A Warrior's Redemption

  Chapter Two

  Branded

  The fighting school of Ramnotan was located on the outskirts of Carsea. Roughly, we were yanked out of the wagon by the guards.

  I’d hit the ground face first, after having been shoved by a guard off the wagon. I’d tried to get up, spitting the dust from my mouth as I did so, but I was knocked down flat again by another guard. I’d tried to get up again, but several hard kicks had slammed into my side and I’d curled up into a ball in the dust. It had been hard to breathe and I’d had to repeatedly gasp to get back my breath. I’d looked up into the face of my tormenter then before trying to get up again. He’d stood with his feet shoulder width apart and appeared to have no weapon upon him. He smiled down at me. His face had looked like worn cracked leather and the smile that was splayed across it did not reach his eyes.

  “I’ll show you the meaning of what it is to be a slave, boy! I think I’ll start your education with your pretty face!”

  He had reached down with one hand and grabbed my hair, jerking my head up. He extended his right leg behind him and I knew that he intended to smash his knee into my nose. As he drew his knee back, I stopped resisting the grip on my hair and instead I flung myself forward at his support leg. Unbalanced, he gave a surprised grunt and fell over backwards away from me.

  He had released my hair in an effort to catch himself as he fell. He hit the ground hard and I had gotten shakily to my feet, knowing I had probably just made things a lot worse for myself. Surprisingly, he had lain there in the dust for a moment and then he’d started laughing as he got to his feet. I’d regarded him warily, waiting for him to strike out at me like a viper.

  “This one has spirit left in him! Cato, take him to the keep and see that he gets branded as a fighter, but not cut. He’ll fight better that way.”

  I was seized by strong hands from behind and shoved inside the fighting school. It was cooler inside than the outside was, but that was as far as the comfort went.

  I was shoved against the wall of a room that received some light from a skylight in the ceiling above us. I, and the others that had arrived with me, were handcuffed to iron rings that projected out from the wall above our heads. I had watched as two powerfully muscled guards held the slave who was the farthest from me away out from the wall. A third guard rose up from a fire kindled in the middle of the room. In one hand he held a hot poker and in the other a hot knife.

  I could still see the way the slave’s eyes had rolled back into his head as he screamed, when the branding rod was pressed into the back of his left shoulder. The sizzle and smell of burning flesh had made me want to throw up. It wasn’t over though.

  The two guards shoved the whimpering slave back against the wall and spread his legs, as the man with the knife set the brand poker back down into the fire. He then turned toward the slave, knife in hand, ripped the slave’s pants down and proceeded to slice off his seed sac, throwing it to the side, as he then held the hot knife to the wound, cauterizing the flesh.

  The slave almost jerked out of the grasp of the two big men as the realization of what had just been done to him hit him, along with the pain. I had thrown up all over myself then and I had tried to somehow block out the man’s hysterical cries of pain and loss, but failed miserably.

  One by one the process was repeated down the line, until they had reached me. I had been crying my eyes out and sobs of fear and expected pain racked through my body, as the other slaves' anguished screams still lingered around me in the room.

  Nothing could have prepared me for the feeling of the hot poker being ground into the back of my shoulder. I had screamed and sobbed, hoping against hope for freedom from this hellish place, but none came. I had felt my pants ripped down and I had bitten my lip, as I felt the grip on my sac as the edge of the hot knife pressed against it. A moment had passed in which I had sobbed hard from the expected burning pain and the loss of my identity as a man.

  The knife had stayed where it was as the grip on my sack was released. I had opened my eyes, blurry from the tears pouring out of them, and looked around as I heard a strange sound. The guards and even the men holding me were laughing! As if this was all a big joke!

  The man with the knife withdrew it and joined in on the laughter. I had heard the guards leave the room, still laughing, as I pressed my eyes closed, feeling shamed by them.

  That had been the worst night of my life, being forced to stand there naked and listen to the cries and whimpers of the others in such a dark dungeon of a place.

  The other slave’s pathetic cries, the burning pain in my shoulder, and my own abject humiliation over what had happened to me, threatened to drive me mad. And in some ways, I suppose it had.

  My one burning life’s desire from that moment onward had been to exact revenge and have control over my own fate once more.

