The Third Kingdom

“Ben, get your men in here,” he called back through the opening where the green veil winked out of existence. He signaled with an urgent wave of his arms.

There were weapons—swords, axes, pikes, knives—stacked haphazardly in the room. The half people had thrown all the weapons they’d confiscated into the small chamber in the rock and covered it over with a wall of death.

The big men of the First File rushed in, all of them retrieving weapons as fast as they could, passing them back through the ranks to men outside in the corridor, crowded in close to the weapons cache. None of them bothered to try to find their own; they were just happy to get their hands on any weapon handed back to them. Richard understood the feeling. He felt that same sense of relief at having his own weapon back.

Out in the hall, as soon as they were once again armed, the crowd quickly gathered in close around him. Richard held up a hand before anyone could say anything.

“We have to get out of here,” he said as softly as possible, but loud enough so that they could all hear him. “We can talk later. Hannis Arc could be around here somewhere, along with a resurrected spirit of—”

“No, he’s not,” Samantha whispered.

Richard frowned at her. “What?”

“He left. Him and masses and masses of the Shun-tuk. There’s still a lot more left down here in these tunnels—hundreds and hundreds—but he and most of them have gone.”

Richard nodded, remembering that she had already told him that. “All right,” he said. “There are still hundreds of those flesh eaters about. For now, the important thing is that we get out of these caves before they catch us trying to escape, and then get away from here.”

Nicci ignored his urgency and placed two fingers against Richard’s forehead. “It’s worse,” she said quietly back over her shoulder to Zedd. He nodded knowingly.

“Richard, it’s important that we get you and Kahlan to the palace,” Nicci said, her face set with concern and urgency. “We have to heal you both of what you both have inside.”

Cara looked around. “Where is the Mother Confessor?”

Richard again shushed them all with a gesture. “Kahlan was unconscious,” he whispered. “I had to come alone to get you all out of here. She is undoubtedly awake by now back in Stroyza. She will be waiting for us. We’ll need to go get her before we head back to the palace. But first we need to get out of these caves and out of the third kingdom.”

“Come on,” Samantha said. “This way.”

CHAPTER

76

Without delay, the entire company raced off through the dark tunnel, following after Samantha. Holding her mother’s hand, she ran like her dress was on fire.

The tunnels were not really corridors, but rather a variety of natural openings through the rock. It was in part a cave system through hollow cavities, part natural channels created by floodwaters through the softer portions of the rock, and in part fissures in the more rugged stone.

In places the passageway ahead led them through long clefts where the rock had buckled and split. At other spots, they had to go through low passages under broad shelves of rock that were so low that all of them except Samantha had to bend at the waist so as not to hit their heads as they followed the steep ledge upward. In some places they had to climb up into pockmarked networks of holes.

After going under a series of flat shelves of stone, the openings found their way back into the cave system, which split into a confusing maze of jagged tunnels and rifts in the layers of what looked like melted stone. Some stone was sharp and jagged, while other openings they raced through had over great periods of time been rounded and smoothed by water. Many of the passageways had small streams running through them. In places they had to skirt pools of perfectly clear deep water. Other tunnels were crooked, cavernous passageways with many openings branching all throughout them.

The entire subterranean world was so riddled with holes, openings, and rifts that it felt to Richard like it all might lead to the underworld itself. The greenish veils of luminescence that floated sporadically through the caves only added to the illusion.

“Samantha, are you sure you know where you’re going?” Richard asked in a hushed voice as he followed close behind her.

“I grew up in caves,” she said. “I remember distinctive things about the rocks and openings through them.”

She seemed to think that was explanation enough. Richard supposed that maybe it was. As a woods guide he did much the same kind of thing when traveling through uncharted forests. He made mental notes of particular sights along the way so he could find his way back. She was more comfortable than he was underground, so he had to trust that this was her kind of world, and she was his guide through it.

Still, he did remember certain landmarks himself, and he wasn’t seeing them.

“This isn’t the way we came in,” he whispered urgently to her as they zigzagged among what looked like melted rock towers.