A Warrior's Redemption

by Guy S. Stanton III

  *****

  The boards of the stage that her bare feet traveled across had been worn smooth by the countless poor souls who had been led across them before her. Stillness had fallen over the formerly mad atmosphere of the place.

  The stage was well lit in the otherwise seedy and rundown building. She was led to the center of the stage and the iron anklet around her left ankle was securely fastened to a ring set into the floor of the stage. She was alone on the stage now except for the auctioneer off to her left.

  The stillness was shattered as several hundred buyers erupted into applause at the exquisite offering before them. All manner of things were being said and Krista ignored the chattering of the lecherous buyers as best she could, but it was hard to remain calm with what the rabid crowd was planning for her, sounding so loudly in her ears.

  Inside she felt like a poor defenseless little rabbit surrounded by a pack of ravenous wolves, and to some extent that was exactly what she was in this moment.

  The auctioneer ambled cockily over towards her. “I know. I know. It is not as often an event as it should be to see a rare exotic flower such as this portrayed before you as an item of sale. So, as this is the case, I know that none of you will want to miss a chance at bidding on the exotic creation standing before you, as the chance might never come again to purchase such a rare girl as this for your collection!”

  The auctioneer had a cane in his hand. It was a firan cane. He swished it about menacingly, when he wasn’t using it as a pointer. How ironic, thought Krista to herself, remembering the many beatings she had taken with those cursed switches in her youth in the firan cane fields as a field slave.

  The firan cane switch reached out toward her and lifted the back slip of fabric up, exposing her rear to the crowd behind, who erupted in applause once more. Krista’s face flushed red at the further embarrassment and it was all she could do to keep from turning and grabbing the cane and ramming it up the auctioneer’s bottom in payback. But she stayed still under great force of effort and endured the moment of humiliation as best she could. It would do her no good to resist.

  The auctioneer put a hand to his ear and cupped it as if he hadn’t heard the uproar of the crowd, “What, still haven’t seen enough?”

  Before Krista could expect what was coming, the cane was withdrawn and smacked sharply across her lower back. She jumped from the sudden pain of the cane’s strike and one of her breasts popped out of its inadequate covering.

  She gasped and her hands flew up to push her breast back in, but they were smacked down viciously by the cane. The crowd erupted again and the auctioneer pranced off towards the edge of the stage.

  “Who will give me two thousand tarsas?”

  Hands shot up everywhere. Krista’s gaze remained downcast and she couldn’t help the single tear that traced down her face. Anger began to burn hotly inside of her and she brushed the tear away with an angry gesture.

  Throwing her head back she raised her hands and pushed her breast back into place. Meeting the auctioneer’s gaze she dared him to come closer and make something of it, but he wisely stayed away.

  The bidding went higher and higher as Krista silently begged within her soul for her promised freedom and joy to hurry up so that she could leave this awful place and the even worse assortment of human trash that gestured and called out to her crudely. She scanned the crowd gathered in the slave auction house. Where would her freedom come from in such a place as this? Her gaze slipped over the hungry eyes of the soulless mongrels that inhabited the place, looking for a potential savior in their masses.

  She had all but given up hope of finding any such savior, when something prompted her to look back over a section that she had just scanned. Something caught her eye in the back of the room.

  The something she had more sensed than seen was a man, who was standing in the shadows at the back of the room. He was a warrior by his build and the stance of his outline in the shadows, and somehow she knew who it was. Being honest with herself she admitted that it had been for him and him alone that she had searched the crowd, in search of a savior.

  He had come back for her! Fresh tears ran down her cheeks, but they weren’t tears of embarrassment. If the people in this place found out who he was, they would rip him apart and yet he had risked just that to come for her. She continued to stare intently, with her heart in her eyes, at the shadowy outline of the man in the shadows, praying that he would step forward and buy her.

  The auctioneer began to wind down his sales spiel as Krista had already brought more than any slave girl in a very long time.

  “I have a bid of five thousand tarsas for the beautiful slave standing behind me. Going once?”

  Krista stepped forward toward the man in the shadows at the back of the crowd as far as her short ankle chain would allow her and lifted her hand and pointed at the man in the shadows.

  “Going twice?”

  The muttering of the crowd must have alerted the auctioneer that there being something going on behind him. He turned to view what was going on, his gaze following the direction of Krista’s pointing finger.

  The shadowy figure of a man was striding down through the crowd toward the stage. The crowd parted before him, somehow sensing that his bark would drown out any strangled yelp they could ever make. His face was still covered by the hooded cape he wore, but the meaning of his six raised fingers was clear.

  The auctioneer was so excited that he about stumbled over the edge of the stage. Catching himself he called out loudly, “I have six thousand tarsas for the beautiful slave before us!”

  The wealthy buyer from one of the southern seacoast cities, who had offered the previous offer of five thousand tarsas, raised his hand again angrily.

