The Third Kingdom

  Richard nodded as he pressed onward. The trees around them were becoming larger and farther apart, while at the same time the forest floor began to thin out of underbrush that couldn’t grow in the deep shade. The Dark Lands seemed to have precious little sunlight in the first place, but on the hushed floor in under the massive pines it was darker yet.

  Although that made it easier to run, the problem was that as the forest became more open, they could more easily be spotted.

  Richard spotted them first, though. He saw ten or twelve of the half people in tattered clothes racing through the woods, dodging trees and jumping rocks and rotting logs as they steadily angled in to intercept Richard and Samantha. The deeper into the woods they went, the more open the forest down below became. The immense pines had no boughs down low. The huge trunks stood in sprawling beds of fern, beside streams, and among exposed rock ledges. The more ground that Richard and Samantha covered, the rockier the ground became and the broader the girth of the trees grew.

  To make progress, Richard had to start climbing over the occasional layer of rocks and lines of ridges thrusting up through the leaf litter of the forest floor. The problem was that while he was slowed by the lay of the land, the half people, still some distance off on flatter ground, were able to run faster and close some of the distance.

  More than that, though, they ran headlong, utterly careless as they ran, driven by the mad need to devour a soul. Richard saw one man hit a tree square, rebound, and go down. Another tripped jumping over a log. He didn’t rise out of the brush. Another caught a limb across the throat. His feet went flying out and he went down on his back onto rock with a heavy thud. The odd person running would occasionally catch a foot in a hole or under a downed limb and snap their leg.

  But for every one who went down, it seemed like a dozen more showed up to join in the chase.

  Richard frantically tried to think of a way to slow them, or to gain enough distance that he and Samantha could disappear into the trackless forest. He couldn’t come up with a way to slow so many people. The trick with the wind that Samantha had used to such great effect in the open field would not work in the forest. It might be inconvenient and distracting, but it wouldn’t stop their pursuers.

  Richard had a sudden idea. He looked over at Samantha running beside him. Having to take two or three steps for every one if his strides, her feet seemed to fly over the ground, sometimes not even touching as he occasionally pulled her over an obstacle as they raced through the woods.

  “That thing you did with heat, to dry the dirt and make dust, how did you do that?”

  “Just gathered heat out of the air,” she said, sounding a bit perplexed by the question. “It was pretty simple.”

  “Did your mother teach you to gather heat like that? Did she teach you how to make things hot?”

  Samantha made a face. “I don’t know. A little, I guess. She taught me a lot of things growing up. Not necessarily a lesson, just little things, like pulling heat out of the air and putting it someplace.”

  “Did she teach you how to heat rocks to keep you warm on cold nights?”

  Samantha smiled even as she ran, still trying to catch her breath. “Yes. When I was little, she would do that and put the warm rocks in my bed. Then later she showed me how so that someday I could do the same thing for my little ones.”

  “So you know how to put that heat you gather from the air into things? You can focus it.”

  She nodded when he looked back at her, perplexed by what he was getting at.

  Richard dove behind a long ledge, pulling her over it with him. He caught her around the waist and pulled her down behind the far side of the rock. He squatted down, turning her face toward him to make sure that he had her attention.

  “Did she ever teach you how to make trees explode?”

  Samantha’s brow lifted in surprise. “Make trees explode? Are you serious?”

  “Yes, I’ve seen it done. Especially in war. Wizards and even sorceresses would focus the heat they gather, kind of like you gathered it to dry the dirt. Only they would then focus that heat into a spot inside the trunks of trees, kind of like you do inside rocks to warm them. When they focused enough heat, and it was intense enough, it would make the sap in the tree trunk instantly boil and vaporize. They would do it so quickly, so suddenly, that as the sap vaporized it would make the tree trunk explode.”

  Her jaw was hanging open. “Really?”

