Secrets revealed...

The old ashik stopped to clear the dust from his throat, and one of the brothers poured a small amount of water into a wooden cup and passed it across the fire to him. The ashik smiled his thanks and wet his voice with the precious liquid. The brothers looked expectantly through the dancing flames and again the old ashik allowed himself a little smile. “I hope that I am not boring you with the tales of an old man?”

The brothers both shook their heads and gestured for the ashik to continue...

My name is Miloch, and only thirty minutes ago I was the property of the Resherek Merchant House. That was before the Elves arrived. It seems that they have an issue with the slavers capturing members of their tribe and selling them to build a Grand Ziggurat in the city state of Tyr. Before I was a slave I was... well I guess that doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is the here and now.

I look around at more than a dozen slaves looking as stunned as I must look, all except the Thri-Kreen, I have no idea what emotion that most alien of faces is showing. We are in the middle of the stoney badlands, with no clear indication of where we have come from, or where we were heading. I can only hazard a guess based on the direction that the now mekillot free wagon is pointing.

Said wagon is now firmly ablaze and the Elves begin to leave in the direction that we came from, at least I think that it is. There seems to be well over two hundred of them and fortunately for us, they don’t seem to be paying us any attention whatsoever. I look around once more and can see the big Mul that I shared a cell with moving through the slaves, stopping to talk to each group and individual. I head in his direction to see what is going on.

I catch up to Kank just as he is talking, slowly and loudly, to the Thri-Kreen;

DO YOU KNOW THIS AREA?

The Thri-Kreen just issues a series of clicks back at the Mul, who shrugs and looks over his broad shoulder at me;

Well at least it hasn’t tried to eat me yet. I guess that’s a good thing.

I wasn’t sure if that was Kank’s idea of a joke, or if he was being deadly serious. Whichever, it was the most words I had heard him speak in four days of knowing him.

We walk together back towards our cell mates and arrive in time to hear Balboa telling them that the mekillots have both wandered off and there is no sign of them. I notice that Arthur the Dwarf is looking at something intently over my shoulder and so I turn to see what it is. I catch a glimpse of black blade and one of the slaves falling face first to the ground, and then a large male slave leans over him and grabs his two water carriers. I take several steps towards the large slave, with the intention of intervening, but notice that he is not alone.

With the large human male is a human female carrying twin obsidian short swords and a Mul male carrying an obsidian battleaxe. Three against one are odds that I do not fancy, so I look behind me to see if any of my cell mates will support me. I am very relieved to see the massive presence of Arthur and Kank flanking me and looking keen to get involved. The odds look much more favourable now, and as the three antagonists move towards a second victim we rush in.

Before we can reach them the large human male stabs a second of the freed slaves, but before he can finish his victim off one of his cronies shouts a word of warning and all three of them spin to meet our charge. The Mul wielding an obsidian battleaxe steps in front of me and then everything becomes a blur of activity as my focus narrows down to the fight in front of me. He’s good, really good. We feint and dodge, with both of us not able to land a significant blow against the other.

Having gauged each other with an initial flurry of blows, we break apart and that gives me a second to glance around and see how the others are fairing. Arthur is facing off against the human female with two obsidian shortswords, and their battle seems to be at a stalemate too. However, the large human male who started all of this is on the ground bleeding from a serious looking stab wound to his leg. As I watch, the large male takes a swing at Kank, but as he does so his obsidian shortsword seems to melt in his hand and flops uselessly missing Kank.

With a smile across his broad features, Kank steps in and punches the large human slave in the head with a meaty fist, knocking him out cold. As soon as he collapses unconscious to the floor, the fight goes out of his cronies and they both drop their weapons to the floor and put their hands up in a gesture of surrender. They both start claiming that the other guy made them do it, and then the female claims that he was controlling them with his mind. The Mul quickly agrees, but to my mind they are both a bit to eager with their story. They strike me as scared bullies.

I look across at Arthur and Kank, Kank seems to be looking to Arthur for permission to do something, but I don’t know what. Then Arthur speaks up;

He killed one and tried to murder another. He is a murderer. Do it!

I am not surprised when Kank bends down and cuts the large mans throat. In this world you reap what you sow. I am surprised, however, when the small Mul, Balboa, bends down and picks up the bent sword of the now dead murderer. He strokes it and seems to whisper to it and ever so slowly it straightens out and reforms back into its original sword like state. He then picks up a large rock and proceeds to do the same with that, but this time he forms it into a stone mace.

He places the now reformed shortsword gently on the ground and then places his own shortsword carefully next to it and walks away. Within moments, the Thri-Kreen is leaning down and picking them both up. The alien creature is now wielding four of the short obsidian blades. Arthur follows after Balboa and says;

That’s clever! Very clever. Can you do something bigger? Like a maul?

Balboa turns and faces the massive Dwarf and sadly shakes his head;

No! It’s too big.

Arthur looks a little crest fallen, but then shrugs and carries on. We try and get close to the burning wreckage of the mekillot wagon, but the heat coming from it is too intense for us to get anywhere near and so with very little else to do before the sun comes up and we can see where we are, we settle down for the night. We set watches, and make sure that the human female and the male Mul, are separated and watch with one of us.

