The Third Kingdom

CHAPTER 35

“I’ll get Ester,” Samantha said on the way across the room. She turned back from the doorway, looking a bit suspicious. “Don’t forget, if you leave without me, I will simply follow you. I hope you know better than to try to trick me.”

“I told you that you could come with me,” Richard said in an earnest tone. “I keep my word.”

“All right, then.” She looked just a bit sheepish for floating the accusation.

He didn’t want to put her young, inexperienced life in such terrible jeopardy, but he knew that she was right about her potential value to him. With the touch of death lurking within him, he didn’t know how long it would be before it might start to become a real problem that could slow him down. If he didn’t succeed, then everyone was going to be at the mercy of whatever could now escape from the third kingdom.

He could already feel the drag of that sickness making him feel unusually drained and weary. He could feel himself being inexorably drawn toward the darkness of death within. The inevitability of dying had always existed in the background of his mind, but it was a distant reality that most of the time went unnoticed. Now, death felt close, and coldly real.

In a way, that darkness trying to draw him in was beginning to feel appealing, inviting him to cross the veil of life into the unfeeling eternity of nothingness. It offered the comforting release of all effort, all cares, all fears.

Richard might very well need Samantha’s help before their journey was over. Even if she was a small help, it might be enough to make a difference.

Richard remembered his grandfather once telling him that wizards had to use people. He didn’t like the feeling that he was using Samantha, even though he knew she was willing, and even if she was not really giving him a choice. He knew in his own mind that it was really by his choice, not hers, and that she very well might lose her life on such a dangerous journey. They both might.

“I’ll need a pack as well,” he told her. “I don’t have any supplies with me. Most everything I had, except my sword, was in the wagon.” He checked in his pocket. “Wait, I’ve got a flint and steel for starting a fire, at least.”

Samantha nodded. “I’ll tell the men that we need just about everything else, then.”

“We need traveling food so that we don’t have to spend a lot of time hunting for something to eat, but we should have some small items in case we do need to hunt. Some line and fishhooks, things like that. If someone has a bow, that would be a big help as well.”

“I’m sure that one of the men would be honored to provide a bow and arrows to help in the effort of stopping the threat. We have supplies of food that keeps well for traveling. It doesn’t taste very good, though.”

Richard smiled a little. “It never does.”

“The gifted kept journey supplies—dried meat, fish, hard biscuits and such—in case they ever had to go to warn … well, I was going to say to warn the wizards’ council, but I guess they’re long gone.” She gestured to the hall. “The travel supplies are kept in the second room to the right, in a cabinet. Take what you think we’ll need. I’ll be back as soon as I get Ester and gather up some of the other things we’ll need.”

When Richard nodded, Samantha dashed out the doorway. After she was gone, he knelt back down beside Kahlan, lifting her limp hand to hold it in his for a moment. He wished she would wake so that he could tell her where he was going and about the threat from the third kingdom. The last thing she knew about had been the threat from Jit.

He watched her steady breathing, watched her peaceful expression. He wished she would wake, but wishing couldn’t make it happen. She was going to need help if she was to live. They both were. He had to try to get that help.

In the quiet stillness before the storm that he knew was about to break, he leaned down and gently kissed her soft lips, hoping it would last him, and that it would not be the last time he ever kissed her. He knew that if she were awake, she would tell him not to worry about her, but to go do what he needed to do.

Knowing that time was short, he rushed to the second room and found the journey supplies. He collected what he thought they could carry without slowing them down, piling it neatly in the front room. In short order, Samantha, carrying a second pack for him and two hooded traveling cloaks over her arm, hurriedly ushered Ester into the outer room.

“Some of the others are getting some supplies together for us,” Samantha told him as she closed the door.

“Lord Rahl, what is it?” Ester asked, looking back and forth between the two of them as she squeezed one hand with the other. “Sammie said it’s important, but she wouldn’t say what it was about. Is the Mother Confessor…?”

“She’s all right for the moment,” Richard said. “But we need your help. Samantha and I have to go—”

“Samantha?” the woman asked with a puzzled look.

“Sammie. You called her Sammie,” Richard said. “I call her Samantha because I think she is growing into a woman, and she now has to face some very grown-up challenges. Samantha seems a more appropriate name. Like I was saying, I have to go and Samantha is going with me.”

“Going with you? Where?” The woman looked more bewildered than ever. Richard didn’t want to add to her sense of confusion, but he needed her to be aware of what was going on. She needed to be able to let everyone else know of the threat and she needed to tell Kahlan about it when she woke up.

“There is trouble,” Richard told Ester. “You know those two men who were attacking me? The ones you helped save me from?”

