The Third Kingdom (28 page)

“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.

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.

Richard saw, then, some of the dirt in the field out in front
of them start to be lifted by gusts of wind building out of nowhere. He at last understood what she was trying to do.

She was gathering wind, calling it to do her bidding, gathering it into a focused windstorm.

“Can you do more?” he asked, checking the distance to the people running toward them, calculating how long they had before they would be overwhelmed.

“Trying” was all she could manage to say as her arms built speed, twirling faster and faster. Richard could see beads of sweat on her forehead.

As the gusts of wind she was calling forth built speed and power, they begin picking up more dirt with every fitful gust. Pieces of straw and grass were lifted into the swirl of dirt and debris that was rapidly building into a whirlwind.

“It’s too bad that the ground is wet!” he called out to her over the howl of the crazed attackers and the ever-increasing howl of the wind. “If it was dry, it would be dusty and the dust could hide us long enough for us to escape into the woods! That way, they wouldn’t see where we went!”

Samantha briefly glanced up. He could see the spark of an idea in her eyes and the slight curl of her lips before she turned her attention back to the task at hand. She added an alternating whipping motion to what she was doing with circling her arms, as if casting something out.

Richard understood as he began to feel the heat she was generating with what she was doing. The gifted could gather heat from the air and focus it, the same way they could gather the air itself.

Soon, it felt like standing near a bonfire. She was not only gathering the air into gusts to build those into a whirlwind, she was gathering heat out of the air and casting it against the ground. Richard had seen sorceresses, and even Zedd, gather heat from the air, or even pull heat out of the air to freeze water. Samantha was doing the same thing.

The heat was intense enough to confuse the onrushing horde, and in their confusion they slowed their mad rush. Some of them began to shield their eyes from the dirt and debris blowing at them while others rubbed at their eyes, trying to get the dirt out so they could see.

In what seemed a sudden turn, under the withering heat the wet ground flashed to dry as the moisture was driven out. In short order, great billowing clouds of dust rose up, lifting into the air in brown curtains.

As some of the half people started to run to the sides in an attempt to find a way around the wall of dirt, dust, and debris, Samantha recognized what they were doing and again started to whirl her arms around over her head. The hot winds along with all the dust she was stirring up started to rotate. A wall of the dirt and debris blew in around Richard and Samantha, rotating around them faster and faster, picking up both speed and dust as they stood at the center of the howling storm.

Before long, Richard couldn’t see a thing. He knew that if he couldn’t see anything, including the half people, they couldn’t see him.

He knew where the deer trail was in relation to where they stood out in the field. He kept the place fixed in his mind, even though he couldn’t see it anymore. In mere moments, he had lost sight of the forest as well as the confused half people that had been darting around, trying to find a way to get at them through the blinding wall of dust.

The dust now rotated in towering walls around Richard and Samantha and had became so thick that it closed in completely, darkening the light that could get down inside. It felt like dusk inside the rotating storm of dirt and dust and getting darker by the moment. Meanwhile, Samantha’s arms continued twirling around over her head, keeping up the momentum of the wind.

Once everything had grown dim and dark and Richard
couldn’t see a single one of the half people, and hardly more than the hand in front of his face, he leaned close to Samantha so she could hear him over the howl of the wind.

“Can you move while you’re doing that?”

She glanced over at him, clearly in the throes of intense concentration. “I don’t know,” she yelled over the noise. The look on her face, though, told him that she didn’t believe she could, even if she knew she had to try.

It was plainly evident that it was tremendously difficult for her to keep up such focused effort. He knew that they only needed to get to the trees without the half people seeing where they went and then they would have a chance.

Richard was struck with a sudden idea. He bent down and leaned in close. “You just keep doing what you’re doing Samantha! Don’t stop!” he yelled over the roar of the wind.

The howl of the wind had grown so loud that he could no longer hear the howls of the half people screaming for blood.

Samantha glanced over at him, clearly puzzled by what he intended. She couldn’t spare the energy to answer. She simply nodded.

