“I’d like you boys to accompany us,” Caspar continued, “the Turtle in the lead, as we head back to Bankoor to get you and your companions a decent meal, a solid bed to sleep in, and a hero’s welcome.”
Although all sounded too good to be true, Johan still had to speak up. “Um, thank you sir, but where?”
Chief Rider Caspar looked at him, understanding dawning on his face. “Bankoor, the city you and yours have been questing for.” Blank faces on the two. “Really? All this time and trouble and you didn’t even know the name of the place you were going. Simply amazing.”
They’d never given it much thought to be honest. They didn’t even know there was a city for certain when they set out. The rumors simply made them assume as much. Looking back on it, it did seem somewhat foolish, but given their options, what else could they do?
A name given their destination, as well as promises that sounded like they had been cut from a dream, they agreed to what Caspar was saying and began to head out with the rest of the meager troop.
They descended the small rise they were perched on, looking out over this new landscape and the life it held and began the trip to the road on the shores of the Blood Sea and the city of Bankoor. Not a word was heard from any of the group except for the newcomers leading the way. The rest knew it was no time for talk; it was a time for reflection.
So they went on in silence, bad memories in tow.
-----------------------
In the quiet of the evening, the sun close to the horizon once more after its journey to the west, two things of great importance happened to Johan Otan’co. Things that could help shape the man he would become in the hard years ahead, years that could see him travel far and see much. Things that may give him just enough strength to see each hard and painful task ahead to the end. All of this was only if he lived through the coming storm, of course. It’s a shame people rarely meet these moments head on, never realizing what they are until years afterwards. Esgona had met many situations that defined him face first, from the capture at the hands of the Army of the Old to the torture of watching his one friend Hogope murdered, to the destruction of his home and the privileged life it ensured.
Johan would never look back on these two important things for what they were. Perhaps it was the part of him that was the hero, taking each development in stride as if what was happening, good or bad, was as it was meant to be.
He was walking along the side of the Turtle. They’d pushed through lunch and had met up with the large road that led south to Bankoor and north to who-knew-where. They met many others coming and going in a hurried fashion. There were far more leaving the south than were entering, a fact no one missed.
Most they passed were much like themselves, little changing in appearance or modes of transportation.
Others were very different. Perhaps even frighteningly so, had this group not just walked through the bowels of Hell. Some people passed them in powered carts much faster and nimbler than the ones they had seen in their lives. Others rode on single-person vehicles with small wheels that ripped past them like a streak. Nothing was horribly out of place here, at least not yet, but the slight advances in transportation and the ever-increasing number of people they saw began to put many of the long walkers at unease.
The sun was very close to setting. Johan was simply staring blankly ahead, praying for a view of the city he thought may never show up, when his hand was taken into another and he looked around to see the tired-yet-still-beautiful face of Seraphina Langley, looking ahead longingly, much as he had been a moment before. He turned back forward, enjoying her return, waiting for her to speak but understanding if she chose not to. There was a lot going on in her mind, and he wasn’t about to make things worse by doing something dumb like speaking.
“Why make the deal, Johan?” Her voice was calm, not accusatory. She seemed to simply want an answer. “So many dead. So many injured, my father among them. Yet you chose to spare them when you had an advantage. Why?”
A good question. He’d thought about the deal from a week ago very much. Although it may not seem to have been the most logical answer, he was quite certain that he’d come upon an answer he could live with.
“Because I believe Skerd. I believe him if he says he’s willing to start a war with people over this knife. They clearly had the advantage, but still they stopped when he told them to. Stalkers don’t just stop. It was something so much more to them. And even if I’d killed him, which I doubt I could have, then we all would have died. If I live through what’s to come, it seemed a small price to pay to have to return. It was an easy choice.”
She nodded but continued to look forward at everything and nothing. “And what about the knife? This is twice now it’s saved our lives.” In the days after the Thunder Run, Johan had told Seraphina about what he’d seen when he saved her.
“It’s obviously
