Richard, of course, had known that, and that was why he didn’t want to continue to try to fight them at the encampment. Seeing the numbers, now, seeing how many Shun-tuk they faced, Kahlan understood that he had made that call none too soon. Richard had known that their best chance was to fight them in the narrow gorge as opposed to back in the open of the encampment.
The tactic of rotating the men so the ones at the front were always fresh, especially when driven from both ends in a confined space like the narrow gorge, was a killing machine that could grind through a lightly armed enemy such as the Shun-tuk with frightening efficiency. In such a situation, the vast numbers the Shun-tuk had were not as much of an advantage. This kind of battle was more akin to butchery than fighting. But then, that was what war was. The purpose of warriors was to kill the enemy as swiftly and efficiently as possible in order to end the conflict.
The well-disciplined and practiced men of the First File stood in tight ranks, overlapping their shields like links of armor, and mowed down the enemy as they tried to advance. Lances laid over the shoulders of the foremost rank were used to stab at the unprotected enemy. If the enemy saw the danger and stopped advancing, it made no difference because the soldiers would then begin to advance toward them, pushing from both ends at once. The enemy couldn’t retreat. They were caught in the teeth of a meat grinder that relentlessly chewed through them.
The only problem in the plan, the thing that nagged at the back of Kahlan’s mind, was that not only were these half people driven by an insane desire to eat living flesh so that they could steal a soul, these were now the ones with occult powers.
That worry kept whispering from the back of her mind.
In the dimly lit, narrow defile, Kahlan could see that some of the sea of figures coming for them had glowing red eyes. Some of them were the dead that had been reanimated. That was going to be another problem with the tactic the First File was using.
Even the Shun-tuk who had no occult powers, and were still sufficiently intact, could be brought back from the dead to be more lethal than they ever had been in life. Even the ones who had been burned to death, as long as they still had arms and legs, could be used. They didn’t bleed and die like living people. Since they weren’t alive, simply stabbing them through vital organs wouldn’t stop them. They had to be hacked to pieces or burned to ash.
Zedd shuffled past Kahlan on his way back up the gorge. He gave her a vacant look. That single look frightened her almost as much as the sight of the Shun-tuk.
Kahlan knew by the way his feet dragged and his arms hung that Zedd was near the end of his ability to use his gift, much less focus the strength needed to create wizard’s fire. What he had already done was exhausting work and he had been at it for quite some time. He would need to rest and recover some strength if he was to continue fighting. He had to be rotated back, much as the men fighting at the leading edge needed to catch their breath and recover some of their strength. Zedd would need water and a quick bite to eat to give him strength.
Kahlan cupped her free hand to the side of the old man’s face. “Why don’t you stay back up behind and watch over Richard for a while.”
He nodded, offering her a brief smile as he moved on.
Kahlan spotted Nicci and saw that she was exhausted as well, but the sorceress had no intention of resting just yet.
Below them, the writhing mass of ghostly figures struggled with all their might to climb up the gorge as fast as they could. Only the difficulty of the terrain, the narrowness of the gorge, and their own numbers interfering with each other slowed them. Having to funnel through narrower spots in the walls meant that they had to slow to wait their turn. In their impatience to get a soul, some pushed the ones in front down and stepped on or over them. Despite how they might have been slowed in the tight spots, once through, each of the half people raced ahead with reckless determination.
Richard had been right. They were predators fixated on the bait and they were now in full chase mode.
With a sense of hopeless realization, Kahlan grasped that Richard’s plan had worked—the Shun-tuk would follow them up the gorge. The only problem was that despite the effectiveness of that plan, Kahlan instinctively understood that there were too many. The odds were too great. The sheer weight of numbers was going to be more than a problem. It could spell their doom.
But the sword she held didn’t care about such odds. If anything, the odds only stimulated the power of rage from the weapon. It demanded their blood, and the confined space still gave them the best chance to stop the Shun-tuk.
