Connor Thorn, Messiah (TM): Chapter 9-2

Connor Thorn, Messiah (™): Chapter 9 (Part 2)

Frilla effectively acted as an impromptu leader to the quintet of Merthaldu soldiers as she was the first to exit the Scapestrider upon the signification, courtesy of the vehicle's lights and sirens, that it was again under attack, with the five of them following not-so-close behind her in less-than-valiant fashion. Each of them basically shared Thorn's general lack of confidence in their (and the Scapestrider machinery's) ability to survive a second Cosmo'rath assault prior to reaching Nog'Dod, having also been, during the length of time in-between the end of the first attack and thus new incident, reliant in terms of peace-of-mind on the prospect that such incident would not occur. Now that danger was at hand again, they were pretty much panicking, although for whatever it was worth, Frilla, for one, was discouraged by neither the odds' being perceived as stacked against them nor her less disciplined allies' letting that perception get to them as she prepared to face what was assumed to be another squadron of Cosmo'rath personnel.
When the small party touched down outside, the discovery that the present disturbance came in the form of a Nirtrid horde rather than minions of Cosmo'rath came, in theory, as somewhat of a relief for the Merthaldu, though taking into consideration the sheer size of this particular swarm, to term it that way might be overstating what very little solace the difference was worth in practice. With Frilla proceeding straightaway to attempt, through means of her ear-piercing barking, the drawing of the Nirtrids' collective attention towards herself and her comrades and away from the Scapestrider's legs and feet which a number of the creatures were currently gnawing away at, and the Merthaldu meanwhile preparing to face seemingly certain death, full-blown combat was split-seconds away from instigation; then, "it" happened.
Appearing from overhead and behind the party in a swooping fashion, the Scapestrider's mounted cannon and the metallic tentacle upon which it was held caught the lot of them, Frilla included, by surprise as it came into view, also narrowly avoiding bonking one of the Merthaldu on the cranium while doing so. Any and all subsequent confusion as to what this apparatus (and/or its operator) was/were doing and whether its unholstering had been accidental was extremely short-lived as the cannon immediately commenced an explosive barrage that persisted without pause for the longest-seeming time. All the while, the cannon remained positioned, and held almost in place, a mere few feet in front of and above where both the flabbergasted crewmen and their nearly-as-shocked Glanmi would-be-leader all stood; too close for comfort, to say the least. With the intense heat now being emitted through the cannon and the shockwaves felt from its continuously-fired combustive blasts eventually forcing all six bystanders to back away for their own safety, it then became rapidly evident to the group that heading forward and into battle was no longer an option in this moment, unless they'd fancy being incinerated. Just as well and as a far more unambiguously positive prospect, it also became apparent, with only slightly lesser swiftness, that fighting on their part would not be necessary here, either.

The Nirtrids were caught completely off-guard - well-and-truly blindsided - by the onset of superheated molten doom now being fired upon them, though, granted, this was due less to any particular quickness on the parts of the cannon's appearance and activation and more to the innate dull-wittedness of the monsters. Regardless, the ensuing display of fiery carnage was quite the spectacle to behold, at least insomuch as those present while not being on the receiving end were able to discern its details after the near-blinding flashing being emitted from the cannon's barrel where its blasts originated was factored in. That particular "audience", for one, ultimately saw a bunch of general explosions and flames, perceiving few, if any, specifics beyond that; even the previously-prominent Nirtrid swarm became almost totally obscured forthwith upon the commencement of the barrage, such that the demonic beasts' destruction remained momentarily unverifiable.
In actuality, of course, the Nirtrids were indeed being soundly obliterated by streams of heated energy erupting from the Scapestrider's overdrive-shifted cannon, with even a moderate grazing by any of the constituent projectiles being sufficient to effectively incinerate all but the hardiest specimens. Those few Nirtrids that weren't blasted to smithereens (mainly, and somewhat ironically, consisting of those that had been grasping to the machine's legs prior) were quickly repelled from the scene upon seeing the fate of their less fortunate and more numerous brethren, scurrying away back beneath the sandy soil in desperate retreat. When the cannon at last ceased firing, at which point it was clearly overheated well beyond safe levels and running the risk of exploding if used any further, and after the lingering energies from its discharging dispersed, severe char marks could be seen to litter the ground across a large area situated in front of where the Scapestrider stood, and nary a trace of any Nirtrid presence remained detectable.
A period of awkward standstill on the part of the Merthaldu party plus Frilla followed as the shock factor wore off, overall composure was regained, the fact that the Nirtrid threat was indeed extinguished came to be digested and the soldiers found themselves unsure of whether to celebrate or remain concerned. While thankful that they were all, you know, still alive, they, though not being experts on the workings of Scapestriders, couldn't shake the general feeling that what Thorn and/or Enkhenye had just made happen would have after-the-fact ramifications of a complicating nature. After all, it was reasoned, unleashing such a potently devastating barrage all at once simply couldn't be normal/healthy for the Scapestrider to do, especially in its already-damaged, destabilized condition. Frilla, meanwhile, knew for a fact that this was the case exactly, and was thusly prompt in her looking back up at the Scapestrider to inspect it, whereupon she saw the vehicle to once again be in the midst of giving off smoke emissions, with the fumes bearing a renewed, distinctly "fresh" thickness and burning stench. The Glanmi began howling with alarm, alerting the Merthaldu to turn their sights to where hers were fixated and subsequently confirming their own aforementioned fears.

