Towards morning. Chapter 12.doc
Adanar's story was brief, simple and heart breaking when told in his gentle, musical voice. He lovingly described a harshly beautiful world that was not populous and how his ancient race had developed various psychic abilities that enabled them to avoid having to use resource costly technology. Warfare had never been an option among a people few in numbers and needing to work hard to ensure a comfortable existence and the sustainable numbers necessary for its survival. Thus violence, while not unknown, was very much an aberration and when slavers arrived they had few defences.
"They came while we were at the temple; almost the entire village of three hundred and thirty six. The only ones not there were the mid-wife, the weaver and his wife, my sister, who was in labour with her second child. It seems doubly cruel to me that they came for us during the hymn of thanksgiving for the harvest, as it was an especially bountiful harvest that year."
He was silent for a moment, remembering how the happy looks had changed into uncertainty before finally replaced by fear, pain and terror.
"Strega led the raid; he had a force of ten Kridjatori. The temple has narrow windows and the two doors are opposite each other so that we were trapped between them. At first we were so shocked that they found it absurdly easy to divide us roughly into three groups using their whips, hardwood clubs and spears. Then they herded us outside and began killing the very old and the very young, which proved to be an error of judgement on Strega's part."
A brief, wry smile flickered across Adanar's face for an instant as he admitted,
"We are not a violent people, as I have said, but nor are we a cowardly folk. A few of us men and some of the women made a break for it and were able to arm ourselves with whatever came to hand; mostly farm implements or logs and branches from the woodpiles. We fought and even killed and wounded three or four of them and were able to give a few of the older children and others time to escape into the woods before we were either cut down or disarmed. Far too few; perhaps twenty children, four or five women and eight or nine of the elderly escaped without being re-captured later."
He shook his head and his voice faltered as he told them of the suffering inflicted on his people. Of how the men were tightly bound and forced to watch as girls as young as seven and women as old as eighty were repeatedly raped. Of how the elderly were killed along with children too young to walk and of how his sister gave birth to a son only to see the baby dashed against a wall and her husband hacked and beaten to death next to the bed where she lay dying from shock and blood loss. An entire village brutalised, butchered, burnt and left a graveyard. Over two thirds of the villagers were killed out of hand and barely seventy taken as slaves.
Adanar still had one tiny spark of hope,
"My mother snatched up my baby daughter and I saw her reach the forest fringe. They were not among those the slavers recaptured, so perhaps they made it through the forest to the nearest village fifteen miles away. It eases me to believe so. We were driven through a portal within three hours of the attack on the temple and found ourselves on Kridjator, where I and three other healers were sold. The rest we never saw nor heard of again. Later I heard that both my friends had died; one in the mines and the other in the punishment cells. I spent a year or so tending slaves for a mine owner and Death Ring supplier. And that is how I met Dawn and became a fighter myself."
Adanar fell silent for a few moments before turning to Dawn and saying uncertainly,
"Remembering back makes me think that perhaps we are right and Strega does have that one tiny flaw when he fights. I am almost positive that he left himself open for a few seconds when he had to subdue Coran. Our miller was very strong and fought hard to protect his wife and daughter and I think Strega was surprised at his resistance."
He flushed suddenly, stood up while muttering an apology,
"I shall not be long but I have to … "
"Maybe someone should ..?"
Angel made to follow him but Dawn shook her head and told him,
"No, he's okay. Ganaru have a belief that mentioning those who have died through violence or severe trauma by name disturbs their peace and causes them pain. He's just gone to pray for them to forgive him."
She added ruefully,
"He'll even ask the Kridjatori who were killed for forgiveness too, believe it or not. It's like having a saint for a best friend sometimes. He couldn't believe I liked to dream up incredibly nasty ideas for revenge on them and in the end we agreed that I wouldn't tell him my daydreams if he stopped trying to convert me to pacifism."
Gunn noticed Spike was unable to hide a fleeting pained wince as she named the Ganaru her 'best friend' and to distract the others he mused out loud,
"Ever noticed how unimaginative evil is? I mean my ancestors might have been captured in just the same way. And it could have been a Jewish ghetto being raided by Nazi's he was talking about, don't you think?"
"I can remember one or two European villages we visited that were almost wiped out. There is a sameness to torture and killing though. All that really changes is how long and the scale of it."
Spike muttered guiltily and seemed surprised when Angel nodded in agreement and spared him a rare glance of approval.
Buffy was more interested in knowing,
"What was he saying about Strega having a weakness in his fighting?"
Frowning and sounding unsure Dawn answered,
"It's probably nothing but we've seen him fight four times and he has this .. Strega likes using a whip in his left hand to entangle his opponents weapon arm and then he reels them in kinda like a fisherman does a game fish; tiring them out before pulling them on to his short sword. For the added torture, you know? But there's a few seconds when he's reeling them closer that he turns his body slightly front on that looks like an opening you could maybe take advantage of by jerking back on the whip and lunging forward to stab him at the same time. Does that make any sense? Anyway, we'll show you later, in the training room."
