The Third Kingdom

“We need traveling food so that we don’t have to spend a lot of time hunting for something to eat, but we should have some small items in case we do need to hunt. Some line and fishhooks, things like that. If someone has a bow, that would be a big help as well.”

“I’m sure that one of the men would be honored to provide a bow and arrows to help in the effort of stopping the threat. We have supplies of food that keeps well for traveling. It doesn’t taste very good, though.”

Richard smiled a little. “It never does.”

“The gifted kept journey supplies—dried meat, fish, hard biscuits and such—in case they ever had to go to warn … well, I was going to say to warn the wizards’ council, but I guess they’re long gone.” She gestured to the hall. “The travel supplies are kept in the second room to the right, in a cabinet. Take what you think we’ll need. I’ll be back as soon as I get Ester and gather up some of the other things we’ll need.”

When Richard nodded, Samantha dashed out the doorway. After she was gone, he knelt back down beside Kahlan, lifting her limp hand to hold it in his for a moment. He wished she would wake so that he could tell her where he was going and about the threat from the third kingdom. The last thing she knew about had been the threat from Jit.

He watched her steady breathing, watched her peaceful expression. He wished she would wake, but wishing couldn’t make it happen. She was going to need help if she was to live. They both were. He had to try to get that help.

In the quiet stillness before the storm that he knew was about to break, he leaned down and gently kissed her soft lips, hoping it would last him, and that it would not be the last time he ever kissed her. He knew that if she were awake, she would tell him not to worry about her, but to go do what he needed to do.

Knowing that time was short, he rushed to the second room and found the journey supplies. He collected what he thought they could carry without slowing them down, piling it neatly in the front room. In short order, Samantha, carrying a second pack for him and two hooded traveling cloaks over her arm, hurriedly ushered Ester into the outer room.

“Some of the others are getting some supplies together for us,” Samantha told him as she closed the door.

“Lord Rahl, what is it?” Ester asked, looking back and forth between the two of them as she squeezed one hand with the other. “Sammie said it’s important, but she wouldn’t say what it was about. Is the Mother Confessor…?”

“She’s all right for the moment,” Richard said. “But we need your help. Samantha and I have to go—”

“Samantha?” the woman asked with a puzzled look.

“Sammie. You called her Sammie,” Richard said. “I call her Samantha because I think she is growing into a woman, and she now has to face some very grown-up challenges. Samantha seems a more appropriate name. Like I was saying, I have to go and Samantha is going with me.”

“Going with you? Where?” The woman looked more bewildered than ever. Richard didn’t want to add to her sense of confusion, but he needed her to be aware of what was going on. She needed to be able to let everyone else know of the threat and she needed to tell Kahlan about it when she woke up.

“There is trouble,” Richard told Ester. “You know those two men who were attacking me? The ones you helped save me from?”

Ester nodded. “Of course.”

“Well, those men were cannibals.”

“Cannibals!”

“Yes. Don’t you remember how they were attacking me with their teeth? Biting me?”

“But, but, I don’t—”

“I don’t have time to explain everything. The important part that you need to understand is that this village was put here long ago, in ancient times, to watch over the barrier—”

“The north wall,” Samantha told Ester. She looked over at Richard. “Everyone in the Dark Lands knows it as the north wall.”

Richard nodded. “The north wall. The problem we’re all facing now is that the north wall was keeping some very dangerous threats locked away to prevent them from harming the people of the New World. It has kept everyone safe since the ancient war, the great war thousands of years ago.”

Ester nodded with a troubled look. “I know some about that history. I’ve heard tales since childhood about otherworldly dangers lying in wait beyond the north wall. No one ever knew what was on the other side, but we all knew it was evil.”

“Those tales probably fall well short of the reality. With the barrier breaking down, what was on the other side is now getting out. What no one knew was that Jit was only the beginning of that evil escaping from beyond that north wall.”

Ester leaned forward a little. “What is it that’s on the other side?”

“You remember those creatures that looked like walking corpses that came up here the other night and hurt so many people, killed so many?”

Her knuckles were white. “How could I forget such a thing?”

“They were corpses animated by occult magic from beyond the north wall. They were the walking dead.”

Unable to speak, Ester stiffened with a look of horror.