The Story of URZENNA – Part 4

Many miles by many moons they rode, Urzenna and the priests, until they came to the swamplands of Aghash and were suddenly embraced by a strange black fog which blinded them completely.

“We’ll never find our way through this fog”, said the priest Elohan, “What if we fall into quicksand. I cannot even see my own boots or the ground beneath them”.

“As long as the ground of your faith is firm then you have nothing whatever to fear”, said Urzenna, “Keep onward”.

Then, out of the fog, came a terrible sound of roaring.

“What is that?!”, asked the priest Ashala, “Some kind of terrifying beast by the sounds of it. One that needs no eyes to find its prey and reaches out with long tentacles and drags full grown men into its scaly crunching mouth”.

“Fear nothing”, said Urzenna, “God walks with us and god will guard us and guide us through this fog”.

Eventually they saw light again, like flakes of gold peeling through the fog and when they had re-emerged into the full daylight, the priest Khamish saw that there were little frogs in the trees all around them which had croaks like thunder.

“That must have been the roaring sound which we heard”, said Urzenna, himself roaring now but with laughter, “Not a beast with terrible tentacles, just frogs croaking in a mist”.

Then they all started to laugh but their laughter was swiftly lopped short as a rain of lethal arrows fell from above, narrowly missing Urzenna but striking the priest called Khamish in all the vital parts of his body.

Khamish cried out twice but with the second cry he was dead. All the priests then looked up and in the sky they saw a golden bow that flew like a bird of prey and fired arrows without an archer.
Urzenna pulled one of the arrows from the corpse of Khamish and, wiping off the blood, inspected it because its blue shaft was engraved with golden writing.

“Go back in peace, my friend”, read the arrow, “For I am the bow of slaughter and my arrows can not miss”.

Urzenna snapped the arrow in two, angrily, “We all must find shelter”, he said.

Then, as the bow circled like a hungry falcon over head, they ran in search of cover and found a cave in the side of a hill and nine of them managed to reach the safety of the cave but the priest called Fazik was hit between the shoulder blades with a burning arrow and fell to the ground.

“What a cruel invention”, said Urzenna, gazing up with tears in his eyes at the golden bow that was circling above them.

Another arrow flew down and embedded itself near the mouth of the cave and, written upon its red shaft in golden letters were the words,
“Death is patient my friend. Hide long inside your cave, for all outside is the cave of death”.

“What a wrong!”, said Urzenna, “What bright mind could have come up with such a dark thing?”.

“Man makes many a wicked thing. God carves out beautiful elegant life and man can only find ingenious, new ways to smash it”, said the priest Enshala.

“If only we had an ingenious way of smashing that thing”, said Urzenna, pointing to the bow that was now rolling and looping and swooping through the air as if to taunt them.

Suddenly, like an answer to Urzenna’s plea, they heard a Songthrush and saw a little bird perch itself upon the deadly bow.

Unable to endure the life and happiness of even a little, innocent bird, the bow of slaughter fired a flaming arrow to kill it but, because the bird was sitting so close to the bow, the bow shot itself and was destroyed.

“Oh gracious goddess”, said Urzenna, “My heart kneels in awe at you. You have fired a bird from your bow of destiny”.

Then, as he spoke, the little Songthrush flew down and landed by his side and all saw the bird become Kenrya.

“My prince”, said Hakhans daughter, bowing and kneeling before Urzenna, “God has sent me to aid you in your quest”.

“And I am grateful to god for sending us such a mercy. Before you came I was at a loss and my faith was wearing thin but now I know that whatever helping of hell is served up to us we can swallow it together”, said Urzenna, sitting down upon what he took to be a rock, however, the moment that he sat down the rock like thing started to groan heavily.

“Oh no. Not another one”, it said.

Urzenna stood up sharply, “What was that?!”, he said, “A speaking rock?”.

But when he looked down at the rock he saw that it was not a rock at all but a giant tortoise made of living stone and then, to his wonder, he saw the tortoise turn and face him.

“No one has any respect for the old these days”, it said with a deep, moaning voice like dragged granite, “You can’t even sleep without some fool trying to use you as a chair”.

“I’m sorry, Mr Tortoise, sir”, said Urzenna, “I thought that you were a rock. Please forgive me”.

“Forgive you? Oh yes, ofcourse I forgive you. When you’re as old as I am, you can’t afford to bear a grudge otherwise you’d have a mountain of grudges to bear”.

“How old are you?”, asked Urzenna, “If you don’t mind me asking”.

“Too old to remember exactly”, said the stone creature, “But if all my years were piled up, no man could reach the top of them”.

“You must have a great deal of knowledge then”, said Urzenna.

“Oh I do, I do”, replied the stone tortoise proudly, “If my head were a book, only God could finish it. The only trouble is, I know so much that I remember so little”.

“Well. Up ahead, to the north, we are told there is a petrified forest and perhaps you know what dangers we may face there and how we may overcome them”, asked Urzenna, hopefully.

“Oh. Only a giantess named ‘Old Mother Death’”, scoffed the tortoise, “or rather ‘Young Mother Death’, she’s a newborn compared with me”.

“But do you know how to defeat her?”, asked Urzenna.

“Oh yes”, said the Stone Tortoise nodding, proudly, “To kill her, all you have to do is pierce the heart of her shadow”.

“Thank you, sir”, said Urzenna, shaking one of the tortoises small feet like a hand, "You may have saved our lives"

“Your welcome”, said the Tortoise, “Poor old mother death, poor old monster. May she rest in peace”.

“Why do you say,‘Poor old monster'?”, asked Kenrya of the Tortoise.

“Well, young Miss”, replied the creature, “It must be hard to be heartless. I am made of solid stone but I have a heart as soft as a schoolgirl. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be a monster and love nothing except hate; see beauty in nothing except ugliness and live for nothing besides murder”.

“Would you have pity for the plague?”, asked Urzenna, “Or for a fire that was burning your flesh. That is all these monsters are, surely? Just a living sickness that must be cured”.

“If a fire had a mind as a monster does then I could atleast try to reason with it”, replied the Tortoise.

“But the quest that we are on is for the salvation of many”, said Urzenna, “I haven’t time to reason with fires. I can only put them out”.

Kenrya kissed the stone tortoise upon its head, “That is for your noble heart, Sir Tortoise”, she said.

“Now we must go”, Urzenna told his travelling companions, “If we must pierce the shadow of this living darkness then we must do it before the sun sets”.