  Time had passed into months and months became years. I wondered why the Great Creator that my mother had prayed to kept me alive, for there could be no other reason, other than a Divine one, that could explain how I had been delivered from death so many times. There were just too many coincidences that just seemed to happen at the right time, which always led to my survival and another day in the arena before my adoring crowds. They called me Zeventhal, which in the Zoarinian language means ‘Storm Maker’.

  The average life expectancy in the arena world was marked by being violently brief. I was an exception to that, as I had already lived and fought for almost nine years in the arena. That’s how long it took for the opportunity of escape to occur.

  I had done the most with the time and resources provided to me over the years. I had learned and mastered dozens of fighting styles and weapon proficiencies. But most valuable of all, I befriended the men around me.

  We all knew that we could die from each other’s hand, as easy as that of a rival school’s fighter, because of the whims of our masters. So why not be friends and help each other as we could to make the short brutal days of our lives better. When I was forced to fight against my friends we fought with dignity, not holding ourselves accountable for the death of either one of us, if it was required by the crowd or our masters.

  Perhaps no one would understand how one could fight with a friend to the death, but my answer to them was that they hadn’t been there so what did they know about it. In addition to fighting skills, I had learned all that I could about the tactics of war. I even discussed the merits and lessons to be gleaned from the literary works of wisdom of our time, of which I had previously known nothing, but of which many thrown into the arena dungeons did.

  We thought of, dreamed of, and planned every day for a chance at acquiring freedom for ourselves once again and wrecking vengeance against our captors, but freedom eluded us. Then one day we got a lucky break.

  It was the festival of the moon goddess, which was the patron god of the city of Carsea. Games of extravagant proportions had been planned for the festival. All six of the Zoarinian governors of the Rings of Hath were going to be in attendance.

  This was a rare occasion within the empire and it would require only the finest in amusement offerings. Our handlers taunted us in glee over the special ordeal that we would face in the arena the next day. By all accounts the spectacle was supposed to be well beyond the usual. The fighters from the city of Rauin were to be the first to face this new height in crowd amusement offerings.

  The night passed as all nights did before a fight, it either went by too quickly or passed by too slowly. It had been raining softly as I had looked through the bars of the door that opened out into the great arena.

  The fighters from Rauin, numbering a little over forty, stood expectantly in the middle of the arena as rain dripped off their helmets making moisture trails down their armor clad bodies. The rain would have normally put a damper on the crowd’s mood, but not today. They had been promised something special today and they were eager for it to begin.

  The noise of the crowd was suddenly drowne
d out by the enraged, crazed screams of an animal I had only heard of, but never before seen. The big doors at the other end of the arena had been shoved open suddenly and three large bull elephants, from the southern lands of Kharta, rushed into the arena. Angered and driven mad with rage by their handlers, who had poked at them with spears, they looked around feverishly in search of something to take out their raging aggression upon. Unfortunately, the only prey available was the men of Rauin.

  Grimly, I had watched as each man was chased down by the enraged beasts, one after the other. The elephants were inconsolable with rage and wanted to kill anything that walked on two legs, because of their mistreatment by their handlers. I had continued to watch the spectacle even as the other fighters with me had turned away from the horror of it, knowing that soon enough it would be them out there.

  Some fighters were crushed under the heavy feet of the beasts, while others were caught by the swinging tusks and thrown across the arena to crash with deadening force into the high walls. The men of Rauin were soon trodden down to a bloody pulp. Not sated in their bloodlust, the crowd had cried out for even more of this new level of violent entertainment, which I would make them regret. Because in their thirst to see our blood spilled, I had seen the greatest opportunity for a mass escape that had ever presented itself before, not to mention the perfect diversion needed to successfully escape.

  The walls of the arena were not of a sufficient strength at all places to hold the raging animals it contained. Our captors had probably been counting on the elephants giving their full attention to exterminating the human ants running around in the arena screaming for their lives and not attempt their own escape. They had probably intended on killing the elephants near the end of the act anyway. Briefly I had relayed my plan to the other fighters, who had listened intently, scarcely daring to hope for even a chance at attaining their freedom and escaping the grisly death awaiting all of us within the arena.

