Chapter 6; Parasite and Ashes of the innocent
He was chilled. The evening air was wet with dew that fell like a cool blanket. Being a water dweller from the wetlands of Ugaua this was the kind of weather Leech thrived in.
His real name was Baowen son of Slaarg of the Kulketnich clan. His people were the rejected spawn of the swamps. Shunned by the rest of Etheria, they generally stayed in the wetlands of the South eastern continent.
They were a warrior race of beings who absorbed the energies of lesser races that came to their lands. When there were no other races to fight his people fought each other. Their were six clans that claimed lordship over Ugaua- his tribe was the strongest. Kulketnich warriors were the fiercest fighters of all.
Which was why he was such a disappointment to his people.
He was a coward.
In joining the Horde he had thought to hide behind their technology and prove himself a warrior to his people by leading the conquerors of Etheria to victory. Such was not the case.
Leech led no one.
He was even denied his identity, known merely as Leech, an appellation he detested. For years he had endured Hordacks vicious tempers and the command of inept leaders- women no less.
His lips curled in a snarl. His people knew where women belonged. In the subterranean cabins bearing children and pleasing their men.
The rebels thought him a joke, his comrades knew him for a coward but after tonight nobody would laugh at him ever again. He was going to strike at the rebels where it would hurt them the most. He was going to destroy their children. As he peered down on the village below a malicious pleasure unwound inside him making him slobber and smile grotesquely. After tonight nobody would be laughing.
Except him.
********************************************************************
Mental waves of searing pain ripped across the astral plane as psychic vibrations thundered their invisible way across the land. Emotional agony rippled into her awareness with the subtlety of crashing batneks. The consciousness was fully roused and ready for battle. No wind stirred as trees thrashed at nothingness in the night. And the queen of the twiggets- the mind of the forest knew that something in the world was wrong.
*******************************
The rebels in the camps began to feel a sense of alarm when the forest came to life around them; limbs thrashing at nothing, bending, swaying, creaking, moaning. The people huddled together in fear. The leaders calmed them. Even as they felt the sense of disquiet invade them as well.
***************************
Dawn crept across the cerulean sky as ebony fingers withdrew from the horizon and brilliant hues of crimson and lavender began their merry dance across the face of morning. Creation begun anew, tomorrow had come. Squirrels and chipmunks merrily darted from tree to tree and birds flew home to their nest after a nights hunt as others flew to begin theirs.
Madame awoke and horror was her companion. This day there would be no respite to the weary.
Adora and Bow, Glimmer and many of the leaders of the various encampments made their alert eyed way to the meeting glade were Madame Raz awaited them.
"Madame, what's happening? You called to me- you were in my mind like the Sorceress from Grayskull. I never knew you could-"
"Something has happened." Madame's usually happy voice was somber and heavy with sorrow and fear. Her eyes were unusually puffy.
"What is it?" Adora asked her tone commanding.
"I don't know, but there is so much pain Adora, there is weeping- we've not known this since the Horde arrived."
"Madame I don't understand what-"
"Adora! Look!" Bow gasped pointing behind her. Adora whirled prepared to attack. A man and a woman came toward them, their eyes glazed and dead, their skin cracked and stained by the long dry trail of tears. The body of a boy cradled in their arms.
"She-ra… please, our son is ill, She-ra can heal him…." The man, obviously the father lay the boy at Adora's feet. The mother reached out and dug her fingers into Adora's arm.
"Please help him," she whimpered eyes shining, "please find She-ra, she can heal him. She can heal my boy." Adora crouched down next to the child. He was pale, blue, he'd obviously been dead for a while. She locked eyes with the father.
"What happened?"
"Please," he whispered, "She-ra can help us, she can heal him." Madame wrapped her arms around the woman's shoulders. She collapsed into her embrace, silent.
"Sir," Adora swallowed hard, "sir, your son is dead, now you must tell me what happened."
