A Warrior's Redemption

  *****

  “Wake up, tiger bait!”

  Jarred awake by the kick to my side, I jumped to my feet. The memory of my mother quickly faded as the reality of my current situation set in. I was quickly outfitted and shoved through the tunnels of my old haunts. I could hear the noise of the crowd, roaring in anticipation of the coming bloodlust. Protesting loudly, the rusty arena door slowly rose upward. I stepped out onto the sand of the arena, not waiting for the push from behind.

  The sandy floor of the arena stretched out before me and I advanced into it. The dusty tan color of the sand was mottled in places to a dark red, which helped mark the spots where mortal life had been lost. Casting my gaze upwards, I took in the crowd assembled in the bleachers rising on all sides above the arena walls. They were shouting, as they usually were, in a mixture of anticipatory excitement and blood lust. They were eager to see suffering and bloodletting.

  All the old memories came flooding back to me now. Mentally attempting to shake them off, I remembered my dream from the night before. I hadn’t dreamed about my mother in years, but her lessons of yesterday were very real today too. Emboldened by the need to survive, and the belief in my new-found faith that I could, I stepped into the center of the arena boldly. I stood there, patiently waiting for what would come next, as the crowd of onlookers shouted obscenities and jeers.

  A sense of excitement rippled through me as it always did when the fight was about to start. I didn’t have to wait long. Seven arena dungeon doors began to creak open and through the half open doors, seven starved Attorgron tigers clawed at the dust in eagerness to get into the sunlight. They sprang into the open arena, at first giving each other cautious looks. Not liking the roaring of the crowds or their exposure to an unknown situation, they slunk around the arena as they got their bearings.

  One tiger, maddened by the need to get free of the exposure and noise of the arena, tried to climb the arena wall, but it was too high and he slid back to the arena floor, to the tune of jeers from the crowd at its failed escape. I had seen it all before many times, except I had never faced so many tigers at once. Usually I had other companions to help whittle them down, or to at least be chewed on, while I took care of my own skin and, when I could, that of my friends. I had no armor this time either, just an arena short sword and a small round shield.

  Soon the inevitable happened; they noticed me in the center of the arena and their first instinct to escape was taken over by their second great need, hunger. They approached me from all sides their eyes glowing with the intent to rip me apart. I had to admit, faced with these odds it was an extremely likely scenario. The crowd’s anticipation was a palpable sensation in the hot, still air of the arena. Sweat coursed down my back in rivulets under the tunic I wore. I couldn’t win this one! If there had only been three or four maybe, but seven! I remembered my mother’s words and her belief that her Creator could do anything. I really couldn’t win this one. The sword dropped from my hand to plop into the dust of the arena floor. I took the shield off my left forearm and dropped it too. Spreading my arms wide I looked up into the blue sky overhead.

  “Creator, it’s all yours. Thy will be done.”

  I waited with baited breath, as did everybody else in the arena, for what would come next. The husky roars of the tigers intensified. It wouldn’t be long before they attacked. I heard the scramble of claws scraping on dirt behind me and I couldn’t help but flinch, as I waited for the subsequent impact of fangs and claws ripping into me; but it didn’t come.

  “I Am mighty to save and intercede on the behalf of those who put their trust in Me. My creation knows My authority and obeys.”

  I heard the words as clear as day, as if they had been spoken against my ear and yet nobody stood with me in the arena. The roars of the tigers were gone and all I heard was a choked whining.

  I opened my eyes, which I had shut reflexively when I had heard the scramble of claws behind me, and looked for the tigers. They were all slinking away from me as fast as they could go, each heading to their respective dungeon chambers. The crowd watched in stunned disbelief, as the tigers disappeared back into their holding cells.

  The crowd broke out into angry muttering, which was only a façade to mask their unease at what they had just witnessed. The governor stood up in the royal pavilion and screamed, “Seize that man at once!”

  The main doors of the arena burst open and a group of thirteen horsemen spilled into the arena. Turning to face this new threat I watched the guardsmen sweep across the arena toward me. They weren’t guardsmen! I recognized Seth first and then the others. Seth broke from the bunch and reached his arm out to me. I grabbed it and using momentum I flung my body up onto the back of the horse behind him. The other riders formed a protective shell around us as we wheeled around to race toward the still open doors of the arena.