  There weren’t as many of us as there had been of the men from Rauin, but that didn’t matter as we weren’t going to be fighting the beasts. When our dungeon doors had been raised with a resisting creak of the rusty iron draw chains, we had boldly stepped out and gotten the attention of the three elephants. Instead of running aimlessly around the arena away from our superior foe, we charged right at them.

  Several of us had fallen in the initial contact with the three crazed lumbering beasts, but those of us who survived quickly started slashing away at the undersides and legs of the great beasts towering above us as we ran past them. This only incited the elephants to an even more insane rage, which is what I had hoped would happen. As one man, we had broken off from our harassing of the beasts and ran as hard as we could for the far wall of the arena that featured wooden bleachers and pavilions, instead of those made of stone on the fancier end of the arena.

  How I made it in one solid piece to the wood boarded wall, I don’t know. I had felt the hot breath of one of the elephants pulsing against my back and the swish of its sharpened tusks just behind my legs for what seemed like an eternity before I reached the far arena wall.

  Everything had seemed to be moving in slow motion and then abruptly it had returned to fast paced reality. At the last possible second before we ran headlong into the arena wall, we dove off to the sides of it and hit the dirt as each of us prayed that the heavy foot of one of our pursuers didn’t set down on top of us and squash us into the sand.

  The three beasts stampeding behind us had no time to veer off after us, but instead they slid onward across the slick, wet, sandy clay of the arena floor. The shear momentum of their charge and their own bulk sent them plowing through the arena wall with the snapping of breaking boards and beams.

  The crowd's outspoken glee at the spectacle before them turned to screams of fright and pain, as the three bull elephants rampaged out of the arena and up into the bleachers, creating complete havoc and pandemonium within the crowd. Those of us left alive picked ourselves out of the dirt and slipped through the smashed remains of the arena wall following in the wake of the elephants’ destruction.

  People were running everywhere in mass panic and had paid us no attention as we slipped through them and away from the arena into the city. Looking back, I had seen several of the men from Rauin hobble up to their feet from where they had been playing dead on the arena floor and make their way towards the gap in the arena wall. One of them started to follow us, but then hesitated. I had gestured him onwards and he had broken into a run to catch up to us.

  We had made it to a narrow alley between two buildings and I had held back a heavy rug that had been hung out to dry. The stray fighter from Rauin ran hard towards us, even though I could see doing so hurt him greatly. All was still complete pandemonium around us, with people running to and fro as they screamed hysterically in fright over their escaped entertainment. The fighter made it to the alleyway and stopped, before continuing forward, looking as if he needed to say something, but couldn’t frame the words.

  “Don’t mention it, get going!” I had said, as we both ducked under the rug and ran down the alleyway towards the other fighters gathered at the far end of it, waiting for me. After running through side streets and down alleys for over an hour, we had reached the edge of the city and from there we had headed for the open country beyond the city as fast as our legs could carry us. The chance at gaining freedom gave power to our legs as no other inducement could ever have.

  It had been a long run to make it past the crop fields needed to feed such a large population, but finally we had reached the edge of a forest. I had fallen heavily against a tree and let my burden, the man from Rauin, slide to the cool spongy forest floor.

  He hadn’t been able to keep up, so I had helped carry him along the last part of the mad dash from the city limits. I slid down the tree with my back to it. My lungs had felt like the bellows of a blacksmith’s forge. Sweat had been running into my eyes causing them to burn, but the sting of the sweat couldn’t dampen how I had felt inside. Freedom!

  I would remember that jubilant moment to the day I died. My fingers had curled into the rich forest dirt and I had sucked in moist forest air like it was fine wine.

  The feeling of euphoria at my release from hell had been so sharp I could fairly taste it, even smell it with every breath I had taken. My companions had been right along with me in what I had been feeling in the moment. We had begun to grin and then laugh, which soon overtaxed our already worn out lungs. Wheezing from laughing, I had shakily gotten to my feet and walked to the forest edge. The laughter had disappeared from me at the sight of the glistening city in the distance. The others had gotten to their feet and come to stand behind me.

  “Zeventhal what will we……?”

  I had held my hand up, cutting off the speaker’s voice.

