Kahlan nodded. She had been to that dark place where he was now. She knew the effort from the gifted that it was going to take to bring him back to her.
Zedd put a hand on her shoulder. “Nicci is right, Kahlan. We will get him back. I promise.”
Kahlan forced a smile. “Wizards always keep their promises.”
He nodded with an earnest look. “Indeed they do.”
CHAPTER
31
Kahlan found a private spot to lay out a blanket at the far side of the encampment, right up against a small rock outcropping at the edge of the forest. The rock sheltered her from the occasional night breeze. The moon was still out, so at least they didn’t need to worry about building any kind of shelter from rain. It was a rare respite from the foul weather, and it meant they wouldn’t need to build shelters. It was already so late into the night that they would get precious little sleep as it was.
Most of the men had had a quick bite of rations and were already asleep. Watches had been posted, but Kahlan felt unusually safe where they were camped. Once they had crossed the chasm they had sent the bridge to its grave in the darkness below. She felt better with a physical barrier between them and any Shun-tuk who could theoretically still be alive.
She had been there right at the edge of the devastation as stone walls of the gorge had fallen in and nearly found herself right under it. She knew better than any of the rest of them the massive violence of what had taken place.
She found it very hard to believe that anyone under those falling cliffs could have lived through it. Even if they had, that didn’t mean they could ever claw their way out from under all that rock. They were buried under half a mountain and if any were still alive, they would die a slow death of starvation if nothing else. If the rubble dammed up the brook, it would build up the water level and anyone trapped under there would drown.
Of course, Emperor Sulachan and Hannis Arc would eventually send more half people to track their spirits.
Perhaps even more frightening, that was not their worst problem.
Because she felt safe in their camp for the time being, she hadn’t objected too strongly when the commander told her that she wasn’t allowed to stand watch. He told her that she had fought as much as ten men and he wanted her to get some sleep so she would be rested in case he needed her to fight for them again. He said she was too valuable with the sword while Richard was still unconscious and he wanted her to be rested and ready to fight.
She had made a show of objecting, but only a small show. By the smile she caught when he turned to walk away, he knew full well that her objections had only been for show.
In truth, she was dead tired and would make a very poor sentry. She thought she would probably fall asleep standing up.
Although she was dead tired, she was also famished. The protracted fighting, from their original encampment and then all the way up the gorge, had taken a lot of energy and she needed to have something before she lay down and went to sleep. It was too late to cook, so everyone had to be satisfied with traveling rations. Zedd had been eating one thing or another since they had found the campsite and finally stopped. He seemed perfectly content with the available fare.
The bridge building had been surprisingly quick. The men with axes had the arms to swing them and they felled the trees in no time. They were experienced at woodcutting and laid the two main trees down right across the chasm, tight beside each other. Zedd helped with the task. Or at least he said he did. She thought the men knew what they were doing.
While some of the men crossed over to scout, others walked along the logs using their axes to clean off any branches that would be in the way. Another two trees were felled along the edge of the chasm, cut into lengths, and then split into planks to lay a roadbed for the horse. It also made crossing safer for all the rest of them as well, rather than balancing on a log over an abyss in the middle of the night.
The horse hadn’t been especially eager, but with the blindfold and Zedd trickling calming magic into the animal as he murmured soft words of comfort to it, the crossing had been both swift and uneventful.
For the first time in quite a while, Kahlan felt safe.
Richard had been laid out comfortably. Kahlan would have slept next to him, but Zedd and Nicci wanted to snatch a bit of sleep lying to either side of him until they were rested enough to be able to work on him. Kahlan didn’t want to interfere with them doing as they must.
In the moonlight, she looked over at Richard not far away. Zedd was sitting up beside his grandson, munching on a length of sausage. Nicci lay beside Richard, already fast asleep, an arm draped over his chest, comforted by his slow breathing and knowing that he was still alive.