My voice echoed slightly in the empty room, “Thy will be done, but I do ask this of You. Please help me rescue Zarsha and escape with her, Krista, and my uncle’s information to the Valley Lands. If your plans for me are different then help me obey and fulfill them even if it means losing my life. My life is yours to do with as You wish, but ………..” I stumbled to say the last part, “I don’t want to die yet. Especially when everything seems like it’s turning out for the better.”
My last words seemed in someways to be a betrayal of my faith somehow. It was clear that I still did not trust the Creator with everything and the knowledge of that tormented me even more than the thought of what tomorrow would bring. There was little peace to be found in the wake of my empty words that lacked faith. No voice from heaven echoed in the cell informing me of how or if deliverance would come.
I sighed and hoped that there would be an answer tomorrow. The important thing though was that despite my lack of faith the Creator would not forsake me, but that was no guarantee that I wouldn’t die to this life in order to take part in the next. Would that be so bad anyway?
I could hear the crowd crying out in a pitched fervor of excitement before I even saw them. It was a sound I hated and had never wanted to hear again and yet like a bad toothache it was back with throbbing intensity.
Before I emerged out of the tunnel into the arena I whispered out to the Creator suddenly overcome with the fear of what would happen to Zarsha, if I failed to survive whatever test they had lined up for me in the arena this time, “Are you with me Lord?” I felt nothing in terms of an answer.
My spirit felt heavy within me as I continued to trudge towards the arena. I couldn’t believe how my last experience in the arena, where the mouths of tigers had been stopped supernaturally seemed to have been completely forgotten. I was such a terrible follower of the Creator to doubt His abilities to save me given what He had already done for me!
I didn’t have any more time to think about my sudden and complete lack of faith as I was thrust out into a scene from hell. The arena was large and as grand in appearance as any of those in the five cities of Zoar.
The crowd was cheering, but it wasn’t me they were cheering for. It was him! A face from the past that I had hoped to never see again, the unholy creature of a man with dead eyes and a hollow laugh, who I had been celled next to so many years before in the arena. His demented sounding laugh could be heard above the din of the crowd and I knew I was in for the fight of my life.
What made everything worse was the sight of Zarsha strapped to a pole in the center of the arena. My trepidation over my opponent vanished upon sight of Zarsha. I had to win at all costs as I could already guess what lay in store for Zarsha if I failed to protect her.
I felt the old uncaring anger rise up inside of me and I embraced the hateful quality of it, as it coursed through my veins and settled over me like a well worn cloak that I hadn’t worn in a very long time. Every fiber of my being was alive and tensed for the struggle to stay alive, as I strode purposefully toward my opponent locked on his every move.
The crowd noise dimmed to a hushed calm, like the calm that precedes a storm, as they caught sight of my purposeful approach across the sands of the arena floor. My opponent had never been beaten, but neither had I.
I was a fighter, who had made many Zoarinians wealthy from the bets placed on my head, but I doubted that I would acquire many backers today against this opponent. Sensing my approach the wild man turned to face me.
“So we meet again for the last time! In an hour’s time from now I will feast upon your still beating heart!”
Throwing his head back the same inhuman laugh echoed out as I had heard from years before and it had lost nothing in its intensity of bone chilling fascination. He was completely insane and loved being so. It didn’t’ matter, I was going to win the fight, because I had to.
“This is going to be the way of it little storm man. The girl, she is precious to you or so I have been told. If you want to save her you have to defend her from me. I promise I’ll make her suffering last and leave you alive just long enough so you can watch her scream as she dies painfully.”
He threw his head back once again as a maniacal laugh of sheer darkness issued forth. The crowd gathered in the bleachers to watch the spectacle chanted praises to their champion. It was a sick acknowledgement of the loss of their morality and the intrinsic value of love from their souls.
Suddenly the wild man grabbed a javelin stuck in the sand before him and threw it straight at Zarsha. Zarsha only had enough time to gasp as she saw her death fast approaching.
The javelin thudded heavily into the small round shield I was equipped with. It twisted my arm painfully to the side on impact, but at least it had not found its intended target. The shield had shattered from the impact of the javelin and was now useless. I threw it to the side retaining the javelin for myself. Breathing heavy from the exertion of moving to intercept the javelin, I faced the wild man.
“Not bad little storm man, but what about this?”
With a crazed roar he charged waving a large sword overhead. I threw the javelin hard and unbelievably he picked it out of mid air and threw it right back at me.
I barely batted the javelin to the side with my sword before he was upon me. Steel rang out loudly against steel in a furious series of clangs. I was driven backward by his bullish advance of raw power.
It took every ounce of skill to evade his wild powerful sword swings. When our swords clanged loudly together it was all I could do to withstand the crushing force behind his blade. The strength behind his blows threatened to jar my sword right out of my hands. The empty glaring eyes and slavering open jaws of my opponent befitted a crazed beast more than they did the visage of a man.
