A Warrior's Journey

Book Two

of
The Warrior Kind

Words of Action

Copyright © 2013 by Guy S. Stanton, III.

Published by Guy S. Stanton III at
Smashwords

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Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the
author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used
for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living
or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or
locales is completely coincidental.

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A Warrior’s Journey/ Guy S. Stanton, III. –
2nd ed.

ISBN 978-0-9910565-1-4

Dedicated to all the missionaries

who have and continue to this day to take

the Word of God to the peoples of the

world at great peril and cost to
themselves.

―The Map of the Ancestor’s World

I watched as the steel heated up to a cherry
red glow in the forge before me. Knowing it was time for the next
step I pulled the glowing rod out of the hot coals with the pair of
iron pincers.

The pincers grasped the rod on the tang end
of what would become a sword. I swung around and placed the still
glowing rod across an anvil.

My twin brother, Gavin, began to pound away
with a hand sledge at the semi molten steel. Sparks flew as he
aimed his blows and I adjusted the rod across the anvil in time
with his heavy strikes of the sledge.

Sweat rolled off of both of us, but we
didn’t care. We were too into the love of creating every boy’s
fantasy object, a sword.

We had made swords and knives before, but
this one was special. Our oldest brother, Talaric, had asked us to
make this sword for him. He rarely asked or had so little to do
with us most of the time, which made it a big deal, when he had
asked us to make a coming of age sword, a man’s sword of war.

We were completely engrossed in our work, as
this sword reflected the new found respect that many were coming to
see in our work. I reflected with every pounding hammer strike of
the day that Gavin would help me create my own coming of age sword.
Giving Gavin a glance I surmised that his thoughts consisted of
nothing farther then the joy he received in the pounding of the red
metal into a new creation.

He was predictably content in the moment of
whatever he was doing, it was just the way that he was. My thoughts
always drifted more to the future and the far reaching effects that
I wanted to be a part of. Gavin would probably write a poem about
making the sword later on, which I would probably end up helping
him untangle.

Gavin had a great gift for stating complex
issues into a simpler straight forward way, but when it came to
writing it out he was hopeless. He kept trying though. That is one
thing our father had grilled into us, always keep trying. As long
as the fight was alive than there was a chance for victory over
whatever the obstacle was at the moment.

I was the third son born to my father, Roric
Ta’lont. He was the leader of our realm. Gavin and I were twins,
but Gavin had been born twenty minutes before I had been. We were
far from being identical twins as some were. He was bigger and
brawnier, while I was the leaner and more quick witted one.

Our oldest brother, Talaric was the living
replica of our father. He was slightly bigger than father, but not
as quick, I thought. My father was untouchable in a fight and I
doubt if there would ever be a day he was bested in a fight.

I had two sisters, one older and one
younger. Our oldest sister, Sansa, was like our oldest brother in
that she generally had little to do with us and we her. Our little
sister, Ellanarra, tagged along with me and Gavin wherever we went,
like the wart that we couldn’t get rid of.

Okay that was mean of me. She was okay for a
girl, I guess. I just wished she wasn’t always pestering us. Our
mother was the string that held us all together. She always met us
on the common ground that we needed, at the moment we needed her
most. She was always there for us, for me anyway. I didn’t have
many friends.

Truth be told I didn’t really have any
friends other than her and Gavin. Gavin didn’t really count as he
couldn’t help, but be bonded to me as his twin. There was possibly
someone else that I could call a friend, our fighting instructor
Rolf. He was my father’s closest friend and confidant, other than
my mother. Rolf and I were quite similar in temperament.

We were both quiet and not prone to be
overly talkative, especially to people we did not respect. I
gathered that he quite enjoyed my presence during our quiet sparing
matches and I his. Father had been rather absent from my life for
the past few years and I had convinced myself as to why that
was.

Affairs of state and dealing with my older
brother’s antics seemed to eat up all his time. The latter made me
angry, because I very much wanted my father’s attention too. I had
expressed my anger regarding the usurpation of my father’s
attention by my older brother to my mother once and she had told me
something that had given me peace on the matter.

She had said, “Zevin have you ever
considered that the reason your father is spending more time with
Talaric right now is not because he loves him anymore than he does
you, but rather because that as the future leader of our family
your older brother is lacking in several key aspects important for
leadership that you already posses?”

In genuine consternation at what those
aspects could be I had asked, “What would those be?”

