“I’d rather fight an army than go through this again,” Zenak said to himself. “That was some swim, eh, Gam,” Zenak said to his mark. Gam shook his head and whinnied louder than Zenak had ever heard him.
“Yes, Gam, I’m sure that you are cheering for a battle well done. Sometimes it is more rewarding to conquer Nature than an entire kingdom for kingdoms may come and go but the lady Nature is always at our backs threatening us with death and destruction.”
Zenak quickly mounted Gam and said, “We ride now, my mark. We ride like the wind for Gaston. For the faster we arrive the faster we will save our loved ones.”
Gam whinnied again and then took off to the town where only a week earlier the army had feasted, drunk, and whored in celebration of the great victory over the mercenaries. The swiftness of the ride exhilarated both Gam and Zenak as the wind whipped across their wet bodies drying them quickly. As Zenak rode he passed a squat, stone jail that he gave no notice to. Little did he know that inside it was his only ally.
The main street of Gaston was bustling with business. The party had ended about two hours earlier and the people were busy setting things straight that the storm had destroyed. Many of the stores were already cleaned and open for business, in fact, a few shoppers were already haggling in the open-air shops which sold everything from grains to diamonds. Gaston was the center of trade for the eastern part of Deparne and because of this, a shopper could find almost anything he or she wanted in the small, thatched open-air stores that stood on the edge of the shopping district. The shopping district itself was rather large and considering that Gaston had only 2,000 inhabitants, the main street of town had all the best stores where a shopper could find anything from a spicy sausage from the northern mountains of Cambi to a hand-stitched embroidered dress from Lombaba, the fashion capital of the Island. It was amazing how fast the people could set things straight after the storm: it was almost as if the storm was ten years in the past instead of a few hours.
Zenak reached the main street almost at a full gallop and without even stopping Gam, he jumped off his mark in the busiest part of the street. Gam came to an immediate halt when the weight of his master was not upon him any longer. Zenak looked magnificent. His muscles rippled even as he stood still. And his blond hair waved lightly in the soft breeze that blew across the street. But his cold, dark eyes in his sunburned, scarred, chiseled face told the story of a man who was bent on one task. The people standing in the vicinity were awestruck when his thunderous voice boomed out to announce the reason for his being in Gaston. But they were not awestruck for long.
“Your King Zenak has come to ask the loyal citizens of—”
Before Zenak could finish his request, his voice was drowned out by the fierce cries that came from the lips of every woman, man, and child who saw him.
“It is King Zenak,” yelled a man. “We must kill him.”
“Yes, I will tell the rest of the town that this scourge has crossed our borders,” another man yelled out as he ran down the street.
Zenak was bewildered but even his bewilderment did not slow his reflexes. He immediately whipped out his mighty broadsword and stood prepared for what was apparently next to come. His foresight was not in error either, for no sooner had he unsheathed his sword, than he was attacked by three young men bearing down on him with pitchforks poised to kill. But they were no match for this seasoned warrior and in moments the three attackers lay on the ground amidst their blood and brains.
“What is going on?” Zenak yelled to the people. But the answer that was given to him was a rain of stones.
By this time everyone in town was rounded up and they surrounded Zenak. They looked as if they were moving statues. Their eyes showed no emotion but their faces were convulsed with hatred.
“Gam, quickly” Zenak said to his loyal war mark. Gam came close. Zenak was going to mount Gam when he heard someone yell attack.
He turned around and saw the people attacking him from all sides. The men had swords in their hands and the women and children had knives and sticks. Zenak couldn’t believe what he was seeing. In no time the attackers struck and Zenak was surrounded by enraged, insane people. Zenak stood next to Gam and fought valiantly. His sword was bashing skulls, crushing breastbones, and slicing legs off the seemingly endless attackers. One man whose legs had been severed by a swift stroke from Zenak, crawled toward Zenak with a dagger in his mouth. Zenak was horrified but before he could do anything about this, Gam stomped on the man’s head spreading his brains all over the already blood-drenched cobblestones.
