Monday, May 29, 2006
Friday, May 19, 2006
Friday, April 28, 2006
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
The next chapter!
“Aliens descending from Mars eating my ham sandwich. What kind of society do we live in when…SHE did it! Monkey New Zealander. Eh? From Mars I tell ya. Nobody hears it but I do…I do. Do you want to dance my friend Ellis?”
No one answered his questions. Mumbles, which was the name they had given him for obvious reasons, wore a long trench coat and carried a retractable umbrella with bent arms and holes in the canopy. Aleph had worried that his offensive smell would give away their position when they stalked the Goblin slavers. Luckily the Goblins had been poor trackers so far and did not catch his scent.
Pania had tried speaking to him for a while a couple of nights ago but gave up when it was obvious he did not hear her though he would look right into your eyes when he spoke. Instead Pania had worked on completing the carving patterns into her club. Shortly before being captured by the Goblins, Pania had finished carving out a long club out of a branch of a kauri tree. When she had been freed by the Dobro siblings, Pania had returned to her camp and retrieved her weapon. Her taiaha was a 1.5 metre long shaft which lessened in thickness and widened out to about 10 centimetres for the top third forming a sharp flat blade used to decapitate opponents. The other end was pointed like a spear and decorated with feathers. It was the surface of the spear end of the club that she was now carving.
Pania was a young Maori woman who had been freed by the raid on the Goblin slave drive by the Dobros siblings. When she approached Mumbles she had been trying to thank him for his bravery but he did not appear to understand. Pania thought back to the day before.
Pania had crouched down, her thin form hidden behind the tree. She held her taiaha in her hand but low to the ground so it wouldn’t give away their position. Beside her were
Liam and Aedan, brothers who had been chained to Dàleth and Sāmekh during captivity. They hid together under a pohutukawa tree that had been dwarfed due to the poor soil conditions in this rocky terrain. Liam shifted his dagger from hand to hand. His brother had an ax in his left hand and a leather shield in his right.
Jia-Li and Hei hid together on the opposite side of the path through the forest, hidden behind a fallen log. The two were inseparable since Jia-Li had helped Hei with his gunshot wound. The young Chinese woman held a trident tightly in her hand and prepared for the approaching enemy. Hei’s hands were sweating against the cold wood of his quarterstaff.
Yodh sat up in a tree, her bow notched with an arrow.
The party heard a bird call from down the path, which told them that Samākh and Dàleth, were approaching. They had been following the Goblin slaver party since the foursome of kidnappers had left the main gathering of Goblins a few hours ago.
It had been two weeks since the siblings had freed their parents from the Goblin slave drive. Under the command of Dàleth, the soldiers in the resistance had concentrated their efforts on hampering the Goblins plans rather than an all out assault. They realized that at the present time they would have little chance of winning against a 300 strong army.
Their missions consisted primarily of ambushes of the parties the Goblins sent out to recruit additional slaves. In the past fortnight they had engaged in battle with the slavers four times and had been victorious each time. Dàleth knew they were riling a hornet’s nest but figured that their enemy’s rage would make them more likely to make a mistake.
As the four slavers came into view Mumbles and Aleph came up the path to meet them, feigning that they were just two men out for a walk. Mumbles stumbled along. He always appeared drunk though no one had seen him drinking. As ever, he was mumbling to himself, appearing totally oblivious to reality.
“..if I ever need a tea pot I’ll know where to find it. Stupid tea pot always dribbling out on the carpet. MY carpet.”
“Is your mate drunk or just an idiot?” snarled one of the four slavers, flecks of spit flying from his mouth as he spoke. He was an obese man whose greasy folds of skin were filled with gummy filth. The bandana which stretched tightly around his arm, cutting into the blubber, was so dirty it appeared brown instead of green. He wiped a string of drool that dribbled down his chin with the back of his meaty hand.
Aleph spread his legs shoulder width apart and met the eyes of each of the four Goblins in turn. He then bent his knees, keeping his back straight and began to slap his thighs in a slow rhythm.
Another of the slavers, a slim man with skin as black as night, broke out in laughter. “Looks like they are both idiots…this one is going to put on a show.” His face turned from laughter to uncertainty though when the rhythm was picked up by the forest around them. Uncertainty turned to fear as Aleph began his chant:
“Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!” (I die! I die! I live! I live!)
The chant was taken up by the people hidden in the forest.
“Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora! (I die! I die! I live! I live!)
The echoing in the forest made it sound like there were hundreds of people all around them and the Goblins’ fear turned to terror. One, a young man with a scar which ran from under his right eye across the bridge of his nose under his left ear, took a pistol from his belt and aimed it at Aleph. “Stop it..”, he managed to squeak out. But Aleph continued:
“Tenei te tangata puhuru huru!” (This is the hairy man!)
Soundlessly an arrow appeared through the hand of the scarred, scared boy forcing him to drop the pistol. Aleph’s chant got louder, drowning out the screams of pain from the young Goblin who held his hand, his eyes as wide as saucers.
“Nana nei i tiki mai!”( Who fetched the Sun!)
The obese man turned to flee but his route along the way he’d come was blocked by Dàleth, who was holding his sword in hand. Eyes still searching for an escape, he removed a knife from his belt.
Whakawhiti te ra! (And caused it to shine again!)
The members of the resistance were surprised when the black man pulled a set of nunchucks from a pouch at his side. Matching the stare of Aleph, he began to swing them from side to side.
“A upa ... ne! ka upa ... ne!” (One upward step! Another upward step!)
It became obvious that these Goblins were not all going to be as easy to scare as the young boy when the last Goblin, a middle-aged man with dark hair pulled back in a pony tail, unsheathed a sword seemingly unfazed by the psychological warfare.
A upane kaupane whiti te ra! (An upward step, another…the Sun shines !!!)
The young boy was another matter since as Mubbles took a stumbling step towards him liquid began to drip down his leg and puddle around his left boot. The smell of urine was strong in the air.
Hi!
The last word of the chant was left to echo in the forest for a beat. Even the animals in the forest were silent.
The Resistance attacked with a roar and it was on.
The boy tripped over his feet as he turned to flee into the forest, only to be intercepted by the Irish boys, Liam and Aedan. He was rendered incapacitated by a blow from the flat side of Aedan’s axe.
The obese man lunged at Dàleth with his knife. Dàleth blocked the blow with his sword but had to quickly parry and step away because his opponent was using his weight to power through the block.
Mumbles was sauntering forward, seemingly oblivious to the danger the four Goblins posed to him. He was humming a tuneless song, almost dancing with his tattered umbrella as his partner.
The black-skinned Goblin noticed the easy pretty and moved in for the kill. His wood and chain weapon swung from one side to the other rhythmically, gaining the necessary momentum to brain the delusional old man.
Mumbles had no reaction to this approaching threat. He smiled beneath his yellow-grey beard to a joke known only to himself.
As the Goblin fighter entered striking range, the nunchuck whipped out to split the skull of the unsuspecting old man. In a blur Pania leapt from the shadows and at the last second her taiaha blocked the wooden weapon from striking Mumbles in the head. However, the weapon glance off the club and the force of the blow was still going to smash into the old man’s shoulder.
Miraculously the old man dance stepped away from the nunchuck, avoiding injury. As the Goblin fighter turned to face Pania, his new target, Mumbles stumbled back a bit and sat himself on a log to observe the goings-on.
The feather marking the spear head of her taiaha danced by Pania’s waist, momentarily catching the eye of the black-skinned warrior. As planned this maneuver focused the Goblin’s eye on the spear head and he prepared himself to defend himself against such an attack. Seeing this, the flattened sharpened blade of Pania’s taiaha sliced through the air, her intent to decapitate this man who prayed on the helpless. At the last moment the Goblin stepped back, too late to avoid all the injury though and blood poured from a newly opened gash on his forehead, blinding his left eye.
“Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.”, said her opponent, wiping the blood from his eye with the green bandana that wrapped his left arm. Quick as a strike from a viper, his nunchuck shot out a jab below the ribs, doubling her over. Before she could recover he had stepped behind her and coiled the chain around her throat. She could feel the pinch of the steel as the chain tightened, constricting her airway. Mistakenly she screamed out in pain, losing her chance to draw what may be her last breath.
As spots began to form in her field of vision, Pania noticed that Mumbles had risen to his feet and was strolling toward her, unmindful to the trouble he was in.
“Have a seat old man. I’ll deal with you next.”, hissed the Goblin.
Pania’s limbs were becoming weak and she knew that soon the chain would be the only thing keeping her off the ground.
With an uncharacteristically fluid movement the tattered umbrella cracked across the knuckles of the Goblin causing him to lose his grip and allowing Pania to sneak a breath, stealing her life momentarily from the harvesting sickle of Death.
“You will unhand her, young sir, or you will be slain like the scoundrel you appear to be.”, said Mumbles in a clear voice.
More from confusion than as a response to the threat, the Goblin released his captive. With expert precision, a flick of the wrist caused the nunchuck to smash into Pania’s knee, incapacitating her.
“Again you strike a lady. You have proven your lack of valour. I challenge you to a duel.”, said Mumbles. He entered a fighting pose with his right hand forward and his left in the air behind him, which looked ridiculous as his weapon was a broken umbrella.
“You’re a crazy old man but that won’t stop me from smashing your brain in!”
The Goblin struck out with a quick jab of his nunchuck, a move that earlier had surprised Pania with its speed. Mumbles, however, stepped back effortlessly and countered with a blow to the shoulder of his younger foe.
“Do you yield young sir? If you do I would be willing to save you from the embarrassment of death in front of this beautiful maiden”
“That’s it old man…enough talk. I’m gonna mess you up!”
He attacked Mumbles with fury. Obviously well trained in his weapon of choice the blows rained down at Mumbles from all directions. A swinging blow originating over his right shoulder was dodged and responded to with a painful smack, boxing the Goblin’s left ear. An attack originating from over his left shoulder was avoided with a step back and replied to with a blow to his right ear, stunning him. A swift attack intended to catch Mumbles under the chin was foiled by an agile maneuver and in response he was hit by a breathtaking blow to his temporarily unprotected midsection.
Pania watched in fascination as blow after blow was avoided gracefully and swiftly countered. Sweat mixed with blood that still flowed down the Goblin’s face. He paused for a moment to wipe his eyes and catch his breath. Pania used this moment to hobble over and smashed him across the back of the head with a two-handed baseball-bat-style swing, thereby ending this ridiculously unevenly matched battle.
“Wish a turkey would give me time of day. What? Day is never the time for seven.”, Mumbles said and turned to find his seat back on the log. Pania shook his head to try to clear it , thinking that perhaps she had suffered brain damage and this was a delusion of a oxygen deprived mind.
Looking behind her, Pania watched as the obese Goblin grabbed Dàleth’s shirt and threw him through the air. The back of his head smashing into a tree, Dàleth’s eyes rolled back in his head as he faded into unconsciousness. The fight was quickly taken up by Sāmekh, who was shortly joined by her daughter. Seeing both women with weapon’s drawn on him and seeing the anger in their eyes, he raised his arms in shameful surrender.
The pony-tailed man had been disarmed by Hei and Jia-Li and now he lay on his front with Jia-Li’s trident preventing him from rising.
The disarmed prisoners were instructed to carry their unconscious brethren back towards the Goblin’s camp. As they caught sight of the camp, Dàleth who, though sore-headed by the ragdoll-esque toss against the tree, addressed the obese man and his pony-tailed accomplice.
“The Goblins are not welcome here. You will leave this valley and disperse or a worse fate will befall you.”
A smirk on the pony-tailed man was responded to with a strike across the face by the back of Yodh’s hand.
In unison both conscious Goblins joined their colleagues, with blows to the lack of the head and the Resistance disappeared into the gloom of the forest.
No one answered his questions. Mumbles, which was the name they had given him for obvious reasons, wore a long trench coat and carried a retractable umbrella with bent arms and holes in the canopy. Aleph had worried that his offensive smell would give away their position when they stalked the Goblin slavers. Luckily the Goblins had been poor trackers so far and did not catch his scent.
Pania had tried speaking to him for a while a couple of nights ago but gave up when it was obvious he did not hear her though he would look right into your eyes when he spoke. Instead Pania had worked on completing the carving patterns into her club. Shortly before being captured by the Goblins, Pania had finished carving out a long club out of a branch of a kauri tree. When she had been freed by the Dobro siblings, Pania had returned to her camp and retrieved her weapon. Her taiaha was a 1.5 metre long shaft which lessened in thickness and widened out to about 10 centimetres for the top third forming a sharp flat blade used to decapitate opponents. The other end was pointed like a spear and decorated with feathers. It was the surface of the spear end of the club that she was now carving.
Pania was a young Maori woman who had been freed by the raid on the Goblin slave drive by the Dobros siblings. When she approached Mumbles she had been trying to thank him for his bravery but he did not appear to understand. Pania thought back to the day before.
Pania had crouched down, her thin form hidden behind the tree. She held her taiaha in her hand but low to the ground so it wouldn’t give away their position. Beside her were
Liam and Aedan, brothers who had been chained to Dàleth and Sāmekh during captivity. They hid together under a pohutukawa tree that had been dwarfed due to the poor soil conditions in this rocky terrain. Liam shifted his dagger from hand to hand. His brother had an ax in his left hand and a leather shield in his right.
Jia-Li and Hei hid together on the opposite side of the path through the forest, hidden behind a fallen log. The two were inseparable since Jia-Li had helped Hei with his gunshot wound. The young Chinese woman held a trident tightly in her hand and prepared for the approaching enemy. Hei’s hands were sweating against the cold wood of his quarterstaff.
Yodh sat up in a tree, her bow notched with an arrow.
The party heard a bird call from down the path, which told them that Samākh and Dàleth, were approaching. They had been following the Goblin slaver party since the foursome of kidnappers had left the main gathering of Goblins a few hours ago.
It had been two weeks since the siblings had freed their parents from the Goblin slave drive. Under the command of Dàleth, the soldiers in the resistance had concentrated their efforts on hampering the Goblins plans rather than an all out assault. They realized that at the present time they would have little chance of winning against a 300 strong army.
Their missions consisted primarily of ambushes of the parties the Goblins sent out to recruit additional slaves. In the past fortnight they had engaged in battle with the slavers four times and had been victorious each time. Dàleth knew they were riling a hornet’s nest but figured that their enemy’s rage would make them more likely to make a mistake.
As the four slavers came into view Mumbles and Aleph came up the path to meet them, feigning that they were just two men out for a walk. Mumbles stumbled along. He always appeared drunk though no one had seen him drinking. As ever, he was mumbling to himself, appearing totally oblivious to reality.
“..if I ever need a tea pot I’ll know where to find it. Stupid tea pot always dribbling out on the carpet. MY carpet.”
“Is your mate drunk or just an idiot?” snarled one of the four slavers, flecks of spit flying from his mouth as he spoke. He was an obese man whose greasy folds of skin were filled with gummy filth. The bandana which stretched tightly around his arm, cutting into the blubber, was so dirty it appeared brown instead of green. He wiped a string of drool that dribbled down his chin with the back of his meaty hand.
Aleph spread his legs shoulder width apart and met the eyes of each of the four Goblins in turn. He then bent his knees, keeping his back straight and began to slap his thighs in a slow rhythm.
Another of the slavers, a slim man with skin as black as night, broke out in laughter. “Looks like they are both idiots…this one is going to put on a show.” His face turned from laughter to uncertainty though when the rhythm was picked up by the forest around them. Uncertainty turned to fear as Aleph began his chant:
“Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!” (I die! I die! I live! I live!)
The chant was taken up by the people hidden in the forest.
“Ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora! (I die! I die! I live! I live!)
The echoing in the forest made it sound like there were hundreds of people all around them and the Goblins’ fear turned to terror. One, a young man with a scar which ran from under his right eye across the bridge of his nose under his left ear, took a pistol from his belt and aimed it at Aleph. “Stop it..”, he managed to squeak out. But Aleph continued:
“Tenei te tangata puhuru huru!” (This is the hairy man!)
Soundlessly an arrow appeared through the hand of the scarred, scared boy forcing him to drop the pistol. Aleph’s chant got louder, drowning out the screams of pain from the young Goblin who held his hand, his eyes as wide as saucers.
“Nana nei i tiki mai!”( Who fetched the Sun!)
The obese man turned to flee but his route along the way he’d come was blocked by Dàleth, who was holding his sword in hand. Eyes still searching for an escape, he removed a knife from his belt.
Whakawhiti te ra! (And caused it to shine again!)
The members of the resistance were surprised when the black man pulled a set of nunchucks from a pouch at his side. Matching the stare of Aleph, he began to swing them from side to side.
“A upa ... ne! ka upa ... ne!” (One upward step! Another upward step!)
It became obvious that these Goblins were not all going to be as easy to scare as the young boy when the last Goblin, a middle-aged man with dark hair pulled back in a pony tail, unsheathed a sword seemingly unfazed by the psychological warfare.
A upane kaupane whiti te ra! (An upward step, another…the Sun shines !!!)
The young boy was another matter since as Mubbles took a stumbling step towards him liquid began to drip down his leg and puddle around his left boot. The smell of urine was strong in the air.
Hi!
The last word of the chant was left to echo in the forest for a beat. Even the animals in the forest were silent.
The Resistance attacked with a roar and it was on.
The boy tripped over his feet as he turned to flee into the forest, only to be intercepted by the Irish boys, Liam and Aedan. He was rendered incapacitated by a blow from the flat side of Aedan’s axe.
The obese man lunged at Dàleth with his knife. Dàleth blocked the blow with his sword but had to quickly parry and step away because his opponent was using his weight to power through the block.
Mumbles was sauntering forward, seemingly oblivious to the danger the four Goblins posed to him. He was humming a tuneless song, almost dancing with his tattered umbrella as his partner.
The black-skinned Goblin noticed the easy pretty and moved in for the kill. His wood and chain weapon swung from one side to the other rhythmically, gaining the necessary momentum to brain the delusional old man.
Mumbles had no reaction to this approaching threat. He smiled beneath his yellow-grey beard to a joke known only to himself.
As the Goblin fighter entered striking range, the nunchuck whipped out to split the skull of the unsuspecting old man. In a blur Pania leapt from the shadows and at the last second her taiaha blocked the wooden weapon from striking Mumbles in the head. However, the weapon glance off the club and the force of the blow was still going to smash into the old man’s shoulder.
Miraculously the old man dance stepped away from the nunchuck, avoiding injury. As the Goblin fighter turned to face Pania, his new target, Mumbles stumbled back a bit and sat himself on a log to observe the goings-on.
