Saku 1: The Ordeal

         Screams.  Shouts.  Bellows.  Metal clanging.  Dogs Barking.  The crackling of fire in thatch.  Men shouting, women shrieking, children crying.  The howling of wolves in the night.  Eyes open.  Heart pounding.  Sparks from the flames danced like stars in the night sky through a hole in the cottage roof.  Saku bolted upright as conciousness came roaring back into his battered head.  Raiders had attacked.  They were burning the village.  The young boy stumbled and staggeredhis way to what was left of the cottage door, choking on the thick smoke of burning homes and charred meat.  He had to get away.

         They had killed his father.  He remembered that much, but he didn't know where his mother or sister were.  Hopefully they had made it to safety in the darkness of the forest.  If not... well he hoped they were dead, it would surely be a better fate than to be led off as captives of the raiders.  The few folk who had ever escaped the demons said the foreign devils beat and raped their captives frequently and many died as a result.  Saku would rather see his entire family killed before his young eyes than suffer such a fate.

         Outside the cottage there was death and fire and chaos.  The ground was littered with the bodies of the dead and dying - men, children, elders and dogs that had tried to protect their masters.  Several buildings were burning while raiders looted the ones still standing.  The young boy could hear frightened sheep and cattle in the distance and realized that the raiders were driving off the livestock.  There was nobody around nearby and Saku was about to make a run for the nearby trees when a piercing scream caught his attention.

         Three raiders had a young maiden on the ground.  The rutting beasts nearly covered her slim body from sight until one of the rapists lifted a pale thigh higher out of the way of his pumping hips.  Saku sent a quick prayer to the spirits for the unknown girl and headed for the forest.  Just then one of the attackers changed positions and the frightened boy was horrified to see the face of his own sweet sister Tiia.  She screamed once more before the raiders silenced her with their bodies again.

         The young boy stopped in his tracks, a red fury trembling through his small body at the sight of these brutish, dirty animals pawing and plundering his beloved sister.  With a cry of rage he changed direction and lunged at the rapists, jumping on the back of the man on top and clawing at his face and eyes.

         The surprised raider grunted in pain and swatted away the small interruption before pumping his seed deep into the hot flesh squirming beneath him.  One of his companions cuffed the lad hard behind the ear, knocking the boy sensless before crawling over his unconcious body to take his turn between the girl's thighs.



         They were raping him again.  The raid on the tiny village had netted a few head of cattle, three sheep that had been butchered and eaten and a few trinkets and tools, but only three young captives.  The two sweet-fleshed maidens weren't nearly enough to go around for the band of lust-crazed raiders and those who were unable to fight their way in line for a piece of tasty maiden slaked their lusts by abusing the boy instead.  He had tried to fight but they hit him until he stopped moving and used him anyway.  He had tried refusing to walk when they broke camp to continue traveling but a big man had hit him in the stomach and tossed the boy over his beefy shoulder and strode off with the rest.  After the third day Saku had given up all hope and retreated inside himself whenever rough hands touched him.  His sister and her friend Miia had already been trained with fists and threats to do whatever their captors demanded of them.



         On the fifth day one of the scouting warriors reported a decent-sized village up ahead.  The horde were pleased with this news, as the last raid had barely been worth the bother, fun as it had been.  That evening they tied their three slaves up tightly, leaving them and the stolen goods with two guards while the rest left to wipe out the village.  The guards, two young bucks who hadn't had much chance of getting a turn at the girls before took full advantage of this oportunity, rutting with wild abandon while their victims were tied and helpless.  Young Saku could do nothing more than burrow into the autumn leaves and try not to hear the sobs and grunting going on nearby.

         Near dawn the party returned, heavily laden with stolen goods and food and dragging fresh captives with them.  From his burrow of leaves Saku could see four pretty maidens, two youngish women, three young girls and a boy Saku's own age.  Knowing full well what would come next the soul-sick boy dug himself deeper under the leaves and prayed to the spirits of forest and night for safety from these nightmares.



         As soon as he woke Saku sensed that something was different.  He rose up out of his pile of leaves to stand blinking in the bright sun at the empty camp.  The raiders and their captives were gone, leaving Saku all alone.  Someone had cut his bonds while he slept and heaped more leaves over him until he had been invisible in the early dawn.  There was a knife next to him where he had lain and he surmised that his sister must have left it when she cut his bonds and covered him from sight.  Now the young boy was free but all alone in the Endless Forest with only a knife to protect himself with and no idea which way to go.

         Someone had left a chunk of dark bread and some scorched meat by the campfire and he devoured these hungrily before setting off, following a shallow stream and the smell of smoke.



         Half an hour later he stood at the edge of a half-burned village.  It was larger than the tiny group of cottages where he had grown up and had a slightly different look to the place.  These people were not of the same hunter-gatherer tribe that Sake had been born to.  There were small fields of crops around the outskirts of the village and several pens for keeping animals.  There had even been small shops selling tools or food and clothing before the raiders and come.

         A group of men - farmers, villagers and hunters - had been talking by the well while they sharpened their weapons and prepared for battle when Saku stumbled into view.  They stood staring at the exausted boy in silence for a moment.  Then one of the men, a wild-looking bear of a man with a long beard and fur clothes with a sword at his hip scooped up a dipperful of water and knelt by the boy, who nearly fell into his strong arms.  The other men gathered 'round, asking questions and talking over each other until the big adventurer bellowed for quiet.  Slowly and painflully he extracted the boy's story in between bites of food and drink.  The gathered men became very excited when he described the campsite he had just left.  They asked lots of questions about the raiders, their habits and the prisoners they had with them.

         They decided to leave at once to find the campsite, taking Saku with them.  The big man, who called himself Tapio, gave Saku a throwing axe to carry in his belt and casually carved a slender tree trunk into a crude spear for the boy as they tracked the raiding party through the forest.



         Many long days later they were no closer to finding the marauders.  With heavy hearts the men of the village decided they must turn back.  Their families needed them, the crops and animals needed tending, their homes must be rebuilt....  One by one they turned back and disappeared until only Saku and Tapio and an old hunter called Otso were left.  No one believed the girls would be rescued anymore, but Tapio wanted to punish the raiders for offending the forest spirits, Saku wanted revenge and adventure and Otso tended to follow his nose and had nothing better to do.

         "It's all the same to me where I go" he said by the campfire that night.  "There is food to eat and a place to sleep wherever I roam."

         They spent that winter with an old trapper in his cabin.  Old Jusso told them about a group of foreign traders he had found slaughtered in the forest.  He had buried the hacked-up bodies of seven men and one red-haired woman.  In the midst of the death and destruction he had discovered a tiny girl child, whom he had brought home to raise as his own daughter.  She was an adorable flame-haired little wood nymph named Taru, who charmed everyone.  She would often crawl into bed with Saku in the middle of the night when the nightmares kept him awake and they would sleep peacefully together until the dawn came to chase away the dreams.

         In the early spring Otso fell asleep and never woke up again.  They buried him beneath a rowan tree at the edge of the clearing.  When the weather was good enough for travel the two adventurers took up the trail again, disappearing into the misty Endless Forest and memory.