Finally, there was a slight break and Zenak, seizing the chance, jumped on Gam and proceeded to leave this strange predicament he found himself in. But to his dismay he saw that all escape was blocked by raging men frothing at the mouth and with hatred written all over their faces. When the people first attacked, Zenak felt a deep sense of pity, but the pity he had for these people left his soul and he no longer looked upon them with sympathy. They were his enemies and he was going to make short work of them so he could find his wife and child. He let out the blood-curdling western war cry and then bolted toward a group of charging men waiving his broadsword in the air. Five men fell quickly under his whirling blade and any man who dared stand near Gam either had his neck and head torn asunder by Gam’s razor-like teeth or had his bowels ripped from his body by Gam’s razor-fitted hooves. Zenak was still shocked; he had never encountered such ferocity as these men displayed. From all sides people bent on his destruction attacked him and had it not been for his swiftness of hand and Gam’s great fighting, Zenak would have been lying dead after the first charge from these hypnotized killers. The havoc Zenak was creating was enormous—blood and mangled bodies were knee-deep—but no amount of atrocities could stop these townspeople from attacking. Zenak had to keep killing. One man jumped on the back of Gam trying to get at Zenak from the rear, but Zenak was too fast and grabbed the man by his neck and broke it while at the same time guiding his sword through three knife-wielding men disemboweling them. The people were dropping like flies as Zenak cleaved skulls and ripped into the hearts of others with his sword.
Finally these maddened people pulled back into a circle around Zenak. Apparently, they were not so mad as to realize that they had to change their strategy. Zenak sat on Gam in the middle of the circle; he was alone, except for the piles of dead bodies that surrounded them. One man, near Gam’s left foot, was screaming in agony as he clutched a stump where a leg once was. Gam put him out of misery by driving one of his razor hooves through the man’s skull.
“What have I done? Are you all mad?” Zenak questioned. A note of shock and dismay shook his mighty voice. But the Gastonian men said nothing. They just stood staring at Zenak as if he were the deadliest scourge ever to be born. The women had been herded into a nearby building by some of the old men and they, along with their children, stood at their windows with rocks in their hands ready to throw at Zenak.
A small man crooked from age walked slowly up to the mayor of the town and whispered in the mayor’s ear. The mayor shook his head affirmatively and smiled slyly as he looked at Zenak with cold eyes. The mayor then told the man next to him and within moments the entire circle knew the old man’s secret. Zenak had strained to hear what was said but couldn’t hear a word. Zenak knew, however, that he was the subject of this secret and that it probably was not to his benefit. So he pushed to the eastern point of the circle and to his surprise received no resistance. He sped through and after getting out of the circle wheeled Gam around and brought him to a halt. He looked questioningly at the townsfolk.
“Answer me this,” Zenak called out, “have you seen my wife and son?” The people said nothing. “Well, Gam, we have a choice. Do we head for Soci or do we cross back over the Volski and look for Mara? My instincts tell me that this town is insane because of some spell that Vokar put on them. My instincts also tell me that I was correct in believing that Vokar is heading for Soci and he has my wife
and child with him. I’m sure he believes he can take over Soci. How little he knows. How he is getting there without marks is beyond me unless they have other marks. But we will find out soon enough.”
Zenak looked down the road that led for Soci then he looked at the quietly staring people. He shook his head, turned Gam around, and bolted off.
He had ridden no further than a centikarn down the road when a large, thin-stranded net popped up in front of him and Gam. They never saw the net on the street for it had been covered by the dirt on the road and it popped up with such speed and surprise that Zenak was not able to stop Gam in time. As he fell to the ground Zenak thought to himself that this was the secret that had passed around the circle earlier. The people knew that he was trapped. How could he have been so stupid, he thought to himself.
Gam and Zenak were hopelessly tangled and Zenak was stabbed in the hand as Gam kicked at the net trying to get out.