The feather marking the spear head of her taiaha danced by Pania’s waist, momentarily catching the eye of the black-skinned warrior. As planned this maneuver focused the Goblin’s eye on the spear head and he prepared himself to defend himself against such an attack. Seeing this, the flattened sharpened blade of Pania’s taiaha sliced through the air, her intent to decapitate this man who prayed on the helpless. At the last moment the Goblin stepped back, too late to avoid all the injury though and blood poured from a newly opened gash on his forehead, blinding his left eye.
“Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.”, said her opponent, wiping the blood from his eye with the green bandana that wrapped his left arm. Quick as a strike from a viper, his nunchuck shot out a jab below the ribs, doubling her over. Before she could recover he had stepped behind her and coiled the chain around her throat. She could feel the pinch of the steel as the chain tightened, constricting her airway. Mistakenly she screamed out in pain, losing her chance to draw what may be her last breath.
As spots began to form in her field of vision, Pania noticed that Mumbles had risen to his feet and was strolling toward her, unmindful to the trouble he was in.
“Have a seat old man. I’ll deal with you next.”, hissed the Goblin.
Pania’s limbs were becoming weak and she knew that soon the chain would be the only thing keeping her off the ground.
With an uncharacteristically fluid movement the tattered umbrella cracked across the knuckles of the Goblin causing him to lose his grip and allowing Pania to sneak a breath, stealing her life momentarily from the harvesting sickle of Death.
“You will unhand her, young sir, or you will be slain like the scoundrel you appear to be.”, said Mumbles in a clear voice.
More from confusion than as a response to the threat, the Goblin released his captive. With expert precision, a flick of the wrist caused the nunchuck to smash into Pania’s knee, incapacitating her.
“Again you strike a lady. You have proven your lack of valour. I challenge you to a duel.”, said Mumbles. He entered a fighting pose with his right hand forward and his left in the air behind him, which looked ridiculous as his weapon was a broken umbrella.
“You’re a crazy old man but that won’t stop me from smashing your brain in!”
The Goblin struck out with a quick jab of his nunchuck, a move that earlier had surprised Pania with its speed. Mumbles, however, stepped back effortlessly and countered with a blow to the shoulder of his younger foe.
“Do you yield young sir? If you do I would be willing to save you from the embarrassment of death in front of this beautiful maiden”
“That’s it old man…enough talk. I’m gonna mess you up!”
He attacked Mumbles with fury. Obviously well trained in his weapon of choice the blows rained down at Mumbles from all directions. A swinging blow originating over his right shoulder was dodged and responded to with a painful smack, boxing the Goblin’s left ear. An attack originating from over his left shoulder was avoided with a step back and replied to with a blow to his right ear, stunning him. A swift attack intended to catch Mumbles under the chin was foiled by an agile maneuver and in response he was hit by a breathtaking blow to his temporarily unprotected midsection.
Pania watched in fascination as blow after blow was avoided gracefully and swiftly countered. Sweat mixed with blood that still flowed down the Goblin’s face. He paused for a moment to wipe his eyes and catch his breath. Pania used this moment to hobble over and smashed him across the back of the head with a two-handed baseball-bat-style swing, thereby ending this ridiculously unevenly matched battle.
“Wish a turkey would give me time of day. What? Day is never the time for seven.”, Mumbles said and turned to find his seat back on the log. Pania shook his head to try to clear it , thinking that perhaps she had suffered brain damage and this was a delusion of a oxygen deprived mind.
Looking behind her, Pania watched as the obese Goblin grabbed Dàleth’s shirt and threw him through the air. The back of his head smashing into a tree, Dàleth’s eyes rolled back in his head as he faded into unconsciousness. The fight was quickly taken up by Sāmekh, who was shortly joined by her daughter. Seeing both women with weapon’s drawn on him and seeing the anger in their eyes, he raised his arms in shameful surrender.
The pony-tailed man had been disarmed by Hei and Jia-Li and now he lay on his front with Jia-Li’s trident preventing him from rising.
The disarmed prisoners were instructed to carry their unconscious brethren back towards the Goblin’s camp. As they caught sight of the camp, Dàleth who, though sore-headed by the ragdoll-esque toss against the tree, addressed the obese man and his pony-tailed accomplice.
“The Goblins are not welcome here. You will leave this valley and disperse or a worse fate will befall you.”
A smirk on the pony-tailed man was responded to with a strike across the face by the back of Yodh’s hand.
In unison both conscious Goblins joined their colleagues, with blows to the lack of the head and the Resistance disappeared into the gloom of the forest.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Chapter eight
The shed was cold, but their interaction on the bench was warming him up. They were alone at the moment but they knew that they could be interrupted at any moment. He was excited but nervous with anticipation.
“This is my first time”, confided Taonga.
“I’ll help you through it”, responded Trillium, “I’m quite a veteran”, to which Taonga raised his eyebrows. “Wha? Canadians have to do something to stay warm, right?” She winked.
They had been talking about doing it for quite a while but this was their first opportunity.
She bent over in front of him and held on tight, bracing for his action. “Stick it in hard.”
Taonga groaned as he drove it in. “It’s so tight”, he observed.
“Here, I’ll loosen it and you push it in deeper”. With deft movements of her experienced fingers, Trillium made the opening wider and with a grunt Taonga was able to put it in all the way.
“That a way big boy”, said Trillium with a giggle, “now for the painful part.” She wrapped the long laces around the palm of her hand, pulled up with all her strength and tied up his left foot as tightly as she could.
“And now for the other one”, said Trillium, as she guided him into the opening of his right ice skate. Once he squeezed his foot into the tight opening, she again pulled the laces as tight as she could.
“Now try standing up”
He pushed himself up from the bench to standing on the black mats. His first time ever on ice skates. “Not so bad…I can do this”, he said with obviously false pride. He smiled as he wobbled along.
They made their way out the door, down the stairs and onto the rough ice at the edge of the Canal. Trillium held his hand, smiling from ear to ear watching her talented-at-all-sports boyfriend step slowly across the ice, reminding her of Bambi. They both pulled their toques over their ears, zipped up their jackets, put their mittens on their hands and set off for school.
“You have to glide across the ice, not waddle like a penguin”, she laughed.
“Sure, no problem”, he said, as he took a tentative glide across the ice. Unfortunately, his back skate slipped out from under him. He landed hard on him bum, pulling Trillium down on top of him.
“No, problem?!?”
“Okay, little problem”, he said with a smile.
With a little effort and Trillium’s help, Taonga made it to his feet rubbing his sore behind.
“This may take a while” said Trillium, suppressing a laugh. “Glad we left a lot of time to get to school, eh?”
Taonga grunted in agreement, determined not to let this crazy Canadian pastime get the best of him. He slid his left foot forward pushing off with his right, and then did the same with the other leg, and he was on his way.
Slowly but surely they made it down the world’s longest skating rink.
“You think we’ll have anyone show up?” Trillium asked.
“Can’t skate and talk at the same time.”
Trillium looked up to see if he was serious. He smiled back at her.
“I’m sure we’ll get a few…but last year the naturalist club had more members.”
“We should make it more fun this year and try to find some real solid causes to get behind.”
“Ya…saving that old campus oak tree was important but not big enough. This year we have to really make a difference to our community. Really…we should make it the world community.”
“What about the universe?” Trillium joked.
“No really, screw Think Globally, Act Locally…lets act globally. People don’t think big enough and so the big problems don’t get solved. Gandhi said to be the change you wish to see in the world…but our worlds too messed up for that…we need to make others change too.”
Trillium smiled. She loved when he became passionate about something. He was a born leader…he was so charismatic. She could believe that they could really change the world, saving species from extinction, the world from pollution, leading people to world peace….
Taonga met her gaze and went on, “I know I’m preaching to the choir….its just that everyday it becomes more and more apparent that I am a member of a species that is destroying this planet and I can’t sit idly by while that happe—whoaaaahhh” Taonga crashed to the ground on his side, this time letting go of Trillium so as to not bring her down too.
“Ughh, that one hurt…”, he said, while getting up. “Who came up with this stupid sport…people are not meant to move across the ice”, he said with a smirk on his face.
Hand in hand they skated towards the school to set up their booth at the Club’s Fair.
Question 4b) Calculate the concentration of H+ and OH- in pure water at 25C. Please note that the equilibrium constant for water at 25C is 1.0 x 10-14.
He took a drag of his cigarette then set it in the ashtray as he thought about the problem for a moment. Before classes had begun, Jimmy had bought all his text books and started reading. The class syllabus for Analytical Chemistry had been posted on the web and he was now three chapters ahead. Not surprising though since while his fellow students spent time partying, he spent all his time studying. He had no social life to speak of.
He was interrupted by a girl’s high pitched giggle and he looked up to see a curly brown haired girl in a tight pink and white striped polo shirt being thrown over some jock’s shoulders. A pint of beer was sloshing around in his hand.
“Come with me woman” he bellowed and began laughing. The girl was still giggling away.
“Put me down”, she said flirtingly.
“I’m gonna take you back to my place and have my way with you”, he roared so that the whole pub could hear and began walking towards the exit. He chugged down the last of his beer and set it loudly on a table.
“Oh, no”, she said in the falsetto voice of a maiden in distress. This caused their friends to drop their pool cues and laugh uproariously.
“Quiet wench”, he said and smacked her, not too gently, on the butt. “Oooohh”, she squealed.
As she was carried from the pub, the girl looked up from the back of her captor, smiled and winked at the patrons of the pub who were watching her retreat, and with a cute little finger wave to her friends she was gone.
The guy is probably here on some sports scholarship, thought Jimmy. Jimmy never really got into sports; he never had the time or the raw talent. Instead, his talents and time went into scholarly pursuits. He graduated high school at the top of his class and he was at this university on a full scholarship. Even more impressive was that he had skipped a grade and had started a year earlier than his age-cohort. He was now in his third year of a Chemistry degree. Chemistry still had the same attraction for him. Although he would never voice this aloud, he thought of chemistry as a form of magic, with chemical reactions as the spells and potions, and becoming a chemist would be like becoming a mage. Pretty geeky, he knew, but successful people were oft times geeks.
For some reason he loved to do his studies in the pub. The white noise, caused by loud music and people chatting about life, love and studies centred his concentration on his task. He liked that it was dimly lit and of course it also gave him a place to smoke. It also gave him the chance to watch people carrying on their lives. One of his elective courses last year was a Sociology course and it had made him think that studying social interaction in a pub would be a really interesting research project.
Creasing the page of the thick textbook, he reread the question and put down the calculator that he’d been holding. He could do this calculation in his head. In his black note book he wrote:
H20 ↔ H+ + OH-
Kw = 1.0 x 10-14 = [H+] [OH-] = [x][x]
x = 1.0 x 10-7
Therefore the concentrations H+ and OH- in pure water at 25C are both 1.0 x 10-7
He checked his watch, 10:27am, he should be on his way. He closed his textbook and his ringed notebook and placed them in his satchel book bag. He took one last drag of his cigarette and butted out. Putting his bag over his neck and onto his shoulder, he left the dim light of the pub to the bright lights of the buildings lobby.
In front of him, snaking around the whole lobby were booths of all the different university clubs. He had no interest in joining a club but he knew that potential employers looked for well rounded individuals when hiring. He realized that he did not meet that description but he could use a club membership to create that illusion.
Wandering from booth to booth, trying to find something interesting. The only one that caught his eye was the Environmental Club. At the booth sat a good looking blonde and dark skinned jock. If it had been just the jock sitting at the table he would have walked right by but something about the blonde, with her hair split into two braids, and her beautiful green eyes, caught his attention. It was not even her beauty, it was the vibe she was giving off.
“Hi”, she said, “are you interested in joining our Environment Club? If so you just have to sign up here with your name, email address, and a screen name for the chat room we are setting up for the club.” He looked at her in confusion when she mentioned the screen name so she added, “You can choose anything…I use Trillium and Taonga is going to use Whenua.”
“K…” He was really nervous and could not form a full sentence. He did, however, know which name to pick. His only real social activity he took part in were Dungeons and Dragons campaigns and for the last three years he had been playing a dark mage. Jimmy took the pad and wrote in his name, email address and for his screen name he chose the name of the mage, Staedlin.
“This is my first time”, confided Taonga.
“I’ll help you through it”, responded Trillium, “I’m quite a veteran”, to which Taonga raised his eyebrows. “Wha? Canadians have to do something to stay warm, right?” She winked.
They had been talking about doing it for quite a while but this was their first opportunity.
She bent over in front of him and held on tight, bracing for his action. “Stick it in hard.”
Taonga groaned as he drove it in. “It’s so tight”, he observed.
“Here, I’ll loosen it and you push it in deeper”. With deft movements of her experienced fingers, Trillium made the opening wider and with a grunt Taonga was able to put it in all the way.
“That a way big boy”, said Trillium with a giggle, “now for the painful part.” She wrapped the long laces around the palm of her hand, pulled up with all her strength and tied up his left foot as tightly as she could.
“And now for the other one”, said Trillium, as she guided him into the opening of his right ice skate. Once he squeezed his foot into the tight opening, she again pulled the laces as tight as she could.
“Now try standing up”
He pushed himself up from the bench to standing on the black mats. His first time ever on ice skates. “Not so bad…I can do this”, he said with obviously false pride. He smiled as he wobbled along.
They made their way out the door, down the stairs and onto the rough ice at the edge of the Canal. Trillium held his hand, smiling from ear to ear watching her talented-at-all-sports boyfriend step slowly across the ice, reminding her of Bambi. They both pulled their toques over their ears, zipped up their jackets, put their mittens on their hands and set off for school.
“You have to glide across the ice, not waddle like a penguin”, she laughed.
“Sure, no problem”, he said, as he took a tentative glide across the ice. Unfortunately, his back skate slipped out from under him. He landed hard on him bum, pulling Trillium down on top of him.
“No, problem?!?”
“Okay, little problem”, he said with a smile.
With a little effort and Trillium’s help, Taonga made it to his feet rubbing his sore behind.
“This may take a while” said Trillium, suppressing a laugh. “Glad we left a lot of time to get to school, eh?”
Taonga grunted in agreement, determined not to let this crazy Canadian pastime get the best of him. He slid his left foot forward pushing off with his right, and then did the same with the other leg, and he was on his way.
Slowly but surely they made it down the world’s longest skating rink.
“You think we’ll have anyone show up?” Trillium asked.
“Can’t skate and talk at the same time.”
Trillium looked up to see if he was serious. He smiled back at her.
“I’m sure we’ll get a few…but last year the naturalist club had more members.”
“We should make it more fun this year and try to find some real solid causes to get behind.”
“Ya…saving that old campus oak tree was important but not big enough. This year we have to really make a difference to our community. Really…we should make it the world community.”
“What about the universe?” Trillium joked.
“No really, screw Think Globally, Act Locally…lets act globally. People don’t think big enough and so the big problems don’t get solved. Gandhi said to be the change you wish to see in the world…but our worlds too messed up for that…we need to make others change too.”
Trillium smiled. She loved when he became passionate about something. He was a born leader…he was so charismatic. She could believe that they could really change the world, saving species from extinction, the world from pollution, leading people to world peace….
Taonga met her gaze and went on, “I know I’m preaching to the choir….its just that everyday it becomes more and more apparent that I am a member of a species that is destroying this planet and I can’t sit idly by while that happe—whoaaaahhh” Taonga crashed to the ground on his side, this time letting go of Trillium so as to not bring her down too.
“Ughh, that one hurt…”, he said, while getting up. “Who came up with this stupid sport…people are not meant to move across the ice”, he said with a smirk on his face.
Hand in hand they skated towards the school to set up their booth at the Club’s Fair.
Question 4b) Calculate the concentration of H+ and OH- in pure water at 25C. Please note that the equilibrium constant for water at 25C is 1.0 x 10-14.
He took a drag of his cigarette then set it in the ashtray as he thought about the problem for a moment. Before classes had begun, Jimmy had bought all his text books and started reading. The class syllabus for Analytical Chemistry had been posted on the web and he was now three chapters ahead. Not surprising though since while his fellow students spent time partying, he spent all his time studying. He had no social life to speak of.
He was interrupted by a girl’s high pitched giggle and he looked up to see a curly brown haired girl in a tight pink and white striped polo shirt being thrown over some jock’s shoulders. A pint of beer was sloshing around in his hand.
“Come with me woman” he bellowed and began laughing. The girl was still giggling away.
“Put me down”, she said flirtingly.
“I’m gonna take you back to my place and have my way with you”, he roared so that the whole pub could hear and began walking towards the exit. He chugged down the last of his beer and set it loudly on a table.
“Oh, no”, she said in the falsetto voice of a maiden in distress. This caused their friends to drop their pool cues and laugh uproariously.
“Quiet wench”, he said and smacked her, not too gently, on the butt. “Oooohh”, she squealed.
As she was carried from the pub, the girl looked up from the back of her captor, smiled and winked at the patrons of the pub who were watching her retreat, and with a cute little finger wave to her friends she was gone.
The guy is probably here on some sports scholarship, thought Jimmy. Jimmy never really got into sports; he never had the time or the raw talent. Instead, his talents and time went into scholarly pursuits. He graduated high school at the top of his class and he was at this university on a full scholarship. Even more impressive was that he had skipped a grade and had started a year earlier than his age-cohort. He was now in his third year of a Chemistry degree. Chemistry still had the same attraction for him. Although he would never voice this aloud, he thought of chemistry as a form of magic, with chemical reactions as the spells and potions, and becoming a chemist would be like becoming a mage. Pretty geeky, he knew, but successful people were oft times geeks.
For some reason he loved to do his studies in the pub. The white noise, caused by loud music and people chatting about life, love and studies centred his concentration on his task. He liked that it was dimly lit and of course it also gave him a place to smoke. It also gave him the chance to watch people carrying on their lives. One of his elective courses last year was a Sociology course and it had made him think that studying social interaction in a pub would be a really interesting research project.
Creasing the page of the thick textbook, he reread the question and put down the calculator that he’d been holding. He could do this calculation in his head. In his black note book he wrote:
H20 ↔ H+ + OH-
Kw = 1.0 x 10-14 = [H+] [OH-] = [x][x]
x = 1.0 x 10-7
Therefore the concentrations H+ and OH- in pure water at 25C are both 1.0 x 10-7
He checked his watch, 10:27am, he should be on his way. He closed his textbook and his ringed notebook and placed them in his satchel book bag. He took one last drag of his cigarette and butted out. Putting his bag over his neck and onto his shoulder, he left the dim light of the pub to the bright lights of the buildings lobby.
In front of him, snaking around the whole lobby were booths of all the different university clubs. He had no interest in joining a club but he knew that potential employers looked for well rounded individuals when hiring. He realized that he did not meet that description but he could use a club membership to create that illusion.
