*****
I could hear the crowd crying out in a pitched fervor of excitement before I even saw them. It was a sound I hated and had never wanted to hear again and yet like a bad toothache it was back with throbbing intensity.
Before I emerged out of the tunnel into the arena, I whispered out to the Creator, suddenly overcome with the fear of what would happen to Zarsha if I failed to survive whatever test they had lined up for me in the arena this time, “Are you with me Lord?” I felt nothing in terms of an answer.
My spirit felt heavy within me as I continued to trudge towards the arena. I couldn’t believe how my last experience in the arena, where the mouths of tigers had been stopped supernaturally, seemed to have been completely forgotten. I was such a terrible follower of the Creator to doubt His abilities to save me given what He had already done for me!
I didn’t have any more time to think about my sudden and complete lack of faith as I was thrust out into a scene from hell. The arena was large and as grand in appearance as any of those in the five cities of Zoar.
The crowd was cheering, but it wasn’t me they were cheering. It was him! A face from the past that I had hoped to never see again. The unholy creature of a man with dead eyes and a hollow laugh, next to whom I had been celled in the arena so many years before. His demented sounding laugh could be heard above the din of the crowd and I knew I was in for the fight of my life.
What made everything worse was the sight of Zarsha strapped to a pole in the center of the arena. My trepidation over my opponent vanished upon sight of Zarsha. I had to win at all costs as I could already guess what lay in store for Zarsha if I failed to protect her.
I felt the old, uncaring anger rise up inside of me and I embraced the hateful quality of it as it coursed through my veins and settled over me like a well worn cloak that I hadn’t worn in a very long time. Every fiber of my being was alive and tensed for the struggle to stay alive as I strode purposefully toward my opponent, locked on his every move.
The crowd noise dimmed to a hushed calm, like the calm that precedes a storm, as they caught sight of my purposeful approach across the sands of the arena floor. My opponent had never been beaten, but neither had I.
I was a fighter, who had made many Zoarinians wealthy from the bets placed on my head, but I doubted that I would acquire many backers today against this opponent. Sensing my approach, the wild man turned to face me.
“So we meet again for the last time! In an hour’s time from now, I will feast upon your still beating heart!”
Throwing his head back, the same inhuman laugh I had heard from years before echoed out and it had lost nothing in its bone chilling intensity. He was completely insane and loved being so. It didn’t matter, I was going to win the fight, because I had to.
“This is going to be the way of it, little storm man. The girl, she is precious to you or so I have been told. If you want to save her, you have to defend her from me. I promise, I’ll make her suffering last and leave you alive just long enough so you can watch her scream as she dies painfully.”
He threw his head back once again as a maniacal laugh of sheer darkness issued forth. The crowd, gathered in the bleachers to watch the spectacle, chanted praises to their champion. It was a sick acknowledgement of the loss of their morality and the intrinsic value of love from their souls.
Suddenly the wild man grabbed a javelin stuck in the sand before him and threw it straight at Zarsha. Zarsha only had enough time to gasp as she saw her death fast approaching.
The javelin thudded heavily into the small round shield with which I was equipped. It twisted my arm painfully to the side on impact, but at least it had not found its intended target. The shield had shattered from the impact of the javelin and was now useless. I threw it to the side, retaining the javelin for myself. Breathing heavy from the exertion of moving to intercept the javelin, I faced the wild man.
“Not bad, little storm man, but what about this?”
With a crazed roar he charged, waving a large sword overhead. I threw the javelin hard and, unbelievably, he picked it out of mid air and threw it right back at me.
I barely batted the javelin to the side with my sword before he was upon me. Steel rang out loudly against steel in a furious series of clangs. I was driven backward by his bullish advance of raw power.
It took every ounce of skill I had to evade his wild powerful sword swings. When our swords clanged loudly together, it was all I could do to withstand the crushing force behind his blade. The strength behind his blows threatened to jar my sword right out of my hands. The empty glaring eyes and slavering open jaws of my opponent befitted a crazed beast more than they did the visage of a man.
We were getting dangerously close to Zarsha and I feared what might happen if he was to get too close to her. I asked my heart for more and I increased my effort to hold him back and I managed to stop his approach. Never had I fought against such strength. There seemed to be no dimming of the unbridled strength he possessed. My breathing sounded like the bellows of a blacksmith's and I could feel the rapid beat of my heart pounding in my chest even as it echoed loudly in my ears.