  “Call me by that name no longer! My free name is Roric. Call me only by that name from now on.”

  Seething anger had coursed through my body as all the injustices done to me flashed by in my mind, starting with the unjust death of my father and the breakup of my family.

  The anger had left me cold and full of resolve as to what I wanted to do.

  “What is to be done, Roric?” asked the man from Rauin quietly. I had turned and looked at him and then the rest of the men for a moment and then I had glanced back at the city in the distance, where it sat gleaming like a jewel in the fading afternoon rays of sunlight. My fists had tightened at my sides and my jaw hardened.

  “I intend to make the Zoarinians pay for what they have done to me. To all of us! They will rue the day they took me captive, as I will become a scourge to their empire and if they plead for mercy, all they will hear will be my laughter! If you wish to share in my revenge then its welcome you are, if otherwise then just go!”

  A big, rough looking fighter, who came from the northern coasts, gruffly broke the silence.

  “Roric?”

  Turning, I had faced the man, not sure what to expect from
this man, whom I had seen crush the backs of grown men but hold and care for a pet sparrow with only one wing as if it were a beloved child.

  “In this plan of yours boss, does it involve eating soon?”

  My seriousness had dropped away as we had all broken into laughter. “Yes, Olaf, we’ll eat soon! I promise!”

  The three years that had followed our escape from the arena had been both profitable, yet frustrating as well. We found other escaped men such as ourselves and we united together in a common purpose, which was to cause as much trouble as we could for our former captors and enjoy ourselves doing it. Our number swelled to well over eighty fighters and we became organized, as we took on bigger and bigger targets of interest.

  We had informants entrenched throughout the Plains of Zoar, that we paid handsomely to keep us informed of everything going on. They told us where we should turn next for a profitable target, but it was an uneasy alliance.

  All alliances founded on a system of monetary payment are by nature susceptible to an underhanded betrayal, if enough money is thrown into the mix. We were betrayed several times, but we always seemed to slip out of the traps that were set for us, largely because of me.

  I followed my instincts and they had yet to lead me astray. In time, the others came to trust my instincts as much as I did and I became the unofficial leader of the group. None of them wanted to challenge me to a fight either, which might have helped make up their minds as to who the leader of the group should be.

  Under my leadership we had unbridled success in robbing and pillaging the Zoarinian Empire of its bounty and we succeeded in being a major thorn in their side. We had also become as wealthy as kings. But after years of successful unmitigated revenge, all I was left with was an empty hollow feeling inside that made me feel as if I hadn’t achieved anything of noteworthy value.

  I wanted my life to be meaningful again! Fighting for my life in the arena, and not turning into a soulless animal feeding upon my own kind, had been meaningful and I had thought a life spent in reaping revenge on my former captors would be even more fulfilling. I had been wrong. In some ways, it was as if I had become like them instead. Cold, heartless, out for only my own gain and amusement; were all character traits that befitted the people that had paid to watch me fight. I was becoming like the people I hated by following this path of endless revenge. As I had realized the graveness of my mistake, the desire had been born to find something worth devoting my life to.

  Good deeds, at least nobler purposes, other than my current pursuits, had seemed the best place to start in redefining the purpose of my life, hence the boy sleeping over by the fire. I wasn’t at all sure that I had chosen the right path in the reformation of my character, but it was too late to go back now. I had accepted the responsibility of both the secret information that I carried in a waterproof satchel on the horse behind me, as well as the boy.

  I had no sooner looked for the opportunity to redefine my life, when I had embarked on the journey to accomplish it. My new desire to change had found me in a neat feat of timing; which supported the notion that there was a greater overall design at play behind the scenes of my life.

  I thought of my parents and again I could see the evidence of a higher power involved in the interplay of the daily emotional mixture that is life. They had known something of the Divine nature that lies behind all of creation’s excellence and it had defined them as people. They had been people that were worth emulating because of the decisions and strengths by which they had structured their lives. I was so far from being like them! I could only imagine what my mother would think of how I had turned out in life.

  “She would love you and forgive you, even as I love you and am willing to forgive you, but you must turn away from doing what you know displeases Me!”

