Relentless was putty in a woman’s hands. It was a secret I tried to avoid getting out.
“Still you think you could have snorted or something!”
Relentless looked away holding his head low and I smacked his shoulder a little harder than I should have.
I was disappointed in both of us, as it was I was lucky to still be alive. I expected I’d only have a couple more nights in the mountains and they were shaping up to be interesting ones, especially if my nighttime visitor came once again.
The coming night was all I could think of throughout the day. I had never been surprised before like I had been last night and it really bothered me.
I set up camp and this time I had a fire, but I let it go out in the early morning hours. My bedroll was back from the fire’s edge a good ten feet or so only I wasn’t in it.
The night had been a quiet one, and I was just getting the feeling that I had wasted a whole night’s sleep for nothing, when something changed.
The atmosphere of the night was different. There was someone or something there that hadn’t been there before and as certain as I was of that I was also sure that it knew that I wasn’t in my bedroll and in fact was probably looking straight at me this very moment.
Chills went up and down my spine at the prospect of being seen in my concealment and yet unable to see my opponent. I at least thought I knew where the ‘it’ was, but I wasn’t sure.
Deciding to end the pretense of hiding, when it was clear to me that the game was up I stepped out from the dense thicket I had been standing motionless in for hours and drew my sword. The sword immediately brightened, as if it sensed my need for light.
A wispy ray of blue light peeled off into the darkness away from me in search of the something that I had sensed was there. The wispy ray of colored light seemed to run into something in the blackness of the night and it stopped only to then encircle around the object it had encountered until a narrow dark column was illuminated in the dark.
I saw a hand come out of the pitch black column. I watched as a finger played with the strands of light encircling it wonderingly. Something in the darkness moved and I realized its head had been bent forward.
The head lifted even as two hands lifted back the hood of a black cape. I swallowed hard as I stared at my first mountain demon.
Chills coursed up and down my spine. It was like nothing I had ever seen before and yet it was as beautiful as any woman I had ever seen and more.
‘This is not good Zevin’ I said to myself inwardly.
‘Not good to be infatuated with a demoness! Get a grip on yourself!’
But all I could do was stare helplessly like a moth flying into a burning flame. It was definitely female or at least I hoped it was. I had to admit that I didn’t know much about demons.
She was taller than the overall height of a woman of Assoria by several inches. Her facial features were mostly similar to the people of Assoria, but they were different slightly and she looked of a bigger build overall, but it was hard to tell because of the cape she wore.
Her eyes though!
Zalisha had been right about these mountain demons. Their eyes glowed!
They glowed so much that they castoff considerable light. It wasn’t just the eyes, but individual strands of her black long hair glowed softly too. She for all her odd exotic appearance was utterly bewitching.
“Who are you?” I managed to get out as her full lips parted in a sensual smile that revealed sharp teeth that looked like silver and glinted like polished knives in the reflected light given off by my sword.
In a wicked tone of voice she said, “You mean what am I? That would be a better question.”
Her face displayed the haughty demeanor common of evilness, but all I could think was that it made her look sort of cute.
Okay I’d play along, “Okay then what are you?”
“Your worst nightmare if I so choose to be!” She said assuredly.
I didn’t doubt her. But what she didn’t know was that she was already better than any fantasy I’d ever had.
“What business do you have in trespassing across our lands uninvited?” She said directly, with a hint of the savagery I instinctively knew she possessed creeping out into her tone.
Trespassing?
“I wasn’t aware that I was! Tell me do demons claim territory?”
She looked uncertain for only a moment and then she drew herself up as regally as any queen would, “We possess these mountains and we don’t like outsiders traipsing through them disturbing our solitude!”
I had to bite back a smile, ‘Disturbing their solitude’ yeah right! It seemed to me that she had sought out my company on two separate occasions already.
“I’m sorry to have imposed on your solitude. I’ll be out of the mountains soon.”
She nodded her head solemnly, “See that you are or else!” She left the rest unsaid and turned away and started to fade away into the darkness.
Quickly I followed after her, but it was next to impossible to keep sight of her. All I had to go by was the deeper darkness of her cape in comparison to the dark grayness of the early morning light just before sunrise.
I lost sight of her.
Suddenly a void of blackness opened up before me in the mountainous terrain and I desperately flung myself backwards grabbing at the rocks to keep myself from falling over into the chasm I’d started to step into.
Pulling myself up I heard the sound of soft taunting laughter behind me. The sound grated on my nerves and I turned back angrily to view its source.
There she was on the other side of the chasm still laughing softly her eyes glowing with merriment. The little witch had almost let me kill myself!
How had she crossed the chasm in front of me?
It had to be over twenty feet in distance side to side! I couldn’t jump that on my best day, had she?
As if in answer to my unasked question she smiled her sharp teeth glinting. I was about to say something, when she threw something at me and I had to reach out and catch it before it smacked me in the head.
