The Third Kingdom

CHAPTER 78

The glowing red eyes of the walking dead stood out in the murky, late day light. They were slower than the Shun-tuk—that was why so many of the Shun-tuk had emerged from underground first. Now, the dead were lumbering out of the caves, come to help reap those with souls.

Richard furiously hacked his way through the half people as he crossed the bloody ground to intercept the dark shapes of the animated dead. Their clothes hung in rotting tatters. Their dried flesh was as dark as the dirt-covered clothes they wore, so that they all looked like filth formed into men.

As slimy and grimy as they were, it didn’t matter to Richard. He needed to stop them before they could get to the others. He knew how dangerous these dead driven by occult magic could be. The soldiers would have more than a difficult time handling such a threat. Even the gifted’s powers were no match for the occult magic that had been invested in these monsters.

Richard vaguely perceived a figure in red—Cara—close behind him, going in for the attack with him, guarding his flank from Shun-tuk turning to come after him.

Richard redirected his attack from the Shun-tuk and instead went for the dead. With their glowing red eyes they were easy enough to spot. Even the Shun-tuk kept clear of them now that they had been set with the task of killing.

Richard gritted his teeth as he swung his sword with all his might, hacking apart the dense, dark forms. Arms and legs fell, littering the ground. Legs continued to twitch. Fingers continued to grasp. Heads and parts of heads spun through the air and cracked apart as they bounced off rock walls.

All the while, fire tumbled and rolled across the ground, swamping the severed but still-moving limbs behind Richard as he drove onward through the dead coming at him and the Shun-tuk baring their teeth, hoping for a bite of him. They tasted only steel. The air all around was filled not only with the smoke from all the fire, but the stench of burning flesh. Dust boiled up as stone spires crumbled and fell among the Shun-tuk. The night air was filled with screams of the mortally injured and those trapped under the crushing weight of toppled stone.

Everywhere the mostly naked bodies lay sprawled across the ground. Their chalky white forms only served to display the blood in stark relief. Each slash that laid them open only looked more shocking because of the way their ash-covered bodies made the terrible wounds all the more horrifyingly obvious.

Richard heard his name. It was Zedd, calling out to him.

“Richard,” he called again.

In a rage of blood lust, Richard brought the sword up before him, looking for any threat. Even though it still felt like hundreds of the snarling, growling half people were rushing at him, he realized that there were none.

It was only the terrible images of them that he was still seeing flashing through his mind that made him think they might still be coming. But they weren’t.

He blinked. There were no more Shun-tuk charging in at him. They were all down. There were no more of the walking dead. They, too, were all down.

In the stillness of the gathering darkness, Richard could hear the men panting from the effort of the battle. Some with wounds groaned. Some walked among the wounded Shun-tuk on the ground, stabbing any still alive.

All the axes and swords the men carried dripped blood. All of the men were covered in blood and gore. Richard was covered in more Shun-tuk blood than any of them. He was soaked in red.

Richard turned to Cara, a knife in each of her blood-soaked fists. One was a steel-bladed knife, the other stone—a Shun-tuk weapon. She had been using that weapon to put down the dead.

Cara met his gaze. The rage in her eyes was frightening to see.

It broke his heart.

With his sword still gripped in his fist and the anger of the magic still coursing through every fiber of his being, Richard put his arms around her.

Cara’s arms hung at her sides as he embraced her tightly, and then she threw her head back and let out a single, long wail.

He held her close as she buried her face against his chest with a helpless sob. He held her in a comforting shelter for a long moment. He finally let her go and looked into her tear-filled blue eyes.

There were no words as they looked into each other’s eyes. There could be no words.

When Richard finally turned back to Zedd and Nicci standing close, the crushing weight of the world seemed to suddenly descend on him.

He dropped to a knee, abruptly unable to stand. Cara helped hold him on the way down so that he didn’t fall on his face.

Nicci and Zedd were both right there, both helping keep him upright on his knees, letting him sit back on his heels.

Through a torrent of every kind of pain imaginable, the power of the sword still in his fist sustained and supported him. He felt too tired to breathe and had to will himself to draw each breath.

Both Nicci and Zedd pressed their fingers to his forehead. Richard could feel the telltale tingle of the gift probing the poison deep within him.

Nicci looked up sharply at Zedd. “Do you feel it?”

Zedd returned her grim look and gave her a nod. “We need to get to that containment field. There’s not a lot of time.”

“Where’s Kahlan?” Nicci asked as she looked around to see if anyone knew. “Where’s Kahlan? We need to get her back there as well. She will be worse than Richard by now. We have to tend to her as soon as possible. Where is she?”

“We had to leave her back,” Samantha said from back behind Zedd. “I healed some of her injuries and she hadn’t awakened yet. We had to leave her to rest and recover some of her strength. She should be awake by now and waiting for us back in Stroyza.”

“South, through the gates,” Richard managed.

“Then we go there first and get the Mother Confessor,” Cara said with surprising power, courage, and determination as she stood over Richard’s shoulder. “We can’t head back to the palace until we get her.”

“It’s not that far,” Samantha offered. “It’s only a few days if we hurry.”

“After we get her, then we have to get you both back to the palace so we can heal you,” Nicci said to Richard in a confidential, worried tone.

Richard nodded. He forced himself to his feet. “Kahlan is in Stroyza. Like Samantha says, it’s not that far. It’s back near where you all were attacked and captured, after you came to rescue us from the Hedge Maid.”

He looked at all the faces watching him before turning his gaze south. “Let’s get going. There’s still a little light. We leave now.”

Sword still in his hand, not yet ready to put the power of its anger away, Richard started out across the broken ground, walking over the bodies of hundreds and hundreds of fallen Shun-tuk. Cara was half a step behind his right shoulder. The rest of them all silently fell in to follow.