“Let’s move off the road — actually, let’s hop on down into the ditch!” Zan said.

“Agreed! We don’t know who these people are, and we really should not wait around expecting them to be friendly,” Jiehong said.

Doing so, Zan and Jiehong saw a steady steam of horse-bound warriors gallop through the road they had just been on. Able to see more of their banners up close, Zan still did not recognize any of them. Not like he would, he reminded himself. He knew nothing of anything in the grand and wide world.

Minutes passed, and Zan and Jiehong remained in the ditch.

Any time now, Zan thought with increasing bitterness, his neck tiring from being careened upward.

“Finally,” Jiehong muttered, seeing the last of the riders pass.

Climbing back onto the road, Zan asked, “What was all that about?”

“I dunno… but if we follow them, we should be able to find out.”

Zan shook his head. With sleep off the table and no other course of action clear, there wasn’t any reason to not follow the riders, though Zan told himself he would exercise caution.

The two followed the riders further and further… until they couldn’t follow anymore. Long out of sight, the riders only left the imprint of horses. Zan continued to follow whilst the morning sun rose.

“I’m so tired…” Jiehong said, not trying to hide anything anymore.

“You’re in luck. There is a village over there,” Zan pointed out.

And so there was a village. A tiny one of only a few huts, likely an outlying tributary to a larger village network. Zan perked at the thought. People! And where there were people, there were beds! Or at least a safe space to sleep.

Passing through the village, both following the trail to Feathervale, and, as a bonus, the mysterious trail left by the riders, Zan and Jiehong stopped while they passed through the village. They had to show the locals they meant no harm.

“Greetings!” Jiehong said, going into diplomat mode.

Jiehong introduced them and the locals… did not seem to care.

Zan saw little change in their expressions as Jiehong’s overly elaborate introduction fell on uncaring ears.

Asking where they could sleep, an elderly villagers waved them, vaguely, into the direction of a hut.

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Entering the hut, they found it empty of all belongings.

It was a guest hut.

Empty with only two sleeping mats of crude make resting on the floor, this hut, Zan noted, did not differ from the guest hut in his own village, before its destruction.

“Should one of us stand watch as the other sleeps?” Jiehong asked.

“If you want to take the first watch, go ahead. I am too tired to care. These are our people, Jiehong. I really don’t think they are going to rob us,” Zan said.

“Maybe not, but what if…” not finishing his sentence, Jiehong waved himself off. “Nevermind,” he said. “Let’s just go to bed.”

Zan and Jiehong slept without issue, and they slept well. Deep, they rose with a few clicks in their bones and pains in the skin. Sleeping on the hard ground, only a thin cotton layer as a ‘mattress,’ was not ideal.

With their minds rested, and nothing from their personage stolen, the pair left the tent in the same condition as the village presented it to them. Their accommodations might have been plain, but such was no excuse for rudeness.

“Excuse me,” Zan said, his morning energy making him more sociable than usual.

A villager stopped what they were doing, though they were reluctant to meet either Zan or Jiehong’s gaze.

“We are leaving. Before we left, we had a question. Do you know who those people on the horses were? The ones who passed through the other day, who left the hoof prints?”

The villager did not stop to make small talk. Though he answered. “Rebels,” it was all he said.

Thanking the man, Zan and Jiehong went on their way.

Not wanting to speak while still within earshot, Zan and Jiehong kept a quick pace to gossip sooner. Ten minutes of cautious travel later and Zan spoke first. “More rebels, huh?”

“Looks like it,” Jiehong replied.

“What does this mean?”

“I have no clue. You think I would know because my parents have connections and they seem to know people you wouldn’t expect, but I know nothing about these rebels or what? My parents never talked about a situation like this, assuming they knew about this rebel activity. Maybe they didn’t? I don’t know…”

Jiehong continued to muse aloud. Zan had no interest in his matter, no matter how he cut his mental chunks.

Pinging his earpiece, Zan spoke and asked the Wardens how much further to Feathervale.

“Most of a day’s travel, Zan. Continue the pace. You are making good time,” Sigma-Prime said.

“What’s the verdict?” Jie asked.

“Same as ever — marching and marching! If we push ourselves, we should — wait, I am getting a ping from them. Hold,” Zan said, pressing his earpiece’s button again and hearing the pre-recorded message which played when a lodestone was near.

“A lodestone is near,” Zan confirmed, releasing his finger from the piece.

“Shit. Really? Let’s find it, then,” Jiehong said.

Spreading into the wilderness, the two boys searched their surroundings for the lodestone. It was slow work. The lodestone could be anywhere. Under some moss, under a rock, lodged in a tree, or even in the gut of some large creature, though Zan wished upon every star in the heaven he did not have to cut open any predator.

“Find anything? No. I know. Me either,” Zan said.

Jiehong threw his arms up. “What can we do? Continue to look?”

“I think we have to… those stones are important, right? Without them, we are going to be walking the whole time.”

Thinking over such a fate for as long as he was a Ranger-Knight, Jiehong’s face soured as if he realized the bit of cocoa he eat was actually a weasel turd. “Let’s find that freaking stone,” Jiehong said.

Splitting up again, the two resumed their search for the lodestone.

An hour of fruitless searching elapsed with nothing to show for it.

Finding his way to a forest clearing, Zan corrected himself. ‘No, not nothing,’ he told himself, and thanked the gods.

Standing in the clearing, claiming a kill, carving it to eat later, stood Whiskey.