Once again Gunner stopped to catch his breath. He closed his eyes and looked up towards the ceiling. He breathed in one large lungful of air and forced it out. He brought his head back down to look at the others.

"You alright, Gunner?" Mentokka asked, walking over to him, and placing a hand on his shoulder. "If you want to take a break...."

"I'm alright," he said looking at her. "Just needed a few seconds." As he continued his story, Mentokka returned to her seat.

We went north that next summer, pulling into a river that twisted though a landscape of pine and birch, a place so far north that hills of snow still showed in shadowed places. We brought reindeer hides from a village among the birches and carried them back out to sea, and exchange them for walrus tusks and whalebone, which in turn we traded for amber and Edik feathers. We carried malt and seal skins, fur and salt meat, iron ore and fleeces. In one rock-circled cove we sent two days loading slates that would be turned into whetstones, and Rerri traded the slates for combs made from deer antlers and for big coils of seal skin rope and a dozen heavy ingots of bronze, and we took it back to Kenet, going to Haith with was a large trading port, so big that there was a slave compound and we were taken there and released inside were we were guarded by spear men and high walls.

Davon found several of his country men and quickly walked over to them and embraced each others and talked in there language among each other. I looked around and walked and stood in the center of the compound and shouted a question.

"Is anyone here from Northeia?" Men stared at me dully. "Northeia?" I shouted again, and this time a women's voice called out from the far side of the palisade. Men were crowed at the palisade, peering at the women though the some what large chink in the wall separating the men and women, but I pushed two men aside. And what I saw, hit me like a kick from a horse.

"Gisela!" I shouted. My childhood friend from my home town. The daughter of the Tanner. And for a while the person I thought I'd marry if not for the war. She had long blond hair, but now it was cropped short. Her eyes were filled with pain. It was hard to look at her. I can only guess what she was thinking when she saw me.

"Falco!" she shouted back. running up to the the wall.

"What are you doing here?" I asked as I reached for her though the hole. " I remembered you leaving the village when the war started."

"We got captured." she said in a small voice as she reached out her arm to his.

Our fingers were just long enough to reach other and to clasp hands. The feeling of joy shot though my body. Feeling I though were long dead inside me. Tears formed in my eyes.

"Lord Osber betrayed us. He told the enemy where to find us......They brought us back into town.........they killed father. And Lord Osber......... he........raped me, before selling me. They all..... "

She broke down right there she let go my hand and move away from me. I kept my hand out at her. Pleading her to cum back to me. I wanted to comfort her and tell her everything will be alright. but I also wanted to feel her touch again. I called out to her. But she was several yards away from me, sitting on the ground rocking back and forth, saying she was dirty over and over again. I prayed that her mind wasn't lost to me. I promised that I'll get free from this and rescue her from who she was sold to. another girl told be that she was sold to a person named, Ivarr. I removed my hand from the hole. I remembered hearing Rerri talking about Ivarr. Someone he did not trust.

But it was another name.
Another person to kill.

The list get longer.


Suddenly I wept for Gisela. I knew what she went though. I feared for her. I remembered one night with Gisela when I kissed her beneath the beech trees and I thought all my dreams that were now hopeless and so I wept. I had lost all chance with Gisela, and that night I felt a swapping pity for myself and I sat on the ground and tears rolled down my cheeks and Davon saw me and began weeping also. I tried to rekindle my angry because it was only anger that would keep you alive, but my anger would not come. I just wept instead. I could not stop. It was the darkness of despair, of the fate was to pull an oar until I was broken and thrown overboard. I wept.

"You and me." Davon said, and paused. It was dark. It was a cold night for summer.

"You and me?" I asked, my eyes closed in an attempt to stop the tears.

"Swords in hand, my friend," he said. "You and me. It will happen." He meant we will be free and have our revenge.

"Dreams." I said.

