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Crossing the border into eastern Libya last month, we were stopped at a checkpoint by a stern man in military-style fatigues.

The driver rolled down the window enough for the man to peer in and assess the three passengers. His eyes darted from person to person. Then, his face split open to a wide grin, less one front tooth, and with near-exuberance he said, "Welcome to FREE Libya!"

That phrase, "Free Libya," was regarded as proverb back then in the headier days of the uprising. After four decades of autocratic rule Libyans had somehow loosened the shackles and liked how it felt.

Generations had known no other way but that of Moammar Gadhafi and for some the exploration of any other possibility was almost intoxicating. Parents waved flags, women staged protests, and kids painted their faces with the coloured flag of the old monarchy.

Young men poured into rebel recruiting and training centers to volunteer to fight for the cause. Days before, most had been students, store clerks, or unemployed.

We met one fighter being trained near the airport who had been the gardener there. Several more defected from the ranks of the ill-equipped Libyan army to join the disparate opposition forces. All of their weapons and ammunition were looted from army bases and government storehouses and could never match the arsenal of Gadhafi.

They had very little training or leadership and appeared disorganized beyond having a common goal.

The sense of wonder at what might be next, or that there was a next, seemed to be summed up in a small blaze in the center of Benghazi. In a small park a varied crowd torched copies of the 'Green Book' -- Gadhafi's self-styled doctrine that dictated every person's life.

There, in a gust of smoke, I met a young woman (I will not name her) raised in Ontario whose family moved back to Benghazi several years ago. She was with her father and taking photos of the bonfire as though she might someday need proof that it actually happened.

"For us to be doing this now, it's unbelievable," she told me, "I mean, everyone's been afraid of him for so long."

Weeks later it seems there is still reason to fear.

Now, Colonel Gadhafi's forces are idling near the fringes of the city. In a radio address Gadhafi warned that his loyalists will search every street, every house, every closet. He promised the regime would offer little mercy.

Gadhafi's brigades have pushed back through what was rebel-controlled territory to reclaim the towns of Ras Lanuf, Brega, and eventually Ajdabiya. The fighting at times was more intense than what many journalists had witnessed in careers of covering conflict. Most reporters came to Libya for a revolution, not a war.

The shift in dynamic was most noticeable at rebel checkpoints. In the early days there was an atmosphere of carnival and anyone who had an AK-47 (which was most men), or an anti-aircraft gun, or a shoulder-to-air missile was willing to fire off a few jubilant rounds for the cameras.

The rebels then were emboldened having secured much of the east. So when Colonel Gadhafi's forces made a run at Brega, a key oil terminal, the rebels altered their defensive posture in Benghazi and launched an offensive. Military minds may one day determine whether it was folly.

As the fighting and air strikes grew fierce, the most experienced rebel soldiers were pushed closer to the front line leaving the other posts in the care of thinning volunteer ranks. Even the word ‘tayyara' (airplane) was enough to trigger panic and a hail of gunfire at a fighter jet or helicopter that rarely existed.

It was near the front line where we saw Abdullah again. Our first encounter had been in central Benghazi. In the week that had passed between those meetings he had become a deputy commander for rebel forces at Ras Lanuf. I asked him why the rebels were better fighters than Gadhafi's army.

"We have truth and God on our side," he said. We did not see him again.

Opposition forces now also have the international community though the no-fly zone meant to blunt Gadhafi's assault is widely regarded as being weeks late. It also contravenes the early belief that the revolution needed to be homegrown. That seemed to change when Gadhafi employed his air force to bomb rebel targets. Nobody is sure if intervention will work.

The death toll still remains unclear, though days of heavy fighting saw mangled men pulled from ambulances and mass funerals in the hours that followed.

"We thought it would be like Tunisia or Egypt," said a man cradling his newborn daughter at the main hospital in Ajdabiya, "but now so many people are dying."

Much of the east is now disoriented by setbacks and suspicion.

There are many theories about hired killers from neighbouring African countries and the bodies of wounded rebels disappearing from sidewalks and hospitals. Some of these reports are being investigated by human rights organizations.

Before we left Ajdabiya we came across construction workers from Chad who said it was too dangerous for them to stay.

"People here think every black African is a mercenary," said one man. They squeezed into a pair of vans for the long trip home. The tide turned.

The day we were driving to the border to leave Libya, I noticed the opposition banners in some times were frayed and falling down. The men in fatigue at checkpoints barely gestured or just waved us through. With every setback the rebels seemed to grow less friendly to the foreign press.

At the border the men at the last checkpoint quietly took our passports and recorded the information in a ledger book. They handed them through the car window again. They seemed used to the idea of people leaving.

A Libya without Moammar Gadhafi is still in the sights of many. What is emerging after weeks of unrest is that a 'free Libya' may come at a greater cost than they might have imagined.