The Third Kingdom

Samantha smiled even as she ran, still trying to catch her breath. “Yes. When I was little, she would do that and put the warm rocks in my bed. Then later she showed me how so that someday I could do the same thing for my little ones.”

“So you know how to put that heat you gather from the air into things? You can focus it.”

She nodded when he looked back at her, perplexed by what he was getting at.

Richard dove behind a long ledge, pulling her over it with him. He caught her around the waist and pulled her down behind the far side of the rock. He squatted down, turning her face toward him to make sure that he had her attention.

“Did she ever teach you how to make trees explode?”

Samantha’s brow lifted in surprise. “Make trees explode? Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’ve seen it done. Especially in war. Wizards and even sorceresses would focus the heat they gather, kind of like you gathered it to dry the dirt. Only they would then focus that heat into a spot inside the trunks of trees, kind of like you do inside rocks to warm them. When they focused enough heat, and it was intense enough, it would make the sap in the tree trunk instantly boil and vaporize. They would do it so quickly, so suddenly, that as the sap vaporized it would make the tree trunk explode.”

Her jaw was hanging open. “Really?”

“Really. The flying splinters and pieces of wood could cut down anyone nearby. It would shred them to pieces. It could stop a line of troops, bring a headlong assault to an abrupt halt.”

“But, I don’t know how to do such a thing.”

Richard peered out over the rock ledge and then leaned back down close to her. “You need to learn fast. It may be the only thing that can save us.” Richard carefully lifted his head and pointed off into the distance. “There, see that handful of men over there who stopped, trying to see where we went?”

She peeked over the edge of the rock. “Yes. I see them.”

Richard put his hand on her head and pushed it back down so the men wouldn’t spot her. “Try to gather heat and put it into that tree trunk beside them. See if you can focus the heat really fast. If you can, if you can do it fast enough and with enough intensity, you can make the trunk explode. I’ve seen it done, Samantha. I know it can be done. You’ve got to try.”

She pressed her lips tight for a moment and then peeked over the rock again. She took a deep breath and then laid both arms on top of the rock, aiming her palms out at the tree.

She squinted with the effort, her fingers trembling as she tried.

Finally, the breath she had been holding left her lungs in a rush. “I’m sorry, Lord Rahl, but I can’t do it. I just can’t.”

Richard let out a disappointed sigh of his own and finally nodded. “I know you did your—”

A man suddenly dove over the top of the rock behind them. Richard seized the man’s ragged clothes in his fists as he came diving in and used the man’s momentum to heave him out over the rim of ledge.

As the man tumbled away, three more men came over the top of the rock.

CHAPTER

41

Richard drew his sword as he sprang up. Powered by the anger of the blade’s magic, as well as his own fury, he spun to the attack.

The first man to come in at him lost his head for it. The second figure to leap in at him was a woman, equally vicious in her frenzied attempt to rip into him with her teeth. As Richard kicked her legs out from under her, a powerful swing of his sword caught the back of her head, taking off the top half of her skull. The large disc of bone, with the scalp of ratty hair, cartwheeled down the rock ledge. Strands of hair flung outward as it tumbled away. Richard spun back to the side just in time to meet another woman’s charge. With one powerful swing, the blade cut her ribs open to her spine. As she fell at his feet, her insides erupting from the massive wound, Richard drove the point of the steel pommel back into a man’s face. On the rebound he thrust the sword forward through a man reaching for Samantha.

He used his foot to shove the man back off the blade while at the same time reaching back with his free hand to seize Samantha’s arm. The mortally wounded man fell back across the rock, clutching the wound through his chest, choking on his own blood.

Richard yanked Samantha up and out of the way as two more men dove in at them, hands clawed as they snatched for her. Their fingers caught only empty air. When they missed as they grabbed for her, they sprawled forward. Richard stomped the back of one man’s head, smashing his face into the rough granite, while he stabbed the other twice in quick succession. The man Richard had stomped clutched his hands over his ruined face as he writhed in agony.

“Let’s go!” Richard yelled at Samantha.