“It’s going to be light soon. We can’t afford to delay one moment longer than absolutely necessary. We need to see to this and then be on our way to Saavedra. If the trackers haven’t found anything by first light, then we must put our efforts toward what matters most right now—getting to the citadel.”
All around the small clearing, Richard saw fists go to hearts. Even Samantha, Irena, and Nicci silently bowed their heads as they touched fists to hearts.
“And then,” Richard said, “I am going to find out who did this and I am going to kill them with my bare hands.”
CHAPTER
57
By first light, when the sky was just beginning to take on a faint blush, the trackers had not found anything meaningful. There were some suspicious indications that Richard would have investigated himself, but it could easily take most of the day to see if those indications led to anything significant. While it was critically important to know who had killed Zedd—after all, that killer could strike again—they couldn’t afford the time. Richard and Kahlan’s only chance to live was to get to the citadel before the poison overwhelmed them.
In the back of his mind, as he stood staring at the smoking ashes that were his grandfather’s worldly remains, Richard was having trouble putting the pieces together. He couldn’t make sense of things or understand how it had happened.
He felt numb.
He knelt beside the remains of the funeral pyre and pushed his hand into the still-warm ashes, wishing he could touch his grandfather one last time.
“I’m sorry, Zedd, but I can’t quit just yet.”
“What do you mean?” Kahlan asked from above, over his shoulder.
Richard stood. He held his hand up before his face and stared at the glove of gray ashes.
“Nothing.” He looked over at Kahlan. “Are you ready?”
She nodded, her chin trembling as she fought back the tears. She fell into his arms, then, as she started crying all over again.
“I’m usually stronger than this,” she said between sobs.
Richard held her tightly for a moment, burying his face in her hair at the side of her neck.
“I know,” he whispered. “I love you.”
After a moment, he straightened and held her by her shoulders as he looked into her green eyes. “I can’t lose you, too, Kahlan. We need to get going. Zedd would want us to hurry. He would understand the need. He would not want us standing around staring at his ashes.”
Kahlan nodded as she sniffled back her tears. “I know. I understand. He may be gone, but he will live in our hearts as long as they beat.”
Richard nodded, unable to smile. He saw Nicci and the others waiting quietly in the background, back among the trees at the edge of the little clearing.
He looked around one last time. “It’s a beautiful spot. He told me to take the time to appreciate the beauty of things.”
The shadowy shapes of pine and spruce stood around the edge of the clearing like mourners in black silently watching.
Richard took Kahlan’s hand, then, and walked quickly to where the others stood waiting. “There is enough light. We need to get moving.”
Heads all around nodded.
“There are those dark, flying predators that took two men yesterday, and someone obviously murdered Zedd. The ones yesterday were flying beasts. This here was a two-legged beast. I don’t think I need to tell any of you to stay alert.” When they all shook their heads, he said, “Let’s get moving, then.”
“The scouts are back, Lord Rahl,” the resolute Commander Fister said. “They have a route for us—but they’ve only had time to pick a route for the first hour or so.”
“That will get us started. Let’s go.”
Without further word, and with Kahlan at his side, Richard marched away from the ashes. He didn’t look back.
Nicci fell in close behind him. Behind her, Irena and Samantha rushed to stay close on her heels as they all wove their way through the thick growth of young hardwoods. As Richard and the women moved through the waiting men, some went on out ahead while others fell in behind.
With sunrise still a ways off, the forest was not only dark and foreboding, it was hiding a killer. In the dim, early blush of light before the approaching dawn, it was hard to make out much of anything in detail other than those in close enough.
As they went over the edge of the rise, Richard could see the black shapes of men out ahead along with the soaring trunks of pines silhouetted against the sky. He took the opportunity of a bit of open sky to check for anything flying that could snatch them up. He didn’t see anything close other than a flock of small birds. Higher up in the sky he saw ravens circling, looking for a meal, looking for anything to scavenge.
He turned his eyes back to the ground to watch his footing, glad that he had made the decision to dispose of Zedd’s remains in the way he had.
He was still having trouble believing it was real. He had been with Zedd his entire life. He couldn’t imagine his grandfather being gone. He didn’t want to leave even his ashes. He felt like he was abandoning Zedd. Despite all the people around him he felt lonely and lost.
It felt like he was watching himself walk along through the thick forest, after having gone through the motions of saying words over his grandfather before Nicci had ignited it all. The flames had been hot, burning with a kind of rage at the terrible task they had been called upon to perform. Nicci had seen to it that those flames made quick work of it.
He kept thinking of things he wanted to ask Zedd, things he wanted to say, things he wanted to remember to talk to him about. None of it seemed real. He wanted to recall it all, to pull the river of time back and somehow change its course.
He knew how Zedd thought and what he believed. He knew Zedd’s reasoning on just about every subject. He thought about the advice Zedd would give him at that moment. When he realized what Zedd would say, he turned and took Nicci’s arm. With Kahlan on his right, he pulled Nicci close on his left as they walked among the forest monarchs. The ground was flat enough that the three of them could walk side by side.
