Chapter 3 Part 21

Samson stood atop a dam with a reservoir of water to his left. The level was dangerously high. Along the water's edge near the bank, he could see how plants and trees, which had grown on dry land, were now swaying in the currents and eddies of the watery plain. On the right side, Samson saw a valley carpeted with barren rocks and long abandoned rubbish. The only difference was that near the base of the dam the smoke of a campfire climbed steadily from a lean-to. A path climbed steadily through the rock until it emerged upon the dam about two hundred yards in front of him. The dam rumbled slightly beneath Samson's feet. He instinctively deduced that it was not far from bursting.

Samson called down to the occupants of the lean-to below. When no one answered, he trotted over to the pathway and began the trek to the valley floor. He had to warn the campers of the threat of flood.

The path was not difficult to navigate, but the process could not be rushed. About halfway down, he rounded a corner and discovered a warhammer on the ground in the path. Not wasting time to stop, Samson scooped it up and examined it as he continued downward. The hammer was a Dwarven Thrower, a magical device designed to return to its thrower after striking its target. It looked just like the one Scarlet used to wield. And with that thought, the grief of a friend's death came back on his heart heavily and he cast aside the hammer. He could no longer bear to see it.

He tried to think of something else as he continued downward. He was passing an old gnarled tree when his eye caught the glint of sunlight off metal among the branches. Reaching out his hand, he found a pendant dangling from a branch. He instantly recognized the gold dragon on the platinum chain. It was Tyson's emblem of his brotherhood in the monasteries. A second wave of grief and emotion piled onto him.

With great effort, Samson put his feelings behind him and continued to follow the path towards the bottom. He half-expected the next find when he saw it. Rounding the last corner, a short-handled war mallet lay in the path. This was not a look alike of Seymore's weapon. It was without a doubt the very weapon right down to the scratches and notches in the handle. This time Samson stopped. He lifted the weapon from the sand and cradled it in his arm. It was deceptively heavy. For a moment, Samson could almost see Seymore wielding it two-handed and wading through goblins or trolls like a berzerker.

The unique short handled hammer swinging to and fro had become something of a legend in the society of the Mountain Giants back home. Giant children would be scared into good behavior by their parents with threats of Seymore and the Storm Hammer that spit lightning and rolled like thunder. The vision brought a smile to his face but faded as he remembered Seymore in a deep coma barely alive by the healing hand of the half-breed.

Samson closed his eyes and fought back the despair he felt stirring deep within his soul. He reminded himself that Marlena was still alive. Even though she didn't remember their past, he was still her friend and he loved her still. She was going to need him to get out of this place and back home.

So with great effort, Samson drove the despair from his heart and continued towards the camp. He didn't know where the others were, nor how he had gotten there. At the moment, all he did know was that if he didn't warn the occupants of the camp ahead, they would die under the crushing weight of millions of tons of water when the dam broke.

Samson drew nearer and approached the lean-to from the side. To his left, the dam's base trembled lightly, and there was a dark spot around one block near the center of the bottom row. Samson suspected it was the weak block of the dam. When it finally gave, the whole thing would go.

Yelling his warning of the danger, Samson hurried around the corner of the shelter and instantly wished he hadn't.

There before him lay Marlena. Her head lay in the lap of an unknown man. Her swollen abdomen labored to deliver a child that he knew he had not fathered.

Finally, Samson's emotions broke from his control. A cry of unbridled rage broke from his lips. Despair and anger welled up in him as he clenched his fists crushing the pendant he had plucked from the tree.

Gone. They were all gone. Scarlet, Tyson, Seymore and his wife had all left him. He felt so alone and bitter that he could not even decide what to do next. Part of him wanted to leave and let his wife and her lover perish under the impending death building behind the wall at their backs. The other part of him wanted to go into the shelter and crush the man with his hands and take his wife out.

There was a crackling sound from the dam, and Samson saw that the stone was beginning to leak water. He knew that if he left immediately, he could climb to safety before the whole thing collapsed.

He didn't care anymore. He had lost everything he had ever loved, and he just wanted to run and get as far from the reminders as he could.

He was about to leave when he looked one last time into his wife's eyes. Then he was sprinting to the base of the dam. She was not to blame. He knew that the amnesia had cost him his wife and not a lack of love on her part or his part.

Samson skidded to a halt before the weakened block and set his back against it. Then reaching into the depths of his being, summoned up the great strength that was his namesake. He threw himself against the block with all of his might, slowing the water's motion out of the wall. Samson Okmar strained until the very heart within his chest began to complain. Drawing on the anger and despair he had experienced earlier, he bent his body in a surge of emotionally driven effort. Slowly, the block ground to a halt.

He saw the man carrying his wife up the path off to the right. He knew that he had sealed his own doom by staying, but he could not have left. The only thing stronger than his will to live had been his love for his wife. Now, he was going to give her all that he had left to give her. Without his friends, he had no further reason to go on.

He couldn't see himself travelling with Armegon and the others without Seymore and Scarlet. And, he knew he could never live near Marlena when she had taken another. No matter how she had wronged him, he still loved her more than anything in his life. It was with his own life that he was buying her time to get out of the valley.

Samson wearily gazed through sweat blurred eyes upward and saw the man carry Marlena out of the valley. He felt the water running down his face as his strength finally failed him and the waters came. No matter what happened before, in the end Samson Okmar felt only love for his wife.

Suddenly, as if waking from a dream, Samson stood in a bright room. There before him stood a young girl scantily dressed in a white flowing gown.

"Your test was a test of strength," she said. "And the strength of Samson Okmar is strongest in his heart." The girl smiled. "Well done."