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“Do you think those might stop the dead?”
Nicci’s blue eyes turned to the nearest man with the red-fletched arrow nocked in his bow. “Possibly.”
“If I might ask, Lord Rahl?” the new general said as he scratched the hollow of his cheek. “What do you mean about stopping the dead?”
Richard skipped the explanations and went right to the part that mattered most. “The man who is coming to lay siege to the palace can reanimate the dead. Once brought back in this way, they are incredibly difficult to bring down. Regular weapons don’t work because these corpses are driven by magic mixed with occult powers.”
Nathan turned and stared off down one of the halls, frowning.
A number of the soldiers shared looks at this news.
“How do we stop them, then?” General Zimmer asked.
“Stabbing them doesn’t work, since they are already dead. If forced to fight them, do your best to hack off limbs. Fire stops them, so if you can throw pitch on them and set them ablaze that might work. Nathan and Nicci can lay down wizard’s fire, and that certainly works, but the problem is with their numbers. My sword works against them. At least it would if it was with me.”
Richard started down the broad hallway but took only a few steps before coming to a halt and turning back. “What is that odd smell? It smells like something is burning.”
Nathan cast a brief glance toward a marble stairwell. “Do you know the crypts where the Rahl ancestors are laid to rest?”
Richard nodded. “Yes. Each is in a separate vault, each in their own ornate stone coffin.”
“Well, some of the stone down there is melting.”
Richard looked up from under his brow. “Melting?”
Nathan pulled on a long strand of gray hair. “Yes, melting.”
Richard raked his fingers back through his own hair as he tried to remember something about that happening before, a very long time ago. He finally looked up at the tall prophet.
“Shortly after I had killed Darken Rahl, I remember a man who said he was the master of the crypt staff coming to report the stone walls down in Panis Rahl’s crypt melting.”
Nathan’s bushy brows rose. “Really?”
Richard rubbed his chin as he stared off into the memory. “Yes. Zedd told the man to use white stone to seal it over.” Richard snapped his fingers and looked back at Nathan. “Zedd told him it had to be white stone from the quarry of the prophets. Zedd gave the man a pouch with some kind of magic dust and told him to mix it in with the mortar. He said to seal the crypt shut or the whole palace would melt.”
“That’s the stone that’s melting,” Nathan confirmed. “That wall of white stone. It’s so hot down in that passageway that men can only go in there just long enough to throw a bucket of water at it to try to cool it down, but that’s not helping much.”
“Is it some kind of magic that’s melting it?” Richard asked.
Nathan shrugged. “None I recognize. We have been rather distracted by other matters, so I haven’t been able to investigate it.” He held his arm out in invitation to continue what they had been going to do.
Richard turned to the men of the First File watching him.
“Could someone get me a sword, please?”
Almost instantly, a dozen of the nearest men pulled off their weapon belts and held out the hilts of their sheathed weapons to Richard.
Richard took a sword from a man who still had a battle-axe hanging on a hook at his hip. Richard thanked the man as he strapped the belt around his waist. He drew the sword and held it up, turning it, taking a quick look at it and checking its weight. It was a blade, and that was what mattered.
Richard slid the sword back into its sheath. “Let’s go.”
The men moved aside to let him and those with him through. Rikka immediately stepped out in front of him. Absent Cara, she was determined to make certain he was protected. Cassia and Vale fell in behind Kahlan to guard Richard and Kahlan from behind. It had been a long time since the two Mord-Sith had been in the palace–since Darken Rahl had ruled. Although they had, in a way, taken possession of Richard in Cara’s place, they seemed willing to let Rikka take charge. How they wordlessly determined such things, Richard didn’t know.
The large force of the First File closed in behind them.
Richard had a lot of questions for Nathan, but he was more interested in what the man thought was so urgent that Richard see.
