A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind) (2 page)

As boys we didn’t really understand the concept of a fall
en sinful world, and what it meant that all things would be made right some day. At the time I hadn’t been convinced that there was all that much wrong with the outside world. From what I had seen in the fall of each year, when we had taken our goods to market, the greater outside world had looked rather exciting, especially when compared to our humble little home in the hills. Our parent’s adherence to the old ways caused us to be looked down upon by those around us.

The central culture of the world as we knew it was the Zoarinian Empire to the south, with its many great cities by the sea. They went about their lives far differently than my parents did. Surely so many people couldn’t have gotten it so wrong in life to be worthy of the scorn directed at them by my parents? Maybe the Zoarinians had a good reason for abandoning the old ways my parents still adhered to.

At the time I had begun to wonder if my parents weren’t the ones that needed to change. How naïve I had been then I thought now as I looked ba
ck on that period of my life.

The Zoarinian culture was presented as a free society, where one could do as one so pleased, as long as it had the approval of the ruling elite, who rarely denied self expression to take place in whatever form it took just so long as it didn’t obstruct them from making a profit from it. Excesses were encouraged and the old ways of honor and self control were discarded as useless virtues that shouldn’t apply to life anymore, as they were outdated. Dissenting voices were very few to this new self styled destiny of life, as it had something for everyone to like about it. In fact the only dissenters I knew of were my parents and it had brought unwelcome attention to both them and my brother and I. I hated it most, when because of my parent’s beliefs I was pressed by others of my own age to defend those same beliefs that I wasn’t sure that I believed in, but out of loyalty to my par
ents had to defend.

The real trouble seemed to start when my father refused to visit a temple priestess, who requested his presence in her private chambers at the city temple, after she had seen him while out walking in the marketplace during the harvest fes
tival. Such a refusal was little heard of as few would turn down a sensual evening with a beautiful temple priestess behind closed doors. Priestesses rarely made advances to commoners and to refuse such an offer was regarded as an insult. I had always respected the relationship my father had
with my mother, even though it was old fashioned to be committed to only one person. Turning down the priestesses offer had been the right decision for father to make and yet the cost of it had been high.

One warm summer morning they came for us. I had almost finished with my morning chores, when I had seen my father walking toward me across the barn lot stumble and gasp hard as four brightly colored arrow shafts slammed hard into his chest with dull sounding thuds of finality. Hor
rified by what I had just seen I dropped the bucket of water I had been carrying from the well and started running towards father, but he had waived me off with a violent gesture of one arm.

Several mounted Zoarinian lancers started to converge on my father from opposite ends of the barnyard. My father still upright on his feet had yelled to me.

“Save your mother and brother, Roric!”

My eyes had locked with his for a moment and in a dazed realization I had sensed the weight of the responsibility he had just conveyed to me, as if it was a crushing burden I was unfit yet to manage. I had not been overly close with my father, but in that moment I felt like I knew my father in a deeper more powerful way than I had ever known him before.

Frozen in place, I had watched him turn to meet the on
rushing lancers boldly. I had come unfrozen with a jerk of consciousness then, as I remembered the responsibility he
had conveyed to me to protect the family. I’d run for the house with all I’d had in me then. As I ran, I watched what became of my father; I had no choice but to as I had to run past him to reach the house.

He had stood there tall and proud and I had watched as somehow he was able to grab a hold of a lowered lance and rip it from the hands of its mounted rider. Balancing the lance overhand he had thrown it like a spear at the next rider and I’d saw it impale the rider through his middle, causing him to fall backward off his horse. A third lancer, who had come up from behind my father’s blind side, impaled him through the back with his lance. Tears streaming from my eyes, I had looked away from father and run even faster for the house determined to save my mother and brother.

My mother had already fled the house and was at the stable pushing my brother up onto one of the two horses there. She then swung up behind him, and spurred the horse forward. My mother had been a strong woman, but her face had been awash with tears, as she fought to save her youngest son. She had to have known that father was dead, be
cause she would never have left otherwise.

“Mount up quickly Roric!”

She had screamed at me gesturing towards the second horse before she was gone in a cloud of dust. I had jumped the rail fence of the corral and leapt onto the back of the second horse. Wheeling the horse around I had kneed it for
ward brutally in order to catch up with her. After several minutes of fast riding I had narrowed the gap between us,
when I saw a group of riders coming out of a low creek bed ahead and off to our left.

There sudden appearance ahead of us threatened to cut us off from our only chance at escape. I remembered what I had seen in my father’s eyes just before his death. He had passed the responsibility of protecting the family to me and I wasn’t going to let him down! I clenched my jaw hard; not at all sure I was doing the smart thing, as I veered my horse away from my mother’s and towards the group of riders, who were gaining on us rapidly in an effort to cut us off. I heard my mother scream.

“No!”

I
n an anguished voice, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop; she had to keep my brother safe, and deep in her heart, she knew this was what must be done in order for there to be any chance of saving my brother’s life. Briefly I wondered if I would ever see them again, and then moments later all thought was gone as my horse had slammed full tilt into the mass of riders. Pandemonium had ensued and dimly I had felt myself fly free of the horse to connect hard with the ground.

I had awoken slowly and straightened up only to realize that I was tied to a horse, which was being led by one of the Zoarinian soldiers. Seeing me awake, the rider to my left
had back handed me across the face and as my head was flung towards the right, the rider to my right backhanded me
across the face as well. All of the soldiers had broken out in laughter at the antics of their companions.

My neck had felt broken, and if I hadn’t been hurting be
fore I was then.

