by Tom Skerlets
IV
Fat Zal king was sitting on a rock and watching with a devious smile towards the oncoming troupe of Zals which was bringing two captives. The rock on which he sat was higher than all the other rocks around it, decorated with various objects that every human would consider garbage, collected probably from places where hunters left it behind or stolen from the southern ends of Zal forest. Under his behind, he had a torn and dirty pillow with a pattern that obviously provided great comfort to someone's head a long time ago.
Almost identical smiles to the kings were on faces of two savages who were hiding behind his back. Those were two Zals girls were seeking for. One of them was still wearing Dlenn’s bag. But the statuette was now in the hands of a tribal king, as a reward for girls capturing service.
On the same rock, next to the king, stood four Zals, his personal guard. Without them, fat beast as he was, would not have any authority. Any other Zal eager for power, dominion or just for his shiny things could easily overthrow him from the throne.
A dozen more of these primitive creatures, mostly females, children and elderly, watched the incoming group from other rocks. Differences between Zals of same age and gender was impossible to spot. They were all equally creepy, used to chuckling, wild jumping when they were excited, and screaming with their deep, booming voices.
Their village was not much different from any other place on the Cursed mountain. Together with the royal rock, there were only other bare rocks. They represented Zal’s chairs, tables, beds and everything else.
When the newcomers came quite close to his rock, the king leaned forward, in order to observe two prisoners more closely.
“Oh, beautiful warrior girls” he shouted, for the whole village to hear “shame to eat!”
The cheesy smile which he sent to the girls, especially to the younger one, provoked disgust in both. His ruggedness, decaying teeth, and quite a dirty mouth made Gru-Kath look much more repulsive than the other members of his species.
“They killed friends!” Zal who sat on the king’s left side jumped “Must die!”
Kings Guard reacted at his tone. One of them approached, grabbed a shoulder of an angry new member of the tribe with his hand, and forced him to retreat.
“You promised…” disappointed Zal murmured sadly, watching the king's eyes with an expression of despair.
“Graaar! I am the king! I decide!” King suddenly raised his hands, with clenched fists.
A stone statue of a winged man clearly appeared in his right arm. Tarlaeth has finally revealed itself to the girls.
The king tried to express his rage by getting up on his legs, but he forgot that they could not carry him just as easy as in his early days, they could not handle the rest of the body anymore. Realizing that he turned out a bit ridiculous, he slammed his fists on the rock, luckily not damaging the statue. But he ran down the tray that stood in front of him, with milled bones of a bird. Human eyes could easily recognize that the platter was actually an old, rusty barrel lid. The round metal object jumped, rang and rolled off a cliff.
Others Zals on the rocks raised the tension by jumping and screaming crazy. The noise was hardly bearable. This kind of uncontrolled rampage of many monsters everywhere around would frighten almost anyone, but Ahleas were well educated not to surrender to fear. Girls have made an effort to stay focused in this environment of deranged beasts, ready to tear them apart. They carefully observed the allocation of hairy beasts on the rocks, especially the king's guards. They calculated which places were most suitable for break through and escape. Even considered the possibility of an attack, and even taking the statue out of king's hands.
Two savages who fled and joined the tribe, apparently thought that, in exchange for Tarlaeth, they earned the right to entertain themselves with some Ahlea flesh. The king decided to betray this deal. He was considering the possibility of keeping them as his personal toys that he could occasionally torture. But these two servants would probably provoke in his other subjects a constant desire to take over such a valuable prey, increasing so the odds of frequent riots. Another idea that he had was to give the girls to his most loyal servants, four personal guards. Their loyalty had to be constantly strengthened, bought every now and then with something.
But it was evident that other members of the tribe wanted their piece of the pie. Soon started a quarrel between several Zals about who would be the one to eat, torture or do some other nasty thing to the warriors. Two new members of the Zal tribe who had already witnessed the martial skills of these Ahleas considered all but their death completely unacceptable. Most other Zals found this accomplishment too large not to celebrate it with a grand ritual dance and good old prey torturing. After all, these prisoners were something really special. They were recognized as members of the warrior order which they often encountered at the southern end of Zal forests and always pulled the bad end in battling them.