  “I have seven thousand tarsas! Do I hear an answer from the mysterious gentleman to my right?”

  The hand lifted again and the auctioneer, almost beside himself, screamed out, “I have a bid of eight thousand tarsas!”

  The wealthy buyer from the south looked absolutely apoplectic, but he raised his hand again; though he looked noticeably reluctant to do so.

  “I have nine thousand tarsas!”

  The crowd’s attention had been going back and forth between the two and now it returned to the mystery man, who flipped back his hood as he arrived at the base of the slave auction stage.

  Looking up into her scared eyes, Roric winked at her! Krista almost moaned in frustration at him. How could he wink at a time like this! It was an unimaginable amount of money to be paid for a slave girl, no matter how pretty she was.

  Krista’s hands were clenched at her sides in tight fists and her insides were tied up in knots of tension as she waited to see what Roric would do. The crowd was silent as the handsome stranger reached inside his cape and withdrew a hefty looking black velvet bag. Undoing the pull cord, he stepped close to the stage and sprayed the contents of the bag out across the stage in the auctioneer’s direction.

  Exquisitely cut gems of every imaginable color spilled out onto the smooth wooden floor of the stage. The gems caught and reflected the light as they tumbled over and around Krista’s bare feet.

  Krista’s mouth fell open in complete shock as her stunned gaze lifted from the glittering jewels to Roric’s face. He had just spilled out a king’s ransom onto the stage.

  The auctioneer choked out, “The bidding is closed! Release the girl to her new master and may he be well pleased with his expensive purchase here today!” The auctioneer then commenced to fall to his knees and pick up the gems that were scattered all across the stage.

  A guard rushed forward and unlocked the iron manacle around Krista’s ankle as pandemonium reined in the auction house. Krista walked to the edge of the stage and would have jumped into Roric’s arms, but his big hands came up and closed around her narrow waist and lifted her down.

  As her feet touched the floor her arms wrapped around Roric and she buried her face against his chest, soaking in t
he comfort of his familiar smell and the radiant warmth of his body, even as his powerful arms closed around her tightly.

  She felt him kiss the top of her head and she leaned against the security of his chest, finding a place of peace from the humiliation she had been made to suffer. She grew aware that he was talking to her. She reluctantly dropped her arms from around him and stepped back as far as his arms would allow.

  “Honey, let’s get out of this hell hole!”

  She nodded her head vigorously and he turned to make a way through the crowd which had gathered as spectators, to watch a show that illustrated a concept and a range of emotion that was completely foreign to them.

  There was one thing she had to do first.

  “Roric.”

  He turned back to her questioningly. Krista knelt down before him and extended her hand with her palm up in a sign of submission.

  “Master, I promise to never run away from you ever again! I swear it! I will serve you all of my days faithfully! My body is yours to enjoy as you wish and my heart will be obedient to every word you say, but my spirit I give to the Creator, who has used you, my master, to save me from the darkness of these people and the hell that resides within them. My Creator has given me a better master in you than I could have ever wished for, but one thing I beg of you master is that you would never allow me to be parted from you again, because I love you with all of my heart!”

  Throughout her impassioned speech tears had been streaming down her face, and her voice was choked with the strong emotions that she felt for the man risking his life to save her.

  Roric

  I couldn’t stand to watch her blurt out her heart in promised slavery to me for one more second. Her head had fallen forward in yet another sign of submission that I was sick of seeing from the woman I loved.

  I kneeled down in front of her. This had not been where I was planning to do this, but oh well.

  I flipped her still upraised hand over and held it with mine tenderly and with the other hand I tipped up her teary face and my eyes met her beautiful blue eyes, “I love you, too!”

  She gave a half sob that I took to be a good kind of sob.

  “I had a different arrangement planned out for this, but I don’t want you to go on like this one moment longer. Krista, you’re not a slave. You’re as free as I am right now.”

  I watched her eyes grow expressively large and more tears threatened to cascade out of them at my words.

  “Now, I have a request for you. As a free woman with the right to make your own choices, would you please honor me with your choice and become my wife? Would you please share my life, share my heart, share the desire I have for only you and be my companion through all the years of our lives to come, as my friend, my lover, and the other half of my heart?”

  Her eyes had grown huge as I watched her beautiful tear-stained face reflect emotional comprehension of my words.

  She launched forward and fairly knocked me over backward as she screamed, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” while she hugged me around the neck tight enough to cut off my air supply.

  I laughed and pulled her away from me for a moment. “One more thing,” I said with a smile.

  I picked up her left hand and pulled out my grandmother’s ring from my cloak with my other hand. Her eyes got big again. She was so pretty! Not just physically, but inside too. My heart swelled within my chest at the knowledge that my emotions and desires would be in her tender safekeeping from now on.

  The beautifully molded diamond ring slipped perfectly onto her finger and she melted again into my arms.

  She pulled back and said mournfully, “I don’t have a ring for you!”

