Phantom by Terry Goodkind

rugged, blue-gray shapes of lofty mountains. The rock slopes and cliffs were so imposing that there were few places where trees could gain a foothold. Some of the peaks were so high that they had snow atop them despite it being summer. Kahlan and the Sisters had followed those mountains south since finding a place to cross over them after leaving the People’s Palace. In those travels, the Sisters had avoided going near people whenever they could.
    Kahlan gave her horse’s reins a little more slack. The hills they rode across were rutted with gullies that made it difficult traveling at times. Kahlan knew that there would probably be roads down out of the hills, but the Sisters didn’t generally like to travel on roads and kept off them whenever possible. As they moved through the tall grass among the scattered trees, they stayed in the concealing shelter of the folds of land between hills.
    Before Kahlan could see any of what lay ahead, the unmistakable, gagging stench of death grew so terrible that she could hardly breathe. Cresting a hill, she finally saw the city spread out below. They all paused,gazing down at the empty roads, the burned buildings, and the carcasses of what looked to be horses.
    “Let’s be quick,” Sister Ulicia said. “We’ll take the main road on the other side for a ways and get close enough to be sure of where they are and exactly the direction they’re headed.”
    They spurred their horses into canters as they rode in silence down out of the hills and into the fringes of the city. The place looked to have been built up around a meandering bend in a river and the crossings of several roads that were probably trade routes. The larger of two timber bridges had been burned. As they crossed a narrow second bridge in single file, Kahlan glanced down at the water. Bloated bodies floating facedown had collected in the reeds. Even before she had seen them, the stench of death had been so heavy in the air that she had lost her interest in going for a swim. She just wanted to be away from the place.
    As they rode in among the buildings, Kahlan held a scarf over her nose and mouth. It didn’t help much. She thought she might vomit from the fetid smell of rotting flesh. It seemed peculiar that it was so strong.
    She soon discovered why.
    They rode past side streets where corpses were piled in the hundreds. A few dogs and mules lay dead among them, the legs of the mules standing out straight and stiff. From the way the bodies were jammed into the narrow side streets, Kahlan thought that the people must have been herded into confined spaces from which escape was impossible and then slaughtered. Most of the dead, animal and human, were ripped open with ghastly wounds. Some of the dead had broken lances jutting from them, while others had been killed by arrows. Most, though, appeared to have been hacked to death. Kahlan noticed one other thing about them: they were all older people.
    Many of the buildings in one section of the city were burned down. Only in a few places did wisps of smoke still curl up from some of the thicker piles of rubble. The charred wooden beams looked like the scorched skeletons of monsters. It appeared to be a day or two since the fires had burned themselves out.
    Stepping their horses along the narrow cobbled street between two-story buildings looming up to either side of the road, they peered about in silent appraisal of the destruction. The buildings still standing had all been looted. Doors were broken in, or lay in the street nearby. Kahlan didn’t seea single window that hadn’t been broken. Curtains lay draped over a few of the tiny balconies overlooking the street. A few of those balconies held a body. Besides the fragments of wood from doorframes and the broken glass, the streets were littered with trivial items: random articles of clothing; a bloody boot; pieces of broken furniture; broken weapons; broken pieces of wagons. Kahlan saw a doll with yellow yarn for hair