The Third Kingdom (34 page)

The next morning dawned cool and humid but at least the drizzle had stopped. That didn’t mean a lot, though, because both the humidity and the previous night’s drizzle and fog had
left everything inside their shelter damp or dripping. Droplets of water dotted his cloak and ran off it in little rivulets when he took it off them and gave it a brief shake.

It was even more uncomfortable when they emerged from the warmth of the little shelter. It was a disagreeable feeling to see that it was another gloomy day. Richard was getting sick and tired of the endless dark days under a constant, heavy overcast. He wished for a sunny day that would dry everything out. He was beginning to see why it was called the Dark Lands. It was a dark and depressing wilderness.

They had a quick meal of sausages and travel biscuits along with a few slices of dried apples. After packing up, they were quickly on their way. Before long, they came upon a small brook that made travel through the dense undergrowth a great deal easier. As they walked, Richard checked the burbling, clear water for any sign of fish, but he didn’t see any.

After an hour of walking along the rocky bank of the brook, he decided to scout to make sure that they weren’t too close to the half people’s haphazard trail. Richard had Samantha crouch down between a rock and several small spruce trees where she was well hidden and could wait while he went off to scout. The trail the half people had made meandered aimlessly at times, so he wanted to make certain that they were still distant enough from it that they would be safe.

The trail turned out to be a goodly distance. Richard checked but didn’t see any sign that there had been anyone on the trail overnight. Happy after he saw that they weren’t too close to it, they were able to move on, using the brook as a path through the woods.

Mostly cedars grew along the sides of the brook, with a luscious carpet of moss covering the banks in places. The brook created a bit of an opening through the forest, so they were able to make better time. The moss growing in thick beds made for soft walking, but what Richard liked most about it
was that it made their progress almost silent, while the running water of the brook also helped cover any sound they might make. Silence was safety because even if there were half people about, if they couldn’t hear Richard and Samantha passing nearby then they wouldn’t come after them.

Rounding a turn where the brook went around a rock outcropping, they came suddenly on a man kneeling beside the brook, scooping up water in his hands for a drink. He hadn’t heard them walking upstream on the mossy banks. He looked up from his cupped hands, water leaking through his fingers, surprised to see Richard and Samantha as they came around the rock. He was dressed better than the half people that Samantha had killed, and had a huskier build, like the men who had attacked Richard at the wagon.

Richard wasn’t as surprised as the man, because this possibility had always been in the back of his mind. Richard knew that with the new trail so well used by the half people, it was possible that some of them might wander off that trail, so he had been on the lookout. Still, it was an unpleasant jolt to suddenly come upon someone after having the woods all to themselves for so long.

The man, at first frozen in surprise, quickly recovered from his shock. His eyes immediately filled with the kind of savage hunger any predator had at seeing prey unexpectedly appear within reach.

The man sprang up in a full charge. He bared his teeth with a growl as he lunged at Richard. As he raced in, the man reached out to tackle his prey.

Richard had been ready and, rather than meeting the threat directly, dodged to the side at the last possible instant. Richard threw an arm around the man’s neck as he fell past and put a choke hold on him to keep him from crying out for help.

The man struggled, reaching back to claw at Richard, trying to get to his face, to gouge out his eyes. The man’s teeth
were bared, but he couldn’t get a bite of flesh. Richard lifted the brawny man while putting pressure on the sides of his neck to cut off the blood supply.

The man’s struggles slackened as he quickly grew weak.

“Who are you?” Richard asked.

The man only growled, even as he did his best to keep his eyes open.

“How far to the north wall?” Richard asked.

Drool ran from the corners of the man’s mouth as he gasped for breath, as he fought to remain conscious and at the same time fight back.

“How far,” Richard asked again through gritted teeth.

“A day away, maybe.”

“And the Shun-tuk? How far to their land once beyond the north wall?”

When the man didn’t answer, Richard increased the pressure. The man’s eyes bulged. His tongue bulged from his mouth as his face turned red.

“How far is the kingdom of the Shun-tuk?” Richard asked again in a dangerously calm voice.