  We peeled through them in a cloud of dust, as we headed into the city at large. I could hear shouts of dismay ringing out behind us as the crowd reacted to my unexpected escape. Chaos ensued in the marketplace, as we rode down merchants and merchant’s wares alike in our mad scramble to get free of the city before the street gatehouses were closed.

  Approaching the eastern gate at a full gallop, I saw that it was still open. The guards were still laying at ease to either side of the street. We made straight for the open gate. The hooves of our horses pounded hard on the cobblestoned street surface, announcing our approach to the guards. Halfway to the guards, we charged through a flock of chickens, that parted before us in a flurry of feathers as they squawked madly at our sudden disturbance of them.

  The guards hesitated in the face of our head on charge toward them, unsure as to what was taking place. They seemed to come to a consensus of the minds and threw themselves to the sides of the alley to avoid the hoofs of our horses as we streamed out of the street gate into the glorious freedom of the countryside. After several miles were behind us, we pulled up to check for signs of pursuit. No dust clouds were visible in the shimmering heat waves of the plain. The escape had been such a complete surprise that they hadn’t even yet been able to mount a chase. Leisurely, we rode on through the day until we stopped to camp early that evening.

  I got down from the horse and greeted my old companions warmly. The hulking form of Olaf was last to come forward. Gruffly he held up one huge hand that grasped three chickens and asked in his deep gravelly voice, “You hungry?”

  I laughed, knowing his gesture of food was his simple way of saying ‘Welcome back I missed you.’ “Yes, Olaf now that you come to mention it, I’m starving!”

  The rugged terrain of his battered face creased up in an expression I knew to be a smile. “Good!” he said, with a voice like thunder that fairly rocked me back on my heels.

  Everyone laughed and we began the preparations of making camp, all the while talking and catching up on what each of us had been doing since we had parted company. “Seth, what happened back there at the swamp base? It was a wrecked mess when I passed back through it.”

  “Traitors that’s what!” replied Seth angrily. “As soon as you were out of the mix, various members of the group we hired on started fighting for the leadership of the group. We wouldn’t have it. Instead, we insisted that you would return, and that none of them were fit to fill your shoes as leader. Some of them must have gotten jealous and reported our base’s location to the Zoarinians for the reward they were offering. We barely had time to get away before they were upon us! What was left of the group split up and we haven’t heard from them since and good riddance it is to be away from them, I’m thinking!” Seth finished heatedly.

  I shook my head solemnly. It was times like this that a man found out who his friends were. Later, after we were through catching up and were lounging around the fire with full bellies, I looked around at my friends and said, “I’m going back to the city tonight.”

  None of them were too surprised at my declaration of intent. Rolf spoke up from a dark corner
of the camp near the edge of the firelight, “To get the boy?”

  Looking at his shadowy outline silhouetted against the deep blackness of the night behind him, I nodded.

  “I will go with you. You will need someone to hold the horses and help clear the way.”

  Looking at him now, I remembered back to that day in the alley when we had escaped the arena and I had motioned for him to join us. Looking back, I now realized it had been one of the best decisions of my life.

  It was far better having this man as a loyal friend than a potential enemy, that was for sure. I smiled, “It will be dangerous my friend. We may not come back.”

  I could detect the form of a rare smile in his voice when he replied, “Such is life, my friend. When do we go?”

  “Now,” I said as I got up.

  “We will go too!” Seth said, as he got up from the ground, followed by the rest of the group.