"No, Jonathan is not dead, he is just sleeping, he's very sick you know. But She-ra
can save him, she has healing powers, just get her… please…"he whispered his eyes shone with such agony Adora could not deny his plea. She knew it was futile, even She-ra couldn't bring back the dead.
But she went anyway. Her mind a masss of confusion she strode swiftly from the clearing. Once free of scrutiny she held up her sword.
Glinting like steel the metal was actually an alloy of Eternium and Steel fused with magic. Like the tip of hope it thrust high against the morning's fushsia womb.
"For the honor of Grayskull," stars super nova'd from that silver tip in blinding radiance to dance merrily over the form of Adora, opening the vacuum of space and sucking her in to issue forth the champion of light, the crusader of justice into a shimmering gloriole of hope!
"I am She-ra!" Adora was gone. In her place was She-ra. Swifter than flying unicorns She-ra ran, back to the man and the woman and their child.
Their dead child.
Her heart broke as she neared and saw hope flood the eyes of the parents. They stepped back as she bent low over the child. Her heart overflowed with sorrow and compassion and tears like dewdrops from deity fell from her sapphire orbs to fall upon the lifeless form of the child. She reached out her arms and placed her hands upon the fallen innocent. Her voice broke as she pleaded for his life with one utterance.
"For the honor of Grayskull." The mantra trickled from her lips a desperate prayer to whatever being heard and responded to such things. But no answering warmth or gentle glow came to her. She felt nothing save the cold lifeless corpse of a child beneath her fingers.
The woman began wailing anew and the man fell to his knees, grabbing his childs lifeless body from the ground and rocking it. Then he began to whimper. It was as if the grief were being torn from his body.
Suddenly he jerked himself to his feet and drawing a knife from his boot he sliced off the last two fingers of his left hand releasing a cry of pain and anguish, blood spurted from his hand as he cradled it against his chest, a crimson stain blossoming across his tunic. She-ra moved to heal him but he violently gestured her back as he continued wailing.
"Your power couldn't save my boy…-Nyaaaaaghh!!!….- don't touch me!"
Glimmer hurried over with a cloth for the man to wrap about his hand and staunch the
bleeding.
"What was wrong with your son?" Glimmer queried gently.
"Nothing. Not a damn thing!"
"How did he…. What caused his condition?"
"A monster. One of them Hordesmen. He grabbed my boy and sucked the life right outta him. Then he laughed. Oh God! He laughed!" She-ra's blood became ice in her veins. Her anguished gaze met Madame's and she stood.
"Where are you from?"
"Dwyllan. A small village near Rendwoll." In one lithe motion She-ra was gone.
She-ra knew what killed the boy.
She knew the monster for she had fought him recently.
Leech.
He would die.
She would not merely fight and defend.
This time she would kill. She had never taken a life before but the fury in her blood cried out for vengeance. Blood demanded blood, he would die and at her hands.
She didn't remember leading Spirit from the woods or mounting him but she was atop Swiftwind and soaring south towards Dwyllan, Rendwoll, and the Fright Zone. She flew low to observe the city. She saw no sign of her prey. She did however see a crowd. She landed Swiftwind and pushed her way through the throng outside a womans cottage.
She was weeping.
A pretty girl-child lay in her arms her golden hair spread around her porcelain features, a blue ribbon tied and tucked above each ear. Death had claimed her gently leaving her as beautiful as she had been in life. She-ra heard talk around her.
Poor thing….woke up to find her daughter dead in bed, window wide open…truly terrible…I've got to get home and check on my boy…
Shouldering her way to the front she placed her hands on the girls still form, beseeching heaven to hear her call and aid her in healing the child.
Heaven was unavailable.
A silent shriek, an angry accusation echoed in her head as She-ra gazed down at the child, unable to pull her back, unable to reach her, totally helpless. She ran back and mounted her steed. The air embraced them and urged them onward.