“Only you and Zedd could heal us, as long as you had the containment field,” he said, “right?”
“And possibly Irena,” Nicci said. “I don’t know her ability. It’s an incredibly complex task, but it’s possible she may be able to do it.”
“I don’t think it’s wise to count on her,” Kahlan said, glancing back to make sure the woman was out of earshot before looking past him to Nicci. “We don’t know enough about her ability. She could make a mistake at a critical juncture in the conjuring. I wouldn’t want to put Richard’s life in the hands of someone untested in such things.”
“Nor would I,” Nicci said. “At least, not as long as we don’t have to.”
Still holding her by her upper arm, Richard helped Nicci step over a split in the rock and then checked the woods around them before he went on.
“Then for the sake of argument, let’s say that you and Zedd are the only two that we were positive could heal us. Let’s say we assume that Irena wouldn’t know enough, or wouldn’t have the experience or ability that would be necessary. Let’s just say we have to count her out. While Samantha is obviously quite gifted, I’m sure she doesn’t have the knowledge or training to do such a thing, so we have to count her out as well.”
“That leaves me,” Nicci said. “I told you I could do it.”
“Right. The three of us—you, Kahlan, and me—have to get there, though, in order to do it. There were two of you, and now Zedd is dead. I find that more than suspicious. But in any event, that means that we now have only you to count on.”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“It is. But it also means that we have to assume that, because you are one of the two who can heal us, you are a target in much the way Zedd was. I want you in our shadow every step the rest of the way there. Not just so that you can watch over us, but so that I
can watch over you.”
“Richard, I can take pretty good care of myself.”
“So could Zedd.”
She met his gaze and then conceded with a nod. “You’ve got it. You and Kahlan are going to get very tired of turning around, though, and bumping into me.”
Richard couldn’t make himself smile. “Thanks, Nicci. Kahlan and I are counting on you.”
“I wish that my power worked,” Kahlan said. “Then I’d be able to protect her as well. But you can believe I know how to use my knife and I intend to have it at the ready every moment. I hope you don’t get tired of turning around and bumping into me.”
“Never,” Nicci said with a smile meant to reassure them.
CHAPTER
58
By midmorning they reached the edge of a prominence where Richard was able to get a partial view out over the landscape of smaller mountains ahead and the lower reaches of the forest spread out far below. Saavedra was nowhere in sight, yet, but he only had a partial view and there were a lot of rugged walls of rock that he couldn’t see beyond, so it was possible that when they were able to get farther down and beyond some of the difficult terrain they might be able to spot it.
From where they stood, they could easily see that there was higher ground ahead in places. Once they got down into the lower forest, though, they would be blind to what lay ahead. They needed to be aware of the nuances of the lay of the land in order to know how to avoid going off in certain directions or they would end up having to backtrack. They couldn’t afford that.
He could see that they were still going to have a lot of ground to cover before they had any hope of reaching Saavedra. He could also see that they had some tricky country to get through as they made their way lower down through the mountains. It all looked pretty easy when viewed from up high, but experience had taught him what to look for when picking a route.
Since they were moving so swiftly, the scouts hadn’t been able to push beyond this point, but Richard had grown up in the woods, scouting trackless woods and picking passages through rugged country. He studied the lay of the land ahead, looking for possible routes and making mental notes of what to avoid.
“What do you think?” Kahlan asked. “It doesn’t look promising to me. Do you see a way?”
“It may not look promising, but we have to go in this direction. We don’t have a choice.” Richard pointed to where two mountains met, creating folds and rugged canyons. “We need to get down there. I can’t see what’s down in between all those twisting chasms, but that’s the way we need to go.”
“What about that way,” Nicci asked as she pointed a little more to the left. “It looks easier without all those bends and turns in the chasms. It looks sketchy down in there. Going more to the left avoids that.”
“It only looks easy from this distance.” Richard leaned close to her and pointed, letting her sight down his arm. “See that there? If we go that way the ground drops away in sheer cliffs. They don’t look that bad from here, but I can tell you they are impassable. Trying to climb down is harder than climbing up, and that’s a nasty descent. I wouldn’t try it, and I know what I’m doing.”
Nicci let out a frustrated sigh. “Looks like the chasms, then.”
“What about that spot?” Kahlan asked, pointing. “The land is gentler off that way.”
“It is,” Richard said, gesturing, “until you get to that scree slide. We’d never be able to climb that. It’s so eroded that it wouldn’t take much for it all to come down on us, or take us down with it. Follow the skirt of it with your eye and see what happens when you try to go around.”
“Oh,” Kahlan said as she squinted into the distance. “That’s nasty.”
“It is. Worse, if we got down that far we’d find ourselves in a dead end and then we would have to backtrack and go around on a different route. We would lose half a day, at least, maybe more. We can’t afford to make mistakes. We have to get it right the first time.”
Kahlan sighed. “So, do you see a way?”