Zenak himself was frantically hacking at the net with his sword but he was so badly tangled that no amount of cutting seemed to help. All of a sudden he was pounced upon by three huge men. Even though he was trapped in this web, Zenak managed to slay two of these attackers by disemboweling one and crushing the skull of another one with the hilt of his sword. But before he could send the third man to the afterlife, six more men pounced on Zenak grabbing his arms and legs and rendering him helpless. Zenak, however, would not be quieted and he kept thrashing about until the mayor smashed a wooden hammer onto Zenak’s skull. As Zenak faded into unconsciousness he saw his beloved Gam killed by the spears, knives, pitchforks, and swords of these insane townsfolk.
Zenak woke up in a damp cell. He was chained to the moldy wall of the cell and was stripped of all his weapons. His head ached and even the slightest movement of his head was a ponderous task. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dim light of the small cell, but when he could see he noticed Tak looking at him in quiet expectation.
“Who are you?” Zenak asked Tak groggily.
“My name is Tak. I am a great hunter and am at the service of you, King Zenak,” Tak said proudly.
“We are in the service of each other, for we must help each other out,” Zenak corrected. “Do you know what they have in store for us?”
“Yes, they plan to kill us at sunup,” Tak said.
“Do you know why?” Zenak asked.
“You’ve got me. Only two days ago the townspeople loved me as I love them still, but now they want to kill me because I mentioned your name,” Tak said.
“Because you mentioned my name?” Zenak asked. He looked sullenly at the young hunter.
Tak nodded in the affirmative and then gave his theory in a rare instance of gabbiness. “It has to be sorcery of some kind for how could a whole town go mad at once? The woman I slept with during the storm spit on me as if she had not begged the night before for my hard loving. I feel that the same sorcery made the storm stop as quickly as it did. Did you not question the sudden stop of the storm? I slept through it, but when I heard a recounting of what happened just before I killed the blacksmith, I questioned it.”
“No,” Zenak said. “I question few things anymore. Maybe I should question more,” he said thoughtfully silent for a moment as he thought of his blundering into the trap that the townspeople had laid. He thought about Gam. He then continued, “You are right Tak—it is sorcery. The most evil kind you will ever find. It is the evil sorcery of Vokar. Yes, the insanity of this town is really no different from the forest and Magaz.”
“Vokar! The great priest of our religion?” Tak asked.
“Yes. And he has abducted Mara and the prince,” Zenak said.
“Abducted the queen and the prince! We are at the gates of some dark days. What do you mean that it is no different than Magaz and the forest?” Tak asked.
“I’ll explain later,” Zenak said. “Now we must try and escape for there is not much of the night left.”
“Yes, it is only a couple of hours before sunup. You were unconscious for most of the night,” Tak said.
So with just the full moon silently and softly lighting the interior of the cell, Tak and Zenak concentrated all their strength to be free from their chained bondage. Rivers of sweat poured from their bodies as they wracked themselves pulling on the chains. Every muscle in both their bodies swelled and pulsed and attempted to reach an even higher plateau of strength as they strained at their chains. Blood flowed from their wrists where they were manacled. Tak, whose strength was almost equal to Zenak’s, was making better progress than the king. The townspeople made sure to get the heaviest chains they had for Zenak. They had not been so careful with Tak.
Slowly, very slowly, the long hooks that connected Tak’s chains to the wall were slipping and this urged Tak to even greater strengths. Zenak gave the boy confidence with his gruff urgings and finally when the first ray of sunlight kissed the earth Tak pulled himself free from the wall. Zenak looked at Tak with a glow of pride that normally would only be seen on a father’s face. Then Tak grabbed the base of Zenak’s chains and with Zenak also pulling, the two giants were free in no time. It was not a moment too soon, for an instant after Zenak had been freed from his chains, the sound of the cell door being unlocked broke the quiet of the morning.
“Quick, to the wall,” Zenak said. Both men went back to the wall and put their arms up in the chained position that they were left in the day before. The door opened with a squeak and three burly men walked in,
“Well, did we have a nice night?” one of the Gastonians asked sarcastically.
