The Third Kingdom

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.

CHAPTER

79

Hannis Arc turned when he caught a glimpse of the tall woman in red leather making her way resolutely through the whitewashed bodies of the Shun-tuk spread across the forested landscape behind them. Descending the slope, the vast army of grim half people seemed to pour through and among the trees like a white avalanche.

His mood darkened when he saw that the Mord-Sith was alone.

He had been wondering where she was and what had been keeping her. Traveling across the desolate land of the third kingdom had been much easier than making their way through the uncharted forests of the Dark Lands. It would not have been so difficult with a small force, but the numbers they were dragging behind them were vast and that slowed the journey. There were so many following behind that it took most of a day for all of them to pass one spot.

The Mord-Sith did not look at all happy. Seeing that she was alone made him more than merely displeased. Vika elbowed aside a silent Shun-tuk woman who didn’t move out of the Mord-Sith’s way. Hannis Arc could hear the bone of her jaw crack before she fell beneath the feet of the horde.