As he killed men and women to one side, half people on the other side thought they had an opening to get to him and take him down. Richard let them come, then spun, cutting two men in half with one swing. Legs without bodies folded and collapsed. Torsos trailing innards and blood hit the ground with heavy thuds. The severed, ashen heads of yet more half people thunked down on the rock, cracking as they hit from their violent, tumbling fall. Empty eyes set in darkly painted rings stared up at nothing from tangles of bloody limbs.
As he screamed in rage while swinging the sword, the chalky figures toppled to the ground around him, headless, armless, lifeless.
He didn’t try to run, to get away. There was no getting away. There was only the killing.
He stood his ground, slaughtering them as they came, until there were so many bodies that he needed to move out from the tangled mass of sprawling carcasses and severed body parts just in order to be able to fight. Gore from those cut in half spilled across the rocky ground. Blood covered everything. Where there had been the pale, ash-covered figures, there were now only bodies covered in a sheen of wet red.
Running recklessly, many of the Shun-tuk slipped on all the blood and gore and fell sprawling across the ground. Richard stabbed downward at forms wriggling through the blood and the dead to get at him.
Those who raced in toward him fell dead and dying around him as fast as they came, adding their numbers to those already piling up around him.
It was not skillful fighting, not a gruesomely elegant dance with death. There was no artful cut and thrust, no graceful evasion and counterstrike.
It was, instead, violent, mad, bloody butchery, nothing more, nothing less.
Not far from him, Cara, with a knife in each hand that she had gotten somewhere, fought with a wild ferocity that was frightening to witness. Richard understood her savage wrath.
He usually saw her fight with her Agiel, but her Agiel would not work because his gift did not work. His gift powered the bond, and without that bond her weapon was dead in her hand, so she had instead found knives. She was no less deadly with knives than an Agiel. If anything, at the moment it looked like she preferred them for the manifest, ripping damage they did, visible evidence of her rage.
Off to the sides behind him, the soldiers of the First File fought with the same kind of grim fury, wanting to avenge the death of their general, a leader they admired and loved. The First File were the elite of D’Haran troops, the deadliest of fighters, and they were more than proving it this day.
By the way they fought, though, Richard could see that they were not fighting to save themselves. This was purely for vengeance. The First File in want of retribution was a sight to behold.
Yet, even as hard as they fought, some of those soldiers were swamped by the flood of howling half people. He saw them go down, covered with dozens of the unholy half dead wildly tearing into them with bared teeth.
Beyond them, beyond the killing field immediately around Richard littered with hundreds of dead and dying Shun-tuk, Zedd and Nicci were unleashing their gift with deadly effectiveness.
Off in the distance, at the outer margin of the raging battle, Richard could hear the roaring wail of wizard’s fire racing though the murky air, lighting the stone spires with an intense yellowish orange radiance before splashing down among the Shun-tuk as they raced out of the rocks. They were incinerated by the hundreds before even having the chance to join the battle. Despite how many of the savages died, more yet poured out to replace them.
Richard heard rock columns crash down on the chalky figures as the great spikes of spires toppled among them, no doubt brought down by Nicci, or Samantha and her mother. The falling stone crushed great numbers of them at a time. Great boulders and whole sections of fractured spires tumbled down and bounced across the ground, collecting helpless Shun-tuk before they were able to get out of the way.
The earth shook with the thunderous explosion of wizard’s fire as well as the boom of rock towers hitting the ground and shattering. Massive rocks hitting the ground and splitting sounded like the crack of lightning.
Yet even the roar of wizard’s fire, the booming crack of exploding rock, the shouts of the soldiers, and the screams of the dying were all only a dim drone somewhere beyond Richard’s immediate attention.
He was focused on the waves of chalky white figures as they raced in to try to get his soul. These were half people who clearly wanted him above all the others. They recognized that it was his blood that had brought back their king. They wanted that blood. They wanted his soul for themselves.
