The Third Kingdom Read Online Free Page A

the dense clusters of ferns and shrubs or back among the tree trunks so that Richard wouldn’t have seen them.
    And, of course, there would have been no eye shine if the eyes watching them were human.
    Since he couldn’t really see anything in the black depths of the woods, he depended instead on sounds and smells that might tip him off to a threat. The only thing he smelled, though, was the familiar scent of balsam, ferns, and the mat of pine needles, dried leaves, and forest litter covering the ground. The only sounds he heard were the buzz of insects and sometimes the sharp call of night birds. Distant, faint cries of coyotes occasionally echoed through the mountains.
    All of the people taking Richard and Kahlan to the safety of their village refrained from talking on the journey. The wary group walked swiftly but nearly silently, the way only those who had spent a lifetime in the woods were able to do. Even the man ahead who was carrying Kahlan made little noise as he moved along the trail. Richard, unable to walk very well and sometimes dragging his feet as the men on either side helped him, was making more noise than any of the rest of them, but there was little he could do about it.
    With all the bodies of strange people he had seen back near the wagon, to say nothing of the two men who had attacked him and the things he had overheard, as well as all the warnings he’d previously gotten about venturing into the Dark Lands, Richard could easily see why these people were nervous and being so careful. The two men who had attacked him had looked nothing like the bodies he had seen. If those two men had been right, then the dead were the mysterious people they had mentioned, the Shun-tuk.
    It seemed that unlike other country folk Richard knew back home, the people with him had more reason for their fears than simple superstition.
    He appreciated it when people took real dangers seriously. The people who most often invited trouble were the willfully ignorant who didn’t want to believe trouble was possible, so they dismissed the potential for it. You couldn’t be ready for what you never considered or were unwilling to consider. Worry was sometimes a valuable survival tool, so Richard thought it foolish to ignore it. But still, since they were so lightly armed, he didn’t think these people took the threats seriously enough.
    Either that, or perhaps the threats they faced were something new to them.
    It wasn’t long before they abruptly emerged from the confining, oppressive darkness of the forest into the open. A light mist borne on cooler air dampened Richard’s face.
    In the distance across the slightly rolling ground out ahead of them, lit by the muted moonlight, Richard saw a sheer rock wall rising up. Partway up the cliff face he could see faint, flickering light, probably from candles and lanterns, in passageways that looked to go back into the rock.
    Making its way ever onward toward the cliff, the trail passed between large fields, some planted with grain, others with vegetables. Once among the fields spreading out from the footof the soaring cliff, the people with him finally felt safe enough to start whispering among themselves.
    As they got closer to the rock wall, they came upon pens made of split rails. Some of the pens held sheep, others rather skinny hogs. A few milk cows stood together in a tight cluster in the corner of one pen. Long coops set among boulders fallen from the mountain towering over them looked like they were for chickens that were no doubt roosting for the night. Richard saw a few men tending to the animals.
    One of the men was checking on the sheep, patting their backs to make them move aside as he wove his way back through the small but dense flock crowded together in a large pen.
    “What is it, Henry?” Ester asked as she got closer. “What are you men doing down here at this time of night?”
    The man couldn’t help staring for a brief moment at the strangers being carried in,