“Don’t know … never been that far. I’m not that stupid.”

“How far?”

“Days. A few days more. But they will catch you, eat your flesh, and drink your blood. They will have your soul.”

“You can’t gain someone’s soul by drinking their blood or by eating them. There is no way to get someone else’s soul. It’s not possible.”

The man struggled even harder, trying with renewed fury to reach back and get hold of something. He couldn’t. Richard wasn’t taking any chances and twisted harder to make his point.

“Lie!” the man gasped, red-faced from lack of air. “You want to keep it for yourself. All of you with souls are greedy. You soil the world with your nature. We will have your souls. We deserve them. We will have all of your souls!”

Samantha stepped up before the man’s face, regarding him calmly. “How do you figure you deserve our souls? What gives you the right?”

Richard had him tightly by the neck, but the man’s glare turned up to Samantha. He gave her an evil, lustful grin.

“We will eat your warm flesh and drink your warm blood and have your souls. We will rule the world of life.”

Richard twisted until the man cried out. “Are you with anyone else?”

“No!”

“Good,” Richard said under his breath as he snapped the man’s neck.

As Richard let the dead weight slip to the ground, he gestured to Samantha. “Let’s get going. Better that we are away from here in case others of his kind find him.”

Richard was exhausted after a day of difficult travel over rough terrain. The farther north they went, the more uneven the ground became, and the darker and gloomier. At times the clouds were so low that the tops of the trees vanished in the gray overcast.

It was tiring to climb up steep, rocky rises only to have to descend the far side, and then do it all over again when the next steep ascent appeared through the trees. It was made worse in places by stretches of brush so dense that it was tiring to get through it and it bogged down their progress. In other places they encountered underbrush with tangled layers of thorny vines that were impassable and had to be skirted.

Richard hadn’t slept well the night before, after talking with the soulless man they found drinking at the brook who wanted to eat them alive. Richard wished he could have killed the man twice.

Samantha looked tired as well. She had been uncharacteristically quiet the night before and then all day as they trudged through the trackless forests of the Dark Lands. When Richard had asked if she was all right, she’d said that it had unnerved her to hear such an evil man say such terrible things—to have
him look her in the eye and tell her that he wanted to eat her warm flesh, drink her blood, and take her soul.

Richard knew that what probably unnerved her the most was knowing that others with the same sentiment had murdered her father and were likely holding her mother captive.

At least, he hoped they were still holding her mother captive, and that they hadn’t harmed her. Richard hoped that Zedd and Nicci and Cara and Benjamin and the rest of the soldiers were all still alive as well, and that they hadn’t been slaughtered. He knew what a dim hope that really was, though. It had to be terrifying to be in the hands of such merciless cannibals. He couldn’t help being constantly haunted by fear for their safety. That fear kept him pushing forward as swiftly as he could.

Besides wanting to rescue his friends—to save the lives of those people he loved and cared about—he always had in the back of his mind that the only way to save Kahlan’s life as well was to get her back to the containment field at the People’s Palace along with Zedd and Nicci so that they could remove the Hedge Maid’s touch of death.

Richard glanced around when he noticed that the woods were growing darker all the time. It was still only late in the afternoon, not yet late enough for it to be getting dark. He looked up from time to time but the dense forest canopy was closed in so tightly overhead that he couldn’t see any sky, so he couldn’t tell how cloudy it was. He felt warm even though there was still a cold mist.

Moving along a narrow, marshy low area, Richard went to a knee. Overwhelmed with how weary he felt, how exhausted, he couldn’t seem to take another step. He had to stop, had to pause to rest a moment.

“Lord Rahl, what is it?” Samantha asked as she rushed to his side. “What’s wrong?”

Richard pulled a deep breath as his head hung. “I’m just so tired, that’s all.” He dismissed it with a gesture. “It’s nothing. It’s just that it’s been hard traveling and I didn’t sleep well.… ”

Samantha laid her small hand against his forehead. “You have a fever.”

He wasn’t at all surprised. “Feels like it.”

