Blaze (The High-Born Epic) (52 page)

             
Sarah followed him back to his room, but he turned to her.

             
“I need a minute to myself,” Harold said as he let himself fall on his mattress.

             
“I need to check on lunch anyways,” she said and walked towards the kitchen.

             
Harold lay there looking at the ceiling.  He wanted everything to just go back to the way it had been before Ollie and the pytheel.  It may have been the existence of a slave, but at least it had been simple.  He rolled over and looked at his night stand, and saw the picture of his parents.  He looked over every inch of it in detail and as he always had, he studied the curved spear in the corner.

             
“Who were you?” Harold whispered to the picture.  “And who am I?”

Chapter 45

             
Harold looked at the turnips on his plate as he picked at them with his fork.  He had not said anything to Gabby since they sat down to eat, and though she was calmly eating, she held him and Sarah with a constant questioning eye.  Although he was glad that Cooper, Scott, and Ollie all seemed so happy, he was saddened by the gravity of the news that was about to be given to them.

             
“Those knights were so awesome,” Scott said and made a flying motion with his hand.

             
“I know,” Cooper exclaimed.  “Did you see that one that one time that High-Born gunship spun around!”

             
“Yeah,” Scott answered.  “It was goin’ so fast that that High-Born couldn’t even hit it!”

             
Harold almost explained to Scott and Cooper that the things they had seen were probably some sort of advanced AI technology that would only be friendly as long as it needed to in order to get what it wanted.  However, he did not want to steal their momentary joy, and he allowed himself to smile as he watched Ollie look back and forth at Scott and Cooper each time one of them said something.  Although she was not participating in the conversation, she was completely enraptured by it.  Her lightheartedness both eased and resolved Harold and he made himself eat, despite not being very hungry.

             
Lunch moved on quickly and soon they were all cleaning the table.  After the dishes had been cleaned and put up, Harold rested his elbows on the table and put his hands up to his mouth.  Gabby gave him a look and he shook his head and motioned to Sarah.  She took a deep breath as she sat down, and looked over the smiling children.

             
“Sarah,” Scott said.  “When are we goin’ back to ma’ and pa’s?”

             
“Scott,” she paused and grabbed his hand.

             
Cooper and Ollie looked at Harold and Gabby’s eyes widened as her head shot back and forth between the others.

             
“Ma and pa are gone,” Sarah said as her breath quivered.

             
“Where’s momma?” Cooper and Ollie asked in unison as they looked at Harold.

             
“I don’t know,” Harold answered as he grabbed them both and hugged them

             
Gabby’s hands went up to her mouth as she gasped.

             
“The High-Born took ‘em,” Scott said.  “Didn’t they?”

             
Sarah just nodded silently as tears ran down her face, and she pulled Scott close to her.

             
Cooper’s brown eyes welled and Ollie’s breathing became jerky as she buried her head into Harold’s hip.  Harold knelt down to them and embraced them both in a hug as Cooper began sniffling and Ollie started wailing.  Gabby walked over to Ollie and laid her hands on the little girl’s shoulders as she cried.  They all stayed like that for several moments before Scott stepped away from Sarah.

             
The little boy smiled as he grabbed his trembling sister and looked at her stoically.

             
“It’s okay, Sarah,” he said.

             
Then, he lovingly cupped her face in his hands and looked deeply into her watery eyes.

             
“The High-Born have lots of things, Sarah... but they ain’t got the things they need... they ain’t got the things they need ‘cause they ain’t sworn themselves to the powers of good... And, you see, Sarah... we know somebody that don’t shy away from the forces of evil whenever and wherever they assail him...”

             
Scott shook his head from side to side as he looked into his sister’s eyes.

             
“...And they don’t plead the plight of orphans, widows, and the poor...  And they don’t feed the hungry... And they don’t defend the helpless... And they don’t protect the innocent from the powers of tyranny... And they don’t defend the honor of their lady and their family...”

             
Scott used his thumbs to clean the tears from her face.

             
“So you see, Sarah... They ain’t no need to cry...”

             
He kissed her on the cheek and held her face tight as he nodded and held his eyes on hers.

             
“They ain’t no need to cry ‘cause they can’t never win...  They can’t never win ‘cause they ain’t good... They can’t never win ‘cause they don’t fight with all of their heart and soul... They can’t fight with all of their heart and soul ‘cause they ain’t got neither...”

             
Scott’s eyes held a seriousness to them that strengthened Harold’s courage.

             
“‘Cause if they had either, then they wouldn’t act like they do...  So don’t fret no more, Sarah... ‘Cause they can’t never win ‘cause it ain’t the destiny of their power.”

             
Everyone in the room was silent and slack-jawed, just staring at Scott.  And Sarah smiled lightly through her tears as she cupped his face and kissed him on his left cheek and then his right cheek and then on the forehead.  Cooper’s mouth was firm and set as he looked up at Harold and nodded.  Ollie pulled her face away from Harold’s leg and she too looked up at him.  And Gabby wiped her nose and eyes as she looked to Harold.  Sarah’s tear-streaked face looked to Harold, and Scott looked up at him as well. 