Sweat streamed off me and burned as it got into my eyes. I half lost my footing for a moment and seizing the advantage the wild man grabbed me at the shoulder and heaved me away to the side. I fell head over heels and continued on over to land back onto my feet. I quickly turned to face him, but he wasn’t there! Where was he?
Horror stricken, my searching eyes found him standing beside Zarsha. A smirk of pure evil creased his wild face as he casually drew his blade tip down the length of one of Zarsha’ arms. A thin red line of blood appeared in the wake of the blade’s passage. Zarsha made not a sound, but continued to stare at me steadfastly, looking to me for protection, as big tears rolled down her face.
Suddenly I saw my father’s death again in my mind’s eye. I had been helpless to do anything as he had been killed by lesser men under the cover of ambush. I wasn’t that same helpless boy any longer. I had seen the impossible done before and Eliak’s words from the cliff became mine, “God give me strength!”
The wild man heard my plea to the Creator and laughed out loud at it. “God? Who’s He? Does it look like He’s helping you? If this is helping you, I’d hate to think about what Him not helping you looks like. Maybe it looks something like this!”
He turned and stabbed Zarsha in the shoulder with his sword. She screamed and I came unhinged. He wheeled to face my charge, but I batted his sword away and with a roar of pure fury, I grabbed hold of him and threw him bodily away from Zarsha.
He landed some fifteen feet away and got to his feet quickly. In my right hand I held my sword and in my left hand I clutched the pointed end of the broken javelin that I had picked up off the sand. I had never felt so much unreasoning anger before in my life, and I couldn’t have cared less about whatever creature of wrath that it was making me into in this moment of anguish.
The image of him stabbing Zarsha replayed in my mind again and again, causing me to feel so white hot that I feared I might catch on fire and that would have been okay, as long as I consumed this man and took him with me. This unholy menace of an individual had to be destroyed!
He charged with a roar, as he had done once before and I met him with an intensity that threatened to supersede his. I held him with a resounding clash of steel and then I began to back him up across the arena. The crowd was beside itself in its jubilance over the one of a kind spectacle playing out before them. No one had ever offered up such a challenge to the wild man before.
I lost track of time and space. I knew only the next motion; I planned nothing, but fought and reacted instinctively. I was inflicting damage as a result of both my skillful fighting experience and the brute strength I was employing against my hated foe.
I hadn’t inflicted any serious wounds, but the broken off javelin point in my left hand had left a half dozen jagged wounds in my opponent that were bleedi
ng freely. I had not escaped injury however. I was nicked up almost everywhere and there was a deep cut across my left thigh that hurt when I moved.
I didn’t care; instead I used the pain to spur me on to greater effort. I was winning! Suddenly, something changed in the air around me and I found myself knocked backward through it. I skidded off the sandy arena floor several times before slamming hard into the arena wall. What had that been?
I lifted myself up off the sand fighting for air, not understanding what had just happened. The wild man was upon me before I knew it and it was all I could do to deflect his sword while I tried to catch my breath.
Suddenly he swiped my sword aside and sliced my left arm badly. I dropped the javelin point and fell backwards, trying to escape the next deadly swipe of his blade. I got to my feet shakily and continued to back up as I did so. My left arm was useless and hung by my side with blood running freely from it into the thirsty sands of the arena.
I prepared for the next assault as best as I could but it didn’t come. He just stood there watching me. The cocky smirk was gone replaced now by a look of cold calculation. I noticed the javelin point I had dropped earlier in his free hand. He motioned towards Zarsha with his head and I glanced at her. She didn’t look well.
She had lost a lot of blood from her shoulder wound and looked visibly weakened. He drew back his arm and I screamed, vainly reaching out toward him, “NO!”
He threw the javelin point as one would a knife. I watched it thud sickenly into Zarsha’s stomach. The little girl screamed out in pain. I half stumbled, half crawled my way over to her. Pulling myself up in front of her I lifted my blood stained fingers to her face.
“I’m so sorry! I failed you! I promised to protect you! I’m so sorry!”
The little girl, who had worked her way so easily into my heart and spoke so rarely, spoke now with an elegance far beyond her years.
“You did your best, father. Thank you for rescuing me from the forest and showing me love! I love you!”
I heard her last slurred words and watched as her head fell forward in death. My world had crumbled and I was left alone once again. Roaring, I surged to my feet and turned to face the monster who had murdered my wonderful little girl. I came face to face with his triumphantly smiling face and I felt his sword slice through my middle and out my back. In frustrated fury I shoved him back from me. He fell sprawling at my feet and I yanked the sword out from my stomach with a heave even as my life’s blood drained out with it. He scrambled backwards out of reach and I took his sword and lifting my knee I broke it over it and then I threw the pieces of it at him.
