Zenak

by George S. Pappas

  Yes, this was Soci and Destiny had already taken over when Zenak looked upon her lovely hills from the peak of the Volski. He was very close to Soci now; all he had to do was to take the easier trail down into the valley of Soci. But no sooner had Zenak begun his hike into Soci than the winds that had not plagued him coming up the mountain began getting much brisker by the second. And within fifteen minutes Zenak was groping through a fierce snowstorm that was so thick with falling and flying snow that Zenak could not even see his now beloved riding mark. This wall of white was so thick that Zenak had to inch his way down a usually easy path. Step-by-step, inch-by-inch Zenak moved down the now treacherous path. His riding mark kept obediently behind him. Then all of a sudden Zenak heard the mark drop to the ground and the air in front of him was filled with bloodstained snowflakes while his nostrils picked up the wrenching scent of death. Zenak immediately let go of the bridle and jump­ed to the side of the path, his sword unsheathed. He quietly wait­ed for the pones to attack. He waited for about an hour and no­thing happened. He figured maybe that the pones had left him alone. But as he was rising and preparing to make his way down the path, which was blinded from his sight by the storm, he saw the pones flying out of the spinning and churning snow. His well-trained eyes could see the pones almost nonexistent eyes glaring like red dots through the white. Like a spinning wheel of death Zenak went forward against the murderous creatures with his sharp sword. Within seconds most of the devilish animals had met their death, but to Zenak’s painful dismay three of them dug their terrible jaws into his left arm. Zenak cried out in pain, for the pain was ex­cruciating. Then he swept his blade across his arm sheering away the pones. The pain, however, was pain Zenak had never felt. It was as if his arm were on fire with the heat hotter than any flame he had ever encountered. He cried out in pain twice before he fell to the ground. For a long while he lay on the cold ground unable to move. The pain kept shooting up his arm and into his neck. He knew he had to remove the pones’s teeth if he was going to stop the pain. He got up and took his knife out. He then started digging into his arm trying to remove the teeth. The removal process was painful; he had to stick his knife deep into his arm to extract the entire embedded tooth, and he had to do this twenty times for there were twenty teeth embedded in his arm. Finally, after about two hours of sweating and probing, Zenak had removed all the teeth from his arm. The pain stopped and Zenak fell back down unconscious.

  It was late the next morning when Zenak came to. The storm had stopped and the air was crisp and clean. Zenak first looked at his wounds. They were savage looking but the cold from the snow had kept them from getting infected. He then looked for his mark that he had named Ston. He found what was left of the mark a little further up the path. Its bones were stark and bare; not a piece of meat or a thread of hair was left behind by the pones. Apparently, the pones that never attacked Zenak had had a feast during the night. Zenak was saddened. He had never before lost a mark, and yet within a space of a few days he had lost two marks. But he could not ponder his losses for long; he turned away from the remains of Ston and quickly walked down the now easy path for Soci.

  The difference between the land inside the border of Soci and outside the border was like night and day. On the outside there was nothing but bleak snow-covered rocks. The winds blew cold and there was no place to protect oneself from the cold. But inside the border were green rolling hills, immense oak trees, fruit trees, and berry bushes. The spring water was the sweetest and the meat of the animals was the juiciest, When Zenak saw this difference from the path on the mountain, he could not help but respect the power of Soci and her wizards. He only wished that they had shared some of their power,

  The closer Zenak came to the border the better he felt. He felt contented, because for some reason, he knew that Vokar would die by his hand. He was also feeling somewhat lighthearted and because of this he picked up his pace as he headed toward the green fields and in less than half a day en­tered the beautiful Soci. His somewhat happy feeling did not last, however. Upon entering Soci he felt a foreboding that he could not overcome. It was feeling of hatred that was coming not from within him, but from the environment around him. It was as if a rank smell had entered his nostrils. Also, things did not look as they should. The trees did not really look alive. It was as if they were just pretending life. The grass did not have the spring in it that it should. And he didn’t see any animals roaming in this obviously abundant field. Something was definitely wrong and Zenak was not going to take any chances. He drew his sword and walked steadily and resolutely toward Mea. He was prepared for anything to happen as he hiked toward the capital of Soci.

  Zenak walked for about ten karns without any trouble. He saw very little life and the animal life he saw he had to kill. For example, a mouse ran out of the bushes and with its teeth bared jumped Zenak’s boot. Zenak tried to shake it off, but the mouse would not let go, so Zenak snapped its neck in between his fingers. He had never seen a rodent act this way. Why it did, only Vokar knew.

