A Warrior's Journey (3 page)

He extended the handle to Roric, “How about
you find out for yourself!”

I was glad it was starting to cool off as I
went through the moves of the sword dance. Dances of war where
practiced in order to sharpen the warrior’s skill in both
proficiency and conditioning. This was like the fourth time through
this particular exercise and my endurance was being put to the
test, but I had asked for it.

I swung around on the ball of one foot to
sweep my blade into another death dealing arc that is, if there had
been an enemy before me.

Clang!

My hand stung from the unexpected force of
the collision of blades, but I held onto the sword. My eyes traced
down the opposing blade to meet my father’s eyes. He inclined his
head in a slight nod indicating his challenge.

This was for real. He wanted me to bring it.
The heady thrill of the challenge overwhelmed me and what good
sense I had left vanished from me, as I moved to the attack.

This wasn’t a choreographed war dance, but
in a way it became one. Sword found sword in an endless heated
exchange of spinning movement and clamor of noise. Attacks were met
and defended and played back again.

The tempo only increased and time was lost.
Sweat rolled off of me in rivulets, as the clash of wills continued
marked by the hot sparks sheeting off the swords that had begun to
glow.

It suddenly occurred to me that this was fun
and I felt myself laughing with the joy of war, even as my
enjoyment of the clash spurred me on to greater endeavor. Father
was teaching me something in this clash of free swings and
individual moves.

Despite the freedom of our fight there was
still an expected order to it. A way of sensing what came next. I
was tired, but this was too rare an event to dare stop and besides
I wanted to win. So I continued to soak up the attention and the
experience and give out my best in return.

Krista stopped beside Rolf and watched the
two fighters that appeared to be deep in mortal combat with each
other.

“Oh my Rolf!” said Krista lifting a hand to
her mouth.

She couldn’t help but feel concerned for the
viciousness of the fighting before her, but she was proud too and
it showed.

The two combatants waged a war across the
practice field before them. Lunging, parrying, sliding, jumping,
ducking, sidestepping, and so on. The clanging of the swords was a
constant hum of vibrating noise.

“He is good is he not?” Rolf asked smiling
smugly.

“You’re amazing Rolf!” Responded Krista, as
she watched the fight go on breathlessly.

“I only trained and disciplined the mind,
the rest is all him. He has reflexes as quick as any cat, and an
insatiable need for challenge. A little more experience and he’ll
be one of the best.”

Krista had enough. It was clear to her that
neither of them had any quit in them. She strode purposefully onto
the practice field that had become the scene of an epic battle,
hoping that the two zoned in opponents would notice her before
whacking her in two.

They drew briefly apart and she quickly
stepped in between them holding up her hands. The two opponents
still deep in the fog of their battle halted and it was almost
comical to see them come to a sense of the outside world again.
They stood there panting like dogs on a hot summer day.

“Gentlemen I declare a tie and as a reward
you may kiss the mistress of ceremonies.”

She heard Zevin chuckle and he half stumbled
forward to smack a sweaty kiss on the cheek she offered, drenching
her in the process.

“Oh yuck! You’re positively dripping wet!”
She laughed as she wiped the sweat and grime off of her cheek.

Zevin looked over at Roric and they shared a
look that spoke volumes.

Man talk, mused Krista, as she regarded the
masculine communication of two powerful males.

Zevin stumbled off towards Rolf, who tossed
him a towel and slapped him hard on the back, as they made their
way off the practice field. As they disappeared from view Krista
walked over to Roric, who was standing with his hands on his hips
still panting.

“Well old man are you going to live?” She
asked half laughing.

Roric looked down at her and shook his head
dazedly, “When did this happen?” He said gesturing after Zevin.

Krista drew close to her husband and slung
his arm over the back of her shoulders and started leading him to
their tower.

“Overnight honey, at least that’s how it
seems. We have to get you to a bath you scroungy beast!”

“A bath sounds like fun.” Roric said as he
kissed the top of his wife’s head and slipped his hand down to
possessively squeeze her rear.

“Stop it Roric Ta’lont! We don’t have time
for such things right now! We have to get you ready for the banquet
tonight and besides wasn’t your lunch satisfactory enough for you
today?”

“My lunch was very satisfactory, but I’m
hungry again.” Roric said as he leaned down and kissed her
passionately.

As the kiss faded Krista breathed out, “I
suppose we could make a little time, if you want, after all you are
the master of the castle.”

Roric had steadily been pushing Krista
backward during the kiss into the concealment of a grape arbor off
to the side of the practice field.

“Roric what do you think you’re doing?”

“Why I’m about to enjoy the beautiful woman
that the Creator gave me. Do you have a problem with that my
love?”

Krista’s back pressed up against the back of
the grape arbor wall and she smiled, as she stood up on her toes to
kiss her sweaty husband, “No master, none at all.”

The banquet was loud and stacked to
overflowing with people. I wasn’t particularly fond of being
anywhere where the two were combined. I stayed only long enough to
feed my ravaging appetite and then I slipped out. Once out in the
night air I drank in the evening’s coolness like it was a
nourishing tonic.

The sounds of the party drifted out to me
and only served to secure my place in the world as a loner. An
outsider from the glitzy world of the party that so many seemed
free to partake in, but that I was locked away from by choice of
will and the character that I had been born as.

I felt moody as I headed toward the western
tower that I called home. When we had reached twelve years of age
we had been given permission to live within reason, where we had
wanted to in the castle. I had chosen the western tower loft.

It was rivaled only in height by the eastern
tower, where my parents lived close by, in their cliffside
quarters. I liked the privacy of it and as long as I kept my loft
room in good shape for my mother’s sporadic inspections I was
allowed to stay there. I could already feel the stiffness of the
sparring match with father beginning to set into my tired
muscles.