The problem for the soldiers was going to be the revived dead.
The sword she carried, though, had been created for just such problems.
Kahlan pushed her way through the men, racing down to the front of their lines, toward the men fighting closest to the enemy.
She descended into madness.
CHAPTER
25
The Shun-tuk, in their insane drive for the souls of these men, were eager for the fight. They reached with clawed hands and snapped their jaws, hoping to get their teeth into flesh. Men cut them down relentlessly. The white figures coming from behind were equally determined. They were undeterred by how many white bodies lay dead at their feet. Those that had died only meant that they would have their chance. They climbed over their own dead to get at the soldiers, only to be run through with lances or laid open with swords and axes.
Kahlan spotted the first of the dead coming toward them. In the dim light, his glowing red eyes were easy to spot. She saw that he had only one arm. His chest had been ripped open, the ribs broken, so that she could see his lungs exposed. His lungs were still, though, as he had no need to breathe, but he was certainly coming for them. It was now occult powers that gave them strength and purpose.
This was the part that Kahlan had the best chance to handle. The dead didn’t fall easily to regular steel, but the Sword of Truth was an ancient weapon that existed for eliminating just such evil.
Finally able to unleash the fury of the sword, Kahlan brought it down so hard it split the dead man’s head and most of his body. He tried to move, to come after them, but he was far too damaged and only thrashed ineffectively. His right side fell over while the left side tried to drag the rest along. Her second blow ended the effort for good.
Kahlan was already past him, going after the walking dead. She could see their glowing red eyes glaring out from the darkness. The soldiers could fight the Shun-tuk; she needed to eliminate those difficult-to-stop awakened dead and leave the Shun-tuk for the men of the First File.
Kahlan scanned the faces, the gaping mouths, the painted black eye sockets, until she saw another pair of glowing red eyes. An instant after she saw them, her sword arced around and shattered the head. On the backswing she took off the head of another dead woman with glowing eyes, then stabbed the blade through the chest of a living Shun-tuk. His eyes opened wide in surprise before the life went out of them. As she yanked the blade free, she swiftly delivered several more blows to disable the headless dead to prevent them from using their arms against the soldiers.
Through the fury to get at the enemy, Kahlan recognized that half people were starting to come after her, specifically. She remembered, then, that they recognized her soul. She was a prize they wanted. She remembered what the prisoner had said about what they wanted to do to her.
She remembered the promise of the spirit king’s dark ones waiting for her in the underworld.
She realized, too, that in going after the reawakened dead, she had waded too far into the regular Shun-tuk.
Surrounded as she was, she still felt euphoric with each one she killed. More Shun-tuk coming closer in around her meant that she didn’t have to go after them in order to kill them. She could stand her ground and kill half people all around her as they came to her. The danger of her situation was a distant concern compared to the exhilaration of killing them. Each life the blade took fed the anger, giving glorious satisfaction that in turn on
ly drove the blade’s insatiable need for the enemy’s blood.
Her sword scythed white-painted men and women down by the dozens. What had been a trap closing around her turned into mounds of bodies clogging the gorge, making it more difficult for others to climb over the dead to get at her. Some slipped on blood and gore and fell, some smacking their heads on rocks, while others were stabbed to death before they could scramble to their feet.
Despite the blade’s hunger for enemy blood, Kahlan paid particular care to being sure she cut down any she saw with the red glowing eyes.
Killing the others between finding those with glowing red eyes was just a delicious treat until she could find another walking dead.
As she swung the sword, laying open chests, severing limbs, shattering skulls, she could feel their warm blood splattering across her face. Blood dripped from the stringy wet tips of her hair.
Still, the blood wasn’t enough. She wanted more. She went after them with ever-increasing fury. Teeth gritted with rage, she cut them down as fast as they could come at her.
Even as she fought, though, somewhere in the dim recesses of her mind, she knew that there were too many.