Because of the water, the rocks were covered in wet moss and slime. Having boots helped some, but it was still treacherous to run in such conditions, especially in the dark. Fortunately Nicci was casting flares of light to help the men see well enough to run at full speed.
Kahlan glanced back and saw several Shun-tuk slip and fall in an especially slimy, broad flat rock. Others tripped and fell over them. Because the ravine was so narrow, it slowed them until they could get the fallen men back up and out of the way. The next time she saw men slip and fall, frustrated half people didn’t bother to slow to help them. Rather, they simply trampled their companions to death under hundreds of feet. The tangle of limbs and bodies caused others to trip and fall, breaking arms and legs, only to be in turn trampled. There were spots where the falling figures upended dozens and dozens coming upon them, creating bottlenecks.
It bought Kahlan and the men with her some precious breathing room. The way it kept happening, and the more of the barefoot half people that slipped on blood and slime and fell, the more it allowed her and the men of the First File to put a decent gap on their pursuers.
But the gap wasn’t great, and she knew that the Shun-tuk were now fixated on their prey and they would not stop for anything.
Kahlan saw the men ahead going around someone in the center of the gorge. She soon reached the spot and realized that it was Samantha.
The young woman inexplicably stood motionless on a flat rock in the middle of the brook, the water pouring around either side of the rock.
Kahlan came to an abrupt halt, letting the rest of the men run on past. When they saw her stop, they all skidded to a halt and turned back to protect her.
Kahlan motioned frantically. “Keep going! Go, go, go!”
Reluctantly, they followed her orders. She looked up the gorge. Everyone was running as hard as they could. Behind, the Shun-tuk, too, ran up the gorge as hard as they could.
Samantha stood motionless all by herself in no-man’s-land.
Her head was bowed. Her bony elbows stuck out to the sides. The first two fingers of each hand were pressed to her temples. Her mass of black hair was as motionless as the rest of her.
Kahlan glanced back down the defile. There was precious little time until the half people caught up with where Kahlan and Samantha stood all alone.
“Samantha, what in the world are you doing?”
When she didn’t answer, Kahlan leaned in and yelled her name.
“Samantha!”
Without looking up, the young woman whispered one word.
“Run.”
Kahlan leaned closer. “Where’s Richard? You were supposed to be with him. I told you to take care of him.”
“Run,” she repeated in a softly feminine voice.
“What?”
When the young woman didn’t answer, in frantic uncertainty, Kahlan ran the bloody fingers of her left hand back into her blood-soaked hair as she stole a quick look up the gorge. She didn’t see the horse among the men racing up the steep defile. She realized that if she couldn’t see it, that meant that someone else had to be leading the horse carrying Richard, probably Irena, or Kahlan would have seen it left behind. Richard had to still be safe.
Kahlan leaned down farther and saw that Samantha’s eyes were closed. The young woman had not moved an inch. Eyes closed, her expression serene, fingers pressed to her temples, she didn’t move a muscle.
The Shun-tuk coming for them started howling, eager for blood.
“Samantha—”
“Run.”
CHAPTER
27
Kahlan straightened.
She felt goose bumps tingling along her arms. She blinked at the mystifyingly motionless Samantha. She had no idea what the problem could be, but there was no time to stand there and work it out.
Kahlan frantically tried to think. For sure they couldn’t stay there. They were mere moments from it being too late even to run.
Just as Kahlan looked back down in the darkness, unable to tell for sure exactly how close the Shun-tuk were, the moon, almost directly overhead, broke through a hole in the thick cloud cover for the first time that night, lighting the narrow defile in pale, eerie light. Kahlan could see the wet, slick, nearly vertical stone walls soaring up from the narrow chasm of broken rock with the brook running down through it.
At the base of those towering rock walls the river of white figures of the Shun-tuk raced up the ravine, predators with their prey almost within reach.
Hundreds of men and women in the lead stretched clawed hands forward in anticipation, each wanting to be the first to have the soul in front of them. Mouths gaped open, teeth bared. They wailed like wolves after prey.
Kahlan had no idea what Samantha was doing or what might be wrong with her. The thought occurred to her that maybe she was frozen in terror. Kahlan had seen that happen in battle. A person would be so panicked, so afraid, that their minds could no longer think and they would give up, just standing there in place waiting for death to take them. Sometimes, death was less frightening than what life had to offer.