  “Really. The flying splinters and pieces of wood could cut down anyone nearby. It would shred them to pieces. It could stop a line of troops, bring a headlong assault to an abrupt halt.”

  “But, I don’t know how to do such a thing.”

  Richard peered out over the rock ledge and then leaned back down close to her. “You need to learn fast. It may be the only thing that can save us.” Richard carefully lifted his head and pointed off into the distance. “There, see that handful of men over there who stopped, trying to see where we went?”

  She peeked over the edge of the rock. “Yes. I see them.”

  Richard put his hand on her head and pushed it back down so the men wouldn’t spot her. “Try to gather heat and put it into that tree trunk beside them. See if you can focus the heat really fast. If you can, if you can do it fast enough and with enough intensity, you can make the trunk explode. I’ve seen it done, Samantha. I know it can be done. You’ve got to try.”

  She pressed her lips tight for a moment and then peeked over the rock again. She took a deep breath and then laid both arms on top of the rock, aiming her palms out at the tree.

  She squinted with the effort, her fingers trembling as she tried.

  Finally, the breath she had been holding left her lungs in a rush. “I’m sorry, Lord Rahl, but I can’t do it. I just can’t.”

  Richard let out a disappointed sigh of his own and finally nodded. “I know you did your—”

  A man suddenly dove over the top of the rock behind them. Richard seized the man’s ragged clothes in his fists as he came diving in and used the man’s momentum to heave him out over the rim of ledge.

  As the man tumbled away, three more men came over the top of the rock.

  CHAPTER

  41

  Richard drew his sword as he sprang up. Powered by the anger of the blade’s magic, as well as his own fury, he spun to the attack.

  The first man to come in at him lost his head for it. The second figure to leap in at him was a woman, equally vicious in her frenzied attempt to rip into him with her teeth. As Richard kicked her legs out from under her, a powerful swing of his sword caught the back of her head, taking off the top half of her skull. The large disc of bone, with the scalp of ratty hair, cartwheeled down the rock ledge. Strands of hair flung outward as it tumbled away. Richard spun back to the side just in time to meet another woman’s charge. With one powerful swing, the blade cut her ribs open to her spine. As she fell at his feet, her insides erupting from the massive wound, Richard drove the point of the steel pommel back into a man’s face. On the rebound he thrust the sword forward through a man reaching for Samantha.

  He used his foot to shove the man back off the blade while at the same time reaching back with his free hand to seize Samantha’s arm. The mortally wounded man fell back across the rock, clutching the wound through his chest, choking on his own blood.

  Richard yanked Samantha up and out of the way as two more men dove in at them, hands clawed as they snatched for her. Their fingers caught only empty air. When they missed as they grabbed for her, they sprawled forward. Richard stomped the back of one man’s head, smashing his face into the rough granite, while he stabbed the other twice in quick succession. The man Richard had stomped clutched his hands over his ruined face as he writhed in agony.

  “Let’s go!” Richard yelled at Samantha.

  Speed of movement was life. Richard wasted no time in continuing to engage the enemy unless he had to. Instead, when he could, he simply slipped through their ranks to escape their reaching
hands as he pulled Samantha along with him through every sharp evasive turn he took. As he ran, he beheaded anyone that came in close enough, or took off the arms of those reaching in to keep them from getting hold of either Samantha or himself. He wasn’t interested in fighting them if he didn’t have to. There were too many to hope to eliminate them all. He was more interested in escaping, because fighting would risk being taken down and then having them get hold of Samantha.

  It amazed him the way the half people charged in without any regard for their own safety. They showed little or no fear of his sword, only avoiding it sometimes as if it were nothing more than a mere nuisance on their way in to try to get to him. That made it all the easier for Richard to cut them down. They fell with terrible gaping wounds, or fell dead, in great numbers. The problem was that there were simply so many of them.