"No!" Davon shouted. He crawled to my side and took my hand in both of his. "Don't give up!" he yelled at me. " We are warriors, you and I, we're warriors!"

I had been a warrior, I thought. There been a time when I shone in mail and helmet, but now I was lice ridden, filthy, weak, and tearful.

"Here." Davon said, and he pushed something into my hand. It was one of the antler-combs we had carried as cargo and somehow he managed to steal it and hide it with in his rags.
"Never give up," he told me, and I used the comb to disentangle my hair that now grew almost to my waist. I combed it out, tearing knots free, pulling lice free from the teeth And the next morning, Davon plaited my straight hair and I did the same for him. "It is how warriors of the Tine faith dress there hair in my tribe," he said, "And you and I are warriors. We are not slaves, we're warriors!"

We were thin, dirty, and ragged, but the despair had passed like a squall at sea and I let the anger give me resolve. That night I told Gilesa to stay strong, for I will get free and rescue her. My words must of reached her for she looked at me with eyes that spoke of hope. How I thank the God for Davon. For I known I would of long gave up hope.

The next morning we loaded the Fina with ingots of copper, bronze and iron. We rolled barrels of ale into her stern and filled the remaining space with salt meat, rings of hard bread, and tubs of salted cod.

Rerri laughed at our plaited hair. "You think you'll find a women, will you?" he mocked us. "Or are you pretending to be women?" he grinned at us. He was in a good mood. Something that was rare for him. But by nightfall that would change. For Rerri told his crew that we were pursued by another ship. Pirates. Raiders. We ran north under sail and ore and the other ship slowly overhauled us for she was longer and leaner, and faster, and it was only the coming of the night that let us escape, but it was a nervous night.

We stowed the oars and lowered the sails so that the Fina would make no noise, and in the dark I heard the oar-splashes of our pursuers and Rerri and his men knelled down near us, swords in hand, ready to kill us if we made a noise. I was temped and Davon wanted to thump on the side of the ship to bring the raiders to us, but Rerri would of slaughtered us instantly so we kept silent as the strange ship passed us in the darkness and when the dawn came the ship had vanished.

Such threats were rare. Wolf does not eat wolf., and falcon does not attack another falcon, so the Northmen rarely prayed on each other, though some men desperate, would risk attacking another Northmen. Such pirates were outcast, as nothing, but they were feared.

Usually they were hunted down and the crew would be killed or enslaved, but still some men risked being outcast, knowing that if they capture one rich ship like Fina they could make a fortune that would give them status, power and acceptance. But we escaped that night, and we set sailed farther north and still north, and we did not make land that night and for many nights.

For two weeks we traveled north. This was the whale path, and the monsters of the sea rolled to look at us or spouted water, and the air became colder and the sky was forever clouded, and we knew Rerri's men were nervous. They thought we were lost, and I thought the same, and I believed that my life would end at the sea's edge where great whirlpools drag ships down to there deaths. Seabirds circled, there cries forlorn in the white cold, and the great whales plunged under us, and we rowed until our backs were sore. And we had one day of friendly wind when we could travel under sail with the big seas hissing along our hull.


And so we came to the Land of fire. The mountains smoked and we heard tales of magical pools of hot water, though I saw none. And it wasn't just a land of fire, but a haunt of ice. There were mountains of ice, rivers of Ice, ans shelves of ice in the sky. There were codfish longer then a man was tall and we ate well there and Rerri was happy. Men feared to make the voyage we had just made, and he achieved it. He was in such a good mood that he even allowed us ashore and we drank sour birch wine in a long house that stank of whale flesh.
We were all shackled, not just with our ordinary manacles, but with neck chains also. Rerri had hired local men to guard us. They were armed with long spears, used to kill whales while the other four were armed with knives. Rerri was safe with them watching us, and he knew it, and for the only time in all of the months I was with him he deigned to speak with us. He boasted of the voyage we had made and even praised our rowing. "But you hate me," he said looking at he and then Davon.

