Zeus 25 - Zenobia

2 - Zenobia hunts

For the next two years, Zenobia excelled in bowsting crafting under Philogia's skillful instruction, and, during Tychon's Clayman apprenticeship, enjoyed being the center of Telos attention.

Za focused all her energy on teaching her precocious daughter the bowyer's arts and, also, hand-to-hand fighting, but in a single night, the Great Telos Fire took Za's life and transformed most of the village into cinders.

A rare western wind, baked by lava, fired the unusually dry forest and swept through Telos buildings like they were kindling.

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Two months after the terrible fire, Zenobia watched motionless from the root-fold of an ancient owlwood high on Mount Yalus above the mostly rebuilt village. It had rained, but she could still smell the wet ashes of the fire and see paths of blackened lifeless trunks among the recovering patches of forest.

The last bow Za had crafted for her was nocked, ready, and awaiting a sign of movement from across the rock and brush-strewn field before her. Although the air was biting cold, it also shimmered with heat waves where a stream of indifferent lava lazily flowed by—thirty feet from her tree. Lava continuously oozed from the great Yalus caldera's nearby rifts.

Both friend and enemy, the lava's fierce heat trapped game from scampering away but could also turn on her in an instant. The ground under Zenobia's feet might crumble away, or patches of forest could flare into raging fire.

She trembled remembering the villagers screaming as their homes flashing into flames on the night of fire. The terror of those blazing buildings was always in the background waiting to be thought of, waiting to consume her again and again with grief. She froze as Za's death returned to her in a whirlpool of emotions that overwhelmed her yet again.

Her bow tip lowered, and she drew in a huge gulp of cold air.

Then another.

The horror of her mother's body, in their cindered home, filled her consciousness like it had happened yesterday, creeping into her mind like the stealthy lava.

Slowly her breathing stilled.

She brought her bow back up to the ready. I'm like the village, she thought, months trying to put myself back together, never fully succeeding. Za had been the heart of Telos and her family. Both village and family had been erased in one night of horror.

After the tragedy, her father hired Claymen from Kamiros to help his doeros clear huge swaths of forest along the path of the lava. It wasn't for the market value of the timber, but for revenge. It was insane, of course, because the lava continuously found new channels down the mountain to reach the sea, and the work never ended. Both she and her father had a gaping hole in their lives which Za had filled to overflowing, but each reacted in their own way to her loss.

Zenobia sought the solitude of the forest and the focus of the hunt. Holding her braced bow by its owlwood riser, alone under a canopy of great trees, she felt her mother's loving presence. The polished bamboo and owlwood weapon seemed to summon her mother's spirit and brought back memories of the many hours they'd spent together learning the bowyer's trade.

There. Leaves rustled and Zenobia shot and shot again. Two blunts brought down two rabbits in as many seconds and her hunt was over. Approaching the bodies brought her face to face with the lava, and she felt waves of heat beating against her face and her hands as she stooped. She unbraced her bow and pulled out a knife to dress the catch then changed her mind. She tied the hind feet of each rabbit together with a leather thong and flung them over her shoulder.

Then she backed away from the lava as if it were alive—watching her.

Retracing her steps through the forest, Zenobia first emerged on the barren plateau in front of Yalus's great cave, an ancient empty lava tube. She thought of it as her cave because she'd explored every corner of it over the three years since she'd begun hunting these slopes.