Enkhenye had started having second thoughts about what he was doing and its potential consequences since shortly after initiating the firing sequence, but past that point there was no turning back on the course of action being taken; he had made his decision, and like it or not, he would have to stick with it. The priestly Merthaldu leader kept the heat cannon's overdrive-discharge button steadfastly held down for precisely the amount of time it took for him to become confident that the Nirtrid threat was sufficiently obliterated, with any straggling survivors being repelled to the depths from whence they came; no longer, no shorter. There was little room for the cannon's aim to be further adjusted as it continuously fired, but thankfully, no major aim-adjustment was needed, with the combination of the Nirtrid herd's dense concentration and the wide-splashing radius of the heated blasts more than compensating for the latter's less-than-precise targeting. Upon at last releasing his palm from the trigger, Enkhenye instantly turned his view away from the blurry targeting monitor and then stood there with tense anxiousness as he waited for the dust, smoke and flames to clear outside, as seen firsthand looking down through the Scapestrider's opened top hatch. In time, it became visible, just as expected and counted on, that there was now not a single Nirtrid remaining in sight, while following a slightly lengthier delay, the smells of fiery carnage dissipated to give way, also as expected (yet hoped in vain against), to that of burning metals within the large transporter's innards. Shortly after this became distinguishable, the alert sirens died down while the piloting room's lighting promptly transitioned from flashing yellows to a solid wine-red, indicating, as one such as Enkhenye would know, the cessation of active threat and the onset of burnout-induced critical engine damages as well as a lack of power reserves. Enkhenye gave a deep, worried sigh before turning his attention back over to Thorn, who was still resting on his hands and knees upon the floor in the space between all four pilot/copilot/passenger chairs.
Flash backward a few moments now:
When Connor Thorn, still immensely exhausted and in a great deal of pain, reached the level of awareness-of-surroundings where he could be bothered to finally take proper note of the spectacularly violent display unfolding before him, which under just about any other circumstances would have grabbed his attention immediately, he had already missed the majority of it. Upon at last looking up from the floor and outside, his eyes were met with the sight of a massive, and seemingly still growing, fireball, or more accurately, cluster of fireballs, that engulfed the whole area previously occupied by the swarm Nirtrids outside and below. Laying eyes upon this intensely volatile scene in such an abrupt manner as he did in that moment heavily startled Thorn, though he was, again, too weakened to in any major way physically react to the perceived danger before it stopped growing, with the constant blasting noises ceasing, seconds later before proceeding to subside and disperse rapidly thereafter. Before he, in his still-weary mental state, could cognitively make any sense of this beyond the correct assumption that all present peril had come to an end, Thorn then suddenly heard a familiar voice calling his name from very close-by.

