Swords & Heroes Story #20

'The Spirit Path' by Logan D. Whitney

Mar 04, 2025

S&S One Story at a Time

Logan’s ‘The Spirit Path’ offers a nice departure in style and substance from what has appeared in recent weeks here at Swords & Heroes eZine. Although, I think we offer a nice variety of adventures so that no matter what story is featured, you’ll find something slightly different than the norm. What’s more, this one’s on the shorter side! Hard to craft a tale with action, tension, climax, and resolution in less than 3,000 words, but this entry does just that. Feel free to comment at the end and let the author know what you think! I think you’ll enjoy this engaging coming-of-age quest. + Ed.

‘The Spirit Path’ by Logan D. Whitney

A Sakwin brave rode his black pony across the shore of a vanished sea. Wind and time had sculpted the ancient ocean floor into marvelous shapes, great spires stabbing at an open sky. The bones of dead giants were buried here, broken teeth scattered about the horse’s hooves. Enapay hadn’t come seeking giants, however, but a vision, and with it his rite of passage.

Few things astride the Sea of Grass inspired fear like a Sakwin warrior. Songs of their bravery and prowess were sung about council fires from rising to setting sun. Allies told stories of sweeping victory while bitter enemies crooned lament. But Enapay was not a warrior – at least not yet. To reach such a status he must first walk the Spirit Path. The Path did not call to every Sakwin, but to the young brave the summons beat in his heart like a drum.

Enapay sat proud atop his mount despite pangs of hunger. He hadn’t eaten in three days’ time, nor did water slake his thirst. The Spirit Path was as much a test of mettle as it was the soul – this was the Sakwin way.

His horse navigated the forest of stone with care. Opportunity for ambush lurked in every crevice and crag. This was a sacred place, not just to Sakwin, but to all people of the plains. Many tribes would leap at the opportunity to slay one of his kind – even a youth. Enapay knew the scalp of an untested brave wasn’t equal to that of a true warrior, but who would know the difference? While the Spirit Path was not one of violence, the prairie was a dangerous place and the possibility for bloodshed was ever-present.

Before his journey, Enapay knapped himself a knife of flat grey flint. He’d traded twelve rabbit pelts for the stone. For months he practiced the art on lesser cores until the motions became like breathing. Then, with confidence, he struck hammer stone to chert.

A blade was born.

One day, alongside arrow and bow, the knife would help to prove his worth.

A warm spring wind roamed the spires, carrying with it the stench of decay. His pony balked at the sudden stink. The youth imagined the odor might mark territory for a roving puma. The presence of the predator would give the horse ample cause for alarm. Still, the redolence didn’t match the glandular reek of a mountain cat. Only one word could describe the tang – death.

With a gentle touch and whispered words, Enapay soothed his shying horse. He urged the beast onward, but it refused. The pony stamped in protest, kicking up dust. Its dark eyes bulged with fear, nostrils flaring. The horse turned in circles, fighting his rider’s command. Then, with a swift kick of his naked heels, the horse obeyed.

With each passing moment the rotten scent grew in strength. Enapay felt his vision swim, the sway equal parts hunger and revulsion. The horse too remained skittish, moving uneasily down the course. Then, as the stench peaked, the sandstone broke away into an unexpected clearing. The broad, vaguely circular margin was hemmed by great spikes and spines of colorfully layered silt. The image was like a peaceful break in dense forest – if not for the horror present within.

A garden of bones.

No other description was befitting of the sight.

Every space of the clearing was covered in remains of both animal and man. Bleached skulls grinned toward the sky with empty, sightless eyes. The broken long bones of elk, buffalo, and deer adorned the sand like sickly meadow flowers. Most were fleshless, while ribbons of gore still clung to others like carrion pests. Sickness permeated the space, churning Enapay’s innards in knots. His guts would have spilt had they not been empty.

The black pony nickered distaste and the young man shared the sentiment.