  It was clear to Richard that their single-minded goal was to get at someone with a soul. That seemed to be all that mattered to them. Though they carried no weapons other than an occasional knife at their side, which he never saw one of them draw, their unwavering purpose in and of itself made them incredibly dangerous. In that purpose, their teeth were their weapons of choice.

  As they attacked, they did little to protect themselves, and almost nothing to escape the certain death of his blade. They were determined to get what they were after. Nothing else mattered. Some were able to get in closer because he was so busy handling the great many presenting themselves for slaughter. But when he did get to them, they made easy targets of themselves.

  Richard was only too happy to oblige them. The sword’s fury demanded their blood, and Richard’s anger was more than enough to provide the muscle the blade needed. He just wanted these monsters to stay away from him, and if killing them was the only way, then he killed them as fast as they came at him.

  Holding Samantha’s wrist in his left hand, he pulled her like a rag doll, this way and that, to keep her out of the reaching hands of the half people. He danced over the tops of rock as soon as a slight opening in the rush of half people presented itself. He dodged from side to side to avoid reaching fingers, occasionally kicking men and women out of the way if that was all it took. If they presented a more serious threat and it took more than a kick, he used his sword to cut them down. As he raced through the woods, using the tops of outcroppings of ledge as stepping stones, he swung the sword one way, cutting down those to one side, and then with a backhanded swing slashed those on the other side, leaving a trail of blood, the dying, and bodies in his wake.

  Some of the attackers growled or roared in their mania to get at the souls they wanted, or cried out in anger as they missed snatching his and Samantha’s legs. The ones he killed made very little noise as they were stabbed or slashed. Even the ones who lost a limb didn’t let out the kind of screams that a normal person would have had they taken such grievous wounds.

  When the opportunity presented itself, Richard leaped down from a rock onto the forest floor. Once back on more even ground and with a brief opening, he broke into a dead run. Seeing what he was doing and where he was heading, Samantha stayed a half a step ahead of him. Those chasing them on the more open ground, of course, could run faster as well, so Richard periodically had to turn to cut down any of the faster pursuers that got close. Sometimes, simply dodging to the side was enough to throw the horde of half people off stride long enough for Richard and Samantha to be able to put distance on them. Unfortunately, others came charging in from the sides and then they, too, had to be either dodged or dealt with.

  Richard knew that he had to be effective with every single thing he did. If he missed once, darted the wrong direction, or made any mistake at all, they would be on him.

  It felt like trying to outrun a cloud of angry gnats.

  When he glanced back over his shoulder after he swung the blade, splitting the face of a woman who sprang up in front of him, he saw that most of those coming up from behind were trying to snatch Samantha rather than get to him.

  Samantha was frantically using her hands to try to cast some kind of magic. Those coming for her showed no ill effect from her ability and it certainly wasn’t slowing them. Whatever she was doing obviously wasn’t working.

  This was the same thing Henrik had reported about the attack on the column of troops. Henrik had told him that nothing Zedd or Nicci had done seemed to have had the desired effect. Samantha was now having that same difficulty with her gift. The whirlwind was the most effective thing Samantha had so far conjured, but in the forest, on the run, that kind of thing would do them little good.

  He supposed that in a fight, those with the gift instinctively fell back on what they knew. But using her instincts was doing them no good. It was only using up her strength to no effect and slowing them down.

  That was why Richard had wanted her to use her ability to make trees explode. Magic didn’t work directly against these unholy half dead, but exterior things, such as his sword, or even a rock to their heads, did work. They could be hurt, but not with magic directly. He had wanted her to make trees explode in order to cut down their attackers. That was how he had figured out magic could be used against them.

  But Samantha had tried and she couldn’t do it.

  Coming over the top of a rise, Richard lifted Samantha from the ground, spun her around, and set her down behind him out of the way. With both hands now on his sword, his swift blows cut into two men and a woman who rushed in at him. They all fell, clutching gaping wounds to try to hold their insides from spilling out. Richard knew that they would spend hours lying there on the ground, suffering a slow and agonizing death.