That was just fine with Richard. He was pleased that they were coming for him with such passion, that they wanted at him above all else. It gave him more to kill.
Despite how weary his arms were, and how out of breath he was, Richard never for a moment paused in killing them as they came. He never slowed. If anything, his rage was only building, fed by the unleashed anger from the sword. That anger fed his, powered the blade, made him more deadly, drove his need to kill. He was lost in a world of his own, focused entirely on the task.
Yet somewhere in the back of his mind, Richard knew that he wasn’t going to be able to keep it up. There were just too many continually coming for him. There seemed no way to defeat them all. Their numbers were just too great.
And then, in the failing light, in among the half people, Richard saw the hulking forms of the walking dead finally emerging out of the caves.
CHAPTER
78
The glowing red eyes of the walking dead stood out in the murky, late day light. They were slower than the Shun-tuk—that was why so many of the Shun-tuk had emerged from underground first. Now, the dead were lumbering out of the caves, come to help reap those with souls.
Richard furiously hacked his way through the half people as he crossed the bloody ground to intercept the dark shapes of the animated dead. Their clothes hung in rotting tatters. Their dried flesh was as dark as the dirt-covered clothes they wore, so that they all looked like filth formed into men.
As slimy and grimy as they were, it didn’t matter to Richard. He needed to stop them before they could get to the others. He knew how dangerous these dead driven by occult magic could be. The soldiers would have more than a difficult time handling such a threat. Even the gifted’s powers were no match for the occult magic that had been invested in these monsters.
Richard vaguely perceived a figure in red—Cara—close behind him, going in for the attack with him, guarding his flank from Shun-tuk turning to come after him.
Richard redirected his attack from the Shun-tuk and instead went for the dead. With their glowing red eyes they were easy enough to spot. Even the Shun-tuk kept clear of them now that they had been set with the task of killing.
Richard gritted his teeth as he swung his sword with all his might, hacking apart the dense, dark forms. Arms and legs fell, littering the ground. Legs continued to twitch. Fingers continued to grasp. Heads and parts of heads spun through the air and cracked apart as they bounced off rock walls.
All the while, fire tumbled and rolled across the ground, swamping the severed but still-moving limbs behind Richard as he drove onward through the dead coming at him and the Shun-tuk baring their teeth, hoping for a bite of him. They tasted only steel. The air all around was filled not only with the smoke from all the fire, but the stench of burning flesh. Dust boiled up as stone spires crumbled and fell among the Shun-tuk. The night air was filled with screams of the mortally injured and those trapped under the crushing weight of toppled stone.
Everywhere the mostly naked bodies lay sprawled across the ground. Their chalky white forms only served to display the blood in stark relief. Each slash that laid them open only looked more shocking because of the way their ash-covered bodies made the terrible wounds all the more horrifyingly obvious.
Richard heard his name. It was Zedd, calling out to him.
“Richard,” he called again.
In a rage of blood lust, Richar
d brought the sword up before him, looking for any threat. Even though it still felt like hundreds of the snarling, growling half people were rushing at him, he realized that there were none.
It was only the terrible images of them that he was still seeing flashing through his mind that made him think they might still be coming. But they weren’t.
He blinked. There were no more Shun-tuk charging in at him. They were all down. There were no more of the walking dead. They, too, were all down.
In the stillness of the gathering darkness, Richard could hear the men panting from the effort of the battle. Some with wounds groaned. Some walked among the wounded Shun-tuk on the ground, stabbing any still alive.
All the axes and swords the men carried dripped blood. All of the men were covered in blood and gore. Richard was covered in more Shun-tuk blood than any of them. He was soaked in red.
Richard turned to Cara, a knife in each of her blood-soaked fists. One was a steel-bladed knife, the other stone—a Shun-tuk weapon. She had been using that weapon to put down the dead.
Cara met his gaze. The rage in her eyes was frightening to see.
It broke his heart.
