Rendlyn is just awakening in an unfamiliar place, not all that dissimilar from his accustomed place in the dormitories of the sport-fighters in Manatoa. What was missing most is the particular testosterone sweat smell and the undercurrent of snoring. The largish beams of the roof above him are a reminder of his old place and profession. After a few minutes of reflection and orientation, he realizes that he is alone in this place, wherever it is.
Memories have started to return, not in a terribly pleasant way.
The last few days had been horrible, tramping across open territory always away from the swamp where his group had split from the people who stayed with Enis.
Enis. He sees the man's face in his mind, wearing a look of disappointment. They were friends, if only for a short time. Enis has shared details of his life in Waykeep and the Covenant he had accepted as a young man. Rendlyn liked the tenets of the Covenant, which made him look noble. Enis brought him into his inner circle, those who were already committed to his "mission" of reinvesting Waykeep, but Rendlyn was only acting as if he were committed.
At the edge of the swamp, some days ago, there was the look of betrayal on the big man's face, just as when his old friend at the pass had walked away from something he had covenanted to do alongside Enis, taking a swath of weary pass defenders with him. Now, there had been another betrayal, perhaps not as deeply felt, but nevertheless painful. Together no more.
A tear came to Rendlyn's eye. He thought the arena should have toughened him, but he was betraying himself alongside Enis and that pulled at him. People had followed him away from the swamp, where they could have proven loyalty to God just as he could have. He tears up for the embarrassing abandonment and "leading" others who foolishly followed him. "I never said I was a leader," he spoke to the emptiness he had woken in. "I didn't tell anyone to follow me." But that was a convenient self-deception.
Once the group that walked behind Rendlyn reached a forested area that was bisected by a promising stream, many people had noticed the strange look of the sport-fighter's face - he had no idea what to do next. There was no destination he was moving toward. The stream and forest was certainly more promising a place than a swamp, but a group of men and a few women had no idea if their abandonment in this land and refusal to commit fully to Enis and Waykeep was going to turn into a decent existence or not. Rendlyn was both silent and distant, questioning his own decisions.
People began to move off on their own. Rendlyn was no leader with some vision, he was just fleeing a swamp that he didn't like. No one talked with him particularly, coming to the realization that he had no reply worth considering. He was just a fraud that was too scared to follow Enis the leader and led other scared people to nowhere. Perhaps the people could figure out how to survive here, but there was no one to bring the group together with any confidence. They disappeared into the trees and Rendlyn was left alone and despondent.
He wished he had his sport-fighting life back. It compensated him well and he was good at it. The food was plentiful and he had friends of a sort. For the most part, Rendlyn wished he had never departed the ships and had gone back to his life with the Convocation.
However, there was that "what if" feeling about Enis and Waykeep and the Covenant. Could he have done what the wild-man offered? It was a life that Enis and his ancestors, all the way back to Kiyami, had lived successfully. Could he have built his own life among them?
As the man stumbled down the brook's flow, his torn mind kept him stumbling on stones and tree limbs. This water should eventually drain into the channel and perhaps he could find a way back to the island beyond, or find that stone marker on the beach that led to Waykeep. Rendlyn's indecision was not allowing him to think clearly at all, much less make a choice.
He slid on a particularly slippery stone and came down hard, bruising a knee and his side. He groaned and just lay there, the flow of the stream passing on either side of his limp body.
There was no thought as to how he had ended up in what seemed like a small barn after a new morning.
Nearby, a squeaky hinge indicates that someone has entered the place. A hairy face hove into view above him. "Are you okay?"
Not really, the man thought.