Severed Souls (Sword of Truth 14)

She pointed. “I saw him run up ahead—that way. I saw him stop up higher, on the rocks up there, making sure we followed him.”

“I wish I knew why he wanted us to follow him,” Richard said.

“Maybe he wants to help,” Kahlan said. “Maybe he knows this place and he wants to get us to safety.”

Richard didn’t think it could be that simple, but he didn’t say so. There was more to it. What more there could be, he didn’t know, but for the time being the small cat had gotten most of them away from what would surely have been a gruesome death.

The rocky ground ascended on stepped layers of fallen slabs and boulders. A tangled growth of shrubs with large leaves and small, lacy trees had taken root over and among the rock. The ascending floor of the chasm took them up ever higher over the stepped ledges. Ahead, Richard could see that the walls closed off overhead again, with showers of water falling on the far side like a wet curtain.

The whole place looked like a passageway to the good spirits.

Richard recalled what Zedd had told him about always appreciating the beauty of things. It was certainly beautiful down at the bottom of the chasm. The temperatures down deep in the gorges were likely moderated to an extent from the heat and cold up above. Protected as the place was from harsh elements, it allowed everything to grow green and lush in the temperate, wet climate.

The rock at the bottom continued its ascent up the floor of the chasm, making the canyon ever more shallow the farther they went. The more he was able to see of the landmarks off to the sides above them, the more he recognized where they were. Richard realized that they were finally coming out the far end of the maze.

An hour more of hard climbing at last brought them out of the deep canyons to the forest above. All around mountains ascended into low, dark, ragged clouds. The woods, though, were anything but a normal forest.

As the ground flattened out, they found themselves entering a woodland of the trees that were all some kind of gnarled hardwood. They looked something like oaks, but were not oak. Richard had never seen the trees before. The canopy of leaves created a kind of ceiling overhead, leaving it dark and somber at ground level.

The craggy, bare trunks all looked black in the dim light. Higher up on the trunks the wood became increasingly knobby and knotted. Twisted, misshapen branches rose from there up into the thick canopy of blackish green leaves. It almost appeared that they were entering a vast chamber with black pillars holding up the dark green roof. The only light that made it down to the mostly barren forest floor was a hazy gray-green color. As far as Richard could see off into the murky distance there were hundreds of the black trunks supporting the ceiling of leaves.

Ravens somewhere up in the limbs let out calls that echoed through the crooked wood. He could see some of the big birds in the distance to the sides drop down out of the leaves to fly off among the trunks, cawing as they departed.

Kahlan pointed. “Look, there’s Hunter.”

He saw the animal off in the distance, sitting on its haunches waiting for them. Richard rested the palm of his left hand on the hilt of his sword as he kept watch on everything else around them. The place was creepy. That was the only way to describe it.

He saw that the men of the First File, spread out through the strange woods, ever on guard for any threat, were also looking warily around. Nicci looked as grim as the men. Irena and Samantha were clearly afraid of the place.

As they cautiously made their way ahead through the endless expanse of the half-dead-looking woods, Richard spotted something dark off in the hazy distance that was not trees.

He realized that it looked like people standing still and silent, except that it looked like they had horns.

He saw then more of them emerge from behind trees to the sides. All of the figures carried long, straight staffs that were a little taller than they were. It wasn’t long before they were surrounded by the silhouettes of what looked like nothing so much as horned people.

Irena slowly dry-washed her hands as she peered suspiciously from one of the still, silent figures to another.

Richard could see the shadowed form of Hunter off in the distance, watching them from far beyond the figures that had loosely closed in around them.

“What are they?” Samantha whispered to her mother.

Irena’s gaze darted among the silent, dark, horned figures.

“Cunning folk.”

Richard didn’t have to ask if she thought they were dangerous. By how pale Irena’s face had gotten, it was clear she thought they were.

CHAPTER

62

“Cunning folk?” Commander Fister asked in a quiet voice when he overheard what Irena had said.

She nodded to the commander as he leaned down close to her. “I think so. I’ve never met any of them myself. From things I’d always heard, I never wanted to.”

The commander appraised the situation and how many of the strange figures stood scattered throughout the dark wood. There were not enough for the men of the First File to be concerned, if it was only a matter of numbers. No one, though, thought that numbers were the problem.

“Tell the men to stand down,” Richard told the commander. “We don’t know that they mean us any harm and we don’t want to give them cause. This is still part of the D’Haran Empire. We are not invaders, but we are still coming into their home, so we owe them respect. I don’t want them to see us as a threat.”

“Got it,” Commander Fister said as he hiked up his trousers. “Be polite to the nice people with horns.”

He moved off, casually passing the word among the waiting men.

Richard saw one of the closer figures thump his staff on the ground three times. Small arcing sparks crackled at the top end of the staff.

Richard looked over at Nicci out of the corner of his eye. “Gifted magic?”

“No,” she said. “Some other kind of power, most likely occult abilities.”

“All the more reason to be cautious and show them a calm face,” Kahlan said.

Richard nodded his agreement. “Wait here.”

Nicci immediately seized his shirt at his shoulder. “No you don’t. You stay right where you are, protected by all of us. Let him come to us.”

Richard let out a deep sigh. “All right.”

He lifted an arm, waving, so that the man who had thumped the staff would see him. The dark figure watched Richard for a time, waiting to see what the soldiers off to the sides would do, before finally coming forward to meet them.

As the figure who had thumped his staff approached, he was joined by half a dozen other figures. They followed close behind him, off to the sides a little. All of them looked the same. All had staffs. All were coal black, much like the tree trunks all around them. All of them had long horns.

Once they were close enough, Richard was surprised to see that they were all covered head to toe in what appeared to be thick, black mud heavily loaded with straw. They all had steer skulls over their heads. The steer skulls were covered in the same black, muddy straw.

The idea of people wearing steer skulls over their heads struck him as rather silly, but standing there covered in the thick layer of black straw, eyes staring out from inside those skulls, they didn’t look at all silly. They looked intimidating. He knew, though, that intimidation was obviously the purpose. Intimidation often provided safety.

Richard could see nothing of them other than the thick layer of muddy straw and the skulls covering their heads. It was not even possible to tell if they were men or women.

“My name is Richard,” he said when the one who had thumped his staff came to a halt.

The man waited without saying anything.

“It is urgent that we get to Saavedra,” Richard told them.

“Not to us,” the man said in a voice muffled by the skull he was wearing over his head.

Richard noticed that more figures covered in the same pitch-black straw and wearing the same kind of steer skulls had emerged

from behind trees. They gathered, closing in around the interlopers. He knew that the soldiers could easily handle the numbers, but he didn’t think they could handle the occult powers that he feared these people could wield.

“We mean you and your people no harm,” Richard said. “We only wish to pass through here and we will be on our way.”

The straw man looked among several of those beside Richard. “There is evil among you.”