Severed Souls (Sword of Truth 14)

Kahlan glanced back over her shoulder from time to time. As unlikely as it seemed, they had gained more distance on the Shun-tuk chasing them. She could have run a little faster herself, but the men were already exhausted from the long hours of battle back at the encampment before this one in the gorge had even begun. She knew that they were running on pure First File mettle.

The men of the First File did not ever give up. For these men failure was not an option. Failure never entered their minds. Giving up wasn’t a part of their way of thinking. They focused only on finding a way to win.

It was maddening the way the battle, despite the odds, had been working so well, and then in an instant everything had changed. But Kahlan knew that in battle you had to be prepared to switch tactics in an instant.

Those who continued to press on with tactics that could not work ended up dead. Facing an enemy who refused to admit the reality of the futility of their strategy became a simple matter of killing them.

Successful warriors always preferred that to a fair fight. Successful warriors were the ones who won wars. That ability came naturally to Richard and for good reason—he was a war wizard. He was always searching for solutions that would work. If he found himself facing an impossible situation, he found a way to change the rules.

But at the moment, the rules were simple: run or die.

With the sword in her hand, Kahlan was not about to run ahead and leave the soldiers without her help at the rear, close to the enemy. If there were revived dead among the Shun-tuk chasing them, then short of Richard wielding it, the Sword of Truth in her hands was the best chance they had of defeating that threat.

As they ran up the steep ground, they came upon Zedd making slower progress up the rocky gully. He was losing ground to the rest of the men. He was wiry and stronger than he looked and ordinarily would have been able to run with the best of the Shun-tuk, but he had used a lot of his strength creating wizard’s fire. His endurance was waning.

Kahlan snatched a chain-mail sleeve of a soldier and pulled him close. “Help him. Don’t tell him that I told you to do so.”

The man nodded and then took one of Zedd’s arms. “Let me help, sir. I know you put up a valiant effort. You have to be exhausted. I saw what you did back there. I’ve never seen the like of it. It was truly magnificent.”

“Yes, it was magnificent,” Zedd said, momentarily cheered. “Unfortunately, it was not nearly enough…” he said, his cheer sinking.

“That’s all right,” another man said as he took Zedd’s other arm, helping to practically carry the wizard up the hill. Both men’s arms were nearly as big around as the skinny wizard’s waist. Kahlan saw that Zedd’s feet touched the ground only every third or fourth step.

It took all of Kahlan’s effort to make herself stay with the men rather than turn and fight the enemy. That was what she wanted to do. The sword was in full rage after the fighting had started and it demanded blood. Once it was out and engaged in battle, the magic of it was never satisfied as long as there was an enemy still standing. With the threat still existent, the sword wanted only to take it out. That was its nature. It was pristine purpose, pure power, devoted only to destroying what the one holding it wanted destroyed. It was up to the one holding it to choose what it considered to be the enemy and to place limits on what they did with the weapon. It required a thinking mind to properly apply its power.

It was a challenge just holding it and not letting it tell her what to do. She had a new appreciation for Richard’s ability to function calmly with the weapon in his hand.

Water dripping in little rivulets off the cliff faces to each side drenched them as they ran through it. The Dark Lands were a gloomy place where, from what Kahlan had seen so far, it was almost always dark and overcast. There was frequent mist, drizzle, and it rained almost every day.

All that water continually drained down the mountains, seeping through all the hairline cracks and fractures in the granite, soaking it through and through. It caused the granite to decompose over time and those crumbled bits accumulated in the gorge, making for difficult footing in places.

Because of the water, the rocks were covered in wet moss and slime. Having boots helped some, but it was still treacherous to run in such conditions, especially in the dark. Fortunately Nicci was casting flares of light to help the men see well enough to run at full speed.

Kahlan glanced back and saw several Shun-tuk slip and fall in an especially slimy, broad flat rock. Others tripped and fell over them. Because the ravine was so narrow, it slowed them until they could get the fallen men back up and out of the way. The next time she saw men slip and fall, frustrated half people didn’t bother to slow to help them. Rather, they simply trampled their companions to death under hundreds of feet. The tangle of limbs and bodies caused others to trip and fall, breaking arms and legs, only to be in turn trampled. There were spots where the falling figures upended dozens and dozens coming upon them, creating bottlenecks.

It bought Kahlan and the men with her some precious breathing room. The way it kept happening, and the more of the barefoot half people that slipped on blood and slime and fell, the more it allowed her and the men of the First File to put a decent gap on their pursuers.

But the gap wasn’t great, and she knew that the Shun-tuk were now fixated on their prey and they would not stop for anything.

Kahlan saw the men ahead going around someone in the center of the gorge. She soon reached the spot and realized that it was Samantha.

The young woman inexplicably stood motionless on a flat rock in the middle of the brook, the water pouring around either side of the rock.

Kahlan came to an abrupt halt, letting the rest of the men run on past. When they saw her stop, they all skidded to a halt and turned back to protect her.

Kahlan motioned frantically. “Keep going! Go, go, go!”

Reluctantly, they followed her orders. She looked up the gorge. Everyone was running as hard as they could. Behind, the Shun-tuk, too, ran up the gorge as hard as they could.

Samantha stood motionless all by herself in no-man’s-land.

Her head was bowed. Her bony elbows stuck out to the sides. The first two fingers of each hand were pressed to her temples. Her mass of black hair was as motionless as the rest of her.

Kahlan glanced back down the defile. There was precious little time until the half people caught up with where Kahlan and Samantha stood all alone.

“Samantha, what in the world are you doing?”

When she didn’t answer, Kahlan leaned in and yelled her name.

“Samantha!”

Without looking up, the young woman whispered one word.

“Run.”

Kahlan leaned closer. “Where’s Richard? You were supposed to be with him. I told you to take care of him.”

“Run,” she repeated in a softly feminine voice.

“What?”

When the young woman didn’t answer, in frantic uncertainty, Kahlan ran the bloody fingers of her left hand back into her blood-soaked hair as she stole a quick look up the gorge. She didn’t see the horse among the men racing up the steep defile. She realized that if she couldn’t see it, that meant that someone else had to be leading the horse carrying Richard, probably Irena, or Kahlan would have seen it left behind. Richard had to still be safe.

Kahlan leaned down farther and saw that Samantha’s eyes were closed. The young woman had not moved an inch. Eyes closed, her expression serene, fingers pressed to her temples, she didn’t move a muscle.

The Shun-tuk coming for them started howling, eager for blood.

“Samantha—”

“Run.”

CHAPTER

27

Kahlan straightened.

She felt goose bumps tingling along her arms. She blinked at the mystifyingly motionless Samantha. She had no idea what the problem could be, but there was no time to stand there and work it out.

Kahlan frantically tried to think. For sure they couldn’t s

tay there. They were mere moments from it being too late even to run.

Just as Kahlan looked back down in the darkness, unable to tell for sure exactly how close the Shun-tuk were, the moon, almost directly overhead, broke through a hole in the thick cloud cover for the first time that night, lighting the narrow defile in pale, eerie light. Kahlan could see the wet, slick, nearly vertical stone walls soaring up from the narrow chasm of broken rock with the brook running down through it.

At the base of those towering rock walls the river of white figures of the Shun-tuk raced up the ravine, predators with their prey almost within reach.