She pushed against the front of his shoulder with one hand while gesturing with the other. “Here, sit back on that rock for a minute.”

Richard looked around behind and then sat back on the leaf-covered rock she was pointing to. Samantha stood in front of him, her face almost even with his. She pressed her fingertips to his temples. He could feel the slight but familiar tingle of magic.

She finally pulled her hands back. “It’s the darkness in you,” she told him in a quiet voice. “The touch of death. It’s what the Mother Confessor has in her, too. It’s the same dark evil that is trying to claim you both. It’s getting worse, as I told you would happen.”

“You did,” Richard said as he nodded. “Is there anything you can do?”

She was a long moment in answering. “I’m sorry, Lord Rahl. I’ve already healed you all I can. I wish I knew more about healing. I wish I knew of some trick or something to help, but I don’t. It will take your grandfather now if you and the Mother Confessor are to be truly helped.”

“What if you try to use the gift to strengthen me, rather than healing me?”

She thought it over and then put her fingertips to his temples. He again felt the warm tingle of her gift. He could hear birds in the distance, and feel a soft breath of damp air on his face. Inside him, he could feel the warm glow of magic. He felt the familiar suspension of time in the grip of that magic.

She removed her hands. “Did it help?”

Richard stood and rolled his shoulders, trying to sense if he felt stronger. At least he was able to stand.

“I think it helped. I do feel a little stronger. Thank you.”

“I wish it was more, Lord Rahl, but I’m afraid that it isn’t the real solution you need, just a temporary boost. Rest would help more until you can be healed properly.”

He nodded and managed a small smile to reassure her. “I think I can walk, now. Let’s get going. Getting more rest will have to wait.”

Richard forced himself to move despite how much he wanted to slow down or stop to rest. He knew, somewhere deep down inside, that if he gave up and lay down, he would die, much the way people caught in winter storms would get tired, lie down, and go to sleep, and never to rise again.

When he died, he told himself, he would have all eternity to rest. If he wanted to live, if he wanted others to live, it was going to take effort.

As they came to the top of each new rise he wished that he could see through the dense green leaves, pine boughs, and dark shadows among the endless tree trunks to what lay beyond. He wished he could get to a vantage point so he could see how much farther, but there was no such vantage point in the endless, dark, forbidding forest.

As he walked, he glanced up at a tree, thinking that if he climbed up high, he might possibly get a view of what was ahead. But he didn’t have the energy to spare, much less the time, to go climbing trees. He supposed that he knew where he was going, and he knew that they were going in the right direction, so he simply needed to put one foot in front of another and they would eventually get there. Looking out from a high vantage point wouldn’t get them there any faster.

As the day wore on, he realized it was getting a little brighter.
At first he thought the overcast might be breaking up, but then, coming over a rise, through an opening in the thick layers of limbs, he finally saw a patch of light.

He trotted toward a narrow opening in the trees and in the misty distance was rewarded with his first glimpse of the barrier. He had been impatient to get to it for days, and now, suddenly seeing it, he was stunned. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared. Samantha stood beside him, staring as well.

Richard and Samantha stood with their backs to the dark woods, staring out into the gray light of a heavily overcast day at the enormity of the structure standing before them.

There was no way to see the ancient power invested in this wall to make it a barrier keeping evil contained. But what he could see—the wall itself—was a physical barrier of staggering proportions. It had looked big when he had seen it through the viewing port back at Stroyza, but seeing it up closer, seeing the sheer size of it, was bone-chilling.

Despite the strength and size of the physical barrier itself, and the power of spells cast by wizards with abilities Richard couldn’t entirely imagine, whatever was on the other side had still managed to escape.

From where they stood in a small clearing among a bed of cinnamon ferns and scraggly holly oak that gave them a broken view off through the pines standing guard at the edge of the forest, Richard could see that they were still some distance off to the side of where the opening would be, which was what he had wanted so as not to encounter any half people coming south through those gates from the third kingdom beyond.
He wanted to remain hidden to give him an opportunity to survey the area.