Hi peeps! I bet you weren't expecting another chappie so soon/late/ever, but here we are. This was mainly alreaedy written up and i'm procastinating so i don't have to study for a maths test (which i'm going to fail anyway). So yeah, i hope you like it, its a little bit longer.....

Deana: You're such a loyal reviewer! I love you so much! *hugs*

Nakhti: Wow. Your reviews are so long, interesting and just downright FUNNY! I hope you prefer this update to the one you suggested! Hahaha! And yeah, you're pretty damn close to my plot/twist so i'm not giving away ANY MORE CLUES AT ALL. Goddamn all smart ppl....*goes of muttering*

Freakizimi: Trust me, you've been helping! I'm glad u like da story, i can't believe i've reached 50 reviews. I'm in shock. Truthfully, i didn't think it was worth 10, but there you go! i guess i'm wrong.

author unknown: Yeah, salt. Hmm, they also rubbed it into wounds to stop infections......and it also caused a lot of pain......*wince* i think i can incorporate that into the story somewhere.......*wince*

Ok, now watch out. This chappie is where i stuffed up with the timeline. So if things don't seem to make sense, just try to go along with it. SOrry!

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Jawhar was panicking. This couldn't be happening! It couldn't be! But it was.........

No, it wasn't! It couldn't possibly ever be happening........Right? RIGHT????

Then the boy sighed suddenly and Jawhar realised that his hands were trembling too much for his fingers to be able to take much of a pulse. He stilled his own breathing and firmly pressed his fingertips onto the boys neck and……….prayed.

There! A faint heartbeat. Jawhar sighed in relief and allowed his head to drop and wiped the sweat off his brow where it had formed when he had started panicking.

"Don't ever do that again." He admonished the silent, still boy before pulling out his knife from his belt inside his tunic and slashing the rope that was bound around the teenager's neck. He gasped as he saw just how much damage the coarse rope had caused to the boys neck and viciously squashed a guilty feeling.

No. He deserved it. He had slaughtered the village.

He's just a boy. How could he do such a thing?

He is a Med-Jai. He is a vicious animal who delighted in the pain he caused in the village.

How do you even know he was there?

Because he is MED-JAI!! He wears the tattoos! How can you deny this?? He raped and killed your mother! He raped your sister and made her commit suicide in her depression! He raped blinded your sister's friend! He blinded your girlfriend! He slaughtered everyone in the village! He even killed old Ukal! He murdered your friends including your best friend, Retyrn. You found his body, beaten bloody before his ultimate death. He deserves whatever is dealt out to him. He is not human. Humans are executed. He is an animal and deserves to be slaughtered.

Jawhar's fist tightened as he remembered everything that had been done to their peaceful village. He looked back up into the horizon and stared at the thatched roofs as his vision slowly blurred as the tears built up in his eyes. There was hardly anyone left in the village. There was only Zen. She was the last female and there were no children. If she didn't bear a child, then……then the Sami-Nhir would be lost. They would become extinct just like the desert lions that had stalked the sands before them.

Tears ran freely down his face as he remembered Retyrn. His best friend. He remembered playing in the sands with him, chasing the scraggy dogs around the village with him, taunting and terrorising the girls. But now he was dead. The Med-Jai had whipped him to death and the girls that they had chased good-naturedly had been either killed, raped, both or taken back to their camps as their slaves. To be made wives.

Zen. He remembered his girlfriend. She was so beautiful. Her and Emira had been the beauties of the clan. They were like the crown jewels, admired and adored by all. Her long, straight, chestnut hair fell down below her waistline. Her sparkling blue eyes had always hypnotised him with their depths and varied emotions that shone within them. He remembered the curves of her hips, the touch of her lips, the darkness of her eyelashes and the pinkness of her cheeks. Her once expressive eyes, which had more then once held a strange, almost lusty glint in them at night, where now expressionless, opaque and blind.

Jawhar's fists clenched as he thought at what the Med-Jai had done to her. Violating and then blinding. They had let her live just so that she could tell the rest of the warriors what had happened.

The Sami-Nhir had lost everything that day. Everything. And it was all because of the pig-headed Med-Jai.

He had lost everything. He had lost his family, his friends and his father hated him. It was all Bay's fault.

The others were just a haze on the horizon heading towards home. HOME?! There was no one there! All that was left of the village were the corrupting bodies and bleached bones buried 50 miles west of them where the suns rays first touched the sand.

The tears struck the sand, spreading out into tiny diamonds before disappearing into the golden sands where it had been stained with blood from the village and more recently by Bay himself.

