Severed Souls by Terry Goodkind Read Free Book Online Page B

here?”
    Lord Arc spread his hands. “Why, the people of Insley failed to welcome me as their new ruler. That is an intolerable offense.”
    Gerald took a step forward. “Then please, Lord Arc, allow me to run ahead and tell them. Let me announce you. I know they will bow down and welcome you. Let me show you.”
    â€œEnough of this,” the spirit king said in a low growl.
    He casually pointed at the pickax still gripped in Gerald’s fist at the end of his hanging arm. The handle grew hot and crisped to black. In a heartbeat it checkered into shriveling charcoal before turning to ash that crumbled away from Gerald’s hand like dust going through his fingers. When it did, the heavy steel pickax head thumped down onto the ground and flopped over on its side.
    Gerald stared in disbelief as, in mere seconds, the entire steel pickax rusted to crumbling, reddish fragments.
    All that was left on the ground at Gerald’s side was an ashen black stain that had been the wooden handle and unrecognizable reddish fragments that moments before had been the steel head of the pickax.
    Lord Arc lifted a slender, tattooed finger, pointing it down the road as he cocked his head, staring at Gerald.
    Gerald knew without a doubt that it was a command, and if he disobeyed that command or delayed another moment, he would swiftly regret it.
    No choice left to him, he immediately turned and started for the road.
    All the chalky figures, led by Lord Arc, his Mord-Sith, and Emperor Sulachan, along with the dead pulled up from their graves by the king of the dead, followed behind him.

 
    CHAPTER
    8
    The road curved several times as it wound its way among the grove of ancient oaks on its way into Insley. Because the massive oak trees grew together over the road, they closed off most of the churning, gray sky, making the day seem even darker, making the glowing red eyes of the dead stand out all the more. Gerald wished it was a lot farther to town, rather than a short walk.
    He wished there was a way to warn people, but he could think of none. Even if he ran, Insley was so close there would be no time to explain it. Besides, had he not seen it, he doubted he would believe a story such as he had to tell.
    Not far behind him followed the two emperors, Sulachan and Hannis Arc. The Mord-Sith shadowed her master, Lord Arc. Behind them came an entire Shun-tuk nation of the half-naked, chalky figures with their eyes painted black all around them, making their eyes look like great, dead sockets. The sound of all those bare feet made the air rumble. The dark murk he had seen at first now seemed to envelop them all, like the air itself was poisoned by the evil of these people.
    As the road made its way over a slight rise, Gerald glanced back into the distance behind and for the first time was able to take in the enormous numbers of half people. There were so many that he imagined it would probably be most of the day before the last of them passed the spot he was passing. It might even be well after dark before they had all passed that same spot.
    Because of their vast numbers the Shun-tuk couldn’t confine themselves to the road, instead surging across the landscape to either side, like a tide of ashen figures flooding the valley landscape and about to drown the town of Insley. In among the half people, the awakened dead lumbered stiffly along, like debris carried on that incoming tide.
    It seemed that the garden of the dead that Gerald had tended for so long had finally been harvested by a spirit king come to claim them as his own.
    As they rounded a bend in the road at the top of the slight rise, off between the oaks, the first buildings at the edge of town came into view. Gerald had heard of places where buildings were made of stone, but these were not so grand as that. They were simple structures made of wood cut from the ample supply in the trackless forests of the Dark Lands all around.
    Most of the buildings of the