The ground began to roil. He quickly realized the movement was not a product of his nausea. Sand turned liquid under the pony’s hooves. The horse bucked and squealed. Enapay lost control and was thrown roughly to the ground. Arrows spilled from his quiver; his bow lost among bones.

The Sakwin scrambled away from the frantic beast, fearing a painful death beneath tramping hooves. On unsteady limbs, he righted himself. The clearing trembled underfoot. It wasn’t a peal of thunder or the quake of a stampede, but the sound of rushing water. Soil moved as a torrent, a turbulent eddy of sand and silt.

Thick coils surged from the turbid earth. Serpentine loops thick as a bole wrapped about the horse’s thrashing body. With an audible snap, the massive braids tightened about the pony’s trunk. Bones cracked under immeasurable strength. The black pony cried in horror and pain. Enapay had never before witnessed such anguish. The horse collapsed inward. Great gouts of crimson ran rivers over jagged scales.

A giant, wedge-shaped head emerged from the maelstrom. A pair of horns jutted from an ophidian snout. A forked tongue probed the noxious air. Unfeeling yellow eyes gazed upon the mangled corpse bound within its vice. At the opposite end, a tapered rattle quivered with expectant glee.

The great serpent’s mouth opened wide, unhinging its jaw. Mottled skin stretched near splitting as the maw widened to accommodate its prey. With a sickening suck, like that of squelching mud, the snake swallowed the pony whole.

Enapay scurried toward his bow. Bones rattled in mocking laughter as he tossed them aside.

A black shadow fell over him, and he knew that death was near.

He leapt headlong.

The serpent struck. It crashed into the ground, gulping great piles of sand.

On his feet now, he snatched up a pair of stray arrows from the clutter. The snake reared again, preparing to strike.

The bowstring snapped.

Flint scraped scale and the missile bounced harmless from thick hide.

The horn-snake inhaled and gasped a choking breath. Bile boiled from the gaping mouth, a thick gorge rising from somewhere inside. Then, the snake coughed forth a plume of poison and disease. Rotten haze spread about the space, a pestilent miasma. The clinging stench grew tenfold. Enapay ran, attempting to flee the virulent font.

Tendrils of fetid fog swirled about him. He tried to shoot a second time, but his strength had failed. The arrow flew weak and wild. Where it fell, he’d never know.

His limbs were heavy now, turned wet sand by the wilting breath. Against his will, the unwholesome air consumed him.

Enapay arose to the scent of pipe smoke. He opened his eyes to vistas he’d never imagined.

“You are awake.” The voice was both strange and familiar.

Enapay looked about and was stunned. He and the other sat atop a sodden bank of sand amidst an endless shallow lake. Gentle waves lapped noiselessly upon the meager shore. From muted waters rose countless trees, immense in size. Their branches hidden high above in a somber, formless haze. Toward every horizon the same panorama yawned, fading to a murky blur in the infinite.

“Is this the Camp of the Dead?” asked Enapay of the old man.

“No,” the other answered. “For you have not died.”

“If this is not Death, then where?”

“Somewhere between.”

Enapay studied the elder’s wizened features, seeking deception. Deep creases lined his skin. White hair fell in regal braids over lean shoulders. Hawk feathers and copper rings accented a thoughtful face. He wore a buckskin coat decorated with brilliant beadwork and dyed quill. His skin had burnished a deep ruddy hue from a life lived free beneath Father Sun. Enapay saw his father within the man, his grandfather too, but they were not the same.

“I do not understand.”

The old man took a long drag from his stone pipe. The odor was pungent but not unpleasant. Thin wisps of smoke curled about him, framing him in phantoms.

“This is the garden from which all worlds grow. Those trees,” the man said, pointing, “within each canopy is nestled creation. There is no life here. Nor is there death. There are other realms for that.”

“Who are you?” Enapay asked in wonder.

“I am Talset, first of your line.”

