Page 49 of The Third Kingdom (Sword of Truth 13)

“Many of the half people who attacked us before I woke up were killed by the troops with us, and for all I know maybe by some kind of magic Zedd and Nicci managed to conjure. It was dark and I was only just waking up, but then, and later when Ester and the rest of them came to my rescue, I saw a number of bodies from what looked to me to have been a bloody battle. I only got a brief look, but from what I saw all of them looked the same, and they didn’t look at all like any of these half people here, or anything like the men who attacked me. I overheard the men say that they thought they were Shun-tuk.”

“Shun-tuk? What do they look like?” she asked.

“They wore little clothing. Some of them had trousers while others had only cloth wrapped around their waists. None of them had shirts, other than what I thought of as decorative vests covered with beads, charms, and talismans.

“All of them, though, were smeared with what looked like a whitish ash. Their eyes were darkened with dirt, or soot, or something. The rest of their faces were covered with a milky colored substance, probably wood ash. Their heads were shaved. A few of them had tufts sticking up on the tops of their skulls. Those with the tufts of hair had what looked like beads and teeth and bones wrapped around it to make the tufts of hair stand straight up.”

Samantha hugged her spindly arms to herself again. “That sounds frightening.”

Richard nodded. “Warriors of all sorts try to make themselves look intimidating, and these Shun-tuk certainly looked the part.”

“So then, you’re saying that all three of these different kinds of people, these sickly ones here in rags, the men dressed normal who attacked you, and the wild-looking, painted-up Shun-tuk are all half people.”

“Right. All different, but all half people. The thing is, in Naja’s account, when she talked about the danger from the half people, she didn’t mention that they were different. She only said that Emperor Sulachan’s makers down in the Old World had created the half people to be used as weapons. Later, Naja’s people up here in the New World managed to collect them, along with the walking dead, and trap them all behind the barrier.”

Samantha scrambled over a log to follow after him. “So then, what’s your point?”

“My point is something has happened since they were locked behind the barrier and they are no longer the same.”

Samantha looked puzzled. “Does it really make a difference for some reason?”

Richard looked back over his shoulder and arched an eyebrow. “According to Naja some of them had the ability to use occult magic.”

Her alarm showed in her expression. “These didn’t show any evidence of it.”

Richard paused and looked back at her. “That’s what has me so concerned. Maybe these here are just the outliers, the scavengers. We might be talking about half people who have developed since Naja’s time, who are now more dangerous, who are even better at hunting those with souls than the half people were back in the great war, or than these dead ones here.”

As they walked on through the rubble, Samantha’s only answer was a worried look.

After a time, they made it to the edge of the site of the destruction and flattened trees. At the outer edge of the leveled forest a number of big trees leaned against others still standing in the forest beyond. From what Richard knew of wind-fallen trees, such tremendous weight leaning on other trees would cause some of them to eventually fall as well. The destruction in this part of the forest wasn’t yet over. It would continue for some time until the weaker trees finally fell. Eventually, this place would grow back over, but it was going to be a long time before the clearing filled in among the fallen bones of the old-growth trees.

“Careful,” Richard said as he stepped around several smaller trees leaning outward, all resting against a forest giant. “If the branches holding those trees here were to give way, they could fall at any moment. Stay in my tracks and follow me until we’re safely back into the woods again.”

Richard wove his way in among the destruction of damaged but standing trees, trying to avoid the ones that looked like they were in the most danger of falling, but he couldn’t avoid them all, because there were hundreds of partially fallen trees hanging precariously in branches of others. All of them were riddled with splinters, some as small as a finger, and some bigger than his leg. Many of the leaning trees were buckling along splits and would never survive.

“So then it sounds like these Shun-tuk might be the ones who have our people,” she said after some thought. “How will we find them?”

“From what the men were saying, the Shun-tuk live beyond the barrier in a distant land.” Richard carefully ducked under a partially uprooted tree that was pulling up a section of the forest floor. “The men were surprised that the Shun-tuk had traveled so far. From what I overheard them say, the Shun-tuk nation is vast.”

“Great,” she muttered under her breath. “So, you’re saying that the half people who are likely holding your friends and my mother captive are going to be deep into the third kingdom.”

“It seems likely,” Richard said as he entered the shadowy world of the forest. He gestured back toward the ruins of the woods. “I don’t think that these half people here would be the kind to take captives. I think if they caught someone they would eat them on the spot. The Shun-tuk seem to be different. They act out of larger motives.”

“That means we need to look for the Shun-tuk, and when we find them we’ll face even bigger problems than we did here.”

“I’m afraid so.” Once farther back into the dark shadows of the still forest, Richard paused and turned back to Samantha. “The part that worries me the most is the occult magic Naja says they have. It may have been growing stronger as they were locked away behind the barrier.”

Her nose wrinkled with her frown. “Why would it grow stronger?”

“Nature seeks balance.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like all of nature, predators and prey seek balance. If there are too many rabbits, for example, more wolves will be born and they will have an ample food supply. Wolves will grow in number and cut down the overpopulation of rabbits. If there are too many wolves, then they overhunt the food source and they run out of prey. So, fewer wolves survive starvation. Then more rabbits are able to survive, and so on, as nature seeks balance.”

“But that’s just with animals.”

“All of nature seeks balance. Even within the wolf population, such as the balance between male and female. Additive Magic is balanced with Subtractive Magic. Free will is the balance to prophecy.”

Samantha pushed some of her hair back from her face as she walked close behind him. “Well, that much of it makes sense, but what does balance have to do with occult magic?”

“Occult powers may be the balance to the gift.”

She stopped in her tracks and stared at him. “That’s a frightening thought.”

“I’d have to agree.”

“But why would magic need balance?”

“Maybe it has multiplied too much and nature is seeking to balance it by letting occult power grow.”

Samantha tilted her head toward him a little. “So are we the hunters or the prey? Who’s hunting who?”

“Good question,?

? Richard said before he turned back to the slightly open, low, mossy area that led back into the deeper woods. “The trail should be this way. It shouldn’t be far, and then we can make better time.”

CHAPTER

45

Richard was right. Before long they picked up the remote forest trail. It was a dark burrow of exposed rocks and roots tunneling through the thick vegetation. Over the centuries it had seen only random, occasional travelers, but lately it served hordes of half people coming down it to hunt souls. Now it was cloaked in a threatening silence.

Richard stood for a long moment, listening, watching, trying to pick up any sign that would indicate trouble. Samantha stood silently beside him, waiting for him to pass judgment.

“You said before that the gifted people can sense others,” she whispered. When he nodded, she went on. “So, do you think you could explain it to me, like you explained how to make trees explode, so that I could help us by sensing if anyone is out there? I could at least try my best.”

Richard pressed his lips tight in frustration. “I wish I could, but I’m afraid I don’t have any idea how they do it. I just know that they can. No one has ever explained it to me, like with the trees, so I can’t explain it to you.”

She looked dejected at the news that she wouldn’t be able to learn the trick so she could help them.

Richard laid his hand on her shoulder. “Come on. We’ll just have to find your mother and get her away from whoever has her, and then she can teach you how to do it.”

Samantha returned the smile. “You seem to have a way of making me feel better, even right in the middle of a terrible situation.”

“As long as we have choices in life and use our heads, there is always the possibility of turning around the worst situation.”

Her smile widened a little. While he returned the smile, he was concerned because he could see the exhaustion in her eyes. She obviously didn’t want to admit how much it had taken out of her to do what she had done with the trees when back in that split in the rock.

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