  Zenak was making good speed when he found his progress im­peded by an invisible shield in front of him. He was baffled and walked along the shield trying to find an opening. When he couldn’t, he turned and walked about three steps from this invisible shield and found a similar wall to his back. He was trapped in some sort of invisible corridor. He ran down the corridor search­ing for a way out, but he could not find one. When he finally stopped running two karns from where he first entered the cor­ridor, he noticed a figure high above him coming lower and lower. A shrieking scream came from this thing, and when it came into view he saw a large red man with black wings and talons that rivaled only the five-inch teeth emanating from his mouth. The red demon was swiftly joined by four other demons exactly like him except in color as they swept to him from different parts of the sky. Each one of these demons had its own color. They were swooping around and around and kept diving toward Zenak, but they would pull up long before they would come near him. Sometimes they would swoop as a group or only one would drop out of the sky and fall toward Zenak. Zenak waited for an attack but they wouldn’t attack. All they would do is swoop down, then go back into the sky, and fly in formation above the corridor. Zenak was getting impatient; he wanted something to happen. He was tired of being trapped in the now hot corridor and he wanted action. Then all of a sudden the demons released a loud shriek that bounced off the walls of the corridor. Zenak looked up and saw the demons dropping from the sky with their talons in fighting position and their teeth bared. Zenak jumped into position and answered their shriek with the great western war cry. The thunderous cry shook the invisible wall so hard that the demons were caught by surprise and they retreated back into the sky.

  “Come on you cowards!” Zenak yelled.

  Zenak was in a frenzy and with his blood flowing heavy he drove his sword into the wall and almost shattered the invisible barrier. The demons looked on from above Zenak and realized that two more raps with his sword and Zenak would be free. Zenak bash­ed his sword again into the wall and he felt it crack. He laughed out loud at the inferiority of the underworld. The demons heard the wall crack and they attacked before Zenak could hit the wall again. Zenak heard their screaming as they once again dropped from the sky. And Zenak once again gave the great western war cry. But this time the demons knew what it was and did not flinch. Zenak readied himself in the small corridor for the fight.

  It was a mistake for the demons to attack Zenak in the three-pace wide corridor for their wings got in each other’s way, and Zenak, who was used to fighting in close quarters, gave them only death. The red demon was the first to go. He attacked Zenak from the front and found himself facing Zenak’s mighty broadsword. In seconds the demon lay on the ground with his brains spat­tered all over the ground and him. The yellow was the next to die. It became enraged at the death of its companion and in turn was careless. It came toward Zenak but got caught up in the green demon’s wings. That gave Zenak enough time to lash his sword in
to the demon’s jugular vein. The man from Varsoula fell to the ground screaming and grasping its neck trying to stop his life from pulsating into the dirt. His efforts were to no avail. The other three, realizing their wings were a hindrance in the corridor, flew back into the sky. Zenak watched them as they flew and he started beating on the corridor walls again. When he looked up to make sure that the demons were not making a quiet drop while his attention was on the wall, he noticed the three of them clasping hands. He stopped hitting the weakening wall and watched more closely. All of a sudden, he felt a cool breeze. He swung his sword toward the wall and found that it was no longer there. Apparently, the demons had done away with the wall when they clasped hands. Then they dropped toward Zenak again.

  Zenak then realized why the wall was gone; they probably felt they had a better chance against him freed from the confines of the corridor. They hadn’t reckoned that Zenak was also a better fighter freed from the confines of the wall. The three demons reached Zenak at once. One of them came head on at Zenak. His eyes spelled death for Zenak as he stared at the ex-king. But he never reached Zenak for Zenak spit out his sword into the demon’s skull and shattered it. The demon fell at Zenak’s feet but Zenak never noticed for he was busy attending to the other two. The purple demon had his talons buried in Zenak’s right shoulder. The green one had Zenak around the waist with his feet while he tried to bite Zenak in the neck. Zenak had the green one by the neck trying to keep him from biting him and he was trying to stab the purple one with his sword. He couldn’t reach the purple one and the talons were doing painful damage to his shoulder. So Zenak dropped to the ground causing the green one to release him for an instant. In that instant Zenak grabbed the purple demon with his free hand and swung it around so he could get at it with his sword. The sword quickly sliced one of the wings off to the sound of the purple demon shrieking in pain and letting go of Zenak. Then Zenak took another swipe at the demon and de­capitated it. The demon’s head fell to the ground his face still contorted in pain. Then Zenak jumped at the dazed green demon and in seconds the green demon lay dead in his blood with a shoulder, a wing, and an arm lying some ten paces from him. Zenak looked at the dead demons, and then at the sky. He knew there were many more demons, where they were he wasn’t sure. He sheathed his bloody sword, tied a strip of leather around his shoulder to stop the bleeding, and proceeded for Mea. What lay ahead he could only guess.