I said nothing.

"The Birch wine is good," Davon said. "Thank you for it."

"The Birch wine is walrus piss," Rerri said. He was drunk. "You two hate me," he said , amused by our hatred. "I watch you two hate me. the others now, they're whipped, but you two would kill me before I could sneeze. I should kill you both, shouldn't I? I should sacrifice you two to the sea."

Neither of us spoke

"But you row well," Rerri said, "I did free a slave once," he said. I released him because I liked him. I trusted him. I even let him steer the Fina, but he tried to kill me.. You know what I did to him? I nailed his corpse to the prow and let him rot there. And I learned my lesson. You're there to row. Nothing else. You row and you work and you die." He was about to leave when I asked him one question.

"Captain," I called out. "May I ask a question?"

What is it?" he replied.

"The freed slave who tried to kill you. Have you ever wondered why he try to kill you?" He looked at me and said nothing. No doubt asking the question himself in the past.

"You released him, yes. But you never freed him. You never let him go. You turned him into your trained Pet........your Toy. And that is worse then being a slave."

He muttered that I didn't know what I was talking about, as he left but I know my words touched him. Bothered him. Another victory to keep the spark alive in me. And another step towards our freedom. And another step towards Rerri's doom. With that me and Davon slept.

The next morning we were back on board the ship and under a spitting rain, we left that strange land of Ice and Flame.

It took us much less time to go south because we ran with a friendly wind and so we wintered in Kenet again. We shivered in the slave hut and listened to Rerri grunting into his women's bed at night. The snow came, ice locked the creek, and it became my second year as a slave and I lived twenty-two years and I knew my future was to die in shackles because Rerri was ever watchful, clever and ruthless.

And then the raiders came.

Rerri's men feed us gruel and eel soup and rough bread and fish stew, and when the snow came they threw us mud-clotted fleeces and we huddled in the slave hut and listened to the wind and watched the snow though the chinks between the logs. It was cold, so cold and the silent elf died. He was feverish and after five days he just died and two of Rerri's men carried his body to the creek and threw him beyond the ice so that his body floated away on the next tide. Before he died I asked him what was his name that I would remember him by. It was then I noticed that his tongue was cut out by Rerri. After his body was taken away I noticed a word scratched on the ground......Tine. His name. Most of us bowed our heads and spoke his name.

"Tine," the dark skinned silent man spoke up for the first time. "I will speak you name with honor." Others muttered the same words softly.

"Damn you Rerri," I though to myself. "He will be......We all will have our vengeance on you. I swear it. In this life time or the next."

There were woods not too far away and every few days we would be taken to the trees, given axes and told to make firewood. The manacles were deliberately made too short so that a man could not take a full stride., and when we had axes they guarded us with bow and with a spears, and I knew I would die before I could reach one of the guards with the ax, but I was temped to try. One of the Fatorians tried before I did, turing and screaming, running clumsily, and an arrow took him in the belly and he doubled over and Rerri's men killed him slowly. He screamed for a long time. His blood stained the snow for yards around and he died very slowly as a lesson to all of us, I wanted to help him, but the silent man knew what I was planning and grabbed my shoulder tightly. I looked over at him and slowly shook his head. Seeing that there was nothing I could do the help that poor bastard. I slumped my shoulders and turned away and just chopped at trees, trimmed the trunks, split the trunks with a maul and wedges, chopped again and went back to the slave hut.

"If the little bastard children would just come close," the silent man said the next day, "I'd strangle the filthy little creatures, so I would."

I was astonished for it was the longest statement I had ever heard him make.

"Better to take them hostage," I suggested.

"But they know better to come close," he said ignoring my suggestion. He spoke in a strange accent. "You were a warrior," He said.

