A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind) (26 page)

“What is the Enlightenment Authority Order?” I asked him.

Father John looked up surprised at my question, “Why do you ask that question?”

“Look on the inside cover of the book.”

Father John did so and studied it for a moment and then looked back over at me. “They were a secret society during the early colonization of this world. They broke off to form their own faction but have since then disappeared from our world. Their stated primary purpose was preserving the integrity of our ancestor’s religious doctrine.”

“You said they were a secret society why?”

“Oh, it was easier to get their work done that is all, but it doesn’t matter now since they’ve long since become part of history.” Father John said as he went back to reading the book in his hand.

I doubted it though as well as his explanation for the need of a secret society to accomplish something that sounded like a worthy ideal to have and that the Valley Landers had never been against.

I stepped forward to the central book. It was bigger than the rest. Eeriness coursed through me causing an involuntary shiver down my spine as I read the title, “The Book of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” Below the title was some smaller lettering which read, “An account of the creation of the world to its proposed end from the eyes of one who has been there and can attest to the truths written here in.”

Father John came up beside me and read the title as I had done.
“A very dangerous book indeed. I would like to study it to see if there is any wisdom worth gleaning from it.”

“Father John, you do know who likely wrote this don’t you?”

“But of course Roric it would appear that Satan himself did seeing as he is the only one that could make a statement like that other than the Great Creator.”

“What worthwhile wisdom could you even hope to glean from such a source of heresy?”

“But of course you’re right Roric. It would be far more likely to lead to deception than any manner of hidden truth, which goes the same for these other works as well. They are inconsistent at best. Come let us be about the destruction of all of this before we are enthralled by it any longer!”

With that said Father John turned and strode away to
wards Seth, who against orders had been loading himself down with gadgets and pretty looking devices. Father John despite Seth’s protests began to take the gadgets back from Seth and throw them back onto the piles of artifacts littering the room.

Following Father John’s example I turned from the books and hurried to a lighted display I had seen on the wall at the far end of the room. Taking my ring off I placed it into a key hole made to fit its exact shape. Another display came up on a shimmery looking crystal that showed a vertical row of colored lines. I moved the dashes that were on the lines in the blue areas, until they were all the way into the red areas with just the pressure of my finger on the screen before me as Thaddeus had instructed me to.

I took the ring out of the key hole and the display began to pulse on and off causing the lights in the room to flicker. Running back across the gallery towards where we had entered I ran past the books on their pedestals and through the piles of artifacts eager to get away from the confusions of this place and how it had threatened to overcome my better judgment.

Father John had already dragged Seth out to the entry point into the room and away from his spoils, which he was none too happy about.

“Roric, call this guy off before I’m forced to hit him!”

“Be quiet! You knew we came to destroy this place and all its contents. Nothing leaves this place Seth! Nothing!” I said roughly.

Somewhat sheepish looking Seth nodded in response. We donned our disguises once again, and I pressed the ring with my thumb and the wall before us became translucent and we walked through it into the welcoming coolness of the night.

The natives were still whimpering and wailing in fright on the ground and we exited the clearing the same way as we had come into it. Just as we reached the end of the clearing and the beginning of the forest the ground shook violently and a great explosion ripped through the night air behind us.

I turned and looked back briefly for a moment and saw that the dilapidated stone monument was literally being blown apart. Large chunks of rock were being hurled everywhere and flames reached high into the sky from the molten interior of the structure.

The fierce cannibalistic tribe of forest dwellers had taken off in every direction as fast as their legs could carry them to escape what must look like the opening of the pits of hell to them.

I turned back towards the forest and headed for where we had left the horses earlier in the day eager to complete my mission and be headed back to my home and away from this miserable forest.

Two miserable days later found us soaked, hungry and tired, not to mention downright itchy. I was pretty sure we were lost as well. We had been traveling southward through the forest towards Santarus.

The forest had opened up some, but it was still rough go
ing to get through the overgrown understory of the forest. Father John had the point and continually insisted that we were not lost. I had my doubts though.

He’d been but a little boy, when he had lived here before and there were simply no landmarks to be seen other than the trees in front of us. Still he seemed confident of our progress and I was willing to trust his judgment for a little while longer before interceding. He hadn’t said much in the past two days and I could tell that it still bothered him that we had destroyed everything like we had back there. It had been for the best though and I hoped that he came to see that as I now did.

He stopped and waited till I drew abreast of him, “Over that way the forest breaks up into some grassy parks, which will increase our speed not having to fight through this understory.”

“Lead on John. I’m game for a chance to see the sky again.”

“Me too!” Echoed the others in the group sounding like a chorus in their exuberance to be free of the forest at least temporarily.

Father John hesitated for a moment and then continued, “There is a village that way that we won’t be able to avoid. It’s run by women.”

Seth leaned forward in the saddle, “Go on priest what about the women!”

Father John looked somewhat annoyed at Seth’s’ obvious interest but continued, “It’s a matriarchal society. Men are seen as less than women and do the work normally left to the women to do, but they are not hostile to outside men in gen
eral. They just think they are better. It’s perfectly safe to visit the village. We just have to be careful not to get them angry, as they can be rather forceful when angered.”

Seth was looking at me with pleading eyes, which I ig
nored. I was tired of fighting this jungle and it would be nice to have a roof over my head for a change.