CHAPTER
51
Nathan rammed his shoulder against the heavy oak door. It finally, reluctantly, opened outward on rusty hinges. In the silence, the bottom scraping against the stone floor of the rampart sounded all the louder. As soon as the door opened, wind rushed in, lifting Kahlan’s and Nicci’s hair from their shoulders. That wind carried an unmistakable stink. The smell was so thick Richard could almost taste it.
Fleecy clouds of bright white with tattered, dark shadowing lay stacked in layers across the sky. At least it wasn’t heavily overcast like the Dark Lands. By the direction of the light, Richard judged that it had to be late afternoon.
Nathan grabbed Richard’s sleeve. “Easy, Richard. No good can come from letting them see you.”
Richard nodded as he carefully moved out onto the east rampart. This particular projection in the wall stuck out almost even with the edge of the immense plateau below them, itself rising up from the Azrith Plain. Calling the place atop the vast plateau a palace was misleading. The palace, with its sprawling footprint, myriad of connected sections, levels, towers, bridges, all with different roofs, multistory segments that rose up in various places, and many open courtyards, was actually a city.
The central stairway rising up deep inside the plateau itself probably held more people than the palace. That central area in the plateau was filled with shops and living quarters for their owners and guests. Many people who came to the palace to trade only frequented the interior shops and rarely made it all the way up to the top.
Archers of the First File crouched in the battlements overlooking the plains far below. They all had arrows nocked and ready. The men kept out of sight from what might be down on the plain, but peeked out from time to time to check.
Richard moved in a crouch as he made his way across the rampart to a wide merlon. He stood up behind it so that he couldn’t be seen from below. Kahlan and Nicci, arms protectively around each other’s waists as they crouched, hurried out to join him. The Mord-Sith waited back just inside the door, watching them.
Nathan leaned close and spoke in a low voice. “Careful now. You never know who may be looking up here or what they might unleash against you.”
Richard nodded and then carefully leaned over to look out the crenellation between the tall, thick merlons to the Azrith Plain below. From that vantage point one could see for a vast distance. The weather was clear enough that he could see all the way to the mountains at the horizon.
He froze at what he saw below.
The plains were covered with half-naked people. It was a gathering of half people, in greater numbers than he had known existed. They stood in dead silence all across the plains, arms hanging at their sides, all watching the palace. It was so quiet that Richard could hear the call of distant ravens hunting the plains.
Most of the half people wore only pants, or remnants of pants. The majority of their heads were shaved, but some had topknots or closely cropped hair and beards. Richard knew from experience that some of them could wield occult powers. Some of them could even raise the dead.
The unwashed horde was the unmistakable stench he had smelled. He had bad memories of those stinking swarms chasing him through the woods. They were relentless, not caring how many casualties they took. None of them cared much about what happened to their fellow half people, or in their lust to steal a soul, even their own safety. Each one of them figured that any others that fell merely meant that they had a better chance to capture a soul for themselves.
While they had a common purpose, when it
came down to it, their single-minded purpose was getting a soul for themselves. Driven by that need, the Shun-tuk followed their spirit king and did his bidding. No doubt, Sulachan had promised them all the souls they could capture along the way.
Richard pulled back out of sight, pressing his back to the wall. He snatched another quick look several times, scanning the masses of naked flesh looking for two who would be darker and stand out. He saw neither Sulachan or Hannis Arc.
Kahlan leaned over and peeked out. “Dear spirits,” she said as she pulled back, her eyes wide. “I knew they had a lot, but I didn’t know they had that many.”
Richard turned to sneak another look. He rolled back against the wall. Kahlan put an arm around him, pressing in close.
“You’re right,” he said. “That’s a lot of half people wanting to eat all of us.”
“They outnumber everyone in the palace many times over, that’s for certain,” Nathan said.
Richard gestured to the west. “What about around on the other sides of the palace? Are there any over there on that side?”
Nathan leaned close with a sour expression. He pointed a finger down and then circled it.
“They are all around us. I can’t even guess at their numbers. Common sense says that they can’t get in here.”
“But prophecy says otherwise,” Richard guessed.
Nathan admitted it with a grunt.
“How long have they been here?” Richard asked.
