A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind) (13 page)

“You sound like you’ve experienced the process many times. Tell me does it get any easier?”I asked.

“Yes and no. Having faith is a constant that will always be the same in the surrender and trust that it will require of you, but as time goes by and the more you see of the Creator and how He works in your life the more you will believe.
The more you believe the more faith you’ll have to see you through your journey. I have a lifetime of the Creator’s intervention in my life to attest to His good mercies and blessings. The Creator is always faithful to those who are faithful to Him; this is as much a certainty in regard to your walk with Him as I can tell you of Roric. Now come and help me get these herbs we’ve picked back to the house. We’ll need them for the soup tonight.” Samantha said, as she slipped an arm through mine and let me lead her back to the house.

I spent three weeks with the Kurt family in the little valley among the hills that they called home. During this time my wound had almost completely healed up and I was eager to meet up with my companions and learn of their outcome and that of the children, but I was reluctant to leave the gen
erosity of this kind family.

They had shown me what it was like to be part of a family again, but I had to leave. I said goodbye to each of the Kurt family individually over the course of several days leaving Samantha for last. I had talked to Eliak the day before at the horse corral situated behind the barn. Eliak, be
sides farming also bred horses and not just any kind of horses at that. His horses were among the finest I had ever seen.

He kept two breeding herds. One was ruled over by an older stallion named Ervallion. Ervallion had a stately intel
ligent manner about him that I liked. The other smaller herd was chaperoned over by a big young stallion named Flin.

I had stood next to the corral fencing the past evening, when Eliak had appeared at my side. He moved as silently as a cat, for being such a big man.

We stood silently for awhile admiring the beauty of the majestic creatures in front of us. Ervallion, upon seeing his master came up to the fence and extended his nose to Eliak, who responded by reaching out his hand to fondly stroke the stallion’s muzzle. Hand and nose met in a symbolic gesture of friendship between human and animal that would have been hard to equal in any friendship. One had the sense that there was a long history between them, which Eliak con
firmed. “Ervallion and I have traveled far together, haven’t we old boy.” Patting Ervallion’s neck Eliak looked at me, “He was a gift from your father.”

Astonished I looked back at the horse. Seeming to read my mind Eliak laughed, “Yes, he is old! Older than he looks like me, but like me he still has what it takes.”

At Eliak’s words the slack muscles in Ervallion’s body tensed, as he swelled up his posture in response to his master’s praise. Eliak continued on answering my unspoken question, “Your father was my commander. We were on a mission patrolling our interests in the Litian Plains. We were about to be ambushed, when I spotted some Zoarinian sanctioned bandits in hiding up ahead of us. We turned their near ambush of us into a rout on their part. We killed most of them and captured the rest. It was a great campaign victo
ry.
As the unit’s commander, your father, was summoned to the high council to be specially honored for the success of the mission.
He, among other things was given Ervallion as a gift for his service, but he refused telling all present that the success of the mission was due to me and insisted that they give me the gifts and honor of victory instead. Your father was not the kind of man that cared about achiev
e
ments or glory. He was a good man. I……all his men, would have done anything he asked us to do.”

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 get
ting 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 beau
ty 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 ar
bor, 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 an
swers 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 Crea
tor. 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 re
membered 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 au
thor 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 ever 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 qui
etly 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 recupera
tive 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.