  As Zenak progressed into Soci, more wary than ever, he never noticed the shadow that was following him. As stealthily as a ghost, a young woman followed Zenak through the woods. Not a twig broke under her feet and not an animal scurried from her path. She caused less commotion in the woods than the gentle breezes from the south. She kept an eye on Zenak never letting him out of her sight as he tramped upon the rarely used trail to Mea. Once Zenak stopped and listened. His instincts could hear more than his ears, but when he stopped the woman halted in her tracks. A trunk of a tree would move more than she did when she waited for Zenak to satisfy his instincts. Zenak looked about slowly but could not see anything. He strained his ears but no sound save for the wind was discerned. He decided he was being too cautious and pressed forward at a quicker pace. The woman also quickened her pace and passed Zenak. She wanted to reach the field that lay between this forest and the evil forest that lay before Mea. Upon reach­ing the field the young woman ran to a hillock and stood upon it and waited for the mighty man to emerge from the forest.

  When Zenak walked out onto the field a feeling of relief passed through him. The forest had been dark and smelled of rot­ting leaves. The field, however, was dark green dotted sparingly with large oak trees. As Zenak stared across the field he saw what looked to him like a goddess standing on a hillock. The woman was beckoning him to come forward. Zenak, a lover of women, be­gan to walk over, but then his senses came to him and he decided that the female was a demon in disguise. He turned around and hastily walked toward the evil forest.

  “No!” she cried out. Zenak turned around and saw her running toward him. “Do not leave, the forest is a danger­ous place.” Zenak looked back at the dimly lit forest he was heading for.

  As she approached Zenak saw her in detail and he was dazzled by her beauty. She was a frail, young woman, almost a girl, with long, blond hair bouncing lightly upon her tanned pert breasts. She wore a short diaphanous skirt that did nothing to cover her firm thighs. Her face was soft and tender looking. She was the picture of innocence. She ran right up to Zenak’s side, grabbed his arm, and looked up at him. Her blue eyes looked at Zenak long­ingly yet sadly.

  “My name is Carra,” she said. Her voice was melo­dic and as soft as a gentle stream.

  “Mine is Zenak,” Zenak replied. He was dumbfounded by her beauty.

  “Are you going to Mea?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Zenak answered. He stared at her somewhat sheepishly.

  “You will never make it if you continue today. It is al­most dark and the forest is too evil for a person to pass through at night,” she said.

  “I have passed through many perils. A dark forest will not stop me now,” Zenak replied somewhat offended.

  “There is no way you will make it through that forest alive if you go through it at night. Even a man such as your­self cannot do combat with all the night animals and demons that walk the dark forest. Our greatest wizards wait until daylight to go through the forest,” she said.

  “I am not a wizard and the demons have never seen a war­rior. I shall make it,” Zenak said.

  “Fool,” the woman said as she let go of Zenak’s arm, “the wizards made this forest as evil as the mind could imagine so no intruders could use the cover of night to get to Mea. You will be killed and the purpose you came for will be thwarted. But what do I care, go ahead, big fool, and die,” she responded. Zenak looked at her and then stared at the sun. Night was approaching quickly. Maybe she was right—what good would he be to Mara and his child if he was killed in a magical forest? He hated to wait, though, and he hated to think that his wife would spend another night with Vokar. The young woman moved closer to Zenak and rubbed her body against his. Her thighs grasped his leg and she moved ever so slowly, up and down his leg.

  Zenak backed away. This was too good to be true. “Why are you out here by yourself? “ He asked.

  “I am an initiate of a minor religion of Soci. Our sect is tolerated by the wizards but not with any warmth. For me to complete my initiation, I must live outside the evil forest, away from Mea, for a year, and meditate by myself for most of the day. When I saw you I had just finished my meditations and was going back to my tent. It gets very lonely out here” she finished a low tone.

  “I’m sure it does,” Zenak responded as he looked longingly at her.

  She moved closer to Zenak again.

  “I promise this will be the warmest night you will ever have,” she said in a sultry whisper.

  Zenak had been travelling for weeks and not once had a woman entered his mind, but now that his never-ending progress had been halted, he realized how much he needed a woman to lie by his side and to make him feel good.