  I had known the origin of the voice, when it had whispered into my consciousness several weeks back. It had been the intense overwhelming feeling of the Author of life itself, which had spoken to me as a boy and had continued to prod my consciousness into action lately, in order to help me find my way.

  During my darkest moments in the dungeons and in the arenas above, the voice of the Creator had been a source of encouragement that had filtered into my soul and had sustained me with the hope that one day life would be better and that it was worth it to continue on with the struggle to survive one more day.

  That familiar voice in my consciousness finished my decision making for me and I had been ready to accept the first opportunity presented to me to begin my life’s journey anew. I just hoped that I had chosen the right opportunity, because this path I was now embarked on promised death at every turn. I had been desperate for change, who knew how many more times mercy would be offered to me, if any at all. Facing life without that glimmer of hope would be completely intolerable and pointless.

  I had decided to make a change that night several weeks ago. I had headed my horse back to camp from a natural scenic area where I went when my mind was burdened down in thought or when I was heavy in spirit. When I had gotten back to camp, it was to find a visitor waiting for me. His horse had been an exceptional beast, which is when I knew that he had to be a man of some importance and influence, as he didn’t have the bearing of a horse thief. He was a Valley Lander or close to being one at least, which was an unusual occurrence so far within Zoarinian held territory.

  His gaze on me had been steady, as I had dismounted by the fire. I was curious why the others had let him live, let alone bring him to our hidden camp. He spoke.

  “Are you the one they call the Zeventhal?”

  There was a ready intelligence in his steady gaze, causing me to again wonder why such a man would risk being here.

  I replied, “I have been known by that name, but I am called by that name no longer. Call me Roric.”

  He smiled and extended his right hand toward me, but I didn’t take it. He held his hand out a moment longer, looking uncomfortable as I left it there in space. He let his hand fall back to his side.

  “I have come a long, perilous way to find you. I hope it was worth the effort,” he said, with a slightly aggravated tone to his voice.

  “So you have, and your perilous journey will end tonight, as you won’t leave this camp alive unless you convince me to do otherwise,” I said.

  His face whitened some at the seriousness of my words and I waited for him to speak, drawing him out with my silence.

  He began slowly, as if considering his words carefully, “I, as you have surely guessed, am a Valley Lander, a sworn enemy to the people of this land, the Zoarinians. However, we are not enemies by choice, but rather the state of war between our two peoples has been one of the Zoarinians making, entirely spurred on by their continued and constant aggression towards us, because of disagreements in the ancient past. We have been expecting them to mount an all out assault on us for some time now.”

  “What has any of this to do with me?” I asked, feigning a disinterested tone of voice as I drew a knife from my belt and tested its edge for sharpness with my thumb, looking at him suggestively as I did so.

  With a desperate tinge to his tone he asked, “Are you aware of who your father was?”

  Now he had gotten my attention, but I kept it from showing on my face, “Why don’t you tell me?” I asked, in a measured tone.

  “He was the son of one of the most influential Valley Lander families ever, heir to a great estate and even a castle. He was poised to take over control from his father, when attempts were made to assassinate his wife which nearly succeeded. One morning, just after the last attempt to take his wife’s life, he disappeared with his wife and newborn son, never to be heard from again. His father searched for years, until he found where he had been living in the Hills of Ernor under the maiden name of his wife, but it was too late. They found the bodies of your father and his wife and that of a son born later on. It was rumored that the oldest son was taken south and sold as a slave to a fighting school.”


  The knowledge that my mother and younger brother were dead too, hit me hard. My sacrifice for them had been in vain. They were all dead! Gone was the vague illusive dream of a reunion with the remnants of my family one day.

  “You didn’t know they all died, did you? I’m sorry for the loss my words have brought you!” he said softly.

  “Continue with your story, how did you find me?” I asked, gruffly.

  “Your grandfather never gave up searching for you. He heard word of a slave fighter in one of the southern cities that matched the description of the men of your family and he sent some agents to investigate. They identified that you were indeed the one for whom they were searching. Your grandfather tried to rescue you on several occasions, but the attempts failed. He was preparing another rescue attempt for you when he received word that you had escaped. He has been looking for you ever since. He found out, with a liberal application of money, the identity of one of your contacts. From him and few other sources of information, we were able to piece together a probable location where we might find you. I was sent by the ruling high council of the Valley Lands, with the blessing of your grandfather. We want you to come home and assume your rightful place among us. Will you come home?”

