Her arms felt like lead from swinging the sword. She knew that she was going to be sore for a couple of days. She reminded herself to be thankful for the sore muscles; it was better to be alive to feel sore than to be dead. She tried not to think of how many times she had come close to dying. She thought of Richard and tried not to think of how close both of them still were to dying.
At the top of the climb, in the lap of surrounding mountains, the land flattened out. A small lake collecting mountain runoff fed the falls and the brook down in the gorge. One of the men scouted out ahead beyond swampy ground thick with reeds and then through the woods beyond the far shore while another two scouted to either side. The center scout ran back from the woods and motioned for them with three sparks from his steel and flint. At seeing the three small flashes of sparks, they all hurried around the small moonlit lake, beyond the expanse of reeds, and into the woods beyond.
After following the man a brief distance across ground covered with a soft bed of pine needles beneath a stand of towering pines, they emerged on the far side, where they were brought to a halt at the brink of a chasm. In the moonlight it looked like a black snake stretching off to the left and right as far in each direction as they could see. Nicci cast a sparkling flame down the deep fissure. The light continued sinking far longer than Kahlan would have expected. Seeing how deep it was, they all took a step back from the edge. It was far too steep and too deep to climb down.
As far as she could see, there was no way over the chasm.
“Looks like we’re going to have to go either left or right,” Zedd offered.
Kahlan scanned the forest on the far side of the chasm. “Not a lot of choice. We’re hemmed by the gorge and this rift. If we could get to the other side, this kind of natural barrier would make it a safer place to get the rest we all need.”
“I left my wings at home,” Zedd grumbled.
Kahlan was at least cheered to hear that his impish nature was returning.
She turned when she heard a commotion coming through the woods. As a group of soldiers approached, getting slaps on the back from other soldiers, Kahlan recognized the men.
It was Sergeant Remkin and the men he had taken to block the rear of the gorge in order to trap the Shun-tuk.
“Remkin! How did you get here?” Commander Fister asked. “I feared we’d lost you. How did you manage to escape the walls falling in?”
“Blocking the rear turned out not to be so simple,” he said as he paused to catch his breath for a moment.
“What do you mean?” Kahlan asked.
“We waited and waited for the Shun-tuk to all get into the gorge so we could close it off. But they just kept coming. We were getting pretty nervous that there would be too many to fit the length of the gorge, and then we wouldn’t be able to trap them. We knew that would ruin the whole plan.
“Then we saw the wizard’s fire far off in the distance ahead. It slowed their advance at times, but rather than turning and running, they kept moving toward it. The whole time more of them coming out of the woods and racing into the gorge.”
“Did they all enter, though?” Kahlan asked. “Did all of them get into the gorge?”
The sergeant nodded. “When we saw the wizard’s fire begin and felt the ground shake, we knew we needed to get behind the tail end of them in case they decided to try to escape. Finally, we were pretty sure that they had all filed into the gorge. We waited a bit, wanting to make sure there wouldn’t be any stragglers to come out of the woods and surprise us from behind. We wanted to close the trap, not get trapped ourselves.
“So when we didn’t see more for a time, we knew that was our chance to finally close the gate on them. Despite the fire and lightning we could see off in the distance up ahead, they were so intent on chasing the rest of you they kept going. That’s when we came down the slopes to cut them off from behind.
“And then … a couple of them appeared, coming back at us. They were smiling.” He looked at each of them to make his point. “Smiling! Then they started doing something to our men.”
“Doing something? What do you mean?” Fister asked.
The sergeant rubbed a shoulder as he stared off again. “I don’t know. It sounds crazy.” He looked back at them. “I saw a man just seem to, to, I don’t know…”
“Melt,” Kahlan said.
His brow lifted in surprise. “Yes. Exactly. The skin started melting right off several of my men. Their bones came apart and they went down in a mess that no longer looked human.”
“Are you saying that there was more than one of these smiling Shun-tuk?” Kahlan asked.
“At least two that I saw. There might have been more, but I saw two for sure. Two was enough. I realized that if we stayed there trying to hold the back door, we were all going to die. I thought our best chance was to get up here and warn you of what kind of powers they had. Help you fight to get away.”
“It’s disheartening to know that the one we saw wasn’t the only one,” Kahlan said. “You did the right thing. There is no way to stand and fight such men.”
“You did,” Commander Fister reminded her. “You went after him. You killed the one we saw.”
Kahlan dismissed the notion with a gesture. “Yes, but I had Richard’s sword. Sergeant Remkin and his men would have been slaughtered for no good reason. They did the right thing. I would imagine that men with such dark talents would have been there as rear guards.”
Sergeant Remkin nodded. “I thought the same thing because after they killed several of our men and we took off, those smiling Shun-tuk rushed back like they were intent on protecting their rear.”
“But how did you get around all the rest of them and catch up with us?” Kahlan asked.
“It wasn’t easy,” he said. “Those I have with me, the ones still alive, are all mountain men. We grew up in this kind of country and we are used to traveling in mountains. We were able to get up on the higher portions of the hillsides, out of sight of those demons with occult powers.