Wandering from booth to booth, trying to find something interesting. The only one that caught his eye was the Environmental Club. At the booth sat a good looking blonde and dark skinned jock. If it had been just the jock sitting at the table he would have walked right by but something about the blonde, with her hair split into two braids, and her beautiful green eyes, caught his attention. It was not even her beauty, it was the vibe she was giving off.
“Hi”, she said, “are you interested in joining our Environment Club? If so you just have to sign up here with your name, email address, and a screen name for the chat room we are setting up for the club.” He looked at her in confusion when she mentioned the screen name so she added, “You can choose anything…I use Trillium and Taonga is going to use Whenua.”
“K…” He was really nervous and could not form a full sentence. He did, however, know which name to pick. His only real social activity he took part in were Dungeons and Dragons campaigns and for the last three years he had been playing a dark mage. Jimmy took the pad and wrote in his name, email address and for his screen name he chose the name of the mage, Staedlin.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Chapter Seven: Encounter
Sāmekh stood behind her husband swaying while trying to remain upright. Her lips were parched and beginning to crack because her broken nose forced her to breathe solely through her mouth. Her left eye had swollen shut and she could only see through a slit of her blackened right eye. Though it meant that she was almost blind, she was oddly thankful because it protected her from the bright morning sun which was causing the pain in her head to crescendo to the point of nausea. They had received food and water earlier but she remained quite weak from her injuries.
Eighteen prisoners stood in three lines of six. Two guards, the huge Dante and the Albino, were set to lead the phalanx of captives. Dante carried a heavy sledgehammer, which would have been carried with difficulty by a normal sized man using two hands, but he looked like he could easily use it to crush an opponent with one hand. The Albino was armed with two long daggers hanging from his belt. Fury towards her cowardly assailant, which burned like fire in veins, was the only thing that kept Sāmekh from returning to unconsciousness. Her body needed more rest to heal itself but they were being prepared to be herded down the valley.
The rear of the group of captives was being guarded by two men, one of whom carried a shotgun. The other had a sling hanging from his belt. She recognized neither of them.
Sāmekh turned to watch a tall dreadlocked woman climbing the side of the valley to her left and a second guard doing the same to her right. They took their positions at the crest of the hill on each side of the valley. Both these flanking guards carried a rifle. Apparently they were valuable cargo.
Her husband turned his head and whispered over his shoulder, “That woman was one of the gang that took us here.”
“No talking!” roared Dante and he drove his meaty first into Dàleth’s gut.
The punch caught Dàleth unexpected and he fell to the ground with a groan. After a moment gaining his breath on the ground, he got up and his blue eyes stared at Dante, until the larger man turned away.
As with the rest of the camp, save the slaves, their guards wore black t-shirts tucked into blue jeans, a leather vest, and a green bandana tied to their arms. It appeared to Sāmekh that all their guards were of the same rank. They had been given their orders by a Goblin with a red grimacing goblin sewed onto the left breast of his vest. She had observed that there appeared to be one Red Goblin for each twenty-five regular foot soldiers.
The siblings moved quickly towards the treed area where they would stage their attack. As they moved, they discussed their strategy.
“Do you think you could use your magic to swallow up the guards, Yodh?” Aleph asked.
“I’m worried that I don’t have enough control yet and might hurt mum and dad. I think its best if I stick with my bow.”
Pointing to the rifle strung across his back, Hei said, “I’m not going to be able to use this unless we want the whole camp to come running.” As he took a practice swing with his quarterstaff, he added, “Al and I are going to have to get right up close to use our weapons”.
“Okay, you guys find a place down on the valley floor and I’ll find a place up on the side of the valley. I’m going to need to take out any of the guards armed with guns, as quickly as I can. We don’t want them shooting off their guns either”, said Yodh, moving away from the boys up the mountain and hiding herself against the rock face behind a tree on the south-west side of the valley with a clear line of sight to the valley floor. She took her bow off her shoulders and prepared her arrows in front of her. She knew that she would have to be quick to kill the guards so that none would let off a shot and alert the rest of the Goblins. She also took three deep breaths to calm herself to enter a state of mindfulness. As she closed her eyes she could sense that her parents were beginning the march towards them. She then returned all her concentration to the task at hand.
“Hei, you go on this side of the path and I’ll go on the other, but we should stay hidden until Yodh has fired her first shot” said Aleph. He drew his blade from the scabbard across his back and hid himself in a copse of bushes, steps away from the path where their parents and their guards would likely pass.
They remained silent and immobile while they waited. Time moved very slowly but after a time the siblings heard the sound of the approaching phalanx of prisoners, their feet scuffing along the valley floor and guards periodically barking orders. The adrenaline was building up in Hei’s arms and he had to alternatively flex and unflex to remain still. He pulled on his hood, as it made him feel more hidden, perhaps a small amount of his real age coming out.
Yodh saw them first and signaled to her brothers below that their parents were in sight. She notched an arrow and observed her targets. She saw two guards in front, followed by the three sets of six slaves, followed by two other guards. Her keen eyes spotted only one guard with a gun at the rear of the group.
Hei and Aleph prepared their weapons and, though their muscles were tingling from the blood coursing through their veins, they held perfectly still, knowing that springing their trap too soon would eliminate their advantage of surprise. Yodh signaled down that there was only one gun amongst the guards and that there were two pairs of Goblins guarding their parents.
She watched quietly as the distance between her brothers and her parents narrowed. When only five metres separated the two parties, she prayed silently to every deity she could think of, including Gaia, and let the arrow fly. The moment her two fingers let go of the string she was overcome with foreboding as the realization that they had seen six guards earlier overwhelmed her. “Where were the other guards?” her voiced screamed inside her head.
The sound of the arrow whirring through the air followed by the wet thwack of it penetrating its target brought the boys out of hiding. Hei jumped from behind the tree in time to see the man holding the rifle fall to the ground with an arrow in his neck. Through the crowd of slaves he saw a second guard remove a sling from his belt and load a rock. His vision of this man was soon blocked by a giant carrying a huge sledgehammer. Using the element of surprise, Hei struck out at the giant with his quarterstaff, stabbing him in the gut with it before he could react.
Though the wind must have been knocked out of him, the giant was quick to respond. With a batter’s swing, the hammer whooshed through the air. Hei ducked under the blow which came close enough to him to knock off his hood. Thinking quickly, Hei brought his staff through the giant’s legs, catching his back leg, and drove his shoulder into his belly. The momentum of the hammer, the shoulder to the midsection, and the staff tripping him up, worked together to bring the giant down. An “umphhh” escaped the man’s lips as he fell hard on the ground. As he tried to get up, he was overwhelmed by a group of prisoners who had shuffled over and were now pummeling him with bare fists. Though he could not regain his feet, even with six to one odds the big man was still able to crack a few heads together, and Hei saw this as an opportunity to join in the frey.
A pasty white man with two long daggers already drawn from his belt stood before Aleph. The Albino’s blades slashed through the air in a complex series of arcs. “Either this guy really knows what he is doing”, Aleph thought, “or he’s doing a heck of a job faking it.” Aleph set himself in fighting stance and leveled his sword at his opponent, feeling like he might be outmanned. As the Albino stepped forward to attack, he was hurled backwards by two sets of hands on his shoulders, landing roughly on the top of his shoulders and back of his head. The unexpected direction of the attack caused the Albino to lose the grip on the dagger in his left hand. Before he could move to stab his attackers with his other dagger, Sāmekh’s foot stepped hard on his right wrist. She eyed him with hot fury through the slit of black and blue swollen flesh that nearly covered her right eye. He let out a scream of anger and pain. As the thought crossed his mind to grab her leg with his free hand, another foot stamped hand on his left hand, breaking the bone, and he looked up to see the foot belonged to Dàleth. Suddenly he was gasping for air since the rope which bound the couple together was now drawn tightly across his neck, causing him to finally gain some colour. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his white face began to go red. The anger that had driven him now turned to fear.
As the lifeforce drained from the Albino, Sāmekh spoke out, “As much as I hate this vile being I can’t bring myself to end his life like this.” Instead, she brought her foot up and with her full force and weight behind it drove her heel into the bridge of the man’s nose, flattening it and causing blood to spurt over his face.
The man’s eyes rolled back in head for a moment but he managed to retain consciousness. He looked directly at Sāmekh. “You whore”, he gurgled out.
Dàleth brought his heavy boot down on the man’s head, ending any further niceties from this scum.
Seeing his parents had taken of the Albino, Aleph set out after the man with the sling. He quickly observed that the crowd had taken care of that threat for him. The man had no chance to use his long distance weapon and was besieged by the third group of prisoners. Instead Aleph set his sword to work cutting the bonds of the prisoners so that they could run free.
Yodh was watching the fighting from above, pleased that their plan had worked but eyes still searching for the other two guards. She notched a second arrow. Maybe they hadn’t joined the march, she thought. Then she heard boots crunching the sand on the ledge above her. She pressed herself firmly against the rock face, calming her breathing, so that she would be neither seen nor heard. She chanced a glance above her head and could see an armed guard scanning the attack below, obviously trying to figure out how best to get involved. She knew she must be at the edge of his downward field of vision and that further movement would give away her position. A look to the horizon on the opposite side of the valley confirmed that the other guard, the dreadlocked woman, was on the other hillside. As Yodh watched, the woman trained her gun on the action below, and Yodh knew she must act. She brought her bow up and fired in a fluid movement, a skill developed through her years as the family hunter. The arrow flew true across the valley, but before it hit its mark, the rifle cracked off a shot. Before she could determine if either the bullet or the arrow hit their targets, the guard from above was upon her, alerted by the twang of her bowstring and the movement of the arrow.
The guard, figuring that he would easily overpower this little girl, decided that he did not need to waste a bullet and jumped down in front of Yodh from the ledge above. He slung the rifle across his back and pulled a knife from his belt. “Come here missie, let me carve up that pretty face of yours”, he snarled.
“Come and get me”, she taunted, pulling an arrow from the ground behind her.
He lunged at her, with the grace of someone more accustomed to fighting from a distance than with a knife, and she easily dodge out of the way, bringing the shaft of the arrow whipping down on his wrist. Though it smarted enough for him to let out a yelp, he held onto the blade and stepped back, reevaluating his prey.
She added insult to injury, “Is that all you got?”
“Oh…you’ll pay for that pretty little girl.” More cautiously this time, he slashed at her with his knife. She stepped back, this time unable to deliver a blow in response. Again and again he slashed and she stepped away, making sure that she remained just out of reach and retained her balance, planning her next move. Once again he slashed out, finally finding a rhythm to her movements, but his false sense of security quickly became his undoing, since this time she ducked under his guard and drove the tip of her arrow through his armpit into the chest cavity beyond. Just as quickly she stepped back. She watched as he dropped his knife, his mouth move though his last words never made it out of his throat, and fell to the ground.
Hearing the shot moments earlier, Dàleth and Sāmekh dove to the ground and scrambled to a more hidden place. With the echoes in the valley they were unsure of where the shot came originated. From where they lay, behind some bushes that provided poor protection from any bullets, they looked and found that Aleph had found cover close by. They saw other prisoners had also run for hiding places, but from where they hid they could not find their youngest son.
Yodh looked across the valley and saw that her arrow had disabled her target. The rifle was still bumping its way, end over end, down the side of the valley, and the dreadlocked woman stood across the valley clutching at an arrow embedded in her upper arm.
She looked down to the valley floor to find the results of the rifle bullet. She spotted her parents and Aleph quickly and ascertained that they had not been hit. She was already scrambling down the side of hill when she spotted Hei. He was on the ground clutching his side and she could see blood gushing through his fingers. She met his eyes and she could tell he was afraid. Another prisoner, a young Chinese woman, had torn the edge of her skirt and was using it to staunch the blood flow.
“Hei is hurt”, Yodh yelled to her parents, suddenly uncaring that they were still quite close to the main Goblin camp.
The other prisoners had tied up Dante, the unconscious Albino, and the sling carrying guard with the ropes that had formerly bound them together. The dreadlocked woman had taken off towards the main camp.
The family met over the fallen body of Hei, still unsure of the extent of the injury.
“Hey guys...my side hurts”, Hei said with a smile. Thanking the young lady, Sāmekh, removed the makeshift plaster and examined her son’s injury.
“Am I dying?” Hei asked with fear in his voice but with a hint of humour.
“You’ll be just fine if we can get away from the Goblins that are sure to be coming”, Sāmekh responded with a smirk. “Luckily, our dreadlocked friend is not a great shot, and the bullet only grazed you. Here let me help you up.”
Before his badly injured mother could help him to his feet, Aleph and Dàleth stepped in and gently guided him to standing. With his mother’s assurance that he would be alright, Hei’s side hardly hurt any longer.
“Just like when he was a little boy,” thought Sāmekh nostalgically, “he judges whether he is hurt by my reaction”.
Knowing that this band would need a leader, Dàleth addressed the milling crowd, “We can either stay together or go our separate ways. Although it will be easier to hide in small groups, we will need every able body if we intend to fight the Goblins”.
“Fight? I want to go back to my family”, responded one of the brothers who had been tied in with his parents' sextant.
“If we don’t fight they will grow stronger and be back to take us again”, countered the other brother.
“You need to decide quickly since the Goblin search party will be heading this way now. Those that wish to join this fight follow me. We will need to regroup and strategize before we begin the fight.” Turning, he led his family away, not looking back to see if they were to be alone in this struggle against the Goblins. “I will hold no grudge against those that go their separate ways”, he added.
As they walked by the three bound guards, Aleph, encouraged by his father’s bravado, goaded, “You tell the Goblins that the Dobros are coming for them”, and kicked Dante in the side.
Eighteen prisoners stood in three lines of six. Two guards, the huge Dante and the Albino, were set to lead the phalanx of captives. Dante carried a heavy sledgehammer, which would have been carried with difficulty by a normal sized man using two hands, but he looked like he could easily use it to crush an opponent with one hand. The Albino was armed with two long daggers hanging from his belt. Fury towards her cowardly assailant, which burned like fire in veins, was the only thing that kept Sāmekh from returning to unconsciousness. Her body needed more rest to heal itself but they were being prepared to be herded down the valley.
The rear of the group of captives was being guarded by two men, one of whom carried a shotgun. The other had a sling hanging from his belt. She recognized neither of them.
Sāmekh turned to watch a tall dreadlocked woman climbing the side of the valley to her left and a second guard doing the same to her right. They took their positions at the crest of the hill on each side of the valley. Both these flanking guards carried a rifle. Apparently they were valuable cargo.
Her husband turned his head and whispered over his shoulder, “That woman was one of the gang that took us here.”
“No talking!” roared Dante and he drove his meaty first into Dàleth’s gut.
The punch caught Dàleth unexpected and he fell to the ground with a groan. After a moment gaining his breath on the ground, he got up and his blue eyes stared at Dante, until the larger man turned away.
As with the rest of the camp, save the slaves, their guards wore black t-shirts tucked into blue jeans, a leather vest, and a green bandana tied to their arms. It appeared to Sāmekh that all their guards were of the same rank. They had been given their orders by a Goblin with a red grimacing goblin sewed onto the left breast of his vest. She had observed that there appeared to be one Red Goblin for each twenty-five regular foot soldiers.
The siblings moved quickly towards the treed area where they would stage their attack. As they moved, they discussed their strategy.
“Do you think you could use your magic to swallow up the guards, Yodh?” Aleph asked.
“I’m worried that I don’t have enough control yet and might hurt mum and dad. I think its best if I stick with my bow.”
Pointing to the rifle strung across his back, Hei said, “I’m not going to be able to use this unless we want the whole camp to come running.” As he took a practice swing with his quarterstaff, he added, “Al and I are going to have to get right up close to use our weapons”.
“Okay, you guys find a place down on the valley floor and I’ll find a place up on the side of the valley. I’m going to need to take out any of the guards armed with guns, as quickly as I can. We don’t want them shooting off their guns either”, said Yodh, moving away from the boys up the mountain and hiding herself against the rock face behind a tree on the south-west side of the valley with a clear line of sight to the valley floor. She took her bow off her shoulders and prepared her arrows in front of her. She knew that she would have to be quick to kill the guards so that none would let off a shot and alert the rest of the Goblins. She also took three deep breaths to calm herself to enter a state of mindfulness. As she closed her eyes she could sense that her parents were beginning the march towards them. She then returned all her concentration to the task at hand.
“Hei, you go on this side of the path and I’ll go on the other, but we should stay hidden until Yodh has fired her first shot” said Aleph. He drew his blade from the scabbard across his back and hid himself in a copse of bushes, steps away from the path where their parents and their guards would likely pass.
They remained silent and immobile while they waited. Time moved very slowly but after a time the siblings heard the sound of the approaching phalanx of prisoners, their feet scuffing along the valley floor and guards periodically barking orders. The adrenaline was building up in Hei’s arms and he had to alternatively flex and unflex to remain still. He pulled on his hood, as it made him feel more hidden, perhaps a small amount of his real age coming out.
Yodh saw them first and signaled to her brothers below that their parents were in sight. She notched an arrow and observed her targets. She saw two guards in front, followed by the three sets of six slaves, followed by two other guards. Her keen eyes spotted only one guard with a gun at the rear of the group.
Hei and Aleph prepared their weapons and, though their muscles were tingling from the blood coursing through their veins, they held perfectly still, knowing that springing their trap too soon would eliminate their advantage of surprise. Yodh signaled down that there was only one gun amongst the guards and that there were two pairs of Goblins guarding their parents.
She watched quietly as the distance between her brothers and her parents narrowed. When only five metres separated the two parties, she prayed silently to every deity she could think of, including Gaia, and let the arrow fly. The moment her two fingers let go of the string she was overcome with foreboding as the realization that they had seen six guards earlier overwhelmed her. “Where were the other guards?” her voiced screamed inside her head.
The sound of the arrow whirring through the air followed by the wet thwack of it penetrating its target brought the boys out of hiding. Hei jumped from behind the tree in time to see the man holding the rifle fall to the ground with an arrow in his neck. Through the crowd of slaves he saw a second guard remove a sling from his belt and load a rock. His vision of this man was soon blocked by a giant carrying a huge sledgehammer. Using the element of surprise, Hei struck out at the giant with his quarterstaff, stabbing him in the gut with it before he could react.
Though the wind must have been knocked out of him, the giant was quick to respond. With a batter’s swing, the hammer whooshed through the air. Hei ducked under the blow which came close enough to him to knock off his hood. Thinking quickly, Hei brought his staff through the giant’s legs, catching his back leg, and drove his shoulder into his belly. The momentum of the hammer, the shoulder to the midsection, and the staff tripping him up, worked together to bring the giant down. An “umphhh” escaped the man’s lips as he fell hard on the ground. As he tried to get up, he was overwhelmed by a group of prisoners who had shuffled over and were now pummeling him with bare fists. Though he could not regain his feet, even with six to one odds the big man was still able to crack a few heads together, and Hei saw this as an opportunity to join in the frey.