  Turning to look at them, I shook my head and said, “I do not deserve the honor you give me to be your leader. But as you do give it, even so must I honor it and give you direction as to what I feel is best. Rolf is right, the job I must do tonight is one best done by only a few, as too many of us may be recognized before we complete the objective of freeing Larc. I have made a change in the way I wish to live my life. When we escaped from the walls of the arena three years ago, my one thought and purpose was to remain free and to make those who wronged me pay for what they had done. At the very least, I wanted the option to die as a free man. We have done much to repay what was done to us, but we can still never kill enough of them to get back what was stolen from us. Instead we have become more and more like them. We have continued the cycle of violence that was first used against us. But something that we can do to break the cycle of useless violence that we’ve been caught up in is to use the skills and the experience they taught us,” I gestured towards the city glowing faintly off in the distance, “To fight for something that’s worth fighting for, even dying for. The land of my ancestry is a place where men still worship the Great Creator who made this world and all the others. The Creator God is real! I know this from my own personal experience! I’ve never seen the land of my ancestry, but yet I have been told of it. The people there still believe in the Great Creator and that is one of the reasons that our oppressors, the Zoarinians, are so committed to destroying them. Protecting such a people, protecting the right to freely worship the God that I serve and put my trust in, is worth fighting for, even dying for. It may not be for you, but it is for me. Instead of wealth won by the swing of my sword, I choose a life where my actions bring life to others and wealth is measured by how many good friends I have. Where, one day, I hope to have the faithfulness of a good woman and the love of my own children. If you choose to continue following me, it will not be because of me or any purpose of man, but it will be because we fight for a higher cause than any of our own. We will live and die based on what the Creator wills for us. There will be no more me or you, there will only be what the Creator wills. If you wish to continue with me, this is the way it will be. None of us here are good men by our past actions, but all of us here can be better men then we have been in the past, with the hope of an eternal destination other than hell, which is what each of us deserves. The decision of what you do now is yours, but if you follow me, you know where I stand.” I finished laying it all out there and waited for their response.

  Renaldo stepped forward and said, “This Creator God you speak of, if you say He is real then I believe you, and I want to serve Him too, even if it costs me my life.”

  As one man the rest of them stepped forward and echoed Renaldo’s sentiment with statements of fealty to the God I served; a God they hadn't even experienced yet. What had I ever done to deserve the amount of faith they placed in me?

  Olaf was the last to speak, “Master, I trust you and if you trust this God you speak of, then how can I not trust Him too?”

  “You all stand affirmed in this oath to serve the Creator?” I asked, looking around.

  “We do!” thundered Olaf, over the rest of them combined.

  “Then I would like to say a prayer over us and our new quest.”

  I sank to my knees to pray. The humbleness of the action seemed fitting in this moment in time, as I was humbled beyond measure that such men would trust their souls to be guided by me of all people. I heard the sounds of the others falling to their knees. I couldn’t help but peak at them. These weren’t childhood companions, coerced into praying by their mothers like I had been, but instead these were rough men of war with the scars to prove it.

  They came from different cultures and spoke multiple languages that I didn’t even know and yet they humbled themselves before a God they believed in, simply because they trusted me to know the right path to take in both war and life. Tears coursed down my cheeks at the high level of trust they placed in me and I felt humbled beyond belief to be before such men, whose faith seemed greater than my own.

  “Creator, by faith these men believe in You as I do. By Your mighty actions You have performed on my behalf and because of the mercy You have freely given me, I cannot but adore, serve, and worship You. Guide us through battle and peace. Show us the paths to follow and those to avoid and above all teach us Your ways so that we can be more like You, a living testament of Your glory. May praise for You forever be on our lips. Whether in death or in life may we always serve you. Glory in the highest is Your Son’s, who made redemption possible for us, your humble servants, from this day forward. In His name I ask these things and say, Amen.”

  The words of the prayer had seemed to pour out of my soul, coming easy to my lips, like a stone wall crumbling before the force of a mighty stream of water. And like a stream, which pours out water continually, a mighty wave of invisible fire fell from heaven and enveloped us! We were not burnt, but the deep wells of our spirits poured forth utterances in languages unknown to us and yet known to the Creator, who listened to our utterances and spoke life back into us.

  He gave us far more than we could ever hope to have given Him in return. I don’t know how long we sobbed and spoke praises in an unknown tongue to the Creator of all life, but we eventually arose of one accord as new men, with God-given purposes to fulfill. The source of our strength was secure in our hearts. We looked at each other with nothing left to be said as all of us were forever changed by what had happened this night.

  “Rolf, get the horses. We will need to leave soon, before the night advances much farther, if we hope to rescue the boy. The rest of you,” I said, turning to look at them, “I want you to apprehend the wagons bound for the farms, where the children of the high priestess’ I told you about are being held. If the priests get in your way kill them, but above all rescue the children. Take them to the Valley Lands and tell them that it was Roric Ta’lont that sent you. They are a people that believe even as we now believe and they will not turn you away. Have you any questions?”

  “We will do all as you have said brother!” replied Seth, as the rest nodded their heads in agreement.

  And with that I wished them well and walked towards the horses that Rolf had saddled.