“I’m dead tired from fighting off the half people with my sword. How about you? You must be worn out from the effort of using your magic back there. I know that, for me, using any kind of magic is tiring, even the magic of my sword.”
“Well,” she admitted, “I guess a little. But I won’t slow you down. I promise.”
Richard pulled his pack off his shoulder and flipped back the flap. He dug around a moment until he found some dried meat. He pulled out two pieces and handed one to Samantha.
“Here, chew on this as you walk. It will help build your strength back up.”
Richard tore off a piece between his teeth. She took a bite of her own before following him as he started up the trail.
He hated to use the trail because it was such an obvious ambush point. When there was this kind of manifest danger, he would much rather make his own way through the woods than follow the choke point of a trail. The problem was, cutting their own way through the woods any more than they needed to would slow them down considerably. They had a long way to go to reach what Samantha’s village knew as the north wall, and the trail went only part of the way. With every passing moment being a threat to the lives of those they were going to try to rescue, Richard knew they had no time to waste.
The choice was a hard one, though. They couldn’t rescue anyone if they were killed on a trail by half people waiting in ambush. But on the other hand, Richard was terrified of being too late. Being a moment too late meant Kahlan would die, claimed by the touch of death lurking within her. He would soon follow her into the dark forever. It likely meant that untold numbers, if not the world of life itself, would die.
Magda Searus and Merritt had told him that he had the power to save the world of life, or destroy it. If he made the wrong choice, and was killed in an ambush on the trail, then that might be the cause of the end of life that the first Confessor was talking about. If he didn’t take the trail, the delay might mean they lost their chance, and that could mean the end of all life as well.
In the end, he reasoned that the half people who had been chasing them would probably have all been together. It didn’t seem likely that some of them would have hung back. They were driven by the lust for a soul, so it was reasonable to think that they were all dead back in the blasted forest.
In light of all that, Richard chose to use the trail in order to make the best time they could. His sense of urgency was too well founded to ignore. Of course, he was well aware that other half people, different kinds of half people from other parts of the third kingdom, could very well come down the trail or be waiting in ambush. All the more reason to stay alert.
Decision made, he forged ahead, determined to make the most of the time the trail saved them. The path through the woods was similar to secondary trails Richard knew back in Hartland. It wasn’t a well-groomed trail that made for swift travel, but it was still much easier than pushing their own way through virgin forest. It also wasn’t wide enough for them to walk side by side, so he led the way and Samantha followed, sometimes having to trot to keep up with his pace. Richard constantly scanned ahead and to the sides as he moved as quietly as possible.
There were occasional wind-fallen trees that lay across the path that they had to climb over. Saplings grew in close at the side of the trail in places, making it a narrow green tunnel with branches and boughs continually slapping at their arms and legs.
The leaden overcast, coupled with the thick forest canopy, conspired to make the tunneling pathway a dark and gloomy place. Off in the distance he occasionally heard the cries of birds or chatter from squirrels, but for the most part the woods were dead silent. Mist and drizzle combed out of the air by pine needles collected until the drops were heavy enough to drip down on them.
For their lunch, Richard stopped only briefly to get a bite to eat. Samantha was looking somewhat better after having eaten the dried meat earlier, so he didn’t want to take any more time than necessary to catch their breath for a moment as they retrieved food and water from their packs.
After the brief stop, they were quickly back on their way and walked the rest of the afternoon without seeing anyone or anything out of the ordinary. The journey through the forest was in a way comforting. It reminded him of his life growing up in the Hartland woods, and his time as a woods guide. It had been a time of peace and contentment, before he knew of any of the troubles of the wider world.
He caught himself looking at all the various mosses growing on rocks, making them look like green pillows, and the places where it crept across the ground and grew up the bases of tree trunks. In some places he saw beautiful, delicate little white flowers. In a way, the flowers seemed out of place because the journey was fraught with such danger and anxiety that it didn’t seem like beauty belonged. He guessed that it was the balance to the lack of peace he was feeling.