A pasty white man with two long daggers already drawn from his belt stood before Aleph. The Albino’s blades slashed through the air in a complex series of arcs. “Either this guy really knows what he is doing”, Aleph thought, “or he’s doing a heck of a job faking it.” Aleph set himself in fighting stance and leveled his sword at his opponent, feeling like he might be outmanned. As the Albino stepped forward to attack, he was hurled backwards by two sets of hands on his shoulders, landing roughly on the top of his shoulders and back of his head. The unexpected direction of the attack caused the Albino to lose the grip on the dagger in his left hand. Before he could move to stab his attackers with his other dagger, Sāmekh’s foot stepped hard on his right wrist. She eyed him with hot fury through the slit of black and blue swollen flesh that nearly covered her right eye. He let out a scream of anger and pain. As the thought crossed his mind to grab her leg with his free hand, another foot stamped hand on his left hand, breaking the bone, and he looked up to see the foot belonged to Dàleth. Suddenly he was gasping for air since the rope which bound the couple together was now drawn tightly across his neck, causing him to finally gain some colour. His eyes bulged from their sockets and his white face began to go red. The anger that had driven him now turned to fear.
As the lifeforce drained from the Albino, Sāmekh spoke out, “As much as I hate this vile being I can’t bring myself to end his life like this.” Instead, she brought her foot up and with her full force and weight behind it drove her heel into the bridge of the man’s nose, flattening it and causing blood to spurt over his face.
The man’s eyes rolled back in head for a moment but he managed to retain consciousness. He looked directly at Sāmekh. “You whore”, he gurgled out.
Dàleth brought his heavy boot down on the man’s head, ending any further niceties from this scum.
Seeing his parents had taken of the Albino, Aleph set out after the man with the sling. He quickly observed that the crowd had taken care of that threat for him. The man had no chance to use his long distance weapon and was besieged by the third group of prisoners. Instead Aleph set his sword to work cutting the bonds of the prisoners so that they could run free.
Yodh was watching the fighting from above, pleased that their plan had worked but eyes still searching for the other two guards. She notched a second arrow. Maybe they hadn’t joined the march, she thought. Then she heard boots crunching the sand on the ledge above her. She pressed herself firmly against the rock face, calming her breathing, so that she would be neither seen nor heard. She chanced a glance above her head and could see an armed guard scanning the attack below, obviously trying to figure out how best to get involved. She knew she must be at the edge of his downward field of vision and that further movement would give away her position. A look to the horizon on the opposite side of the valley confirmed that the other guard, the dreadlocked woman, was on the other hillside. As Yodh watched, the woman trained her gun on the action below, and Yodh knew she must act. She brought her bow up and fired in a fluid movement, a skill developed through her years as the family hunter. The arrow flew true across the valley, but before it hit its mark, the rifle cracked off a shot. Before she could determine if either the bullet or the arrow hit their targets, the guard from above was upon her, alerted by the twang of her bowstring and the movement of the arrow.
The guard, figuring that he would easily overpower this little girl, decided that he did not need to waste a bullet and jumped down in front of Yodh from the ledge above. He slung the rifle across his back and pulled a knife from his belt. “Come here missie, let me carve up that pretty face of yours”, he snarled.
“Come and get me”, she taunted, pulling an arrow from the ground behind her.
He lunged at her, with the grace of someone more accustomed to fighting from a distance than with a knife, and she easily dodge out of the way, bringing the shaft of the arrow whipping down on his wrist. Though it smarted enough for him to let out a yelp, he held onto the blade and stepped back, reevaluating his prey.
She added insult to injury, “Is that all you got?”
“Oh…you’ll pay for that pretty little girl.” More cautiously this time, he slashed at her with his knife. She stepped back, this time unable to deliver a blow in response. Again and again he slashed and she stepped away, making sure that she remained just out of reach and retained her balance, planning her next move. Once again he slashed out, finally finding a rhythm to her movements, but his false sense of security quickly became his undoing, since this time she ducked under his guard and drove the tip of her arrow through his armpit into the chest cavity beyond. Just as quickly she stepped back. She watched as he dropped his knife, his mouth move though his last words never made it out of his throat, and fell to the ground.
Hearing the shot moments earlier, Dàleth and Sāmekh dove to the ground and scrambled to a more hidden place. With the echoes in the valley they were unsure of where the shot came originated. From where they lay, behind some bushes that provided poor protection from any bullets, they looked and found that Aleph had found cover close by. They saw other prisoners had also run for hiding places, but from where they hid they could not find their youngest son.
Yodh looked across the valley and saw that her arrow had disabled her target. The rifle was still bumping its way, end over end, down the side of the valley, and the dreadlocked woman stood across the valley clutching at an arrow embedded in her upper arm.
She looked down to the valley floor to find the results of the rifle bullet. She spotted her parents and Aleph quickly and ascertained that they had not been hit. She was already scrambling down the side of hill when she spotted Hei. He was on the ground clutching his side and she could see blood gushing through his fingers. She met his eyes and she could tell he was afraid. Another prisoner, a young Chinese woman, had torn the edge of her skirt and was using it to staunch the blood flow.
“Hei is hurt”, Yodh yelled to her parents, suddenly uncaring that they were still quite close to the main Goblin camp.
The other prisoners had tied up Dante, the unconscious Albino, and the sling carrying guard with the ropes that had formerly bound them together. The dreadlocked woman had taken off towards the main camp.
The family met over the fallen body of Hei, still unsure of the extent of the injury.
“Hey guys...my side hurts”, Hei said with a smile. Thanking the young lady, Sāmekh, removed the makeshift plaster and examined her son’s injury.
“Am I dying?” Hei asked with fear in his voice but with a hint of humour.
“You’ll be just fine if we can get away from the Goblins that are sure to be coming”, Sāmekh responded with a smirk. “Luckily, our dreadlocked friend is not a great shot, and the bullet only grazed you. Here let me help you up.”
Before his badly injured mother could help him to his feet, Aleph and Dàleth stepped in and gently guided him to standing. With his mother’s assurance that he would be alright, Hei’s side hardly hurt any longer.
“Just like when he was a little boy,” thought Sāmekh nostalgically, “he judges whether he is hurt by my reaction”.
Knowing that this band would need a leader, Dàleth addressed the milling crowd, “We can either stay together or go our separate ways. Although it will be easier to hide in small groups, we will need every able body if we intend to fight the Goblins”.
“Fight? I want to go back to my family”, responded one of the brothers who had been tied in with his parents' sextant.
“If we don’t fight they will grow stronger and be back to take us again”, countered the other brother.
“You need to decide quickly since the Goblin search party will be heading this way now. Those that wish to join this fight follow me. We will need to regroup and strategize before we begin the fight.” Turning, he led his family away, not looking back to see if they were to be alone in this struggle against the Goblins. “I will hold no grudge against those that go their separate ways”, he added.
As they walked by the three bound guards, Aleph, encouraged by his father’s bravado, goaded, “You tell the Goblins that the Dobros are coming for them”, and kicked Dante in the side.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Chapter six: Meeting
“It’s five to eight, my class starts AT eight, and I have no frickin’ idea how to get there”, Kirsten thought as she made her way through the maze of corridors beneath the campus buildings. A week before she had moved into the university’s residence and on this cold September day she was grateful that she could move through the warmth of the “dungeon” all the way from her dorm room to any of the school’s classrooms. Still, she did not want to be late for her first class of the semester. Checking a map she had printed just before leaving her dorm room, she confirmed that her class was around the next bend. She tucked the front of her shoulder length newly dyed brown hair under her black and red baseball cap, the sides behind her ears, and picked up her pace.
After her father went away, Kirsten’s school work had improved. Kirsten was not a perfect student but she was no demon either, all things considered. She made it through high school, though she figured that she probably drank too much and had been with a few too many boys.
She psyched herself up with a, “Here we go..”, and at two minutes to eight she opened the auditorium door for Biology 101.
As she searched for a seat, feeling a little sweaty and uncomfortable, Kirsten tugged at her baggy green hooded sweatshirt to pull it away from her body. Puberty had embarrassed her with wide hips and large breasts. Although she was still a far cry from her mother’s figure, Kirsten had also developed tummy that she detested. She wore her loose blue jeans low on her hips.
Kirsten made her way towards a seat in the back of the three hundred person hall next to a tall, dark, and handsome boy, who wore a tight black t-shirt, which showed off a broad chest and muscular arms. She had seen him around and, given the absence of a fall jacket, was pretty sure that he also lived on campus. As the professor began to introduce himself, she made her way past the guy with a mouthed, “Excuse me…” and a little smile. She pulled the seat down and settled in.
Taonga moved his books back to allow a girl to move into the seat beside him. As she slipped by, her large lip-glossed lips mouthed, “Excuse me…” and he noticed cute dimples on her lightly freckled cheeks as she smiled at him. Though she hid herself beneath baggy clothing, Taonga could tell that she had womanly curves in all the right places. She removed her hat and hung it on her knee and Taonga observed that she had beautiful brown hair all one length to her shoulders. A hint of her vanilla perfume wafted his way.
The droning of the professor explaining what percentage the weekly quizzes would play in their final grade allowed him to think a bit about the last week, which had been exciting. Taonga had decided to have his O.E, Overseas Experience, in Canada, because he heard that it was supposed to have a lot of beautiful nature. Although he’d flown through-out New Zealand, he was unprepared for the twenty-two hours in economy class on the flights to his new home. Luckily, he had brought a good book, an Anne Rice vampire novel.
His mother had been sad to see him go but excited for her son to experience another country. He was thrilled to be on a new adventure. He was an avid alpine skier and was looking forward to hitting the Canadian hills. Although he heard that it was cold here, he was surprised by how cool it got, even in the fall. He was used to winters which got to a bone-chilling windy five degrees Celsius but he had read that in the land of moose and beavers, it got down to thirty below some days. Though not reconsidering his choice of countries, he was not sure he looked forward to feeling that cold.
He turned his thoughts back towards the professor’s discourse, which now dealt with what to expect in the three hours of labs they would have this week.
His attention was again drawn away from the professor, when he felt eyes upon him. She went back to her note taking when he looked over, but he was happy to find that his seat mate’s large green eyes had been checking him out.
“Hey, I’m Taonga”, he whispered, sticking out his hand.
She looked up, “I’m Kirsten, but I’d rather be called Trillium”.
“Sounds good, Trillium. You think the class will go the whole three hours?”
“Dunno. I hope not. Although I’m excited to get started, it’d be better to start slowly”
He smiled at that. “So what are you majoring in?”
“Biology, you?”
“Same, but I’m taking it as an arts degree not science. I have pretty broad interests and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to take all the courses I wanted.”
“Where are you from? You have some kinda accent, eh? Are you from Australia?”, she asked excitedly.
He clutched at his heart as though he had been shot and slumped over in his seat. His eyes still closed and his neck tilted to the side, he said, “No, not Australia, I’m from New Zealand. That’d be like me thinking you were from America”
“Sorry”, she giggled.
“If you two are finished, I’d like to go on with my class. This is not high school anymore…if you don’t want to be here, leave!” bellowed the professor at the front of the class.
Feeling all three hundred student’s eyes upon them, Trillium shrunk down in her seat, and Taonga’s brown cheeks went pink.
“Sorry”, they both squeaked out in unison, causing them to exchange a smile as the professor looked away to continue to explaining the year’s syllabus to more attentive students.
The class was dismissed after an hour of instruction. Since neither had a class for another couple of hours, the two made their way to the campus bar for a drink.
As they made their way in the front door of the smoky bar, Trillium asked, “You think they serve beer at this time? Or is it coffee for us.”
Taonga smiled. “Can I get an Earl Grey tea and a coffee for my new mate here?” he asked the waitress at the bar.
They took their hot drinks and made their way to a table that did not look too sticky. Trillium hummed along to The Tragically Hip song “Bobcaygeon”, which played through the speaker hung from the post beside their table. “You know the Hip?”, she asked nodding towards the speaker.
“Nope, are they a Canadian band?”
“Ya…their great. What do you listen to?”
“Whatever’s on the radio usually…I like rap, rock, whatever.”
They sat quietly for a moment listening to the music. Trillium studied his face as he looked around the bar. He had brown eyes, wavy brown hair cut short, and cleanly cut side burns framed his face. He had a strong jaw and a relatively flat nose.
He met her eyes for a moment and she quickly lowered her gaze.
“So what brings you to Canada?”
“I guess adventure. I met a bloke from Vancouver and he said that Canada was sweet as and I wanted to check it out. Always wanted to travel and I figured going away to school was my chance.” He noticed her smile as he said “sweet as” and became self-conscious of his accent. “Why Biology?” he asked her.
“I’ve always loved nature…even from when I was a little kid. In high school I started the environmental club and I really enjoyed that. Campaigning for recycling and stuff. Dunno what I want to do with it but it’s something I know I’m interested in.”
“Hey, I was also in the environmental club in college…umm…I mean high school…and it was cool. We went on this crazy field trip, though, to a cattle slaughter house and it totally turned me off meat. Just watching someone saw an animal in half made me a sick. Now the only meat I eat is fish.”
“I’m a vegetarian too”, she said excitedly, “mostly cuz I don’t like the taste but I also read that if we didn’t eat meat, the grain that would have fed the cow would feed ten times as many people.”
“Wow we have a lot in common”, she thought to herself.
“Are there a lot of vegetarians in Canada?” asked Taonga
“No, not really, we are mostly carnivores”, she said and laughed. He laughed along with her.
When eleven o’clock came around they switched to beer. The waitress proudly informed them that this establishment held the record for the largest volume of beer sold between eleven and noon, in the province of Ontario. They did their best to contribute to beating that record.
After her father went away, Kirsten’s school work had improved. Kirsten was not a perfect student but she was no demon either, all things considered. She made it through high school, though she figured that she probably drank too much and had been with a few too many boys.
She psyched herself up with a, “Here we go..”, and at two minutes to eight she opened the auditorium door for Biology 101.
As she searched for a seat, feeling a little sweaty and uncomfortable, Kirsten tugged at her baggy green hooded sweatshirt to pull it away from her body. Puberty had embarrassed her with wide hips and large breasts. Although she was still a far cry from her mother’s figure, Kirsten had also developed tummy that she detested. She wore her loose blue jeans low on her hips.
Kirsten made her way towards a seat in the back of the three hundred person hall next to a tall, dark, and handsome boy, who wore a tight black t-shirt, which showed off a broad chest and muscular arms. She had seen him around and, given the absence of a fall jacket, was pretty sure that he also lived on campus. As the professor began to introduce himself, she made her way past the guy with a mouthed, “Excuse me…” and a little smile. She pulled the seat down and settled in.
Taonga moved his books back to allow a girl to move into the seat beside him. As she slipped by, her large lip-glossed lips mouthed, “Excuse me…” and he noticed cute dimples on her lightly freckled cheeks as she smiled at him. Though she hid herself beneath baggy clothing, Taonga could tell that she had womanly curves in all the right places. She removed her hat and hung it on her knee and Taonga observed that she had beautiful brown hair all one length to her shoulders. A hint of her vanilla perfume wafted his way.
The droning of the professor explaining what percentage the weekly quizzes would play in their final grade allowed him to think a bit about the last week, which had been exciting. Taonga had decided to have his O.E, Overseas Experience, in Canada, because he heard that it was supposed to have a lot of beautiful nature. Although he’d flown through-out New Zealand, he was unprepared for the twenty-two hours in economy class on the flights to his new home. Luckily, he had brought a good book, an Anne Rice vampire novel.
His mother had been sad to see him go but excited for her son to experience another country. He was thrilled to be on a new adventure. He was an avid alpine skier and was looking forward to hitting the Canadian hills. Although he heard that it was cold here, he was surprised by how cool it got, even in the fall. He was used to winters which got to a bone-chilling windy five degrees Celsius but he had read that in the land of moose and beavers, it got down to thirty below some days. Though not reconsidering his choice of countries, he was not sure he looked forward to feeling that cold.
He turned his thoughts back towards the professor’s discourse, which now dealt with what to expect in the three hours of labs they would have this week.
His attention was again drawn away from the professor, when he felt eyes upon him. She went back to her note taking when he looked over, but he was happy to find that his seat mate’s large green eyes had been checking him out.
“Hey, I’m Taonga”, he whispered, sticking out his hand.
She looked up, “I’m Kirsten, but I’d rather be called Trillium”.
“Sounds good, Trillium. You think the class will go the whole three hours?”
“Dunno. I hope not. Although I’m excited to get started, it’d be better to start slowly”
He smiled at that. “So what are you majoring in?”
“Biology, you?”
“Same, but I’m taking it as an arts degree not science. I have pretty broad interests and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to take all the courses I wanted.”
“Where are you from? You have some kinda accent, eh? Are you from Australia?”, she asked excitedly.
He clutched at his heart as though he had been shot and slumped over in his seat. His eyes still closed and his neck tilted to the side, he said, “No, not Australia, I’m from New Zealand. That’d be like me thinking you were from America”
“Sorry”, she giggled.
“If you two are finished, I’d like to go on with my class. This is not high school anymore…if you don’t want to be here, leave!” bellowed the professor at the front of the class.
Feeling all three hundred student’s eyes upon them, Trillium shrunk down in her seat, and Taonga’s brown cheeks went pink.
“Sorry”, they both squeaked out in unison, causing them to exchange a smile as the professor looked away to continue to explaining the year’s syllabus to more attentive students.
The class was dismissed after an hour of instruction. Since neither had a class for another couple of hours, the two made their way to the campus bar for a drink.
As they made their way in the front door of the smoky bar, Trillium asked, “You think they serve beer at this time? Or is it coffee for us.”
Taonga smiled. “Can I get an Earl Grey tea and a coffee for my new mate here?” he asked the waitress at the bar.
They took their hot drinks and made their way to a table that did not look too sticky. Trillium hummed along to The Tragically Hip song “Bobcaygeon”, which played through the speaker hung from the post beside their table. “You know the Hip?”, she asked nodding towards the speaker.
“Nope, are they a Canadian band?”
“Ya…their great. What do you listen to?”
“Whatever’s on the radio usually…I like rap, rock, whatever.”
They sat quietly for a moment listening to the music. Trillium studied his face as he looked around the bar. He had brown eyes, wavy brown hair cut short, and cleanly cut side burns framed his face. He had a strong jaw and a relatively flat nose.
He met her eyes for a moment and she quickly lowered her gaze.
“So what brings you to Canada?”
“I guess adventure. I met a bloke from Vancouver and he said that Canada was sweet as and I wanted to check it out. Always wanted to travel and I figured going away to school was my chance.” He noticed her smile as he said “sweet as” and became self-conscious of his accent. “Why Biology?” he asked her.