“We knew by the lay of the land that ridges often run parallel to gorges. The higher ones can make good routes through this kind of country. We were lucky and found a ridge we could follow and quickly cover a lot of distance.”
He gestured down into the abyss. “We were following the edge of the ridge and keeping contact with the gorge to make sure we could get to you. From up there we encountered this chasm running in the same direction as some of the ridges, like a rift in the mountains. Far as we could tell, it cuts through a lot of territory. We didn’t follow the lower end to see how far it went back that way because we were trying to stay closer to the gorge. That’s when we saw you climbing up.”
“So then we at least know that this chasm runs back that direction for quite a distance,” Kahlan said, trying to think of what they would do to get around it. “So were you able to see if the Shun-tuk stayed in the gorge? Did any of them try to escape the lower end when you went up onto the ridge?”
“When we were still farther back, we reached the top after the wizard’s fire ended. We hung back to see if they would turn back, but they kept going, howling, intent on getting to you. They probably felt pretty safe with those smiling bastards bringing up the rear. We never saw any of them turn back.
“Then we started to hear explosions. The entire length of the gorge shook as it started exploding apart. At times up on the ridge, with the way the ground was shaking, we couldn’t even maintain our footing and stand up. It was crazy. The cliffs to both sides down the entire gorge all blew apart and collapsed down into the defile and buried the Shun-tuk.”
“Do you think it buried them all?” Kahlan asked.
He shrugged. “Hard telling from up as high as we were on the mountain. As far as I could tell, the explosions and the falling walls extended back well past where I’d seen the tail end of the line of Shun-tuk, so I’m pretty sure that with as fast as it all happened, it caught them all in the gorge and buried them. With as much stone as fell in on them,
surely none of them could have escaped with their lives. After it ended, we didn’t hear them howling anymore. There weren’t even any cries or screams of any left alive and injured. It was dead silent.”
Commander Fister let out a sigh. “That’s good news.”
“Still,” Kahlan said as she gestured at the dark rift before them. “I’d feel better if we could get across this chasm to the other side.”
“So then let’s get across,” Sergeant Remkin said, as if it were only a skip and a hop. It wasn’t. It was discouragingly wide—far too wide by a long shot for any person to jump.
“We don’t have a way to get across,” Kahlan said.
Remkin shrugged. “Easy.”
She frowned at the man. “Easy?”
Zedd leaned a bony shoulder into the conversation. “Nothing is ever easy.”
Sergeant Remkin shrugged again. “Sure it is.” He flicked a hand up at the trees towering over them as they stood near the edge of the chasm. “Just fell a tree and walk over. Then, when we all get across, push the tree down into the chasm. Even if there were any Shun-tuk left, they won’t be able to follow us.”
Kahlan shared a look with Commander Fister. She wondered if he felt as stupid as she did.
“That would work,” Fister said, trying not to sound too surprised by the idea. “Good thinking, Remkin.”
“What about the horse?” Zedd asked. “How are you going to get the horse carrying Richard to walk across a log spanning that chasm? Horses can’t walk on a log. Not so easy, now, is it?”
Sergeant Remkin shrugged again. “All we need to do is fell a second tree right next to it. Then cut down another tree and split it into planks. Lay planks between the two tree trunks to make a kind of roadbed, blindfold the horse, and lead him across.” He shrugged again. “Easy. After we’re done it’s a simple enough matter with all the men we have and a few ropes to send the whole thing crashing down into the gorge.
“I haven’t seen the Shun-tuk with anything more than a knife, so I don’t know that they would be able to fell a tree to follow the same way. They’ll have to go around, and from what I’ve seen on the way up here, it would be a long journey.”
Kahlan shared another look with Commander Fister.
“Unless they can fly,” the sergeant added with a smile.
“Still not easy,” Zedd said. “It’s a lot more work than it sounds like.” He folded his arms. “But a bit of magic would speed the task.”
Sergeant Remkin bowed his head. “It certainly would, sir.”
“Well, you sound like the man to handle it, Sergeant,” the commander said. “Why don’t you take the men you need and get it done as fast as you can. Zedd will help. We need to get across to a safe place to set up camp. It’s already the middle of the night and we need to get what rest we can before morning.”
The sergeant tapped a fist to his heart. “At once, Commander.”
After the man had rushed off to collect his men, Zedd stepped closer. “I’d be a lot happier about the sergeant’s plan if he didn’t look so blasted young.”
Kahlan’s worry returned to Richard as she laid an arm over his back.
“We will be able to help him soon,” Nicci said.
Kahlan nodded. She had been to that dark place where he was now. She knew the effort from the gifted that it was going to take to bring him back to her.
Zedd put a hand on her shoulder. “Nicci is right, Kahlan. We will get him back. I promise.”
Kahlan forced a smile. “Wizards always keep their promises.”
He nodded with an earnest look. “Indeed they do.”
