Eliak gripped the fence post with one large hand as he spoke in remembrance of the past. I almost expected to hear the wood squeeze flat under the grip of this bear of a man.
“Your father had the true gifts of a leader. He didn’t have to raise his voice to be instantly heeded by his men or offer them any other inducement than his word for them to believe him. His men knew that he would die for anyone of them, if need be and that he always had their best interests at heart. It was not right for him to die the way he did. Not having a chance to face his enemies with a sword in his hand. You remind me of him a lot in some ways.”
I spoke softly into the evening shadows, “I wasn’t very close to him. I felt like he disapproved of me in some way. I think now it was really just that he lacked the ability to communicate to me how I needed him to. I would have liked to have known him better.” I replied.
“That was how it was with my father too. I made sure to not let that distance happen between my children and me.” Eliak said.
“You have been very kind to me Eliak. I wouldn’t have made it without your help. Thank you Eliak.”
Eliak ignored my outstretched hand and reached out and enveloped me in his mighty arms in a bear hug that surprised me.
Drawing back slightly, until his hands rested on my shoulders, he said looking deeply into my eyes, “Trust in the Creator and follow His direction is the best advice I can give you. It has served me well all my life. The time will come Roric in your life when all hope will seem to fade. In that moment look to the Creator and He will fight for you and lift you up to a place of honor. But like your father I hope you give the glory that you receive back to whom it truly belongs to. It is the Creator’s strength and not any of your own that will sustain you in the harsh moments of life and help you to do what you are destined to do for His kingdom.”
Nodding my head in acceptance of his words I said, “I’ve already started down that road it would seem. May the Creator give me the strength to complete the journey.”
Smiling Eliak slapped my shoulder and said, “He will. Now I wish to return the gift that was given to me by your father. After all it does say in the Holy Words that it is ‘more blessed to give than to receive.’”
Puzzled, I followed his hand gesture. He was pointing at the younger stallion in the adjoining corral. Flin flicked an interested ear up at being the topic of discussion.
“One of my brood mares escaped into the inner canyons of the Ernor hills where the wild horse packs roam. She was bred by a wily old stallion that has evaded my capture on several occasions, but I was successful in getting the mare back from him. Since then I have been content to let him rule his kingdom as I do mine. Flin is his colt and a finer young stallion would be hard to come by. He is as Ervallion was in his younger days and perhaps more. I give him to you, and may he serve you well.”
Wordlessly I stared at the magnificent animal that had just become mine. Never had I received such a gift.
I spent the rest of the evening listening to old war stories of Eliak and my father. It felt good to stand next to someone who had been a friend of my father. It was almost like getting to be near him again. I soaked up the words filling in the missing gaps of my father’s legacy finding room for growth within myself to be more like he had been in life.
The next day I found Samantha in her flower garden, as I had expected to because that was where she usually was this time of late morning. I paused admiring the simplistic beauty of her flower garden before I approached her. She paused from her weeding, and glanced up somehow sensing my presence.
She smiled, “Good morning Roric, can I help you with something?”
“No. No, actually I’ve come to thank you for all the help and kindness you’ve already given me and to say goodbye.” I choked out with more emotion creeping into my voice than I had intended.
She got up from her knees, where she had been weeding and motioned me over to sit on a bench that sat under an arbor, wreathed with several different flowering vines.
Sitting she took my hand and held it between hers and looked up at me and said, “Roric I would like to pray with you before you leave. Do you mind?”
Shaking my head no I watched as she closed her eyes and began to pray.
“Dear Lord, I thank you for sparing the life of Roric and for using us your humble servants to help him. Lord, I pray that you will go before Roric as he leaves us and help him to live a life that is pleasing to You. Help him to find the answers that he seeks and release him from the bitterness of his past. I pray that You would provide him a hope and a future as Your word says. May your will be done in his life all his days, in Your Son’s Holy Name I ask these things, Amen.”
We sat there quietly for a while listening to the bees busy at work on the flowers.
“I don’t deserve everything you and your family have done for me Samantha. I really don’t. I’ve done things that would cause my own mother to turn away from me.” I said reflectively.
“Then you didn’t know your mother as well as I did Roric.” She replied.
“Roric, you must understand something about the Creator. The Creator loves you unconditionally. He has a hope and a future for each one of us, who believes in His name and the name of His Son and what His Son did for us. This is the case regardless of what we have done in our pasts, so long as we confess our misdeeds and live a life that seeks to please Him in the present. Roric something that will help you a lot is to work on building a personal relationship with your heavenly Father. The Creator isn’t just up there.” Samantha said gesturing up to the sky, “He’s all around us, involved in everything seen and unseen.”
Unseen, I thought to myself remembering the things that had been happening lately that testified to a much greater influence than mere coincidence. There was no doubting the unseen Divine presence, which had stifled the tiger’s roar or given me utterance in an unknown tongue that had brought peace into my soul.
