Shorty after the restaurant closed for the day. Uber called the other together. After everyone got seated he told all them the bad news.
"I'm sure Master Rand talked to you about this. But I'm canceling the search for the ruins."
And as expected, none showed any outward expression at the news. He told them the reasons they all knew. The fact that Rand was nearly killed. Spells were casted on all of them. And the fact that any time they were ready to set out of the mission. Something ALWAYS came up to side track it. Merc seem to take offense to that remark.
"It's not like we asked for these things to happen to us."
Uber was about to say something, when Rand stood up and calmed the two of them down.
He saw this happen too many times in the past. A simple discussion that ends up in a shouting match or the two trading blows.
"Merc?, Uber is right. We should of done this weeks ago. Remember. He did hire us to help him search for these lost ruins. But he also understands what side tracked us also." He looked over towards Uber and he nodded in agreement.
For moments nothing was said.
"So.........What happens now?" Gunner spoke up. "We all end up going our separate ways?" he paused and spoke again. A look of sadness on his face.
"You might find this strange coming from me. But I feel like we are a family that is breaking up." That seem to take a few of them by surprise.
"Are you serious, Gunner?" Mentokka asked walking over to where Gunner was sitting, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"Go ahead and laugh. But you guys have been the closest thing to a family I've had in almost fifteen years."
No one spoke. What could anyone say. They all had to admit. In the two weeks or so that they have been together, they've been though a lot. And some of them were feeling pangs of regret about what was going to happen.
"Where will you be going, Uber?" Rand asked.
He said nothing at first. Just looked down at his hands for several second, til he spoke.
"I'll be heading to the Kingdom of Fatorian. There are several libraries and very large scriptorium. From what I've learned from you, Rand. I'll have the location of these ruins in no time." Uber tried to smile. But all could see it was a grin that was tinged with sadness.
Rand said that he would stay in Rose land to train Merc. Now that the curse was removed from her. She should learn his advanced training in no time. He asked Tosh and Mentokka to head back home to the grasslands to restock on supplies that they needed. The two nodded.
He also asked Gunner to stay with them. He first asked Uber would it be alright for him to hire him. He told him that he would need of his tracking skills. Uber said he had no need of his services at the moment. And if he could cover his fees. He had no complaints.
Gunner stretched and yawned, his arms over his head. As he did that, the front part of his uniform opened to reveal his neck and shoulder area. And that when Mentokka saw the mark on him.
"What is that mark on your neck, Gunner?" She said walking towards him.
Seeing that someone was looking at him. He instantly put his arms down and cover his neck up with the front of his uniform.
"It's nothing."
"I don't think so, Gunner." She said sitting next to him. "I know a Slave Mark when I see it."
Gunner's eyes went wide with shock at the words. His hand still clutching the front of his uniform. "You......you know about this?"
Mentokka nodded and looked over to where Tosh was sitting. "Tosh?"
He looked at her for a few moments and nodded. He opened the front of his uniform to reveal the branded S mark on his chest. Merc gasped when she saw the mark. Rand remained silent.
"Tell him what happened to you." Mentokka said flatly.
"Seven years ago.... I got real drunk one night in a bar and passed out. When I woke up. I was sold to a head of a rock quarry in the north. I was there for three weeks until Uncle Rand and Mentokka found out where I was and freed me."
Gunner shuttered as Tosh told them how they held him down to brand him.
"You want to talk about it Gunner?" Mentokka asked. "I'll understand if you don't...."
"No, Mentokka......You guys are my friends." He said taking a deep breath. "I want you all to hear this."
He took a deep breath and started his tale.
"Me and my parents lived in the north. We were commoners working on a farm. The country went to war with our neighbor. I believe, fighting over land. Me and my father joined the war. My father and I fought under our Liege Lord, Lord Osber. My father worked the large cannon and I was a page. The war went back and forth for several years. By that time I was old enough to fight along side my father. But our side lost and the two of us were taken prisoner. Our Lord betrayed us. He wouldn't ransom us. That night me and father got separated. Little did I know I wouldn't see him for five years.
I was sold to a ship master, our master was called Rerri Norse. And greeted me with blows. He was a head shorter then me, ten years older, and twice as wide. He had a flat face, a nose that was broken at least twice, a black beard shot with Grey strains, five teeth and no neck. He was the strongest man I ever knew. He did not speak much. They riveted the slave manacles onto my ankles.
Rerri having chained my ankles, tore the shirt at the left shoulder and carved a big S in the flesh of my upper arm with a short knife. The blood poured down to my elbow.
"I should burn it into your skin," Rerri said. "But a ship is no place for a fire." He scooped filth from the bilge and rubbed it into the newly opened cut. It turned foul and wept pus and gave me a fever, but when it healed was left with his mark on my arm.
The slave mark had nearly no time to heal, for we all came near death that first night. The wind suddenly turn the river into breakers. The ship jerked at it's anchor line, and the wind rose and the rain was being driven horizontally. he ship was bucking and shuttering, the tide was ebbing so that the wind and current were trying to drive us ashore, and the anchor, that was probably nothing more then a big stone ring that held the ship by weight alone, began to drag. "Oars!" Rerri shouted and I thought he wanted us to row against the pressure of the wind and tide, but instead he slashed the rope that tied us to the anchor and the ship leaped away.
"Row, you bastards." Rerri shouted, 'Row!"
Suddenly I felt his whip slashed across my back.
"You want to live?" Rerri shouted over the wind, "Row!"
He took us to sea. If we stayed in he river we would have been driven ashore, and into the rocky shore. No doubt he thought it would be better to risk death at sea then dying an the rocks, and so he took us into a terrible Grey wind, darkness, and water. He wanted to take us north at the river's mouth and take shelter by the coast, but he had not reckoned the force of the tide and, row as we might, and despite the lashes put onto our shoulders, we couldn't go north. Instead we were swept to sea and within moments we had to stop rowing, plug the oar-holes and start bailing the boat. All night we scooped water from the bilge and chucked it overboard and I remember the weariness of it, the bone-aching tiredness, and the fear of the unseen seas as they lifted us and roared beneath us. Sometimes we turned broadside onto the wave and I thought we must tip over and I remember clinging to a bench as the oars cluttered across the hull and water churned about my thighs, bu somehow the ship staggered upward and we hurled water over the side, and why didn't she sink I will never know.
Dawn found us half waterlogged in an angry, but no longer vicious sea. No land was in sight My ankles were bloody for the manacles had bitten into the skin during the night, but I was still bailing. No one else moved. The other slaves, I had not even learned their names yet, were slumped on the benches and the crew were huddled under steering platform where Rerri was clinging to the steering oar and I felt his dark eyes watching me as I scooped up buckets of water. and poured them back into the ocean. I wanted to stop. I was bleeding battered, bruised, and exhausted, but I would not show weakness. I hurled bucket after bucket, and my arms were aching and my belly was sour and my eyes stung from the salt and I was miserable, but I would not stop. There was vomit in the bilge, but it was not mines.
Rerri stopped me in the end. He came down the boat and struck me across the shoulders with a whip and I collapsed onto a bench, and a moment later two of his men brought us stale breath soaked in sea water and a skin of sour ale. No one spoke.
I looked over at Rerri every now and then. He was still looking at me. That was good. For I wanted him to know me, remember my face, for it would be the last face he sees when I get my revenge and kill him. With that I prayed to the Water Gods to let me live in there angry seas and I prayed to the other gods for revenge.
No matter how long it took.
With that I feel asleep.
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