"Great Thorn," Enkhenye frantically yelled across the room at a rather inappropriately loud volume relative to the very short space between himself and the human, "are you quite alright?"
It was at this point that the Merthaldu took notice of the dead and battered Nirtrid lying in a slump upon the main control panel, directly in front of where he would normally be seated, as well as of the significant amounts of blood and other goop staining the floor directly below where Thorn remained situated on all fours.
"Oh dear…" he mumbled, before "correcting" himself, asking a more "appropriately-worded" version of his previous question considering that the messiah was clearly injured and far from "quite alright": "Thorn, are you okay, relatively speaking; can you hear me?"
Enkhenye's concerned inquiry was, at least in terms of its latter element, effectively answered before he was even finished verbalizing it, with Thorn turning his head in his trusted ally's direction midway through its voicing. The boy's face could be seen to be stained with some disgusting-looking slimy substance whose nature was as-of-yet unknown to Enkhenye and which in any case somewhat obscured his expression, though his mentor could only (accurately) surmise it to be consistent with the disheveled tiredness that his overall compromised stature gave the distinct impression of. Thorn was silent as he looked over to Enkhenye, at least until the latter found himself speaking once more, potentially preemptively.
"Right… clearly you're not truly okay by any stretch," the chief Merthaldu conceded with cautious slight humor, "but I take it you will be okay again; that is, that you'll survive… correct?"
Connor then, and in Enkhenye's perspective, abruptly, coughed and/or spit heavily toward the ground, evidently clearing his throat of some surely unsavory thing that must have built up inside or seeped in there while also flinging a great deal of residue off of his face in the process, before finally mustering up a verbal response.
"Yeah, I'll live," he murmured with a hint of disgruntled attitude, "provided we don't get involved in yet another skirmish sooner than I can get some serious fixing up… Err, I'm sorry," he then continued, dropping the aforementioned attitude, as he recalled his own folly's part in the escalation of the situation now being recovered from, "for dropping the ball, by way of not dropping the explosive ball, for lack of any such ball's existence within my possession, back there."
Thorn did not put much thought into, nor even really intend, the making of any such clever rhetorical pun as what ended up coming out of his mouth regardless.

"Well, Thorn," Enkhenye replied back, his relief somewhat affirmed, "you can rest assured that the Nirtrid attack has indeed been quelled, and that I, for one, have zero intention of allowing any further violent incident to occur prior to our reaching Nog'Dod… although I can understand if you would think that resolve to be worth little-to-nothing in the way of assurance at this point."
He then sighed heavily again, his tone and demeanor taking a turn for the even-less-optimistic as he continued following that admission of uncertainty.
"Now, regarding our prospects moving forward," he thusly went on, "I may have overheated and further damaged the Scapestrider's internal systems, and expended much of the vessel's overall remaining power, in the process of exterminating or otherwise repelling the Nirtrids with our heat cannon, a maneuver I'm sure you took note of. I suppose an apology on my behalf might be in order regarding my decision to do so before personally helping you from your predicament with that particularly nasty Nirtrid specimen…"
At hearing this, Thorn, who was now beginning to stand back up, gave a slight pause as he comprehended what had just been said prior to speaking back.
"I don't much care about your priorities back there now that what's done is done," he said, "but methinks the both of us would do best to very much be concerned with what you've termed as our 'prospects moving forward': you overheated the Scapestrider?"
Anger and frustration could be heard emerging in Thorn's voice as manifestations of his immediate and natural reaction to such a revelation.
"Well, I'm not quite sure what the extent of any further damages caused is," Enkhenye affirmed, quite ashamedly so with it being considered that this was the first time Thorn - his messiah whom he was sworn to protect and bring safely to where his destiny would be fulfilled - had expressed any real anger towards him, "but… yes. Now, again, I've yet to check on where this leaves our vehicle's status and ability to move forward, but-"
"Well, for God almighty's sake, check on it now!" Thorn shouted, flat-out interrupting him, in a tone just short of being describable as infuriated.
Once again shocked and filled with contrition at his messiah's harsh disapproval, now to the point where he was too mortified to even contemplate arguing that his actions may have been necessary despite knowing subconsciously that they probably had been, Enkhenye was quick to indicate his setting about what Thorn was demanding he do.
"Of course; right away, Great Thorn!" he said in a manner much resembling that of a lowly footman accepting the orders of a yelling superior officer.

