Severed Souls

by Terry Goodkind

  Kahlan could see that having it fully drawn, his hand now firmly on the hilt, had ignited a storm of rage from the sword. She could see in his gray eyes that the power of that ancient weapon was now providing him needed strength. Still, the power of the sword was the twin to his, and that meant that it might have been providing strength, but it needed Richard’s strength to fully complete it, and at the moment Richard didn’t have sufficient strength of his own.

  When Richard held his other arm out, Commander Fister gripped it and helped pull him to his feet. Samantha tried her best to maintain contact with him, but to her frustration once he was standing she could no longer keep her hands on his head.

  With the sword in his fist, Richard didn’t need Samantha’s help. The sword’s power was far stronger than any strength she could give him, but she stayed close just in case.

  Once up, Richard quickly scanned the battle scene. “We can’t keep fighting by their rules or we are soon going to lose.”

  “It’s not like we have a lot of choice,” Commander Fister said, his exasperation barely contained.

  “Again, you are thinking of the problem, not the solution,” Richard told him, absently, as he carefully looked around, studying everything.

  Jake Fister assessed Richard’s face for a brief moment, as if trying to tell if he really was thinking clearly or maybe still suffering from a delusional fog from the sickness.

  Kahlan knew better. She knew the way Richard thought. While she didn’t know what he had in mind in this instance, she knew that he was not delusional—he was thinking like the Richard she knew so well. In a way, it heartened her. While everyone else was focused on the problem they faced, he was thinking of a solution.

  Richard looked off to the side, studying the darkness. Kahlan didn’t know what he was looking at, but she knew that he could see better in the dark than she could. Richard could see at night almost as well as a cat.

  “Casualties are irrelevant to them,” he said, “especially since those with occult powers are soon going to start reviving the dead. The more we kill, the bigger the supply of dead they have at hand to turn into those walking dead. Those unholy monsters are a lot harder to take down than the Shun-tuk. Our men are tiring. Matters can only get worse from this point on.”

  “These are men of the First File,” the commander insisted. “They will fight with all their heart and soul.”

  “The Shun-tuk don’t fight very well, though, or use weapons,” Richard added, mostly to himself, not seeming to really notice what the commander had said.

  “Our men are the best,” the commander again insisted. “You know that, Lord Rahl. They are the best fighters there are. The Shun-tuk aren’t quality fighters.”

  Richard finally refocused his attention on the commander. “Yes, but vast numbers have a quality all their own. They don’t care how many people they lose. We do.”

  The commander scratched an eyebrow, deciding against further argument. “You have something in mind, Lord Rahl?”

  Richard gestured with his sword. “This camp, set up the way it is with the cliff blocking the back side, is not the worst place to fight from. But it’s not the best, either, especially in this case because it works to their advantage. They can surround us from several directions and keep us pinned down. We can’t move easily, so they can keep us here and keep coming at us to wear us down.

  “We need to draw them into terrain that is to our advantage, not theirs. We need to flank them and get some men behind them.”

  Commander Fister scanned the battle, looking around at the open area and the dark forest beyond where Shun-tuk kept running in from every direction.

  “But how can we hope to do that? We’re out in the open. They’re scattered all throughout the woods. We have no idea where all of them are. How are we supposed to flank them?”

  “By changing the battle. We need to be able to come at them from both sides at once and crush them.”

  The commander lifted an eyebrow. “Lord Rahl, what you say makes sense—theoretically—but in this case it would be like trying to flank ants. They’re all over the place out there.”

  “Again, you’re telling me the problem. I already know the problem.” Richard pointed with his sword to the rock wall backing the encampment. “This cliff face, where it goes around over there, is formed by the side of a gorge coming down from higher ground. That ravine turns out here, in this cliff face, as the terrain broadens into this lower, flatter ground. Look there. See that brook over to the side, where we’ve been getting water? That brook comes down through that ravine.”

  “What of it?” the commander asked.

  “We need to draw the Shun-tuk in there. The terrain climbs from here and the sides are steep, so the Shun-tuk wouldn’t be able to spread out. If they want to come after us, their only choice will be to follow us up the gorge. There is no practical way to go around and catch us. If they tried that, we’d be able to get away from them.”

  The commander rubbed his chin as he peered off at the gorge.

  “Before we go in there,” Richard said, “we need to station men to either side. They can slip in over there at the edge of the camp. We need to have men climb up and hide on the slopes to lie in wait for the enemy to pass by. Meanwhile, with the other half of the men, we will run up the gorge, as if we’re panicked and running for our lives to try to escape them.”

  “What if they don’t follow us?”

  “They’re predators. Predators chase running prey. It’s one of a predator’s strongest instincts.”

  Commander Fister was listening with more interest. “Then what? A hammer and anvil?”

  Richard nodded. “Once we get them to follow half of us into that narrow gorge, the men hiding up on the sides will descend, close off the back door, and come at them from the rear, closing the trap. At that point, we turn back on them. We move in from both ends and crush them in that narrow pass. They won’t be able to escape or hide.”

