Kinderling 62

In case you are interested in starting this story at the beginning, Kinderling 1 can be found here:

The Tricycle of Thought: Kinderling 1

Please don't judge the story or the writing too harshly, this story is written with little to no editing.  It is just meant to get me writing regularly for practice.  

Now back to our story, already in progress.

I killed Baot.

I didn't think about it.  I didn't plan on it.  How could I?  I had no way of knowing we would even see Baot today.  We usually didn't see him directly at all.  We usually just guessed at where he might be based upon our interpretations of how everyone else acted. 

Baot ordering a Kinderling to be burned alive just made me so angry.

"Tandy, we have to get out of here!"  Yelled someone.  I didn't really know who.  I could barely hear anything through the ringing in my ears.  I killed him.

A tug on my arm brought me back to reality.  At first I attempted to fight it but Lomas, one of the few village refugees who lived at the garrison who volunteered for scouting duty, pointed towards the village.  When I looked, it looked like every Gorf I had ever seen was running our direction.  I grabbed the monster-go-stick, and Lomas and I shot off through the trees.  I could only hope the others would also be able to escape.

Most of the Kinderling villagers were timid.  Very few of them wanted a ride on one of my go-sticks, let alone wanted to learn how to fly one.  Lomas was a little different.  When he joined the scouts, he went as far as asking for lessons.  Unfortunately, with all the excitement since we returned from the mountain we never got the chance.

Needless to say, I was flying at break-neck speeds, while Lomas held on for dear life.

"Why are you turning around!?"  Lomas screamed above the rush of the wind.  I couldn't put Lomas down, because he would be caught by the Gorfs, but I had to go back and see what was going on.  I hoped he would understand.

The village was in an uproar.  It seemed that the overseers still maintained control of their charges, but without Baot telling them what to do, it looked like each had a different idea.  There were a few Kinderling overseers, they were pooling their resources, sending their Gorfs out to capture as many scouts as possible.  Then there were the few Gorf overseers.  Some of them were sending their Gorfs after Kinderling villagers, the rest were converging on where Baot lie dead.

I realized too late how terrible that would turn out to be.  There was a Gorfish shout of triumph as one of the Gorf overseers snatched up Baot's master control bracelet and crammed it on his much to big hand.  In the end, he settled for putting it on a single finger.  All the Gorf slave soldiers stopped in their tracks.

"That's not good."  Lomas said.

"No, it isn't."  I agreed.

We were hovering above, far enough that we couldn't be reached, but completely exposed.  With an order from the new "Gorf Alpha", a hundred or more Gorf slave soldiers all picked up rocks and started throwing them at us.  It was time to leave.

I suppose it was a good thing over-all.  With Baot dead, and a Gorf now in charge, the mass of Gorf slaves - soldiers and non-soldiers alike - became much more single minded.  The new "Gorf Alpha" hadn't developed the knack for sending separate orders to separate groups.  As we barely flew ahead of the rocks and stones of various size and shape that flew at us, I even caught a glimpse of  a couple of the Gorf camp cooks tossing rocks at us.

After the initial terror at being chased, I realized that I could just fly up and we were soon out of range of even the best rock thrower.  It was almost funny to note that the new "Gorf Alpha" seemed to be having trouble coming up with the next idea, because more and more Gorf slave soldiers were gathering below us, all throwing rocks up in the air trying to hit us.  I'm glad that bows and arrows never seemed to catch on with Gorfs.  If they had and archer, our already bad day would have gotten worse.

One thing I learned quick when I started flying around on a go-stick was that what goes up, must come down.  Apparently that didn't occur to the new "Gorf Alpha" because the Gorf slave soldiers were piling up directly below us and were getting pelted by the rocks as they returned to earth.  It would have been funny if the sound of rocks hitting Gorf heads wasn't so sickening.

"Tandy, go over that way!"  Lomas yelled.  It was good to see that he was recovering from his initial shock and had started thinking.  I could tell what his idea was, and wasn't sure if I wanted it to work or not.  It was easy for him to forget that the Gorf Soldiers were slaves.  They weren't there because they wanted to be.  I was worried about Mouse.  I was constantly looking for him, but hadn't found him yet.  It was the same reason I hadn't considered using my final explosive arrow.

If only we could get rid of that master control bracelet.

Thinking about the master control bracelet made me look over where I thought the new "Gorf Alpha" was located.  I didn't see him.  What I did see was an out and out brawl.  The overseers were fighting for control.  We already knew, or thought we knew, that the master control bracelet over-rode the control that the individual overseers had.  When one of them got control over the master control bracelet, the rest attacked.  Everyone wanted to be the top-Gorf.  I suspect that Baot had ways of dealing with this problem, but the new "Gorf Alpha" didn't have the advantage of starting small so he could plan for these things before they got out of hand.

