Chief Rider of the Inja Army Merrik Caspar left the celebrations in honor of the weary group and its young saviors to the private confines of his temporary home. He had no time for such pomp. There was much to get done before the meeting tomorrow between the three young upstarts and his superiors. He had been chosen as the go-between specifically because he had been to Tan Torna Qu-ay, and his commanders all agreed someone who could drop some local landmark names and not be completely ignorant to their homeland was the best choice. He hoped they were right. Too much was riding on their trust, especially the one named Johan and his knife.
Caspar knew nothing of this ‘magic’ knife other than that it was important to the War and Glory Council of Bankoor and its leader, the man who it could be said was really in charge, Auron Bree. Auron was an enigma to Caspar, and indeed most who met him. He had come to Bankoor forty years prior as a young man with some of the first groups to actively travel down from the northwestern side of the Blood Sea, a place that at the time was still terribly different and taboo.
When Auron and his group came, they helped establish the first War and Glory Council to ward off enemies, though at the time it had been the Westlanders that they were afraid of. As more and more new and frightening technology came from places farther and farther away, it became obvious the Westlanders were not to be feared anymore. Although terribly fierce, they simply lacked the new abilities Bankoor and its people now controlled. The War and Glory Council and Auron Bree remained in case other, more threatening enemies appeared.
Await trouble long enough and trouble will find you.
Caspar was a proud member of the Riders of the Inja Army and would serve his duties therein until struck down in battle. He’d been chosen as the Riders’ military advisor to Bree and had served that post for two years.
So it was that he was selected to speak with the group and its young heroes. Their messenger had barely been in the city for an hour when word of his arrival and story of those he rode with, as well as the plan and the need to send Caspar to them, came to Caspar’s ears. He assumed it meant that those above him knew twice as quickly and made their plan instantly.
He collected his needed items in his barren home, a place he’d been given as a temporary residence as he served in Bankoor where he’d been since his advisory position began. His home village was far south of here, on the shores of the great ocean, ground zero to this new attack. Although he knew his home was destroyed and many killed needlessly, he took solace in the fact that he had brought his wife and child with him when he was called away. Another glorious appearance of the small miracle.
His wife and daughter were off at a friend’s for the night, knowing Caspar would be busy and not want to disturb them or they him. The house, a modest sized place with little in the way of accoutrements and knick-knacks anywhere, was no closer to being home to him than it was before he got the news of his village, but it was the best he had now.
He prepared for bed, pondering the situation. What did the W.G.C. want with Johan and a ‘magic’ knife? Or any of them for that matter? What of the missing one, the one rumored to have wings? These questions were treading dangerously close to the ‘things too big for Merrik Caspar to think about’ territory and that worried him.
As he lay down to sleep, one thing worried him the most: Johan Otan’co and his brazen statement after their first encounter together.
The lad was young but had seen much in his short time. He was too strong of will to ignore. He wondered if the W.G.C. knew this. Did they see them all as puppets to control or allies to gain the trust of? He was very much afraid that if it was the previous, then Johan and his statement were going to turn out very, very true. He wouldn’t like the results if the W.G.C. ‘fucked’ with them.
If it was as it seemed and the War and Glory Council did plan on trying to manipulate them to their own wishes, they were going to be sorely disappointed. And, if as rumors suggested, the war did eventually make it here to Bankoor and the battle was on his doorstep, he hated to think their need of Johan or his knife was the only plan they had to stop this new threat if it came this far.
He was a man of great honor. He respected what that brave group had been through to get here. He hoped for them to rest and be at peace. He didn’t want some bureaucrat trying to screw around with any of them for their own gain. And if his impressions of Johan and Esgona were as accurate as he thought they were, the W.G.C. was about to meet a very real and very dangerous brick wall of willpower.
HUMOR
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There was nothing funny about this at all. Nothing had gone to plan. Well, not his anyway. His home and work from the last major part of his life were lost, his forces to the south were in total disarray, his troops to the north were fighting against a much better prepared and skilled opponent than he had expected to meet so soon, his ace-in-the-hole brute squad of Embracers were suddenly very, very vulnerable, and these were just the recent developments. He wasn’t