Looking at what I had caught I saw that it was an apple. I looked back across at her, but she was gone. Looking down at the apple I pondered on the mystery of her. What kind of a she demon runs around the mountains at night feeding horses apples and watching men sleep?
A dangerous one was the answer as I remembered how close I’d come to falling into the chasm. Getting up I stumbled through the early morning darkness back to my camp. I walked up to Relentless and cutting the apple into pieces I handed him some as I said to him.
“You’re forgiven old boy. She is quite bewitching! I can see why you fell for her. You shouldn’t drop your guard around a female like that all the same though. Their smiles of welcome conceal hidden dangers!”
Relentless shook his head and seemed to snort derisively at me.
“That’s right! Take it from one who almost found it out the hard way!”
I decided to lay down and get a couple of hours of sleep at least.
The twill of a songbird awoke me. From the brightness of the morning I gauged that I had slept for more than just a couple of hours. My senses caught the smell of something familiar.
Something sweet!
I sat bolt upright grabbing my sword up and looking all around for the sweet smell’s mysterious owner. I saw nothing and then my eyes drifted downward. On a rock less than two feet away from where my head had been while I had slept sat a big red apple on a rock.
Unbelievably I glanced toward Relentless and saw him busy nosing through the grass in search of the remains of what must have been a veritable feast of apples, if the empty sack on the ground was any indicator.
I hit the ground hard with my fist. She’d done it to me again!
My anger dissipated slightly when I considered on a somewhat more positive high note that she must not want me dead. Goodness knows she could have done it if she’d wanted to. Still I didn’t like being played around wit
h like a helpless mouse caught in the sharp talons of a playful cat.
The next time we met things were going to be different!
It was interesting that I had already subconsciously decided that there would be a next time.
Chapter Eleven
Dry Hearts
To say that the northern plains were dry once you got away from the mountains was an understatement. Desert would have been a better descriptive word for it.
Nothing but desert with some clumps of grass here and there. It was hard to believe that this much natural devastation could occur in just over one hundred years.
I rode Relentless at a steady run across the flat plain kicking up a cloud of dust as I went. I had brought a spear with me and to this I had attached the flag of the Eastern Kingdom in the hopes that it would at least give me a chance to speak my piece instead of being run through on the spot, with questions asked later.
I saw some small wild deer flee from my approach off in the distance, but that was it. It was hot and I was beginning to wonder if just one extra satchel of water would be sufficient for this arid climate.
A shadow fell over me from above and I looked up to see a vulture drifting above me on the hot air currents. The bird’s presence seemed to describe the spirit of the place, dead.
Farther out in the distance I saw a series of projections that stuck out and up from the flatness of the plain and I headed for them, as there were seemingly no other kinds of landmarks to be seen on the flat plain.
Not my kind of land for sure. Give me the cool rainy green mountains any day over this place. Eventually I rode into some irregularities on the flat plain. Diversion ditches.
These must have been fields and pastureland then at one time. As I grew closer I could see that my destination was one of the abandoned cities of the North.
I reached the old riverbed before I did the city. It was empty and barren except for a few shrubs clinging on to life here and there along the sides and bottom of the once powerful Yasana River. I had come to see far too many such desperate and hopeless places like this in my short time on Assoria.
The destruction of what had once been great was evident almost everywhere one looked. The greed of one man comingled with the envy of one kingdom had brought all this bitterness and destruction upon the land and caused the suffering of so many. Assoria was due for a rebirth and with the Creator as my strength I would do what I could to reverse the ravages of the past and usher in a stronger new future.
I skirted the perimeter of the great abandoned city. I had no desire to travel down the lonely forgotten streets of yet one more relic from the past. It was as if the pain and suffering from the past had somehow seeped into the ground and pervaded the very atmosphere of the place.
I followed the old riverbed northward along its old course. Zalisha had said that except for a few isolated springs the northern peoples got most of their water by collecting the morning dew from the northern coastline beaches in a process that I was curious to see for myself.
Most of the remaining population was concentrated in the far north, because that was where the reliable water sources were and it was far away from the casual raiding parties sent out by the Western Kingdom to continually harass and weaken the Northern Kingdom further.
I made camp that night in a stand of scrubby pine trees that sat back off from the old riverbed. When I woke up it was with some regret that I didn’t find an apple laying beside me on the ground.
I rode for days only seeing the occasional scattered wildlife and the annoying presence of my constant companion, the buzzard, who lazily coasted along above marking my progress.
I had thought about putting an arrow through him, but I figured he had as much right to share the space as I did. I just wished he would share someone else’s space and avoid mine.
I could do without the ominous cloud of my own doom flying overhead. I had just come up out of a dip, when I saw the dust cloud of a party of horsemen up ahead. I headed straight for them silently praying that it wasn’t a returning raiding party of Western warriors.