Samantha kept her hood up to help keep her hair from getting wet in the drizzle and random drops falling from trees above. She kept her head down as she hurried to keep up with him. He could see in her posture how tired she was, but she didn’t complain. He felt bad for setting such a swift pace, but it couldn’t be helped. He suspected that she was thinking of her mother, and didn’t mind the pace.
When it started getting dark, Richard led them off the trail to find a place to sleep. He didn’t want to be anywhere that people—or half people—would likely come across them. He walked off the path for quite a ways, deliberately choosing the roughest terrain and the places with the thickest underbrush. People who went off trails to go through the woods almost always picked the easiest places to walk, so he wanted to go where it was least likely anyone might explore off the trail.
He eventually found a secluded spot he liked in the crook of a rock cleft that rose up for thirty or forty feet. He surveyed the area for any signs of dangerous animals, including humans. He saw no indication that anyone had ever been in the spot. Richard and Samantha were likely the first people who had ever seen this place. He saw no caves where bears or wolves might den, and no snakes.
With the light failing and the mist getting heavier, he swiftly cut some saplings and leaned them up against the rock. After having made a framework, he piled on pine and balsam boughs, and on top of that, brush to cover up the evidence of human construction. By that time it was nearly dark.
“I wouldn’t know it was there even if I walked right by it,” Samantha said.
“That’s the whole point,” Richard told her. “Ordinarily, in such a place I’d want to take turns standing watch, but I think this is hidden well enough. There is no evidence that anyone ever comes this way, so I think it’s more important that we both get a good sleep. We’re going to need it tomorrow.”
She nodded. “I’m really tired. Sleep sounds good.”
He gestured to the side of the lean-to structure. “Go on, then, go around there and get inside.”
She looked puzzled. “Aren’t we going to have a fire to keep warm?”
“Fires attract people. Even if you don’t see it, you can smell the smoke from a fire from a long way off. By itself, someone would almost have to fall on top of this shelter to know it’s here. But a fire would broadcast our position and let other people, especially half people, know that we’re here.”
She looked around at the surrounding woods. “Oh. I guess that makes sense.” She glanced around again. “What about wild animals?”
“I’m not worried. I have a gifted sorceress with me.”
She smiled. “I guess you’re right.”
“It won’t be too bad, you’ll see. Go on, get inside.”
She had to crawl on her hands and knees to get in under the leaning roof of the shelter. Richard followed her in, pulling a thick mat of pine branches over the opening. Inside it was snug, relatively dry, and nearly pitch black. He fished around blindly in his pack until he found the tin travel housing for a candle.
He held it out and put her hand on it. “Here, can you use your gift to light this?”
He saw a small spark in the darkness and a flame sprang up onto the candle wick.
Richard hung the candle in front of them. “You can put your hands over it to warm them if you’re cold. It’s likely to get chilly tonight.”
She frowned over at him. “Why don’t I just put some heat in a couple of rocks? Then we could hold them in our laps to keep warm.”
“Oh,” Richard said. He hadn’t thought of doing that. “Well, that works, too.”
He used his fingers to pull a rock the size of a loaf of bread up from the ground to the side and handed it to her. Samantha put her hands to either side of it for a moment. He saw her briefly close her eyes in concentration; then she handed it to him. The rock was toasty warm.
“I guess you are coming in handy for something,” he said as he pulled up another rock for her to heat for herself.
She let out a soft giggle.
They picked some travel biscuits and dried fish out of their packs, along with some fresh nuts, and had a simple meal that was better than he expected, probably because he was so hungry he would have eaten just about anything.
When they were done eating, Richard pulled off his cloak and laid it over both of them like a blanket. “This will help keep us warm. Sorry, but the woods aren’t the most comfortable place to sleep, especially in conditions such as this.”
“I don’t care,” she said quietly. “I only care about getting there in time. I can sleep the rest of my life, after I get my mother out of the hands of those soulless, unholy half-dead monsters.”
Richard agreed with her sentiment.
He pulled his cloak up to their chins. Samantha leaned against him for warmth, putting her small hands around his biceps and locking her slender fingers together. She laid her head against his shoulder.
