Zach Nix’s Reviews > Wizard's First Rule > Status Update

As the flying creatures long hair, short hair gur swoop down towards Kahlan zedd and Richard, the cat goes flying out of the backpack in time to alert Richard who then gets hit in the back by one of the gurs an is wounded in the back from its claws, zedd ends up using his magic to stop the gur an eliminate them. They then rush to chases place, which is the boundary warden, for two reasons, because Richard is hurt and they can help tend to his wounds; and because he is the boundary warden so he would know where the trial across the boundary would be. When they get there they are welcomed an they announce to chase that Richard is seeker. Chase agrees to help them and they leave the cat with chases wife Emma and the daughter. They pack up in horses and head out. When they head out chase almost immediately hears something off in the distance, so he goes to check it out, they are in a thicket of dense woods that are half dead trees an half still managed to live through the snake vines effects. Richard trues to turn back to help chase but zedd and Kahlan tank him out of it. Saying it would be worse because they could all get killed an chase knew what he was doing anyways. They could hear voices as they went through the forest. Once they got out chase appeared out of the dense forest, bloody an with a few weapons missing, an his mace in hand. He pulls a 3 inch yellow fang out out it. He explains he was burying the rest of a person who didn’t listen to him and went to close to the boundary, the “heart hounds” got him. Chase said he kills 4-5 of them an there were more then he was used to. They call the hounds heart hounds because they go for the heart, an because some say they can hear the heartbeats of people giving them away. They travel up on a hill a little ways from the boundary so they could watch for things coming out of the woods from the boundary, an they would be able to watch from any angle. There while Richard is on first shift, an everyone is sleeping, Kahlan sits next to Richard an he asks if Kahlan has a mate, an she turns away an tells him it wouldn’t ever work between them, her hurt as well. She says she was going to go lay back down. Then zedd came, an hour before his shift an sat next to Richard, an explained to him that she couldn’t be with him, an he vowed to let her tell Richard, but there was a reason why she couldn’t be with him. Something to do with her responsibilities. Richard is mad so zedd let’s him use his cloud rock, when Richard steps on it he instantly is seeing from every animal that sees him from a different angle, an he goes up into the sky an it’s like a weight is lifted from him. Zedd explains that Rahl is probably hunting them because of the cloud, so Richard comes up with an idea to make more clouds attract to the cloud that Rahl placed over Richard so he could track him. That way to get the clouds off of the one tracking Richard it would break the hook on Richard. The next day they head out on the trail to the boundary, chase takes Richard to the boundary edge, an tells him to hook an arm around his an walk with him an stop when he says stop. It’s explained as a green light an as they walk through it the green light around them gets darker an it sounds like there are millions of bees. Finally they hit a dark black translucent wall and he can see things through it. He realizes it’s actually voices he hears an all of a sudden he sees his father, his father calling for him, Richard is spellbound by the effects of the wall an the underworld trying to suck him in, chase pulls him out of it, Richard realizes if chase wasn’t there, he would have walked into the underworld and died. Kahlan is upset but chase explains the boundary is thin an the walls almost touch in some spots so Richard had to know the effects in case anything happened an Richard touched the black translucent barrier. As they are talking a long tentacle comes out of the green light and darkness and hits chase an sends him and the wizard flying. They go unconscious; and the tentacles grab Kahlan an start dragging g her to the boundary so Richard grabs her hands, both them being dragged, he gets up an slashes the tentacles just as her feet get to the black translucent wall, she jumps In his arms. Richard realizes they must leave because it wasn’t his father it was actually rahla underworld goons, so Rahl will know where they are, they tend to chases head and strap both them to the horses with blankets to keep them warm, an head out, it gets so dark they can hardly see an they almost get lost, until Richard finds the trail, they hear the heart hounds howling in the distance where they met an chase and zedd got hurt at the boundary. Richard and Kahlan realize the hounds will catch them if they don’t hurry, so they finally hit a bowl that sloped down an they knew it was the swamp, there were the hounds at the edge of the bowl so they had to go into the swamp an onto the other side where there was land, hoping the hounds couldn’t swim an that’s why chase said they’d be safe at the swamp from the hounds; then Richard sees snakes which they flee when he puts his sword of truth In the water. They end up staying there for the might staying watch while the hounds waited on the other side of the swamp along with the snakes by the edge of the water. They tend to chase and zedd and then Richard takes first watch, but Kahlan can’t sleep so they make litters that will allow them to drag zedd and chase behind them with the horses making it more stable and suitable for them until they wake up. Once they finish Kahlan falls asleep on his shoulder. Then she has the next watch, they then pack up in the morning and leave when the heart hounds leave because of the sun. They have to wait a few miles before they can put zedd and chase on the stretchers because of the tangle of vines on the floor, they eat lunch as they travel through the rain once they can put zedd and chase on the litters, that’s where I am currently in the book