Stone Warrior
(Part 4)

(Please see my post of 15th Nov for third part of the story)

Roock had read his mind. He knew that his time had come.

“Talavian army is nothing but an evil force; don’t you think so? And Zoran is the most evil soldier I have ever seen,” Roock said mildly.

“Would the king let me help our army?” asked Arwiz.

“No, never; he is great king and he will not even hear such a proposal,” Roock said.

“Then you must find out who is helping Talavians. I will reason with that magician; I will persuade him not to help Talavians,” Arwiz suggested.

“I can do that if I can go to Talavia. But I am afraid that if I enter Talavia, I may lose my vision permanently. Something worse could also happen. Zoran is an evil man; he will do anything to protect the wizard who is helping him,” Roock said and looked gloomy. But after a few moments he smiled as if a bright idea had struck him.

“But there is way out of this impasse. You give me some magical power to kill Zoran. We will not tell anyone about this. I will, with king’s permission, challenge Zoran. I will fight a duel with him. If he fights me like a true soldier I will not use the magical power. But if he uses any magical powers to defeat me or kill me, I will then use your powers and kill him,”Roock said.

“Even if you are able to kill Zoran you will still have to defeat his army. And you won’t be able to defeat them if the magician continues to help them. We will have to deal with this evil magician,” Arwiz said.

Roock became nervous; he knew there was no magician helping Talavians. He had just cooked a story to deceive Arwiz and get some magical powers from him. He only wanted to kill Zoran and show to the world and to his king that he was a great warrior. He knew he could not kill Zoran without magical powers.

“You don’t understand; once Zoran is dead the magician will not help Talavians. That magician is Zoran’s friend and he is helping Talavians only because of his friendship with Zoran. He will not help Talavian soldiers or Talavian King if Zoran dies.”

Arwiz was a simple person. He got influenced by this smooth and deceptive talk of Roock.

“I will give you dagger. It is the dagger of Tones. He was great wizard who lived two thousand years ago. If you stab Zoran with that dagger he will turn into a stone. You can stab him on any part of the body but his blood must fall on the earth. Even a drop of his blood falling on the earth would be enough to turn him into a stone,” said Arwiz.

Arwiz opened a safe and took a beautiful dagger gave. He gave the dagger to Roock. Roock’s joy knew no bound. He thanked Arwiz and left his palace.

“Remember, you can use it against Zoran only. It will lose its magical power if you use it against any other person,” Arwiz warned Roock and wished him victory in his duel against Zoran.

(To be continued)

 © i b arora

You can read next part of the story here