From the raggedy attire of their outfits I figured they had to be Northern. The horsemen fanned out around, encircling me and I stopped Relentless waiting to see what would happen next.
They gave me a thorough looking over and I them. I didn’t like what I saw, but I kept that to myself. It wasn’t their lack of armor or their somewhat gaunt bodies that I didn’t like. It was instead the hard look in their eyes and the bitterness that was etched into their faces like a permanent scowl.
I had been around hard eyed warriors for all of my life, but these warriors looked a little too hardened. I got the distinct impression that they just as a matter of course did not like me.
The feeling was mutual, which was very bad. I needed these warriors to fight with me against the Western kingdom at Kartasa. Without them I didn’t see how we could win without a miracle of the Creator on behalf of our part.
I had to convince them to join in on our side! I just had to!
The ranks of the surrounding warriors parted and made room for another horse. It was Ziya and she looked happy to see me. I felt a rush of relief at the sight of her.
“You have come! It is good to see you! You must come and see my father the king!”
She barked out something to the surrounding warriors in her native tongue and they reluctantly parted giving her spiteful, perhaps even vengeful looks, as they did so.
It was then that I fully realized that the surrounding warriors had intended to kill me, a perfect stranger. Probably for my horse and gear, if Ziya hadn’t been there it would have been a fight to the death for sure. This did not bode well for favorable relations between the two kingdoms.
It was a good thing I hadn’t been expecting much because there wasn’t much to see. Just rows and rows of ratty looking tents.
The Northern Kingdom was now primarily a nomadic culture. The children looked up at us imploringly as we rode by, as if begging for a handout, but I doubted they’d get anything from these warriors other than a swift kick.
Then I saw something that sickened and disgusted me. A half naked woman ran out from a tent screaming even as a naked man chased after her. Catching her he smashed a fist to her face knocking her to the ground and then proceeded to rape her in plain view of everyone, while the woman pleaded and cried out into the dust of the ground.
Feeling bile rise in my throat at what I was witnessing I looked around. Was no one going to stop what was taking place?
Except for a few disinterested looks by some of the warriors, as to what was taking place no one seemed to care about the despicable act of brutality taking place before them. I looked at Ziya and she at least had the grace to look ashamed for what was taking place.
She met my hard stare and lamely said, “She is his wife.”
“So!”
Weakly she responded, “The men are always angry and hungry. They……”
Cutting her off I said, “Stop making excuses for them Ziya!”
Softly she responded while looking down and away from me, “Times are hard.”
No kidding, but that didn’t justify what I was seeing! I had counted on these people to help turn the tide of the war, without their help I saw little chance for victory. But if they wouldn’t come to the aid of one of their own lying in the dust what could inspire them to fight and potentially die in the fight for freedom.
I marveled at the mystery that Assoria’s three kingdoms represented. How could a kingdom such as the Eastern one loose so much and suffer so much physically and emotionally and yet hold on to their basic human decency? While their neighbors to the west had fallen to pieces morally and culturally speaking and the Northern Kingdom after having suffered a similar fate as the East had only become little better than the savage mindless brutes that roamed the Dark Forest.
The Eastern people were the exceptions to the general downturn of the people of this land. In all fairness I had to admit the same proble
m existed in my homeland with the disparaging differences between the Valley Landers and the Zoarinians.
People just weren’t perfect on their own and could never hope to attain perfection on their own either. That much was clear.
We reached the center of the tent village and I noticed that both the tents and the people were in better condition physically.
There must be a social hierarchy in place among these people. Those that got more food and those that didn’t.
We got down and headed for the open doorway of a tent larger than the rest. We made our way inside and of all the unexpected things to find in a tent sitting on a dusty plain was a gilded and bejeweled thrown complete with elevated dais.
The manpower and horsepower needed to haul the thing around would have had to be extensive. On top of the thrown sat what must be Ziya’s father. He was an unbelievably fat man and it wasn’t hard to see why. The tent was literally full of food, all kinds of it.
Children were begging for crumbs and he was busy in here stuffing himself to excess! I wanted to just turn around and leave so bitter was the disappointment I had for these people.
“Welcome!” Boomed the voice from on top the throne and reluctantly I moved on into the room trying to not step on the food lying around my feet.
“Zevin Ta’lont your fame precedes you. Come! Can I get you something to eat and drink?”
“No thank you your highness I’m quite full.”
I didn’t bother to mention of what I was full of.
The king started laughing uproariously his corpulent form jiggling with the force of his mirth. Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of Ziya taking advantage of the king’s momentary self distraction by slipping handfuls of food into her baggy pants pockets.
The king’s own daughter had to steal for food!
My dislike for the king intensified even more.
Finally he regained control of himself and sputtered out, “You wouldn’t say that if you spent much time around here! Just looking at the people can make you hungry.”
I didn’t say anything for fear of what might slip out.
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