New Journey

The tarn cries before dawn.

I stand at the gate of my home, the palisade dark against the grey sky. Behind me, the hearth smoke still rises from the hall where my father sleeps. Before me, the road winds down to the river, and beyond it, the wide world of Gor.

My pack is light: a short sword, a shield, dried bosk meat, a waterskin, and the small, smooth stone I carried from the river as a boy. I do not look back at the Home Stone. A warrior does not weep when he leaves it; he carries it in his chest.

The wind is cold off the Voltai. Somewhere, a larl roars in the distance. My boots crunch on the frost.

I am Warrior of no city now, only of the road. What waits for me — honor, or the cold earth — I do not know.

Ortossi

The name hangs in the cold air as you speak it, and the gate guard nods once, solemnly, and steps aside. No songs. No farewell feast. That is the way of warriors who leave by choice and not by exile — quiet, before the city wakes.

Your boots are already dusty from the road, Ortossi. The sun is a thin copper line over the Voltai now. Behind you, the walls of your home grow smaller with each step. Ahead, the trade 

The wind tugs at your cloak. Your hand rests, by old habit, on the hilt of your sword.

Which road does Ortossi take, and what does he carry in his heart as he leaves his Home Stone behind — duty, vengeance, or hunger for something greater?

Straight ahead.

You do not hesitate, Ortossi Ven'dara. Duty is a heavier pack than any sword, and you shoulder it without a word.

The mist closes around you as you leave the fork behind. The sounds of the city — the hammer of the smith, the cry of the tarn keepers — fade. Now there is only the crunch of your boots on gravel, your own breath, and the distant drip of water from the black pines that line the road.

By midday the mist thins. You crest the ridge.

Below you lies a valley you have never seen on any map. A small village huddles by a stream, its palisade broken in two places. Thin columns of smoke rise — not hearth smoke, but the acrid black of burning thatch. No bells ring. No warriors stand on the wall.

On the road below, a boy, no more than fourteen, runs toward you. His face is streaked with soot. He sees your sword, your bearing, and falls to his knees in the mud.

"Warrior!" he gasps. "Please — they came at dawn. We have no swords left. My father is dead at the gate. Will you — will you stand with us?"

Your duty called you to the mist, Ortossi. It seems the mist has answered.

You look at the boy in the mud. You look at the broken palisade. You look at the smoke.

Then you look back to the road, straight ahead, where the mist still lingers in the hollows.

"Duty," you say quietly, more to yourself than to him.

You step around him. Your boots do not stop.

Behind you, you hear his breath catch — not a sob, but the sound a child makes when he understands that no rescue is coming. He does not call after you again. He gets to his feet and runs back toward the burning village, small and alone against the smoke.

The road climbs again. The pines grow thicker. The air grows colder.

By evening, you make camp in a hollow of stone, as warriors do, with your back to the rock and your sword across your knees. You eat your dried bosk in silence. The fire is small.

But sleep does not come easily, Ortossi . Every time the wind moves in the branches, for a moment it sounds like a boy's voice on the road behind you.

Dawn will come. The road still runs straight ahead into the unknown, as you chose.

Do you press on at first light without looking back, or does duty wear a different face in the morning?

You speak the word into the dying fire like an oath renewed. It steadies your hand. It stills the wind-voices.

At first light you bury the coals, shoulder your pack, and walk on. You do not look back toward the valley. The smoke from yesterday is gone from the sky — either the fires burned out, or the village did.

The road narrows. The pines give way to bare, grey rock. By noon you reach a cairn of stones at a crossroads no map remembers. Tied to the top stone with a strip of red cloth is a warrior's helmet, dented, empty.

Beneath it, scratched into the rock, are three words in the common script:

Someone else walked straight ahead before you, Ortossi  Someone else chose duty over the cry for help.

Piled beside the cairn are offerings from travelers: a broken tarn-goad, a rusted manacle, a child's wooden sword.

The wind picks up. The red cloth snaps.

Your duty is not yet clear, but the road is. It climbs higher into the mountains, where the air is thin and the path is marked only by these cairns.

Do you add your own offering to the stones and climb, or do you read this as a warning and turn aside at last?

The word settles cold in your gut, Ortossi Ven'dara. You are a warrior, not a fool. A cairn like this is not raised for the living — it is raised for those who did not return.

You do not add your helmet to the pile. You keep it on your head, where it belongs.

Slowly, you step back from the stones. Your hand does not leave your sword hilt. The red cloth snaps again, louder this time, and for a heartbeat the empty helmet seems to turn to watch you.

You turn aside from the mountain path.

The new trail is narrow, half-overgrown, winding down and to the east, away from the mist and the high rock. It smells of damp earth and pine resin. Safer, perhaps. Lower. Less lonely.

After an hour's walk, you hear water — a fast stream cutting across the trail. And beside it, freshly cut, are boot prints in the mud. Large. Heavy. Not yours. Leading away from the mountains, toward the lowlands.

Someone came down from that road, Ortossi. Recently.

You cross.

The water is ice-melt cold and fast, biting at your calves through your boots. You do not slip. Warriors of your training learn to cross before they learn to swim.

On the far bank, you deliberately step only on stone, on root, on hard earth. You brush a low pine branch back into place behind you. The prints you leave are none.

Behind you, across the water, those heavy boot prints continue down the trail you abandoned. Whoever came down from the mountain road walks on, unaware.

Ahead of you now is unmarked forest. No trail. No cairns. Just the deep green hush between the trees, and your own breath, and the steady, private compass of duty in your chest.

You walk until the light fails. You find a fallen log, dry beneath, and you make no fire tonight. Cold camp. Safe camp.

As you lie with your sword close, listening to the forest settle, you realize something: for the first time since you left your Home Stone, no one knows where Ortossi Ven'dara is.

Not the boy. Not the guard at the gate. Not whatever left those prints.

You are truly on your journey now.

What does freedom feel like, warrior, on this first night of being lost by choice?