This scene was repeated five times that day. The faces of each child indelibly etched into her mind their pale innocent features to haunt her for the rest of her life. The fury was no longer hot it was cold. Leech would die and Adora didn't care what she had to do to accomplish the task.
Broken, hurting, full of sorrow She-ra flew to Mt. Skydancer to the Crystal Castle. She stood upon the ramparts overlooking Etheria. The world seemed so distant from her pain.
As She-ra she felt things more acutely than others more so even than Adora. She felt the pain, the rage, the sorrow and fear, the helplessness of others empathically and it merged with her own- generally this gave her a heightened sense of purpose. But in this she was helpless and worse, she shouldered the guilt of being the cause of this tragedy.
The guilt, already more than she could bear, was magnified ten-fold as She-ra. She drew her sword her heart pounding, bursting with agony- hers and that of others.
Suddenly a violent scream issued from her throat and slamming her sword into the castle floor she embedded it up to the hilt and began screaming. Over and over. Rage echoed the hallowed halls of the castle, it throbbed and writhed as a living thing. Emotional flagellation whipped over her as she cried out and her cries unknown to her echoed across the face of Etheria.
The people of every village and town heard the mournful savage cry of the feral warrior.
The mourning knew She-ra wept with them and were comforted.
The people to the southeast unaware of the turmoil to the north heard the sound and quaked in their homes.
The rebels in the woods and the trolls in their caves and the unicorns on their islands and Sea Hawk and his woman heard the cry of their protector and they worried for their friend.
And in the Fright Zone Hordack heard the cry of his nemesis, his troops heard her cry, every commander he had heard it, Leech in the swamps heard it and they began to tremble.
Evil began to fear.
They did not here the pain in her cry. They merely heard in that wild rabid nightmare wail the promise of vengeance black and terrible. Leech heard the lust for blood, his blood and he stopped laughing for he knew his days were numbered.
Lighthope, the guardian of the Crystal castle made sure not one soul on the face of Etheria doubted that their Champion mourned with them. And not one heart blackened by evil doubted that her vengeance would be something ugly and unwelcome.
He was chilled. The evening air was wet with dew that fell like a cool blanket. Being a water dweller from the wetlands of Ugaua this was the kind of weather Leech thrived in.
His real name was Baowen son of Slaarg of the Kulketnich clan. His people were the rejected spawn of the swamps. Shunned by the rest of Etheria, they generally stayed in the wetlands of the South eastern continent.
They were a warrior race of beings who absorbed the energies of lesser races that came to their lands. When there were no other races to fight his people fought each other. Their were six clans that claimed lordship over Ugaua- his tribe was the strongest. Kulketnich warriors were the fiercest fighters of all.
Which was why he was such a disappointment to his people.
He was a coward.
In joining the Horde he had thought to hide behind their technology and prove himself a warrior to his people by leading the conquerors of Etheria to victory. Such was not the case.
Leech led no one.
He was even denied his identity, known merely as Leech, an appellation he detested. For years he had endured Hordacks vicious tempers and the command of inept leaders- women no less.
His lips curled in a snarl. His people knew where women belonged. In the subterranean cabins bearing children and pleasing their men.
The rebels thought him a joke, his comrades knew him for a coward but after tonight nobody would laugh at him ever again. He was going to strike at the rebels where it would hurt them the most. He was going to destroy their children. As he peered down on the village below a malicious pleasure unwound inside him making him slobber and smile grotesquely. After tonight nobody would be laughing.
Except him.
********************************************************************
Mental waves of searing pain ripped across the astral plane as psychic vibrations thundered their invisible way across the land. Emotional agony rippled into her awareness with the subtlety of crashing batneks. The consciousness was fully roused and ready for battle. No wind stirred as trees thrashed at nothingness in the night. And the queen of the twiggets- the mind of the forest knew that something in the world was wrong.
*******************************
The rebels in the camps began to feel a sense of alarm when the forest came to life around them; limbs thrashing at nothing, bending, swaying, creaking, moaning. The people huddled together in fear. The leaders calmed them. Even as they felt the sense of disquiet invade them as well.