I hated to do it, but my hand reached for my arrow chucker.

My initial plan was to start picking off "Gorf Alpha" after "Gorf Alpha" until a better idea came up.  Surely that would keep them fighting each other and give the Kinderlings still in the village a chance to run and hide.  But in the pile of Gorf overseers, I couldn't see him.  He was definitely there, but where?  That's when my hand brushed against my last explosive arrow.  I'm not sure why I even carried the thing.  After seeing the devastation that it could cause, I never wanted to use one again.  The only reason it didn't go to the Star Sailor with the ones I made for him was because it was way too small to be usable by an Elven archer.  

"Hold on tight Lomas, this is about to get real bumpy."  I said as I pulled the explosive arrow out of my quiver.  I had to unfasten the safety I attached to it to keep me from accidentally grabbing it when I wanted a regular arrow.  The whole time, my mind, every fiber of my being, screamed "NO!"  but I didn't listen.

It seemed such a little thing.  Such an easy thing.  Set the arrow-chucker's mechanism.  Slide the arrow in.  Feel the click of the nock engaging the holder.  Bring the arrow-chucker up to my shoulder.

I felt like I was moving in slow motion.

Aim.  Release.

FWUMP!

I almost fell off the monster-go-stick.  I wanted to.  I wanted to fall.  I wanted to end this.  I wanted to remove the most evil thing I could think of from our world.  

Me.

Lomas caught me and held on.

I came back to reality with Mizzy and Mama wrapped around me.  My throat was wrecked.  Someone nearby was softly screaming, then I realized it was me.  My face was wet, Mizzy was wet,  Mama was wet.  It gradually sank in that I was crying.  Still crying.

"We won't let you go Tandy.  We're her for you.  We love you."

I would say it took days to recover, but I would be lying.  I'm not sure I'll ever recover.  I'm a killer, a monster, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive myself.

When my explosive arrow hit the pile of overseers fighting over the master control bracelet, it killed or at least disabled all of them.  The few Kinderlings who had overseer bracelets were already out of action.  When Baot's control ended they were the first targets of the Gorf overseers and were killed quickly.  Maybe the Gorf overseers didn't like the idea of Kinderlings controlling their fellow Gorfs.  Maybe they just saw them as easily removed competition.  I don't know.

The monster-go-stick did exactly what it was designed to do when it lost it's rider.  It slowly, gently returned to the ground, much to the surprise and relief of poor Lomas.  With nobody controlling the Gorf slaves any longer, they slowed like the Gorf slaves we saw in the forest.  To hear Lomas tell it, that was more terrifying than being chased.  The Gorfs just stood there, watching him as he tossed me over his shoulder and tried to carry me back to the garrison.

Mama found us, of course.  As soon as the first scouts returned to the garrison with news of what happened, Mama flew out to look for me.  Well...  As soon as the second scouts returned anyway.  The first was Daisy, but she was so excited and upset that nobody was able to understand what she was saying.

Flower's tribe took care of removing the - now former - Gorf slave soldiers that were left from the village.  I don't know where they took them, or what they did with them.  Watcher assures me that they are safely far away from the Kinderling village and they will never bother us again.  

Adiz of all people took over the village council and the task of bringing the village back together.  Father retired saying he had about enough of the back-stabbing drudgery of it all.  I'm not sure how back-stabbing and drudgery go together, but Father insisted that's what the whole mess was like, and he was done.  To everyone's surprise, Adiz brought in Kinderlings from both the garrison and from the village to take part and from what I am told, does not allow any kind of resentment in the council chambers.  We are all Kinderlings, it's time we acted like it.

Initially, Beso was nowhere to be found.  Adiz signed an arrest warrant for both him and Daggi saying she wanted them to stand trial hoping that seeing justice done would help in the healing process.  That trial never happened.  Beso's body was found one morning hanging from a tree in the village square.  A Kinderling girl confessed to the murder, offering her expanding belly as evidence that he deserved his fate.  It was clear that she was far too small to have done it herself, but nobody cared to charge her or look for accomplices.  

Daggi was never found.  I still see him in my nightmares.

A year later, the village commemorated Union Day.  I hid in my room crying.  I'm not sure who thought fireworks were a good idea, but whoever it was can just go to the below.  From then on, I celebrated Union Day by myself, or at least as "by myself" as Mizzy allowed at the cave by the lake.  It was far enough away from the village that I couldn't hear the fireworks.  

Some years, the Star Sailor stops by and brings the Lady of Eastwood.

And so ends our tale of the Kinderlings.  Keep watching here (if you want to, of course), I'm sure I'll start another story soon, and thanks for reading.