He should have been able to see those lookouts standing watch and also looking out for their livestock below, but he saw no one up in the cavern opening.
On the way toward the cliff, the foot trail passed between large fields, some planted with grain, some with hay, and others with vegetables and fruit trees. Some of those vegetables were mature and ready but remained unpicked. Some were past ripe. Apples, pears, and plums were turning dark, as they were past their prime. More lay rotting on the ground.
Now that they had left the protection of the forest and were out in the open among the fields, Richard felt exposed and vulnerable. The reality was that they would have been nearly as vulnerable back in the woods, but he always felt better when he was in the forests. Even though these woods were different from his Hartland woods, they were still comfortingly familiar. He knew how to live in woods, how to fight among the trees, and how to evade an enemy there.
Bugs flitted and buzzed above the grass, with orange butterflies feeding on small blue wildflowers growing among the grape vines. Swarms of bees fed on both the ripe fruit still on the trees and the rotting fruit on the ground. Other than those bugs, he saw nothing alive and no movement.
In the dead-still air thick with the stench of death, not a leaf, not a branch, not a blade of grass moved. He did hear a low hum, though. He couldn’t quite place the vaguely familiar sound.
The last time he had been in Stroyza, there had been animals in the buildings and pens at the foot of the cliff. If they were still there he didn’t hear them.
As they made their way past the fields to the split-rail fences, he found out why. Hogs lay dead in their pens. Two milk cows, their legs sticking stiffly out from their bloated bodies, lay in dirty runnels of muddy water. Bloodstained sheep were piled in a tight cluster in the corner of where a fence met a building. Dead chickens lay scattered here and there around the yards. The feathers settled everywhere atop the mud and manure reminded him a little of snow.
“What could have done this?” Kahlan whispered on their way past the dead hogs. She put her hand back over her nose. All the rest of them held up a hand or an arm, trying to block the putrid stench.
The small group made their way through a sprawling boulder field of broken rock that had built up over time as the weather had cleaved rock from the cliff face to accumulate below. In some places they had to walk single-file among the boulders, and in a few spots had to duck in turn under massive slabs of stone that over the millennia had fallen from the face of the mountain to now rest atop the jumble of boulders.
As they came around and through the clutter of boulders, Richard stopped in his tracks when he at last spotted the people of Stroyza. The buzzing noise he had heard had been clouds of flies.
The corpses lay piled in massive heaps atop one another, on top of and down between the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. They all rested wherever they had landed. Arms and legs sprawled at crazy angles. Maggots wriggled in places where flesh had split open.
The all held their noses, wincing, gagging on the putrefying stench. The air was so thick with the powerful smell he could taste it.
As he got closer, holding the crook of his arm over his nose and mouth to try to at least partially block the smell, he recognized some of the individuals. He peered out from just over his arm. These were the people who had rescued him and Kahlan. Many of them had protected and helped them. He had fought with these men to stop the animated dead that invaded their cave village.
He saw Ester, the woman who had helped him and Kahlan when they had first been brought to the village. Now, flies walked across her dead eyes staring up at the sky. Richard waved his sword over her body, chasing the flies away.
“Dear spirits, please protect these dear souls,” Kahlan whispered from right beside him. She put her hand back, pinching her nose and covering her mouth.
Richard signaled with his sword for the men to check around the piles of bodies for any who might be alive. He knew there couldn’t be anyone alive, but he had to check. From the way they were piled together and the broken bones stuck out through clothes, it looked to him that these people had all fallen from the cave opening high up on the cliff.
Commander Fister shook his head from the far side of the corpses. “Poor souls. All dead. Terrible way to die.”
“There are much worse ways,” Cassia said. “At least it looks to have been quick for these people. They didn’t suffer.”
Richard knew she was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to see all of these dead people, the entire village, all lying tangled in death below their village.
He had seen a lot of death, but this was making him feel sick.
“Do you see any wounds from a fight?” Richard asked the commander as the man made his way back around, stepping over the odd legs or arms sticking out from the bottom of the piles.
Commander Fister, looking all business now, shook his head. “It doesn’t appear to have been any kind of fight, but it’s a little hard to say for sure. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say they all fell to their death.” He scratched the side of his neck. “Strange, though…”
“What’s strange?” Richard asked.
The commander cocked his head as he looked in at the tangled mass of corpses. “There are some dead cats in among the people.”
“Cats?” Nicci asked with a frown.
The commander nodded. “I can see eight or ten, at least.”
“There were a lot of cats living up there in the village,” Kahlan said. “They must have fallen or jumped along with the people.”
Commander Fister was frowning at the dead. “Some of the cats look like their fur has been singed off.”
“Probably decomposition,” Cassia said. “They’ve all been here for a while since they all fell from up there.”
Nicci looked up at the cave opening high above. “What I would like to know is what would make all these people jump from up there?”
“Good question,” Richard said. “Let’s go have a look.”
CHAPTER
35
Richard led the five women and twelve men to the point where the narrow path started up along the face of the rock wall. Set back behind a tangle of scrubs and small, scraggly maple trees behind the boulders, it would have been easy to miss had he not known where it was. He looked back, taking a count to make sure everyone was with him.
“Lord Rahl,” the commander said in a quiet voice, “we don’t know what sort of trouble might be up top. Why don’t you let me take the men and go up first, ahead of you?”
Richard lifted his sword along with an eyebrow to make his point that there was more safety behind the sword he carried than the soldiers.
Knowing that arguing would be useless, and realizing that Richard was probably right, the commander only sighed. “Would you like me to post any men down here to make sure no one sneaks up behind us?”
“No
. I want us to all to stay together.” Richard gestured up the cliff with his sword. “I’ve used the trail before. It would be safer if I go first, then it will be easier for you to follow after seeing the best place to step. If anyone slips and falls, it could take the rest down, so watch where I put my feet and where I use handholds. It’s really not a terribly difficult trail as long as you’re careful.”
After Commander Fister nodded, Richard began the climb upward. Kahlan followed close behind him, then the three Mord-Sith, then Nicci, then the soldiers.
There was no back door, no secondary entrance, no other way up to the cliff village of Stroyza except the path that followed along natural crags and ledges of the rock face. Where there were no natural footholds, the rock had been laboriously chipped away to create them. In places softer rock underfoot had been smoothed by the feet of people, who for thousands of years climbed and descended the cliff wall on a daily basis.
“Be careful,” Richard called back over his shoulder to those following behind. “The rock in this section is smooth and the drizzle makes it slippery along here. The people who lived here were familiar with the trail, but we aren’t. Pay attention to where you step and use these natural handholds along here, like I’m doing.”
In some places, where there were natural lifts of ledge, the path was wide enough to walk comfortably along. Even so, the path was still only wide enough for them to climb in single file. Some places were dangerously narrow and, even without the drizzle, quite treacherous. Fortunately, in those places there were iron bars pinned into the face of the rock so that particularly narrow spots didn’t feel so dangerous.
It might have been easier for Richard to climb the trail without having to hold his sword, but he didn’t want to put it away. Besides, he felt that he knew the trail well enough by now to manage with his sword out. Most of the men kept their swords out as well, so he kept an eye on them to make sure they were being careful. Some of them were as agile as mountain goats and had no difficulty. The people of Stroyza, using the trail all their lives, had been familiar enough with it to carry supplies up and down without much of a problem.