Severed Souls (11 page)

“This time, you failed. You didn't kill any of us, steal any souls for yourselves, and you don't have any captives to take back to Sulachan. Knowing how he treats those who fail him, I would say that you are fortunate you will never see Emperor Sulachan again.”

The man lifted his chin indignantly. “I will see him soon enough. When the world of the dead is brought together with the world of the living, I will be with my king again. In the meantime, the spirit trackers have not yet failed. We found you. We will continue coming after you until we succeed. We can fail many times and still keep coming. You can fail only once, and then we have you.

“Sooner or later you will be ours. We will have the souls of those with you, and bring you back so that Lord Arc can send you to the world of the dead with his own hands.”

“Lord Arc.” Richard frowned. “So you were instructed to bring only me back with you?”

“That's right, our king sent us at the request of Lord Arc. But he sent us to bring back only you, for Lord Arc.”

“So you are not to bring back any other captives?”

The man looked over at Kahlan with lust in his dark eyes. “No. Just you. The rest he no longer needs. The rest we can eat. We can have their souls for ourselves.”

He smiled up to Richard. “Your soul belongs to my king and Lord Arc to do with as they will. That is their business, not ours. Our trackers are free to do what they will with the rest of your people.”

“And where are your spirit king and Hannis Arc? Where were you to bring me?”

The man's brow lifted with a dismissive expression. “They head to the southeast.”

Kahlan didn't like the sound of that. By the look Nicci and Zedd gave her, neither did the sorceress or wizard. The People's Palace was to the southeast.

“Where are the rest of your trackers?” Richard asked. “When are they coming back to attack again?”

The man stared off without answering. It was obvious enough, now, that they would return, and keep returning. Kahlan knew that the only way to stop them was to kill every last one of them.

“It seems to me that it is in your best interest to cooperate in order to stay alive, since if you die without a soul you will not be around for the time when your king unites the world of the dead and the living.”

The Shun-tuk frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The longer you cooperate, the longer you live. Who knows, you might live long enough to see the worlds united.

“But if you don't cooperate, then you are of no further use to us. Why would we want to keep you around, take you with us, watch over you? Like a wolf in our midst, your existence will have to be extinguished. Then there will be nothing left of you, no spirit, no spark of anything to live on in the united world of the third kingdom. For now, death is the final end for you.”

The man tried to shift his weight, but with big soldiers to either side holding his arms, and Commander Fister standing on his calves, he could move little more than his head, and that was limited by the knife at his throat.

“If you kill me, then it cannot matter to me, because I will not exist in any world. I will be no longer.”

“But you would rather continue to exist, or you wouldn't be trying to steal these souls,” Richard said as he gestured around at all the people watching.

The Shun-tuk looked at the people surrounding him with the eyes of a hungry wolf.

“Now, what are their plans?” Richard asked in a quiet, deadly tone that made most people tremble, making it clear that the man was running out of time. “What are your spirit trackers planning to do next?”

The man, staring ahead for a moment, finally looked up at Richard. The unshakable resolve was back in his eyes. “It can make no difference for you to know what we will do. Knowing cannot help you because you will not be able to do anything to stop us, or to stop our king.

“So there is no point in me telling you.”

The man lifted his chin and fell silent.

 

CHAPTER

15

“I think there is a very good reason for you not to tell me,” Richard said. “I think you don't want to say because you fear that I really can stop them.” Richard spread his hands. “After all, if what you're saying were true—that the spirit trackers will have us sooner or later—then why would you be so afraid to tell me their plans?”

The man frowned. “I am not afraid.”

“The only reason for not telling me has to be because you really do believe we can prevent them from capturing me and having all the rest of us. You're afraid that if I know, I will stop them and you will have none of our souls.”

The man frowned as he thought it through. Finally, he decided to speak.

“Your spirit”—he tilted his head to indicate Kahlan—“and hers, are touched by death. We can feel it, sense it, like the smell of death. The spirit trackers can sense that sickness darkening your lives. You are like wounded animals.

“We can sense those times when that weakness comes over you and makes you lose consciousness. That is when your people are vulnerable. Without you, they cannot fight us off.

“After all, we captured all of them and more once before when you were unconscious. Had Sulachan's spirit already returned and used his trackers, we would have known that you were among the others, but unconscious and hidden. Sulachan had not returned from the dead, yet, so that time you both escaped.

“This time, the trackers will again attack, but they will do so when they know that you are weak and vulnerable. We attacked earlier, when we felt your woman drifting closer to death. When we sensed her weakness, we came for you all.

“Sooner or later that will happen to you, and we will know. When it happens, then we will have you all.

“Even now, we can sense your spirits losing the battle for life. You do not have long to live. Soon the time will be right and the trackers will be all over your people while you lie helpless. They will tear them apart and have their souls.

“Then we will capture you and take you to our king.”

Richard shrugged. “If what you say is true, I may be dead by then. If I die, your plans will be ruined.”

He looked disinterested. “If you should happen to die before we can take you back, that will satisfy Sulachan just as well. Either way, we will win in the end. You have no chance.”

“If he wants me brought to him so badly, then how can he be satisfied if I die first?”

The man smiled again with the kind of arrogant smile that put Kahlan in mind of so many killers right before she had touched them with her Confessor power. No matter how self-assured they were, no matter how superior they behaved, no matter how dismissive and arrogant toward her, no matter how tough they thought they were, once she touched them with her power all that ended in an instant and each and every one of them confessed their crimes to her, no matter how vile those crimes might have been.

“Sulachan does not care if you should happen to die first,” the prisoner said, “because he already has plans for you in the underworld.”

Richard planted his fists on his hips. “What are you talking about?”