I pointed at him and then at the silent audience that was as quiet as the grave all around us and said, “I curse you this day! For your actions reveal you worthy to receive full judgment by the living God instead of His mercy! It would have been better that you had never been born for the guilt you bear in letting this precious little girl die at the hands of a monster! The innocent life that you have taken here this day,” I pointed at Zarsha, “is upon your heads and I pray that my God brings His wrath down upon you like never before for you have no love in your hearts, your actions are utterly wicked, and you even yet have no shame for your actions but instead your thirst for evil grows with every passing moment! I pity you for my God’s wrath will be swift and sure, and He will judge you for the blood you have spilled this day beyond any measure that you could ever count out!”
I looked at their hollow faces a moment longer and then I felt the ground hit me as I fell and the world became dizzy and out of focus. The sand of the arena touched my face and I watched my bloody fingers move in the sand in front of me.
Had it really come down to this?
Had I escaped the arena for a brief season, only to die in it at the end? Soon all the pain would be over and I would be free to go through that door with the streaming light like the Kurt’s had done. I was grateful for my season away from the arena anyway. I had learned much and I knew what the next step would be and it was okay, better than okay it was more than I could ever have deserved or hoped for. My eyes were drifting shut and I felt my breathing still.
“Roric.”
My eyes opened and drifted upward. A figure of a man knelt beside me, the man from the cliff top who had given me my commission. I smiled; He had come to take me home. Suddenly I frowned.
“I’m sorry I failed you! I lacked faith. Please forgive me!”
A scarred hand reached out and wiped the regret from my face. “Level no such blame against yourself as I do not. As My Father has written, ‘In the weakness of man God’s strength is made manifest.’”
“I don’t understand?” I mumbled out.
“Your time here is not yet complete Roric. You have much to do and experience before you enter the Kingdom and the resting place that I have prepared for such as you until all things are remade in newness.”
He rose up from me and left as if He had never been there, but I felt His presence strong inside of me as if He had never left.
The presence of His Holy Spirit moved within me and my lips moved and said words that weren’t mine, “From the dust of the ground I made you. From the breath of My nostrils I gave you life. I am the great I AM and there is none other before Me. Rise now, son of my creation, and stand forth as an example that I Am a God who restores and gives life where there was none before!”
I started to obey even though I knew I must surely be dead by now. My bloody hand in the sand in front of me caught my eye. Grains of sand from the arena floor were trailing up my hand in wispy tendrils. As the traveling rivulets of sand encountered a wound they flowed into me.
It was an odd feeling, like being remade all over again. The sand went in one wound and came out another in search of the next one. The wounds I was covered in disappeared before my eyes.
I held my hand up. There wasn’t even a scar! This couldn’t be a dream, could it? I got to my knees and watched as sand poured out of the mortal wound through my middle, the flesh closing up after the sands exited the wound. I got to my feet as the rest of my wounds disappeared. As long as I lived I would not forget this!
“How awesome! You are my God! There is none other like You! Well does your word say that You have power over all things, for You have made me whole again!”
The crowd had been going wild in adulation of the wild man’s victory, but now they were calling out to him frantically, pointing at me behind him. He had gone to fetch a sword, no doubt to cut out my heart, when he stopped as he registered the crowd’s shouted exclamations of surprise and alarm in place of their former jubilance. Turning, he saw me standing there and he rushed for the sword laying a few feet away from him, but the sands of the arena opened up and swallowed it.
The crowd murmured in hushed fright at the sight of the unexplained disappearance of the sword. I strode towards the wild man without a weapon in my hand. He wasn’t so cocky anymore and it was clear to me now that he had been helped out in the fight against me by the darkness he let reign in him.
Nothing else could explain how he had thrown me across the entire arena when it looked as if I was about to overpower him. Innate hatred and fury poured out of his eyes at me. His eyes were deep pools of darkness ringed with fire.
“You are still but a man! We will destroy you now!”
The figure of the wild man burst into flames and a deeper voice of darkness broke forth fouling the air with its utterance.
“We will devour you now! Nothing can stop us!”
I continued to stride purposefully toward the demon horde now manifested in the burning aberration of what had once been a man, who had chosen poorly.
“You’re wrong, foul and crooked spirits! By the Lord’s authority and majesty, He whom you lift yourself up against unworthily, I cast you down!”
