The Third Kingdom

The attacker had both hands around the woman’s throat, holding her off the ground as he crushed her throat. Bone and dried tissue cracked and popped as his head turned. He glared at Richard with glowing red eyes as he bellowed in threat.

As Richard’s sword came down, the powerful blow severed both of the man’s arms at the crook in his elbows. The woman dropped to the ground like a sack of grain, slumping in a lifeless heap. The man roared again as he charged Richard, the stumps of arms held up, his jaws open wide, prepared to attack with his teeth since most of his arms were gone.

A swift blow cut the man’s head in half right across his open mouth. The skull shattered into fragments. Sinew and flesh crumbled under the powerful blow. Two more swings of the sword chopped the man apart. Richard saw the fingers of the disembodied arms on the floor grasping, trying to attack but unable to find or reach a victim.

Richard, still hot with rage from his sword, turned back to the men. “You need to burn all the pieces of these men to ashes. Collect it all and burn it.”

The men looked down, watching the fingers of one of the hands trying to pull its way across the floor toward Richard.

Richard crushed the still-moving hand under a boot heel, grinding the fingers to dust.

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Richard said, “but it seems pretty obvious that some kind of occult conjuring is involved. I don’t want any part of that conjuring left among you. Burn it all. Understand?”

The men all nodded earnestly, fearful of the heat in Richard’s voice even if they knew it wasn’t directed at them.

Hearing yet more screams, Richard turned to the sound. He realized that there were yet more than three of the dead men among them.

He again sprang into a dead run, headed toward the sound. He wondered how many attackers had made it up into the cave. If there were many more, they could wipe out half the village before Richard could find and destroy them all.

As he made his way down narrow passages, he had to squeeze past men, women, and children frantically trying to escape the threat. Some of them cried as they ran, some of them screamed, but they were all panic-stricken, not knowing what to do except run from the danger.

At an intersection of several halls, Richard followed the chilling roars into a broader corridor. He recognized it as the passageway to Ester’s small home. The monster was near. He was getting close. As he panted from the run, he drew in the putrid stench of death. It was like a reminder of the touch of death from the Hedge Maid that lurked within him.

In the distance he saw a flash of movement as a dark shape disappeared around a corner. As Richard ran he stopped suddenly at a doorway with a sheepskin covering. He ducked inside and in the candlelight saw Kahlan on the lambskin rug where he had left her. Ester was there, a knife in her fist as she stood protectively over Kahlan. Richard knew that she had no chance of stopping one of the walking dead, yet she was prepared to try.

Sammie was gone.

Richard let the covering drop back over the doorway as he started out again in pursuit of the threat. He raced toward the screams of startled people apparently awakened in the middle of the night by the attack. He had to shove some of the sleepy people aside when they stood dumbly in the dark passageway.

Out ahead, he saw a blur of movement again as a small figure darted across an intersection only to vanish down a side hall. A dark shape roared as it chased after her. A second shape entered the tunnel, following behind the first and Sammie.

It paused momentarily and turned to look in Richard’s direction. Back in that dark tunnel, Richard couldn’t make out much of the walking corpse, but he could see the piercing reddish glow of its eyes. It was like it was glaring out from the darkness of not only the tunnel, but death itself. And then it was gone, vanishing into the shadows of a side passageway, chasing after Sammie.

Richard ran after them, racing as fast as he could. He ran so fast that the men following behind him couldn’t keep up. As Richard chased after the threat, and put distance on the men behind, he was losing the help of the light from their lanterns. He kept running despite how hard it was to see. Occasionally a room to one side or the other was lit with candles so that their faint light spilled out into the hallway, giving him enough of a glimpse of the tunnel to keep from having to slow.

In the dark, he came upon the second of the two men running after his companion and Sammie. It was hard to see, but he could see well enough to tell that this man, too, was a walking dead man. Even without a good look, the smell alone was unmistakable.