There was also a darker unknown force at work. I remembered the man from the arena dungeon and the hooded figure, who had been torturing Treorna.
Seeming to read my mind she said, “There is much that takes place in the world around us that we are not aware of Roric. We call it the spirit world and it contains both good and evil. I know that you have seen what evil can do. Be wary of something in concern to evil Roric. Evil can take many forms and on the surface appear not to be evil at all. But even as dark as things can appear in this life, it is important to see the whole picture and know the full power of the Author of all life. The Creator can do anything, and is involved down to the minutest detail in everything around us. Evil does not triumph over the good things of the Creator’s creation.”
“Are there good things that are not of the Creator?” I asked.
Shaking her head no she said, “Even though it may appear that there are we know that there are not, because of what one of the Holy Scripture verses that we still have says. It basically says that every good thing is of God. And the way to tell whether something is good is whether it confesses that Jesus is the Son of the Creator and that the Son has come in the flesh and is He who was slain, and is now the redeemer of all mankind. A simpler way of putting it that is illustrated in the Holy Scriptures is an allegory concerning two different fruit trees. One tree bears good fruit the other bears bad fruit. You can discern whether or not something is good or evil in life, by the fruit it bears, whether it be good or bad fruit. The condition of the fruit alerts you to the author of the situation.”
Soaking her words in as if it had been my own mother’s sound wisdom I sat for awhile longer enjoying the peace of the garden and her presence.
“I have much to learn, but I understand more than I did before. I thank you.” I said smiling fondly at her.
“Roric, if you have gained spiritual insight through any words of mine don’t thank me, but rather the Spirit of the Creator that works through me to accomplish something greater than I could e
ver do on my own. Come, let’s go into the house and I’ll help Dorie finish putting together your provisions for the journey and then we’ll say goodbye.”
Reluctantly getting up I followed her into the house quietly reflecting on all she had said and how much I already missed her and her family. As I crossed the threshold of the door I heard a gasp that sounded like Dorie, and I sensed a sudden movement in the room ahead of me. Before my eyes could adjust to the dimmer interior light a crushing blow hit the back of my head and I was falling into a black void that opened up in front of me.
Slowly consciousness returned and with it the sensation of pain, which kept my eyelids firmly shut. My head felt like it had been used in a game of street ball.
I became aware of the sensation of something else disturbing, a rocking motion of my whole body. Yes, I was swinging, or maybe I had been hit harder on the head than I had realized. Heat! The sensation of heat also occurred more rapidly to me. The thought of swinging combined with heat reminded me of a pig roast, except in this scenario I would be the substitute for the pig. Panic at the possibility of being cooked over a fire can provide amazing recuperative powers. I sat up in my swinging prison and opened my eyes painfully against the bright light. Coming quickly to an immediate awareness of my surroundings I was glad to see that there was not a fire kindled beneath me. Instead it had been the heat of the mid afternoon sun beating down on me that I had felt. As for the swinging, I was suspended in a sturdy looking wooden cage, which hung over the side of a nearby wagon.
Hearing the murmur of voices coming from behind me I turned as best as I could within the tight confines of my suspended prison, still not comprehending the situation well. A cold liquid sensation engulfed me from my head down as I saw a figure off to my right throw something at me. Coming to a full realization I looked around me, as water dripped off my face.
A large group of angry people were gathered along a narrow bench in the lee side of the hill that overlooked the Kurt’s family farm in the valley below. Near the edge of the gorge surrounded by Zoarinian guards stood the Kurt family. Gripping the bars of my cage with white knuckled fingers I tried to call out to them, but was stopped by a voice off to my right.
“It won’t do you any good to cry out to them Roric. Besides haven’t you caused them enough trouble already?”
I turned my attention to the voice’s owner and saw the robed figure from the citadel, who had tortured Treorna. Every fiber in my being united in that instant in an overwhelming desire to see this man, if you could call him that, utterly destroyed.
Meeting my stare and seemingly taking great amusement from what he saw there he leaned forward and tauntingly said, “Yes, I know you hate me. How helpless you must feel, almost as helpless as poor dear Treorna was. She begged for me to kill her in the end, crushed by the fact that her God did not come to her rescue. I of course had to heed her request. So I cut out her heart, while she recanted of her treasonous betrayal of the sacred trust bestowed on her as a high priestess.”
I lunged for him a guttural roar passing through my lips. My fingers narrowly missed the fabric of his clothes, as I reached for him through the bars. He stepped back from my cage laughing uproariously at my attempt to grab him.
His cold lifeless eyes flickering their disdain for me reminded me of a snake. He spoke again, “Don’t worry Roric, the headache you’ve caused us will soon be over, but first what do you say to a little entertainment? Oh by the way the name’s Marfoul, the author of your demise and all you hold dear.” He said, as he did a mock bow in front of me.
Marfoul rose from his bow cockily and then pranced away from me towards the crowd gathered on the cliff top overlooking the canyon. “Good people of the Zoarinian Uplands, loyal friends of the cities of the Plain, hear my words.”