“Twenty-eight” Dlora spoke out loud enough for Tenen to hear her in the middle of this noise and wilderness. Tenen nodded only once. She also considered the action maneuver listed under this number as the best to be performed at that moment. Ahlea warrior school fighting manual offered several hundred combat moves, divided into those for using individually, in pairs and in groups. It was the obligation of each trainee to learn them by heart, so they could immediately remember it when someone named the number under which they were listed.
“Now!” the elder warrior shouted. The Younger girl immediately pulled her arm out of the grip of the Zal who held her and started running towards the rock on which the king sat. Dlora got rid of her guard, hitting him in the nose with her elbow. Then she also ran, a few feet behind her partner. Gru-Kath’s guards reacted quickly. They gathered in front of the king and stood to defend him. But Tenen suddenly stopped, just before she came close to their claws reach, and knelt down on one leg, bending her back down. The very next moment Dlora put her foot on Tenen’s back, jumped in the air, flew over all four guards, performing a fantastic backflip with a twist and instantly found herself right behind the king. She immediately had her hands gripped around his head, ready to spin his neck.
“Nobody move!” Dlora yelled, “or you can say goodbye to your beloved king!”
The long lasting wild roar stopped and there was total silence. Tenen, however, soon found herself once again surrounded by the beasts. One intended to hurt her, with her own sword, but soon he lost both the sword and his consciousness. Other beasts did not dare to attack. They returned the second sword as soon as Tenen threatened to the Zal who was holding it.
The surprised Zals began to look at each other with confusion. Many of them began to think whether the king was worth saving or not. Tenen used a whole minute of mutual murmurs, to cautiously move closer to her partner and to give her a sword. Soon after that, Zals began to gather in small groups, ready to strike. The ugly fat ruler was obviously not fond or worthy enough to them. King’s guards acted most confused, at first ready to stand in front of the crowd to defend the fat man who was always trying to please them. Then they looked at each other and concluded that it was not worth to fight against most of the tribe, and quickly turned to the other side, also ready to attack.
The first attack started from the Zala who was nearest to the girls, one of the two newcomers, the one who gave the Tarlaeth to the king. One could almost feel his anger in the air. Seeing Ahlea warrior girls creating problems to him again, he lost all control. He jumped sharply, but Tenen was ready to defend. A deft stroke cut the monster's head. The lumpy ball bounced off the rocks and rolled right in front of other beasts that were preparing to attack.
Such cruelty was supposed to compel others to stand back and rethink their attack. But it did not work, too many individuals in the crowd kept the desire for taking on the girls. They continued to approach, and thus returned to the courage of those who may have become insecure after a cut-off head scene.
Realizing at last that his tribe really did not care about his fate, Zal king w
as enraged.
“Raaaa! I am the king! The King!” even though he had Dlora’s sword under his neck, he roared without control and suddenly threw an object which he held in his hand on a group of Zals which he still considered his subjects.
Dlora misread his sudden move and cut his throat in a flash. A moment after that she became aware of her unnecessary cruelty, but a new accident was about to happen.
Tarlaeth, a small stone statue thrown by a fat Zal, hit one of the former loyal guard's rights to the chest, bounced off to the side and hit strongly on rocky ground. The object that the girls have tried so hard to find and to retrieve momentarily broke in two.
But the biggest surprise was yet to happen. The huge surge of energy, followed by a bright bluish light, was released exactly from the place where Tarlaeth had dropped, and spread all around in a split second, to a much larger space than it could be seen from that place, miles around, in fact. All Zals, and two girls, briefly lost balance and fell to the ground. Once the phenomenon disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, everyone felt strong pressure on the body and headaches.
This was followed by panic, uncontrolled and the unrestrained rampage of Zals. Some began to insanely attack one another, others started to lose consciousness completely, and some were still decisive in attacking the girls. Ahleas recovered quickly, got up, and started to defend.
Opponents were luckily acting dazed and lost, unprepared for a joint attack, so they were easily defeated by the blade. In addition, losing consciousness continued and there were less vigilant enemies every moment.
However, a terrible pain would neither leave girls heads. Dizziness was getting stronger. Tenen lost concentration for a short moment and immediately felt sharp claws on her arm. The pain was immediate, strong enough for her to fall unconscious.
“Tenen!” Dlora shouted, stabbed the Zal who defeated her partner but then lost the battle too. One monster jumped on her back and she collapsed. A fall on a hard rock, which broke out the air from her lungs, together with the weight of the beast that was on her, prevented her to make any further moves. She felt monster’s breath up her neck, and then she also lost her consciousness.
