The Third Kingdom

His hand instantly came up, halting the Mord-Sith from ramming her Agiel into the small of Kahlan’s back.

“There will be time enough for that,” he said to the Mord-Sith.

Erika bowed her head. “As you wish, Abbot.”

“Now,” he said to Kahlan as he gestured to the edge of the cliff at the mouth of the cave, “we really must be on our way. Get going.” He gestured to the edge of the opening. “Down that way, there.”

Kahlan took three steps back from the edge. She knew that in her shaky condition she would not be able to climb down such a treacherous trail without falling. It was all she could do to walk across a flat floor.

Dreier heaved an impatient sigh.

“Well, Erika, it seems the Mother Confessor prefers the quick way down.”

Without question or delay, Erika took two quick, wide steps toward the edge, in the process yanking Kahlan right off her feet by her hair.

The powerfully strong Mord-Sith stopped abruptly at the edge and with a mighty effort swung herself around at the waist and flung Kahlan out the opening of the cave, out into the cold gray light.

She released her grip on Kahlan’s hair as she flew out into thin air.

Kahlan gasped in shock as she sailed out from the cave opening.

Her fingers grasped, catching only air.

She saw nothing below but the ground—

As that ground raced toward her at an alarming rate and the rush of air sucked her breath away, her last thought was how much she loved Richard.

CHAPTER

58

Richard carefully scanned the area ahead as he made his way down through the towering rock formations rising up all around them. Samantha peeked out from behind an irregular column of layered rock and looked both ways before tiptoeing after him, staying close so as not to get separated.

The spikes of rocks jutting from the rough ground sloped at an angle toward the lower valley floor below. The jumble of jagged, rocky spires above the low ground rose at a slant that made progress too difficult. They needed to get down to lower ground where they could make better time.

Richard had to always balance staying hidden with being able to make good progress. Both had their dangers. Too slow and they might be too late to save anyone. Trying to go too fast would allow them to be spotted and caught.

At the far side of the broad expanse of more open ground, dark, mountainous rock formations rose up, and beyond them the ground lifted into ever-higher mountains where tattered gray clouds drifted past imposing cliff faces.

All around them in every direction he could see the occasional flicker of the greenish veils of light. Some were far away, but others were uncomfortably nearby. Fortunately, in the gloomy daylight the flickering, eerie light stood out all the more and always caught their attention. Richard remained especially wary whenever the ominous curtains of shimmering luminescence came toward them. Whenever that happened, Richard was quick to move out of the area.

The third kingdom was an ever-changing landscape of rocky ground with the green walls of the underworld wandering and mixing with the world of life. It was not a place where he could ever feel safe.

Richard was exhausted from lack of sleep, the difficult journey, and the constant tension that kept them on high alert. Once through the gates, they had pressed on almost the entire night before, not wanting to stop, fearing to stop, fearing to fall asleep for long in such a place.

Besides that, they knew they were getting closer to the land of the Shun-tuk, where they expected that their friends and loved ones were being held, and both he and Samantha were eager to press on. They suspected that they were close to the strange half people’s homeland, because they had spotted a number of them making their way south along the broad valley floor.

It confirmed that progress down lower would be quicker, but Richard also realized that down lower they were more likely to encounter half people.

The people Richard saw making their way along the valley floor all looked like the bodies he remembered seeing near the wagon, after he had woken up. Traveling in clusters of at least a few dozen, these people he was seeing now had the same ashen coloring wiped all over their bodies, with shaved heads and black around their eyes. Many had what looked to be dangling strings of teeth and bones. There was no doubt in Richard’s mind that these were the Shun-tuk. The farther north they went, the more of them they saw, so he figured that he and Samantha had to be getting near their domain. At least he knew they were going in the right direction.

Getting closer to their objective, and in such dangerous country, neither Richard nor Samantha had wanted to stop for long the night before. They had found a small opening in the confusing jumble of the rock formations and wedged their way in, out of sight of anyone passing nearby. It reminded him of the place they had weathered the storm of wood fragments when Samantha had unleashed such devastation that wiped out the half people who wanted to eat them.