***************************
Dawn crept across the cerulean sky as ebony fingers withdrew from the horizon and brilliant hues of crimson and lavender began their merry dance across the face of morning. Creation begun anew, tomorrow had come. Squirrels and chipmunks merrily darted from tree to tree and birds flew home to their nest after a nights hunt as others flew to begin theirs.
Madame awoke and horror was her companion. This day there would be no respite to the weary.
Adora and Bow, Glimmer and many of the leaders of the various encampments made their alert eyed way to the meeting glade were Madame Raz awaited them.
"Madame, what's happening? You called to me- you were in my mind like the Sorceress from Grayskull. I never knew you could-"
"Something has happened." Madame's usually happy voice was somber and heavy with sorrow and fear. Her eyes were unusually puffy.
"What is it?" Adora asked her tone commanding.
"I don't know, but there is so much pain Adora, there is weeping- we've not known this since the Horde arrived."
"Madame I don't understand what-"
"Adora! Look!" Bow gasped pointing behind her. Adora whirled prepared to attack. A man and a woman came toward them, their eyes glazed and dead, their skin cracked and stained by the long dry trail of tears. The body of a boy cradled in their arms.
"She-ra… please, our son is ill, She-ra can heal him…." The man, obviously the father lay the boy at Adora's feet. The mother reached out and dug her fingers into Adora's arm.
"Please help him," she whimpered eyes shining, "please find She-ra, she can heal him. She can heal my boy." Adora crouched down next to the child. He was pale, blue, he'd obviously been dead for a while. She locked eyes with the father.
"What happened?"
"Please," he whispered, "She-ra can help us, she can heal him." Madame wrapped her arms around the woman's shoulders. She collapsed into her embrace, silent.
"Sir," Adora swallowed hard, "sir, your son is dead, now you must tell me what happened."
"No, Jonathan is not dead, he is just sleeping, he's very sick you know. But She-ra
can save him, she has healing powers, just get her… please…"he whispered his eyes shone with such agony Adora could not deny his plea. She knew it was futile, even She-ra couldn't bring back the dead.
But she went anyway. Her mind a masss of confusion she strode swiftly from the clearing. Once free of scrutiny she held up her sword.
Glinting like steel the metal was actually an alloy of Eternium and Steel fused with magic. Like the tip of hope it thrust high against the morning's fushsia womb.
"For the honor of Grayskull," stars super nova'd from that silver tip in blinding radiance to dance merrily over the form of Adora, opening the vacuum of space and sucking her in to issue forth the champion of light, the crusader of justice into a shimmering gloriole of hope!
"I am She-ra!" Adora was gone. In her place was She-ra. Swifter than flying unicorns She-ra ran, back to the man and the woman and their child.
Their dead child.
Her heart broke as she neared and saw hope flood the eyes of the parents. They stepped back as she bent low over the child. Her heart overflowed with sorrow and compassion and tears like dewdrops from deity fell from her sapphire orbs to fall upon the lifeless form of the child. She reached out her arms and placed her hands upon the fallen innocent. Her voice broke as she pleaded for his life with one utterance.
"For the honor of Grayskull." The mantra trickled from her lips a desperate prayer to whatever being heard and responded to such things. But no answering warmth or gentle glow came to her. She felt nothing save the cold lifeless corpse of a child beneath her fingers.
The woman began wailing anew and the man fell to his knees, grabbing his childs lifeless body from the ground and rocking it. Then he began to whimper. It was as if the grief were being torn from his body.
Suddenly he jerked himself to his feet and drawing a knife from his boot he sliced off the last two fingers of his left hand releasing a cry of pain and anguish, blood spurted from his hand as he cradled it against his chest, a crimson stain blossoming across his tunic. She-ra moved to heal him but he violently gestured her back as he continued wailing.
"Your power couldn't save my boy…-Nyaaaaaghh!!!….- don't touch me!"
