Beyond the Valley of Mist (12 page)

“
Doesn’t anyone ever wonder
about what they are being told by the priests?” Mar
asked.

“
Of course we do,” replied
Ador, “but if there are things we do not understand, the priests
tell us that we don’t need to know and not to ask such stupid
questions. The priests say that men are not capable of
understanding God. They say, 'All you have to do is have faith,
because the Fire God knows our every need, and He will take care of
us just as our mother and father know our needs, and they take care
of us.' They say that just as our mothers and fathers punish us if
we misbehave, our godly Father will punish us if we misbehave. When
I consider what the priest said, I say to myself, yes, but our real
mother and father spank us if we misbehave. The Fire God burns us
to death if we misbehave. That does not sound like fatherly love to
me.”

***

Zen and his friends spent
many evenings talking to their new friends about God and about how
things work that make the earth give life the way it does. They
talked about where humans come from and where they go when they
die. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to discuss such
things. The priests in the village of Lalock would have put them to
death for that.

“
How did the Wise One know
so much so long ago?” Zen asked.

Tag answered, “The stories
handed down from generation to generation tell of how he would sit
for days and think about a problem. Then he would be gone for days
while he searched for answers. They said he didn’t always find the
answers, but he never stopped looking. Zor said that the biggest
sorrow in his life was that he had no one to talk to about the
problems to which he was seeking answers. He said most men never
bother to think about the answers to problems, and most of those
who do, are afraid to look for the answers. Those who knew Zor said
he was a lonely man. He loved his new family, but he missed the
family he had left behind in the village beyond the Valley of
Mist.”

“
I wish I could have talked
to him,” Zen said. “I have many questions I would like answers to.
My father and I wanted to know if there is another side to the
Valley of Mist. The four of us escaped through the valley, and now
I know that there is another side. Now I want to know if there is a
way
around
the
valley and get our families. My friends and I are going to look for
a way, and I think we’ll find it. I don’t believe the Lalocks are
worshiping the true God. I’d like to help them to see that there is
a better way.”

“
I’m afraid that some of
them will hate you for making them doubt their God, and some will
want to destroy you,” Tag said.

“
Yes, I think you’re
right,” Zen nodded. “It seems that is what happened to Zor. Why did
the people in your village listen to him and not hate
him?”

“
We didn’t have a God when
he came to us,” Tag answered, “so he didn’t
take
a God from us. He gave us
something to believe in, so we loved him. If you’re going to take
the God they have from them, then you must give them a better God
to worship.”

“
That is what Arber told
Zor,” Zen said. “But how can I do that?”

“
No man can know God,” Tag
said. “So you must make up another God. Earth makes a good God. Sun
would make a good God.”

“
Are you telling me that
you do not believe that Earth and Sun are Gods?” Zen
said.

“
Of course they are not
Gods. The fact that we can see them proves that they are not Gods.
If they exist, they were made by something. Whatever that something
was, was more powerful than what it made.”

“
Then what made the
something that made Sun and Earth?”

“
That is why I tell you
that no man can know God. God is too big for the mind of man to
understand. Therefore, if man can understand the God he worships,
then the God he worships is not God.”

“
Don’t you think that men
should be looking for the real God?” Jok asked.

“
Yes, and that’s what we’re
doing by discussing the reality of God,” Tag replied.

***

Chapter 14

The Rescue

After learning what they
each agreed to learn, Zen’s group decided it was time to go. They
had learned enough, and now they could each teach the others.
Together they would build their new village back up the river where
they wanted to build it.

As they prepared to leave,
they heard people screaming. They ran out of their house and saw
strangers riding horses through the village, striking people with
clubs, taking whatever they wanted, and killing anyone who stood in
their way.

The frightened Zorians hid
in their homes.

“
Grab your weapons!” Zen
yelled. “We will fight them!”

Zen, Jok, and the girls
stood in the shelter of their doorway and began picking the
invaders off their horses with their bows and arrows. The girls
were proving to be very effective in the use of their weapons! When
the invaders realized they were being attacked, they grabbed two
Zorian women and rode away into the hills, leaving the invaders who
had been shot lying in the path, with their horses wandering
loose.

Jok yelled, “Men, come out
of your hiding places and come with us. We must rescue the
women!”

“
There aren’t many of
them,” Zen yelled. “They’ll stop for the night and when they do,
we’ll surprise them in their sleep. We can overcome them and return
the women to their husbands.”

“
If you’ll show us how to
fight them,” Gar yelled back, “we’ll follow you!”

“
Then grab your weapons and
let’s go!” Zen called out.

“
Ador and I will come too,”
Lela said. “The women will need us when you rescue
them.”

“
All right, bring blankets
and weapons!” Zen exclaimed.

A few Zorians picked up
their weapons reluctantly; some tried to catch the horses the
invaders left.

Lox, who had recovered
completely, shouted, “Come on, men, we must help our friends rescue
our women! We’re not warriors, but we can learn from our friends.”
He turned to Zen and Jok. “Show us how to fight, and we’ll help
you.”

Zen said, “They’re riding
horses and can travel faster, but we can catch them while they
sleep. We’ll destroy them, take their horses, and rescue the women.
If this group of killers fails to return to their village, it will
make the rest of them less likely to raid your village in the
future. Now is a good time to stop them once and for all. Come,
we’ll proceed at a jog. We must pace ourselves, but we must
hurry.”