  I studied him carefully, my instinct telling me there was something more to this. “After I do something for your high council first, I imagine,” I said rhetorically.

  He chuckled softly, “You have the same way of reading the unspoken as your grandfather does. Yes, the high council does have an item of extreme interest that they would like for you to acquire and bring back with you to the Valley Lands, but it is not a condition for your return. You are free to return anytime you wish, Roric. The decision is entirely up to you.”

  There was a silence that stretched out so long that the Valley Lander started to look apprehensive once again, as if fearing that I hadn’t believed him. “What is it that the council wants brought back to them?” I asked.

  The man gave a relieved sigh and said, “We have essentially been cut off from the rest of the world. In particular, we have lost contact with a valuable spy of ours, who lives in the city of Kharta. This is all hostile territory to us.” He gestured around him, “I was surprised that I was able to get this far without being stopped. The spy has gathered vital intelligence for us for years, but we have been unable to make contact with him for some time now. We believe him to still be alive and we’re hoping that he has intelligence as to the time and strength of the assault that will be brought against us, as well as any weaknesses the enemy might have. We badly need that intelligence, if we are to protect the Valley Lands and keep them free. I would try to contact the spy myself, but I know nothing of the lands further south and it has been a miracle, as I have already said, that I have reached this far and been successful in finding you. All we need for you to do is to go to Kharta, locate our spy, and, if possible, gain whatever information you can from him and then come home.” He looked uncertainly at me.

  I looked at those gathered around and knew that my decision wasn’t going to be one well liked by my companions. “So, how do I find and contact this spy of yours in Kharta?”

  My statement jarred them all awake, with a collective chorus of surprised grunts and exclamations. They were all looking at me now, as the firelight flickered onto their faces, creating odd shadows. They were undoubtedly a rough looking crew, but I knew their finer points. They had, in a way, become to me like the family I had lost.

  “I know you view me as your leader, but it is a position I have never asked for or pressed upon you. I’ve grown weary in this endless quest for revenge and so have a lot of you, if you’re honest with yourselves.”

  At that statement there were several downcast faces in my audience.

  “I need to find out if there is something better out there than just being an embittered, escaped slave on a revenge kick. If I find what I’m looking for, I promise that I will find you and share it with all of you. You have all become to me as the brother I once lost and it is not easy to leave, but I must!”

  “Can we not come with you?” asked Seth, a fighter that was forever getting himself into trouble and that I had saved more times than I could remember from those troubles.

  “No, this is something I must do for myself. If I do not return by this time next month, I advise you to forsake the hope of ever seeing me again. If you would like some parting advice, it would be to disperse and give up this life of revenge as it is doing little good for any of us!”

  That had all transpired fourteen days ago and much had happened since then. Awakening from my remembrance of the past I looked over at the boy still asleep by the fire.

  The sky had grown dark and soon it would be time to wake the boy and move on. I gazed out over the Hagathic Wastelands, wondering how I was going to get the information given to me by the spy in Kharta, and the spy’s young son, safely to Kingdom Pass in the Valley Lands. I looked over at the lad, even in sleep his face was tight with the stress we both felt.

  When I had arrived in Kharta it was to learn that the spy had already been discovered and was awaiting his execution. Kharta, while not occupied by the Zoarinians, was still very much controlled by them and they were only too willing to execute a spy on their behalf.

  It had been very early in the morning when the guard on duty outside the jail access door breathed his last ragged breaths. I had eased his lifeless body down to the pavement, wiping my knife off on his tunic as I did so, careful not to make a sound. I continued on into the stygian darkness of the city jail.

  “Over here!” I heard someone cry out weakly.

  The voice had come from further down the row of cells. As I drew closer to the voice and could make out more of its owner, I could see that he wasn’t going to be able to go anywhere with me. In the condition he was in, it was unlikely he would live long enough to attend his own execution. I did not like the closed confines of the jail, which seemed to press in on me like a cage. I kneeled down beside the spy’s cell.

