34

A Shocking Welcome

A day before, Leyati and his band had finally reached the end of their own journey: the Berbil Village. A day east lay Saber's own home.

"Is that it?" one of the humans had asked. She pointed to evidence of a tiny village ahead of them.

Leyati shook his head and closed his eyes. "Hold on a minute," he said as he thought. "The boy said it was southeast, after a great animal fortress, and about a month due east of that. He also said there was a village of Berbils right before it, a day away."

"Berbils? I didn't know they were real!"

Leyati nodded. "Apparently they are. Y' ready?"

The woman nodded, and Leyati raised the yellow flag, a signal to the army that they were ready to go.

Despite his words along the whole journey, they had lost a good hundred and a half off of their numbers. But they still numbered 650 hundred strong, and Leyati had a feeling that it was plenty.

Now it was a day later, and they were on the outskirts of Saber's village. Not one member of that improvised army went through the Berbils' village without getting a bad case of the chills. They felt as Saber had, that it was a place for ghosts. Things that should have been long dead and long gone still existed in a twisted form of reality.

Now that they were where they needed to be, most were tense, ready for a battle. Many were warriors, many more were not. But all were tired of the tyranny that was Fourth Earth. And all were ready to fight.

In the center of town, the townspeople watched fearfully to what would happen to the little boy Psychren had grabbed.

"Tell you what, humans," Fintii said, her voice low. "I won't tear you apart. But if you don't tell me what I want to know, we'll just tear him apart until you decide you can't stand listening to your child scream anymore." Fintii nodded to Psychren.

Drii cried out, and then started sobbing hysterically as the Lunattack made a swift movement with the dagger and opened a deep gash along the boy's upper arm. He readjusted his grip to the boy's hair, holding it tightly so the child could not get too far away from him.

Dannika shrieked herself, in fury, trying to rip the ice from the deck so she could lunge at her child's tormentor. "Leave him alone!" she screamed. "Coward! Leave him alone!"

"My gods," Fegreth gasped, staggering forward himself. "Let him go, he's only a child!" He grunted as Havok grabbed his arm and jerked him back.

"Then tell me where he IS!" Fintii was losing patience, and she was absolutely sure that the boy was in the village.

Drii screamed again as Psychren cut him again, just beside the other one. "Better hurry before I run out of meat..." Holding the boy to him in a firm choke hold, making it difficult for him to breathe, the Lunattack switched his focus to the boy's bare tummy, slowly drawing his blade across it.

Drii's body jerked away from it as he let a choked cry, and Fegreth himself felt tears come to his eyes. "I don't know, I swear I don't know anything!" he cried desperately. How could he make them understand? "Please, please stop hurting him, he's only a child, have you no mercy?! I beg you, let him go!"

Shaking his head, Psychren raised the dagger again...

***

While this unfolded, Saber had reached the village, only to be greeted by a not-so-friendly neighbor. "You!" she gasped, then narrowed her eyes as she hauled off and slapped him across his face. Saber blinked in shock. Although the blow had not hurt him, it had surprised him a great deal.

"What--??"

"This is YOUR fault! They're looking for you, you brought the demons down on us!!" the woman shrieked.

"Yes," the woman's next door neighbor chimed in. "You had to leave didn't you, child? Now look what's happened, you brought the demons of the rocklands down on our heads! My husband has died because of you!!"

Saber's mouth dropped open. Died? Old Hekti was dead?

Mistaking his grief for fear, as they both expected of the normally timid (so they remembered) child, the first woman sneered. "That's right. Bring this here and then are too frightened to—"

"Where are my parents?" Saber demanded, cutting the woman off.

Not expecting him to have interrupted her, she scowled. "The town square, boy. They've probably executed them by now!"

Saber's eyes widened, and then he narrowed them. Without another word to the two women, he took off at a fast run, headed for the village square.

The women had expected him to run the other way, or be frozen in fear. Seeing his newfound courage, it made them repent a little of their hard words as they watched him run.

His former urgency doubled now, Saber ran as fast as he could for the center of town. Everything was so familiar to his eyes, and yet it seemed he ran through a stranger's home.

As he neared his destination, he heard a scream, a sound of pain in a voice that sounded all too familiar. Drii! As he neared, he could begin to see what was going on. His parents were alive, restrained, and the tall Lunattack that had scared him nearly to fainting when he'd first seen him had a hold of his little brother, a dagger in his hand! And Drii was bleeding, bad! Saber's eyes widened in fury as he saw what the Lunattack had done to his little brother. He'd been cut now five times, and his mother was sobbing. Even his father was in tears, begging the Lunattacks to leave the child alone. "Drii..." he whispered. With no thought of what he would do when he got there, Saber sprinted for the platform.