Inhuman screams sounded out that would have chilled even the stoutest of souls, but I kept walking, sure of my Creator’s authority even as I felt His livi
ng imprint within me.
The burning wreckage of a man flung fire upon me as I neared, but it separated out around me and sputtered out. My Creator’s words were true. My Creator was my shield, strength and hope in time of need.
I reached the burning figure and I grabbed it by the throat, “Enough! You have enthralled these people long enough with your sorceries! Be gone now in the Son of the Creator’s Name!”
The burning man that I grasped by the throat exploded into a thousand light particles and was no more, along with the aberrations of darkness that had possessed him. The arena was still and silent except for the weeping and moaning of all those gathered to watch the spectacle that had turned into something much more spectacular.
“All of what you have seen is what my God can do. What of yours? What can they do? Are they anything at all in glory and might as my God is?”
No one answered.
“The truth is before you. Repent from your wickedness or in the end your fate will be as these creatures were which you will share for all eternity.”
I turned from them and picked up a shard of the sword I had broken earlier and walked towards Zarsha. I cut her free from the pole and held her tenderly in my arms and cried like I never had before in my life.
A little hand touched my face, “Why are you crying?”
Startled, I opened my eyes. Zarsha smiled up at me and brushed the hair back from my forehead. “You were dead!” I exclaimed.
“No I wasn’t. I was sleeping. I had this wonderful dream that a man held my hand and talked to me. His words were warm and He was nice like you are. I wanted to know everything about Him, but He simply smiled and said that you would teach me about Him and that it was time to wake up.”
“That’s all you remember?”
“Yes, is there something more I should know?”
“No! Praise God, no! Here, let’s get out of here and I promise I’ll tell you everything I know and we’ll learn the rest together. How does that sound?”
I got to my feet cradling the living miracle in my arms, reflecting as I did so that I could now fully appreciate how wonderful and consuming a father’s love could be both personally and outwardly.
The arena doors swung open ahead of me and I marveled again at the Creator’s constant provision. Krista was pushing past the doors with two horses in tow behind her. One of them was Flin.
My steps quickened as I headed for Krista and the horses. I saw Rugar off to the side holding open one of the doors, the bodies of several guards littered about his feet. As I got closer to Krista the crowd started to break out of the trance in which they had been locked.
One of the high officials of the city stood up and gestured madly at us. “Stop them! Stop them! They cannot be allowed to escape!” he screamed as he jumped up and down excitedly.
Dazed looking guards who had been posted all around the sides of the arena rushed in towards us. They only managed to take several strides towards us when they stopped in horrified wonder and then screamed out of abject fear, as they watched and felt their bodies turn into sand, which fell trickling to the arena floor as they melted into indistinguishable piles of sand. Their clothing, weapons and armor disappeared into the sand, as if it was a quicksand mire.
The crowd erupted into shrieks of terror at the sight of the disappearing men. Some of them even fainted, so great was their horror at what they had just seen. Their terror knew new heights when slowly the entire arena began to crack and grumble as it started to slide down into the sand.
The people broke and fled for their lives. Unhinged by the day’s recent events, they trampled over each other in their eagerness to flee from the hungry sands of the arena.
I met Krista and the horses, still carrying Zarsha in my arms. Krista was as white as a sheet, and she held onto the horse’s reins with a death grip. I reached Flin and placed Zarsha on him and then I turned back to Krista.
She was staring at me as if I wasn’t quite human and looked even more eager than I was to be free of the sinking arena. I reached out a hand towards her and she jumped away reflexively.
“It’s okay Krista. I know you’re scared, but it is really me, I promise.”
“What’s happening? What happened? Is your God going to kill me too? Why aren’t we sinking? You were both dead! I saw you! And now you’re alive! How is that possible?”
“I will answer all of your questions later. In the meantime, let’s get out of here before we do sink into the sand.”
I reached out and she let me pull her towards her horse without further resistance. I helped her up onto her horse, relishing the feel of touching her and having her close to me again. I settled into my saddle and Zarsha’s arms closed around me like a vise. I directed Flin towards the still open and upright doorway of the arena and passed through it. As Krista passed through, she looked down at Rugar still standing there holding the door open as the rest of the arena was now disappearing rapidly into the sand.
“Come with us Rugar,” she urged.
“No, I must see what has happened to my master, just as you must be faithful to your new master. Go and may the Creator continue to smile down upon you and give you favor, little flower!”
I thought I saw a tear in her eye as she turned her mount away from Rugar, who had let the door go and was now striding quickly towards the city.
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