34 Hero

  Sara was wondering just for a moment why they would assume that she had to be good, but understanding the legends, she nodded to herself. Yes, anyone associated with a dragon would be one to sacrifice themselves to save others.

  As she heard the men dragging Abba-Avi out of the house, she cringed and asked herself, are you willing to do that?

  If the captain's threat was real, he was going to kill not just Abba-Avi but slowly kill people throughout the village until she surrendered. There was no choice. Sara could not let these people die.

  No matter how badly she might be needed in Rishona, she could do something here. If she became princess in her own lands again, she could make the lord and his soldiers pay with their lives, but they would still be dead. She couldn’t hide; all she could do now was save this man who had risked his life by standing up to Draco.

  Sara grabbed her things and began moving to the ladder and then climbing up the few steps. She slowly pushed aside first one board and then another, finally the floorboards. She looked around. No one was in the room, and what she saw angered her. It was worse than she expected, but she didn't have time to do anything about that. She climbed up, pulling up her bag, backpack and her staff. She shoved everything into the backpack and, without considering her own safety, walked out the back door.

  She didn't want this captain or his men to see that she was in the house. So, she walked out around the back of the house and started looking around carefully.

  She could hear the captain in the center of the town yelling, "Wherever you are, girl, surrender! The rest of you, is this stranger worth it? Surrender, the girl! Or this man dies! And within twenty minutes, if she's not found, another one of you will die."

  Then Sara heard a woman scream, “NO!”

  Sara knew from the panic in the scream, and then of crying, that it must be a child they grabbed next.

  Two words rang down the street, "Mommy! Mommy!"

  And a mother strangled cry, "Please, please don't. Not my boy. Not my boy."

  "Then find the girl. Show yourself!" Another one of the soldiers hollered.

  "Yes!" The captain hollered.

  A moment later, the captain yelled again, “Show yourself or this man dies, then the brat."

  Sara moved toward the front of the house and heard faintly the ringing of steel as a sword was removed from a sheath.

  "This is your last chance! Surrender, or this man dies!"

  Sara gritted her teeth and walked out into the middle of the road.

  "You will not kill that man!"

  The captain sneered and asked, “Why shouldn't I? He disobeyed me.”

  "First, I surrendered." Sara could see the men coming up from behind her, getting ready to grab.

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  "Second of all, if you don’t kill him, I will come with you peaceably!"

  The captain laughed, as did some of the soldiers.

  "You're coming anyway!" The captain yelled.

  "Yeah, you are," a voice came from behind her.

  Then Sara looked at the captain with her head high said, "And when I get to see your lord and I tell him that you despoiled me before I was able to meet him, what do you think he will do to you?"

  There was a pause. One of the men behind her laughed, "Ha! Who do you think he will believe?”

  “Me!” Sara said boldly, then with a sob in her voice, yelled out, “My lord, you must save me from those brutes." Sara didn't know if she was putting it on too thick, but she kept going. "They tore my clothes and my lord, you wouldn't believe what they did."

  Sara paused them continued, "The dragon trusted me with your people, and now what will Draco do because of this. He will be angry." The last words that came out were a wail, and Sara could see she guessed correctly.

  The smile that was on the captain's face quickly faded. He waved his hands at the men who were coming up behind Sara to wait and asked, "Will you swear to come peaceably if I leave these people alone?”

  “If you do not harm them or me, I will not fight you." Sara offered.

  "And how do I know you'll tell the truth?"

  Sara took a gamble and said, "I came with a dragon. Do you really think I'm going to lie to someone, even someone like you?"

  The final word came out as if the man was nothing more than a commoner or a dog along the side of the road. But Sara was pleased to see it seemed to work.

  "Fine! Come on." Captain Shedim said, dropping Abba-Avi onto the ground.

  Sara could feel the men coming up behind her. One of them reached up and started to grab her pack, and she hollered out, "No, my lord! They took my stuff, and then they."

  “Stop!” The captain waved angrily at the man behind Sara. "Leave her be!"

  And then he looked back. "You say I should believe you, but yet, you said you wouldn’t lie." A smile began to cover the captain's face as he thought he had caught her in a lie.

  Sara looked at the man and smiled. The tone in Sara's voice took a hard edge and said, "As far as I'm concerned, if you kill these people, you have despoiled my soul. If you take what is mine, you have taken spoils, or could I say you despoiled me? If your lord thinks something else happened, who am I to correct him?"

  Captain Shedim nodded. "True! Come then."

  Sara walked down the street with the two guards standing just a step beside her. She could see the men standing off the side dropping their heads. She saw a young woman grabbing her child, who had just been released. As Sara walked past the mother, she said just loud enough for Sara to hear, "Thank you, thank you."

  When she got to the center of the village, Abba-Avi just looked up and said. "My daughter, you shouldn’t have."

  Sara put her hand forth and touched him on the shoulder. "I couldn’t let you and others die. It is okay. I will be okay," Sara lied.

  Sara didn't know if she was going to be okay. She knew this: I’m a far better person for surrendering, than if I had just stood beside and watched you all be killed.

  Sara was amazed that it had only been a day, not even a full day, and she felt responsible for these people. It was as if they were the people of her nation. She smiled at the irony.

  "What's funny?" The captain said as he walked up beside her.

  "Oh, nothing you'll ever understand!"

  The captain shook his head and mumbled something that Sara didn't understand, and she was glad. He then pointed further down the street toward the waiting horses.

  Once they got down to the end of the street, they mounted their horses, and Sara mounted the horse that Abba-Nabal had ridden out of town. Then they turned and started out of town. Sara looked back, ignoring the two soldiers behind her and seeing the people standing watching her go.

  Something happened in her heart. So, this was what it was like to be the hero, she thought. Sara, for a moment, knew what it meant to be queen, to be a ruler of a people, and willing to save them as she had read in some stories.

  Sara looked ahead at the soldiers and the road. She also knew that the road of a hero was hard. She knew this form the few soldiers she had talked to and from books. She couldn't imagine what she might face. Some things were worth it, she told herself. And so, she looked back once again, to see the village and imagined the woman with her child in her arms saying, "Thank you."

  Sara smiled and looked further ahead. She didn't know what she was going to do, but she hoped. And under her breath, she muttered a prayer: "Creator, watch my path and help me to continue to do what is right.".