Sharra, Eric, Alex, Hope, Dicer, Racer and Duke all pulled their pucklaunchers at accactly the same moment. Everyone of them was aimed at Arrastar.
"I wouldn't do that. Not unless you wish this woman to die also. Leaving this poor child an orphan." Arrastar said. The ducks eyes moved over the two humans in the corner, but they did not lower their pucklaunchers. "Now," Arrastar continued, "I think it really is time for you all to be LEAVING."
"We're not going ANYWHERE!" Shahareazat shouted.
"That's right. We're staying." Hope put in. The others nodded their heads in aggreement.
"I thought you ducks where smarter than this! I thought at the very least, you knew when to give up! I'm not leaving here empty-handed! I will get what I came for, and if you don't stay out of my way, I will kill those two humans! And then I'll move on and start killing DUCKS! Now, leave! Or more deaths will be on your hands!" Arrastar yelled.
"Alright. You win this time. Just let the humans go. They'll come with us. We'll leave, the humans will come with us, and you can search this place for whatever it is you're looking for." Wing offered.
"NO! The humans stay! We stay! You leave! If you take the humans than what's to stop you coming back? Hmm?" Arrastar asked, her face twisted with fury.
"You have my word as a duck. We wont come back." Wing said.
"Your word as a duck? That's about as trustworthy as the word of a human!" Arrastar laughed.
"Hey, our word is our bond." Nosedive replied, indignantly.
"Ducks go. Humans stay. We stay. Is that clear enough for you to understand. You go, or they die!" Arrastar looked to Alu, who pulled the knife closer to the farmer's wife's neck. A thin trickle of blood ran down her front. The woman still didn't move.
"Don't go. Please, don't go. Don't let her kill us." The little girl repeated over and over, her whole body shaking with fear and the weariness that comes from continual crying. Crystal looked up, her brown eyes sad, and distant. The eye's of someone who can't believe what she's seen. She looked at the ducks, pleading both silently and outloud. Pleading for help.
"We'll go." Wildwing said, quietly. He shut his own eyes to block out the hurt in the little girls. "We'll go, just don't hurt them." With that, he turned and left.
The others looked at each other, not sure now what to do. Duke broke the short silence, "If Wing thinks leavin' is best. Then we better follow." And he left, followed by the rest of the ducks. Cole stopped before leaving, took one more look at the situation, sighed, and walked out.
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"So...what's the plan?" Dicer asked Wildwing once they were all gathered around the Migrator.
"There is no plan." Wing replied, his eyes blank behind the mask. "We go back to the Pond."
"That's it? Just go back to the Pond? We don't try to stop Arrastar at all?" Mallory asked, disbelieving.
"That's it. Lets go." With that Wing turned around and started towards the Arrowing. The others stared after him.
"WAIT! We can't just leave Arrastar in there to torture and kill those humans! We have to do SOMETHING!" Shahareazat yelled.
Wing turned back to his team. It was then that the ducks noticed that his eyes glistened, that his face was sad. Beaten.
"We just watched Arrastar kill that man. Right in front of that little girl. Now that little girl has no dad. All she has left is her mother, and I'm not going to be responsible for her losing her mom as well. At least if we leave, Arrastar may let them live." Wing whispered.
"Yeah. She MAY let them both live." Shahareazat began, "OR...she may torture them...hurt them so bad that..."
Eric interupted her by gently touching her arm. She looked up at him, but he was looking at his mother. Dicer had her head on Duke's shoulder and he was holding her as she cried silently.
Sharra looked around. Racer's face was hidden by Grin's embrace, but her body shook with her sobs. Dive's face was tear streaked, and Mallory's arm was around his waist. Wildwind stood in front of the group, looking sadly from one of his siblings to the next. Every teenager was looking at their parent.
Eric leaned close to Sharra and, in a voice so soft that no one else could hear, said, "Wing, Dive, Racer, and Mom were all orphaned by Dragonas when they were very little. Then the four of them were separated. Leaving Uncle Wing to raise Uncle Dive, and Aunt Racer and Mom to raise themselves. They don't talk about it much, because none of them ever got over the pain."
Sharra looked Eric in the eyes and mouthed 'I'm sorry' to him. He nodded his head once, then walked over to his mother and father. Sharra closed her eyes and remebered how it felt when Arrastar had killed her mother.
She knew how it felt to loose a parent, and she wouldn't wish that upon anyone. But she knew that if they left Arrastar to deal with those humans as she saw fit they would be worse than dead as soon as she found what she wanted.
"We can't leave them." Sharra whispered. She opened her eyes to find that all the teenage ducks were either looking pleadingly at her, or were shaking their heads angrily at her. The adults weren't looking at her at all.
"We can't leave them." She said again, louder. "I don't want that little girl to be an orphan either, but...if we leave them now, they'll be worse than dead."
"What do you mean 'worse than dead'?" Grin asked.
"She will torture them. Put them through so much physical and mental pain that when she's finished...they won't know who they are, or where they are, or what they're doing. I've seen her do it. This fate is worse than death, or worse even than being orphaned. If we can stop this from happening, to even one of those humans, than we have to...we have to at least try." Sharra pleaded, tears now touching her own eyes.
The ducks all looked at Wildwing, waiting for their leader to decide. Wing closed his eyes, took a step back, and opened them again before answering: "Alright. We'll try."
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