The Third Kingdom

Richard forced himself to move despite how much he wanted to slow down or stop to rest. He knew, somewhere deep down inside, that if he gave up and lay down, he would die, much the way people caught in winter storms would get tired, lie down, and go to sleep, and never to rise again.

When he died, he told himself, he would have all eternity to rest. If he wanted to live, if he wanted others to live, it was going to take effort.

As they came to the top of each new rise he wished that he could see through the dense green leaves, pine boughs, and dark shadows among the endless tree trunks to what lay beyond. He wished he could get to a vantage point so he could see how much farther, but there was no such vantage point in the endless, dark, forbidding forest.

As he walked, he glanced up at a tree, thinking that if he climbed up high, he might possibly get a view of what was ahead. But he didn’t have the energy to spare, much less the time, to go climbing trees. He supposed that he knew where he was going, and he knew that they were going in the right direction, so he simply needed to put one foot in front of another and they would eventually get there. Looking out from a high vantage point wouldn’t get them there any faster.

As the day wore on, he realized it was getting a little brighter. At first he thought the overcast might be breaking up, but then, coming over a rise, through an opening in the thick layers of limbs, he finally saw a patch of light.

He trotted toward a narrow opening in the trees and in the misty distance was rewarded with his first glimpse of the barrier. He had been impatient to get to it for days, and now, suddenly seeing it, he was stunned. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared. Samantha stood beside him, staring as well.

CHAPTER

48

Richard and Samantha stood with their backs to the dark woods, staring out into the gray light of a heavily overcast day at the enormity of the structure standing before them.

There was no way to see the ancient power invested in this wall to make it a barrier keeping evil contained. But what he could see—the wall itself—was a physical barrier of staggering proportions. It had looked big when he had seen it through the viewing port back at Stroyza, but seeing it up closer, seeing the sheer size of it, was bone-chilling.

Despite the strength and size of the physical barrier itself, and the power of spells cast by wizards with abilities Richard couldn’t entirely imagine, whatever was on the other side had still managed to escape.

From where they stood in a small clearing among a bed of cinnamon ferns and scraggly holly oak that gave them a broken view off through the pines standing guard at the edge of the forest, Richard could see that they were still some distance off to the side of where the opening would be, which was what he had wanted so as not to encounter any half people coming south through those gates from the third kingdom beyond. He wanted to remain hidden to give him an opportunity to survey the area.

“Come on,” he said to Samantha as he started out again.

He moved more quickly now that he knew for sure that they had finally reached the wall. Samantha had to trot to keep up with his long strides. Even as he put more effort into moving quickly, he still kept a wary eye on the surrounding countryside for any sign of trouble. He didn’t want to be surprised and find himself unexpectedly having to fight off a forest full of half people.

“What are we going to do when we get there?” Samantha asked, breathless from the effort of keeping up with him.

“I’m not exactly sure, yet. First, we have to get through the gates. After that we need to keep heading north until we find the land of the Shun-tuk.”

“Then what?”

Richard frowned back over his shoulder. “Then we rescue our people being held captive there.”

“How are we going to do that?”

Richard carefully danced across rocks to cross a small, slow-moving stream. “I wish I knew. We’ll have to look over the situation once we get there, then we can start to figure out a plan.”

“Maybe I can use magic to help somehow. You know, create a distraction, or something.”

“Or something,” Richard said.

At first animated now that they were close, Samantha fell to silent worry. She finally got around to the heart of her concern.

“Lord Rahl, you know the way Jit held you captive?”

Richard pushed a low pine bough aside, holding it out of the way to let her pass. “You mean the way she had us bound up in all those thorny vines?”

Samantha nodded as she ducked under the bough he held out of her way. “Well, what if they’re doing that to all the people we’re going in there to save?”

Richard’s brow drew together. “I don’t know what you’re getting at. Do you mean what will we do if they have all of them tangled up in thorn vines?”

“Not exactly.” She peeked around her mat of black hair to look over at him. “You know what they were doing to the Mother Confessor? What they were going to do to you?”