The days of riding and mistreatment by my captors had seemed to flow into each other and I had been surprised when we rode into the city of Capeacal. I had never at that time been so far south before.

The city of Capeacal’s market place was nothing like I had ever seen before. It was far grander than Cassis’s mar
ketplace. Cassis’s marketplace had sold assortments of fruits, vegetables, and house hold wares, but Capeacal’s marketplace dealt primarily in a higher priced commodity, slaves.

I was shoved into an ill smelling dark room beneath the marketplace’s floor. At first I had thought I was alone in the room and then after a moment of silence, I’d heard the sounds of many captive people begin to resume in the packed quarters of the room. I’d made my way to the side of the door and leaned back against the slimy wet wall seeking shelter from both whomever was in the cell and those who had put me here, but there was little security to be found in such places.

A dreary vision of the future had begun to take place within my mind and I had been unable to shut it out, as it had overwhelmed me with its depressed vision of the road ahead of me. Caught up in my own misery as I was, I had been
ignoring the hushed conversations taking place all around me.

It was a foreign sounding dialect that wasn’t familiar to me at all. I listened to it for a while and then it dawned on me that I had heard it before. It was a dialect of speech that the Imerickian Traders of the Tranquil Islands used. I had heard them speak a couple of times, when I had been with my father trading in the city of Sharpe, which we had done but rarely. Sharpe was a seaport town on the western side of the Southern Settlements. Sharpe was the farthest south that the Tranquil Islanders liked to venture to trade, because they like the Valley Landers to the northeast were not on good terms with the Zoarinians.

Out of the sea of foreign voices I’d overheard a conversation that I’d understood since it was in my own language.

“Krista listen carefully to me. You will be separated from me tomorrow.”

“No momma!”

“Yes Krista it will happen and you must promise to do as I say! You are young, but it’s apparent even now that you will be beautiful one day. Tomorrow you have to take a
dvantage of how pretty you already are and carry yourself with pride! Keep yourself as clean as you can tomorrow and they will put you in a special class.”

“Special class momma?”

“You will serve your new master as I served Master Nivaron, but that is not important. What is important is that you’ll have good food and at least something of a life of ease, which you won’t get as a field hand.”

“No Momma! You can’t tell me to do this!”

“Krista, I know what I ask is terrible, but in this way you will at least be given good food, shelter, and protection from too much abuse, as long as you please your new master. You will not last long in the firan cane fields as a manual laborer!”

“I would rather die in a firan cane field and keep myself respect than be a soulless whore like you’ve become to ask such a thing of me!”

Slap!

“Krista you will not speak to me like that again! I’ve done what I’ve had to! I’ve survived to care for you and your brother, after your father died!”

“You mean murdered! Besides what good has surviving done you?
Look where we are mother! And he’s not my brother!”

“Yes he is, and as for what I’ve done it’s been to keep food in your belly and of all the choices left to us this is the safest route for you to take! You will do as I say tomorrow Krista and that is final!”

Leaning back against the damp wall behind me, I had shaken my head slowly in empathy for the girl. My world had been completely overturned and I was without comfort to turn to in any form. I had never experienced anything in life to prepare me for the harshness of either what I was
hearing a mother tell her daughter or the personal loss I had already experienced with the loss of my family.

Who knew what was yet to come, the knowledge of that yet unknown fate ate away at me like a preying animal in the darkness. Silent tears had coursed down my cheeks and I had been grateful for the darkness around me that hid my tears from the others.

I hadn’t wanted to appear weak to anyone. I had sympa
thized for the girl, as much as I had for myself at the time. My mother would never have asked me to do what her mother was asking of her. How blessed I had been and not even known it! And now that I knew what I had lost, it was gone from me for forever.

A crow cawed loudly breaking my remembrance of the past momentarily. I glanced back the way we had come, but it was still clear of any visible threat to us.

I glanced at the sleeping boy and studied him for a mo
ment. Yes he was an unwanted hassle, but I was glad in some ways to be of help in saving his life. I didn’t want him to experience what I had as a young slave that was for sure.

I would get him to his kin in the Valley Lands along with the information that his father had given me before he had died. It was a long way to safety though and a lot could happen. There was no guarantee that the boy’s fate would turn out any differently than mine had.

I glanced at the setting sun. I still had an hour or so to kill so I let my thoughts drift back to the past again as I rested.

I had helped the girl change her fate. At least I’d made it possible for her to die in a more preferable way anyway.

I looked out at the horizon that the sun was fading over the edge of, but the sunset wasn’t what I saw. In my mind’s eye I was seeing back to the day, when I had been sold as a slave to the arena fighting school of Carsea.

I’d had to repeatedly blink my eyes to adjust to the harsh daylight of the marketplace, after we had been pulled from our underground holding cell at the slave market. I had stumbled several times over the uneven cobblestones of the market floor, and several times heavily armored guards had lashed out at me with their sharp stinging whips that drew blood.

The market place was filled with tradesmen hawking their goods. Prospective buyers filled out the rest of the mar
ket’s space.

The noise of the mob of jabbering faces which poked and prodded at me as I walked by, caused a renewed sense of anxiety to rise up inside of me as to what my fate would soon be. The guards had begun to divide us into groups; old, young, male, and female.

My attention throughout the walk from the cell had been drawn to a woman ahead of me. She would have been quite attractive, if it hadn’t been for the hard
lines
etched deeply into the skin around her mouth and eyes. She had a mean look about her too. She held a baby in her left arm almost
carelessly, while her right hand gripped the forearm of a young girl that walked beside her.