The Third Kingdom

He focused on the surroundings, looking for an escape route, to try to keep his mind engaged. From what he was able to see in the murky moonlight, the wagon sat alone and desolate in the wilderness. The horses were gone.

While he didn’t see anyone else about, he did spot bones nearby. The bones were not bleached by weather, but stained dark with dried blood and bits of flesh. He could see gouges where teeth tried to scrape every bit of tissue from the bones.

The bones were human.

He recognized, too, shreds of uniforms. They were the uniforms of the First File, his personal bodyguards. Some of them, at least, had apparently given their lives defending Richard and Kahlan.

The smaller man still had hold of Richard’s ankle, apparently unwilling to let go of his prize. The other man stood to the side, looking at the thing he had pulled across the floor and out of the wagon.

Richard realized that it was his sword.

The man holding the sword pulled Kahlan partway out from under the tarp. Her lower legs bent at the knees and swung lifelessly from the end of the wagon bed.

While the man was distracted looking at her, Richard used the opportunity to sit up and lunge, trying to snatch his sword. The man yanked it back out of the way before Richard could get his fingers around the hilt. With his hands and feet tied, he hadn’t been free enough to grab it in time.

Both men stepped back. They hadn’t thought he was conscious. Richard had lost the advantage of surprise and gained nothing in return.

In reaction to seeing him awake, both men decided not to waste any more time. Snarling like hungry wolves, they descended on him, attacking him like animals in a feeding frenzy. The situation was so bizarre that it was difficult to believe.

The smaller of the two pulled Richard’s shirt open. Richard could see a glaze of ferocious savagery in the man’s eyes. The bigger one, teeth bared with a feral fury, dove straight for the side of Richard’s neck. Richard reflexively drew his shoulder up, deflecting the lunge at the last instant. In protecting his exposed neck, the move instead presented his shoulder to the attack.

Richard screamed out in pain as teeth sank into his upper arm. He knew that he had to do something, and do it quick.

He could think of only one thing: his gift. He mentally reached down deep within, desperately summoning deadly forces, urgently calling on the power that was his birthright.

Nothing happened.

With his level of anger and desperation, along with his fear for Kahlan, the essentials were there for his gift to respond. In the past it had answered such critical need. The power of it should have come roaring forth.

It was as if there was no gift there to summon.

Unable to call it forth, with his wrists and ankles bound, he had no effective way to fight off the two men.

CHAPTER

2

Frustrated and angry that he couldn’t get the mysteries of his gift to respond in order to help himself and Kahlan, Richard knew that he didn’t have the time to try to figure it out. Instead, he resorted to using what he could depend on—his instincts and experience.

As the men lunged for him, Richard thrashed wildly, trying to prevent them from being able to hold on to him and muscle him under control. Being on the ground with the weight of his attackers above him left him at a decided disadvantage, but he knew that he couldn’t let that stop him from doing everything he could to fight them off.

Their eyes wild, both men threw themselves over the top of him to hold him down. At the same time they tried to rip into him with their teeth. Richard had heard stories of people being attacked and eaten by bears. The two men piling onto him reminded him of the helplessness that came across in those stories, but with the frightening new dimension of human malevolence behind it.

Several times their teeth began to sink into his flesh, but each time Richard managed to jerk, twist, or elbow them away before they were able to get a good enough bite to rip off pieces of him. He couldn’t understand why they didn’t simply stab him to death. They were both carrying knives, and they had his sword.

It was almost as if they knew what they wanted to do, but their inexperience was making them less effective than they might have otherwise been. Still, the partially successful attempts left gaping, horrifically painful wounds that gushed blood. With Richard quickly tiring from fighting under the weight of the two men, to say nothing of losing blood, he knew it was inevitable that they were going to succeed in what they intended.

Incomprehensibly, between trying to bite off pieces of him, the men paused to lap at the blood as if they were dying of thirst and didn’t want to let a drop of it get away and run into the ground. The interruption from biting to go after all the blood at least gave Richard time to get a breath.