THE END OF BEGINNINGS

SEVENTEEN (Part 1)

The villagers in the plaza may not have heard the warning blasts of the sentry's horn, but the devastating sound of one of their gates exploding open brought the excited festivities to a chilling halt.  Every head turned at once to look in the direction of the unsettling commotion.  Sidonia, and her daughter Gerania, gasped with alarm.  Both knew that Geras was somewhere near the unfolding chaos.  Across the crowded plaza, the massive mobile platform had come to a stop just behind one side of the altar.  Moros took a trembling step away from his spot at the heavy cart.  His wide eyes were trying to see through the rows of huts separating himself and the epicenter of the echoing clamor.
He couldn't see it, but he knew a second dea'esh was heading right for that crystal-lit place.  The teenager looked at the frightened crowd, then behind him at the half-conscious creature strapped down on the cart.  The beast's open eye was still watching him.  Moros' chest heaved uneasily before he rushed back to the oversized wagon.  He had an idea.  He just didn't know if it was a good one.

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Geras lifted his head off the dark dirt.  His ears rang from the deafening cacophony of the powerful beast's pouncing body pummeling through the timber-made gate.  Geras was thankful to be alive.  He had thought the angry dea'esh was lunging for him.  Instead, it had turned its big body into an unstoppable battering ram.  Now, it was in the village.  Now, his family was in danger.
Geras was on his feet before the dust and splinters of the ruined barrier had settled to the ground.  He was running before the echo of the destruction had faded from his ears.  His gait was already a panicked sprint behind the furious predator.  Geras was a leap away from the hunter's hairy tail.  He readied himself to jump at it.  He was going to latch on, to use all of his strength to stop it...or, at the very least, distract it.
The dea'esh sensed the man behind itself.  It snapped its tail, whipping the appendage stiffly back like a barb-lined cord.  Geras halted with an inch to spare.  He could feel a torrent of warm air rush off the blunt tail that certainly would have struck him.  He glimpsed the dense, taught muscles under the fury skin.  He could see the long hairs that stuck out from its length, each one as straight and sharp as a knife.
While the move had brought Geras to a rapid stop, the dea'esh kept going.  It veered suddenly to the left.  There was a hut there.  The stout building of wood, thatch, and hide erupted into a cloud of shredded, splintered wreckage.  To the powerful beast, the little building might as well not have been there at all.  It roared into the night before crashing through another hut, and then another.  Its course now had it heading for the plaza again.  Geras did his best to keep up with the animal, running parallel with it through the village.
Screams met the charging beast as those who had stayed away from the ceremony darted out of the creature's path as fast as they could.  Geras saw villagers hit the ground, their bloodied bodies rolling away from the wreckage of their homes.  He shifted his course, running perpendicular to the plaza.  There were young and old Aganni alike trying to pick themselves up from the trampled huts.  They were shouting and moaning.  A child in the upturned dirt was barely moving.
Geras slid to the spot where the child was lying.  One of the little girl's legs was crushed and bent in a direction it wasn't meant to go.  Without looking up from her, Geras ordered the villagers staggering around him to look away.  He pressed his hands against the shaking youth, her eyes already rolled back into her head as the little body was overtaken by shock.  Geras breathed deeply, finding his focus as fast as he could.  His right hand was on the child's muddy brow.  His left hand was on her broken, bleeding, and disjointed leg.  A shuttered energy inside of Geras quickly awakened.  He pushed it outward, embracing it at the same time it seemed to embrace him. 
He did his best to wrap the child's mind and thoughts in a comforting warmth while he moved his left hand rapidly, jerking the leg back into its proper orientation.  The energy inside him surged downward through his arm and into his hand.  It poured from his palm he kept pressed firmly against the fracture.  Geras could feel the shattered marrow beginning to reach out and reconnect.  The damaged cartilage was reforming under his grip.  The torn flesh was beginning to mend.
Beyond the broken huts, a new chorus of screams flooded the night.  The dea'esh roared loudly again, its booming call thundering sharply through the village.  Geras looked up from the girl.  Her body had stopped violently shaking.  Her pain had eased as low as Geras could send it for now.  There was still healing to be done, but he couldn't stay there any longer. 
"You," he shouted quickly to one of the nearby villagers.  "Sit here with her.  You," Geras said sternly, pointing a finger at an older man, "get something to wrap her leg.  Keep it straight.  Everyone else, stay away from the holy place!"
Another noise made Geras look up toward the sky.  He recognized the high-pitched sound instantly.  He was simultaneously angry and relieved when the little sphere rocketed past.  It was racing toward the plaza, to the frightened screams that now filled the holy place where there had only been joyous excitement a few minutes earlier.
Geras stood up.  He took one last look at the little girl laying still on the ground.  Her eyes blinked weakly.  She was going to be okay.  Without another word, Geras turned toward the village, sprinting the short distance left to run.  He could only hope he wasn't too late to save his own family.