Enapay was stunned at the admission. Surely, he must be dead, for only dead men see ghosts.

“If I’m not dead, how can this be?”

“You have not died yet, Enapay. Your fate has not been decided.”

“Who decides?”

“The choice is only yours to make.”

“Then I choose to live!” Enapay felt his temper rising.

“It is not so simple, my son. This is something that cannot be decided so easily. But that decision will not be made here.”

Enapay grew angry at the riddled reply.

“Then where?”

Talset puffed his pipe again, the smoke collecting in rings about his feet. The vapor rose around him, obscuring the old man from sight. Something swirled within the bank. Enapay caught a fleeting glimpse of some other plane within the haze. Talset still spoke, but his voice was formless and distant.

“Follow. If you should live.”

Enapay stepped into the pipe smoke and disappeared.

A blast of heat washed over him as he emerged from the threshold. Gone were the endless trees, replaced by barren, stony desert. Towers of red rock grasped at a dim and lightless sky. Strange shapes roved like vultures through torrid ozone. A black hole hung there, an umbral disc rimmed in white fire. So near was the wound, Enapay felt he could touch it.

“Where have you taken me, Talset?”

“There are many names in many tongues. To some it is Mixtalan, to others Shibulbu and Ghom. I have always preferred House of Flayed Skin.”

These epithets were strange to Enapay. Still, he recognized the intent.

A flat shape dove from the hollow sky, gliding on wet membrane. Red rain spattered the rock as it passed – blood. It was then that he understood the title.

“What are they?”

“Lost souls, Enapay. The Dishonored Dead.”

“If I am not dead, then why am I here?”

“Only through this place will you return to the life you know.”

“But how, Talset? Where must I go?” A panic began to rise in him. The prospect of wandering a desolate world of rock and shorn scalps was not a pleasant one.

“Follow the Sun. But the dead here are a jealous sort. They have already sensed your presence on their plane. They wish you to stay.”

Talset once again placed pipe to lip and began to smoke.

“How will I fight? I have no knife or bow.”

Talset chuckled as haze consumed him.

“Weapons of the waking world do not function here, Enapay. You must fight with your soul.”

“Wait!” called the youth. “Don’t go. Take me with you!”

It was too late. Talset had vanished in his cloud.

Enapay dropped to his knees. A hopeless dread enveloped him. He was Sakwin, the blood of warriors pulsed in his veins. But his enemies roved a living world in bodies of flesh and bone. He knew of hunting and horses, of knapping flint and Sakwin songs. Of worlds and realms, he understood nothing.

How was he supposed to find his way home?

A shade fell upon him, wrapping wet flesh about his limbs. The robe of skin clung to him, and he felt hot fluids pour forth over his back and shoulders. He screamed as red rivulets seared his body.

Enapay struggled against a tightening grip, ripping at the gore slick coat with tooth and nail. The flayed skin pressed him to the hot earth. Boiling stones bubbled his hide. This was not how he had imagined his end. Sadness and fear intermingled as the Sakwin willed himself to continue the fight.

You will not die here.

A blinding light sliced through sopping meat. The skin-thing screamed and was torn asunder. Shreds of writhing flesh salted the earth, staining red rock a darker shade of crimson.

Enapay couldn’t comprehend what had happened. He only knew that he still lived. Talset’s final words echoed in his mind.

Fight with your soul.

Is that what he had done? What else had his ancestor said?

Follow the Sun.

He looked skyward. Flayed skin gathered in a swarm. The storm cried out for him, a torturous shriek. Behind the bedlam loomed the black star.

Flesh rained from a darkened sky.

A bow materialized in his palm because he willed it so. To his sight it was the same as that he’d lost among the spires. Enapay knew instinctively this was not the case. He drew the string and loosed.

A spear of radiance pierced the seething flock of skin. Brilliant luminescence punctured heaving holes across the billowing veil. Robes of wet hide peeled away, swept aside with gleaming flux.