"I am a warrior," I said The two of us were sitting outside of the hut on a patch of grass where the snow had melted and we were gutting herrings with blunt knives. The gulls screaming around and about us. One of Rerri's watched us from outside of the long house. He had a bow and a sword at his side. I wondered how he knew I was a warrior, for I had never talked of my life. nor had I revealed my true name., preferring them to think that I was called Gunner.

Falico was my real name, the name I was given at birth. My father was nicknamed 'Gunner' during the war, because he fired the large cannon. I was called 'Little Gunner' for I was his son. When I got captured and separated from my father. I called myself Gunner to honor and remember him if I never saw him again. I never used the name Falico on board the Fina. Falico is a proud name, a Warrior's name, and I would keep it a secret until I escaped slavery or death claims me.

"How did you know I was a warrior?" I asked him.

"Because you never stop watching the bastards," he said. "You never stop thinking about how to kill them."

"Your the same'" I said.

"Davon the Agile, they would call me," he said. "Because I would dance around enemies. I would dance and kill. Dance and kill." he slit another fish's belly and flicked the offal onto the snow where two gulls fought over it.

"There was a time ," he went on angrily, "when I owned five spears, six horses, three swords, a coat of bright mail, a shied, and a helmet that shone like fire. I had a women with beautiful short hair and with a smile that could dim the noonday sun. Now I gut herrings." He slashed with the knife. "And one day I shall come back here and I shall kill Rerri, hump his women, strangle his bastard children, and steal his money." he gave a hoarse chuckle. "He keeps it all here. All that money. Buried it is."

"You know for sure?"

"What else does he do with it? He can't eat it because he doesn't shit silver and gold, does he? No, it's here."

"Where ever here is," I said.

"Kenet," he said. "The women is a northern like you. we come here every winter."

"How many winters?"

"This is my third." Davon said.

"How did he captured you?"

He flipped another cleaned fish into the rush bucket. "I was betrayed by my lord."

"You too? How?"

"He wouldn't ransom me. He wanted my woman. So he let them sell me into this hell."

"Another Bastard to kill, eh?" I said.

Yes! My list is long." He shuttered as if his angered was too much to contain.

Sleet came instead of snow and the ice slowly melted in the creek. We made new oars from seasoned spruce cut the previous winter, and by the time the oars have been shaped the ice was gone. Grey fogs clocked the lands and the first flowers showed at the edges of the reeds. Spring was coming and so we caulked Fina with cattle hair, tar, and moss. We cleaned her and lunched her, returned the ballast to her bilge, rigged the mast bent and cleaned and mended sail onto her yard. Rerri embraced his women, kissed his children, and waded out to us. Two of his crew hauled him aboard and we gripped the oars.

Row you bastards!" He shouted. "Row!
We rowed.


Anger can keep you alive, but only just. There were times when I was sick, when I felt too weak to pull the oar, but pull I did for if I faltered then I would tossed overboard. I pulled as I vomited, pulled as I sweated, pulled as I shivered, and pulled as I hurt in every muscle. I pulled though rain and sun and wind and sleet. I remembered having a fever and thinking I was going to die. I even wanted to die, but Davon cursed me under his breath. "Your a feeble bastard," he goaded. "Your weak, Your pathetic, you Northern scum." I grunted some response, and he snarled at me again, louder this time so Rerri heard from the bows.
"They want you to die, you bastard," Davon said. "So prove them wrong. Pull you feeble Northern bastard, pull." Rerri hit him for speaking. Another time I did the same for him. I remembered cradling him in my arms and putting gruel into his mouth with my fingers.

"Live you bastard," I told him. "Don't let these earslings beat us. We both have many to kill. LIVE!"
He lived........We both lived.

Someday, we WILL be free.

Gunner stopped for the moment. His head was down and his eyes was closed. No doubt it took a lot of strength for him to talk about it. No one said anything. He opened his eyes, took a deep breath and continued his story.

For the next couple of days I thought about ways of escape and revenge. I thought Rerri and his men must sleep and when they slept I would kill them, but I usually fell asleep before they did. Some time later we slaves were kicked awake and we hauled the sail up the mast.