Ester nodded. “Of course.”

“Well, those men were cannibals.”

“Cannibals!”

“Yes. Don’t you remember how they were attacking me with their teeth? Biting me?”

“But, but, I don’t—”

“I don’t have time to explain everything. The important part that you need to understand is that this village was put here long ago, in ancient times, to watch over the barrier—”

“The north wall,” Samantha told Ester. She looked over at Richard. “Everyone in the Dark Lands knows it as the north wall.”

Richard nodded. “The north wall. The problem we’re all facing now is that the north wall was keeping some very dangerous threats locked away to prevent them from harming the people of the New World. It has kept everyone safe since the ancient war, the great war thousands of years ago.”

Ester nodded with a troubled look. “I know some about that history. I’ve heard tales since childhood about otherworldly dangers lying in wait beyond the north wall. No one ever knew what was on the other side, but we all knew it was evil.”

“Those tales probably fall well short of the reality. With the barrier breaking down, what was on the other side is now getting out. What no one knew was that Jit was only the beginning of that evil escaping from beyond that north wall.”

Ester leaned forward a little. “What is it that’s on the other side?”

“You remember those creatures that looked like walking corpses that came up here the other night and hurt so many people, killed so many?”

Her knuckles were white. “How could I forget such a thing?”

“They were corpses animated by occult magic from beyond the north wall. They were the walking dead.”

Unable to speak, Ester stiffened with a look of horror.

“The people from beyond that wall aren’t like us,” Richard said. “They’re a kind of cannibal.”

She frowned in confusion. “A kind of cannibal? What do you mean? How can there be different kinds?”

“They eat living people, eat them while they are still alive, to try to steal their souls,” Samantha said.

Ester gasped but said nothing. She looked at a complete loss for words.

“Those from beyond the wall,” Richard told the woman, “attacked my friends who were taking us back to the People’s Palace. They were also the ones who killed Samantha’s father and likely took her mother. I think that my friends and Samantha’s mother may still be alive. We’re going in there, beyond the north wall, to try to get them back out.”

Ester looked at Samantha before looking back at Richard. “Are you serious? Do you so soon forget Henrik’s story? They attacked a whole column of your elite troops, your personal guard from the palace, and overpowered them, and you think that you two can go in there alone and not be slaughtered the moment you step through the north gate?”

That same thought had occurred to Richard.

“He won’t be alone,” Samantha said. “I’ll be with him.”

“Sometimes it’s safer to be few in number,” Richard said. “We won’t be noticed the way a whole column of troops would be.”

“Lord Rahl, far be it from me to tell you your business, but you were alone when those two men attacked you, and had we not come along when we did you would be dead now.”

Richard sighed as he rose up from beside Kahlan. “I know. But there’s no choice. It’s something I have to do. This threat could kill people in numbers beyond your ability to imagine. I’m the Lord Rahl. I have to do what is necessary to protect all the people of the New World.”

Ester dipped her head. “I can’t argue with the word of the Lord Rahl.” Ester gestured at Samantha. “But why is she going?”

“Because she is stubborn,” Richard said.

For the first time, a small smile touched Ester’s lips. “I see you have gotten to know her.”

“I have the gift,” Samantha said in her own defense. “Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor are sick with Jit’s touch of death in them and their magic doesn’t work. I can at least help Lord Rahl with my gift. And if we can get my mother out, then she can help him, too.”

Ester considered briefly. “I see. That’s very brave of you … Samantha. Well, what can we do to help, Lord Rahl?”

“You can watch over Kahlan for me and when she wakes up tell her what’s happening. I’ll be back as soon as I can get my friends out. Then we must rush back to the People’s Palace so that they can cure us of the Hedge Maid’s deadly touch. After that, I will deal with the threat from beyond the north wall.

“When she wakes, tell Kahlan what I’ve told you, and that I said it’s important for her to wait here for me. I will be back for her. I will be bringing help.

“I need to briefly explain some of what I’ve learned so that you can tell the others here about the threat that is now loose. The people of Stroyza need to stay up here as much as possible. They shouldn’t go out alone, only in large groups. Keep a watch at all times. The unholy creatures from beyond the north wall may try to get up here to attack your people.”

“You mean, to eat us alive?”

Richard took a breath. “I’m afraid so. From up here you have a better chance of holding them off. Hopefully I’ll be back before you have any trouble.

“We need to leave right away,” Richard added. “There’s still plenty of light left. We need to get as far as we can before dark.”

“It’s a pretty long way to the north wall,” Ester said. “It will take you days to get there.”

“I know. That’s all the more reason I have to hurry.”