Richard rested his right arm across his lap so that he could keep his hand on the hilt of his sword. That would make it a lot easier to respond in a hurry if he had to.
He could heard Samantha’s soft, even breathing, along with the whisper of rain pattering against leaves. He was so exhausted that he started sinking into sleep almost immediately.
His last thoughts were of Kahlan.
CHAPTER
46
By late the next day they reached the place where the trail began to bear left, toward the west. The trail had taken them as far as it could. It was frustrating, because they had been making good time, but the trail was no longer headed north, so they were going to have to start making their way through uncharted forest toward the third kingdom.
Richard scanned the edge of the forest along the side of the path, searching for the best area to take them through the woods, when he spotted a place that almost looked like a trail. A fresh trail.
“This looks like a good place,” Samantha said as she pointed. “The way north looks more open through here.”
“There’s a good reason for that.” He gestured to the trampled shrubs and broken twigs, the kicked up dirt, and the overturned moss. “Do you know what this is?”
Samantha looked puzzled. “No.”
“It looks to me like the place used by all those half people traveling down here from the third kingdom. Look up in there at how someone dragged their feet along the ground.” He pointed to another spot. “Looks like someone stumbled there and broke that branch. They walked without paying any attention to what they stepped on. There, they trampled those mushrooms. Back in there a lot of the ferns are broken.
“This is not the way a regular traveler walks. This is the way careless people who know little about traveling, or the woods, would walk. It looks to me the way those half people who tried to ambush us would walk. This is probably where they came down from the north.”
“Really?” she asked. She looked up at him. “Then all we have to do is follow this and it will lead us right to where we’re going. It will lead us right to the barrier, to those open gates in the north wall.”
“No,” he said, “if we follow this new trail we are liable to run into more half people coming down from the third kingdom to hunt for people with souls. Those dead half people back there aren’t the only ones. The others are likely to be different, like the men who attacked me, or the Shun-tuk. They’re smarter. We don’t want to run into that sort if we don’t have to.”
She took a step back, as if the place was suddenly threatening. “I guess it isn’t such a good idea, then.”
With a hand on her shoulder, Richard turned her to the left. “We’ll go on a little ways farther up the trail and then turn north through the woods to go parallel with this route taken by the half people. I want to stay far enough away from it that if there are more half people coming south by this same route, they won’t hear us.
“At the same time, by staying close enough, then from time to time I can check on this trail they made so that I can make sure we’re going to the place they came from. That way it will help lead us where we’re heading, right to the third kingdom, but we won’t be as likely to run into trouble.
“It shouldn’t be too difficult to keep track of this route they’ve made trudging through the woods. From the looks of it they were simply taking the route that was the easiest because of the lay of the land. I can do the same thing, but stay off to the side so we don’t accidentally run across their trail at the wrong time.”
She made a face. “How do you know all this stuff?”
Richard shrugged. “I’ve been doing this all my life, since I was younger than you.”
After following the established trail on for some distance, Richard finally judged it far enough away from the path made by the half people to be safe, so he turned north into the woods. He regretted having to leave the trail, even as rough as it had been, and make their own trail through uncharted forest, but it was something that he was experienced doing. Because of his experience, he knew how to select the best route to take through the dense woods.
For a time as they traveled north they were able to follow a deer trail, but it eventually veered off and they had to plunge back into the thick of the woods. In several places they had to climb rock ridges to avoid taking time and trouble to find a way around. Once, they had to backtrack when Richard abruptly found himself at the edge of a cliff that would be too dangerous to climb down.
When nightfall came, Richard again found a well-hidden spot, where he built them another small shelter for the night. The drizzle had picked up as darkness closed in. They had managed to complete the shelter in time to keep themselves mostly dry. He was sore from sleeping sitting up the night before, but he was tired and his hip sockets ached from the long day of hiking though dense woods, so he was happy for any rest he would able to get. Like the previous night, he and Samantha huddled close for warmth and fell asleep quickly.
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 Sama
ntha 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.