             
Harold looked down at Cooper and then to Ollie.  He looked at Scott, and then to Sarah.  When he turned to Gabby, she nodded and walked out of the door.

             
“I’ll be back to say goodbye in a little while.”

             
Harold hugged her again and Cooper took her hand while Sarah grabbed her other.  Harold stood up, and turned to the door.  He gave them all one last look, and he saw Scott giving him a thumb’s up.  Then he walked out of the door and found Gabby.

             
“That little boy is adorable,” she said as they walked to the front of the house.

             
“He is definitely something else,” Harold replied.

             
When they got to the front yard, Harold took Gabby’s hand.

             
“What are you doing?” she asked.

             
“Sarah said that there was something we needed to see in the town circle,” he answered.

             
Gabby nodded and they flashed from sight...

             
...And appeared in the town circle.

             
Harold looked at the pyramid.  Just above the elevated platform was a large piece of paper or cloth sprawled across the southern wall.  On it was written:

            
 
To Blaze and Aireon

             
The Kristall began rotating and spinning and the transparent image of a helmeted High-Born appeared above.  He was standing on a stage, and as he began walking back and forth, Harold recognized his helmet to be the ones the High-Born Dragon Corps wore.  Gabby glowered at him from beneath her eyebrows, and Harold held a sneer on his face as the High-Born pilot looked down, seemingly speaking directly to them. 

             
As he raised his hands, his eyes seemed to slightly glow from beneath his visor.

             
“For we are the High-Born, and were born to overcome!” he shouted.  “Let what follows be a warning to all who would defy High-Born law!”

             
The Kristall began glowing and spinning furiously, and suddenly the town circle was full of ghost-like visages of Foxx Hole’s residents.  On the platform stood a flickering image of a large High-Born neither of them recognized.

             
“They recorded this,” Gabby said.  “And they’re using the Kristall to project it.”

             
Harold nodded as he looked around at the villagers who seemed to stand all around him.  He instantly recognized many of them, and after just a few moments, he found Aunt Nean.  While the large High-Born delivered the final words of his speech, he walked to her image.  He stopped and regarded her for a moment and was surprised at how accurately it had captured her features.  He looked into her ghostly image’s eyes and found it strange that she did not acknowledge him.

             
Suddenly, Aunt Nean turned away from him and he heard the stomping of many boots and the clanking of mechanoids.  Both he and Gabby watched as the images of dozens of fully armed High-Born soldiers came running into the town circle from all twelve roads.  Accompanying them were twice as many mechanoids.  Gabby did not even flinch as she watched the mayhem break loose, and Harold just spit, but did not take his eyes from ghostly scene.  The residents of Foxx Hole began running everywhere and screaming.

             
Harold watched as some of the men in town tried to fight them, but to no avail.  The High-Born soldiers made quick work of the unarmed, untrained villagers.  They did not shoot any of them, but they smacked many of the men with the butts of their rifles.  The mechanoids just snagged men and women alike and seemingly bear-hugged them to keep them from running away.  He found Aunt Nean amidst the confusion, and he watched nearly emotionless as a mechanoid grabbed her and held her in place while the other villagers ran around vainly trying to escape.

             
The roar of gunship engines blasted and their images flickered into sight all through the sky and began landing all over.  The soldiers and mechanoids began putting handcuffs and chains on the villagers and roughly slinging them into the gunships.  Harold could actually hear the laughs of the High-Born over the screams of the villagers.  Gabby glanced at him and he at her.  Her eyes glowed lightly, and he could feel his fire kindling within him.  The scene lasted for several more minutes with the crowd slowly decreasing. 

             
Once the majority of the crowd was gone, they could see the High-Born tearing crying children from the arms of their screaming mothers.  Fathers took severe beatings as they held on to their sons.  Harold and Gabby watched as the remaining children were slung to the ground with less regard than a dog would have received from any of the villagers.  Gabby looked up at the sky and reached for his hand, and he took it.

             
“I’m with you to whatever end we may find,” she said.

             
Harold nodded, “We have each other.”

             
Suddenly, all of the images just flickered from sight and a large rectangle appeared above the Kristall.  It reminded Harold of one of the billboards that he and Gabby had cut down.  There was even the image of a large city in it.  The camera zoomed in, seeming to fly from outside the city into its center.  Standing on a stage was a large High-Born in a strange suit that Harold had never seen.  Just in front of him were many of Foxx Hole’s residents, shackled and manacled in front of him.  The residents of Foxx Hole had all been cleaned, and many of them wore different attire that had obviously been made for slaves and on the streets in front of the stage stood a large crowd of High-Born.

             
The man in the strange suit began pointing to different members of the High-Born crowd who were holding up pieces of wood with numbers on them.  A man and woman were brought up to stand before him.  Harold had to look closely, but he recognized them as James and Pam Ross.

             
The man in the suit began pointing back and forth, and talking so fast that Harold had a moment of difficulty figuring out exactly what he was saying.