The Third Kingdom

“First, it’s overcast. That means there won’t be any moonlight or even stars to help us navigate through strange countryside in the pitch black. It’s dangerous enough when you know where you are and you’re following trails you know. In the dark, in unfamiliar country, trying to cross trackless woods, it’s really dangerous.

“It only takes one mistake in the dark and your journey is done. You could hit dried branches that could blind an eye, or step in a split in the rock and snap the bone in your leg, or you could even fall over a cliff. Even a small cliff, not much higher than I am tall, is enough to kill you in the dark.”

“I could heal you if you got hurt like some of those things.”

“And what if it was you who fell and split your skull open on a rock?”

Samantha made a sour expression as she thought it over for a moment. “What’s the second reason?”

Richard started off across the field to the left. “The second reason is that we can’t afford to lose any time. Every moment we’re delayed could mean the lives of the people we’re on our way to help could be lost.”

Samantha hurried to follow after him across the rough, plowed ground, stepping high over clods of dirt to keep from tripping.

“Well, I know that I would hate to arrive the day after my mother was killed and for the rest of my life wish I would have hurried just a little faster.”

“Exactly,” Richard said as he steered a course across the rough, open ground for a small opening into the woods that he had spotted off in that direction. It looked like a small deer trail, but it was their best option.

The only problem was that if there were half people back at the trail, they would be watching and know where the two of them were headed. It wouldn’t give the two of them much of a head start.

It couldn’t be helped. It was the best of a bad situation.

CHAPTER

39

As they made their way as quietly and swiftly as possible across the field of broken ground, the half people began to emerge from the woods. At first there were only a dozen or so, but in short order they were emerging from of the woods in droves. It was not only alarming to see them breaking cover and coming out onto the open ground, it was alarming to see their numbers growing so quickly. What was only a moment before a handful that Richard could have handled had become a crowd that could easily overwhelm him on open ground.

Richard could see that he and Samantha weren’t going to make it to the woods in time. The people running across the plowed field were going to cut them off before they reached the tree line.

Richard didn’t see any weapons being carried by the half people—they looked like a ragtag mob—but as they ran, rapidly closing the distance, they began to howl like demons hungry for blood. A chill ran through Richard knowing that was exactly what they were hungry for.

At that point, Richard wasn’t exactly sure what to do. They would have a better chance in the woods because it was easier to fight large numbers in confined spaces. With limited room they couldn’t all attack at once because it would be too hard to crowd in around their prey. Out in the open Richard and Samantha stood almost no chance. The howling masses could pile in from all sides at once. Richard’s sword could only cut down so many, and could only cut them down so fast. It couldn’t stop an avalanche of people descending on him and Samantha out in the open.

More than that, though, these were people in only a limited sense. He couldn’t expect them to think like an ordinary enemy in a battle. From what Naja’s account had warned and from what Richard had seen of the man back by the animal pens, these people, if they could be called that, didn’t seem to fear for their own lives the way an ordinary enemy fighter would, or any ordinary human, for that matter. In the war, Richard had seen enemy troops making a mad charge without regard for their own lives, but this was different. These people were this way by their nature.

Since they weren’t going to be able to make it to the woods, Richard slowed and finally came to a stop. He looked back the way they had come as well as off to each side. None of those other choices were a good option because on open ground these unholy half dead would likely be able to run them down in short order. Now that these beasts had two souls in sight, they were unlikely to stop for anything.

Richard felt, for the first time, what it must have felt like for Zedd, Nicci, Cara, and all the rest of his friends and soldiers as they had watched the howling menace coming for them.

It was as horrifying as anything Richard had ever faced.

Samantha, rather than panicking and asking him what they should do, started twirling her arms in a most peculiar manner. He couldn’t imagine what she could be doing. She wasn’t twirling them fast, but in a labored way, as if she were moving something invisible but heavy.