“I’ve always loved nature…even from when I was a little kid. In high school I started the environmental club and I really enjoyed that. Campaigning for recycling and stuff. Dunno what I want to do with it but it’s something I know I’m interested in.”
“Hey, I was also in the environmental club in college…umm…I mean high school…and it was cool. We went on this crazy field trip, though, to a cattle slaughter house and it totally turned me off meat. Just watching someone saw an animal in half made me a sick. Now the only meat I eat is fish.”
“I’m a vegetarian too”, she said excitedly, “mostly cuz I don’t like the taste but I also read that if we didn’t eat meat, the grain that would have fed the cow would feed ten times as many people.”
“Wow we have a lot in common”, she thought to herself.
“Are there a lot of vegetarians in Canada?” asked Taonga
“No, not really, we are mostly carnivores”, she said and laughed. He laughed along with her.
When eleven o’clock came around they switched to beer. The waitress proudly informed them that this establishment held the record for the largest volume of beer sold between eleven and noon, in the province of Ontario. They did their best to contribute to beating that record.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Chapter Five: The Capture
THE GREAT DEVASTATION (working title)
They shuffled forward, legs bound together, limiting the possibility of escape. Dàleth’s stomach growled loudly and he was reminded that he had not eaten since he was captured. Even that meal had been interrupted by the arrival of five strangers. The couple had grown lax as of late. In the earlier years they would be constantly vigilant at their camp for sounds or signs of intruders but yesterday they had been sitting around the fire, engrossed in a conversation over breakfast about their children, and had been surprised by the attack.
Their attackers, all over 1.8 metres tall, each wore a dark brown leather vest over a black t-shirt tucked into jeans and on their left arms a green bandana. Two men had approached first, only a few metres in front of them when the couple noticed them. One was a skinny man with pasty white skin and blonde, almost white, hair. From a distance he could have passed for an albino. The second man who was of Polynesian descent had a shaved head and an average build.
“Don’t make this hard on yourselves. Come with us. You are prisoners of the Goblins”, said the bald man.
Dàleth stood up, massaging the palm of his left hand threateningly with the thumb of his right and smiled. “The Goblins, what kinda’ name is that?” he asked, nodding his head toward the bald man.
“Soon everyone will know our name. Our time to rule has come”, responded the Albino in a way that made Dàleth believe that this was a very real possibility.
“Alright, let me get my cloak.” Dàleth turned back towards their tent.
Hoping to surprise their attackers, Sāmekh, who had stood up during the conversation, threw her breakfast plate like a discus at the Albino, smacking him in the eye and burning him with the hot food. She dove for her dagger which she kept in her shoulder bag at the entrance of the tent.
“You slut!”
The Albino recovered quickly, grabbed her arm and yanked Sāmekh away from the tent before she could reach the weapon. He brought his arm back, hand clenched in a fist, to strike her.
A glint of steel flashed in the morning light as Dàleth pulled out his sword, which he always kept within arms reach, and in a fluid motion the cold blade was pressed against the throat of the Albino, causing a small rivulet of blood to run down his neck and begin to coalesce in a dark stain on the collar of his black shirt. The man stared at Dàleth with a maniacal grin, though he lowered his raised hand.
“Let her go, NOW!”
The bald Polynesian, who had backed away while this exchange took place, now looked over his shoulder.
Two more men emerged from the bush. One had red hair like Dàleth’s, though cropped short. This man aimed a rifle at Sāmekh’s chest. The other, a massive dark haired moustachioed man with an olive complexion, stood with his arms on his hips and a snarl on his lips, his black eyes glaring out beneath a bushy unibrow.
“Put away your sword, or I’ll blow a whole in your woman’s chest”, the red head demanded.
“How ‘bout you put away your gun and I’ll let this man live?”, Dàleth said, the steel of his sword biting deeper into the man’s white flesh, causing crimson to flow more freely down his neck and along the blade towards Dàleth’s calloused hands. The man still stared at Dàleth unflinching. Dàleth knew he was endangering his love’s life but hoped that this gamble might buy their freedom.
“We would all willingly sacrifice our lives for the good of the Goblins. One death will not stop us. This is your second and last chance to save the life of your wench.” He cocked the gun and stabbed it forward to impress his point.
“Alright, relax, I’m putting it down”
Dàleth slowly pulled the blade away from his captive, consequently making a captive of himself. He dropped the sword to the ground. Once disarmed, the Albino turned and drove his fist into the side of Dàleth’s head. Dàleth recoiled from the blow but steadied himself and glared at the man.
The bald Polynesian approached Dàleth cautiously with a rope and, while the redhead kept the gun trained on their captive, he bound his hands. Only then did the Albino exact his revenge upon Sāmekh.
“You will learn respect for your conquerors!”
He grabbed her by a handful of hair on the back of her head and pulled her face towards him. Sāmekh, expecting a rough unwanted kiss, was surprised when, instead, he smashed his forehead into the bridge of her nose. Blood poured down her face and her eyes rolled back in her head. He let her collapse to the ground unconscious.
Dàleth cried out, an animal roar, and struggled with his bonds to free himself but was held back by the bald Polynesian and the huge olive skinned man.
“You stupid half-wit! Now how you gonna get her back to the camp?” yelled the red head.
“I’m sure Dante will help me carry her”, responded the Albino, while he wiped Sāmekh’s blood off his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked over to the massive man who held Dàleth.
Dante nodded his head, “Sure”, he said in a deep voice.
Sāmekh was tied up and thrown over one of Dante’s huge shoulders. After quickly filling their bags with canned food from the families’ cache, the Albino and the bald Polynesian pushed Dàleth forward in a march.
Just as they left the Dobro camp, a woman dressed the same as her male companions, joined them. She was as tall as her male companions as well and only outsized by Dante. Her blond hair was clumped together in dreadlocks tied back from her face.
“I found the body of Yuri over the hill there with an arrow through his eye.” She held up his bandana. “I searched around and called out but I couldn’t find his brothers. It’s like Sasha and Pyotr were swallowed up by the earth.”
“There must be more of them living in these hills. Someone must have shot that arrow. When we return to the camp, we’ll tell the Lieutenant, and I imagine another party we’ll be sent out to search the area”, she added.
Dàleth worried about his children. Though if his hunch was correct, that arrow would have been shot by his daughter, and that was a clear demonstration that they could take care of themselves.
As they walked, his anger simmered watching his wife’s head bounce against the back of the lumbering giant Dante. The sight of the Albino gingerly rubbing the cut on his neck and the burn and blue-black bruising on the left side of his face did nothing to satisfy his growing rage. He knew that there would be no regrets in how much pain he caused this man when the opportunity for escape presented itself.
They walked all day and, although their captors ate snacks that they carried, the captives had nothing to eat. As night fell, a hard rain began and the wind howled as they entered the tent city where they were presently held.
They were tied by a long rope around their ankles to four other prisoners who had arrived in the camp with another raiding party at about the same time. They were left to the elements, as the ground turned to mud, while their captors slept soundly in their tents. Guards with rifles hiding from the downpour under tarps ensured there would be no escape tonight. Captivity made strange bedfellows and the sextet of prisoners huddled together for the night to keep warm.
They shuffled forward, legs bound together, limiting the possibility of escape. Dàleth’s stomach growled loudly and he was reminded that he had not eaten since he was captured. Even that meal had been interrupted by the arrival of five strangers. The couple had grown lax as of late. In the earlier years they would be constantly vigilant at their camp for sounds or signs of intruders but yesterday they had been sitting around the fire, engrossed in a conversation over breakfast about their children, and had been surprised by the attack.
Their attackers, all over 1.8 metres tall, each wore a dark brown leather vest over a black t-shirt tucked into jeans and on their left arms a green bandana. Two men had approached first, only a few metres in front of them when the couple noticed them. One was a skinny man with pasty white skin and blonde, almost white, hair. From a distance he could have passed for an albino. The second man who was of Polynesian descent had a shaved head and an average build.
“Don’t make this hard on yourselves. Come with us. You are prisoners of the Goblins”, said the bald man.
Dàleth stood up, massaging the palm of his left hand threateningly with the thumb of his right and smiled. “The Goblins, what kinda’ name is that?” he asked, nodding his head toward the bald man.
“Soon everyone will know our name. Our time to rule has come”, responded the Albino in a way that made Dàleth believe that this was a very real possibility.
“Alright, let me get my cloak.” Dàleth turned back towards their tent.
Hoping to surprise their attackers, Sāmekh, who had stood up during the conversation, threw her breakfast plate like a discus at the Albino, smacking him in the eye and burning him with the hot food. She dove for her dagger which she kept in her shoulder bag at the entrance of the tent.
“You slut!”
The Albino recovered quickly, grabbed her arm and yanked Sāmekh away from the tent before she could reach the weapon. He brought his arm back, hand clenched in a fist, to strike her.
A glint of steel flashed in the morning light as Dàleth pulled out his sword, which he always kept within arms reach, and in a fluid motion the cold blade was pressed against the throat of the Albino, causing a small rivulet of blood to run down his neck and begin to coalesce in a dark stain on the collar of his black shirt. The man stared at Dàleth with a maniacal grin, though he lowered his raised hand.
“Let her go, NOW!”
The bald Polynesian, who had backed away while this exchange took place, now looked over his shoulder.
Two more men emerged from the bush. One had red hair like Dàleth’s, though cropped short. This man aimed a rifle at Sāmekh’s chest. The other, a massive dark haired moustachioed man with an olive complexion, stood with his arms on his hips and a snarl on his lips, his black eyes glaring out beneath a bushy unibrow.
“Put away your sword, or I’ll blow a whole in your woman’s chest”, the red head demanded.
“How ‘bout you put away your gun and I’ll let this man live?”, Dàleth said, the steel of his sword biting deeper into the man’s white flesh, causing crimson to flow more freely down his neck and along the blade towards Dàleth’s calloused hands. The man still stared at Dàleth unflinching. Dàleth knew he was endangering his love’s life but hoped that this gamble might buy their freedom.
“We would all willingly sacrifice our lives for the good of the Goblins. One death will not stop us. This is your second and last chance to save the life of your wench.” He cocked the gun and stabbed it forward to impress his point.
“Alright, relax, I’m putting it down”
Dàleth slowly pulled the blade away from his captive, consequently making a captive of himself. He dropped the sword to the ground. Once disarmed, the Albino turned and drove his fist into the side of Dàleth’s head. Dàleth recoiled from the blow but steadied himself and glared at the man.
The bald Polynesian approached Dàleth cautiously with a rope and, while the redhead kept the gun trained on their captive, he bound his hands. Only then did the Albino exact his revenge upon Sāmekh.
“You will learn respect for your conquerors!”
He grabbed her by a handful of hair on the back of her head and pulled her face towards him. Sāmekh, expecting a rough unwanted kiss, was surprised when, instead, he smashed his forehead into the bridge of her nose. Blood poured down her face and her eyes rolled back in her head. He let her collapse to the ground unconscious.
Dàleth cried out, an animal roar, and struggled with his bonds to free himself but was held back by the bald Polynesian and the huge olive skinned man.
“You stupid half-wit! Now how you gonna get her back to the camp?” yelled the red head.
“I’m sure Dante will help me carry her”, responded the Albino, while he wiped Sāmekh’s blood off his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked over to the massive man who held Dàleth.
Dante nodded his head, “Sure”, he said in a deep voice.
Sāmekh was tied up and thrown over one of Dante’s huge shoulders. After quickly filling their bags with canned food from the families’ cache, the Albino and the bald Polynesian pushed Dàleth forward in a march.
Just as they left the Dobro camp, a woman dressed the same as her male companions, joined them. She was as tall as her male companions as well and only outsized by Dante. Her blond hair was clumped together in dreadlocks tied back from her face.
“I found the body of Yuri over the hill there with an arrow through his eye.” She held up his bandana. “I searched around and called out but I couldn’t find his brothers. It’s like Sasha and Pyotr were swallowed up by the earth.”
“There must be more of them living in these hills. Someone must have shot that arrow. When we return to the camp, we’ll tell the Lieutenant, and I imagine another party we’ll be sent out to search the area”, she added.
Dàleth worried about his children. Though if his hunch was correct, that arrow would have been shot by his daughter, and that was a clear demonstration that they could take care of themselves.
As they walked, his anger simmered watching his wife’s head bounce against the back of the lumbering giant Dante. The sight of the Albino gingerly rubbing the cut on his neck and the burn and blue-black bruising on the left side of his face did nothing to satisfy his growing rage. He knew that there would be no regrets in how much pain he caused this man when the opportunity for escape presented itself.
They walked all day and, although their captors ate snacks that they carried, the captives had nothing to eat. As night fell, a hard rain began and the wind howled as they entered the tent city where they were presently held.
They were tied by a long rope around their ankles to four other prisoners who had arrived in the camp with another raiding party at about the same time. They were left to the elements, as the ground turned to mud, while their captors slept soundly in their tents. Guards with rifles hiding from the downpour under tarps ensured there would be no escape tonight. Captivity made strange bedfellows and the sextet of prisoners huddled together for the night to keep warm.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Redraft #1 Name change, content unchanged
2016
Removing his sword from its scabbard which hung around his waist, Aleph turned to face his attacker. Actually sword is a bit of a misnomer, since the weapon he held was nothing more than a scrap of slightly rusted metal filed to a sharp edge, with a piece of wood screwed on to act as a handle. It could still cleave a man in two and his attacker, recognizing this, raised his shield, a reinforced rubbish bin lid, to protect himself. The attacker was a tree trunk of a man with thick black hair and a thick black beard. His well muscled arms held a wooden club in one hand and the shield in the other. Aleph was tall for his age and, whereas his opponent had the bulk of a musk ox, Aleph had the musculature of a tiger. He had let his light brown hair grow longer as of late and it now reached the nape of his neck. Although he prided himself in it, his early pubescent beard was nearly invisible to anyone more than a metre away.
They had arrived at this pantry in the rubble of a house at the same time, and neither wanted to back down and let the other remove the twenty canned goods which the pantry held. With no words spoken, the man swung the club at Aleph’s head. Aleph blocked using the blade of his sword. Although the club was now nearly split in two, the force of the blow from the bigger man had knocked Aleph off balance and now he struggled to regain his footing. The attacker used this opportunity to his advantage and kicked Aleph in the stomach driving the wind out of him. Aleph fell to the ground, a piece of brick scraping his back. The man looked down at Aleph, conscious that ten years ago he would be sent to jail for this, and prepared to deliver a finishing blow with the remnants of his club. The man noticed a smirk on Aleph’s face and the young man’s blue eyes glancing over his shoulder milliseconds before a blow to the back of the head rendered the dark haired man unconscious. Aleph had to roll to the side to prevent the 115 kilograms of dead weight from crushing him. Aleph was helped to his feet by a smiling Hei who held a heavy quarterstaff which had been used to incapacitate his brother’s attacker.
“Thanks buddy, I would have got him….but as always your timing is impeccable.”, Aleph said to his brother, giving him a manly patting hug. Hei smiled at his brother, “Cheers Bro”. Though his back hurt tremendously, the wound was not deep and the blood had clotted before they were finished gathering up the loot. They quickly made their way home as dusk fell because a worse fate befell those who stayed out after dark.
Hei was the youngest of the Dobro clan. The way his bright mind worked through ingenious solutions to problems surprised both his parents and his older siblings. A long grey cloak hung loose over his slim frame. His blue eyes exhibited wisdom far older than his twelve years of age but there was also a laughter in his eyes that revealed his love for life.
The family Dobro had arrived in this country of rocky beaches, mountains, lakes and rivers, ten years earlier, shortly before the Great Devastation. When the riots began, the family of five had headed for the mountains which surrounded the city where they had been living. They abandoned their house, and set up a tent in a crevasse in an area not frequented by trampers in the past. The tent was covered by branches from the surrounding shrubbery camouflaging it from marauders. They thought it was safer to be away from the city below. Many people had stayed to defend their city dwellings and had paid the ultimate price. When the electricity had ceased world-wide the majority of humanity seemed to devolve, reverting to animal instinct, and it was now survival of the fittest.
When Aleph and Hei arrived home their older sister Yôdh was roasting a hare she had snared earlier in the day. Yôdh had developed into an adept hunter in the ten years since the family had moved to the hills. She could move quickly and silently through the trees hunting her prey with preternatural ability. The family had recently celebrated her sixteenth birthday. She wore the front of her hair in plaits which were pulled back to form a tiara that kept her hair out of her big blue eyes. Her sleek but newly acquired womanly figure was tastefully covered by a short green dress that was cinched around the waist giving her an elfish appearance.
Dàleth and Sāmekh, their father and mother, arrived at the camp at the same time as the boys and were happy to see that the boys had scavenged a large amount of food. Dàleth and Sāmekh carried a jug of fresh water between them. This was one of the real difficulties with the placement of their camp. Though the camp was out of sight from marauders, it was far from sources of fresh water, with the exception of rainwater. They had a set up to collect the water but it was not enough and this had to be supplemented with water from one of the mountain streams.
Dàleth had long bushy red hair on his head and a thin but full beard on his face. He wore well-worn blue jeans and a rugby style jersey. Ten years of physical labour had hardened his office-work-induced flabby body. After frequent sunburns in the early years, this outdoor life had darkened his skin and caused the former dappling of freckles to expand considerably.
Sāmekh’s long dark brown hair was tied back in a crown made of plaits like her daughter’s. Her figure had also benefited from the outdoor hard physical life, though she already had a beautiful body when the Great Devastation had hit. She wore capri-style jeans and a tight fitting short sleeve blue shirt. Her dark complexion was enhanced by the constant sun and despite the dirtiness associated with living outside the new environment made her all the more striking. Her huge green eyes caused many men who looked into them to become spell bound.
They settled in for dinner of canned beans and the roasted hare. Hunger satisfied they sat around the fire sharing the occurrences of their day. The boys had left early in the morning to scavenge in the city and had plenty of stories from the people they had met.
“We met this group who belonged to some kind of cult or weird religion…” Aleph said chuckling.
Hei cut in: “…and they said that the Great Devastation was caused by the ire of Gaia because of man’s treatment of earth’s creatures and the environment.”
“They wore these white robes and called themselves the…uhh…” Aleph pondered while he stroked his peach fuzz covered chin causing Dàleth to mask a snicker with a cough.
“..the Earth’s People.” Hei cut in to limit his brother’s embarrassment. “I thought that maybe Yôdh would be interested in joining” he added causing Aleph to join him in laughter.