Bay. Jawhar saw his friend lying bloody and screamed a cry so full of agony and pain and spun around to face the Med-Jai lying on the sands. He looked so much like Retyrn, the way he was lying. Fury rushed through Jawhar's veins and he rushed forward and began brutally kicking the Med-Jai. He was sobbing and his vision was blurred as he continued his assault on the unconscious teenager.

One of his enraged kicks hit the boy on his still badly bruised hip and Ardeth jerked awake with a pained cry. This didn't stop Jawhar, instead it seemed to anger him even more. Screamed insults rained down on the Med-Jai at the same time as the abuse and Ardeth curled up into himself in an attempt to stop the blows. Jawhar had dropped to his knees and was pummelling the boy indiscrimately with his fists when one of his blows landed on the boys still healing shoulder. Ardeth gave a loud cry and desperately tried to get away, his legs still too weak to support him.

The Med-Jai's second cry of pain seemed to wake Jawhar out of his insane spell and he suddenly stilled, staring at the blood on his fists. With eyes unglazing he stared at the boy in front of him, taking in the bandages slowly staining red and the panting, terrified boy staring up at him.

Ardeth had never been so scared in his life. Jawhar had been an enraged animal, a leopard intend on ripping its prey apart. His body hurt all over. The punches and kicks had gone deep and he thought he could feel something different inside of him. Something flowing?

He looked up into Jawhars now-clearing eyes and slowly inched back, his fingernails scrabbling in the sand. Jawhar's eyes flickered and he sighed unsteadily, as he tried to rein in his emotions. Breathe in, breathe out. He fell back onto sitting on his heels and surveyed the boy in front of him. Bay's breathing was quick and shallow. Fear still showed in his eyes and he noticed the boy trying to edge away. Blood flowed down the white bandages and oozed down his torso.

How could you frighten a young boy so?

He deserved it.

Jawhar sighed as his internal debate raged and he tried to quieten down his inner demon and angel. This wasn't getting anything done. He looked down on the boy with dead eyes and an emotionless face.

"Come."

Ardeth shivered at the toneless voice and the total lack of emotion in the boy's face and like a little boy, quickly shook his head no. Bad move, he thought as the world swirled around him and he swayed slightly before collapsing back onto the sand and started retching.

Jawhar's anger spiked at the boy's rebellion but then swayed and stopped as the boy fell upon the sand and started vomiting. Concerned, he leaned forward and placed a hand upon the boy's forehead, feeling the unnatural heat there and noting the paleness of the Med-Jai's face. The boy was totally exhausted, the forced walk taking its toll on his still-weakened body and finally he had not been able to force it any further. The boy gasped for breath once more, before letting his body fall limp on the sand.

Jawhar sighed. Med-Jai. This boy was too much work. He stood up, dusted himself off and bent at the knees and slid his hands under the teenager's limp body. To his surprise, the Med-Jai wearily and blearily looked up at him, fear still evident in his eyes but their competence rapidly fading. His body was slick with sweat and trembling slightly and uncontrollably. He grunted and lifted the boy up and walked unsteadily to his horse. With great effort, he jerkily place the boy upon his mount - the Med-Jai was all bone, skin and lean muscle; he was quite surprised just how heavy the teenager was.

Ardeth sighed gently, like a leaf in a zephyr, before allowing his body to mould itself around the beast's flanks. His head was pounding and he was feeling dizzy, sick and nauseous. When would this bad dream just end?

Jawhar swung himself up onto the beasts back and frigidly placed a hand on the Med-Jai's back to steady him as his horse broke into trot and speeded up into a canter. Dehydration and exhaustion, he surmised, that was what the boy was suffering from. Oh, and probably lack of water too.

The teenager beneath his hand groaned lightly and muzzily raised his head.

"W-where are w-we going?"

For once, Jawhar didn't snap or insult the boy. He was too worried about the health of the boy himself; he had been told countless times, in sneering voices, where his captives were leading him. "We're going home."

"Home." Bay murmured as his head lolled on the horses flanks. "H-home. T-that's good. I want to tell father about this horrible dream I've had…….a-am having. Then m-mother will hug me and, and, and when I was younger, s-she used to sit me o-on her lap and sing me a………..lul…..lullaby." Bay was delirious, the words softly spoken and slurred.

The last comment whispered so gently that Jawhar almost missed it - "I miss home."

Something inside of the Sami-Nhir teenager twitched and he felt his mind stop suddenly and back-pedal frantically. The Med-Jai he was holding, was just a boy. A boy. Maybe slighter younger then him. A boy. He talked lovingly about his father and wished for his mother. He was just a sick teenager wishing that he could be home. Wishing for someone to take him away from the nightmare he found himself embroiled within, wishing for someone to take away all his pain.

