Leno's will (chapter 9)

“Why don’t we focus on where are going from now on?” said Judi in an attempt to break the tension.

“Excellent idea” Gregor chuckled as he walking towards aunt Mara. Ivan cut him off.

“You can stay away from her”

Aunt Mara regained her composure and she said quietly and coldly, “I vote Ivan as leader. He is one of us and we can trust him. That man may have the power of essence but come tomorrow he may abandon us for the sake of some mission.”

Everyone murmured in approval and raised their hands. Gregor simply smiled. If he was annoyed Leno could not tell. In fact it was hard to say how he was feeling Leno noted. Gregor always masked his expression with a smug smile and then whenever he was in combat or an argument he had a sinister smile. That was all.

“I don’t mind who you all follow. But at least let me be your guide. You can’t go back to the slave settlement. You saw what they were doing. All the slaves, I mean biodas as you all call them, were being massacred. Follow me and I will take you east into the land they used to call Sinatra. I will lead you further east until we reach the canyons and then beyond that is a desert where you will find the rebellion. You are all welcome.”

“We damn well better be welcome” roared old timer Joe. He lowered the cannon blaster and picked up his walking stick. “Anything we could call home was destroyed thanks to their god forsaken mission, of course, they have to welcome us.”

Ivan turned towards Gregor. “What happens when we get there?”

“You will be given a choice. You either go there as prisoners, citizens or warriors. None of you are prisoners. If any of you have the intention of fighting for our cause then you may become warriors. Otherwise you can all be citizens. You will be given shelter, food and kept safe but you will have to do some kind of work. Don’t worry it will be nothing like what you did back there. Life will be easier for you.”

With that everyone went back to their groups. Tom and the two women huddled closer to Ivan. The other man sat close enough but he still didn’t mingle with any of them. It was officially decided that Ivan was leader. Leno thought it was a little pointless but he knew why they did it. They were angry that Gregor’s mission had dictated their fates so they wanted some way to spite him. They wanted to provide some kind of difficulty for him. This wouldn’t have happened usually but since aunt Mara was angry too it didn’t help matters. Gregor had really got to her, so now she made every effort to show him contempt.

Within a day the group surfaced from the woods and were onto the plains where yellow grass grew all the way up to their waist. The shorter people felt like they were drowning. The sun was blazing and their water supplies were thin. What food they had raided had to be handed out in rations. Ivan gave some to Gregor but he often rejected most of it. They didn’t cover much distance in the first few days because of their odd travel pattern. Gregor told them that during the day the crimson sun was too warm for them to travel out in such a vast plain land. But he also warned them that during the night all sorts of nasty animals were on the loose. So a compromise was made where they travelled after midday until sunset. It was not much hours but they soon began to pick up the pace.

Although food and water was beginning to thin out, they had a good variety of medicine. In terms of weapons they had two cannon blasters that Ivan and Joe were armed with. They also had a lava spear. It was an upgraded spear which would become molten hot at the tip thanks to the energy supplied from a small fragment of a core. The spear was manned by Tom who seemed to be on good terms with Ivan. Much to Leno’s surprise it turned out the two women were sisters. The older one was called Lisa and the younger was called Alisa. They looked nothing alike and they were almost five years apart.

Since they were out in the open they all camped in a huge group. This made little time for personal conversations so Leno didn’t have the trouble of having to console Mika and Judi yet. No one talked much during the first few days. But the conversations began to start up soon enough.

Judi walked over to the other man and said, “Hallo, I am Judi, I noticed you are always distant. You don’t have to be. We are all in this together. That’s Leno; he is weird and curious so he may ask a lot of questions. Then there is Mika who will care too much so he may come off the wrong way. That short woman is aunt Mara, if she cares about you she will shout at you a lot. You’ve met Ivan; he is funny and kind although his eyes make him look all serious. Old Timer Joe is normal apart from the fact that he bursts out laughing randomly. Tyson is arrogant but actually that’s all there is to him. Woody gossips a lot and is timid…”

Leno and Mika watched her babbling on and they both thought And Judi talks a lot but she never realises. With that almost everyone in the group got on with each other and the journeys became easy going.  

One evening as everyone made camp Gregor announced, “Tomorrow we will arrive at the river of Nations. We can refill our water and we may even stock up on food supplies. After that we will travel at right angles to the river. The reason we can’t simply follow the river is that it is too obvious and we may risk running into unwanted company. For that reason we will travel back into the plain lands during one day and then make our way back the next. It will be easier from here on out. We are nearing the borders of Sinatra.”

After he finished Gregor went to make his camp. He didn’t expect any nods or replies since he had been practically side lined since the first day.

The next morning Leno found himself awake before everyone else. He heard a noise in the distance. Rising up he slowly crept towards it. When he came near he realised it was Gregor picking at some of the grass. Gregor must have heard him coming because he beckoned him to come closer. As leno made his way he couldn’t help feeling a little vulnerable like he had the first time they had met in the tunnels. That moment felt like it had happened many ages ago.

“Up early are we?”

“I… well… can I ask you something?”

“Go on”

“What was that green thing in the sky; you know when the sky was burning? Why did the land suddenly stop being flat?”

“It’s called green gas. It has some more complex name but I don’t care to know. It is one of many inventions made by the race of metal. Green gas has the ability to shift the norm into the opposite. The lands around the slave settlement were actually full of hills and woods but the gas made it look like they were flat. We tragically discovered green gas when we went climbing a mountain. We thought the mountain was easy to climb but it turned out it was steep and jagged and full of loose rocks. The machine tipped the rocks on us and attacked. I and five others were the only survivors. We informed our commanders and they soon figured out that green gas had been invented. The race of machine developed the gas from one of their laboratories in some slave settlement. They studied things that trick the human eyes and then made a gas that could imitate that trick. But as you saw the gas was highly flammable hence when the fire caught on all of it burnt up.”

Leno remained quiet. He was both in awe and shock. It was amazing that such a thing existed yet it made him suspicious of reality. He wondered of all the things that it could distort.

“May I ask you something?”

Leno was startled out of his daydream. What would Gregor want to know from him? Leno nodded.

“That golden hair, rich tan, sapphire yes, who are you?”

The question startled Leno. His past was something he did not dwell on. No one had ever questioned each other’s past in the slave settlement. Yet it all came bounding back to him. How did Gregor know who he was? But then it dawned on Leno that Gregor was the son of a lord too. Of course he would know.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to”

They both heard yawns back at the camp. Gregor smiled.

“You better go back before they realise you were talking with me. They are still very angry at me”

“Don’t you feel annoyed?”

“I am used to it. I lost everything dear to me a long time ago. Now I just follow orders for the good of the future, at least that’s what I tell myself. My heart turned to stone long ago. Go now”

With that Leno walked away back to his friends. The closest camp lay not far from where Gregor and Leno had been talking. And on that mattress lay Mika, eyes wide awake. Who are you Leno? He thought.

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