Castroph rocked himself awake. Eyes scoured his surroundings. Before he could make any strong conclusions his head hit a wooden wall.
"Uhh!" 'That hurt.'
"So, you are alive," voiced by someone who held melody and harshness in its lifetime.
Castroph immediately tried to sit up. It was immediately brought to his attention how badly his body was damaged.
Crashing down a finger up from ground hurt him more than he had ever felt hurt during training in Cleaving. Let alone his imprisonment in Rigac.
"Rest well," said the same person. "We are far away from Rigac. Noria and Leous are doing the final rites at the mounds."
Disoriented Castroph caught the last word. "Mounds?" He tried blinking his eyes to adjust them.
The other person flicked open a lock. Light poured in. Orna continued, "I am Orna."
Taking a raggedy breath Castroph pushed. "Ok, what mounds?!" He knew what use a mound will be of if the sentence had the phrase 'last rites.'
Orna nodded. "Thank you on their behalf."
Castroph confused. "That's not what I asked!" Orna simply smiled.
Orna looked out of the window he had opened. "Yes," he contemplated conversations he shall have. "Do you wish to be more than a Knight?"
If Castroph could have moved, he would have probably started attacking Orna. A futile action nonetheless even by his own perspective. His perspective after all told him a simple truth.
'I will die if I even am able to land a scratch on him.'
The man's white hair told of the years he had seen. Castroph in contrast held dark hair which he believed were never truly black except others always called it so.
Orna spoke, "You have a graceful chin, Castroph."
Castroph was just comparing Orna's chin to his.
"Huh!?"
The door to the wooden cart opened. A young lady brought two bowls of mixed soup. "Here it is Priest Orna as you requested." She glanced at Castroph, jumping in shock of the glare the boy had at her.
"He-he is …awake. Should I call Priest Noria?"
"Hanu, I am not a priest." Orna gave a gentle grin, "She already knows, but she needs to perform the rites for all the thousands of dead victims Castroph brought." He turned his head back to look out of the window.
"They-they-they were… were not dead!" A tear rolled down the side of Castroph's face.
"Maybe, they weren't when inside the weird fog," Orna had doubts on what the fog was truly. He did not like calling it as weird.
"It couldn't have been-!"
"Its been 3 days," Hanu cut in, "since you brought anyone you could have saved." Her tempo dropped with every word to a mere whisper.
She had recognized few of her long lost pen pals among the deceased.
"Hanu, how is everyone else doing? The ones who still hadn't woken up." It was a gentle nudge verbally; Hanu caught it unknowingly. "Ah, I haven't been to the back of the caravan so…um, I don't know about that." She forced a cheerful glee. "But everyone else is…is…"
"It's ok. Go and stay by them. Leous will also prefer if there were more," taking a silent breath, "to help remember the lost."
Every part of the simple back and forth, it stung. It stung all three uniquely.
Leous in the meantime, she stood above a dreaded pit she had carved in the night. Each moment she had spent ploughing it, she heard the night whisper to her.
She learned of the words the dead won't get to say again. The darkness ate the warmth they once held. Sweet and sour and bitter memories of her own life came and went.
Light hadn't crossed over the horizon yet. Her eyes instinctively chose to wander to the far morning's horizon for every swing of her shovel. Stars were of no help but be a glimmer.
A weathered dirty hand patted her shoulder, Leous eased around facing Noria. Noria too had tear marks on her gentle face.
Leous wished to say something. Anything.
Words died in her throat. Only feelings crawled out.
"Let's put the next three hundred," Noria's lips, mouth and throat, all of them were dried, "to their… resting place."
Having a shivering breath, Leous nodded. The shovel Noria had given to her clattered down. It was the fifth shovel to break.
A quiet solace wrapped Noria for she read the final rites for every single Rigac citizen. Leous wasn't.
Only a silence grabbed on her back, while numb held her hands. She had to move despite that.
'I am a knight. Not a Skyact guard. A knight.' Her ungloved hands made a fist each.
Castroph however was nearly in shock. He had learned they have travelled quite far even by his own estimations. The distance the entire caravan of thousands dead bodies, hundreds of survivors and their belongings had covered was equivalent to a three weeks of travel by a pulled carriage.
"How?" Disbelief running under his skin.
"We found an abandoned dismantled cart probably made in Cleaving," Orna fed him another spoonful of soup. Gulping it down, he was about to ask.
"We, uh, don't know, but we do understand how it works." Orna took a spoonful too.
Castroph puzzled, "I haven't even asked!"
"You are a knight." Orna stated matter of factly.
"Yes, so?"
"I am …uh, two stages ahead."
He didn't understand. 'What stages?'
Orna's eyes did not leave the stars he pondered of. Only his arm moved instinctively to feed Castroph.
Both did not pay attention when Hanu returned. She sat down right outside the tiny window of the wooden cart gazing up at the same sky a self-proclaimed artist plunged his imagination into.
Multiple thoughts ran in the ones who had woken up. The ones who hadn't were many more. All caught in a reverie, no, an elegy of what could have been.
Did any know who had been responsible for the tragedy of their life? Some blamed the monarch, some blamed the mysterious hooligans that had attacked the cathedral, and a rare few believed in the messenger delivering repentance.