  Kahlan and Commander Fister peered off at the steep hillsides where the brook went around the cliff face to then go back up into the more rugged landscape. Kahlan couldn’t see it very well, and couldn’t make out much of the lay of the land, but she trusted Richard’s word in such things. He had spent his life in the woods and he knew what he was talking about.

  The commander rubbed his chin as he looked back at Richard.

  “How are we supposed to get them to follow us into a narrow defile like that? They may not fight well, and they may be predators, as you say, but they’re not stupid.”

  “Believe me, they will follow us,” Richard assured him.

  Kahlan knew that Richard already had some kind of plan in mind, and she knew she wasn’t going to like it.

  Not one bit.

  CHAPTER

  20

  The commander didn’t back down and defer to the Lord Rahl, the way some subordinates would have. Richard expected his men to use their heads and not just blindly agree with what he said. Throughout the long war he had instilled that principle in all the officers.

  Tyranny had long reigned in D’Hara. Such men ruled with absolute authority and did not tolerate dissenting views. Richard expected people to use their heads and speak up if they thought it was important enough. He valued the experience and knowledge of others. What they could contribute added to, rather than detracted from a leader’s ability to rule. Because of that, there had been times when Richard had been persuaded by reasoned arguments and changed his mind.

  “Lord Rahl,” Commander Fister said, “they may be predators and all, and as such they may very well have a strong instinct to chase, but the prisoner told us that these Shun-tuk are spirit trackers. They sense spirits—souls—and can follow them. They will be able to sense the men they are to follow into the gorge well enough, but they are also going to be able to sense the men we have hiding to either side.”

  “Yes,” Richard said, “but the group they are chasing will be bunched together and running from them. The me
n hiding on the slopes to the side will be scattered and stationary. That bunching together of the group they are chasing, that accumulation of souls, will create a much stronger aura for them to follow than scattered individuals.

  “Think of it this way. If you are about to go into battle, and you see a large force of the enemy advancing along a tree line, coming toward your position, are you going to be more focused on that main battle formation or on some individuals you spot randomly located out in the fields?”

  “I’d pay attention to both, and wonder what the ones out in the field were up to.” Commander Fister tapped the hilt of his sword with a thumb. “But I see your point. In the end, the main group is going to have to be the focus of my attention. Even so, I don’t see that they will abandon their caution just because we want to draw them into a trap.”

  Richard smiled. “They will if we make it irresistible.”

  The commander shared a look with Kahlan before looking suspiciously at Richard. He had aired his view, and if Richard rejected it, he wasn’t sure what else to say. He looked like he was hoping that Kahlan would.

  Kahlan thought that Richard’s sickness was wearing him down and affecting his judgment. So, she stepped in to support Commander Fister’s view.

  “Richard, they may be primitive, but they are also skilled predators. They may indeed be eager to chase the main group, but decide instead to pick off those lone individuals, first, choosing to go after the easy souls and at the same time reduce our numbers. After all, that’s what they did with Ned. They attacked a lone man so they could get at our horses. They didn’t directly attack us first. First they went after softer prey. They may choose to do that this time as well.”

  “Not if they are going after the one thing they want more than anything else but events are moving rapidly and it may slip away from them. Not if they think they finally have us on the run and vulnerable and they have no time to lose.”

  “Vulnerable,” Fister said, suspiciously.

  “Yes.”

  The big D’Haran officer frowned. “And what is this key to their victory that they will have within their grasp if they move swiftly enough?”

  “Me, unconscious.”

  Commander Fister blinked. “You. Unconscious.”

  Richard nodded. “That’s right.”

  Kahlan ran the fingers of both hands back into her hair, holding her head in barely contained exasperation. “Richard, that’s just plain crazy. I don’t even know where to begin with how crazy it is.”

  She could see the anger—the fighting anger—of the sword in his eyes, as if she were looking into the depths of his soul.

  “You heard the prisoner,” he said. “They can sense when I’m failing and especially when I’m unconscious. He said that they are waiting for me to falter and that was when they would take us. That is their strategy—to wait until I’m unconscious and then attack us. It’s a predator’s thinking, stalking and waiting until the prey is vulnerable. With me unconscious that’s when we are the most vulnerable. That’s what they are waiting for and that’s when they will be after us.”

  “But you’re awake now,” Kahlan said. “You can keep the sword out.”

  “That’s the tough part of the plan.”

  Richard slid the sword back into its scabbard.

  Kahlan gaped at him. “What are you doing?”

  “Without the sword’s power, I will be unconscious within a few minutes. I can feel the poison waiting to take me into that darkness. It’s stronger this time. It’s growing in both of us.”

  The commander was visibly alarmed. “Lord Rahl, that’s too risky. We can’t—”

  “Listen to me,” Richard said, his voice still commanding even though it was swiftly beginning to lose its power now that he’d slid the sword home to extinguish its magic. “There isn’t much time. You need to listen to me.”

  When Kahlan and the commander reluctantly fell silent, Richard went on. “The way it stands right now, we’re going to lose this battle fighting it this way. Kahlan and I are getting worse all the time. We are running out of time, and each time the poison overtakes us it is stronger. Death is not far off.