Glimmer hurried over with a cloth for the man to wrap about his hand and staunch the
bleeding.
"What was wrong with your son?" Glimmer queried gently.
"Nothing. Not a damn thing!"
"How did he…. What caused his condition?"
"A monster. One of them Hordesmen. He grabbed my boy and sucked the life right outta him. Then he laughed. Oh God! He laughed!" She-ra's blood became ice in her veins. Her anguished gaze met Madame's and she stood.
"Where are you from?"
"Dwyllan. A small village near Rendwoll." In one lithe motion She-ra was gone.
She-ra knew what killed the boy.
She knew the monster for she had fought him recently.
Leech.
He would die.
She would not merely fight and defend.
This time she would kill. She had never taken a life before but the fury in her blood cried out for vengeance. Blood demanded blood, he would die and at her hands.
She didn't remember leading Spirit from the woods or mounting him but she was atop Swiftwind and soaring south towards Dwyllan, Rendwoll, and the Fright Zone. She flew low to observe the city. She saw no sign of her prey. She did however see a crowd. She landed Swiftwind and pushed her way through the throng outside a womans cottage.
She was weeping.
A pretty girl-child lay in her arms her golden hair spread around her porcelain features, a blue ribbon tied and tucked above each ear. Death had claimed her gently leaving her as beautiful as she had been in life. She-ra heard talk around her.
Poor thing….woke up to find her daughter dead in bed, window wide open…truly terrible…I've got to get home and check on my boy…
Shouldering her way to the front she placed her hands on the girls still form, beseeching heaven to hear her call and aid her in healing the child.
Heaven was unavailable.
A silent shriek, an angry accusation echoed in her head as She-ra gazed down at the child, unable to pull her back, unable to reach her, totally helpless. She ran back and mounted her steed. The air embraced them and urged them onward.
This scene was repeated five times that day. The faces of each child indelibly etched into her mind their pale innocent features to haunt her for the rest of her life. The fury was no longer hot it was cold. Leech would die and Adora didn't care what she had to do to accomplish the task.
Broken, hurting, full of sorrow She-ra flew to Mt. Skydancer to the Crystal Castle. She stood upon the ramparts overlooking Etheria. The world seemed so distant from her pain.
As She-ra she felt things more acutely than others more so even than Adora. She felt the pain, the rage, the sorrow and fear, the helplessness of others empathically and it merged with her own- generally this gave her a heightened sense of purpose. But in this she was helpless and worse, she shouldered the guilt of being the cause of this tragedy.
The guilt, already more than she could bear, was magnified ten-fold as She-ra. She drew her sword her heart pounding, bursting with agony- hers and that of others.
Suddenly a violent scream issued from her throat and slamming her sword into the castle floor she embedded it up to the hilt and began screaming. Over and over. Rage echoed the hallowed halls of the castle, it throbbed and writhed as a living thing. Emotional flagellation whipped over her as she cried out and her cries unknown to her echoed across the face of Etheria.
The people of every village and town heard the mournful savage cry of the feral warrior.
The mourning knew She-ra wept with them and were comforted.
The people to the southeast unaware of the turmoil to the north heard the sound and quaked in their homes.
The rebels in the woods and the trolls in their caves and the unicorns on their islands and Sea Hawk and his woman heard the cry of their protector and they worried for their friend.
And in the Fright Zone Hordack heard the cry of his nemesis, his troops heard her cry, every commander he had heard it, Leech in the swamps heard it and they began to tremble.
Evil began to fear.
They did not here the pain in her cry. They merely heard in that wild rabid nightmare wail the promise of vengeance black and terrible. Leech heard the lust for blood, his blood and he stopped laughing for he knew his days were numbered.
Lighthope, the guardian of the Crystal castle made sure not one soul on the face of Etheria doubted that their Champion mourned with them. And not one heart blackened by evil doubted that her vengeance would be something ugly and unwelcome.