With his sword still gripped in his fist and the anger of the magic still coursing through every fiber of his being, Richard put his arms around her.
Cara’s arms hung at her sides as he embraced her tightly, and then she threw her head back and let out a single, long wail.
He held her close as she buried her face against his chest with a helpless sob. He held her in a comforting shelter for a long moment. He finally let her go and looked into her tear-filled blue eyes.
There were no words as they looked into each other’s eyes. There could be no words.
When Richard finally turned back to Zedd and Nicci standing close, the crushing weight of the world seemed to suddenly descend on him.
He dropped to a knee, abruptly unable to stand. Cara helped hold him on the way down so that he didn’t fall on his face.
Nicci and Zedd were both right there, both helping keep him upright on his knees, letting him sit back on his heels.
Through a torrent of every kind of pain imaginable, the power of the sword still in his fist sustained and supported him. He felt too tired to breathe and had to will himself to draw each breath.
Both Nicci and Zedd pressed their fingers to his forehead. Richard could feel the telltale tingle of the gift probing the poison deep within him.
Nicci looked up sharply at Zedd. “Do you feel it?”
Zedd returned her grim look and gave her a nod. “We need to get to that containment field. There’s not a lot of time.”
“Where’s Kahlan?” Nicci asked as she looked around to see if anyone knew. “Where’s Kahlan? We need to get her back there as well. She will be worse than Richard by now. We have to tend to her as soon as possible. Where is she?”
“We had to leave her back,” Samantha said from back behind Zedd. “I healed some of her injuries and she hadn’t awakened yet. We had to leave her to rest and recover some of her strength. She should be awake by now and waiting for us back in Stroyza.”
“South, through the gates,” Richard managed.
“Then we go there first and get the Mother Confessor,” Cara said with surprising power, courage, and determination as she stood over Richard’s shoulder. “We can’t head back to the palace until we get her.”
“It’s not that far,” Samantha offered. “It’s only a few days if we hurry.”
“After we get her, then we have to get you both back to the palace so we can heal you,” Nicci said to Richard in a confidential, worried tone.
Richard nodded. He forced himself to his feet. “Kahlan is in Stroyza. Like Samantha says, it’s not that far. It’s back near where you all were attacked and captured, after you came to rescue us from the Hedge Maid.”
He looked at all the faces watching him before turning his gaze south. “Let’s get going. There’s still a little light. We leave now.”
Sword still in his hand, not yet ready to put the power of its anger away, Richard started out across the broken ground, walking over the bodies of hundreds and hundreds of fallen Shun-tuk. Cara was half a step behind his right shoulder. The rest of them all silently fell in to follow.
CHAPTER
79
Hannis Arc turned when he caught a glimpse of the tall woman in red leather making her way resolutely through the whitewashed bodies of the Shun-tuk spread across the forested landscape behind them. Descending the slope, the vast army of grim half people seemed to pour through and among the trees like a white avalanche.
His mood darkened when he saw that the Mord-Sith was alone.
He had been wondering where she was and what had been keeping her. Traveling across the desolate land of the third kingdom had been much easier than making their way through the uncharted forests of the Dark Lands. It would not have been so difficult with a small force, but the numbers they were dragging behind them were vast and that slowed the journey. There were so many following behind that it took most of a day for all of them to pass one spot.
The Mord-Sith did not look at all happy. Seeing that she was alone made him more than merely displeased. Vika elbowed aside a silent Shun-tuk woman who didn’t move out of the Mord-Sith’s way. Hannis Arc could hear the bone of her jaw crack before she fell beneath the feet of the horde.
“So where is Richard Rahl?” Hannis Arc asked when she finally caught up to walk beside him. “You had better not have let him die under torture. I want to be the one to kill him.”
The muscles in her jaw flexed as she clenched her teeth for a moment. “Lord Arc, I’m afraid that it looks like he escaped.”
He shared a look with Sulachan.