Zen, Lela, Jok, and Ador
led the way, with Gar, Lox, and a few Zorians following. They paced
themselves by jogging for a time, and then walked until they had
rested enough to jog again.

The raiders were careless
and left tracks that were easy to follow.

At last, the sun touched
the tops of the mountains. Zen knew the raiders would not expect to
be followed and would pitch their camp for the night.

Before it got dark, Zen’s
group was getting closer. As the evening wore on into night, they
continued, but as the light faded, the tracks were harder to
follow. At last, they saw the glow of the enemy’s campfire in the
distance.

When they were close
enough, Zen and Jok led the Zorians to a hidden spot only a short
distance from the raiders and stopped to rest, to prepare for the
battle they were going to fight after the raiders had gone to
sleep.

“
The rest of you, wait
here,” Zen said. “Jok and I will take Lela and Ador and find where
the women are being held. We have to determine the best way to
rescue them. After we’ve found the women, Ador and Lela will stay
with them, and Jok and I will return for you.”

Lela whispered to the men,
“You must be very quiet so you don’t alarm the raiders.”

The men were calmed by the
fact that neither Lela nor Ador were afraid.

Even though the raiders had
more men than the Zorians, they still were only a small band. Jok
pointed to their horses and said, “There are only as many horses as
I have fingers on both hands. The raiders have raided the
non-warrior Zorians before and knew they had no need for a large
raiding party.”

As Zen had suspected, they
didn’t even post guards.

Zen and Jok untied the
horses, quietly led them into a canyon, hid them, and then returned
to look for the captive women.

“
I see them there, at the
edge of the camp,” Jok whispered. “They each have a raider in bed
with them. It looks like the raiders are taking turns coupling with
the women.”

“
But the women aren’t
resisting,” Ador noticed.

“
That’s the smart thing to
do,” Zen commented. “They’ll be hurt less if they don’t
resist.”

“
We can get closer by
creeping through those trees,” Jok suggested.

“
Yes, but since the women
aren’t being hurt, let’s gather our Zorians together, and all rush
in at the same time,” Zen countered. “We can destroy most of the
raiders before they wake up, and if we’re lucky, we’ll cut them
down to size with the first attack. Some of them will never wake
up."

“
Ador and I will wait here
until we hear you start the attack,” Lela said as they crouched
behind a big rock, “and we’ll hit the men who are with the women on
the head with rocks while they are distracted. Then we’ll take the
women to where you hid the horses and wait.”

“
That’s a good idea,” Jok
said. “It’s probably best that the husbands don’t know what’s been
happening to their wives.”

“
With the raiders being so
occupied, they’ll be easy to surprise,” Ador said. “We’ll help the
women clean themselves up before their husbands get here. The women
won’t tell their husbands what happened, so they will never
know.”

“
All right, but don’t take
chances with those raiders; I don’t want you to have to clean
yourselves up too,” Jok said as he and Zen walked away.

Zen explained the plan to
the Zorians and told them to position themselves around the camp so
that they could all move in at the same time and quickly eliminate
as many raiders as possible.

On a signal the rescuers
all rushed in, quickly killed the raiders, stripped them of the
items they had stolen from the Zorians, and left their bodies for
the vultures.

These killers would never
raid the Zorians again.

The horses were hidden a
good walk away, and when the rescuers brought them back, the women
were waiting, calm and pure as dewdrops. The two husbands rushed to
their kidnapped wives, relieved to see that they had endured the
ordeal unscathed.

The rescuing party wanted
to ride the horses back to the village, but only the two captured
women had ever ridden a horse. The women showed the others how to
climb onto the horses and guide them with gentle commands. Riding
was clumsy at first, but after a time, the rescuers were able to
stay comfortably on their horses.

The journey home was almost
pleasant because it was much easier and shorter than the run out
had been. The villagers were frightened when they saw the rescuers
coming, thinking they were the raiders returning. How surprised and
happy they were to see the rescue party returning on horses, along
with the Zorian women the raiders had kidnapped.

Zen and Jok were pleased
that they had brought horses to the Zorians. Most of the Zorians
were glad, too, but also sad, since they had to bury the friends
who had been killed by the raiders.

Zen and his group were
heroes. Everyone was patting them on the back and thanking them for
saving the women.

Most of all, Gar’s people
were glad that they had at last punished the ones who had been
raiding their village.

“
Zen, would you and Jok
teach us how to defend our village?” Gar asked.

“
We’ll gladly teach you if
you’ll do something for us.”

“
What do you want us to
do?” Gar asked.

“
I want your craftsmen to
make knives and shields from the bronze, and please make extra sets
of strong bows and arrows with more heads of bronze for the arrows,
so that we can take them with us when we go to build our own
village.”

“
We’ll do that for you,”
Gar answered, “and I’ll send men to help you build your village in
exchange for a supply of firestones.”

“
Good. Let us begin.
Tomorrow, we’ll build an alliance between our villages. We have
things you need, and you have things we need. This alliance will
work to the advantage of both villages.”

Gar was pleased. “That is
wise. Tomorrow, when the sun rises, I’ll have the Zorians ready to
begin their training.”

Zen extended his hand. “I
give you my hand in pledge that I’ll do as I have said.”

Gar clasped Zen’s hand.
“Let this be a pledge between us.”

“
We’ll go to our lodge to
rest and be ready when the sun rises.”