"Fintii!" Sounder cried, pointing at the approaching figure.

Everyone turned to look at Saber as he cast his heavy pack to the side of the path. "Leave him alone!" he yelled, his fists clenched in fury. He leaped onto the stage as easily as if it were only an inch high. His stance wide and firm, he glared at the Lunattack the others called Psycho. "It's me you're looking for, let him go!"

While Fegreth and Dannika stared in shock, one of the younger warriors in training leaned over and whispered, "Is that a cadet from another village?"

"No..." the girl said. "At least I don't think so. Is it?" she asked Iyen.

Iyen was also staring. He knew Saber better than the others, and he shook his head in wonder. "No..." he said. "It's the poet."

"The poet?" the girl said, and turned her eyes to the stage once more.

Saber was standing his ground as the Lunattacks on the stage closed in around him, cutting off any possible escape. Fintii nodded slightly to Psychren, and he snarled and shoved the little boy away from him. Drii was nearly unconscious, still sobbing, and choking more than breathing. Dannika leaned over as far as she could in her awkward position and lifted the child, heedless of the boy's blood that stained her clothing. Holding him tight, she desperately started to rip her dress into strips to bind his injuries.

"Saber..." Fegreth whispered in awe. None that he had ever heard of had left the valley and come back alive and sane. "It is true!" He shot a worried glance to his younger son as Havok shoved the warrior back onto the ground. He limped to his wife and helped her tend the child, but kept his eye on Saber.

"So," Fintii growled, Havok stepping forward towards the human boy. Saber would have cringed from him six months ago, but not now. He knew what the beast could do, but also knew he could outrun it. He knew it could be injured. "You've come back to face us."

"I didn't have any choice," Saber said, his eyes narrowed. "A coward was torturing my little brother."

Psychren growled and lunged for Saber, but Saber had seen it and jumped back. This time he did back down, as the Lunattack still unnerved him something fierce. He drew the dagger that Leyati had given him as he kept his wary eyes on him.

Psychren laughed. "A knife? That won't do you any good, brat. I have one too." His voice mocking, he showed Saber the dagger, tainted red from his brother's blood. To show the boy how this dagger worked, Psychren lunged at him.

With a yelp, Saber drew his stomach in and barely managed to dodge the blade. He retreated to the other side of the stage. "Maybe it won't do much good, but it's better than being unarmed! Like my brother." The boy's eyes were wide with both fear and determination; his grip on the dagger tight enough that his knuckles stood out in white contrast to his tanned skin.

"Stop!" Fintii commanded. Psychren gave her a baleful look. "Enough of this childish fighting." She turned to Saber, who returned the glare defiantly. Havok carried her over to the boy, shoving Fegreth over as he did. "Chilldon, get them out of my way!" Fintii ordered. From above, Chilldon sent a beam of energy at Saber's parents strong enough to both melt the ice and sent all three of them sprawling. Drii began to sob harder, but the Lunattacks simply shoved them off the platform.

On the ground, a young adult knelt next to the child. "Let me look at him." It was the healer's apprentice, who had been helping her teacher while he worked on the wounded. Dannika gratefully turned the child over to her as her eyes joined everyone else's on the stage.

Saber and Fintii faced each other center stage, both glaring hatefully at the other. To the left, Psychren stood ready for a signal that said he could pummel the punk, and above Chilldon was thinking the same way. Saber knew this too. "Now. We have a little problem, mortal," she said.

Saber narrowed his eyes at the term. Yes, the "immortality." No wonder they insisted the gathering be done in dim light with so much confusion. They did not want the villagers to realize that as time went on, the "demons" changed and aged. "And what is that?" Saber asked, fighting to keep his voice steady. It still shook a little, but he was determined to not show any fear.

Fintii gave him a malevolent look. "Watch your tongue, human, else I'll burn it out! Chilldon, show him what I mean!"

Chilldon, happy to oblige, shot a searing beam of energy down at the boy. Not able to dodge quite in time, Saber yelped as it hit him in the side and knocked him asprawl. A collective gasp rose from the crowd as Saber hastily stood once more and gave Chilldon a dirty look.

"Now," Fintii continued again. "We have a problem. Our lord seems to have run into resistance in the various villages of Third Earth. And so have WE! And it seems to be allll your fault." Fintii grinned wickedly. "Those towns have paid the price for their insolence, as they no longer exist." The tiny Lunattack was pleased at the expression of shock on the boy's face, and she could see he was trying to decide whether to believe it. It was not true, but how could he possibly know? And she knew his pathetic fellow villagers would believe her. "And now it is your turn."

