Returning to my tent breathing hard, I shifted through my backpack before realizing there wasn’t anything there I really wanted. I had no true personal effects. I owned no jewelry, and my parents had forbade me from writing in a journal from a young age—my father claimed it was like creating a map to our secrets for the world to see. And though I wished I hadsomething left of my brother, I didn’t. Even if I never returned to this tent, there was nothing in the bag I would miss. Nothing I would need for my new life. So, with a frown, I closed my bag again and set it on the cot before returning to the hill to meet Otho.
As he walked up, this time he definitely gave me a once-over, frowning when he noticed I carried nothing.
“You have everything you need?”
“Yes,” I replied as he gestured for me to begin walking east. “A backpack would be too suspicious, and I don’t have any mementos of my life anyway.”
He raised his eyebrows at that, but said nothing, clasping his hands behind his back as we fell into step, side by side.
We walked mostly in silence, but as the sun began to climb the sky, my nerves got the better of me and I felt questions bubbling in my chest. “Otho, can I ask you something?”
His gaze didn’t move from the ground in front of his feet. “You can, but I can’t promise I will answer.”
I thought over my question again. Did I really want to go through the embarrassment of asking and him not answering? I decided it was worse to never know. “Why did you help me? At Adis’s house, and now?”
His lips twisted to the side, and for a moment I though he wasn’t going to answer and then, “Adis and I have been . . . working together . . . for a long time. While he might mean well, I know he can get irrational at times. I never appreciated his method of reacting to everything with violence.”
“. . . says the general of his army.” I couldn’t help the joke that slipped out, and I swore I saw his lip tick up at the end. The Otho who could joke was back.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love fighting. There is something so . . . rewarding about taking someone to the ground. But I do believe in consent, something Adis overlooks.”
I furrowed my brow. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t believe in forced military service, and I wish Adiswould stop the mandatory conscription for both first and second sons. I also believe that war should be retaliatory only.”
I evaluated his words, my mind flashing back to his training. “But you said Adis initiated the war we are in right now.”
“That he did.” He dipped his chin. “And that is why we haven’t been getting along very well as of late.”
The next words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. “I don’t think there should be war at all. I think everyone should be peaceful.”
I heard what I thought was a scoff come from him. “I think that’s a naïve point of view.”
“Why?” Something blue sparkled in the distance and I knew our time together was coming to an end.
“I believe in peace too, and though I love fighting for sport, even as a general I admit a world without war would be nice, but . . .”
“But, what?” I pushed, wondering why it was so hard to get him to talk.
“All it takes is one person. One evil person to decide to break the peace and when they do, if the world is accustomed to only peace, they are immediately squashed by the evil person and he wins.”
He had a point. “So as long as there is at least one evil person in this world, even if there is only one, we can never have total peace and we have to be prepared for when that evil individual may come.”
He turned to me, his feet planting themselves in the dirt. “Exactly.” He sighed. “This is where I leave you. See those brown spots on the horizon?”
I squinted. “I think so.”
“That’s the village where their army refills their supplies. Start there.”
I nodded, looking back the way we came to see the hill we had stood on earlier that morning. It was barely a raised speck on the horizon.
“I’ll see you in five days,” he said, the tone of his voice carrying an emotion I didn’t recognize. His gaze searched my face, but he must have found what he was looking for.
“Yes, sir,” I replied, watching as he began to walk the way we had come.
He didn’t look back, and I was starting think I had made a mistake, agreeing to scout for him.
But it didn’t matter now; I had a job to do. So, I squared my shoulders and set off in the direction of the brown dots on the opposite horizon.