She had taken my hand and looked me directly
in the eye and said, “Your quiet and reserved by nature, which
means you won’t give away what you’re thinking or feeling in a
diplomatic setting. You’re a master at being able to control your
own emotions, which could help you avoid making rash decisions in
either matters of state, war, and even love. When you act upon
something it’s because you’ve already studied every angle to the
problem and have come up with the most likely path to success. When
you act, you fully commit yourself to the action until it is
complete. You’re a natural born leader Zevin and your older brother
is far behind you in so many ways.”

I hadn’t realized that I possessed such
qualities or that I was such an open book to my mother. Her telling
me that had made me feel in some way above the situation and after
that I no longer grew envious of Talaric, for the extra attention
that father gave him.

He needed it more than I did. The knowledge
of that had given me peace and even an odd contentment that enabled
me to walk confidently in my brother’s shadow.

I had asked my mother, “What good does it do
me to have those abilities for leadership seeing as I will never
have the chance to be a leader?”

My mother had only smiled and reached out
her hand to brush the long tendrils of black hair off of my
forehead. “Have patience my son. I am fully encouraged that God has
a plan for you that will utilize all the many gifts that He has
blessed you with.”

My mother always had a way of comforting me
in a way that made me feel special and unique inside. I came back
to the present. My hands hurt from the vibrations caused by Gavin’s
methodical hammer strikes to the hot steel taking shape before us.
It was a good start.

Gavin stopped pounding and I lifted the
rough blade off the anvil and doused it in a barrel of water
nearby. I liked the hiss of the water when the hot iron was passed
through it. Pulling the rough blade back out I laid it to the
side.

“Your good Gavin, there’s no doubting
that!”

Gavin studied it critically, “It could be
better I think, but I guess it will have to do for now.”

I avoided rolling my eyes dramatically.
There was nothing wrong with his hammer work. His problem was that
he was a perfectionist by nature and thus never happy with his
work. It could always be better.

“One day I’ll make you a sword. A special
sword I think.” Gavin said speculatively.

“I know you will and I’ll help you.”

Surprisingly Gavin shook his head no, “No
I’ll make the sword myself and it will be perfect. You deserve such
a sword!” He finished strongly, clearly not wanting to hear another
word on the matter.

I may be the quiet one of the two of us, but
he was by far the more enigmatic one. He was very serious about his
faith in the Creator and talked to Him all the time like the
Creator was right next to him. Maybe He was.

I had often thought that my brother saw more
than the rest of us did, except for maybe my father. My faith walk
with the Creator was simple. I believed in Him, because I had seen
Him witnessed out in the lives of my parents and had experienced
enough of Him in my own life to know that He was real.

I did my best to be faithful to everything
that I knew to please the Creator, but I couldn’t help think that I
was missing something in comparison with my brother’s relationship
with the Creator. I knew this area of belief was perhaps my
parent’s biggest concern with my older brother Talaric. Talaric
loved life and the pursuit of it. Nothing wrong with that alone,
but he had a tendency to overlook or bend the rules. He always did
it though with his charming smile.

Shouts rang out and I heard the lower gate
opening up. Talaric and Larc’s patrol had come back. I left the
blacksmith shop and Gavin to see what news the patrol, if any, had
acquired. At the head of the column rode Talaric and Larc together,
they were laughing about something.

Larc was like a son to my father and if Rolf
was his right hand then Larc was the other hand. Larc was
universally liked by everyone, especially women. They seemed to
have a soft spot for him.

Larc better than anyone was able to control
Talaric’s sudden and often vicious bouts of unreasoning anger. The
patrol had brought back visitors with them. It was Zarsha and her
husband, Captain Jansa from the Tranquil Islands.

Much had been said against her for marrying
an older man, but I for one didn’t see the point of it. Captain
Jansa was a man’s man and he wasn’t that much older than her.

I thought she had done well for herself and
was glad for her. She had always acted like a second mother to me
as I was growing up. I had missed her since she had gone away to
the Tranquil Islands, but things change. That was a lesson that was
being enforced onto my consciousness the older an older that I got.
It was the way it was, like it or not. Change was inevitable in
life.

It was going to be a long visit and I’d pay
my respects later as I had no love for being in the immediate
spotlight of the social meet and greet going on. I ducked out of
view and headed out to the practice field to take out some of my
youthful aggression on some practice dummies, as I escaped away
from the crowds.

Gavin watched his brother skip out and felt
immediately envious of him. He’d like to skip out on all the
greeting stuff to, but as he didn’t practice much he didn’t have
the excuse that Zevin did.

Sudden loud laughter caused Gavin to look
darkly back to the patrol at the laughing form of his older brother
at the head of the column. He doubted whether mother or father
fully knew just how far Talaric had fallen in terms of
morality.