Four of the rowers were from the Island Nations, two were Fatorians, one was an Elf, three were from the Grasslands, and the last man was a mystery to me. He was on the bench across from me and I did not know where he was from because he rarely spoke. he was thick, dark-skinned, black-haired and, though only a year or so older then me, he bore the battle scars of an old warrior. I noted how Rerri's men watched him, fearing he was trouble and when, later that day, the wind went easterly and we were ordered to row. The man pulled his oar with an angry expression on his face. That's when I asked him his name. and Rerri came storming down the boat and struck me across the face with a leather knot. Blood ran from my nostrils. Rerri laughed, then became angry because I showed no sign of pain so he hit me again.

"You do not speak," he told me. "you are nothing. What are you?" he demanded.

"Nothing," I grunted.

"You spoke!" He snarled, and hit me again. "You mustn't speak!" he screamed into my face and slashed me across the scalp with his knot. He laughed, having tricked me into breaking the rules, and went back on the prowl.

"Gods!" I thought to myself. "The ways I''m going to hurt you." I hated that man so much. For a moment I though I could rip off my chains with my bear hands. But it only lasted for a moment.

So we rowed in silence, and we slept though the dark, though before we slept they chained our manacles together. They always did that and one man always had an arrow on a bow in case any of us tried to fight as the man threading the chain bent in front of us.

Rerri knew how to run a slave ship. In those first days I looked for a chance to fight and had none. The manacles never came off. When we made port. we were ordered into the space beneath the steering plat from and it would be nailed into place. We could talk there and that is how I learned something of the other slaves. The four Islanders were sold into slavery. They were farmers and they cursed there goddess for there predicament. The two Fatorians and three Grasslanders were thieves, condemned to slavery by there own people, and all of them were sullen brutes.

I learned little from the mystery dark skinned man., for he was tight lipped, silent, and watchful. He was the smallest of us, but strong, with a sharp face behind his black beard. I believe he was a follower of the Tine faith.....{Followers of the Great Dragon God} or at least he had the splintered remains of a wooden dragon hanging on a leather thong, and sometimes he would kiss the wood and hold it to his lips as he silently prayed. He might not of spoken much, but he listened intently as the other slaves spoke of women, food, and there lives left behind, and I daresay they lied about all three. I kept quiet, just as the the man stayed quiet, though sometimes, if the others were sleeping, he would sing a sad song in his own language.

We would be let out of the dark prison to load cargo. that went into the deep hold in the center of the ship just aft of the mast. The crew sometimes got drunk in port, but two of them were always sober and those two guarded us. Sometimes, if we anchored offshore, Rerri would let us stay on deck, but chained our manacles together so none of us could attempt an escape.

My first voyage on the Fina was far to the north. Even though I was from the north. We traveled farther then even I knew where we were. We threaded a strange seascape of low islands, sandbanks, running tides, and glistening mudflats. We called at some miserable harbor were four other ships were loading cargoes and all four ships were crewed by slaves. We filled the Fina's hold with eel-skins, smoked fish, and otter pelts.

From there we ran south to the port of Fartorian. I learned it was Fatorian because Rerri went ashore and came back in a foul mood.

"If a Fartorian is your friend," he snared at his crew. "You can damn sure bet he is not your neighbor." He saw me looking at him and lashed out at me with his hand, cutting my forehead with a silver and amber ring he wore.

"Stinking Fatorians," he said. "Bastard Fatorians! Tight-Money Fisted Fatorian bastards!" That evening he cast a rune stick on the steering platform. Like all sailors, Rerri was superstitious man and he kept a sheaf of rune sticks in a leather bag and locked it away beneath the platform, I heard the thin sticks clatter on the deck above. He must of peered at the pattern of the fallen sticks made and found some hope in there array, for he decided we would stay with Tight-Money Fisted Fatorian Bastards. And at the end of three days he had bargained successfully for we loaded a cargo of sword-blades, spear-heads, scythes, mail coats, yew logs, and fleeces.