Enkhenye rushed back over to the frontal control panel at which he would normally be commandeering the Scapestrider as a whole, tossing out the Nirtrid carcass still laying on top of it and in front of his seat through the still-wide-open window before sitting down and beginning to check the statuses of all engines and power reserves, all in one fluid motion. Readers needing not to be bored with any technobabble regarding the steps taken and buttons pressed to look these things up, said details will not be recounted at length here. What will be said is that, following a matter of minutes which could not have been much tenser for either himself or the onlooking Connor Thorn, Enkhenye successfully retrieved the relevant status data before promptly standing up and turning around to report his findings to Thorn, whom he, with the circumstances resulting from his actions remaining dire, continued to treat as an authority above him (which the human technically was).
"Well?!" Thorn frantically and preemptively asked. "How bad is it; will we still be able to repair the Scapestrider… and is it still capable of being moved to shelter?"
"To answer each of your questions:" Enkhenye began matter-of-factly, "pretty damn bad, yes in theory but potentially less-so in practice, and most likely not, at least in its current condition. That is to say: the walking functions of the Scapestrider's legs have actually sustained more damage from the burnout inadvertently caused by myself compared to the primary engines and thrusters, which presents a more 'desirable', i.e. less severe, predicament than if the leaping and flying functions were totaled, in which case our only feasible option would be to find another Scapestrider. You're following me so far, yes, Thorn?"
"…Kind of." Thorn uttered with uncertainty as he was still in the process of making sense of what he'd just been told; he at least understood that the insurmountable situation of having to secure another Scapestrider was apparently and fortunately not the case, which somewhat alleviated his previous state of anger/frustration toward Enkhenye. "If you say it's not as bad as it could have turned out," he accordingly went on, "then I believe you, and suppose that's a 'start' in terms of all not being lost… do carry on, though."
"Well, as the vehicle's condition currently stands," Enkhenye continued to explain, beginning to put things in terms closer to those of the layman, "all of the systems governing and enabling its locomotion are moderately damaged. Coupled with the conventional fuels that power the machine's walking abilities being close to depleted, this more-or-less means that repairs, which will take substantially longer than they previously would have, will have to be conducted either on this spot out in the desert, or very close-by; that is, at an identical spot out in the desert. I'm afraid our prospects of finding shelter in which carry out the needed repairs safely have just about run out, and that we're going to have to wait this out the hard way. I'm… sorry that things have come to this, Thorn…"

Connor Thorn's heart sank, along with his eyes growing wide in borderline-despair, as this was announced to him. Likewise, and even though he had formulated it in thought-form well before putting it into spoken words, Enkhenye simultaneously found himself feeling much the same gravity; somehow, verbalizing a predicament the likes of what was now at hand gave it a lot more weight and invited more serious contemplation of the situation compared to merely thinking about it.
"I… um… oh dear." Thorn muttered following a long, uncomfortable period of delaying silence and having almost no idea what else to say in that moment. The full ramifications of what was happening, and that it was indeed actually happening, were still sinking in within his mind, and the more they did so, the more hopeless the whole scenario seemed to Connor, whose singularly-chief thought at this time could pretty much be summarized as follows:
"Holy crap, I'm actually going to freaking die out here…"
Meanwhile, Enkhenye could not help but contemplate similar notions, though his overall faith in both God and the one whom he still firmly trusted to be his true awaited messiah allowed him to remain at least somewhat more optimistic, if not any less visibly worried.
"Right…" he said following another awkward pause on his own part: "yes, 'oh dear' is quite a good way to put it, I suppose. Now, we really should go down to the others to update them on the situation right about now; there was already no time for us to lose before, and now there's even less!"
He attempted to give his voice an aura of confidence, of a "let's-get-down-to-business" sort, as he said this, while also making a slight joke on that last statement; neither spin did much to help lighten the mood.
To succinctly summarize a long process, the two then made their way down to the Scapestrider's lower deck, which they found to be unoccupied, and next headed further down and outside; luckily and in spite of everything, the golden-yellow tractor beam remained fully operational and showing no signs of impairment, as though it were powered independently of all the Scapestrider's other systems… which it in fact was. There, Thorn and Enkhenye were relieved of short-term fears that, if proven correct, would have plunged both of them into complete despair upon finding both Frilla and the rest of the surviving Merthaldu crewmen all alive and well in a huddled formation nearby. The six of them had been moments away from heading up and inside the vessel to check on their messiah and captain when said individuals ended up coming out to greet them instead, and the larger party would have gone inside already, had the very externally-visible damage to the Scapestrider not hampered their eagerness to reenter the vehicle.