“What do you mean, it looks like he escaped?” the spirit of Emperor Sulachan asked as he came to a halt. Behind them the progress of the Shun-tuk nation ground to a halt as well.
Vika looked at Sulachan’s ghost briefly; then her steely blue eyes turned to Hannis Arc as she answered.
“It appears that he somehow managed to escape. All the containment chambers were empty. The ground outside the caves was a sea of dead Shun-tuk. It was a slaughter. I have never seen the likes of it. The stench was unimaginable. Buzzards darken the sky. The ground seems to move as their dark bodies hop from place to place to gorge on carcasses. The dead have drawn predators of all sorts—wolves, coyotes, crows, vultures, foxes—everything you can imagine is there picking over the remains. Scavengers have come from far and wide to feast.”
Hannis Arc’s voice rose in a way that her eyes revealed she recognized as dangerous. “Well, what about down in the caves? What about all the prisoners we left?”
Vika swallowed. “Lord Arc, they are all gone. All of them. The soldiers, the gifted, Lord Rahl—all of them are gone.”
His brow drew down in a way that caused her to back a step. “Richard Rahl. He is no longer Lord Rahl. That has been taken from him. I am Lord Arc, leader of the D’Haran Empire, not Richard Rahl.”
She swallowed again. “My mistake, Lord Arc.”
The walking corpse of the spirit king gestured. “Or, you will be, one day.”
Hannis Arc looked over at the glowing form of Sulachan within his long-dead, worldly form. He did not like to be spoken to in such a manner, even by the risen Sulachan.
“Are you suggesting that I might not be? That you and your forces might fail me?”
Sulachan regarded Hannis Arc with an unreadable look before finally smiling. “Of course not, Lord Arc. Not at all. I am only saying that I warned you about Richard Rahl and leaving him alive.”
Hannis Arc’s hands fisted. “I didn’t leave him alive! We put him in a prison sealed off by the underworld itself, with an army of half people guarding him and the rest of his people! Then I sent her to bring me Richard Rahl!”
He swung around and backhanded Vika across the mouth with his fist. “And she failed me!”
Vika stumbled back three steps from the
blow. As soon as she recovered she quickly came forward again and kept her head bowed.
“I’m sorry, Lord Arc. I have failed you. I went to get him, just as you ordered, but he and the others were gone—escaped somehow. The Shun-tuk left behind must have tried to stop them as well, and they, too, failed you both.”
“Why didn’t you look for him?” Hannis Arc demanded. “Why didn’t you go after him, find him, and bring him to me?”
She kept her head bowed. “I tried to find him, Lord Arc, but they were gone. I checked all the caverns, just in case. They were empty except for masses of charred remains. Outside the caves there were so many tracks trampling the ground from”—she gestured behind her—“from all of the Shun-tuk nation leaving that place, that there was no way I could even begin to track Richard Rahl and the small group he has with him. For days I have been searching, but to no avail. I tried, but I have no idea where he went.”
“It would appear,” Sulachan said, “that Richard Rahl has managed to slip from your grasp. As I warned, he is dangerous.”
Hannis Arc gave the spirit a dark look, but didn’t answer.
“I have failed you, Lord Arc,” Vika said. “I deserve and gratefully accept any punishment you decree. My head, if you wish it, Lord Arc.”
He heaved a sigh, thinking. “He was gone when you got back there, then? You didn’t see or speak with any of the Shun-tuk we left behind to feed on the soldiers? You didn’t see this battle? He was already gone?”
She kept her gaze to the ground. “Yes, Lord Arc. As soon as you told me to go get him and bring him to you, I immediately started back. When I got there it was as I described. The only Shun-tuk left there were long since dead. I went down in the caves and found all the prisoners gone. I spent several days, every moment there was light, searching for any sign of where they could have gone, but I could find nothing.”
He considered silently for a moment. The Shun-tuk, stone-faced, watched him. Sulachan watched him. He would like to kill the woman on the spot for failing him. But she had served him well for many years. She had never before failed him.
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