We were getting dangerously close to Zarsha and I feared what might happen if he was to get too close to her. I asked my heart for more and I increased my effort to hold him back and I managed to stop his approach. Never had I fought against such strength. There seemed to be no dimming in the unbridled capacity of strength he possessed. My breathing sounded like the bellows of a blacksmiths and I could feel the rapid beat of my heart pounding in my chest even as it echoed loudly in my ears.
Sweat streamed off of me and burned as it got into my eyes. I half lost my footing for a moment and seizing the advantage the wild man grabbed me at the shoulder and heaved me away to the side. I fell head over heels and continued on over to land back onto my feet. I quickly turned to face him, but He wasn’t there! Where was he?
Horror stricken, my searching eyes found him standing beside Zarsha. A smirk of pure evil creased his wild face as he casually drew his blade tip down the length of one of Zarsha’ arms. A thin red line of blood appeared in the wake of the blade’s passage. Zarsha made not a sound, but continued to stare at me steadfastly, looking to me for protection, as big tears rolled down her face.
Suddenly I saw my father’s death again in my mind’s eye. I had been helpless to do anything as he had been killed by lesser men under the cover of ambush. I wasn’t that same helpless boy any longer. I had seen the impossible done before and Eliak’s words from the cliff became mine, “God give me strength!”
The wild man heard my plea to the Creator and laughed out loud at it. “God? Who’s He? Does it look like He’s helping you? If this is helping you I’d hate to think about what Him not helping you looks like. Maybe it looks something like this!”
He turned and stabbed Zarsha in the shoulder with his sword. She screamed and I came unhinged. He wheeled to face my charge, but I batted his sword away and with a roar of pure fury, I grabbed a hold of him and threw him bodily away from Zarsha.
He landed some fifteen feet away and got to his feet quickly. In my right hand I held my sword and in my left hand I clutched the pointed end of the broken javelin that I had picked up off the sand. I had never felt so much unreasoning anger before in my life, and I couldn’t have cared less as t
o whatever creature of wrath that it was making me into in this moment of anguish.
The image of him stabbing Zarsha replayed in my mind again and again causing me to feel so white hot that I feared I might catch on fire and that would have been okay, as long as I consumed this man and took him with me. This unholy menace of an individual had to be destroyed!
He charged with a roar, as he had once before and I met him with an intensity that threatened to supersede his. I held him with a resounding clash of steel and then I began to back him up across the arena. The crowd was beside itself in its jubilance over the one of a kind spectacle playing out before them. No one had ever offered up such a challenge to the wild man before such as this.
I lost track of time and space. I knew only the next motion; I planned nothing, but fought and reacted instinctively. I was inflicting damage as a result of both my skillful fighting experience and the brute strength I was employing against my hated foe.
I hadn’t inflicted any serious wounds, but the broken off javelin point in my left hand had left a half dozen jagged wounds in my opponent that were bleeding freely. I had not escaped injury however. I was nicked up almost everywhere and there was a deep cut across my left thigh that hurt when I moved.
I didn’t care; instead I used the pain to spur me on to greater effort. I was winning! Suddenly something changed in the air around me and I found myself knocked backward through it. I skidded off the sandy arena floor several times before slamming hard into the arena wall. What had that been?
I lifted myself up off the sand fighting for air not understanding what had just happened. The wild man was upon me before I knew it and it was all I could do to deflect his sword while I tried to catch my breath.
Suddenly he swiped my sword aside and sliced my left arm badly. I dropped the javelin point and fell backwards trying to escape the next deadly swipe of his blade. I got to my feet shakily and continued to back up as I did so. My left arm was useless and hung by my side with blood running from it freely into the thirsty sands of the arena.
I prepared for the next assault as best as I could but it didn’t come. He just stood there watching me. The cocky smirk was gone replaced now by a look of cold calculation. I noticed the javelin point I had dropped earlier in his free hand. He motioned towards Zarsha with his head and I glanced at her. She didn’t look well.
She had lost a lot of blood from her shoulder wound and looked visibly weakened. He drew back his arm and I screamed vainly reaching out toward him, “NO!”
He threw the javelin point as one would a knife. I watched it thud sickenly into Zarsha’s stomach. The little girl screamed out in pain. I half stumbled, half crawled my way over to her. Pulling myself up in front of her I lifted my blood stained fingers to her face.
“I’m so sorry! I failed you! I promised to protect you! I’m so sorry!”
The little girl, who had worked her way so easily into my heart and spoke so rarely spoke now with an elegance far beyond her years.
“You did your best father. Thank you for rescuing me from the forest and showing me love! I love you!”
I heard her last slurred words and watched as her head fell forward in death. My world had crumbled and I was left alone once again. Roaring I surged to my feet and turned to face the monster, who had murdered my wonderful little girl. I came face to face with his triumphantly smiling face and I felt his sword slice through my middle and out my back. In frustrated fury I shoved him back from me. He fell sprawling at my feet and I yanked the sword out from my stomach with a heave even as my life’s blood drained out with it. He scrambled backwards out of reach and I took his sword and lifting my knee I broke it over it and then I threw the pieces of it at him.