Willow grew alert, leaning forward as Giles asked,
"Does Hadretz fight or does he only use magic to help out?"
Dawn looked to the returning Adanar to supply the answer. Having regained his usual composure the Ganaru explained,
"He isn't a strong fighter. He's good enough to defend himself until one of his bodyguards comes to his defence but he never starts a physical encounter himself. His magical powers are quite limited and mainly useful for opening portals, teleporting himself and for confusing and slowing opponents or captives. He cannot control large numbers or maintain more than one spell at a time for more than twenty or thirty minutes. Giles would be his equal, which means that Willow is far more powerful. There are very few species with more than rudimentary magical abilities and humans seem to be evolving the required genetics at an unusually accelerated rate."
Both Willow and Giles seemed to be surprised by his observation and Angel sounded somewhat dubious as he queried it.
"We've all come across more than a few species of powerful magicians, Adanar. Are you sure about the frequency? Older vamps such as me and Spike generally gain some ability and so do Slayers. I grant you that non-demonic human magic users seem to be on the rise, wouldn't you agree Spike?"
The blond vamp gave his Sire a suspicious look at the appeal for support, obviously wondering what Angel was up to and agreed cautiously.
"Yeah; it used to be a witch as powerful as Red would be well into middle age if not older. They do seem to be stronger, younger and there are definitely more of them around. But as for the species with abilities, are you talking about an evolutionary development as opposed to a learned skill?"
"Oh yes. Almost every species has rudimentary genes for using magic and some, like Hadretz, have studied and trained to use theirs. Humans are a species like my own; genetically predisposed towards magic use, only much stronger. Every Ganaru has a magical ability but generally of a type that is only suitable for mundane uses, like healing or for working with animals, predicting the weather or how to improve the soil and crops, even though we are so much older as a race. Truly powerful magicians affect reality on a far wider scale and in many ways. I, for example, cannot bring someone back to life, as Dawn told me Willow has done."
Giles was fascinated.
"So humans have the ability for magic at a basic cellular level? That has always been a favourite subject for debate among Watchers. I'd love to continue this discussion but I fear we may be getting away from more immediate concerns, such as what to expect when fighting the Kridjatori. We really do need to concentrate on how and when we are going to deal with the slavers right now."
Dawn and Adanar described the Kridjatori as being skilful with mauls, clubs and maces; all bludgeoning weapons that suited their powerful, heavily muscled upper bodies. All of them were expert at using whips to subdue and control the movements of opponents and some they warned had learned the art of killing with the metal tipped, multi-thronged, long handled weapons. They gave the creature's weaknesses as being with maintaining control of their anger, underestimating the fighting abilities of humans and an arrogance that could lead to their increased speed due to the lesser gravity being a fatal flaw instead of an advantage.
Both agreed that they were far more afraid of the 'bear-cat' that was Strega's pet. Dawn warned,
"The damn thing's fast, vicious, poisonous and almost totally silent. If we can we should try to stay down wind of it; it'll smell us but we'll catch its stink at a greater distance! Adanar thinks that Strega has some sort of mind control over it. It does seem awfully obedient for such a dumb beast."
Willow said,
"He's probably right. When I was reading up on Samarian paladins I noticed that they often used a form of telepathy to control their mounts, so an animal with limited intelligence would be easy to manage, even during a fight I imagine."
She was pleased to receive a smile of approval from Adanar, who agreed and suggested,
"I am certain that he does control it, which means that the creature could be the biggest threat of all. I think we should take it out first and from as far away as possible if we get the chance. Dawn?"
"Good idea. The critter's too dangerous when it acts in concert with Strega; so like having a guy with a machinegun mounted on a cheetah coming at you! Given my druthers, I'm for taking care of Strega with half a dozen crossbow bolts too. Pity we don't have Xander's rocket launcher handy, it'd be perfect for that s.o.b! This is all well and good but we have to find their hang out first. I vote me, Buffy and Spike go out tomorrow night and he can sniff them out with his amazing vamp body odour trailing ability."
"Hey, no need to take that tone, Dawnie!"
"Don't knock it pet, not if you need me and my nose!"
"What is it with vamps and that sniffing thing?"
Angel, Spike and Buffy spoke at once. Gunn grinned, Willow giggled and Adanar looked to Giles in bewilderment only to receive a long suffering sigh in return. Dawn laughed, stood, stretched, appeared to remember something, and asked,
"Who's up for a trip to the zoo tomorrow? Adanar secretly believes I've invented kangaroos and platypuses ... platypi? Whatever. So since he's been stuck here for the past few days I thought I'd show him the zoo and the botanic garden and he can spend the afternoon apologising abjectly. Buffy? Giles? Will? Any takers?"
The Ganaru nodded approvingly as Willow flushed with pleasure, raised her hand with as much trepidation as she had in her kindergarten year and answered with a happy squeak,
"I'm in! Thanks Dawnie. Ooh, we can go see the monkeys; all those cute furry faces. You'll love them Adanar."
Buffy and Giles accepted with pleased and grateful smiles. Dawn offered,
"We'll come by and collect you all at eleven, okay? Anyone for coffee?"
