A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind) (40 page)

“This is a very good sword. It is right that you should have it. Take it back now.”

The messenger extended the handle out to me and I took a hold of it tentatively in a sweaty loose fingered grasp.

“Why have you come? Have I done something wrong?” I managed to choke out.

The messenger shook his head no, “The I AM has sent me on no such mission, and if He had, no sword ever created could keep me from completing my divinely inspired di
rective.”

I didn’t doubt that and I felt only a slight relief at knowing that was not why this messen
ger had come.

“I have been sent with some words of instruction and to convey a blessing to a beloved servant in his grave hour of need.”

There was a short period of silence in which I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t say anything, more out of fear of say
ing the wrong thing than anything.

“Tell me Roric do you want to win this battle?”

That seemed to have an obvious answer to it, but I doubt
ed it as an answer as it sounded too much as if I had missed something.

“Yes.” I responded hesitantly not sure where this was headed.

“Have you asked the Creator for victory?”

This I was sure of, “Yes!” I said firmly.

“Then do you also believe that He will do for you even as you have asked, if you have asked what you have in accord
ance with His will?”

I looked down as the question weighed down upon me and I warred within myself as to what to say in return. I looked up and responded, “I know the answer should be yes, but hon
estly I’m not sure.”

I waited to be struck down dead, because I had basically said that I didn’t trust the Creator to do as He had said in that He would never forsake me.

“Do you not see the problem with such faulty reasoning?” The messenger asked not unkindly.

I nodded solemnly and he continued, “In your heart you believe that God is who He says He is. He knows this as He weighs the thoughts of the hearts of men, but instead of acting in that faith you let doubt cloud your mind and hinder your actions, keeping you ultimately from becoming the kind of man you were created to be.”

“How do I stop doing that?” I asked honestly, admitting to my own weakness.

“As it is written in the Holy Scriptures, ‘Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us…’”

The messenger looked r
eflective for a moment and then added, “The more you experience the Creator at work in your life the more you will come to trust Him. The more you trust Him with more of yourself the more He is able to accomplish great things through you to not only benefit your life, but a multitude of others also. When the work that has been started in you is done it will bring back glory to whom
all glory and honor are due, the Lord God Almighty. It is God that will accomplish the work Roric. It is for you to agree to do His will and thus, unlock the purpose He has for you in the plan of His making
that,
He has set down since before time began. You worry now Roric, but you will be stronger tomorrow than you are today, if you put your conf
idence in the Lord for He is righteous and able to save. Your hopeful faith will grow as you see that He is true to His word always and never changes or di
verts from it.”

There was moment of reflective contemplation then, which I broke by saying, “Even as I believe now what I do, I can expect to believe no less of what I already believe now as truth when tomorrow comes and as God is able I will see and do more than I can today when tomorrow comes, be
cause I believe that He can work within me today what is needed in order to change what happens tomorrow.”

The messenger nodded his head and smiled.

After a moment he asked, “Is there anything else you wish to know? Perhaps the writing on the sword that you have seen and wondered about?”

“Yes!” I responded quickly.

“This sword and others like it were forged long ago by righteous men, who read the words of the Creator into their making, which are the words you see briefly flash. They are written in a more ancient tongue than is known on your world today. The sword is very powerful as a weapon, but not in any spiritual context. The Word of God is the ultimate two edged sword and it can divide the soul from the spirit. This sword will serve you well for it has many unique properties crafted into its design that will be unveiled to you the more you use and possess it, but a word of warning on this matter. Beware the danger of becoming possessed by people, places or things, as all will lead to your destruction if you misplace the love of God for something that was made by Him instead of a relationship with Him. Now the time has come to part with you, but one last thing remains to be done, which is to impart the blessing that I was sent to bestow upon you. Roric if you will humble yourself before your Creator and always be faithful to the accomplishment of His will above all else then know this. The Lord will guard and watch over you jealously, as you are a rare treasure. He will establish your rule and no enemy will be able to stand before you for the Lord your God is mighty and He will fight your battles for you. Do not worry for the precious ruby you have thought lost from you for forever. She will return and become a crown of honor upon your head all the long days of your life and she will be called Blessed by her children. The Creator will bless you both with His loving kindnesses and you will have many children. If you are faithful, a long life will be yours too and you will see your children’s children and perhaps beyond.
If you r
e
main faithful, your children too shall be blessed. You have ruled a castle and an army, but they will rule nations and many armies. All this will come to pass if you keep your eyes upon the Lord and stay on the path that is straight and narrow and that has been laid out before you to walk.
Do what is right in the Creator’s eyes always and abhor doing that which is evil and remem
ber to love and it will go well with you. I will leave you for now, but I will return in the future.”

The messenger was gone just like that. He didn’t even walk away. He just up and disappeared. I sank down to the wall top pavement. I looked down at the sword in my hands and prayed. Prayed that it would all work out as the angel had said, because I wanted to please the Creator and I cer
tainly wanted His gifts and blessings too.

As much as I wanted to just sit and think through it all, I had the distinct feeling that it was time that I rejoined in with the preparations and leadership of the army. Reluctantly I got to my feet and started down the wall heading away from the east
ern tower.