We took that north, far north. Further north then the last time. Once again I had no clue where we were. Rerri sold the cargo. Fatorian Blades were much prized, while the yew logs would be cut into plow blades, and with the money he earned Rerri filled the boat with iron-ore that we carried back south again.

Rerri was good at managing slaves and very good at making money. The gold and silver coins flowed into the ship, all of them stored in a vast wooden box kept in the cargo hold.

"You'd like to get your hands on that, wouldn't you?" he sneered at us one day as we rowed up some nameless coast. "You sea trash!" The though of robbing him had made him crazy. "You think you can cheat me? I'll kill you first. I'll drown you!" we said nothing as he raved.

"The only thing I'm going to take from you is your life, you sick bastard." I thought to myself as we rowed.

Winter was coming by then. Once again, I did not know where we were, except we were in the north and somewhere in the sea. After delivering our last cargo we rowed the unladen ship beside a sandy shore until Rerri finally steered us a tidal creek edged with reeds and there the Fina ran ashore on a muddy bank. It was high tide, and the ship was stranded at the beginning of the ebb. There was no village at the creek, just a long low house thatched with moss-covered reeds. Smoke drifted from the roof hole. Gulls called. A women came from the house and, as soon as Rerri jumped down from the ship, she ran to him with cries of joy and he took her in his arms swept her about in a circle. Then three children came running and he gave each one a handful of silver and tickled them and threw them in the air and hugged them.

This was where Rerri planned to spend the winter, and he made us empty the ship of her stone ballast, ship her sail, mast, and rigging, and haul her on log rollers so she stood clear of the highest tides. She was a heavy boat and Rerri called a neighbor from across the marsh to help haul her with a pair of oxen. There was a slave hut behind the house. It was made of heavy logs, even the roof was of logs, and we slept there in our manacles. By day we worked, cleaned the Fina's hull, scraping away the filth and weeds and barnacles. We cleaned the muck from her bilge, spread the sail to be washed by rain, and we watched hungrily as Rerri's women repaired the cloth with a bone needle and catgut. She was a stocky women with short legs, heavy thighs, and a round face pockmarked by some disease. Her hand and arms were red and raw. She was anything but beautiful, but we were starved of women and gazed at her. That amused Rerri. He hauled down her dress once to show us a plump white breast and then laughed at our wide-eyed stares. I dreamed about the women in my life. My mother, my childhood friend, Gisela. Even my baby sister. I tried to summon there faces to my dreams, but it would not come. I called up all my resolve and and turned my back to the two of them.

"I will not give you two the pleasure, of mocking me." I said in a low tone, even though, I was dying to get my hands on her.

Rerri saw what I did and shouted at me to turn back around. Instead, I fell to the ground, closed my eyes to sleep. "Your free to come in here and make me turn around to look and that ugly horse of a women." I thought to myself.

Seeing that there was nothing he could to to me at the moment. Rerri cursed under his breath, and the two walked back into the house.

I smiled to myself. I beat Rerri at his game, and I would take any victory over him and treasure it. For each one kept the tiny spark of fire in my heart that told me I would be free one day.

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.

After a great meal and a few good laughs between the two of them. Rand and Uber decided to help out around the restaurant. Uber helped Tosh serving food when ever he needed a break. Mentokka asked him to remove his sword. It wouldn't look right serving food having a large sword strapped to his back.

Rand went into the kitchen to give Merc a hand. He was amazed at the cutting and slicing speed of the meat and vegetables that nearly cheated the eyes. Rand thought it must of been her ninja skills. She seem so happy. All the problems seems to vanish like the steam rising from one of her boiling pots when she is cooking. Rand could not understand why would any one want to hurt this beautiful women.