That was the last word he was ever to speak as a mortal man. Zenak sprang like a tiger and wrapped a chain around the man’s neck, snapping it. The guard fell to the dirt floor his head flopping to the side. His eyes were wide open in frustration and surprise. No sooner had Zenak surprised the first guard with death than Tak jumped the second guard and finished him off in split seconds by grabbing the guard under his sternum with his hand and ripping the man’s chest from his body. The blood of the guard’s heart flaying outside its owner’s body splattered all over the two fighters. Undaunted by the all too well-known juice of war Tak and Zenak did away with the third guard, who was too stunned by what was happening to move, by ramming him into the back wall and smashing his head against the cold stone. The man dropped to the floor in his own blood while bits of his brain on the wall dripped piece by piece onto his bloody, convulsing body. Tak and Zenak each took a sword from the dead men and ran outside into the fresh day. From a short distance the two men saw the townspeople walking deliberately toward them. It looked as if no one in the crowd had slept. Their clothes were wrinkled, their hair was tousled, and their eyes were sunk deep in their skulls. Insanity had totally taken over the town and the pitchforks they were carrying were not for pitching hay. The crowd discerned Tak and Zenak and angrily broke into a run toward the two warriors.
“Blasted short sword,” Zenak said as he waived the sword he had taken from the guard in the cell. He looked around and saw his great broadsword and regalia hanging on the outside of the jail. Happily, he threw the guard’s sword to the ground and retrieved his own mighty broadsword. He also took Tak’s weapon and threw them to him. Tak fondled his sword lovingly and smiled at Zenak.
“For the queen and prince of Deparne,” yelled Zenak as rushed the oncoming mob.
“For the queen, the prince, and the king of Deparne,” Tak yelled. He firmly grabbed his own trusty sword and ran at Zenak’s side into the wild townspeople.
Like the madmen they were attacking, Zenak and Tak went into the mesmerized fighting crowd and carved through the people as if the townsfolk had no weapons at all. To Zenak it was senseless slaughter. To Tak it was the death of lifelong friends and lovers. Tears streamed down his young face while he sliced through the maddened crowd.
Zenak and Tak killed at least a dozen people when they entered the melee. Blood was spilling all over and the women and children who were armed cried out in pain when the t
wo mighty arms drove their mighty swords through them as one would cut through butter. Heads fell and guts spilled all around the two reapers of death. The mayor, armed with a short spear and a sword, fought Zenak alone for a moment and put up a valiant fight until Zenak finished him off with a whimsical slice to the top of the mayor’s head causing the mayor’s brain to spatter all over. No matter how much havoc and slaughter Zenak and Tak created, the people were not stopped from pressing forward to their deaths. The day before they had been more cautious, but today abandon was tossed to the wind. The sleepless night the townsfolk spent, a curse every person mesmerized by Vokar was to carry with them, had driven them totally insane. So Tak and Zenak, standing back to back, were slowly and methodically wiping out an entire town.
“My King,” Tak called out, “I cannot stand it, I cannot kill any more of my people.
“Even I loathe such killing,” Zenak said. “Where are the stables?”
“Over there, to the right,” answered Tak as he shot his sword through one of his classmates.
“Yes, I see them. Let’s run for them and find two swift marks. We will leave the remaining people to bury their dead. Watch out, Tak, to your left.”
Tak wheeled around and jammed his sword into the neck of one of his adversaries. Tak almost threw up from disgust and sadness as he saw his father’s severed head roll from his massive body onto the dusty street.
“My father?” the young hunter yelled. Tak dropped his sword and four men took advantage of his grief and rushed in to finish off their supposed enemy. Zenak, however, was quicker and jumped in to save his new-found friend from certain death. A parry and a head was severed; then a thrust or two did away with two other men; and then a swipe to the right dismembered the fourth attacker.
“Let’s go!” ordered Zenak. Then he grabbed the dazed boy and forced him to run by his side. At first Tak was too dazed to run, but he soon regained his composure and kept up with Zenak.
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