A minute later I heard the snap of what sounded like a mighty tree being broken in half from the direction of the enemy encampment at the far bend
of the pass. Moments
later I was knocked off my feet as some unseen projectile slammed into the eastern tower pulverizing its top into rubble that rained down onto the wall top. Coughing and hacking because of the dust enshrouded air I pushed my
self up and looked back.

The place where I had been only moments before was completely buried in rubble. I remembered the urging I had experienced to leave the spot. I got the point being made here. Getting to my feet I ran over the twisted jumble of de
bris towards the central tower complex. Several more cracks sounded from the enemy encampment and I subconsciously stopped to duck down.

Several projectiles slammed into the lower base of the central tower and rocks and men went flying everywhere. Slowly as if resisting the inevitable the central tower started to sink and crumble downward, as most of its base had been shot away leaving it with very little support to remain stand
ing. The upper stonework of the tower cracked hard and went in a fast slide over the city side of the wall in a stone waterfall that rained down on the pavement far below and anybody unlucky enough to have been standing there.

Hoarsely I called out around me, “Get off the wall! Now! Take the wounded and get down!”

I ran to where the central tower had once been and started helping those still living get out of the rub
ble. I saw General Sanjo picking himself out of the rubble several feet away and I rushed to him.

He clutched onto my shirt front and I pulled him up the rest of the way, “You were right! Our wall is no match for these new weapons. The wall will fall and so will our cities and castles!” He finished somewhat hysterical, as the impli
cation of what was possible now fully dawned upon him.

I shook him slightly, “Remember the plan General!”

“Yes, Yes, I remember! Forgive me
S
ir! I’ll see to the evacuation of the wall!” He said as he quickly recovered from the shock he had been under.

“Already in process General, I need you to go ahead and set up our troops in the city. I think they’re going to break through faster than we thought. I can’t lose you right now General get to the city!”

He nodded and pushed past me and down the stairs to his assignment aban
doning the wall that he had thought could never fall behind him.

Towers and fortifications all along the top of the wall were being blown apart. I pulled a warrior out of the rubble with a broken leg and passed him off to two others who were headed down the stairs. I grabbed up an unconscious archer only taking the time to check for a pulse before I slung her over one shoul
der and started making my own way down from the wall.

It was a miracle that as many of us survived as that did. I watched the shock play across the faces of the warri
ors, who were huddled a safe distance away from the wall, as they watched the great wall shudder and groan as the wall top was systematically destroyed as if by a great unseen hand. I
wondered if I had lost them and then one noticed me and stood to atten
tion followed by the rest of them.

“It’s alright to be afraid. It’s alright to be shaken by what you thought not possible. But it is not alright, when faced with this new reality to think that you can
not yet rise above it! Those of you who are wounded prepare to be evacuated to the cities, as for the rest of you report to your positions for tomorrow we will fight and make the enemy pay for this!”

“Yes Sir!”

I turned from the departing warriors and looked back at the great wall that still rose so high overhead even though its fine towers had been smashed off of it. They had stopped targeting the wall top having satisfied
themselves
with the level of destruction there. Now it sounded like they were focusing on punching two holes through the wall on either side of the remains of the central tower.

They’d have their holes through by morning, which sadly was a good thing. It would speed up their assault to take the city earlier than anticipated, which was good because our scouts had reported that the Attorgron army coming up over the mountain passes intent on coming up on us from the rear was far
ther along than we had expected as well.

On through the night the bombardment continued, but it wasn’t until an hour before dawn that the walls at the focus of their bombardment began to crumble. The wall may no longer be a match for the technology of the day, but it had
been built thick and it was taking longer than I had thought to chew through it.

I revised my time table of their breakthrough upwards into the afternoon. The town was rigged and ready for its final service to the Valley Lands. The soldiers left in the town were getting as much rest as possible, but it was hard given the constant pounding taking place. The site of the great wall crumbling downward didn’t help the morale of the army ei
ther.

According to plan General Santaran had moved off in the night with his allotted share of the army to await the part of the plan that applied to him. The morning stretched on
ward slowly until it was finally noon. Dark storm clouds moved in and I prayed that it wouldn’t rain.

The invasion would begin soon, as I didn’t think that they could take the walls down much further than the two wide gaping holes that they had already punched through it. The talus slopes of pulverized rock that had formed on either side of the wall shielded the lower section of the wall from direct bombard
ment.

The barrage stopped close to five o’clock. They would come at us with infantry first, because the steepness of the rubble slopes was too great of an angle upward on their side and downward on our side to successfully navigate with cavalry. The wall was still roughly thirty to forty feet off the flat plain of the pass’s floor. The objective of the infantry would be to first secure the two tunnel gates to either side of
the pass and open them to bring their cavalry to bear against us.

That wouldn’t be such an easy task though. Our warriors had worked all night long and into the morning filling the gate tunnels with the fallen stone from off the wall ramparts above. It would take them a while to work at unloading the rock just as it had tak
en us a lot of time to put it there.

The drums started up signaling their advance. I turned to General Sanjo who stood beside me and offered my hand, “Good luck General. Don’t stay to long in your defense posi
tion.”

He nodded and started forward toward the line of archers. “General?” he looked back, “I know how much you want to keep the enemy from this city, but all you are to do is to allay their suspicion of another trap. Not to fight and die to the last man before the remnants of our ancestor’s shattered wall.”