[center] ================= [i]Earlier That Day[/i] ================= [/center] “It’s come to Minorhold.” Shikoba Athanasi listened to the words and felt his heart sink just a little lower on the downward journey it had begun seven weeks previously. “The plague”, continued the man speaking to him, “it’s come to Minorhold. They’ve closed the gates to the city; the whole place is locked up tight, but there’re more of [i]them[/i] showing up each day.” Shikoba could hear the man’s fear and loathing as he spit out the word [i]them[/i] – and he knew without asking precisely what the man was referring to. The plague-stricken. “Ha!”, scoffed the man’s travelling companion, who’d listened to his friend silently up to that point but now interjected. “Each [i]hour[/i], is more like it!” “True enough”, replied the first man listlessly. The two men spoke with an air of fatalistic finality and indifference that sent chills up the spine of the little old man listening to them. As if the world had already ended and there wasn’t anything to be done about it, except perhaps to cluck one’s tongue in disappointment and say “oh, well that’s really too bad then, isn’t it?” The two men addressing Shikoba Athanasi were on horseback and were, by their own account, making their way south in an effort to escape the Black Blood Plague. They’d stopped to speak with the old man as they’d ridden by, as any news at all was useful in these dangerous days, but they’d been disappointed to learn that Shikoba was heading to The Cross Roads himself and could only tell them what they already knew: the Plague was coming, and it had already overrun the entire north region of the peninsular. [color=ffd700]“Were they able to get all of the villagers in the surrounding countryside inside of the walls in time?”[/color] asked Shikoba. “I dunno, dad”, replied the second man, a bit disrespectfully, “we was too busy [i]getting the hell outta there[/i] to stop an’ check.” “There’d been a stream of folks passing through the gates for a coupl’a days afore we left, granddad”, added the first man, rather more respectfully. “I expect most folks got inside alright.” Shikoba Athanasi simply nodded his head sadly as both men spoke their piece. He felt his gut clench as he thought of what it must have been like in those final moments before Minorhold’s gates clanged shut – and hoped they’d actually closed them in time! – along with a sense of relief that he hadn’t been there to see it. The relief was, of course, followed upon immediately by a sense of guilt over his own selfishness at feeling happy that he was still alive and not locked away in a city surrounded by animalistic cannibals. The guilt of the survivor; he’d experienced it before, in the wars of his youth, and he knew from those experiences that it would be a while before it ceased to trouble him as greatly as it had done these past several weeks. [color=gold]“Have you seen a boy?”[/color] Shikoba asked. [color=gold]“Of the northern people – like myself – he’s about fifteen”[/color], the old man went on, [color=gold]“with long, dark hair, and the markings of his tribe on both cheeks.”[/color] Shikoba pointed at his own wrinkled and leathery cheeks, just under both eyes, with his index and middle finger as he spoke. He tried to keep the worry, hope, and desperation out of his voice. “We seen lotsa boys these last few days”, scoffed the second man. “More’n a few of ‘em looked like they wanted t’[i]eat[/i] us!” His companion looked askance at him and then back to the old man. “We’ve seen no one who matched your description, granddad. But with all the folk entering Minorhold when we left, he coulda been one of them, and we aren’t like to’ve noticed.” Once again, Shikoba acknowledged their words with a silent nod. [color=gold]"My thanks to you both for taking the time to speak with an old man such as I. I'll not hold you up any longer - please! Be on your way, and may the Wind herself aid you as you go."[/color] Shikoba looked both men in the eyes and offered them a grandfatherly smile. [color=gold]“Perhaps I’ll see you both again at The Cross Roads.”[/color] The first rider offered what seemed to be heartfelt thanks at Shikoba's kind words and benediction, but the second looked unimpressed as he hacked and spit to one side of his horse. “What’cha headin’ there fer, anyway?” he asked with his now-characteristically disrespectful tone. Then, mischievously and in a blatantly mocking way: “Gonna join that [i]Cone-sanno[/i] thingummy, are ya?” [color=gold]“Consano?”[/color] asked Shikoba Athanasi. [color=gold]“Is that the name of the Vasili-king’s expedition to find the cause of the Plague and put a stop to it?”[/color] “Aye, it is”, offered the first man, before his companion could get in another of his jibes at the ancient hermit’s expense. [color=gold]“Ah”[/color], Shikoba said. [color=gold]“Then yes, I am thinking of offering them my help.”[/color]