The crowd ceased their muttering as they turned all their attention to the devilishly commanding figure in front of them. “These citizens that stand before you are spies of our hated nemesis, the Valley Landers.”
Boos erupted from the crowd.
“Yes, yes I know it’s hard for me to believe too, that people such as these could make their home in our midst under the pretense of being loyal citizens, while all the while they were plotting our demise behind our backs.”
Roars of anger erupted from the crowd, who pushed against the guards holding them back from the Kurt family, who were arrayed along the cliff’s edge.
“Should we offer them forgiveness for their trespasses and let them go?” Marfoul asked.
Shouts of ‘No kill them!’ erupted from the crowd.
Marfoul shrugged his shoulders and glanced at me his eyes sparkling with mischief, “What can I say, the people have spoken. Who am I to say otherwise?”
Shaking the bars of my cage I screamed, “Let them go! They’ve done nothing wrong! If it’s blood you want then kill me, but let them go they’re innocent!”
Marfoul laughed as he advanced toward Samantha, “Afraid I can’t do that Roric. They are after all traitors for harboring and abetting you, and what’s worse than that is that they are Creator-worshipers.”
He seemed to spit out the last word with utter hatred. Turning to the crowd he announced jubilantly, “I think it’s time to get the festivities you came to see underway, don’t you?”
The crowd roared its approval not knowing what was going to happen, but expecting to see a good show, especially whenever one of the Temple Brotherhood was involved.
Marfoul reached an arm around Samantha’s shoulder, who tried her best to pull back from him, but he wouldn’t let her. She was at the end of the line. Her three boys and Dorie stood between her and Eliak. All of them were connected to a single length of rope, with their hands bound in front of them to the rope.
Suddenly, Marfoul bent and kissed Samantha forcefully on the mouth for a long moment, even as she resisted bitterly. Eliak roared like an enraged bull and started forward for Samantha and Marfoul, but was brought up short by several spears leveled out against him.
Marfoul drew his head back sharply, blood staining his lip from where Samantha had managed to bite him. He struck her sharply across the face, with the back of his hand.
Marfoul seeing that Eliak was about ready to walk through spear points to get to his wife’s side sneered and said, “Well if you want her that much big boy go and get her!” And with that taunt said Marfoul shoved Samantha over the cliff’s edge.
Samantha’s face was white with terror as she fell, but she mouthed three words to her family before she disappeared over the edge.
“Samantha!” Eliak roared out, as he ran towards the edge of the cliff.
The slack quickly disappeared from the line between Samantha and her eldest son, and as the line drew taught it jerked him off his feet along with his two brothers and Dorie. He slid off the side of the cliff following after his mother before he had a chance to catch a grip on the cliff top. He was soon followed by his brothers and sister. They tried desperately to hold onto something to halt their free fall, but failed to do so as they were dragged toward the edge screaming hysterically in terror. As Dorie disappeared over the edge she screamed out, “Daddy!”
It could have all been over then but for one thing. One man’s love for his family and the will to do whatever it took to protect them. Uttering a cry that rocked the hills Eliak bellowed, “Creator give me strength!”
The rope went taut and the crowd sucked in a collective gasp. Eliak remained standing, how I do not know. He was poised on the very edge of the gorge with the rope gripped in his bloody hands. Eliak giving one great heave jerked up on the rope and managed to get it over his shoulder as blood ran freely from his bound hands, where the rope had sawed into his wrists. He turned away from the cliff’s edge.
It looked like he would be pulled over backwards for one moment when he turned, but he managed to stabilize himself and then he began to walk. Short step by step the rope inched up over the cliff’s edge. Dust rose from each heavy lade
n step forward, and all that could be heard in the stillness was the heavy breathing of Eliak.
The crowd remained breathless, as they witnessed the super human struggle taking place before them. Suddenly, Dorie was at the cliff top pulled along by her father, as she made every effort to stand and help ease her father’s burden. The youngest boy made it over the cliff’s edge slowly followed by the second oldest boy. Both boys fought to get to their feet.
Gaining their feet they began to trudge after their father with all their heart. The untested muscles of two boys performing more than many a grown man’s ever will. Elim, the oldest boy made it over the edge and got to his feet and added his strength to the line.
Eliak fell heavily to his knees, the life spent out of him, but he still continued to crawl forward, even as droplets of blood sprayed the dust in front of him from lungs that were shattered from the strain of the pull.
Finally Samantha made it to the cliff top, as her lips moved fervently in what I knew were prayers to her Creator. Samantha and her children rushed to their father’s side just as he collapsed into the dust of the cliff top. They gathered around him touching him, with their bound and bloody hands praying fervently for his life like only a praying family can.
Tears streamed down my face as I gripped the bars of my cage impotently. I turned my head to glance at Marfoul. All smiles and false joviality were gone and were now replaced openly with a naked hatred that radiated out from every part of his being.
A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind) Page 10
