***
As we got closer, I could see that there was indeed damage. The first farm we passed was the Jallas' and the farmhouse was still smoking. There was no sign of anyone around, but Harris and Hayden reported that their scouting revealed no evidence that anyone had been killed there either. It wasn't much comfort, though. The next three farms we passed–the Everims', the Bheolas', and the Arrés' looked exactly like the Jallas'. Nothing left of the farmhouses but the shell, blackened and smoking. The farm buildings were sometimes intact, sometimes like the houses, and always the farms were deserted.
The next farm, still about a mile outside of the village, would be my family's. We crested the hill that hid it from view and there it was.
The house was gone. No blackened shell this time, no walls half-standing. Just a scorched pit surrounded by burned grass. The outbuildings were the same–just blackened circles in the midst of the grass.
I couldn't help myself, I started to cry. Well, I just felt tears streaming down my face. I didn't even have the energy to really cry. All of my worst fears had come true.
My home was gone and so was my family. I felt in my gut that they were dead, that I would never see them again.
But I had to be sure. I got out of the speeder, barely able to see through the tears, and started stumbling towards where my home had once stood. I made it maybe three steps before I felt Carré put her arms around me to stop me.
"Let the boys go, Rabé. Let them check things out first." Her voice was soothing, but it only made things worse. If Carré didn't want me to go, it was because she was afraid of what I might find and see. My legs buckled and I ended up sitting on the grass, her arms still around me, sobbing, while the boys checked things out. By the time they returned, I had managed to get myself under control again. I would have been embarrassed, but didn't I have a right to cry? And no one looked like they thought any less of me.
Their report: once again, no evidence of human remains. (Well, they tried to put it more kindly, but I can read between the lines. I'd been helping them all morning and I knew the lingo.)
"Probably they left when the armies came and went to stay somewhere else. With the buildings gone, they would need other shelter. I think we should try the village before we jump to conclusions." That was Harris, the voice of reason. And he made sense, too, even though I felt that I had enough proof that the worst had happened. I couldn't see my father leaving our home for anything. He'd rather sleep outside with nothing to protect him than leave our land, of that I was sure.
In any case, what Harris said was still reasonable, and I nodded and tried not to start crying again as we got back in the speeder and headed over the next hill for Akaré.
The village was still there, at least. There was plenty of evidence that there had been a battle. Some of the buildings had been burned down, others sported gaping holes with scorched edges, but they were mostly still standing.
And the truly wonderful thing–there were people. I saw Auntie Verana first. She's as old as the hills and she speaks Nubé better than anyone still alive and she always took time to talk to us children. She was sitting in front of the remains of her daughter's home on the village outskirts, rolling bandages. She's blind, so she couldn't see us as we pulled up in front of her, but she heard the speeder and looked up expectantly.
I got out and walked toward her, but I was so overcome with relief that I couldn't even speak at first. Finally, I managed to whisper, "Hallé, Atanté Verana," which is one of the few Nubé phrases I can actually speak–"Hello, Auntie Verana." I was hugging her even as she said, "Ité Rabé? Is that my little Rabé?" ("Ité Rabé" means "Little Rabé"–Verana's been calling me that since I was born.)
"Yes, Atanté, it's me."
She smiled at me and said, "We have been wondering when you would come, Itate." (Itate=Little One)
Before I could ask about that, I heard a shriek from behind me. "Rabé! Is that Rabé!?! Atanté, why didn't you say something?!?" That was Chrissé Miarda, who really is Verana's niece. She's about ten years older than I am, but she's got a reputation for being really...enthusiastic. She hugged me so hard I couldn't breathe and never even stopped talking to catch her breath. "...What took you so long? We've been expecting you for days? Surely with your position, you could have demanded a speeder sooner? We thought you'd show up with an army to protect us even before the droids got here?" She went on and on until Verana stood up and said, "Chrissé," very sharply and she finally shut up. When Verana tells you to do something, you do it.
Her comments had my head whirling, too. I felt guilty suddenly, like I really should have done something to prevent what had happened to the village, even though I knew there was nothing I could have done. And, in any case, nothing could dislodge the thought that had been dominating my thoughts for days.
"My family. Is my family okay?"
Chrissé opened her mouth to speak, but before she could get a word out, there was another voice behind me.
"Rabé."
My father's voice.
My father...alive?
I turned around, expecting to find that I had imagined it, but...there he was, standing there looking right at me, a bandage wrapped around his head, but otherwise whole and seemingly uninjured.
"Daddy!" I hurled myself into his arms. I absolutely in a million million years could never describe how I felt at that moment. If I had cried before in pain, I cried now a thousand times harder in my joy. It was the happiest moment of my life. We just stood there, me crying all over my father's tunic while he stroked my hair and whispered soothing things to me, and his own tears fell onto my shoulders.
By the time I finally stopped crying, a crowd had gathered around us, and we weren't the only two with reddened eyes, or the only ones sniffling.
"Is mother okay, too?"
My father got this look on his face.
***
TBC...