Severed Souls(56)

It was the most elegantly composed scene of utter destruction Kahlan had ever witnessed.

As she watched the walls tumbling in, sending clouds of dust and debris rolling up through the trees, it went on and on, as if in a livid tantrum of destruction.

It sounded like the world was being ripped apart by the rapid series of thundering explosions. The sound reverberated through the mountains all around. Stone fragments of every size and shape sailed through the air, tumbling down the collapsing walls of the gorge, lifting above the flashes of explosions, or cascading and bouncing down atop what had already fallen.

All up and down the gorge below Samantha the world looked like it was coming apart. As a particularly immense cliff toppled, twisting as it fell so that it landed down the length of the defile, dust, like smoke, expelled from under where the cliff landed, billowed out to roll up the gorge. The wall of wind from the explosions and buckling walls nearly knocked Kahlan down again.

For just an instant, Kahlan wondered if this was the end of the world of life, if it was actually being caused by Sulachan, furious that they might escape his Shun-tuk.

Yet more cliffs, thrown forward by internal explosions that lit like lightning rippling along inside the rock, toppled out and then dropped with thundering force. They hit so hard the ground shook. The world rocked and moved as if it was all being caused by an earthquake. But Kahlan saw the explosions and she knew that this was no earthquake. It was directed destruction to a purpose.

The sound of cracking granite continued popping and reverberating through the canyon without abating. Another series of booming explosions farther down the gorge shook the ground with each thumping explosion. Each concussion felt like a fist pounding Kahlan’s chest.

Clouds of dusty rock boiled up as yet more rock and debris came crashing down in specific places, ensuring that no part of the gorge escaped the calamity.

In a brief pause, Kahlan scrambled to her feet and raced back down the gorge to Samantha. The young woman still hadn’t moved. Her black hair was covered in a layer of dust that made her look gray. The world around her was coming apart and she hadn’t moved. Shun-tuk below her were dying by the hundreds, if not thousands, and still she had not moved.

There was no doubt in Kahlan’s mind as to the intelligence directing the spectacle still going on.

Impossibly, Kahlan saw a few Shun-tuk, covered in dust, scrambling out from the leading edge of the rubble. There had to be a few dozen. They saw Kahlan and Samantha and started for them. Kahlan hoped they weren’t the ones with occult sorcery, and that her sword could stop them.

Just then, Kahlan heard granite cracking in the cliff right above them. She looked up and saw the cliff tremble and shake. She could see huge cracks racing through the wet rock. Sections pulled apart, taking trees with them. A sudden thundering boom to each side over her head made Kahlan gasp.

She scooped the wisp of a young woman up in her arms and started running up the gorge. She ran with all her strength.

Right behind, the towering wall of rock cracked away from the mountain, toppled, and crashed down with thunderous force right where Samantha had been standing only a moment before. Kahlan almost lost her footing as the ground shook violently, but she managed to keep going.

Sections of rock the size of small palaces came to a rocking halt where Samantha had been standing moments before. Had Kahlan not snatched her up, the young woman would have been killed.

The Shun-tuk that had temporarily escaped had been buried under countless tons of the fallen mountain.

Kahlan stopped, turning back, trying to catch her breath. All down the gorge she could see loosened slabs continuing to topple. Enormous blocks, no longer having any support, slid with accelerating speed to sail out past the remaining edges to fall through space and pound down atop the rubble-filled gorge.

As she watched, spellbound, a few remaining sections that were fractured and loose gave way, collapsing down atop the masses of stone already fallen from the mountains. The gorge was filled with hundreds of feet of the stone debris. As far down the mountain as she could see, the sides of the gorge had all fallen in.

Kahlan couldn’t be certain, of course, but she could not imagine how a single Shun-tuk could still be alive.

“Dear spirits, girl, what in the world did you just do?”

“What Lord Rahl taught me to do,” Samantha said, her voice choked with tears.

Her thin arms clutched Kahlan’s neck as she wept into her shoulder.

Kahlan didn’t know what Samantha was talking about.

“I was so afraid,” she cried, “I was so afraid we were all going to be eaten. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to do something. I was so angry that they were going to eat us thinking they could steal our souls for themselves. I was so angry that they would eat my mother, especially after we just got her free, and that they would eat Lord Rahl, and you, and everyone else—all for some stupid belief. I was so angry.”