Wizard 12

Chapter 12
The group sets out, with Chase wearing “enough armaments to outfit a small army,” and an expression that looks “as if he was about to participate in a slaughter.” Real nice guy. He also wears a large silver belt buckle “emblazoned with the emblem of the boundary wardens.” Of course, we don't get to know what that is. I'm now picturing a gigantic, pro-wrestling belt buckle with a big BW on it. Probably not what the author intended, but that's what I'm getting.
They head south. Zedd eats fried chicken. Everyone they encounter is terrified of Chase. Is this guy really one of the Good Guys? Between the weapons, the aura of slaughter, and the reactions of the locals, I'm beginning to wonder if Chase isn't some sort of bandit king. Heroes don't usually rule through fear, do they?
They find more snake vines. Chase tells the others to keep going while he goes off to stop the Black Riders – er, I mean, check on something. Then Our Heroes hear something!
“Off to their left, in the distance, came howling, something like a wolf pack, only it wasn't wolves. It was something from the boundary.”
That's...a lot of commas.
And how do these people know it's not wolves, that it's something from the boundary? Up until a couple of pages ago, monsters from the boundary were rumor and fireside tales (never mind that things aren't supposed to be able to come out of the boundary!). Richard is a woods guide, so perhaps he can tell from the howling that it's not wolves, but it would still be nice to have that mentioned. Instead, we're given the statement: “it wasn't wolves. It was something from the boundary.”
They ride on for a while, and then Richard wants to go back and help Chase. Kahlan and Zedd make the usual arguments – trust him to do his job; what Richard is doing is more important than one man, etc. Richard lets himself be convinced and we press on.
Blah blah, travel through the woods. We come to a bridge which someone has sabotaged for no apparent reason. We get past it. Richard hears a Mysterious Something and prepares to smite it. It turns out to be Chase, who has lost a few weapons and is spattered with blood, but is otherwise fine.
We learn that the things from the boundary (I keep thinking that should be capitalized) are called heart hounds. “They're about twice the size of a wolf, big barrel chests, heads are kind of flat, big snout full of teeth,” so speaketh Chase. They're called heart hounds for two different reasons. One theory holds that their ears are so keen, they can hear a man's heart beating, while the other claims that, unlike normal canines, they kill their prey by going for the heart.
I have to say, that seems pretty unlikely to me. The heart is very well-protected by ribs and muscles and so on. It seems like it would be awfully hard for an animal like a big dog to rip someone's heart out before they were dead. it sounds scary, though, doesn't it? Heart hounds...they kill by ripping your heart out!
Actually, that sounds sort of metal to me. \~/
Apparently heart hounds aren't creatures of the underworld, they're creatures of the boundary: “They have something to do with the magic of the boundary; they were created with it They are the boundary's watchdogs, so to speak. They can go in and out without being claimed by it.”
This sounds rather suspect to me; we've already been told that the boundary IS the underworld, suspended in the world of life. However, a bigger question is: what the hell was Zedd thinking? He's the one who raised the boundary, remember? Since the heart hounds were “created with the boundary,” this means they were created, either directly or indirectly, by Zedd. Thanks, Zedd. You're a pal.
And it gets better. Now that the other boundary is down, the one between the Midlands and D'Hara, Kahlan informs us that the heart hounds once associated with it are “seen everywhere now in the Midlands,” and are “crazed with lack of purpose,” and “even come out in the daytime.”
So, thanks, Zedd. Thanks for creating this breed of murderous beasties that you can't or won't control. Because of you, they're rampaging through the Midlands – the very countries you once fought to save – and killing who knows how many innocent people.
Bleah. \~/\~/
Drinks: 3
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