I pointed at him and then at the silent audience that was as quiet as the grave all around us and said, “I curse you this day! For your actions reveal you worthy to receive full judgment by the living God instead of His mercy! It would have been better that you had never been born for the guilt you bear in letting this precious little girl die at the hands of a monster! The innocent life that you have taken here this day,” I pointed at Zarsha, “is upon your heads and I pray that my God brings His wrath down upon you like never before for you have no love in your hearts, your actions are utterly wicked, and you even yet have no shame for your actions but instead your thirst for evil grows with every passing moment! I pity you for my God’s wrath will be swift and sure, and He will judge you for the blood you have spilled this day beyond any measure that you could ever count out!”
I looked at their hollow faces a moment longer and then I felt the ground hit me as I fell to it and the world became dizzy and out of focus. The sand of the arena touched my face and I watched my bloody fingers move in the sand in front of me. Had it really come down to this?
Had I escaped the arena for a brief season, only to die in it at the end? Soon all the pain would be over and I would be free to go through that door with the streaming light like the Kurt’s had done. I was grateful for my season away from the arena anyway. I had learned much and I knew what the next step would be and it was okay, better than okay it was more than I could ever have deserved or hoped for. My eyes were drifting shut and I felt my breathing still.
“Roric.”
My eyes opened and drifted upward. A figure of a man knelt beside me, the man from the cliff top who had given me my commission. I smiled; He had come to take me home. Suddenly I frowned.
“I’m sorry I failed you! I lacked faith. Please forgive me!”
A scarred hand reached out and wiped the regret from off my face. “Level no such blame against yourself as I do not. As My Father has written, ‘In the weakness of man God’s strength is made manifest.’”
“I don’t understand?” I mumbled out.
“Your time here is not yet complete Roric. You have much to do and experience yet before you enter the Kingdom and the resting place that I have prepared for such as you until all things are remade in newness.”
He rose up from me and left as if He had never been there, but I felt His presence strong inside of me as if He had never left.
The presence of His Holy Spirit moved within me and my lips moved and said words that weren’t mine, “From the dust of the ground I made you. From the breath of My nostrils I gave you life. I am the great I AM and there is none other before Me. Rise now son of my creation and stand forth as an example that I Am a God who restores and gives life where there was none before!”
I started to obey even though I knew I must surely be dead by now. My bloody hand in the sand in front of me caught my eye. Grains of sand from the arena floor were trailing up my hand in wispy tendrils. As the traveling rivulets of sand encountered a wound they flowed into me.
It was an odd feeling, like being remade all over again. The sand went in one wound and came out another in search of the next one. The wounds I was covered in disappeared before my eyes.
I held my hand up. There wasn’t even a scar! This couldn’t be a dream could it? I got to me knees and watched as sand poured out of the mortal wound through my middle as the flesh closed up after the sands exodus from me. I got to my feet as the rest of my wounds disappeared. As long as I lived I would not forget this!
“How awesome! You are my God! There is none other like You! Well does your word say that You have power over all things for You have made me whole again!”
The crowd had been going wild in adulation of the wild man’s victory, but now they were calling out to him frantically pointing at me behind him. He had gone to fetch a sword to no doubt cut my heart out with, when he stopped as he registered the crowd’s shouted exclamations of surprise and alarm in place of their former jubilance of him. Turning he saw me standing there and he rushed for the sword laying a few feet away from him, but the sands of the arena opened up and swallowed it.
The crowd murmured in hushed fright at the sight of the unexplained disappearance of the sword. I strode towards the wild man w
ithout a weapon in my hand. He wasn’t so cocky anymore and it was clear to me now that he had been helped out in the fight against me by the darkness he let reign in him.
Nothing else could explain how he had thrown me across the entire arena, when it looked as if I was about to overpower him. Innate hatred and fury poured out of his eyes at me. His eyes were deep pools of darkness ringed with fire.
“You are still but a man! We will destroy you now!”
The figure of the wild man burst into flames and a deeper voice of darkness broke forth fouling the air with its utterance.
“We will devour you now! Nothing can stop us!”
I continued to stride purposefully toward the demon horde now manifested in the burning aberration of what had once been a man, who had chosen poorly.
“You’re wrong foul and crooked spirits! By the Lord’s authority and majesty, who you lift yourself up against unworthily I cast you down!”
Inhuman screams sounded out, that would have chilled even the stoutest of souls, but I kept walking sure of my Creator’s authority even as I felt His living imprint within me.
The burning wreckage of a man flung fire upon me as I neared, but it separated out around me and sputtered out. My Creator’s words were true. My Creator was my shield, strength and hope in time of need.
I reached the burning figure and I grabbed it by the throat, “Enough! You have enthralled these people long enough with your sorceries! Be gone now in the Son of the Creator’s Name!”
The burning man that I grasped by the throat exploded into a thousand light particles and was no more, along with the aberrations of darkness that had possessed him. The arena was still and silent except for the weeping and moaning of all those gathered to watch the spectacle that had turned into something much more spectacular.
A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind) Page 25