  “I knew they would send somebody for me. You’re a little late though,” he said wheezing, as he coughed up what appeared to be blood.

  He had been worked over several times, judging by the different ages of the bruises and cuts I could see on his face and underneath his torn shirt.

  “They tried to get me to tell them where I hid the intelligence reports, but I didn’t! I didn’t!”

  The impassioned outburst cost him a lot of his remaining energy and he sagged back weakly against the bars of his cell. He reached through the bars with one hand, caught one of my hands and gripped it tightly, as desperation tinged his voice, “You must do one thing for me, and you must swear to do it or I won’t tell you where the reports are!”

  His intensity of gaze, and an indefinable desperation of spirit that radiated out from his eyes, forced me to concede and I nodded my head.

  “You’re going to take my little boy with you! My boy is going to know what freedom is, especially the freedom to worship the Creator, without the fear or strictures of this place!” he spoke emphatically and painfully at the same time.

  “Please! Swear you’ll take my boy with you!”

  “I swear it!” I affirmed softly.

  He collapsed back against the bars weakly, his grip on me loosening as he slumped down.

  “Good! The reports are in the false bottom of a planter pot located where Rassian Street meets Gonda Way in the Sonna District of the city. You’ll find the boy at 56 Rassian Street. Tell the lady keeping him the code words, ‘The meadowlark flew away’, and she will give you the boy and provisions for the journey. Now go, while it’s still dark outside. You will have a better chance of getting out of the city with my boy before the alarm is raised. May the Creator see you on your way safely! Tell my boy I love him and that I wish I could be there for him, but that I have to stay here. He’ll understand someday what this was all about.”

  I got up to leave, but his fai
ling voice caught me before I started down the corridor.

  “One more thing, leave me a knife if you would be so kind.”

  I glanced questioningly at him.

  “I assure you, Sir, that I’m not the suicidal type, except for perhaps staying in the game longer than I should have. If I am to die here in this place, there is someone that I very much want to take along with me,” he said, with a raspy chuckle that abruptly caused him to gasp with pain.

  Wordlessly, I pulled a small sharp dagger out from my left boot and handed it to him through the bars.

  “Thank you again, Sir! Tell me by what name are you called?”

  “I’m Roric,” I replied simply.

  “Ahh, I knew it! There was something about you that reminded me of my old friend. I’m glad to know that your grandfather found you at long last! I am at peace now, as assured as I can possibly be of my son’s safety while in your care! Your father was one of the greatest warriors the Vallian people have ever had. All you Ta’lonts are forces of nature! It can only help our fight for freedom to have another Ta’lont in the field of battle with us!”

  Ta’lont? Was that my real last name? I wanted to ask this man so many things. He had known my father in a way I had never known, but there was simply no time to ask what I desired. I moved quietly out into the cool, still grayness of the early morning.

  I heard him saying something before I was out of earshot, “Dear Lord, it looks like my time here is nearly up. Protect my boy and keep him safe. I love him so much. His mother and I have………”

  The rest of what he said was lost to me as I was now out of earshot.

  I had scouted out the city yesterday and I remembered the street intersection the spy had spoken of. It wasn’t far from here.

  The streets were empty of life, other than night critters that dug in the alleyways in search of scraps that had been thrown there from the day before. Reaching the intersection, I saw a row of large planter pots going up Rassian Street just as the spy had said. The report was in a false bottom of one of these pots, the spy had said. I came up alongside the first pot and tapped the porcelain outer shell of the flower pot, near the bottom, with the butt of a knife, but no echo resounded from it. I continued up the row of pots, with no luck at finding the hollow bottomed pot.

  My studied calm began to crack as there were at least fifty or more pots to go. It was getting lighter with every passing second and with it the likelihood of getting caught. Maybe the spy had lost it and there were no reports in a hollow bottomed pot after all. Maybe they only existed in his cracked imagination. Sweat had started to bead on my forehead and it ran into my eyes. A light had come on here and there; it wouldn’t be long now before I was noticed!