CHAPTER
31
Kahlan found a private spot to lay out a blanket at the far side of the encampment, right up against a small rock outcropping at the edge of the forest. The rock sheltered her from the occasional night breeze. The moon was still out, so at least they didn’t need to worry about building any kind of shelter from rain. It was a rare respite from the foul weather, and it meant they wouldn’t need to build shelters. It was already so late into the night that they would get precious little sleep as it was.
Most of the men had had a quick bite of rations and were already asleep. Watches had been posted, but Kahlan felt unusually safe where they were camped. Once they had crossed the chasm they had sent the bridge to its grave in the darkness below. She felt better with a physical barrier between them and any Shun-tuk who could theoretically still be alive.
She had been there right at the edge of the devastation as stone walls of the gorge had fallen in and nearly found herself right under it. She knew better than any of the rest of them the massive violence of what had taken place.
She found it very hard to believe that anyone under those falling cliffs could have lived through it. Even if they had, that didn’t mean they could ever claw their way out from under all that rock. They were buried under half a mountain and if any were still alive, they would die a slow death of starvation if nothing else. If the rubble dammed up the brook, it would build up the water level and anyone trapped under there would drown.
Of course, Emperor Sulachan and Hannis Arc would eventually send more half people to track their spirits.
Perhaps even more frightening, that was not their worst problem.
Because she felt safe in their camp for the time being, she hadn’t objected too strongly when the commander told her that she wasn’t allowed to stand watch. He told her that she had fought as much as ten men and he wanted her to get some sleep so she would be rested in case he needed her to fight for them again. He said she was too valuable with the sword while Richard was still unconscious and he wanted her to be rested and ready to fight.
She had made a show of objecting, but only a small show. By the smile she caught when he turned to walk away, he knew full well that her objections had only been for show.
In truth, she was dead tired and would make a very poor sentry. She thought she would probably fall asleep standing up.
Although she was dead tired, she was also famished. The protracted fighting, from their original encampment and then all the way up the gorge, had taken a lot of energy and she needed to have something before she lay down and went to sleep. It was too late to cook, so everyone had to be satisfied with traveling rations. Zedd had been eating one thing or another since they had found the campsite and finally stopped. He seemed perfectly content with the available fare.
The bridge building had been surprisingly quick. The men with axes had the arms to swing them and they felled the trees in no time. They were experienced at woodcutting and laid the two main trees down right across the chasm, tight beside each other. Zedd helped with the task. Or at least he said he did. She thought the men knew what they were doing.
While some of the men crossed over to scout, others walked along the logs using their axes to clean off any branches that would be in the way. Another two trees were felled along the edge of the chasm, cut into lengths, and then split into planks to lay a roadbed for the horse. It also made crossing safer for all the rest of them as well, rather than balancing on a log over an abyss in the middle of the night.
The horse hadn’t been especially eager, but with the blindfold and Zedd trickling calming magic into the animal as he murmured soft words of comfort to it, the crossing had been both swift and uneventful.
For the first time in quite a while, Kahlan felt safe.
Richard had been laid out comfortably. Kahlan would have slept next to him, but Zedd and Nicci wanted to snatch a bit of sleep lying to either side of him until they were rested enough to be able to work on him. Kahlan didn’t want to interfere with them doing as they must.
In the moonlight, she looked over at Richard not far away. Zedd was sitting up beside his grandson, munching on a length of sausage. Nicci lay beside Richard, already fast asleep, an arm draped over his chest, comforted by his slow breathing and knowing that he was still alive.
Not far beyond, Samantha was dead asleep beside her mother. Ire
na had her knees pulled up, her arms hugging them, as she watched over the camp. Occasionally she took a few bites of dried biscuit to suck on. It had been so late that Kahlan had not had time to discuss with Irena the astonishing things her daughter had done. Irena had seemed strangely incurious about it. Kahlan figured that maybe she feared to know. Some people liked things to go on unchanged and for their children to remain perpetually children.
Kahlan suspected that might be at least part of the reason for Samantha’s apparent lack of training as a sorceress. Richard had said that Samantha seemed to have received less instruction in her ability than he had heard was normal with sorceresses.
Some people, like Richard, never received any training about their gift. In Richard’s case, he had never been told that he was born gifted, in order to protect and hide him from those bent on destroying him. Kahlan, on the other hand, had been instructed, trained, and disciplined in everything surrounding her powers from as early as she could remember so that she could protect herself from those bent on destroying her. Though completely opposite experiences, they both seemed the right choices for them. After all, Zedd had his reasons for hiding and protecting Richard from any knowledge of his ability, while Kahlan’s mother had hers for insisting on rigorous education.
Samantha also seemed to know very little of the lonely mission of her people, especially the gifted, in the remote village of Stroyza. Perhaps over the millennia her people had lost touch with that mission and the purpose of the barrier.
Once Richard was awake, they were going to have to question Irena to find out if there was anything she knew that could help them. What had been locked away behind that barrier for thousands of years was now again loose in the world and they had precious little knowledge of how to stop it before it was too late.
Kahlan scanned the camp and saw that the men were settled and quiet. She was so relieved that so few of their men had been lost, and that they had escaped, that she felt like breaking down in tears. But she didn’t.
Severed Souls Page 17