Unfazed by the ridicule by her brothers, Yôdh spoke up proudly to announce “I spent most of the day up on the hill in meditation”. In the years since the Great Devastation some people had begun to develop what could only be described as magical abilities. The going theory was that with the removal of the steps between their everyday survival and the cycles of the earth, the innate powers of some individuals began to express. Yôdh spent many hours a day developing her new aptitudes. At present her abilities consisted of sensing where to find her prey while out hunting and limited communication with some of the animals but Yôdh was confident that with practice and concentration she could develop these further.
“Al and Hei, please don’t make fun of your sister. I am very proud of all of you and what you contribute to our survival. Alright, it’s getting late, time to tuck in for the night” Dàleth announced. A long day for all meant that this announcement was greeted with agreement from all and soon they were in the tent for the night.
The children left early the next morning. Since the boys had returned with that cache of cans and because Yôdh could pretty much catch meat for them anytime they needed it, the children were allowed to do as they pleased today provided they stuck together. They decided to climb over the ridge of the mountain and go for a swim in the stream that provided their drinking water.
As they crested the ridge of the mountain the wind hit them hard and drowned out any attempt at conversation. It would be this way until they reached the valley below. Hei wrapped his cloak tightly around him. Neither Aleph nor Yôdh had any covering so they toughed it out.
Suddenly, Yôdh halted the party with hand signals they had developed. She pointed to a copse of trees 10 metres below them and motioned for her brothers to stay silent. Weapons were drawn immediately to defend themselves - Aleph his sword, Hei his quarterstaff and Yôdh her bow. The government run biosecurity system had failed when the world was thrown into chaos and if it was an animal it could be anything. Many fearsome beasts that had been imported from overseas to protect their owners, had escaped and become feral. They had heard tales of tigers and giant snakes prowling the hills in search of a meal, though luckily they had yet to encounter any. Domesticated animals had also become a threat. Dogs that had once been friendly pets now roamed around in wild packs, viciously attacking anything that could be food. Pigs had gone feral and had grown tusks and bristly hair within weeks, confirming an interesting fact that Dàleth had seen on Discovery channel many years before.
But what emerged from the trees were humans, though the lowest form of this species. The three men were closer to trolls in appearance than humans. Their heads looked too big for their massive bodies. Heavy brow ridges and strong jaws increased their Neanderthal-like appearance. Each man held a spear and they looked like they were out hunting but when they saw the party of youths on the hill above them it became apparent that their prey had changed. A growl from one of the men came to them carried by the howling wind as the trio of trolls charged the siblings.
Yôdh let fly an arrow she had cocked in anticipation. It hit its target, straight through the eye socket of the man who led the attackers, killing him instantly. The other two men stepped over their fallen comrade and were upon the Dobro youth before Yôdh could level another arrow. Aleph stepped in first and his blade whistled through the air aiming for the throat of the closest attacker. Drug induced anger radiated from the eyes of the attacker as he easily stepped back to avoid Aleph’s attack and quickly responded with a swing of his spear using it as a club.
Hei was engaged in combat with the second man, effectively blocking blows with his quarterstaff, but never quite being able to gain the offensive. They were fighting seasoned warriors and although this was not the first fight for the siblings they were still honing their crafts.
Between blows Aleph chanced a glance over his shoulder to check on his brother and sister. He found his brother still locked in battle with his adversary but was surprised to find his sister sitting cross-legged, eyes closed, only a few metres from her brothers’ life or death struggle. The anger that welled up in him caused him to lose concentration and provided his opponent the opportunity he had been waiting for. With a brutal blow to his wrist, Aleph was suddenly disarmed. Now Aleph was backing away as the attacker pressed at him trying to end his life with a jab to his heart or other vital organ. Just as he was losing hope of surviving this incident, with his brother too preoccupied with his own struggle to lend aid and his sister uselessly meditating, the ground below the large troll-esque man turned to liquid and he was pulled down into a pool of mud which seconds before had been solid rock. Aleph looked over to see that his brother’s opponent had succumbed to a similar fate and saw a flailing hand trying to find some solid earth as the man was swallowed by the earth.
Both brothers turned to find their sister, eyes still closed, visibly radiating energy and smiling to herself. She opened her eyes and the ground returned to its solid state. Mouths agape the brothers could say nothing for the whole walk home. They had decided through mutual, though silent, agreement that speaking to their parents about Yôdh’s new abilities was more important than a swim in the stream.
1987
Trillium
“Go out and don’t come back ‘til dinner time”, her mother said. This was the usual routine for the summer months. Between June and August, right after lunch everyday, Kirsten and her older brothers were sent down the street to play. Their yard was not quite big enough to contain the chaos that was her brothers so they ended up at the field at the end of the street. This area, which divided her neighbourhood from the high school and sports centre on the other side of a large copse of trees, had yet to be developed with houses, save for the bike path which ran east-west under power lines.
The boys jumped on their bikes and rode off before Kirsten could click on her helmet, tucking her blonde hair behind her ears, and climb onto her bicycle. Though she peddled as fast as she could she was left behind, yelling, “Wait up!” as her brothers pulled away. They were already off their bikes and tossing around the football when she arrived at the end of the block. As usual, Kirsten was excluded from any game that David and Michael were playing. Michael was twice as old as six year old Kirsten and only sixteen months separated the two boys. Kirsten was thought of as a nuisance to the boys who were not only brothers but also best friends.
The boys would toss a ball around the field or play soldiers in the forest beyond, while Kirsten sat in the tall grass. She loved to lie listening to the boys and stare up at the clouds racing by in the wind. Or watching an ant crawling across the dirt between the blades of grass, pulling crumbs from the crunchy cookie she had been eating. Or observing the butterfly which lit on a dandelion and as she turned to examine it more closely, flew off into the sun. She felt safe here hidden from the world in the tall grass but connected to her brothers by the sound of their laughter. Her father could not find her here.
She heard Michael’s laughter stop abruptly and she sat up to watch his breathe go out of him as he was hit by David’s flying tackle. David didn’t outweigh his younger brother by much even though he was a couple of inches taller. Michael was a chubby kid and he often used this to his advantage in fights with his older brother. This made the hit all the more satisfying for David as he drove his brother to the ground with his shoulder in his brother’s flabby belly. The football rolled away toward Kirsten as Michael clubbed David in the back to get him off. Soon they were rolling around in the grass, arms flaying, though neither gaining enough leverage to badly injure the other. Eventually David was able to disentangle himself from his brother long enough to get to his feet and make a run for the forest. Michael yelled, “Stupid idiot, I’m gonna get you!” but laughed as he pursue his brother into the trees. Kirsten removed her shoes and slowly followed the boys into the forest, enjoying the feeling of the grass between her toes, stepping lightly to avoid hurting her feet. As she stepped in the sunlight-dappled cool forest she could hear her brothers had banded together to fight invisible ninja who were apparently attacking from the trees above.
Whenua
He sat in his mother’s lap as she chanted defiantly with the other university students: “Hell no! We won’t go!” His mother had organized this sit-in to stop the razing of their campus pub to make way for a Double Double coffee shop. The corporate behemoth Double Double had negotiated a partnership with the university, which consequently allowed the pub to be pulled down and replaced by a coffee shop. The university was also trying to clean up its image after a student died of alcohol poisoning during last year’s frosh week. None of these factors concerned his mother or the students who followed her. This was their pub and nobody was going to tear it down. The labourers and their huge machinery which had arrived early in the morning had been greeted by jeering protestors.
Taonga’s mother was in the first year of an Arts degree when he was born. With plenty of difficulty and with plenty of government financial assistance, she had completed that degree in only five years and was now beginning a Masters degree in Political Science. Taonga’s mother successfully integrated motherhood with academia. He had grown up on campus, spending the time when his mother had class in the on-campus day care, and he was even successfully breastfed for the first full year of his life between classes. His mother was always involved in student politics and was always accompanied by her son.
Although she had her suspicions, his mother was never sure who the father was and none of the potentials stayed around long enough to find out. His darker skin and hair and larger size, even shortly after his birth, relative to his age-mates, hinted at his father’s identity and led his mother to choose a Maori name for her son. Taonga translates into English as “most treasured person”, and this relationship was evident to all who knew Taonga and his mother.
They lived in a house with three other girls who helped out with his care when the need arose though Taonga’s mother was devoted to her son and seldom left his side unless absolutely necessary. Taonga was loved by his mother more than anything and although his upbringing was far from average thus far he was a very happy boy. Taonga laughed with pleasure as he waved a sign above his head which read “Double Double is Double Trouble!” His mother lead the troops in “We shall overcome”, and Taonga joined in.
As campus security arrived to break up the protest, Taongo joined arms between his mother and another protester. At 6 years of age he was already well experienced in protest activities.
Staedelin
Brushing his dark brown hair out of his eyes, Jimmy turned the page of his story book. Jimmy had learned to communicate in sign language when he was 9 months old. He could speak English in full sentences when he was 24 months old and shortly after could add bilingual English/French to his resume. His parents had taught him to read and write in his third year of life. At six years old, Jimmy could read almost anything, though he preferred to read fairy tales.
…clippety-clop, clippety-clop, clippety-clop.
“Who’s that crossing over MY bridge?” growled the troll. “It is I the youngest billy goat gruff and I am going up the mountain to eat lots of grass to get fat for winter” replied the young goat.
“Oh, no your not,” snarled the troll, “I’m going to eat you for my dinner!”
“You should not eat me,” replied the goat “I am much too small to fill your belly. My older brother will be along soon and he would make a much better meal.”
“Hmmm…alright” said the troll “SCRAM!”
The youngest billy goat clippety-clopped away up the mountain to get fat for the winter.
The sound of his parents speaking in the kitchen caused him to pause his reading.
“Jimmy is such a big boy, isn’t he? I am so proud that he is growing up so quickly. If we keep this up, I’m sure he’ll get into any university we want him to.” his mother said. “He’ll be a doctor before we know it.” responded his father proudly. “He has such an advantage over his peers who are out rabblerousing in the street while he’s in here developing his mind.” his mother added.
Jimmy went back to his reading, pleased to know that his parents were proud of him.
2016
By the time they could see the crevasse which hid their tent, they were running, excited to tell their parents of the development of Yôdh’s talents. Out of the corner of his eye, Aleph could see that Yôdh was smiling. He knew she must be feeling proud that all her hard work and long hours of discipline had paid off. He now regretted the many times he and his brother had ridiculed her efforts to develop her talents.
When the siblings arrived back at their camp, their parents were nowhere in sight. They must have been in the vicinity because the fire was still burning. The family had to be constantly cognisant of the threat of marauders and their parents would have extinguished the fire before going far. Hei had an uneasy feeling about the absence of his parents and that’s when Aleph pointed out others things in the camp were amiss.
There was an overturned dinner plate by the fire and their father’s sword was lying on the ground. Closer examination showed that their food cache had been raided but in a haphazard fashion, taking some cans of food but leaving others, that indicated that this was not the goal of the attack. Aleph whistled their family call, and waited. He received no reply so tried again and still no response. Their parents would never have given chase to the robbers without first taking care to hide their camp, lest a discovered camp put their children in danger.
Hei was the first to express what they all were feeling, “Someone has taken mum and dad! Who would do that?”
“And why?” Aleph added.
No one had answers to either question so there was a momentary silence.
“Unless they are very far away from here I believe that I will be able to sense the direction the kidnappers have taken”, said Yôdh. She then sat in her meditative posture, closed her eyes, and silenced the world around her. For minutes the boys watched their sister enter the meditative state that half-an-hour earlier had permitted her to harness the powers of nature to swallow two men into the earth. They barely breathed, afraid it would ruin her concentration.
Yôdh opened her eyes, but the boys could see that she was in another phase of consciousness. “They have gone in that direction,” she said, pointing north-east from where they stood. “They are at the edge of my ability to locate them so if we want to catch them we better move quickly.” With a slow blink Yôdh returned to wakeful consciousness.
They were ready in ten minutes. They each carried a canteen of water, small amounts of food, and their weapons - Aleph his sword, Hei his quarterstaff, and Yôdh brought her bow and took all the arrows she had been patiently fashioning. They set off north-east across the mountains, keeping a good pace. Although their parents’ captors had covered their tracks close to camp, they had chosen speed over stealth and further a field had begun to leave traces of their passing. This allowed Yôdh to use her mundane abilities as a hunter to track her parents and their captors. She reported to the boys there were five large men leading their parents. With grim determination they picked up the pace.
As the sun set, the rain came suddenly and with it came the wind. Wet to the bone, their minds urged them to find shelter but their hearts drove them forward to find their parents. The rain had obliterated the tracks but, hoping their captors would continue travelling in a straight line, the siblings continued on their previous vector. Unfortunately, the clouds and the rain obscured the moonlight and they were soon travelling blindly. It became evident that they were more likely to fall off a steep embankment and break their necks than they were of finding their parents tonight. Knowing that their quarry would also be finding a dry place to stop for the night, they decided to find a place to sleep. They slept beneath a quickly fashioned lean-to against the rock face. The rain prevented them from lighting a fire so, though they huddled together for warmth, it was a cold night and with the worry about their parents, the siblings slept little.
Luckily, dawn brought with it an end to the rain and provided Yôdh the opportunity to employ her magic to attempt the location spell that she was now beginning to perfect. This time she was able to pinpoint her parents’ location and it was easily within the range of her magical ability. She awakened from her meditative state feeling certain that her parents were in the valley just over the next ridge.
“I feel that they are just beyond the trees there”, she said pointing up the hill, “but I believe we need to advance with caution because I sense that there are many people together with them.”
They climbed the hill with care, ears perked to hear any sound and eyes straining in the dim dawn light. Hei was reached the top ahead of the others, army crawling on his belly to avoid detection. He could not believe what he saw in the valley beyond. It was a semi-permanent-looking tent village with hundreds of people in it, rough looking types, plenty of weapons, and even some rifles could be seen. Each wore a green armband on their left arm, marking them as a gang of some sort, though Hei was unfamiliar with these markings. Hei had never seen so many people in one place. He was too young to remember the time before the Great Devastation, when hundreds of thousands of people lived in the city below their camp. Ten years later that city had perhaps a few hundred citizens and people tended to avoid public gatherings as fear of the Virus still haunted many people’s thoughts. Guns were also seldom seen, Hei had only seen a few specimens in his lifetime and none of them had bullets. Bullets were a valuable commodity as they were no longer being mass produced since nothing was being mass produced any longer.
Aleph and Yôdh crawled up beside their brother. Aleph pointed to a herd of about fifty people being forced into rows. They were roped together by their ankles, six people to a cluster. Even from up here on the hill, they could see open wounds on some of the prisoners from the rope chafing their skin. The rains had caused the valley to become thick with mud and the prisoners were dirty and many looked like they were going to faint from exhaustion. Aleph’s keen eye sight spotted their parents at the far side of the group of prisoners. They were tied in a six person row with two young men who looked to be brothers in the front, their parents, a young woman, and a middle-aged man.
They backed down the hill slowly to avoid detection to allow discussion of how to proceed. It was obvious that they would not take this group by force. Although it pained them to allow their parents to continue to suffer, the siblings agreed that the best course of action was to wait and watch to see if they could figure out why their parents were being held, in hopes that this information would facilitate their release.
Slavery was the conclusion that they came to after a quick discussion. It was unclear whether the prisoners were going to be sold by the gang individually to other people or whether they were going to be used en masse by the gangsters in some large project. They figured their best move was to wait for their parents to be moved and to extricate them at that time.
Hei went off to scout out a better vantage point to observe their parents. He had just found a clump of low lying alpine bushes, which would provide the cover they needed, when his sharp ears heard heavy footfalls behind him. He concealed himself in the bushes and watched as a man carrying a rifle lumbered past him, obviously searching for something. The man was off towards his siblings and Hei followed silently behind him. The man saw Aleph and Yôdh before they could notice him and levelled his gun. Before he could complete that move, Hei stepped in beside him and the butt of his quarterstaff shattered the man’s jaw. His scream of agony came out as more of a muffled gurgle and reflexively he dropped the rifle as his hands tried to staunch the blood that was pouring from his mouth. Aleph was quick to silence any further noises from the man with a slice of his sword, beheading him.
Although they now lived in a kill or be killed world, Aleph still regretted the necessity of ending another beings life. Hei retrieved the rifle from the ground and found one bullet in the chamber. A search of the body found an additional two bullets. He slung the rifle across his back and put the bullets in his satchel. They hid all parts of the man down a steep embankment, the bottom of which was thick with shrubbery and moved on, knowing that someone from down in the valley would be up to search for their friend.
The area that Hei had found was not safely far enough away so they decided to move to the other side of the valley by skirting around the camp at a safe distance. This way they would also be closer to where their parents were being held. On the look out for additional guards they moved out to the south-east, looking for a good place to cross over to the other side of the valley. A couple of kilometres down the valley they found an area that was out of sight of the camp and filled with short alpine vegetation that should cover their descent into the valley as well as their ascent of the other side. They proceeded cautiously down the steep slope, picking their way between groups of trees to avoid detection by any patrols from the tent city.
Arriving safely at the top of the hill on the other side they made their way back towards the camp. They were able to get closer to the camp on this side of the valley because of they could crouch behind trees. They observed that three groups of six slaves, including their parents, were being herded up by five men and a woman. It looked like the slaves were going to travel since the captors had backpacks and they watched as the slaves were being forced to march south-east along the valley, back towards where the siblings had just come from. Realising that this was the opportunity they had been waiting for the siblings ran ahead to the treed area where they had crossed the valley floor to mount an ambush.
1992
Trillium
“We find the defendant guilty as charged.” Kirsten sat, no emotion showing on her face, though she was full of turmoil inside. She was drowning in her feelings…rage, shame, sadness, loneliness, love, hurt, pride, humiliation, blame. Her mother was a nurse and worked shift-work at the hospital. This meant that she was frequently left with her brothers in the care of their father. After her older brothers went down for the night, her father would come in to tuck her in. Stinking of whiskey he would enter her bedroom and, hard as she would try, he could tell that she was not asleep. “I love you Kirsten, remember that always.” Each time, as he left her bedroom, he said these words and they became the soundtrack that haunted her every waking moment. It started six years ago and today it was finished.
She looked over at her mother who sat on the bench to the right of her. Tears were pouring down her cheeks. Clad in a pink blouse that used to fit her but now accentuated her obesity, her large chest was heaving though no sound was coming out. Kirsten’s mother had found her husband passed out naked from the waist down in her youngest child’s pink-painted bedroom. Though she suspected that this was occurring, she had been using lack of proof as a way to avoid facing the reality. This time though she called the police even before speaking to her daughter and they had vacated their home with the boys before her husband awoke from his drunken slumber.
Kirsten looked to her left at her brother David and beside him Michael. It was suspected that both the boys had been abused as well, although this never came out in the trial. David had the same weight problems as his mother and had beads of sweat trickling down his forehead. He eyed the exits of the courtroom as though he wanted to escape the trial and the feelings that it brought up in him.