  I started to walk away, when I saw the house number, Rassian Street thirty one. Having an idea, I suddenly skipped ahead to the pot outside the boy’s house. Grabbing my knife from my waist band, I tapped the pot with the haft. Dong! Excited, I swung the haft of the knife again like a hammer against the pot’s side and the sound of breaking pottery echoed loudly up and down the street, but nobody seemed to have heard it. An oil skin pouch lay in the hollow cavity of the underside of the pot and in it I found the spy’s documents. I stuffed the oil skin pouch inside my shirt and made my way towards the door of the house.

  I knocked briskly on the door and it opened almost immediately, surprising me by the suddenness of the action. A middle aged woman stood before me with worry lines creased across her face as she studied me. I repeated the words that the spy had given me. Nodding, she turned and called to someone behind her. A boy stepped past her to stand in front. The woman gave him a tight hug, kissed him on the head and then shut the door quickly, as tears streamed out from the corners of her eyes. The boy turned away from the closed door to face me. The boy was a sturdy looking one and he bore the pack on his back well.

  “When do I see my father?” he asked almost immediately, with an earnest eagerness.

  I shook my head stiffly and said, “He’s not coming with us.”

  “I see,” said the boy softly.

  He looked away from me, ducking his head down as he did so. It was growing lighter by the second. We needed to get out of here before the changing of the guard at the jail took place and they closed the cities’ gates.

  “We need to go, follow me quickly and as silently as you can. Can you ride a horse?”

  “Yes, a little anyway,” he said, lifting his head back up. I pretended not to see the moistness gathered in the corners of his eyes.

  We were miles away from the city when I looked back and saw the first signs of pursuit in the distance. From then on our lives had been one of constant action. We moved northward in an irregular manner as I eluded the pursuit that had gradually grown more distant.

  It was dark enough now to move on and I woke the boy, who came awake, startled. We mounted up and I led the way through the darkness that was gently highlighted by the glow of a half moon. I looked back after an hour and saw that the boy was almost asleep in the saddle, as he relied more on his horse’s natural instinct to follow mine than consciously directing its path himself. It was working for the boy so I let him be and monitored his horse’s progress a little closer to make sure he continued following me.

  The boy hadn’t said a word since we had left Kharta. Looking at him now, hunched over in the saddle with a blanket wrapped around him to ward off the night’s chill, reminded me of the awesome responsibility I had taken upon myself to get this boy to safety in the Valley Lands. I should have left him behind for both our sakes. Still, I didn’t regret my decision completely. If I could get this boy to a better life than I had experienced it would be worth the risk, at least in some ways. Having the boy along had changed my escape route considerably though. He wasn’t up to an all out run for the Valley Lands so I had decided on a route that I hoped our pursuers wouldn’t expect. Instead of taking the obvious route further up through the Hagathic Wastelands, I was taking a gamble on another route. I was going to bypass the Zoarinian forces that I felt sure awaited us on the other side of the Hagathic Wastelands by going partially through the Plains of Zoar, the very heartland of the enemy.

  I doubted that my pursuers would expect even me to do something crazy like that. I would avoid the Zoarinian outposts stationed along the northern border of the Plain of Zoar, by hiring a Kawnia Lake fisherman to take us across the lake and drop us off on the shores of the Silepsium Moors. From there it would be a straight shot to Kingdom Pass and the Valley Lands beyond.

  Two days later we made it into the Lomar Swamplands and if I hadn’t lost anyone still on our tail by now, then I wasn’t going to.

  I had gone back to the camp where I had left my men, hoping to increase the strength of our party northward. But the camp had been deserted with castoff supplies and clothes laying around, like my friends had left in a hurry, without time to pack. I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to cause them to leave one of our most secure camps so hastily. Perhaps it hadn’t been so secure given that the Valley Lander had found us. Just how had he been able to do that? Blind luck I guess.

  I had been looking out for my friends for so long now that I felt like I was somehow at fault for the hard times that seemed to have befallen them in my absence. They would have to make do for themselves from now on, because I wasn’t going back to the life of a bandit. My responsibility was to get the boy to safety as I had promised his father and then get the reports to the high council of the Valley Lands. After that, other things would occur. What they might be I wasn’t sure, I’d just have to discover them along the way. I was anxious to meet this grandfather who had been searching for me for so long. Maybe when I was in the land of my father my purpose in life would be clearer to me. I hoped so.