Still they came.

Enapay leapt upon the nearest rock face and began to climb. Black shapes poured from the sky. Dripping wings cracked like whips, slicing lesions across his naked skin. Higher he soared, scaling the twisted crag. Slowly, painfully, the black sun drew near. He could feel its presence; a sentient, tangible thing. The portal throbbed with weird intent. A booming voice spoke to him in unintelligible, yawning tones. He stretched toward the gate. It was too far. He reached but could not grasp. The dead razed him then. Bolts of agony raced through his body.

He fell.

So dark was the night, Enapay thought himself blind. He struggled to move but something pinned his limbs. The air was oppressive and slick. The world seemed to pulse and writhe about as a living thing. He wondered what new world he had found. Suddenly he understood.

Like the pony before, Enapay had been swallowed whole.

Viscous slime emanated from walls of flesh. The acid ate his skin. Corded muscles tightened as he squirmed. All his effort could not halt the descent down the serpent’s gullet.

Arms pressed tight at his side; he struggled to find purchase. His hand brushed against a familiar and unexpected comfort.

The knife had not abandoned him.

Enapay wrapped wet fingers about the antler haft. Carefully, he drew the flint from its rabbit skin scabbard. One false move and it might slip through his hands. The task was painfully slow. His whole body burned as digestion continued. The snake squeezed against him, straining bones near to breaking. He wheezed, only able to suck thin breaths from the suffocating dark.

Enapay felt the knife slip free. He clung to it like a safety ledge. So long as he had the blade, he could not fall.

He sunk the knife into squirming flesh. The serpent convulsed in response. The sudden wretch squeezed the last wisp of air from Enapay’s lungs. He dug further. Hot blood spilled over him. The torrent threatened to drown him. The wound grew wider and the serpent reacted in kind. He could feel the world twist and thrash about him.

A deeper darkness clouded his vision. His consciousness begged for respite. Enapay was tired. Still he cut, slicing tendon and tearing sinew. The world suddenly grew bright. A sliver of brilliance shown from inside the pulsing gash. With each twist of the knife, it grew brighter still.

Follow the Sun.

The Sakwin youth took heed of Talset’s words. This was not sunlight he followed, but he knew it would light the way.

Stretching wide the wound, Enapay swam inside. His lungs were desperate for air. A black cloud rolled over his vision, but still the light remained.

A shimmering beacon bobbed in the red abyss. The surface was of dazzling quartz. Enapay brushed a finger across its skin finding it smooth and hard as glass. He could feel scintillant life pulsating within the orb. This was no rock he’d found, but a beating heart.

He snatched the vessel, ripping it from its seat. The void trembled. The serpent thrashed wildly about the field of bones in silent reptilian death. With a great heave, Enapay was birthed again upon the ground. His limbs dripped with butchery. Cruor collected in great pools about the space. Of his pony, there was no evidence, its corpse still lodged somewhere in the serpent’s gut. The snake’s yellow eyes clouded, leaving dull orbits in dead sockets. The rattle twitched weakly and fell still. Light had left the horn-snake, for Enapay held it in his hand.

From unseen gulfs came faintly whispered words.

“You have fought well,” spoke Talset. “Go now, and show our people what you have done.”

The voice vanished then, leaving only the lingering scent of pipe smoke dancing upon the breeze.

A Sakwin brave returned home, crossing on foot the shore of a vanished sea. He had come to this sacred place seeking visions and rites of passage. With this purpose fulfilled, his people would no longer see just a boy, but a warrior. There would be feasting upon his return, in celebration of his coming of age. Until then, hunger and thirst would be constant companions. After all, the Spirit Path was as much a test of mettle as it was the soul.

This was the Sakwin way.

The Spirit Path © 2025 by Logan D. Whitney (2850 words) All rights reserved. You may restack this story via Substack but please do not republish elsewhere. Banner and clipart by Gilead, used by permission.

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