Richard slipped his arms around her waist and lifted her up. “Keep doing what you’re doing! Don’t stop! I’m going to get us to the woods!”

Samantha’s arms kept twirling even as he lifted her. The wind kept blowing and gusting up a dust storm around them as Richard hoisted the slim young woman up, sitting her atop his shoulder. He held her tightly by the waist to steady her as he started running.

Richard knew that she had to be getting tired from the effort, but she didn’t slow the pace or complain. She kept it up, and kept the curtain of dirt and debris rotating around them in a massive dust storm that blanketed the field all around. Richard had no idea how large the dust storm was, but he did know that it was hiding them and that was what mattered.

Before it had become opaque, though, he had seen that it was not some isolated little whirlwind. It was massive, covering a lot of ground and enveloping the entire swarm of half people charging out of the woods and coming after them.

It was sweltering hot inside the rotating dust cloud. Richard could hardly breathe from the heat. His nose was filling with dust, making it difficult to breathe. He didn’t slow though. This was their only chance.

He ran until he heard the dirt and flying debris hitting the leaves and pine needles of trees. He could hear it pelting wet trees. He could hear the litter of the forest floor pulled up into the whirlwind and clattering against trunks. He could hear tree limbs whipping in the wind. Some of those limbs snapped in the gusts.

Richard suddenly spotted the deer trail and without pause plunged into it, into the woods, Samantha still up on his shoulder twirling her arms, still calling the wind around them.

Richard had to swing Samantha down off his shoulder as he dove into the woods for fear that he would smack her face into a limb and break her delicate little neck. He held her against his right hip, slung on his arm. He had to duck forward himself as he ran into the deer run to keep from hitting low limbs and saplings that were bent in over the tunnel-like trail. Like others Richard had used before, the deer trail was not very tall but it was wide enough. As he ran, small saplings leaning in here and there slapped at his arms.

Samantha’s arms finally stopped their frantic flailing and spinning. She slumped, panting with exhaustion from the effort. He could see that it had taken every ounce of strength that she had.

Now, it was up to him to get them away from the horde of half people who had been after them. He didn’t think that they had seen which way Richard had run, but he imagined that they could probably guess that he would head for the woods. He expected them to show up at any moment.

Through the blur of branches, brush, and green flashing by, Richard spotted one of the half people. He was dressed better than the man Richard had beheaded, but not much better. As soon as he spotted Richard and Samantha he raced in from
the left side. As he got close, he bared his teeth. Richard could see that he was missing a few. His jaws started snapping in anticipation of catching flesh and ripping it off.

Without pause, as soon as the man was within reach, Richard put his hand behind the man’s head and used his momentum to propel him forward. Richard, bigger than the lone man and already running while he carried Samantha under his right arm, used his hand on the back of the man’s head to steer him onward, moving him so fast that it not only took control of his direction but almost took him from his feet.

As they raced up on a tree, Richard ran the man’s face hard into the thick trunk, right over the stump of a dried, broken-off limb, driving it straight through the man’s face. The impact was so hard Richard could feel the man’s head crack apart like a melon on a rock. With fluid movement, Richard released the man as he smacked into the tree and kept running. That was one attacker who wouldn’t be following them.

After he had gone on a short distance more, Richard stopped to listen for signs that they were being closely pursued. He panted, catching his breath as he quickly appraised the situation. He tried to breathe as quietly as possible so he could listen. Samantha pushed at his arm, wanting down, so he eased her down to the ground.

She bent forward, her mass of black hair hanging down around her face, hands on her knees, as she panted, trying to catch her breath after the exertion of creating the windstorm.

“That was brilliant,” Richard whispered to her.

She could only nod as she gasped for air. Richard let her recover as he listened for sounds of the half people in hot pursuit.

And then in the distance he heard them crashing through the woods, coming toward him and Samantha. It sounded like hundreds of people charging through the woods. Even though they were still a ways off, it wouldn’t be long before they reached their prey.