Jawhar felt guilt and the first sign of compassion.

But the boy was no mere boy. He was a Med-Jai. They were murderous, they had slaughtered their village and killed everyone found within; be them man, woman or child.

The child turned his head slightly and Jawhar noticed for the first time the developing bruises upon his face and the blood staining his robes. There was a vicious cut along his cheekbone and around it the skin was deepening in colour; it looked sore and when Jawhar wonderingly touched it, Bay winced and pulled away.

He had caused that bruise. He was the one that had cut this boy, who had terrified him so. He was the one who had assaulted the boy and made him bleed. Jawhar looked down at his hands and saw that they were tinged pink form the beating he had given the teenager.

Who was the one that was more the animal? He had assaulted a bound, ill boy - no younger then himself while the boy himself had done nothing to harm Jawhar. In fact, he had tried to be nice to him. Did he really deserve the treatment that was being heaped upon him? Should he suffer for something that he had not done?

He is Med-Jai. Do not lose sight of what you must do my son. He is blinding you with his deceit. He is evil. EVIL! Jawhar could almost hear what his father would say to his argument - if his father would ever choose to listen to him. His father had changed dramatically ever since the attack.

Jawhar hardly even knew his father now.

Once, a long time ago, he could remember sitting around the fire with his mother beside him, his younger sister nestled comfortably in his lap and his father on his other side. They had been teaching him…….wisdom and fairness, so that when time came, he would be prepared to lead and rule the tribe. He could remember his father saying these exact words and his mother nodding in agreement: "Jawhar my son. One day you will come across something evil, something so evil that will make you turn inside out. It will tear out anything merciful in your body or make you bury any empathy that you have. It will make you angry, so very angry that you will do anything to tear the world apart to search for it and destroy it. You will wish for vengeance and revenge."

A young Jawhar hadn't understood this and had asked, "But father. If there is something that evil, isn't it a good thing to destroy it and rid it from the world - so that it can do no evil?"

Ruwaid had nodded and ruffled his sons light hair and continued, "That is what you will say to validate your reason for vengeance. But when you have torn the world apart, spent your whole life searching for it, and finally get your revenge and kill it…….what then? What have you proven? You must remember, my son, remember that if you go down that path, then you have failed. You have become exactly what you seek out to destroy."

Jawhar had been very confused, "But father! If you don't fight back, then that evil might take away more then you can handle, it might not only effect you but the others around you. Surely, just that is a reason to fight it?"

"Ah, my son. My dear, precious son." Ruwaid had smiled proudly while he regarded his son in the firelight, "You speak with a wisdom beyond your short years. Of course, you are right Jawhar. You must fight, you need to fight it. But you must fight it with a clear head - you must not let your emotions blind you, because then, then my son, you are not doing it for good, you are not doing for others around you, you are doing it for yourself, to please yourself, to gain pleasure in another's death and you must never ever fall down that lair. Do you understand me?"

Jawhar was even more confused. His father might as well be talking in another language. "No father. Not really." He added sheepishly, "Sorry."

Ruwaid laughed, a deep cheerful sound that made the camp horses raise their heads muzzily. "Don't be my son. Your responses tonight have made me proud. My, my, my. You are growing so quickly, oh! So quickly. One day, when Allah wishes it, I will be gone and you will take my place as leader and I will be so proud. So very proud." Ruwaid sighed and looked into the fire, a sad and wistful emotion flickering across his face.

"But father! I don't…..get…..it!" Jawhar was annoyed with himself and with his fathers strange responses.

"One day, my son, one day when you're older, you'll understand." Ruwaid gave his little boy a quick hug and turned back to the fire, murmuring softly under his breath, "But I hope for your sake that that day will never come."

Jawhar sighed deeply, his memory fading and receding into the background. Yes father, now I understand………..but you have lost sight of your own teachings.

Bay moaned slightly and the Sami-Nhir pulled out his water container and gently placed it to the teenagers bruised and bleeding lips. "Drink." He commanded but the boy either didn't have enough strength, was still delirious or nauseous because he just turned his head away but not before Jawhar caught an almost incoherent:

"No, t-thankyou."

Jawhar sat, stunned. One hand rested lightly on the boy's back, the other on his thigh to help keep his balance. He had just assaulted this boy and the teenager was still being polite? Polite to his captives who took pleasure in his pain and discomfort?

Once again, Jawhar had to ask himself, who is the animal here?

However, his attention on the boy was broken when his horse topped a sand dune and pranced on the crest while snorting.

Below, lay the sprawling village of the Sami-Nhir warriors.

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Exams in 2 weeks......so don't expect anything till at least after them. Till next time then..........