The Omen Machine

CHAPTER 78

As Kahlan guided her horse among immense pines, she frequently looked back over her shoulder to keep track of how close the dogs had gotten. The colossal trees towering above her cut off almost every bit of sky. The lower branches were far out of reach overhead. Iron gray clouds made it even darker, leaving a gloomy world in the undergrowth for the horse to try to navigate.

Drizzle collected on the pine needles until the drops grew fat enough to fall. It was distracting when those fat, random drops splashed against her face. Kahlan was cold, wet, and miserable. She had to concentrate to find the indistinct trail among the nursery of small pines carpeting the lower reaches of the dense forest.

In many places they overgrew a trail too seldom used to keep open. In other places, beds of thick ferns covered over any hint of the little-traveled route through the forest wilderness.

Having grown up in a palace, Kahlan had never known much about following obscure trails. In her duties as a Confessor, she had always traveled the roads and well-used paths between population centers of the Midlands. She had also always been escorted by a wizard. That seemed so long ago that it felt like another lifetime.

To an extent, the hounds helped guide her in the sense that they left her only one real direction she could go. She just had to find enough footing for the horse. Even though the dogs were never far behind, she dared not let the horse panic and run on its own. If they left the trail there was no telling what trouble they could get into. Holes among rocks and fallen timber off the trail could catch and break the horse’s legs. They might suddenly come to a cliff, or an impassable gorge, or a place so dense as to be impenetrable. If that happened, the pack of wild dogs would have her trapped and it would be all over.

She didn’t want to die out in the middle of a trackless forest, taken down by dogs, torn apart, devoured and left for scavengers to pick clean.

She needed to stay on the relative safety of the trail in order to stay ahead of her pursuers. It was Richard who had taught her about following poorly marked trails that were rarely used and difficult to make out. Besides looking for small indications close by, she continually scanned the broader area ahead, looking for telltale signs of where the trail went.

The thought of Richard gave her an agonizing stab of longing. She hadn’t thought about him much in recent days. She was so desperate to get away that she was hardly able to think about anything other than running and staying away from the baying pack of dogs.

Her arm hurt. Her head throbbed. She was so exhausted that she could hardly sit upright atop the horse anymore. Worse, she was so sick with fever that she feared she might pass out.

She supposed that if she was unconscious it might be the best way to die. It might be a blessing to lose consciousness when the pack got to her.

With the back of her hand, Kahlan wiped a tear from her cheek. She missed Richard so much. He must be frantic with worry about her being missing for so long. She felt shame for not somehow letting him know what had happened.

Several of the dogs suddenly ran in out of the brush at the side, lunging at her legs. In a panic, Kahlan urged the horse into a run. Limbs flashed by. Pine boughs slapped her as she raced headlong through the woods. One branch hit her shoulder, almost knocking her off her horse.

Abruptly, the horse skidded to a halt. The ground ahead dropped away over the rim of a rocky ledge. The horse couldn’t take the steep, plunging descent. She feared that they had gotten off the trail, and now they were trapped. Kahlan looked back. The hounds were coming.

As the dogs started yelping and howling in anticipation of having her cornered, the frightened horse suddenly reared up. Without a saddle there was precious little to hold on to. Kahlan snatched for the mane as she started slipping off the horse’s back. She missed.

Before she knew it, she landed with a heavy thud. Stunned from hitting the ground so hard, she groaned in pain. She had landed on her infected arm. With her good arm she cradled her sore arm to her abdomen.

Before Kahlan could grab the rope, the horse bolted away into the woods. In mere seconds she couldn’t see it anymore. But she could see the dogs bounding toward her, the lead dog barking with savage hunger to get at her.

Kahlan turned and practically dove down the steep drop. In places she leaped from ledges of rocks above to rocks below in a series of jarring, barely controlled falls from ledge to ledge. She was racing downward so fast that she didn’t have time to think about it before each leap. She knew how dangerous it was to descend like that, but she was possessed by the panicked drive to escape the terror coming for her.

Kahlan slipped on loose gravel and fell into a slide down a channel of debris and loose ground. Rock and small shrubs flashed by as she slid downward.

Behind her the dogs leaped across the rocks as if they were made for it. They were closing on her.

With a hard impact she hit the bottom and fell sprawling on her face. Without taking the time to feel sorry for herself she pushed herself up. The way ahead looked flatter, but it also looked wet. Mist drifted among the dense trees, so she couldn’t see very far ahead in the gloom.

What she could see was a thick tangle of growth. Vines trailed down from above. Heavy vegetation blocked the way off to the sides.

But she saw that she hadn’t lost the trail after all. It was right in front of her, tunneling ahead through the dense underbrush.

A short-haired brown dog crashed down from the steep trail, rolling as it landed behind her. As he scrambled to get to his feet, his jaws snapped, trying to get Kahlan’s leg in his teeth.

Kahlan sprang up and started running headlong into the burrow through the brush. The passage through the undergrowth seemed endless. Vegetation flashed by as she ran. She couldn’t see the end up ahead. Dogs barked as they chased her through the tangled green warren.

Abruptly, she burst out of the thick underbrush into a more open, swampy area. Trees with smooth gray bark and fat bottoms of tangled, spreading roots stood in stretches of stagnant water.

Kahlan’s boots sank into mud and she fell. As she struggled to get free, she admonished herself for paying too much attention to the dogs chasing her and inadvertently leaving the trail. The only good thing was that the mud slowed the dogs as well. They circled around behind her, jumping from dry spots to clumps of grasses, looking for a way to come in from the side.

Kahlan clambered back onto the trail and raced ahead, trying to jump from root to root in order to stay out of the water and morass of mud. She didn’t trust stepping in the water because she feared that she would sink in and get her foot caught in a tangle of roots hidden below. She could even break an ankle. Both thoughts terrified her.

As the trail occasionally submerged into the ever-expanding swamp, Kahlan saw places in the path where branches and vines had been placed on the ground to span impassable areas. They provided a welcome way ahead across the patches of water.

The farther she went, the more substantial and frequent the knitted-branch path became. It was much easier to run with the woven mat underfoot. As she raced ahead into the thick swamp, through vines and moss hanging in sheets along the way, the walkway became even more substantial, eventually rising up above the surface of the stagnant water.

A quick look behind revealed that the dogs were having trouble. Their paws slipped down through gaps in the weaving of the walkway, sometimes becoming caught. The farther in they went, the more difficulty they had negotiating the entwined branches, twigs, and vines. Kahlan was soon so far ahead that she lost sight of them in the swirling fog.

The walkway grew strong and solid. In places there were railings made of thick branches. Not long after that, the railings themselves became more sturdy.

Kahlan was giddy with relief. She was reaching an inhabited place of some kind. With a walkway this well built, this painstakingly constructed, she was sure it would lead her to salvation.