  “We must act while we still can.”

  Richard swept an arm out at the defensive line of the desperate battle. “If we keep fighting them like this, by their rules, we will lose. We have to change the rules.”

  Commander Fister hooked a thumb behind his belt. “All right, what’s your plan, then? What do you propose to do?”

  “Get half the men positioned up on the sides of the gorge. Do it now. It won’t be long until I’m unconscious. The Shun-tuk will be able to sense when that happens.

  “We have one horse left. Once I’m unconscious, lay me over the horse and secure my body. With the remaining half of the men, run up through the chasm with the horse carrying me. Run like you’re trying to get away.

  “The Shun-tuk will think our men are panicking. Run up the gorge like you’re taking me and fleeing for your lives. Leave the rest of the men behind, hiding up on the hillsides out of sight until the Shun-tuk pass. Even if they sense them, they will likely think they are some of the men breaking ranks and running away to hide and save themselves. They will sense that the main group of souls has me with them and they are running away up the gorge, trying to escape.

  “If you do a convincing job of running, like you’re trying to get the incapacitated, unconscious Lord Rahl away from mortal danger, they will chase us. They behave like any predator. Once predators start chasing prey, they have tunnel vision centered on their prey. They will be focused on the prey and ignore everything else.

  “If I’m unconscious, they will come after me.

  “Then, once they come after us up into the ravine and the men on the slopes shut the back door to that narrow space, have Zedd lay down wizard’s fire back down the gorge. It will be much more devastating in such a confined space.

  “Some of them, though, are immune to such magic, so that’s when you have the men turn and come in from both ends. In that narrow gorge you can cut the rest of those with occult power to pieces. They may not be vulnerable to magic, but they bleed and die just like anyone else.”

  “All right, Lord Rahl, but what if you’re wrong and they do sense the men hiding there waiting to spring the trap? Then what?”

  Richard was shaking his head. “No. This is the dance with death. You give the enemy the one thing he wants more than anything else, dangle it in front of him, and he will abandon his sense of caution to go after it. I am that one thing, the thing that their spirit king sent them for. Just as importantly, if they think they can eliminate me, that will give them the chance to feed on the rest of you.

  “They know that if they can get me when I’m incapacitated then they can also get the rest of you. If they see that chance to have it all running away from them, they must chase it down.”

  “So you really plan to be unconscious during this battle?” Commander Fister asked, incredulous.

  Kahlan was beside herself. “If you’re unconscious, you will be defenseless.”

  “Yes, exactly. I have to be unconscious for them to sense that I am vulnerable. It has to be that way if we want it to work. Samantha and the sword helped give me just enough strength to be able to stay conscious long enough to give you the plan. But I can feel that inner darkness overcoming me as I speak. This time, you have to let it take me.

  “You have to let me go for now, then throw me over the horse and get moving. The rest of you will have to carry out the plan without me.”

  “But—” the commander started.

  The power of the sword that had been so evident in his gray eyes was gone. His eyes were becoming glassy. Kahlan recognized the sickness coming over him. She was on the verge of panic. On the one hand she knew that Richard was right and that he was giving them the best chance of survival.

  But on the other hand … it was Richard who would be unconscious, completely helpless, and most at risk. And that was not e
ven taking into account him flirting with the call of death that would be trying to use this opportunity to finally take him.

  “Once we get through the gorge, after you cut them to ribbons, then have Zedd and Nicci do their best to revive me,” Richard told them.

  Kahlan didn’t think he sounded sure that they would be able to, this time. If they survived the battle. If Richard wasn’t captured. Even if everything went as he planned, it might by then be too late for Zedd and Nicci to revive him. He could die.

  “Lord Rahl, I can give you strength now,” Samantha said, clearly on the verge of panic. He had always been her strength and she couldn’t stand the thought of losing that rock in her world.

  “Not this time,” he told her. “This is our only chance.”

  Kahlan could feel tears welling up in her eyes. “Richard…”

  He gripped her arm as he sank to one knee. “Don’t waste this chance. Do as I say. Do it now. I’m counting on you.”

  Richard pulled Kahlan closer. “Once they have me secured over the horse, then take my sword. You are going to need it.” He managed to give her a wink. “Just don’t run me through with it this time.”

  Commander Fister caught Richard as he fell forward and held him upright on his knees. Richard’s head hung. He was already unconscious.

  The commander looked over at Kahlan. “Did anyone ever tell you that you married a crazy man?”

  Kahlan couldn’t manage to smile in order to go along with his grim attempt to lighten the terror of the situation.

  “He’s not crazy. He has just given us all our only chance.”

  The commander hoisted Richard’s limp body up, pulling one arm around his broad shoulders.

  “Samantha,” Kahlan said as she gestured, “get one of those men right there to bring the horse immediately. Tell the other two to help the commander with Richard.”

  As Samantha raced off to get help, Kahlan turned to Commander Fister. “You had better protect him and keep him alive until Zedd and Nicci can heal him. I’m counting on you.”