewing port.”

Irena frowned at her daughter. “What in the world are you talking about? What writing? What do you mean you read about it in the writing on the walls?”

“All those designs carved into the walls are writing.”