Frilla was the first to react to the excursion-leading duo's appearance, in her case rushing up to her master forthwith upon seeing the kind of shape Thorn was in, that being an even sorrier state than he was in during the previous instance of the Glanmi offering up her own blood to heal him, which she was now proposing to do again. Though still considering the taking-up of such an offer on his part to be rather selfish and cruel (Frilla's overt, utter willingness in the matter notwithstanding), Thorn also felt that, in this particular case and unlike last time when he had refused, his doing so would actually, truly be necessary for his retaining any hope and chance of survival through the bleak coming ordeal, assuming hope remained within reach to begin with, which he was far from sure of in any case. Thus, he met the Glanmi's instantly-understood offer with a silent nod that conveyed just the slightest hint of reluctance, and was promptly followed by Frilla's clawing open a sizable gash in her own right foreleg. The quantity of rainbow-colored blood that resultantly came flowing out was then scooped up with the same paw used to create the wound before being held up and presented to Thorn in a vaguely ceremonious manner, almost as though the blood were some badge of honor being bestowed to the boy (a notion quite opposite to how he himself felt about having to do this). With a sigh and a deep breath, Thorn carefully took the regenerative fluid into his cupped hands, making a point of not spilling any, before proceeding to pour and apply it, bit-by-bit, into/onto various wounds of his through the corresponding holes in his armor. Not wanting to even for a moment be distracted from the still-very-dire standing of things, he subsequently tried not to derive too much pleasure from the short-lived bursts of euphoria that then ensued in accompaniment with the wounds' divinely-derived, magical mending. Following his partial restoration and reprieve from the painful languor he had been in, Thorn kneeled down and petted Frilla with a whisper of "Sorry…" that seemingly went unheard by the Glanmi who, again, did not share Connor's conflicted feelings about doing this, being, if anything, happy to serve her master no matter what the circumstance and especially in one such as this where he clearly and sincerely needed it.
Despite how much he cared for his angelic companion and how her suffering and physical detriment on his behalf pained him, Thorn did not, in this time being, take note of the lingering and presumed-permanent scar that remained present on Frilla's affected leg following her enactment of the angelic regeneration process that otherwise fully healed her. He easily would have considered it his responsibility to get a visual of the damage, had he not become wholly distracted by more urgent matters moments later, and later on, when he eventually did remember and notice it, he would ultimately have to admit that the new scar's placement almost symmetrically opposite its counterpart from earlier actually made the both of them less noticeable.

The commencement of Enkhenye's address to the rest of his men, which had been briefly delayed in ceremonious recognition of the above-described "moment" playing out between Connor Thorn and Frilla, was the urgent matter in question that forced Thorn's attention away from the Glanmi in said moment's aftermath.
It was with a heavy heart and great solemnity that the leader among the Merthaldu in attendance delivered to his "brethren" the troubling news regarding the situation and the Scapestrider's worsened condition. At hearing this, the five soldiers quickly became just as distressed over their prospects as Enkhenye and Thorn were, likely growing even more disheartened and pressure-racked, seeing as the responsibility of repairing the potentially-insurmountable damages at hand did, after all, fall specifically upon them. These overwhelming feelings mingling with the Merthaldu's generally limited competence and relative lack of discipline, the resultant combination of factors rapidly ended up bringing about nothing short of outright panic, on just about as massive a scale as a mere five people could possibly be capable of producing, on their part.
"Wait, what?!"
"Just how bad is it, exactly?"
"Do we even have the supplies?"
"What if more hostiles show up?"
"Are you sure the Scapestrider won't blow up on us?"
"So how long will this take, now?"
"So we're stuck at this spot?"
"And what if we can't repair it?"
"We can't possibly survive out here!"
"This is all your fault, dude!"
"We're all going to die here, aren't we?"
"Look, now: I can't stay awake much longer, man…"
"Oh my God, we're all going to die here!"
"You've doomed the Delta Octant, Enkhenye!"
"All is lost; all is lost!"
All these frenzied statements and more could be heard among the quintet's various exclamations which could not be bothered to wait for one another to finish before interjecting new (and, as a general pattern, increasingly hysterical) comments, let alone allow Enkhenye to either finish what he had been intent on saying in the first place or defend himself from the escalating declarations of blame being levied against him.

