Chapter 64: 64 - The Other Boot

After the first two days being stressed about leaving his family behind and feeling resentful that he’d agreed to make this trip at all, Rogue had to admit that this really wasn’t so bad. Arum was a fun guy to have around, chatty if you could hit a topic he’d read about, but also introverted and comfortable with merely working and observing their surroundings in silence.

The unit of men that were accompanying them had all been selected from Arum’s former command. It made things simple that all of these men had pre-existing command structures to work with. Rogue hadn’t really thought about it until now, but the colony was functioning as though under military rule, the automatically adopted government a direct byproduct of already well established chains of command that were as effective as they were efficient. It helped that Callida’s soldiers had been trained to be disciplined servicemen with altruistic and honorable motives and intentions, and the ones who cared enough to follow their general into the wilderness were those who’d truly internalized her training. There had been very few complaints — if any — about the ex- Lion Tribe soldiers by the civilians.

Their mission was both simple and daunting: create a trade route to the Bear Tribe so they could conduct their first round of business immediately. This meant clearing and widening narrow paths into roads, building bridges over streams and rivers, and marking the trail as they went. It was arduous, and as the days ticked by into weeks, Rogue settled into the repetitive, exhausting routine, marred only by aching muscles, blisters, and the occasional twinge of anxiety about his family back home.

And yes, the colony was home to him. Despite Callida’s continued reservations about the colony, Rogue felt more at home there than he’d ever felt in the Lion Tribe.

“Rogue, is that a campfire?” Arum asked, pointing to a wispy pillar of smoke just a little ways off.

“Kind of looks like it, doesn’t it,” Rogue said with a frown.

“Should we check it out?”

“The path leads right to it,” Rogue said, answering the semi-rhetorical question with the logic that they were going to walk past it regardless of any shoulds or shouldn’ts.

“Who would be camping this far outside of Bear Tribe territory?”

“No idea.” The conversation ended there, for which Rogue was grateful, but it wasn’t entirely truthful that he had ‘no idea’ who might be out camping. At least, he had an idea of the type of people who might travel this direction.

The smoke grew thicker as they drew closer to it. Rogue coughed. They were almost certainly using wet pine wood, an indication that they either didn’t have better firewood, or they had no idea what they were doing. The smoke led them off the path a short distance through some tall evergreen trees to a small clearing crammed full of people. Rogue took one look and could tell these people were in trouble. Travel worn, sick, desperate, scared — they were all present on the ragtag collection of dirty faces he could see.

“Who are you?”

“Excuse us,” Rogue said with a respectful nod. “We saw the smoke from your fire and came to investigate.” Rogue looked up to see an old man wearing an odd set of robes looking him over curiously.

“What is your name, son?”

“Rogue.”

“And what brings you to this land?”

“Well, I live here.”

“You live here,” the old man repeated, something in his face changing to become hopeful. “Are you from the Unified Colony?”

“The what now?”

“The colony of believers following the fulfillers of prophecy.”

“Uh….” Rogue wasn’t sure how to answer him. “I am from the colony that was recently established in these lands, yes.”

“Thank the Primordial Spirits!” the man declared loudly, falling to his knees and raising his hands up in praise. Rogue shuffled uncomfortably backwards. “Will you guide us to the colony? We also wish to follow and serve the Great Unifier. We wish to join your people!”

“How many of you are there?”

“In our company alone, there are over five hundred of us.”

“In your company. Alone.” Rogue was getting an unpleasant feeling in his gut.

“I am Vallásos, Guardian of the Turul Tribe Temple to the Primordial Spirits. That is to say, I was a Guardian at the temple. I am now merely a humble seeker of truth, as are my companions. We have met many along the way. I hope they have been more successful than we in their search. But now you are here. The Primordial Spirits have answered our prayers!”

As Vallásos talked, Rogue had but one thought: Callida was right to worry.

***

Vallásos was a kind and generous man, if a bit of an eccentric. Despite their obvious plight and lack of resources, Rogue, Arum, and their men were invited to spend the night in the camp and share a pithy meal with Vallásos’s flock of believers.

“You said you are from the Turul Tribe?” Rogue prompted over dinner.

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“Yes,” Vallásos confirmed. “We are all from the Turul Tribe. I believe we are the first to have left from the Turul Tribe, but I know my fellow Guardians were preparing their own companies of believers to follow shortly behind us. Considering how long we’ve been lost, it is possible that one of them may have beaten us to the Unified Colony.”

“You said you’ve met others along the way,” Rogue nudged him yet again, and the old Guardian smiled wistfully.

“Yes. It is as the prophecy says. The Great Unifier is destined to unite the world of man, and the people are flocking to join his colony from all over Ulakam.”

“All over Ulakam,” Rogue repeated — stunned.

“Of course! Why, we’ve met people from several tribes traveling or preparing to travel to join the Unified Colony. Some of them travel alone, others with their families, and still others, like us, in companies.”

“How many companies are we talking about here?”

“That I know of? Oh, let me think.” Vallásos spent a moment pondering and returned with “I’m not sure. Only two that were already traveling. I believe those were both from the Lion Tribe. But we passed through many towns and cities of several different tribes where others were forming. The Guardians from my home temple were each prepared to head future expeditions of the believers gathering at the temple as soon as enough people assembled to justify the pilgrimage. I’m sure it is the same in other tribes.”

