Severed Souls (Sword of Truth 14)

“Some of us were born with different abilities than others among us, just as some of you are gifted, while others of you are not.

“Spirit trackers can sense the presence of souls. Because we can sense souls, we can track them, much like a wolf can smell his prey and follow its scent. And like a wolf following a scent of a particular animal, we can distinguish between spirits. We can sense individual spirits and follow their essence. Once we found you, we did as we were commanded.”

“Not exactly. You failed,” Richard pointed out. “You failed even to kill the one man you had down and by himself. How does your spirit king treat those who fail him?”

“We did not fail. We tracked your spirits as instructed.”

“Tracking us would only be part of your orders. I’m sure you were instructed to kill us or bring captives back, much as you captured all these people here once before and brought them to Sulachan.

“This time, you failed. You didn’t kill any of us, steal any souls for yourselves, and you don’t have any captives to take back to Sulachan. Knowing how he treats those who fail him, I would say that you are fortunate you will never see Emperor Sulachan again.”

The man lifted his chin indignantly. “I will see him soon enough. When the world of the dead is brought together with the world of the living, I will be with my king again. In the meantime, the spirit trackers have not yet failed. We found you. We will continue coming after you until we succeed. We can fail many times and still keep coming. You can fail only once, and then we have you.

“Sooner or later you will be ours. We will have the souls of those with you, and bring you back so that Lord Arc can send you to the world of the dead with his own hands.”

“Lord Arc.” Richard frowned. “So you were instructed to bring only me back with you?”

“That’s right, our king sent us at the request of Lord Arc. But he sent us to bring back only you, for Lord Arc.”

“So you are not to bring back any other captives?”

The man looked over at Kahlan with lust in his dark eyes. “No. Just you. The rest he no longer needs. The rest we can eat. We can have their souls for ourselves.”

He smiled up to Richard. “Your soul belongs to my king and Lord Arc to do with as they will. That is their business, not ours. Our trackers are free to do what they will with the rest of your people.”

“And where are your spirit king and Hannis Arc? Where were you to bring me?”

The man’s brow lifted with a dismissive expression. “They head to the southeast.”

Kahlan didn’t like the sound of that. By the look Nicci and Zedd gave her, neither did the sorceress or wizard. The People’s Palace was to the southeast.

“Where are the rest of your trackers?” Richard asked. “When are they coming back to attack again?”

The man stared off without answering. It was obvious enough, now, that they would return, and keep returning. Kahlan knew that the only way to stop them was to kill every last one of them.

“It seems to me that it is in your best interest to cooperate in order to stay alive, since if you die without a soul you will not be around for the time when your king unites the world of the dead and the living.”

The Shun-tuk frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The longer you cooperate, the longer you live. Who knows, you might live long enough to see the worlds united.

“But if you don’t cooperate, then you are of no further use to us. Why would we want to keep you around, take you with us, watch over you? Like a wolf in our midst, your existence will have to be extinguished. Then there will be nothing left of you, no spirit, no spark of anything to live on in the united world of the third kingdom. For now, death is the final end for you.”

The man tried to shift his weight, but with big soldiers to either side holding his arms, and Commander Fister standing on his calves, he could move little more than his head, and that was limited by the knife at his throat.

“If you kill me, then it cannot matter to me, because I will not exist in any world. I will be no longer.”

“But you would rather continue to exist, or you wouldn’t be trying to steal these souls,” Richard said as he gestured around at all the people watching.

The Shun-tuk looked at the people surrounding him with the eyes of a hungry wolf.

“Now, what are their plans?” Richard asked in a quiet, deadly tone that made most people tremble, making it clear that the man was running out of time. “What are your spirit trackers planning to do next?”

The man, staring ahead for a moment, finally looked up at Richard. The unshakable resolve was back in his eyes. “It can make no difference for you to know what we will do. Knowing cannot help you because you will not be able to do anything to stop us, or to stop our king.

“So there is no point in me telling you.”

The man lifted his chin and fell silent.

CHAPTER

15

“I think there is a very good reason for you not to tell me,” Richard said. “I think you don’t want to say because you fear that I really can stop them.” Richard spread his hands. “After all, if what you’re saying were true—that the spirit trackers will have us sooner or later—then why would you be so afraid to tell me their plans?”

The man frowned. “I am not afraid.”

“The only reason for not telling me has to be because you really do believe we can prevent them from capturing me and having all the rest of us. You’re afraid that if I know, I will stop them and you will have none of our souls.”

The man frowned as he thought it through. Finally, he decided to speak.

“Your spirit”—he tilted his head to indicate Kahlan—“and hers, are touched by death. We can feel it, sense it, like the smell of death. The spirit trackers can sense that sickness darkening your lives. You are like wounded animals.

“We can sense those times when that weakness comes over you and makes you lose consciousness. That is when your people are vulnerable. Without you, they cannot fight us off.

“After all, we captured all of them and more once before when you were unconscious. Had Sulachan’s spirit already returned and used his trackers, we would have known that you were among the others, but unconscious and hidden. Sulachan had not returned from the dead, yet, so that time you both escaped.

“This time, the trackers will again attack, but they will do so when they know that you are weak and vulnerable. We attacked earlier, when we felt your woman drifting closer to d

eath. When we sensed her weakness, we came for you all.

“Sooner or later that will happen to you, and we will know. When it happens, then we will have you all.

“Even now, we can sense your spirits losing the battle for life. You do not have long to live. Soon the time will be right and the trackers will be all over your people while you lie helpless. They will tear them apart and have their souls.

“Then we will capture you and take you to our king.”

Richard shrugged. “If what you say is true, I may be dead by then. If I die, your plans will be ruined.”

He looked disinterested. “If you should happen to die before we can take you back, that will satisfy Sulachan just as well. Either way, we will win in the end. You have no chance.”

“If he wants me brought to him so badly, then how can he be satisfied if I die first?”

The man smiled again with the kind of arrogant smile that put Kahlan in mind of so many killers right before she had touched them with her Confessor power. No matter how self-assured they were, no matter how superior they behaved, no matter how dismissive and arrogant toward her, no matter how tough they thought they were, once she touched them with her power all that ended in an instant and each and every one of them confessed their crimes to her, no matter how vile those crimes might have been.

“Sulachan does not care if you should happen to die first,” the prisoner said, “because he already has plans for you in the underworld.”

Richard planted his fists on his hips. “What are you talking about?”

“Sulachan is called the king of the dead for good reason. He has infinite patience that only the eternally dead can have. He has been there a long, long time, working on his plans for his return, for his revenge.

“Sulachan was there in the underworld when the scream of death that escaped the Hedge Maid’s lips claimed her and pulled her through the veil. Sulachan knows that the same poison that took her touched you two as well.