The Third Kingdom

With all the bodies of strange people he had seen back near the wagon, to say nothing of the two men who had attacked him and the things he had overheard, as well as all the warnings he’d previously gotten about venturing into the Dark Lands, Richard could easily see why these people were nervous and being so careful. The two men who had attacked him had looked nothing like the bodies he had seen. If those two men had been right, then the dead were the mysterious people they had mentioned, the Shun-tuk.

It seemed that unlike other country folk Richard knew back home, the people with him had more reason for their fears than simple superstition.

He appreciated it when people took real dangers seriously. The people who most often invited trouble were the willfully ignorant who didn’t want to believe trouble was possible, so they dismissed the potential for it. You couldn’t be ready for what you never considered or were unwilling to consider. Worry was sometimes a valuable survival tool, so Richard thought it foolish to ignore it. But still, since they were so lightly armed, he didn’t think these people took the threats seriously enough.

Either that, or perhaps the threats they faced were something new to them.

It wasn’t long before they abruptly emerged from the confining, oppressive darkness of the forest into the open. A light mist borne on cooler air dampened Richard’s face.

In the distance across the slightly rolling ground out ahead of them, lit by the muted moonlight, Richard saw a sheer rock wall rising up. Partway up the cliff face he could see faint, flickering light, probably from candles and lanterns, in passageways that looked to go back into the rock.

Making its way ever onward toward the cliff, the trail passed between large fields, some planted with grain, others with vegetables. Once among the fields spreading out from the foot of the soaring cliff, the people with him finally felt safe enough to start whispering among themselves.

As they got closer to the rock wall, they came upon pens made of split rails. Some of the pens held sheep, others rather skinny hogs. A few milk cows stood together in a tight cluster in the corner of one pen. Long coops set among boulders fallen from the mountain towering over them looked like they were for chickens that were no doubt roosting for the night. Richard saw a few men tending to the animals.

One of the men was checking on the sheep, patting their backs to make them move aside as he wove his way back through the small but dense flock crowded together in a large pen.

“What is it, Henry?” Ester asked as she got closer. “What are you men doing down here at this time of night?”

The man couldn’t help staring for a brief moment at the strangers being carried in, one being helped on foot and a woman with a long fall of hair draped over a man’s shoulders. He lifted a hand out, gesturing to the neat grid of pens.

“The animals are restless.”

Richard looked back over a shoulder. The palm of his left hand rested on the familiar hilt of his sword as his gaze swept the fields between them and the dark mass of woods. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

“I think you had better leave the animals and get inside,” Richard said as he scanned the dark tree line.

The man frowned as he lifted his knit cap to scratch his thinning white hair. “And who might you be to tell me what to do with our animals?”

Richard looked back at the man and shrugged, but then, feeling his legs about to give out, he put his left arm back around the shoulder of one of the two men standing beside him. “I’m just someone who doesn’t like it when animals are restless, and I’ve seen a lot of frightening things this night not all that far behind us.”

“He’s right,” Ester said as she started out again toward the rock wall. “You’d best get up inside with the rest of us.”

Henry replaced his cap on his head as he cast a worried frown toward the silent wall of the woods hard against the far edge of the fields. The tall spruce looked like sentinels keeping the moonlight from entering.

Henry conceded with a nod. “I’ll bring the others up right behind you.”

CHAPTER

5

With the help of the men to either side, Richard followed behind Ester, who in turn followed behind the man carrying Kahlan. Out at the head of the small group making their way toward the cliff, a man with a lantern looked back from time to time, making sure everyone was still accounted for.

Kahlan, her long hair matted with blood, her arms dangling, hung limp and unconscious over the shoulder of the man carrying her. In the moonlight Richard could see the wounds from the thorny vines the Hedge Maid had used to bind and imprison her. From time to time blood from those and other wounds dripped from her fingertips.