Rand knew who did this to her, but he also knew that she was hired to do it. He would ask her would she give him the name of the person. But knowing her, it would most likely end up the two of them half killing each other in a magical battle. But he was kind of hoping that time would calm down the fiery nature of her.

"Yeah Right." Rand thought grimly, "I got a better chance of changing colors before THAT happens."

Merc asked Rand to take over for her. She told him that she wanted to see a 'Master' at work. Rand smiled and told her he didn't know about being a master. But he was 'Pretty Good'. Rand's cutting and slicing nearly matched that of Merc when it came to meats and vegetables. But it was the adding and the combination of spices where Rand was truly a 'Master'.

And the customers thought so also. Rand promised to give Merc a list of all of the spices and what foods it would be best used on. Merc ask him why would he give her something so valuable to him. Once again Rand smiled and told her he would be honored that he could pass on the few things he learn over the years to her.

Tosh was more or less serving food with a straight face. But inside, he was raging.

"Damn you, Merc! Why did you have to blackmail be to do this......You could of ASKED, you know."

Moments later as Tosh continued to sever customers. He heard a voice calling out to him.

"Tosh........Can you hear me?" Tosh looked around and noticed no one looking at him or speaking towards him. He shrugged his shoulders and paid it no mind.

"Tosh......Can you hear me?" The voice called out to him again. "It's me, Mentokka."

Tosh quickly looked over towards his sister. But he noticed that she was taking an order from a customer.

"Don't look over towards me. You'll notice that I'm not even paying you any attention. I'm speaking to you from her 'Inner Spirit'."

"Inner spirit?" Tosh muttered softly.

"Yes, Tosh. Other Heavy Thinkers and Big Brains would call it the 'Subconscious'. A place some where near the place where a person dreams, I think."

Tosh was going to say something, when the voice told him to speak though his mind. He nodded in agreement.

"If you are who you say you are.........why don't you talk to me face to face?"

"You know it's me. Stretch out with your spirit and reach out to me." Tosh did so.

And when he did. His spirit was hit with Mentokka's essence that was so strong that it made Tosh shut his eyes and wince.

"The Magical Trial." Tosh muttered out loud. "Your Mentokka's magic. Her spirit was never this strong. Why are you getting in contact with me in this way?"

"Because Mentokka.............The conscious part of Mentokka has little knowledge of me."

"How is that possible?"

"It's hard to explain, Tosh. I need you to trust me on this. I need to talk with you."

Tosh waited, then spoke. "Go ahead........I'm listening."

"Not like this." the voice said to him. "Tonight.........when your asleep. We can talk freely there." That made no sense to Tosh.

"Why didn't you just wait til was asleep and get in touch with me that way.

"That's simple...........The magic in you would see me entering your dreams and attack me. I need you to lower you defenses."

Tosh was shocked to hear that. He knew his magic was strong. Uncle Rand always told him this. But he thought the fact that he rarely use it it wouldn't do something like that without him doing it himself.

"Besides that. Your my brother. Don't you think I'd ask you first?"

Tosh sighed inwardly. Mentokka always knew what buttons to push to get into his heart.

What is it you want to talk to me about that you'd go though all of this?"

"Not here, Tosh. I need you to trust me on this." Tosh nodded inwardly. "Thank you, Big Brother." And then the voice was gone.

"Big brother?" he thought to himself. "You haven't call me that in years"

"Call you what?" Mentokka said standing front of him.

"Oh nothing, sis. Just talking to myself."

"Ok, Tosh. Just don't start Answering yourself. Your crazy enough as it is."

"Ha ha! Very funny, Sis!" he said as she went back to taking orders.

And for the next couple of minutes. Tosh thought it was kind of odd that he was talking to his sister Twice yet talking to her once. A little strange. He could only guess what she was going to talk to him about. Dealing with her new powers and all. He wondered should he keep his defenses up just a touch. But thought againts it.

It was his sister...................Wasn't it?