Us. Interesting. I have clearly started to form a bond with my cell mates. I don’t know if it was because they backed me up in the fight, or the four days that we spent chained together, but we are definitely functioning as a group. And that increases our chance of survival. I have also noticed that Ka-Reen has been tending to the wounds of several of the freed slaves, including the one who was attacked, and so it appears that she is a healer. Yet again improving our chances in this harsh environment.

As the sun rises Balboa spots a high point roughly an hours walk away, at least I think that it is an hour away it is difficult to tell in this stoney badland. Leaving Scar to pick through the wreckage with the other slaves I strike out with Balboa, Arthur, and Kank to try and get an idea of where we are and more importantly, where we should be headed.

Based on the rising sun we are travelling east and after just over an hour we reach the rocky outcropping. From this vantage point, fifteen foot above the ground, it is possible to see a vast mountain range in the far distance stretching from the west to the north of us. To the east, the ground seems to suddenly drop away but it is impossible to see why. And to the south of us we can see what appear to be short stretches of what once must have been a grand road. It is those patches of road that the mekillot wagon seems to have been following.

It was tough going. Walking an hour across that stoney ground in bare feet, and wearing only loincloths. The sun had risen above the horizon, and even though it was still early, its heat was relentless on our backs. The Muls and the Dwarf seemed to be coping better than I was in the heat, but that could just be the stoicism of their kind. With what information we had, we made the slow trudge back to the others at the burned out mekillot wagon.

We get back to find Scar with her foot propped up on a partially burnt strongbox. She tells us that she was waiting for us to return before opening it, and so once we are there she kicks in the lid. It is a disappointing pile of ash and we are just about to leave it when Scar spots something in the ash. She leans down and pulls out a bone scroll case. Unsealing it, she reaches in with her long fingers and pulls out a hand drawn map. On the map in fresh ink are five ‘X’ marks, that Scar believes correspond to where the wagon stopped.

Scar spreads the map out in front of us and asks where we are going to head for. Balboa points towards the oasis and say;

Onwards. The desert is freedom!

Kank seems to nod his agreement, as does Arthur. I plan on sticking near to those two and so I also agree. Scar and Ka-Reen quickly follow suit. But the rest of the freed slaves have different opinions. The Thri-Kreen, a Dwarf and the Mul involved in the attacks say that they are going to head north and try and find the village of freed slaves. The remainder, including the human female involved in the attack, want to head back to Urik and try and resume their lives.

While we are discussing the direction that we are going to take, Arthur moves around the rest of the slaves handing them each a single ceramic piece. Most of them thank him, some feel hard done by. Kank strips the dead bodies of their loincloths and tears them into thin strips that he then braids into belts so that we can carry our merge water supplies. And Scar hunts around the perimeter of the area to make sure that we haven’t missed anything. And we have. She finds a dead wagon guard that had clearly been caught by the Elves trying to escape. His corpse is filled with arrows, and he has no possessions except his clothes, boots and some armour.

Scar strips him and checks out the armour and boots for size, but she is so tall that none of them fit her. In fact the only one that any of the stuff fits is Kank, and so he pulls on the boots and straps on the armour. He then strips up the guards clothing and turns them into foot wraps for the rest of us. By mid-morning the three groups of freed slaves have gone their separate ways and at my suggestion, our group parallels the old road heading south.

We have been following the patches of old road for a couple of hours when Arthur pulls us up and says that we have lost sight of the road. We decide to veer to our left, based on the fact that when we started out the road was to the left of us and we don’t think that we have crossed it, and head for high ground. But we still cannot see it. We seem to be lost. We push on towards the next piece of high ground in the hope that we will find our way again. I don’t mind admitting that I was not hopeful.

By this time the environment is really taking its toll, even though we are moving at a slower pace to accommodate Arthur the Dwarf, the sun is scorching and we have not had food or water since the night before. We decide it is time to find shade and rest for a short while. That short while soon turns into waiting for dusk, and we all slowly sip a half quart of water. Kank believes that it is more likely that we will be able to hunt something at dusk and so we agree that we will scavenge once the sun is setting.

At dusk, having made a couple of slings out of spare material, we sally forth from the shade in search of sustenance. Scar and Arthur head in one direction with Karina, whilst I accompany Kank and Balboa. Kank casts about for tracks or spore but can find nothing and after an hour of searching we return back to the shade empty handed. Scar and Arthur have more luck and find some small cacti that provides each of them with a little sustenance, but there is not enough to share.

As we are approaching our sparse camp, Kank stands stock still and starts to spin his sling. We all try and see what he is looking at but cannot make it out, he releases his sling stone and it sails high into the distance. I look at him quizzically, and he points slightly embarrassed in a completely different direction. But where he is pointing we can all see a large fat reptile hiding in the shadows. Arthur whispers that it is a baazrag.

This time Scar, Balboa, and Kank start to spin their slings. And again, Kank misses by a long way. As does Scar, but Balboa’s shot is very close and it is only that the baazrag moves quickly to one side that he misses. Finally, Kank and Balboa manage to hit it simultaneously and it drops dead in its tracks. Kank builds a small fire, and Ka-Reen takes the baazrag and cooks it in it’s own carapace. It is edible, but there is only enough to stave off the worst of our hunger.

We may be free, but I’m not sure that our life expectancy is great!