Rage was radiating from Michael, in his posture, his face and how he stared in blatant hatred at his father. When his eyes momentarily moved to his sister, she shrunk back, as the anger appeared directed at her as well. Michael had moved out on his own while the trial was taking place and Kirsten expected that this courtroom was the last time she would set eyes on him.
Her father was sentenced to seven years in prison. Kirsten had heard from some kids at the park in her neighbourhood that child molesters were often killed by other inmates in the prison. She still had some feelings for her father in her heart and she hoped that he did not suffer too much when they ended his life.
Whenua
The mountain lay before them rising into the clouds. Green grass covered most of the area, with alpine shrubs and small bushes growing in clumps where there was sufficient depth of soil. Sheep grazed on the sides of the mountain and trekked across the crest. A radio tower, which marked the highest point, was their goal.
Taonga had skipped school today with a group of five boys to go tramping in the hills. The path that snaked its way up the mountain was long but the slope was never too great. They would be fighting the wind as they neared the peak so it was going to be a tiring climb but they were all in good shapes, top athletes in their school. They carried their lunches in their backpacks and would eat when they reached the top. The boys loved the exhilaration of reaching the summit and being significantly higher than everything for as far as their eyes could see in every direction.
Taonga was a good student and when he became passionate about a subject he excelled at it. Unfortunately, this enthusiasm often came at the detriment of all other subjects. He was well loved by his teachers and those who still cared for teaching competed for his interest in their specialty. At present his passion was not a subject taught at his school. He loved to explore and he could not be confined to a playground for another beautiful December day.
“Come on slow coaches, we have to keep up the pace if we are going to reach the top by lunch time”, said Taonga, as they set off up the hill. The warmth of the sun on his back caused him to remove his jersey though he knew that he would have to put it back on shortly since the wind near the top would obliterate any heat that the sun could provide him.
Their escape from school had been hampered by their Geography teacher. They had planned to be the first out of class at recess and meet at the corner of the fence, farthest from the school. If executed correctly they could be over the fence and down the road before the teachers on recess patrol made it to their posts. Unfortunately, their Geography teacher, who was also their rugby coach, had pulled them aside after class.
“Hey men, did you see the rugby test on Saturday?” he asked. Not waiting for an answer, he added “We would have won had the referee not allowed them to continuously go offside during the breakdowns.”
Unable to restrain himself, Taonga’s friend Ryan responded, “Come on sir, they were up by three tries and totally outplaying us.”
“True, but I still believe that the referee needed to step in there a few times but chickened out. It might have been a very different result.”
“I think the ref needs to let the players play” Ryan said, with a bit of frustration showing in his voice.
Taonga cut in, “Uhh…sorry coach, but we gotta go. We’ll see you tomorrow afternoon for practice.” He grabbed his friend and pushed him out the door, followed by the other three boys who had been waiting.
“Idiot”, whispered Taonga when they were out of hearing range of the teacher, “now we missed our chance. All the teachers are out there, we have no chance to sneak out.” Although their delay was only momentary, they would not be the first out the door and the teachers would now be on patrol. He gave his friend Ryan a playful yet powerful punch in the arm.
“Its just that coach thinks he knows what he’s talkin’ about. He knows the rules but he doesn’t know game…you know.”
“And you know better?” said Taonga with a smirk on his face.
“Well, ya.” Everyone, including Ryan, laughed at that.
When the laughter subsided, Taika, another boy from their posse asked, “Now what T? How do we make our great escape?”
Although it’d be riskier than leaving before the teachers got there, they figured they would wait until the end of recess and hopefully none of the teachers would notice that they were hanging about and not making their way for their late morning studies. If they could sneak past the last sweep of the teacher patrol, they could climb over the fence and they would be out.
They played tag for the recess but they were also keeping an eye on the teachers’ movements. They noticed that Mr. Henderson, who at the start of the recess was patrolling the far corner, had snuck away from the students to go have a smoke in the front parking lot of the school. This provided them the opportunity they needed. When the school bell rang and all the other students made their way to the institution of learning, Taonga and his gang scampered over the fence and made their way to freedom.
At half past twelve they arrived at the summit of the mountain. It was a good hike and their muscles hurt. The green vegetation on the mountain made the blue of the sky all the more striking. The few white clouds that flew by quickly, pushed by the strong wind, looked close enough to touch. From where they stood they could see beautiful blue ocean to the south and even, on this very clear day, the hint of land beyond. To the south-east was more of the green mountain range, speckled with sheep climbing up impossibly steep slopes. In north-east they could look down on the city’s centre, set beside the ocean waterfront. Even the tallest buildings looked tiny from up here. Taika picked out the rugby stadium, which from up here looked no larger than a 50 cent piece. Far off to the north-west, were outlying villages, that they knew sheltered thousands of people but from up here looked absolutely insignificant.
They sat eating their lunches in the grass, somewhat sheltered from the wind by the walled compound which surrounded the radio tower. Noticing pride in the faces of his peers, Taonga expressed his inner thoughts, “That was worth it, eh?”
Staedelin
He sat alone, away from the other children, reading a novel while they played soccer on the field. He could not hear them anymore as he entered the world of Sighaal.
The young mage wrapped his red robes around him. Although he walked by burning torches that lit the passageway, a supernatural cold chilled his soul. The hairs on the back of his neck tingled as footsteps broke the silence that had followed him since entering the keep. At least half a dozen creatures were approaching quickly from up ahead. Their heavy footfalls marked them as inhuman, likely trolls by the guttural laughter he heard. He frantically searched for a place to hide. He spotted a door to his left and he tried turning the handle, hoping this was an avenue for escape. He found the door locked and had no time to find another place to hide as six trolls rounded the corner ahead of him.
The trolls prepared to attack the intruder. The mage understood that his dagger would be of little use against their battle worn swords. He could see that the steel of the leader’s sword was stained a dull red either from rust or dried blood. Using his fear to gain access to the well of power within him he chanted an incantation. The trolls, recognizing the arcane words as magic, ran at him to prevent the completion of the spell. They did not reach the mage in time and this was a costly mistake. A ball of blue flame erupted from the boy’s hands and engulfed his attackers. They screamed in agony as their hideous bodies melted away from the heat of the mystical fire. Soon all that was left of the fearsome monsters were charred remains. The red robed mage hurried onward to complete his quest.
Jimmy shut the book, closed his eyes and imagined the power he could have if he was a mage. His introspective nature and his skinny physique made him the brunt of attacks by bullies at school, though by shying away from the crowds of kids and burying himself in a book he was usually able to avoid serious trouble. He had no friends, giving him ample time for study, so he excelled at school, further separating him from his school cohort.
Removing his sword from its scabbard which hung around his waist, Aleph turned to face his attacker. Actually sword is a bit of a misnomer, since the weapon he held was nothing more than a scrap of slightly rusted metal filed to a sharp edge, with a piece of wood screwed on to act as a handle. It could still cleave a man in two and his attacker, recognizing this, raised his shield, a reinforced rubbish bin lid, to protect himself. The attacker was a tree trunk of a man with thick black hair and a thick black beard. His well muscled arms held a wooden club in one hand and the shield in the other. Aleph was tall for his age and, whereas his opponent had the bulk of a musk ox, Aleph had the musculature of a tiger. He had let his light brown hair grow longer as of late and it now reached the nape of his neck. Although he prided himself in it, his early pubescent beard was nearly invisible to anyone more than a metre away.
They had arrived at this pantry in the rubble of a house at the same time, and neither wanted to back down and let the other remove the twenty canned goods which the pantry held. With no words spoken, the man swung the club at Aleph’s head. Aleph blocked using the blade of his sword. Although the club was now nearly split in two, the force of the blow from the bigger man had knocked Aleph off balance and now he struggled to regain his footing. The attacker used this opportunity to his advantage and kicked Aleph in the stomach driving the wind out of him. Aleph fell to the ground, a piece of brick scraping his back. The man looked down at Aleph, conscious that ten years ago he would be sent to jail for this, and prepared to deliver a finishing blow with the remnants of his club. The man noticed a smirk on Aleph’s face and the young man’s blue eyes glancing over his shoulder milliseconds before a blow to the back of the head rendered the dark haired man unconscious. Aleph had to roll to the side to prevent the 115 kilograms of dead weight from crushing him. Aleph was helped to his feet by a smiling Hei who held a heavy quarterstaff which had been used to incapacitate his brother’s attacker.
“Thanks buddy, I would have got him….but as always your timing is impeccable.”, Aleph said to his brother, giving him a manly patting hug. Hei smiled at his brother, “Cheers Bro”. Though his back hurt tremendously, the wound was not deep and the blood had clotted before they were finished gathering up the loot. They quickly made their way home as dusk fell because a worse fate befell those who stayed out after dark.
Hei was the youngest of the Dobro clan. The way his bright mind worked through ingenious solutions to problems surprised both his parents and his older siblings. A long grey cloak hung loose over his slim frame. His blue eyes exhibited wisdom far older than his twelve years of age but there was also a laughter in his eyes that revealed his love for life.
The family Dobro had arrived in this country of rocky beaches, mountains, lakes and rivers, ten years earlier, shortly before the Great Devastation. When the riots began, the family of five had headed for the mountains which surrounded the city where they had been living. They abandoned their house, and set up a tent in a crevasse in an area not frequented by trampers in the past. The tent was covered by branches from the surrounding shrubbery camouflaging it from marauders. They thought it was safer to be away from the city below. Many people had stayed to defend their city dwellings and had paid the ultimate price. When the electricity had ceased world-wide the majority of humanity seemed to devolve, reverting to animal instinct, and it was now survival of the fittest.
When Aleph and Hei arrived home their older sister Yôdh was roasting a hare she had snared earlier in the day. Yôdh had developed into an adept hunter in the ten years since the family had moved to the hills. She could move quickly and silently through the trees hunting her prey with preternatural ability. The family had recently celebrated her sixteenth birthday. She wore the front of her hair in plaits which were pulled back to form a tiara that kept her hair out of her big blue eyes. Her sleek but newly acquired womanly figure was tastefully covered by a short green dress that was cinched around the waist giving her an elfish appearance.
Dàleth and Sāmekh, their father and mother, arrived at the camp at the same time as the boys and were happy to see that the boys had scavenged a large amount of food. Dàleth and Sāmekh carried a jug of fresh water between them. This was one of the real difficulties with the placement of their camp. Though the camp was out of sight from marauders, it was far from sources of fresh water, with the exception of rainwater. They had a set up to collect the water but it was not enough and this had to be supplemented with water from one of the mountain streams.
Dàleth had long bushy red hair on his head and a thin but full beard on his face. He wore well-worn blue jeans and a rugby style jersey. Ten years of physical labour had hardened his office-work-induced flabby body. After frequent sunburns in the early years, this outdoor life had darkened his skin and caused the former dappling of freckles to expand considerably.
Sāmekh’s long dark brown hair was tied back in a crown made of plaits like her daughter’s. Her figure had also benefited from the outdoor hard physical life, though she already had a beautiful body when the Great Devastation had hit. She wore capri-style jeans and a tight fitting short sleeve blue shirt. Her dark complexion was enhanced by the constant sun and despite the dirtiness associated with living outside the new environment made her all the more striking. Her huge green eyes caused many men who looked into them to become spell bound.
They settled in for dinner of canned beans and the roasted hare. Hunger satisfied they sat around the fire sharing the occurrences of their day. The boys had left early in the morning to scavenge in the city and had plenty of stories from the people they had met.
“We met this group who belonged to some kind of cult or weird religion…” Aleph said chuckling.
Hei cut in: “…and they said that the Great Devastation was caused by the ire of Gaia because of man’s treatment of earth’s creatures and the environment.”
“They wore these white robes and called themselves the…uhh…” Aleph pondered while he stroked his peach fuzz covered chin causing Dàleth to mask a snicker with a cough.
“..the Earth’s People.” Hei cut in to limit his brother’s embarrassment. “I thought that maybe Yôdh would be interested in joining” he added causing Aleph to join him in laughter.
Unfazed by the ridicule by her brothers, Yôdh spoke up proudly to announce “I spent most of the day up on the hill in meditation”. In the years since the Great Devastation some people had begun to develop what could only be described as magical abilities. The going theory was that with the removal of the steps between their everyday survival and the cycles of the earth, the innate powers of some individuals began to express. Yôdh spent many hours a day developing her new aptitudes. At present her abilities consisted of sensing where to find her prey while out hunting and limited communication with some of the animals but Yôdh was confident that with practice and concentration she could develop these further.
“Al and Hei, please don’t make fun of your sister. I am very proud of all of you and what you contribute to our survival. Alright, it’s getting late, time to tuck in for the night” Dàleth announced. A long day for all meant that this announcement was greeted with agreement from all and soon they were in the tent for the night.
The children left early the next morning. Since the boys had returned with that cache of cans and because Yôdh could pretty much catch meat for them anytime they needed it, the children were allowed to do as they pleased today provided they stuck together. They decided to climb over the ridge of the mountain and go for a swim in the stream that provided their drinking water.
As they crested the ridge of the mountain the wind hit them hard and drowned out any attempt at conversation. It would be this way until they reached the valley below. Hei wrapped his cloak tightly around him. Neither Aleph nor Yôdh had any covering so they toughed it out.
Suddenly, Yôdh halted the party with hand signals they had developed. She pointed to a copse of trees 10 metres below them and motioned for her brothers to stay silent. Weapons were drawn immediately to defend themselves - Aleph his sword, Hei his quarterstaff and Yôdh her bow. The government run biosecurity system had failed when the world was thrown into chaos and if it was an animal it could be anything. Many fearsome beasts that had been imported from overseas to protect their owners, had escaped and become feral. They had heard tales of tigers and giant snakes prowling the hills in search of a meal, though luckily they had yet to encounter any. Domesticated animals had also become a threat. Dogs that had once been friendly pets now roamed around in wild packs, viciously attacking anything that could be food. Pigs had gone feral and had grown tusks and bristly hair within weeks, confirming an interesting fact that Dàleth had seen on Discovery channel many years before.
But what emerged from the trees were humans, though the lowest form of this species. The three men were closer to trolls in appearance than humans. Their heads looked too big for their massive bodies. Heavy brow ridges and strong jaws increased their Neanderthal-like appearance. Each man held a spear and they looked like they were out hunting but when they saw the party of youths on the hill above them it became apparent that their prey had changed. A growl from one of the men came to them carried by the howling wind as the trio of trolls charged the siblings.
Yôdh let fly an arrow she had cocked in anticipation. It hit its target, straight through the eye socket of the man who led the attackers, killing him instantly. The other two men stepped over their fallen comrade and were upon the Dobro youth before Yôdh could level another arrow. Aleph stepped in first and his blade whistled through the air aiming for the throat of the closest attacker. Drug induced anger radiated from the eyes of the attacker as he easily stepped back to avoid Aleph’s attack and quickly responded with a swing of his spear using it as a club.
Hei was engaged in combat with the second man, effectively blocking blows with his quarterstaff, but never quite being able to gain the offensive. They were fighting seasoned warriors and although this was not the first fight for the siblings they were still honing their crafts.
Between blows Aleph chanced a glance over his shoulder to check on his brother and sister. He found his brother still locked in battle with his adversary but was surprised to find his sister sitting cross-legged, eyes closed, only a few metres from her brothers’ life or death struggle. The anger that welled up in him caused him to lose concentration and provided his opponent the opportunity he had been waiting for. With a brutal blow to his wrist, Aleph was suddenly disarmed. Now Aleph was backing away as the attacker pressed at him trying to end his life with a jab to his heart or other vital organ. Just as he was losing hope of surviving this incident, with his brother too preoccupied with his own struggle to lend aid and his sister uselessly meditating, the ground below the large troll-esque man turned to liquid and he was pulled down into a pool of mud which seconds before had been solid rock. Aleph looked over to see that his brother’s opponent had succumbed to a similar fate and saw a flailing hand trying to find some solid earth as the man was swallowed by the earth.
Both brothers turned to find their sister, eyes still closed, visibly radiating energy and smiling to herself. She opened her eyes and the ground returned to its solid state. Mouths agape the brothers could say nothing for the whole walk home. They had decided through mutual, though silent, agreement that speaking to their parents about Yôdh’s new abilities was more important than a swim in the stream.
1987
Trillium
“Go out and don’t come back ‘til dinner time”, her mother said. This was the usual routine for the summer months. Between June and August, right after lunch everyday, Kirsten and her older brothers were sent down the street to play. Their yard was not quite big enough to contain the chaos that was her brothers so they ended up at the field at the end of the street. This area, which divided her neighbourhood from the high school and sports centre on the other side of a large copse of trees, had yet to be developed with houses, save for the bike path which ran east-west under power lines.
The boys jumped on their bikes and rode off before Kirsten could click on her helmet, tucking her blonde hair behind her ears, and climb onto her bicycle. Though she peddled as fast as she could she was left behind, yelling, “Wait up!” as her brothers pulled away. They were already off their bikes and tossing around the football when she arrived at the end of the block. As usual, Kirsten was excluded from any game that David and Michael were playing. Michael was twice as old as six year old Kirsten and only sixteen months separated the two boys. Kirsten was thought of as a nuisance to the boys who were not only brothers but also best friends.
The boys would toss a ball around the field or play soldiers in the forest beyond, while Kirsten sat in the tall grass. She loved to lie listening to the boys and stare up at the clouds racing by in the wind. Or watching an ant crawling across the dirt between the blades of grass, pulling crumbs from the crunchy cookie she had been eating. Or observing the butterfly which lit on a dandelion and as she turned to examine it more closely, flew off into the sun. She felt safe here hidden from the world in the tall grass but connected to her brothers by the sound of their laughter. Her father could not find her here.
She heard Michael’s laughter stop abruptly and she sat up to watch his breathe go out of him as he was hit by David’s flying tackle. David didn’t outweigh his younger brother by much even though he was a couple of inches taller. Michael was a chubby kid and he often used this to his advantage in fights with his older brother. This made the hit all the more satisfying for David as he drove his brother to the ground with his shoulder in his brother’s flabby belly. The football rolled away toward Kirsten as Michael clubbed David in the back to get him off. Soon they were rolling around in the grass, arms flaying, though neither gaining enough leverage to badly injure the other. Eventually David was able to disentangle himself from his brother long enough to get to his feet and make a run for the forest. Michael yelled, “Stupid idiot, I’m gonna get you!” but laughed as he pursue his brother into the trees. Kirsten removed her shoes and slowly followed the boys into the forest, enjoying the feeling of the grass between her toes, stepping lightly to avoid hurting her feet. As she stepped in the sunlight-dappled cool forest she could hear her brothers had banded together to fight invisible ninja who were apparently attacking from the trees above.