“If you say it’s safe enough, that is if we behave our
selves!” I said with emphasis, as I looked at Seth sternly! “And that it’ll cut time off the journey we’ll go that way.” Father John nodded and turned his horse in the direction he had indicated.

Soon true to his word the forest broke up into a series of grassy parks that appeared as if they were islands in the sea of trees around them.

Several hours later we could see smoke in the distance up ahead of us. That must be the village run by the women that John had spoken of. This no doubt was going to be a unique experience.

As we drew closer to the village I began to see just how unique an experience it was going to be. It was like seeing two villages instead of just one. John had told us that the men were forced to live in the lower village and take care of the children, while the women lived exclusively in the upper village and only invited the men there occasionally for procreational purposes.

Not quite sure yet of what we were getting ourselves into I followed John regretting my decision of earlier to come this way already. The lower village’s condition was extremely poor at best in terms of quality of living conditions.

The men gathered around the hovels weren’t much to speak of. They had the worn broken look of slaves about them, which made me uneasy. There were girls in bountiful supply running around excited by what must be a strange occurrence for them, but I didn’t see any boys. That was odd.

We were coming to the end of the village, when one man caught my eye. He was staring at me intently. So intent that I thought I might have to look away from the awkwardness it made me feel. He pulled a young girl with raven black hair and skin the color of dark mahogany in front of him and made a gesture with his hands, a gesture I could see echoed in his eyes as well.

He wanted me to take the girl away from this place when I left. The whole scene had made me uncomfortable and I looked away unsure of what was going on here other than that I didn’t like it.

My attention was drawn to the second village higher up off the plain and more encased in the shelter of the forest, which is when I saw the women. So had the others, if the mumbled affectations of I’m not sure what that could be heard rolling off the lips of Seth directly behind me could be interpreted as. I had never seen such women as these. Most of them were of a taller build with some being shorter, but all of them were muscular and lithe of form. Some had long flowing hair, while others had their hair cut close to their heads, but one thing was universal, none of them were wearing practically anything.

They were decorated in all manner of beads and pretty trinkets, with elaborate tattoos that seemed to flow across the large expanses of bare skin in continuous patterns. Some had short skirts of leather, while others had breach clouts that left a lot exposed. Most wore a bright strip of fabric that encased their breasts, while others were completely topless. I could hear Seth swearing under his breath now, but for a different reason other than a moral objection, as to the wanton appearance of these women.

Why had John a priest at that, not told me of how extreme these women had taken their little society? We came to the center of the village and John dismounted as did the rest of us.

It was one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life. My body had completely let me down. It had been manageable, while seated in the saddle to remain objective looking and seemingly in control, but having to dismount and stand revealed an embarrassingly hopeless reaction in relation to how much visual stimulation I was receiving an
ywhere and everywhere my eyes went to.

Not being in control of my body was quite humiliating, but worse than that was the feeling that I was somehow letting the Creator down by allowing myself to be affected by the bare and very beautiful female bodies on full display all around me.

Thankfully John did all of the talking. Having come to an agreement that we wanted shelter for the night and that we would be moving on in the morning they invited us to a feast in our honor that night, which he accepted on behalf of all of us.

Their spokeswoman was a tall voluptuous blond, who Seth hadn’t managed to take his eyes off of yet. I began to notice an increasingly sensual demeanor of the women towards us and I made a quick decision and turned Flin around. I led him away from the others and back towards the lower village.

I myself had been the subject of a lot of hungry looks, but I did not intend on satisfying any of them much to my body’s dismay. About the best thing I could do right now to
avoid affronting there barbaric sense of hospitality was to remove myself from the situation as best as I could.

I made my way back towards the lower village my face completely red knowing how it must look to these exotic women, as to what my actions probably insinuated to them. It was not the favorable view that any red blooded male would want thought of him by beautiful women or anyone for that matter.

The carnal side of me wanted to stay and keep looking and even more than that it wanted to reach out and touch the forbidden, but something stronger than the carnal side of me was screaming out to just keep walking away.

I didn’t see Seth and the other two men follow the women into the upper village, so intent was I on leaving the scene of my own moral crisis of conflict. Nor did I see what became of John. I knew what would be happening soon back there in the village and the regret that flashed through my body at what I was missing out on was a palpable feeling of loss.

Surely it didn’t really matter in the big scope of things what happened in this isolated village filled with barbaric sensual eyed women that had nothing but sensual promise of a good time in their eyes?

Somehow it did matter though and so I kept walking un
comfortably away from my passion’s desire, while I called myself every kind of a fool in my head for doing so. I had never had sex before, which was a secret that I kept closely guarded and private. Everyone that had known me in my
adult life would never have guessed it of me given my years in the arena. As a reward in the arena for simply surviving or for giving a good show to the audience fighters were gift
ed with better food and weapons to defend themselves with.

Serving girls and slave girls alike were thrown into the cells of a select few of the better fighter’s almost every night. I had been one of those better fighters for almost my entire duration within the arena.

One look at the frightened faces of the girls or even the older women that were thrown into my cell at night had always proven a greater deterrence to me than acting out on any of the manly desires that I had bottled up inside of me ever since I was an older boy. Instead of adding to the pain and misery of their lives for a few moments of pleasure on my part I had instead talked to them and shared my food with them and let them spend the night in peace. I had become friends with quite a few of them over the years. Even now since I was free of that world and didn’t have the stric
tures of a cell around me and there were women who openly expressed interest in me it still felt wrong to indulge myself.