“Sulachan is called the king of the dead for good reason. He has infinite patience that only the eternally dead can have. He has been there a long, long time, working on his plans for his return, for his revenge.

“Sulachan was there in the underworld when the scream of death that escaped the Hedge Maid's lips claimed her and pulled her through the veil. Sulachan knows that the same poison that took her touched you two as well.

“Like Sulachan, the dark ones he commands in the underworld recognize that taint of death on your souls and know that you do not have long to live. Those demons stir, restless in that realm, the world of the dead, eager to have you.

“When you die and your souls cross over, those eternal, dark demons will be there at the veil, waiting to latch on to both of you and drag you each down into the deepest, darkest depths of the underworld where you will be forever lost.

“Lord Arc would like to kill you with his own hands, to look into your eyes and watch you die, but he deals in occult powers and so he knows very well of the demons Emperor Sulachan has waiting for you when you cross over. He would like to kill you and personally send you into the clutches of those dark ones, but if you should happen to die first he wants us to bring him your head so that he knows that your soul is in the hands of those dark demons, suffering worse than any worldly horror he could inflict on you. So, you see, either way, he gets what he wants.”

Everyone watching seemed to be holding their breath.

The man looked around at his captors. “Know that when that taint of death touches your leader—sooner than you think—we will have all of you. We will hunt you down, eat your flesh, suck the marrow from your bones, and steal all of your souls for ourselves.”

He looked deliberately at Richard and then pointed with his chin at Kahlan. “Our people will devour the living flesh and drink the warm blood of your woman. We will enjoy her helpless screams as we rip her apart. Some will lick up her tears as others drink her blood.”

Richard made an effort of not showing his feelings but Kahlan had no trouble reading the anger in his body language. “You just said that your spirit king has dark spirits waiting for our souls, so your trackers can't have any hope of having hers.”

The man smiled in a way that revealed his darkly determined, inalterable nature. “The trackers know that they cannot have your woman's soul. They know it is promised to the dark ones in the underworld. But they will revel in drinking her warm blood anyway because she is yours and it will matter to you. Her fate has been ordered by our masters, because in her suffering, both of her flesh being torn from her bones and then the demons of the underworld having her soul to torment for all time, your pain will be intolerable beyond imagining. That is what awaits her, and you.”

It was a threat that not only sent a chill through Kahlan, it crossed a line with Richard.

He looked up from the remorseless eyes of the soulless brute, into the eyes of Commander Fister. Richard pulled a finger across his own throat in silent command.

Once he had given that command, he turned away. Jake Fister was a man devoted to putting down those who served evil. Richard did not need to witness the execution to know that it would be swiftly carried out.

On the way past, Richard took Kahlan's arm, walking her back toward the center campfire where she had been healed. She could feel the hard tension of rage in his muscles.

“Any ideas about what we do next?” she asked him, trying to take his mind off the haunting threat they had just heard.

Before he could answer, before he could say anything, Richard lost a step.

He went to a knee beside her. Kahlan circled her arm tightly around his waist, trying to help him down so that he wouldn't fall on his face. He was too big and heavy for her to hold up. All she could do was to help in easing him down.

He reached a hand up. It was a plea for help—gifted help.

Zedd and Nicci were already there, grabbing hold of Richard's arms and lifting him back to his feet as they kept him from falling over. At Kahlan's urgent signal, several men rushed in to put a shoulder under his arms.

Zedd pressed his fingers to Richard's forehead as the soldiers helped move him along. “It's the poison,” he said in a grim voice, telling them what Kahlan already knew. “Get him back by the fire where I can see better and then let's lay him down.”

Kahlan's heart pounded with worry. She felt worse than helpless. An icy wave of dread washed through her. She knew that the pull of death had grown stronger and he might die.

“Richard,” she said, clutching his big hand tightly, “hold on. Zedd and Nicci are going to help you. Hold on. Don't you dare leave me. Don't you dare.”

He didn't respond. His hand was cold and limp.

She tried very hard to hold back her tears.

And then, she heard the howls way off in the darkness of the woods as the half people started their charge.

 

CHAPTER

16

As Kahlan held his hand, Richard hooked his other around the back of Nicci's neck and pulled her down close as they lowered him onto a blanket on the ground near the fire. He gripped Zedd's sleeve and pulled him close as well. He had managed to regain consciousness, if barely.

It took a great deal of effort for Richard to draw each labored breath through the obvious pain he was in. Kahlan knew that pain all too well. The intensity of it made her extremities tingle. The terrible weight of the pain felt as if it would crush her skull at the same time as nausea coursed through her body in dizzying waves.

At least until the blackness overcame her. Then it was worse because she was lost in a dark place, lonely beyond anything she had ever experienced. It was a terrifying, hopeless kind of loneliness that crushed her soul the way the pain felt like it would crush her skull.

But until the darkness overcame you, it stole your desire to speak. It made you not want to open your eyes because when you did the world spun and tilted in a stomach-churning blur. It made every sound feel sharp and stabbing, like knitting needles pushed in your ears. It took maximum effort simply to endure the agony and draw each breath. It was a struggle just to remain conscious.

She knew that the Hedge Maid had felt all of that when she had died, when that terrible, awful, horrifying scream had escaped her. All that lethal agony had been expressed in that one, long, shriek. Richard and Kahlan had been touched by the same call of death, and while not immediately fatal, they had felt much the same pain of what had taken Jit.

Kahlan knew, too, that such a feeling was part of the lure of death making you want to give up, to give in to it, to let it take you. It made you suffer, and in the suffering promised to make the agony stop, if only you would heed the call and step through the veil toward the blessed darkness. It was that beguiling call at the intolerable end of life that made death just beyond life seem so sweet, made it seem like a mere, simple, single step to the other side and then it would all so mercifully end.