Whenua
He sat in his mother’s lap as she chanted defiantly with the other university students: “Hell no! We won’t go!” His mother had organized this sit-in to stop the razing of their campus pub to make way for a Double Double coffee shop. The corporate behemoth Double Double had negotiated a partnership with the university, which consequently allowed the pub to be pulled down and replaced by a coffee shop. The university was also trying to clean up its image after a student died of alcohol poisoning during last year’s frosh week. None of these factors concerned his mother or the students who followed her. This was their pub and nobody was going to tear it down. The labourers and their huge machinery which had arrived early in the morning had been greeted by jeering protestors.
Taonga’s mother was in the first year of an Arts degree when he was born. With plenty of difficulty and with plenty of government financial assistance, she had completed that degree in only five years and was now beginning a Masters degree in Political Science. Taonga’s mother successfully integrated motherhood with academia. He had grown up on campus, spending the time when his mother had class in the on-campus day care, and he was even successfully breastfed for the first full year of his life between classes. His mother was always involved in student politics and was always accompanied by her son.
Although she had her suspicions, his mother was never sure who the father was and none of the potentials stayed around long enough to find out. His darker skin and hair and larger size, even shortly after his birth, relative to his age-mates, hinted at his father’s identity and led his mother to choose a Maori name for her son. Taonga translates into English as “most treasured person”, and this relationship was evident to all who knew Taonga and his mother.
They lived in a house with three other girls who helped out with his care when the need arose though Taonga’s mother was devoted to her son and seldom left his side unless absolutely necessary. Taonga was loved by his mother more than anything and although his upbringing was far from average thus far he was a very happy boy. Taonga laughed with pleasure as he waved a sign above his head which read “Double Double is Double Trouble!” His mother lead the troops in “We shall overcome”, and Taonga joined in.
As campus security arrived to break up the protest, Taongo joined arms between his mother and another protester. At 6 years of age he was already well experienced in protest activities.
Staedelin
Brushing his dark brown hair out of his eyes, Jimmy turned the page of his story book. Jimmy had learned to communicate in sign language when he was 9 months old. He could speak English in full sentences when he was 24 months old and shortly after could add bilingual English/French to his resume. His parents had taught him to read and write in his third year of life. At six years old, Jimmy could read almost anything, though he preferred to read fairy tales.
…clippety-clop, clippety-clop, clippety-clop.
“Who’s that crossing over MY bridge?” growled the troll. “It is I the youngest billy goat gruff and I am going up the mountain to eat lots of grass to get fat for winter” replied the young goat.
“Oh, no your not,” snarled the troll, “I’m going to eat you for my dinner!”
“You should not eat me,” replied the goat “I am much too small to fill your belly. My older brother will be along soon and he would make a much better meal.”
“Hmmm…alright” said the troll “SCRAM!”
The youngest billy goat clippety-clopped away up the mountain to get fat for the winter.
The sound of his parents speaking in the kitchen caused him to pause his reading.
“Jimmy is such a big boy, isn’t he? I am so proud that he is growing up so quickly. If we keep this up, I’m sure he’ll get into any university we want him to.” his mother said. “He’ll be a doctor before we know it.” responded his father proudly. “He has such an advantage over his peers who are out rabblerousing in the street while he’s in here developing his mind.” his mother added.
Jimmy went back to his reading, pleased to know that his parents were proud of him.
2016
By the time they could see the crevasse which hid their tent, they were running, excited to tell their parents of the development of Yôdh’s talents. Out of the corner of his eye, Aleph could see that Yôdh was smiling. He knew she must be feeling proud that all her hard work and long hours of discipline had paid off. He now regretted the many times he and his brother had ridiculed her efforts to develop her talents.
When the siblings arrived back at their camp, their parents were nowhere in sight. They must have been in the vicinity because the fire was still burning. The family had to be constantly cognisant of the threat of marauders and their parents would have extinguished the fire before going far. Hei had an uneasy feeling about the absence of his parents and that’s when Aleph pointed out others things in the camp were amiss.
There was an overturned dinner plate by the fire and their father’s sword was lying on the ground. Closer examination showed that their food cache had been raided but in a haphazard fashion, taking some cans of food but leaving others, that indicated that this was not the goal of the attack. Aleph whistled their family call, and waited. He received no reply so tried again and still no response. Their parents would never have given chase to the robbers without first taking care to hide their camp, lest a discovered camp put their children in danger.
Hei was the first to express what they all were feeling, “Someone has taken mum and dad! Who would do that?”
“And why?” Aleph added.
No one had answers to either question so there was a momentary silence.
“Unless they are very far away from here I believe that I will be able to sense the direction the kidnappers have taken”, said Yôdh. She then sat in her meditative posture, closed her eyes, and silenced the world around her. For minutes the boys watched their sister enter the meditative state that half-an-hour earlier had permitted her to harness the powers of nature to swallow two men into the earth. They barely breathed, afraid it would ruin her concentration.
Yôdh opened her eyes, but the boys could see that she was in another phase of consciousness. “They have gone in that direction,” she said, pointing north-east from where they stood. “They are at the edge of my ability to locate them so if we want to catch them we better move quickly.” With a slow blink Yôdh returned to wakeful consciousness.
They were ready in ten minutes. They each carried a canteen of water, small amounts of food, and their weapons - Aleph his sword, Hei his quarterstaff, and Yôdh brought her bow and took all the arrows she had been patiently fashioning. They set off north-east across the mountains, keeping a good pace. Although their parents’ captors had covered their tracks close to camp, they had chosen speed over stealth and further a field had begun to leave traces of their passing. This allowed Yôdh to use her mundane abilities as a hunter to track her parents and their captors. She reported to the boys there were five large men leading their parents. With grim determination they picked up the pace.
As the sun set, the rain came suddenly and with it came the wind. Wet to the bone, their minds urged them to find shelter but their hearts drove them forward to find their parents. The rain had obliterated the tracks but, hoping their captors would continue travelling in a straight line, the siblings continued on their previous vector. Unfortunately, the clouds and the rain obscured the moonlight and they were soon travelling blindly. It became evident that they were more likely to fall off a steep embankment and break their necks than they were of finding their parents tonight. Knowing that their quarry would also be finding a dry place to stop for the night, they decided to find a place to sleep. They slept beneath a quickly fashioned lean-to against the rock face. The rain prevented them from lighting a fire so, though they huddled together for warmth, it was a cold night and with the worry about their parents, the siblings slept little.
Luckily, dawn brought with it an end to the rain and provided Yôdh the opportunity to employ her magic to attempt the location spell that she was now beginning to perfect. This time she was able to pinpoint her parents’ location and it was easily within the range of her magical ability. She awakened from her meditative state feeling certain that her parents were in the valley just over the next ridge.
“I feel that they are just beyond the trees there”, she said pointing up the hill, “but I believe we need to advance with caution because I sense that there are many people together with them.”
They climbed the hill with care, ears perked to hear any sound and eyes straining in the dim dawn light. Hei was reached the top ahead of the others, army crawling on his belly to avoid detection. He could not believe what he saw in the valley beyond. It was a semi-permanent-looking tent village with hundreds of people in it, rough looking types, plenty of weapons, and even some rifles could be seen. Each wore a green armband on their left arm, marking them as a gang of some sort, though Hei was unfamiliar with these markings. Hei had never seen so many people in one place. He was too young to remember the time before the Great Devastation, when hundreds of thousands of people lived in the city below their camp. Ten years later that city had perhaps a few hundred citizens and people tended to avoid public gatherings as fear of the Virus still haunted many people’s thoughts. Guns were also seldom seen, Hei had only seen a few specimens in his lifetime and none of them had bullets. Bullets were a valuable commodity as they were no longer being mass produced since nothing was being mass produced any longer.
Aleph and Yôdh crawled up beside their brother. Aleph pointed to a herd of about fifty people being forced into rows. They were roped together by their ankles, six people to a cluster. Even from up here on the hill, they could see open wounds on some of the prisoners from the rope chafing their skin. The rains had caused the valley to become thick with mud and the prisoners were dirty and many looked like they were going to faint from exhaustion. Aleph’s keen eye sight spotted their parents at the far side of the group of prisoners. They were tied in a six person row with two young men who looked to be brothers in the front, their parents, a young woman, and a middle-aged man.
They backed down the hill slowly to avoid detection to allow discussion of how to proceed. It was obvious that they would not take this group by force. Although it pained them to allow their parents to continue to suffer, the siblings agreed that the best course of action was to wait and watch to see if they could figure out why their parents were being held, in hopes that this information would facilitate their release.
Slavery was the conclusion that they came to after a quick discussion. It was unclear whether the prisoners were going to be sold by the gang individually to other people or whether they were going to be used en masse by the gangsters in some large project. They figured their best move was to wait for their parents to be moved and to extricate them at that time.
Hei went off to scout out a better vantage point to observe their parents. He had just found a clump of low lying alpine bushes, which would provide the cover they needed, when his sharp ears heard heavy footfalls behind him. He concealed himself in the bushes and watched as a man carrying a rifle lumbered past him, obviously searching for something. The man was off towards his siblings and Hei followed silently behind him. The man saw Aleph and Yôdh before they could notice him and levelled his gun. Before he could complete that move, Hei stepped in beside him and the butt of his quarterstaff shattered the man’s jaw. His scream of agony came out as more of a muffled gurgle and reflexively he dropped the rifle as his hands tried to staunch the blood that was pouring from his mouth. Aleph was quick to silence any further noises from the man with a slice of his sword, beheading him.
Although they now lived in a kill or be killed world, Aleph still regretted the necessity of ending another beings life. Hei retrieved the rifle from the ground and found one bullet in the chamber. A search of the body found an additional two bullets. He slung the rifle across his back and put the bullets in his satchel. They hid all parts of the man down a steep embankment, the bottom of which was thick with shrubbery and moved on, knowing that someone from down in the valley would be up to search for their friend.
The area that Hei had found was not safely far enough away so they decided to move to the other side of the valley by skirting around the camp at a safe distance. This way they would also be closer to where their parents were being held. On the look out for additional guards they moved out to the south-east, looking for a good place to cross over to the other side of the valley. A couple of kilometres down the valley they found an area that was out of sight of the camp and filled with short alpine vegetation that should cover their descent into the valley as well as their ascent of the other side. They proceeded cautiously down the steep slope, picking their way between groups of trees to avoid detection by any patrols from the tent city.
Arriving safely at the top of the hill on the other side they made their way back towards the camp. They were able to get closer to the camp on this side of the valley because of they could crouch behind trees. They observed that three groups of six slaves, including their parents, were being herded up by five men and a woman. It looked like the slaves were going to travel since the captors had backpacks and they watched as the slaves were being forced to march south-east along the valley, back towards where the siblings had just come from. Realising that this was the opportunity they had been waiting for the siblings ran ahead to the treed area where they had crossed the valley floor to mount an ambush.
1992
Trillium
“We find the defendant guilty as charged.” Kirsten sat, no emotion showing on her face, though she was full of turmoil inside. She was drowning in her feelings…rage, shame, sadness, loneliness, love, hurt, pride, humiliation, blame. Her mother was a nurse and worked shift-work at the hospital. This meant that she was frequently left with her brothers in the care of their father. After her older brothers went down for the night, her father would come in to tuck her in. Stinking of whiskey he would enter her bedroom and, hard as she would try, he could tell that she was not asleep. “I love you Kirsten, remember that always.” Each time, as he left her bedroom, he said these words and they became the soundtrack that haunted her every waking moment. It started six years ago and today it was finished.
She looked over at her mother who sat on the bench to the right of her. Tears were pouring down her cheeks. Clad in a pink blouse that used to fit her but now accentuated her obesity, her large chest was heaving though no sound was coming out. Kirsten’s mother had found her husband passed out naked from the waist down in her youngest child’s pink-painted bedroom. Though she suspected that this was occurring, she had been using lack of proof as a way to avoid facing the reality. This time though she called the police even before speaking to her daughter and they had vacated their home with the boys before her husband awoke from his drunken slumber.
Kirsten looked to her left at her brother David and beside him Michael. It was suspected that both the boys had been abused as well, although this never came out in the trial. David had the same weight problems as his mother and had beads of sweat trickling down his forehead. He eyed the exits of the courtroom as though he wanted to escape the trial and the feelings that it brought up in him.
Rage was radiating from Michael, in his posture, his face and how he stared in blatant hatred at his father. When his eyes momentarily moved to his sister, she shrunk back, as the anger appeared directed at her as well. Michael had moved out on his own while the trial was taking place and Kirsten expected that this courtroom was the last time she would set eyes on him.
Her father was sentenced to seven years in prison. Kirsten had heard from some kids at the park in her neighbourhood that child molesters were often killed by other inmates in the prison. She still had some feelings for her father in her heart and she hoped that he did not suffer too much when they ended his life.
Whenua
The mountain lay before them rising into the clouds. Green grass covered most of the area, with alpine shrubs and small bushes growing in clumps where there was sufficient depth of soil. Sheep grazed on the sides of the mountain and trekked across the crest. A radio tower, which marked the highest point, was their goal.
Taonga had skipped school today with a group of five boys to go tramping in the hills. The path that snaked its way up the mountain was long but the slope was never too great. They would be fighting the wind as they neared the peak so it was going to be a tiring climb but they were all in good shapes, top athletes in their school. They carried their lunches in their backpacks and would eat when they reached the top. The boys loved the exhilaration of reaching the summit and being significantly higher than everything for as far as their eyes could see in every direction.
Taonga was a good student and when he became passionate about a subject he excelled at it. Unfortunately, this enthusiasm often came at the detriment of all other subjects. He was well loved by his teachers and those who still cared for teaching competed for his interest in their specialty. At present his passion was not a subject taught at his school. He loved to explore and he could not be confined to a playground for another beautiful December day.
“Come on slow coaches, we have to keep up the pace if we are going to reach the top by lunch time”, said Taonga, as they set off up the hill. The warmth of the sun on his back caused him to remove his jersey though he knew that he would have to put it back on shortly since the wind near the top would obliterate any heat that the sun could provide him.
Their escape from school had been hampered by their Geography teacher. They had planned to be the first out of class at recess and meet at the corner of the fence, farthest from the school. If executed correctly they could be over the fence and down the road before the teachers on recess patrol made it to their posts. Unfortunately, their Geography teacher, who was also their rugby coach, had pulled them aside after class.
“Hey men, did you see the rugby test on Saturday?” he asked. Not waiting for an answer, he added “We would have won had the referee not allowed them to continuously go offside during the breakdowns.”
Unable to restrain himself, Taonga’s friend Ryan responded, “Come on sir, they were up by three tries and totally outplaying us.”
“True, but I still believe that the referee needed to step in there a few times but chickened out. It might have been a very different result.”
“I think the ref needs to let the players play” Ryan said, with a bit of frustration showing in his voice.
Taonga cut in, “Uhh…sorry coach, but we gotta go. We’ll see you tomorrow afternoon for practice.” He grabbed his friend and pushed him out the door, followed by the other three boys who had been waiting.
“Idiot”, whispered Taonga when they were out of hearing range of the teacher, “now we missed our chance. All the teachers are out there, we have no chance to sneak out.” Although their delay was only momentary, they would not be the first out the door and the teachers would now be on patrol. He gave his friend Ryan a playful yet powerful punch in the arm.
“Its just that coach thinks he knows what he’s talkin’ about. He knows the rules but he doesn’t know game…you know.”
“And you know better?” said Taonga with a smirk on his face.
“Well, ya.” Everyone, including Ryan, laughed at that.
When the laughter subsided, Taika, another boy from their posse asked, “Now what T? How do we make our great escape?”
Although it’d be riskier than leaving before the teachers got there, they figured they would wait until the end of recess and hopefully none of the teachers would notice that they were hanging about and not making their way for their late morning studies. If they could sneak past the last sweep of the teacher patrol, they could climb over the fence and they would be out.
They played tag for the recess but they were also keeping an eye on the teachers’ movements. They noticed that Mr. Henderson, who at the start of the recess was patrolling the far corner, had snuck away from the students to go have a smoke in the front parking lot of the school. This provided them the opportunity they needed. When the school bell rang and all the other students made their way to the institution of learning, Taonga and his gang scampered over the fence and made their way to freedom.
At half past twelve they arrived at the summit of the mountain. It was a good hike and their muscles hurt. The green vegetation on the mountain made the blue of the sky all the more striking. The few white clouds that flew by quickly, pushed by the strong wind, looked close enough to touch. From where they stood they could see beautiful blue ocean to the south and even, on this very clear day, the hint of land beyond. To the south-east was more of the green mountain range, speckled with sheep climbing up impossibly steep slopes. In north-east they could look down on the city’s centre, set beside the ocean waterfront. Even the tallest buildings looked tiny from up here. Taika picked out the rugby stadium, which from up here looked no larger than a 50 cent piece. Far off to the north-west, were outlying villages, that they knew sheltered thousands of people but from up here looked absolutely insignificant.
They sat eating their lunches in the grass, somewhat sheltered from the wind by the walled compound which surrounded the radio tower. Noticing pride in the faces of his peers, Taonga expressed his inner thoughts, “That was worth it, eh?”
Staedelin
He sat alone, away from the other children, reading a novel while they played soccer on the field. He could not hear them anymore as he entered the world of Sighaal.
The young mage wrapped his red robes around him. Although he walked by burning torches that lit the passageway, a supernatural cold chilled his soul. The hairs on the back of his neck tingled as footsteps broke the silence that had followed him since entering the keep. At least half a dozen creatures were approaching quickly from up ahead. Their heavy footfalls marked them as inhuman, likely trolls by the guttural laughter he heard. He frantically searched for a place to hide. He spotted a door to his left and he tried turning the handle, hoping this was an avenue for escape. He found the door locked and had no time to find another place to hide as six trolls rounded the corner ahead of him.
The trolls prepared to attack the intruder. The mage understood that his dagger would be of little use against their battle worn swords. He could see that the steel of the leader’s sword was stained a dull red either from rust or dried blood. Using his fear to gain access to the well of power within him he chanted an incantation. The trolls, recognizing the arcane words as magic, ran at him to prevent the completion of the spell. They did not reach the mage in time and this was a costly mistake. A ball of blue flame erupted from the boy’s hands and engulfed his attackers. They screamed in agony as their hideous bodies melted away from the heat of the mystical fire. Soon all that was left of the fearsome monsters were charred remains. The red robed mage hurried onward to complete his quest.
Jimmy shut the book, closed his eyes and imagined the power he could have if he was a mage. His introspective nature and his skinny physique made him the brunt of attacks by bullies at school, though by shying away from the crowds of kids and burying himself in a book he was usually able to avoid serious trouble. He had no friends, giving him ample time for study, so he excelled at school, further separating him from his school cohort.
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