  I leaned forward and whispered into her ear, “I have one, but it wouldn’t be a good idea to put it on right now. You’ll see why later. What do you say we get out of here?”

  She nodded her head, her face all smiles, and I rose to my feet and took off my cape. I extended out my hand and she took it and rose with the grace of Eve.

  She had knelt before me as my slave and she rose now as the queen of my heart. I took my cape and whipped it around her shoulders covering up her state of near nakedness from the sight of all the men around us.

  She looked up at me, grateful for the covering, and then leaned up on tiptoe to whisper into my ear, “I’ll be your living breathing fantasy and satisfy your every desire so long as breath remains within me to please you. I’ll bless you with the beauty that so many have desired to have, but that only you will ever possess and my heart will forever be yours to care for as you wish.”

  My eyes met hers as she slipped back down to stand on her feet and I saw the promise of her words reflected in the smoky depths of her sapphire eyes. This day had been long in the coming, but well worth the wait and I felt shaken inside at the depth of the Creator’s understanding of me and His willingness to give me more than I could ever have asked for; much less could ever have deserved.

  The crowd was still thick around us as they watched a tableau of something beautiful unfold that their worldly eyes could not understand, even though they clearly saw it. I drew my sword and they parted before me at the sight of the shimmering blade that snapped with color.

  Striding out the way I had come in, with Krista’s hand on my arm, I knew something the rest of the denizens of this unhappy place did not know. All the other doors had been closed and barred by a group of dark clad men numbering twelve. The door I was heading for was the only one left open.

  “Sir! Sir!” rang out from behind me. I turned to see the auctioneer run up to us, out of breath.

  “You almost forgot this!” he said holding out the bill of sale to me.

  They still didn’t get it!

  I snatched it out of his hand. “Thanks!” I growled and he fled back down the aisle, as he saw the sword in my hand.

  Arriving on the boardwalk outside the slave market house, I whistled loudly and Flin bolted out of the side alley where I had left him and mounted up onto the boardwalk.

  The timbers shuddered loudly as he ran up the boardwalk to pull up in front of us.

  “Roric?” Krista asked.

  I turned to her, “Yes?”

  “You forgot something in there.”

  For the life of me I couldn’t imagine what that was. “What?”

  “This!” She stood up on her tiptoes, threw her arms around my neck and kissed me with all the passion that I had remembered from our encounter on the beach and more.

  I was just about to return the kiss, when she pushed away from me. I looked at her, not understanding why she’d stopped things yet again. Was she going to slap me again?

  I didn’t think so, because she was looking up at me with a saucy little grin on her face, “There’s more where that came from, but you’ll have to wait till later!”

  I shook my head smiling, as I lifted the little tease up behind the saddle. I got into the saddle and her arms closed tightly around me, which was a very good feeling.

  My sword was still drawn for a specific purpose. I handed the bill of sale to her over my shoulder.

  “Hold this, please.”

  As she took it, I backed Flin up against the side of the building.

  “Zarta!”

  On my command Flin lashed out with his back hooves and crushed in the side of a barrel full of lamp oil.

  As the oil spread out across the dry boardwalk Esmeralda stumbled out of the auction house shrieking, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Flin, out of his own volition, lashed out a hoof and sent her toppling backward into the building. I extended the point of the sword over my shoulder.

  “Your papers, my darling?”

  With a giggle of pure joy, Krista shoved her bill of sale onto the end of the amazing sword her husband wielded. I pulled Flin forward and reached the sword upward to the lantern overhead.

  The papers caught flame and I swung the sword in a downward arc to shake the burning shards
of the bill of sale off into the spilled oil so that they could burn up with the past. As the boardwalk and the front of the building burst into flames I heard shouts of alarm from inside. Let the fools burn up with their blood money in hand!

  I let Flin have his way and we busted through the railing of the boardwalk and headed northward for home as fast as Flin could carry us. I was free to be content now, wherever I lived and through whatever I did, because I had the girl of my dreams, that I loved more than anything else, holding on tight to me.

  Krista buried her head against Roric’s back, loving the solid feel of the man she held onto, knowing that the solidness she felt was more than just something that went skin deep. This amazing man had come back for her!

  The slave buyers had wanted her body, but he had wanted her heart, and the Creator had freed her soul. A slave no more, but the wife of a proud warrior she would forever be.

  Life’s journey for her may still hold valleys and mountains to cross, but she could do it with her husband by her side and God showing her which way was up. Life was worth the living after all, because the Creator had made it so.

  Guy S. Stanton, III

  A few things about me

  I live in the country. It’s the best place to be I’m

  thinking. I share my life with my beautiful wife, Beth,

  my three children and one cat named Herman.

  When I’m not lost in a daydream, the most likely

  place you’ll find me is flower gardening

  or at the movie theatre. I used to think I was strong, but

  now I freely admit that I’m weak. My new reality is

  okay because Jesus Christ has me covered.

  It’s better that way, trust me!