Meanwhile, just a few yards off to the side from the site of this pandemonium, Connor Thorn, still standing next to Frilla, suddenly began to feel terribly calm in this instance where he would normally have expected himself, in a best-case-scenario, to take charge, coming to his friend's defense and somehow restoring stability to the party, or more realistically, to give in to a hysteria similar to what was eating at the other Merthaldu. Yet instead of either such predictable response to this crisis, Thorn, in his desperation, was now finding himself being inexplicably consumed with an almost totally indescribable set of feelings and sensations, most approximately comparable to "zoning out" and perhaps lucid dreaming in terms of preexisting concepts known to him.
Though no clocks were visible in the present environment, the time at this point was minutes short of reaching 5:00 in the morning, and the waning night had moved on past its darkest hour, the transition to morning proper being well-underway. In addition, the "night-vision"-resembling lighting having been emitted by the Scapestrider prior to the scouting mission going down the proverbial toilet-to-hell had also long-since ceased, presumably for one of more of many obvious potential reasons, although Thorn couldn't recall precisely when the lights had gone off, having been too preoccupied to actually notice their absence until now. These factors of lighting stand as relevant, and were likewise borne in mind by Connor at this time, due to the fact that, under potentially any other conditions of illumination or lack thereof, Thorn might have failed to discern a certain distant source of faint luminescence which, as it happened, he was just barely able to make out during, and indeed because of the selective hyper-focus induced by, his mysterious trance. At the moment his eyes glimpsed past this most curious of lights while dazedly rolling around within his head in a seemingly random and aimless fashion, Thorn felt a palpable onset of hope suddenly returning to his psyche before he, becoming more lucid, did a take back toward the direction in which he had seen (or at least thought he'd saw) something. Upon his doing so, it did not take long for Thorn to not only verify that he'd indeed seen something, but also decide, on the spot, that this something - this strange light - surely signified his and his allies' salvation in the form of desperately-needed shelter; it was an apparently unexplainable (much like the initial trance that had led him to making this discovery) yet undeniably powerful hunch. Feeling instilled with renewed hope and confidence that a hypothetical mind-reading bystander could, at the time, easily have suspected to be delusional in nature, Thorn was about to announce what he was seeing and what he believed it meant to the still-overwrought Merthaldu, being split-seconds away from opening his mouth and speaking when, suddenly…
"SSHHRRRRIIIIIEEEEAAAOOOOUUUGGHHH!!!"

At least, the above gratuitous mess of repeating letters can serve to roughly approximate the howl let out by Frilla at that instant, and being almost identical to the one she had emitted to the end of quieting down Thorn's "fans" back in Buumpor Village. This hybrid shriek/bark/roar of a noise made everyone else present momentarily forget what they were doing and thinking about with its piercingly-loud quality while sending a clear message for the Merthaldu to calm themselves and get off Enkhenye's case. The five soldiers obliged, partly out of fear, before turning and looking to the Glanmi, whom upon becoming the center of attention nigh-immediately realized, with her eyes going wide, that she had no actual ideas of her own regarding how the group could/should be more productive in their current situation, as the angelic creature found herself really thinking the predicament over, she, too, started to become affected by its immense bleakness.
An uneasy pause/silence ensued, and with it being obvious that this presented Connor Thorn with the perfect "cue" to share his perceived game-changer (and indeed, game-saver) of a discovery which he was so ecstatically confident about, it was very short-lived as the messiah's spoken words broke the silence almost sooner than it could finish starting.
"Guys," Thorn began to announce, "I think I've found the solution to all our worries; well, the short-term ones, at least: simply turn your sights right… over…"
He then briefly struggled to regain a visual on the position in which he saw the mysterious light, and fortunately for both himself and those in his company, whose full attention he'd managed to instantly grasp with the boldness of his initial proclamation, it did not take him long to relocate it.
"…There!" Thorn thusly finished after a delay, while pointing as precisely as possible toward the strange luminescent source.
As the Merthaldu looked over into the distance in said direction, no acknowledgement of them being able to distinguish anything out there was elicited right off the bat. Yet, just as Thorn was beginning to worry about this and whether what he was seeing was actually real, all such fears were quickly shot down as he started to hear the soldiers muttering pretty much exactly the kinds of things he'd hoped and expected them to say as they gradually came to see the light… literally.
"Wait… is it that little glow, right there?" was the first such comment that Connor could make out.
"Yeah… yes, I think so; I can see it!" chimed in another shortly thereafter.
"Hmm… call it a gut feeling," a third Merthaldu speaker could then be heard noting out loud, "but I think Thorn's on to something here…"
"Of course he's on to something;" yet another one of the soldiers loudly interjected: "he's our messiah, and clearly, this is a miracle!"
That latter comment in particular really stuck out to Thorn, strongly resonating with him: yes, a miracle; surely that was a good way to put it… not to mention a literally accurate one as well, seeing as he really was the/a messiah, was he not?

