Severed Souls(50)

He nodded, offering her a brief smile as he moved on.

Kahlan spotted Nicci and saw that she was exhausted as well, but the sorceress had no intention of resting just yet.

Below them, the writhing mass of ghostly figures struggled with all their might to climb up the gorge as fast as they could. Only the difficulty of the terrain, the narrowness of the gorge, and their own numbers interfering with each other slowed them. Having to funnel through narrower spots in the walls meant that they had to slow to wait their turn. In their impatience to get a soul, some pushed the ones in front down and stepped on or over them. Despite how they might have been slowed in the tight spots, once through, each of the half people raced ahead with reckless determination.

Richard had been right. They were predators fixated on the bait and they were now in full chase mode.

With a sense of hopeless realization, Kahlan grasped that Richard’s plan had worked—the Shun-tuk would follow them up the gorge. The only problem was that despite the effectiveness of that plan, Kahlan instinctively understood that there were too many. The odds were too great. The sheer weight of numbers was going to be more than a problem. It could spell their doom.

But the sword she held didn’t care about such odds. If anything, the odds only stimulated the power of rage from the weapon. It demanded their blood, and the confined space still gave them the best chance to stop the Shun-tuk.

The problem for the soldiers was going to be the revived dead.

The sword she carried, though, had been created for just such problems.

Kahlan pushed her way through the men, racing down to the front of their lines, toward the men fighting closest to the enemy.

She descended into madness.





CHAPTER

25

The Shun-tuk, in their insane drive for the souls of these men, were eager for the fight. They reached with clawed hands and snapped their jaws, hoping to get their teeth into flesh. Men cut them down relentlessly. The white figures coming from behind were equally determined. They were undeterred by how many white bodies lay dead at their feet. Those that had died only meant that they would have their chance. They climbed over their own dead to get at the soldiers, only to be run through with lances or laid open with swords and axes.

Kahlan spotted the first of the dead coming toward them. In the dim light, his glowing red eyes were easy to spot. She saw that he had only one arm. His chest had been ripped open, the ribs broken, so that she could see his lungs exposed. His lungs were still, though, as he had no need to breathe, but he was certainly coming for them. It was now occult powers that gave them strength and purpose.

This was the part that Kahlan had the best chance to handle. The dead didn’t fall easily to regular steel, but the Sword of Truth was an ancient weapon that existed for eliminating just such evil.

Finally able to unleash the fury of the sword, Kahlan brought it down so hard it split the dead man’s head and most of his body. He tried to move, to come after them, but he was far too damaged and only thrashed ineffectively. His right side fell over while the left side tried to drag the rest along. Her second blow ended the effort for good.

Kahlan was already past him, going after the walking dead. She could see their glowing red eyes glaring out from the darkness. The soldiers could fight the Shun-tuk; she needed to eliminate those difficult-to-stop awakened dead and leave the Shun-tuk for the men of the First File.

Kahlan scanned the faces, the gaping mouths, the painted black eye sockets, until she saw another pair of glowing red eyes. An instant after she saw them, her sword arced around and shattered the head. On the backswing she took off the head of another dead woman with glowing eyes, then stabbed the blade through the chest of a living Shun-tuk. His eyes opened wide in surprise before the life went out of them. As she yanked the blade free, she swiftly delivered several more blows to disable the headless dead to prevent them from using their arms against the soldiers.

Through the fury to get at the enemy, Kahlan recognized that half people were starting to come after her, specifically. She remembered, then, that they recognized her soul. She was a prize they wanted. She remembered what the prisoner had said about what they wanted to do to her.

She remembered the promise of the spirit king’s dark ones waiting for her in the underworld.

She realized, too, that in going after the reawakened dead, she had waded too far into the regular Shun-tuk.

Surrounded as she was, she still felt euphoric with each one she killed. More Shun-tuk coming closer in around her meant that she didn’t have to go after them in order to kill them. She could stand her ground and kill half people all around her as they came to her. The danger of her situation was a distant concern compared to the exhilaration of killing them. Each life the blade took fed the anger, giving glorious satisfaction that in turn only drove the blade’s insatiable need for the enemy’s blood.