Ricard nodded. “There is a way, but it isn’t going to be easy. It’s easier than wasting extra days going around, though. Our best route is to push on and get through the area down in those chasms.”
He was worried about making it to the citadel in time. He couldn’t afford to make a mistake in finding a way through the wilderness ahead. In a way, he didn’t care. The world seemed empty. He was in the mood to give up and wait for the blackness to take him.
But that same blackness would come for Kahlan. In his numb pain at the loss of his grandfather, the one thing that really mattered to him was Kahlan. He wanted more than anything for her to be safe. He couldn’t stand the thought of losing her, too. He would do whatever it took to keep her safe and make sure she was healed.
Zedd had told him that living for those you love was the best part of living. Richard clung to that idea. He cared that Kahlan lived, and he would do whatever it took to protect her.
Richard’s gaze followed a few streams down lower, mentally testing the lay of the land, looking at where they led.
“I can’t believe it’s this hard to get to the place,” Commander Fister said.
“Nothing is ever easy,” Richard said, Zedd’s frequent words coming to mind.
“We’re coming in from the wrong direction,” one of the men said. “This is the back door, you might say.”
Richard nodded his agreement. “From what Irena knows and what Ned was able to tell us before he left for the palace, there are roads and trails that are well used by traders and merchants coming and going between other cities and towns in Fajin Province and then beyond to the rest of D’Hara. The problem is, none of those roads and trails head off in this direction because there is no real civilization back where we came from—that’s why the barrier was placed there in ancient times. The people back in the great war wanted to put evil in the most remote, deserted place they could find.”
Saavedra was located in a hook of a river, and Richard knew that they were headed in the right direction, so he knew that the easiest way to get to the city would be to get through the wilderness to the streams and then follow those tributaries downstream to the river. When they got close enough they would finally encounter roads and trails. Either the river or a road would lead them to Saavedra and the citadel. He knew where to go; it was getting there that was going to be the problem.
“So, do you see the way we need to go?” the commander asked.
“I do,” Richard said.
As Commander Fister and a number of the men leaned close, Richard pointed out the route, explaining the crossovers, the walls of rock they needed to follow, and the impractical, dangerous climbs and descents they needed to avoid. The scouts all nodded their agreement as Richard explained the plan.
“There are some things down there we still can’t see,” one of the men said. “We might get down there and find out we can’t make it through.”
Richard heaved a sigh. “I know. But I don’t see any other way. Sometimes there is only one pass through mountains without going a long distance to find another. As far as I can see, that area down there is the best chance to make it through. Even so, the difficulty is likely the reason there are no trails.” He looked back at all the men studying the lay of the land. “If anyone has a better suggestion, speak up.”
All the men, eyes scanning the land below, shook their heads. They all saw the same problems he did with going any other way.
“Far as I can see,” one of the scouts said, frowning as he studied the chasms, “you’re right that this is the only pass. We either get through this way or we have to spend extra days getting around those peaks over there.”
“I’ve scouted that direction,” another man said. “You hit the skirt of those mountains and have to keep pushing in the wrong direction, hoping to finally be able to make the turn. It would likely take an extra half a dozen days.”
“We don’t have any extra days,” Nicci told the men, wanting to
bring a halt to them even considering it. “We don’t have any extra hours.”
Her words were sobering to everyone.
The men all knew the consequences of not making it to the citadel in time. Commander Fister had given all the men a talk, explaining exactly what was at stake. These were men devoted to protecting the Lord Rahl. They had competed all their lives to be members of the First File. They were not about to entertain the possibility of failure.
Richard was even more committed, though, because it meant Kahlan’s life, and nothing meant more to him than that. But they needed to get through a lot of rugged territory, first. They weren’t going to make it that day, but Richard thought it might be possible, if they were able to cover enough ground, that they would reach Saavedra the next day.
Having the cure that close, yet so far, was tormenting.
Richard checked the sky for any sign of a threat. He saw birds, but none of them looked panicked. He didn’t see anything more threatening than a red-tailed hawk.
“That’s it, then,” one of the scouts said. “We will have to come in through the back door to Saavedra.”
“Have you heard the old adage advising to always grow oleanders at your back door?” Nicci asked.
The man frowned. “No. Why would you want oleanders at your back door?”
“For protection,” she said. “Oleanders are poisonous. Saavedra was probably in part established where it was for a very good reason—because this place guards its back.”
The men all shared looks.
“Let’s get moving,” Richard told everyone.
Some of the scouts who had discussed the best route took the lead. Richard, Kahlan, Nicci, Irena, and Samantha, along with the rest of the men, followed behind as they plunged back into the woods.
CHAPTER
59
By late in the afternoon, as they worked their way ever downward through the dense, forested landscape, the ground became more rugged as fractures and rifts widened and deepened into wooded chasms. It wasn’t long before they found themselves descending between soaring walls of gray granite. Low, heavy, wet clouds scudded by between the mountains soaring up overhead, conspiring with the close walls to make for a confining, gloomy journey. Drizzle dampened the walls and their faces.
Severed Souls Page 32