All evening long I had replayed every
blessed moment of our match together in my head over and over. I
had held my own against the greatest warrior of our people, which I
had the honor of calling father. I made my way into the tower and
started trudging upward wearily.

This was the not so good side of living in a
tower, so many stairs. When I reached the loft of the tower I
didn’t even bother to undress before I collapsed onto my bed. The
physical rigors of the day had me asleep within moments.

The hours of the night progressed, until the
early morning light grew gray with light, before the sun had yet
risen.

“Zevin!”…….“Zevin!”

Dimly it registered to me that someone was
calling my name. I raised my head off the pillows slightly alarmed
by that, even in my delirium of restful fatigue. No one ever
entered my tower loft during the night and yet the voice sounded as
if it was close by.

“Zevin!”

The voice came to me much louder or did it
just seem louder. I bolted upright in the bed and peered around
into the morning gloom of the room in search of the voice’s
owner.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as
it registered to me that there was nobody in the room except for
me.

“Stand up Zevin!”

The voice didn’t have to tell me twice, as I
had jumped out of my bed at the first sound of it. In my hand I
brandished the small knife I kept on my belt, as I stared deeply
into the corners of the room wide eyed in search of the voice that
felt like it was all around me in the room.

“Zevin are you listening?”

I was breathing heavy, as I responded in a
voice that was full of fear, “Yes, who wants to know?”

“I Am that I Am speaks to you.”

The knife dropped from my hand to the floor,
as did I, in a quivering mass of nervous anticipation.

My breathing had seized up within me, even
as the voice spoke again into my very being, “Fear not Zevin for I
Am is with you. Rise quickly, as your father has need of you!”

I felt propelled up to my feet, but I
couldn’t stop the shaking. My father needed me? I saw one of the
shelves in my room light up from some unseen light source upon
it.

I went toward the shelf, unsure of what I
would find there, but somehow driven to find out. There on the
shelf lay my bow that was highlighted by an ambient glow, as were
my arrows beside it. I picked up both the bow and my quiver of
arrows.

The light fell to the floor from off the bow
and its arrows to trace across the floor. It was headed for the
balcony outside the tower. I followed the light, as if driven to
follow it by some inexplicable urge from within. The light traveled
up the doors to the balcony to the lock, where there was a sudden
audible click, as the formerly locked doors separated apart and
opened before me.

I swallowed hard and stepped through the
open doors onto the balcony beyond, the morning air chilled against
my face. I shivered from a mixture of fear and the icy wind that
seemed to go straight through my clothing to chill my bones.

What was happening? Was I dreaming or was
this all real. It certainly felt real, but what was I suppose to do
out here? What should I be looking for?

Was I being tricked and led around for the
amusement of some demon or had I gone mad in the night?

“Nonsense!” I said to myself in a harsh
whisper.

There was only one great I Am. The voice had
said that my father had need of me. I looked out across the castle,
as the gray of the morning sky got brighter toward the eastern
tower and my parents cliffside dwelling.

There were no lights on in their room and I
could see no movement. I was about to look away, when my eye caught
sight of something. It had been a flash of shiny metal in the
morning gloom farther down the side of the cliff. I saw more
movement then and within moments I picked out the bodies of men
making their way surprisingly fast up the side of the cliff,
without even so much as the aid of a rope. They were headed
straight for my parent’s living chambers!

Roric lay awake and pondered upon the new
day that hadn’t yet really begun outside yet. He couldn’t sleep, as
something about the new day was already bothering him to the point
of restlessness. He couldn’t take just lying there anymore.

Gently, not wanting to awaken his quietly
snoring wife, he started to slip out of the bed, but it was
difficult, as one of her arms lay across his chest. He stood beside
the bed for a moment and smiled down adoringly at his wife, as he
listened to her breath. She insisted rather vehemently that she
didn’t snore, but she did. He loved to kid her about it.

He got down on his knees beside the bed and
started to open the troublesome new day with prayer. A sense of
depression or was it oppression had been weighing on him for
several hours, as he had lain awake.

He had found it to be helpful at such times
when the day’s battle already seemed lost, before it had even
begun, to begin with prayer by thanking the Creator for everything
that was going right and then start in on the stuff that wasn’t. It
just seemed to help create the positive atmosphere that was lacking
in the previous moments.

“Dear Lord thank you for my many blessings.
Thank you for waking me up beside my lovely wife, for yet one more
day together. Thank you for my children. I know that Your going to
use them all to accomplish great things for Your Kingdom. Lord in
specific I just want to thank you for the new life that even now is
growing within my daughter Zarsha. I pray that you would just
continue to bless my daughter, her husband, and all her generations
to come with the same blessing as You have blessed mine with. May
they always know You Lord, fear You, and serve You faithfully.
Thank you Lord for the impressive men that both of my younger sons
are becoming. My heart is full, as I consider all they have already
achieved meaningfully in their as yet short lives. I pray that you
would guide them both through life’s journey, as well as their
sisters. Lord help Talaric to confess his sins before You and seek
Your mercy. Help him remember the training of his youth that I and
his mother taught him before it’s too late. Lord help me lead my
people. I am weary of the bad news that continues to come and I am
powerless to stop this nameless dread that is overtaking the hearts
of so many in this world. Lord show me the way I must go to save my
people from the destruction that I feel is nigh, even now lurking
in the shadows. Lord if it be in Your will, deliver my people the
victory not only for their continued freedom, but also help us win
the hearts and souls of the rest of this world for You. Thy will be
done Lord. I wait for Your guidance and strength.”

Roric lifted his head and wiped the tears
from his eyes. He got up and sat back down on the bed willing
himself to give rest a second chance, before he had to face the
day. It must be roughly four in the morning he thought to
himself.