Zenak (14 page)

“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 into 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.

“My tent is over here,” the woman said. She pointed to a tent fashioned after the tents of the grass people to the north. The tent was very low to the ground but inside there was plenty of room to stand. This was because a ditch about five feet deep was dug and the tent was placed above it. It gave an average person about three feet of headroom. Zenak almost touched the ceiling of the tent.

Zenak thought for a moment and then acquiesced. The woman then happily led Zenak back to her home. When Zenak entered he was impressed by the tent's sumptuous furnishings. It had a thick carpet on the ground and pillows all over for lounging. A wisp of incense was burning that made the sensuously lit room more appealing. The woman led Zenak to some pillows at one end of the room and softly pushed him down onto the pillows and then brought him a flagon of wine. Zenak took a refreshing swig of the wine and lay back on the pillows.

“I shall dance for you,” the woman said to Zenak shyly. Zenak shook his head in approval. She walked to the middle of the tent and began her dance. At first her dance started slowly. She just moved her hands and her arms in a flowing manner. As the dance progressed her whole body pulsated in rich, sul­try movements. Her hips leapt at Zenak with desire and her innocent look was replaced with the look of a temp­ting seductress. Every part of her body bespoke of a woman who knew the arts of love as Zenak knew the arts of swordsman­ship. She fell to her back, her hips still vibrating, her nip­ples ready to break, and her lips as soft as the moon's rays.

“Take me, take me, and do as you please, for I am yours,” she pleaded. Zenak crawled to her side and caressed her body as he lay close to her.

“You are beautiful,” he said. He looked unto her eyes, so he could communicate in the deepest possible way. But in­stead of seeing soft blue eyes he saw a demon so grotesque that Zenak stiffened at the sight of it. Reacting like a trapped ani­mal Zenak swiftly drew his sword and like lightning striking down a tree, separated the woman's beautiful head from her seductive body. The head bounced a few feet from the body and the body moved for a split of time, in its seductive ways. Even Zenak drew back in revulsion.

Zenak waited, for he knew that once a demon had been killed that the body would revert from its beautiful form back to its original form. He knew this for he had encountered a city of radiant and comely people when he was younger and they had turned out to be demons from Varsoula. Every time he struck one down, it would revert to its ugly self. But this was not hap­pening now; she was not turning into a demon. All Zenak saw in the woman's eyes now was shock and misunderstanding. There was no demon in her eyes. What had he done? He was stunned. He fell to his knees next to the stiffening body and began to cry. His tears were so heavy that they rolled in streams onto the blood­stained pillows.

“What has become of me?” Zenak asked himself. “Did I not see a demon in her eyes? But where is it now? She was like a nymph of the woods, a child whose only function was to love and to serve. I have degenerated into the worst kind of being. I have forgotten the meaning of life and the meaning of innocence. How am I any worthier than Vokar?” Zenak could not help seeing Mara's face as he stared at the head of the woman.

Zenak sat in the tent well into the night staring at the dead body. He was trying to reconcile himself with the fact that he had let himself become so obsessed with capturing Vokar that he had let all else that was important fall to the wayside. However, he could not reconcile himself. He had made the mistake of being lured into the tent by the woman and he had made the mis­take of letting a subconscious fear rise to the surface. There was no resolving his guilt and he decided the only way to forget it would be to fulfill his task. But in the process of fulfil­ling it, he was not going to let it take him from reality.

He got up, looked at the young woman one more time, and then quickly left the tent, his conscience weighing heavily on him as he trudged to Mea. As soon as Zenak left the tent the beautiful body and head of the young woman metamorphosed into the decapitated body of a grotesque demon from the deepest pits of Varsoula. A pockmarked, pus-ridden, bulge-eyed demon with a squat, muscular, misshaped body. Vokar's trance had not only covered Soci superficial­ly, it had been subtle. He had created doubt in his adversary's mind, and doubt was more difficult to cope with than any wild animal, army, or demon.

Zenak quickened his pace for Mea. He wanted to forget his just passed violent act and the only way to do that was to pit himself against another problem. The evil forest would sure­ly hold that problem for him. Zenak had killed many times and he had even killed women, but he had always killed with a purpose or reason. He had never killed anyone in cold blood, and now he had. He thought that the woman he killed was the most innocent of all people and this caused him to hate himself even more. He felt that a newborn mark had more evil in it than she had. Sadly, he was never to know any different.

It took little time to reach the evil forest. It was a terrible looking place. The trees were old, twisted, and dying, and the mosses that choked the trees hung thick and stank of mold from their never-ending dampness. The ground was black and only large ferns grew from it. Apparently, sunlight never touch­ed the floor.

Zenak entered the forest with a quickened heart. He had never known fear, but this forest produced in Zenak an unaccustomed wariness. Zenak decided that the best way through this forest was to trot through. He figured the quicker through it the less chance he had at death. He did not sacrifice alertness for speed, however, and his body was ready at any instant for any sort of at­tack. He did not have to wait long for the surprise he was await­ing. He was stopped abruptly by a hand clutching his leg. The hand was sticking out of the ground. Zenak pulled his sword out and sliced the hand off. As he sheathed his sword the ground began shaking and all around him partially de­composed bodies began rising out of it. Zenak was appa­lled. Never had he seen a sight such as this, so as quick as the night tiger he began running through the rising bodies hacking at them as he ran. But any amount of dismembering of the upper part of the bodies that Zenak caused did not stop the bodies from rising out of the ground. Zenak strained his eyes to see how many bodies were coming and as far as his eyes could see dead bodies were rising from the ground and walking toward him. He was forced to stop running because the bodies were so thick around him. He was surrounded by the rotting beings. They were hideous, the black dirt clung to their greenish bodies, and their eye sock­ets stared at Zenak causing him to cringe. But they did nothing. They just stood there staring at Zenak.