Rogue’s throat was feeling dry. It would seem that Callida’s concerns about the other boot dropping were not only valid but very timely. Considering how many people Vallásos’s vague estimates suggested they might be adding to the colony in the near future, Rogue made a mental note to double or even triple the supplies and livestock wishlist Callida had sent him with. She’d assured him that they had plenty of money to fund everything, assuming he could find people selling what they were looking for in the first place. He got the feeling that he was going to be testing the limits of their bank account with these changes, though.

That night, Rogue’s sleep was troubled. Should he send this company to Callida? Should he try to dissuade them and send them home? What were the odds that these people could be discouraged? But could the colony honestly absorb this many more people? The crops they’d planted had been sown assuming a fairly stable population. He’d clearly miscalculated and misunderstood their situation.

But these people needed help, and waking up the next morning, Rogue couldn’t in good conscience not help them. “Vallásos, my men and I need to continue our mission, but, as luck would have it, we are actually working to create a clear path from the Bear Tribe to the colony. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you where the path is and what markers to look for.”

Several of Vallásos’s followers joined them on the walk through the trees. Vallásos in particular was most grateful and kept alternating between gratitude for the assistance and praise to the Primordial Spirits. Rogue did his best to ignore both.

“Here. This is the path. Follow it west, looking for markers like this,” he explained, indicating the carefully notched post they’d pounded into the ground just before following the campfire smoke to the clearing. It will take you about a week or so to get to the main camp, but Callida will help you find a place to settle.”

“Who is Callida?”

“Uh….” Rogue wasn’t sure how to introduce her. “She’s the former Lion General?”

Vallásos’s eyes grew wide with recognition and religious fervor. “The Mother of Prophecy herself will help– Oh, thank you, blessed Primordials!”

Rogue retreated from Vallásos’s zeal, feeling all sorts of weird, and he turned to his own party for help. One of the younger soldiers that he didn’t know quite so well was the first to understand the assignment. “Erm, Mr. Yudha, we need to return to–”

“Wait!” Vallásos cried. “Mr. Yudha?! You are Mr. Yudha?!”

“Uh–”

“The Great Unifier himself has come to gather the tribes of men, guiding us home!” All at once, Rogue was being worshiped — aggressively worshiped. With Vallásos’s followers on all sides, there was no escaping their imploring hands and gusty prayers. The weirdness factor multiplied until Rogue was quite disturbed.

“The Great Unifier has other things he needs to do today.” Rogue felt a hand close around his bicep and allowed himself to be yanked out of the ring of zealots and into a new ring of Arum’s men. “Please allow us to leave. We have important business to attend to — unifying business. You understand,” Arum explained to the disappointed Primordialists.

“Of course,” Vallásos accepted this explanation and called his followers back. “Certainly we are not the only people in need of the Great Unifier.”

“Right. Thank you for your patience,” Arum said by way of bowing out. “Let’s move, gents!”

“Sorry, sir,” someone whispered to Rogue’s right — the young soldier who’d called him Mr. Yudha. “I didn’t think that through.”

“It’s fine,” Rogue dismissed the apology. “For future reference, just call me Rogue.”

“Yes, sir.”

***

“Do not touch my sons!” Callida snarled viciously, and the old Guardian recalculated to instead prostrate himself humbly, if not nervously, before her.

“I meant no harm, Mother of Prophecy.”

She exhaled sharply and sank into the nearest chair, keeping a wary eye on the man in front of her. “Sit up. You said your name is Vallásos?”

“Yes.”

“You said Rogue sent you?”

The Guardian’s nervousness gave way to apparent bliss. “We met the Great Unifier on the road. He showed us the way and said you would help us.”

The muscles in her jaw twitched, and Callida massaged the tension forming in her temples. “How many people did you say were in your company?”

“A little over five hundred.”

“What resources do you bring with you?”

“Resources?”

“Seeds, animals, skills, anything that will help you survive out here.”

“Oh. I’m not sure.”

“Well, don’t you think you ought to figure that out?!” she snapped, her patience running especially thin. “Come back when you can tell me these things. You can’t live on enthusiasm out here. If you want to survive, you’re going to have to work.”

“Of course.”

“You’re dismissed.” Callida coldly watched the Guardian bow his way out the door breathing apologies and praise and gratitude in one continuous chant. With the door shut behind him, she got up to locate the recently commissioned maps of the colony and all of the settlements dotting the land. Five hundred or so people would be either one especially large settlement or two very small ones. Already July, it would be a race against time to get these people settled, gardens planted, and fields sown before the first frost, and Vallásos had made it sound like his company was the first of many latecomers.

Knock, knock.

“Come in!”

“General, what are your orders?” Baca wasted no time.

“Put together a few units. I’m going to dispatch you ahead of their company.”

“Standard building procedures?”

She snorted. “Do we have standard building procedures?”

“I mean… sort of,” Baca shrugged. “Build houses, make sure they’re attached to land for farming, establish the center of the settlement ten miles away from the next settlement over…. You know, standard procedures.”

“Get it done. Thank you, Baca.”