Above, in Skytomb, Mumm-Ra watched these goings on via the monitor. He had reverted to mummy form to conserve energy. His strategy for the moment was to wait: simply to wait. His rule had gone undisputed for centuries, not counting short lived uprisings here and there, and his demands were given to the people through the Lunattacks. In return for their work, they were the lords of the entire planet, able to do whatever they pleased, and all would bow before them. But Mumm-Ra wished to remain the anonymous, unknown lord, his mystery evoking terror. He wanted to let the imaginations of the people of Fourth Earth make him into the terrifying demon they thought him to be, ten times more powerful than he actually was.

However, depending on how things went down there, that might not be possible. And so he watched.

Despite himself, Saber swallowed hard. He really did not want to die, and he did know what the Lunattacks were capable of. Of course, he also knew that much of what the little one was saying was for the benefit of the people of his village. "Killing me won't help anything," he bluffed. "There are other villages that know who you are. They know you aren't demons. They know- "

Fintii's eyes widened in rage, and she screeched, cutting the boy off. Havok lunged for Saber and caught him around the waist and held him tight. Saber let a cry of alarm and fought only for a second before realizing he couldn't get free, and that he had better save his energy. "How DARE you, mortal!" Fintii shrieked. But she was nervous. She'd let the boy talk too long, and he'd said the damning words: "they know you aren't demons" "Havok, squeeze him!" The beast obediently flexed his muscles, driving his powerful arm into the small of Saber's back, and the boy grunted as the breath was knocked out of him. Pushing away from the beast with one hand, nearly doubling himself back over, he looked at the little Lunattack.

"That's right, mortal," she growled. "You are going to die for your insolence. And then we are going to burn your village for your defiance!"

Again there was a gasp, a sound of fear that rippled throughout the crowd. Fintii was glad to hear it. Saber made a weak sound of pain as Havok's grip tightened on him, as he didn't have the breath to say more. His dagger, he still had it in his hand, but it was trapped! "You think that you can just decide to ignore our demands, and we will let you walk away??" She was addressing the lot of them now. "Well, think again! We will level this town as an example to everyone else! And then---"

She was interrupted by a startled yelp from her mount. In desperation, Saber had punched the beast with all his strength with his free hand, and although that did not make him let go it did make him loosen his grip enough so that Saber could get his hand out. With a quick movement, Saber slashed!

There was a howl of pain from Havok, and this time he did drop the boy. Saber backed away gasping for air and coughing. A gasp went up from the crowd as Havok sat down and put one massive gorilla-like hand on the knife wound that everyone could see bled.

"See?!" Saber gasped, coughing once more. "Look, look at him bleed!"

"The boy's right," one of the women gasped.

While Havok inspected his wound, Saber darted forward and took a swipe at Fintii herself. She let a screech that was physically painful as he hit his mark. "See?" Saber cried again, panting as his breath returned. His young bones had been flexible enough to take the squeezing, and had not been injured. A few more moments though... "They're mortal, just like us! They bleed! I've hurt that one too!" Saber pointed up at the Icerunner, and could hear a cry of rage from the Lunattack in it.

"No demons..." one of the villagers said, awed.

"Mortal," another one whispered.

The Lunattacks were looking uncertain. Some looked only enraged, and Chilldon was one of them. He landed the Icerunner hastily and jumped out. Saber backed away from him, keeping a firm hold of the dagger he held. He also saw that Psychren and a now-furious Havok were advancing on him, not to mention a couple of others. The child gulped. He may very well have planted the seed of doubt that could make his village realize they had been tricked this whole time, to make them realize that people from east to west were rising up against the tyrant, and that the word would spread. But it also looked like he would die for it. Painfully.

Above, a cowled head shook in disgust. "I see you Lunattacks have managed to fail once again," he rumbled, and called on his powers of magic, fueled by the demons that resided in his abode. Raising his hands, he cried out the incantation that he has used over and over for so many millennia that it was less a chant than a part of his soul. "Ancient Spirits of Evil..."

Below, Saber had backed into the exact middle of the approaching circle of death, as his creative mind suddenly decided to call it. It was an unwelcome thought. He clutched his dagger and stood ready. If he was going to die, he was not going to go easily. If he had learned one thing on his long journey, it was that you had to fight for yourself. And you had to stand up for your beliefs, even to the death.

Psychren spun his own blade in his hand, his face a chilling mixture of fury and hatred. "Prepare to feel pain, you little bastard."

But just before they were on him, there was a shadow from above. And as the people stared in horror, a figure like a demon bat leaped from the sky to land it the middle of the stage, in front of the young traveler. "Enough play," it said, in a voice so ancient that it could not possibly be a being of nature. "It will end now.

Saber, confronting the Lunatatcks

Part 35: Final Clash

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