Enkhenye was evidently the last among the group to achieve discernment of what Thorn was pointing at, and even once he did manage to see it, he remained rather skeptical of and hesitant to buy into the supposed promise of shelter or some other life-saving factor being present over there.
"I'm not so sure about this, Thorn…" the priest semi-protested. "I can see what you're getting at, but… well, some vague, dim light-source is hardly the strongest lead to go by at a time and in a place like this."
"And yet," Thorn retorted with some rudeness of attitude, "it's clearly the best, and only, lead that we have, or will be getting, to go by at this specific time and at this specific place. Besides… what have we got to lose?"
Enkhenye would normally have given the matter some careful at-length deliberation at this point, but the expressions now being worn by the other Merthaldu around him which clearly indicated them to stand with Thorn's argument effectively pressured him into conceding straightaway.
"Oh, I suppose you're probably right…" he said with a sigh, as if implicitly admitting that this "miracle" represented their only realistic hope right now.
"Naturally;" Thorn acknowledged back somewhat smugly: "after all, I am the messiah here, and dealing with miracles like this sort of comes with that job. Now, if I recall correctly, you mentioned that the Scapestrider can still walk at least a little bit more distance in its current state; I'll assume that includes being able to bring it over to this guiding light of ours? It really doesn't look too far away at all…"
Enkhenye briefly looked back over towards the strange light to gauge the probable distance standing between it and their position before giving a simple answer: "Yes; yes, it should, as you put it, 'include' at least one such short trip's worth."
"Well, then," Thorn then decisively announced, "let's stop wasting precious seconds with banter and go make that trip!"
To once again succinctly summarize a lengthy process similar to the one subjected to the same manner of succinct summary earlier, all eight members of the party then proceeded to re-board the Scapestrider with their newfound hope being reaffirmed and them having the resolve to make good on the opportunity at hand. It was not long before Connor Thorn and Enkhenye were settled back up inside the cockpit, with the others residing in the lower area just like before.

"Hey, permission to ask a question?" Thorn inquired to Enkhenye while the latter made the Scapestrider reorient itself to face toward the peculiar luminescence, whose position relative to the vehicle's previous angle the human had kept in mind while boarding so that it would not be lost track of. As the machine rotated, it did so with noticeable clunkiness in its movement.
"Since when do you need my permission to ask questions?" Enkhenye replied, more-or-less sarcastically. "After all, you're the messiah here, are you not?"
"Yeah… sorry for any unsavory attitude on my part back there." Thorn admitted and halfheartedly apologized. "As I'm meaning to ask, though," he went on, "does that little geographic radar of yours - that is, of the Scapestrider's - still work?"
Enkhenye, having forgotten about the radar but instantly understanding what Thorn was getting at right now, checked on the matter in question right away, booting up the system's monitor and finding that it was indeed still functional, albeit with its display being a bit more staticky and fuzzy than usual (yet still adequately readable for the purpose of what was about to be examined).
"Yep." he then redundantly stated as a verbal answer well after Thorn, who was sitting right beside him, could already plainly discern this much to be the case.
As both he and Enkhenye examined the display, Thorn once more struggled to remember how to decipher topographic charts based on his limited memory of the subject as taught in school, only to quickly find that no recalling of specifics would be necessary. Plainly visible near the "Northern" edge of the screen - i.e. directly across from where the Scapestrider was presently facing - was a small, circular formation of faint lines that wouldn't have been sufficiently distinct for Connor to take particular note of without a notion of something being there already existing, but was more than unique enough to strongly reaffirm such a notion now that one was borne firmly in mind.
There could now be no denying it: there was most definitely something out there, and so with no further ado nor any more questions being, or needing to be, asked between those at its helm, the Scapestrider began hobbling inbound for that dim, mysterious glow, slowly and totteringly-so yet surely nonetheless.

TO BE CONTINUED…