  When he saw that the forest was getting ever more crowded with mobs of growling men and women closing in from all sides, he turned, looking for something they could use for a defensive position. Defense was not the way to win a battle, but at the moment he was rapidly running out of options.

  He pointed with his bloody sword. “There!” he yelled at Samantha. “Get between those rocks! Get back in far enough that they can’t reach you!”

  Without question or hesitation, Samantha scrambled to dive into a narrow split in the jumble of ledge jutting up from the forest floor. She was small enough to squeeze way back into the narrow split in the rock. He hoped she could go back in far enough to be out of the reach of all the half people grabbing for her, at least for a brief time, time enough to give him the chance to fight off the closest attackers.

  Richard knew, though, that it wouldn’t protect her for long. Defensive action was not going to save them. There were simply too many half people swarming in from all around. It would only be a matter of time before some of the smaller among them squirmed far enough into the split in the rock to be able to reach in, get hold of her, and drag her out. If they did that, they would tear into her with their teeth and eat her alive on the spot.

  Richard’s heart pounded with the fear of such a thought. He forced aside the horrific notion, making himself think instead of how to prevent such a thing from happening. He had made a calculated decision to keep her safe, if only temporarily. Now he had to make use of the chance that gave him to turn from defense to offense. Having her crouched back in the protection of the rock gave Richard at least a brief opening to fight off the half people without having to try to keep them off Samantha at the same time.

  He knew that fighting off the hordes coming in at them wouldn’t be enough to save them, but it would stall the inevitable while he tried to come up with a better solution. It bought them both a bit of time, that was all. How much depended on him, on how hard he could fight, on how ferocious he could be.

  It was already obvious that hacking them to pieces didn’t instill a sense of fear in the half people. They showed virtually no fear of anything. They wanted one thing, and one thing only. There was no way to outrun the half people, so he stood his ground and hacked away at them without pause.

  Despite how hard he tried to come up with a solution as he fought, he couldn’t think of anything. He
had no time to think, really. It took all his effort to continue to swing the sword, to continue to cut down the packs of people charging in all around him.

  Richard stood on the high piece of ground he had staked out and unleashed the full fury of his anger at the throngs flocking in around him. He used the obstacles close in around him—tree trunks and a projection of rock—to keep his attackers from rushing straight in. He was merciless in the way he hacked apart clusters of people when they rushed in close enough. At the same time, he had to fight over and around growing piles of bloody corpses.

  The tightly focused battle was an orgy of slaughter. Limbs, heads, and parts of bodies from men and women alike littered the ground. Some of the fallen, still alive, twitched in shock and agony. The rocky ledge was painted in a grotesque patchwork of viscera, vomit, urine, and blood.

  As he fought, Richard had to be careful not to fall over the bodies or slip on the gore as he swung his sword and dodged fearless charges. The ground everywhere was spattered with a red rain. Blood dripped from the tips of leaves on the trees closest in all around and ran down the face of rocks. Severed fingers from people trying to grab the blade of his sword lay scattered over the rock, like fallen red leaves in autumn.

  Richard’s arms began to feel as heavy as lead. It was tiring to swing the sword without pause. There was no time to catch his breath. Stopping for any reason would mean certain death.

  He remembered the pain caused by the men who had attacked him, the pain of them biting him, trying to tear his flesh off with their teeth. That memory, that fear, that terror of such a gruesome end, not only for himself but for Samantha as well, drove him on with renewed fury.

  Bodies and body parts lay in tangled heaps. The people running in to attack were tripping and falling over them before they could even get to Richard. Others were slipping on the blood and gore. Sprawled on the ground, they were all the easier to kill. As the ones still alive scrambled to their feet, they were covered in the blood of those they had fallen among, making it hard for Richard to know who he had cut and didn’t need to cut again, and who might still represent a threat, so he simply cut any of them within range.