The Slave Trade (Open Thread)

[Morhin]

The inn was busy, as it always was. Solders, mercenaries, common folk, and criminals filled the White Wolf every evening. The White Wolf was so popular because it was where you got connection for all your black market deals, buying of selling. "Inn Keeper. A drink." Said a man leaning against the bar. His face was hidden by the black cloak he wore, but that was not uncommon. When the Inn Keeper lade his drink before him the man asked in a low voice, "I'm looking for someone." The Inn Keeper leaned in and asked, "Everyone is looking for someone." "I deal in slaves." The Inn Keeper stepped back and refilled the dark man's drink. Then leaning forward he asked, very quietly. "Buying or selling?" To which the dark man replied, "Buying." The Inn Keeper left and walked upstairs. A few minuets later he returned and said loudly, "Your room will be ready in an hour, the last occupants left it a mess. But my boys will clean it up for you. Last door at the end of the hall." The dark clad man said thanks and silently dropped something in his half-empty drink. He found a seat in a dark corner of the dinning room and let a short stemmed pipe. The Inn Keeper poured out the mug the stranger had left and smiled at the gold coins he found in it. He was only the messenger, so with a clean conscious, the man but the coins in his pocket and served the next man wanting a drink.

[Cyrith]

Cyrith stood outside the White Wolf Inn. She often feared this place, never a choice of location to stop at. She could care less for it's black market deals that took place there for she had been a costumer of a few black market deals before, with one ending up with her running her sword through one of her sellers because he ripped her off.
It was the slave trades that went on in the Inn that Cyrith feared. The very thought always brought back the horrors of the past and paranoia always seemed to set in. Often thinking she would be captured and taken back to her former life. But a woman who was a survior and a fighter would be too much of a hassel for many slave traders when it was much easier to take someone weaker.
The young woman turned as if though she wanted to walk away but then stopped. It was an Inn and she was very thirty and there wasn't another Inn for many miles. Cyrith sighed and pulled the hood of her cloak over her head and rested her hand on the hilt of her sword, and then walked inside. Not much light filled the Inn and being dressed in dark clothing, it made it a little difficult for her to be seen. She was sure no man would try to mess with her, especially a woman who carried weapons. She made her way over to the bar and rapped her knuckles on the counter twice. "Hey Inn Keeper," she called. "A drink if you would please, something strong."

[Morhin]

Morhin sat in the corner and smoked his pipe in silence until his room was ready. Then without a word he stood and walked toward the stairs. Two drunk men were having an argument and one throw a chair at the other. But, being drunk, he completely missed and the chair went sailing toward Morhin. He saw it coming and side stepped to miss it. However in side stepping he tripped on an outstretched leg and bumped right into a man at the bar, spilling his drink. Morhin quickly put his hands out to ketch himself but suddenly froze. The man he had just bumped had a sword consealed under his cloak. Morhin slowly stood and was about to appologize when he got another surprise. Beneath the hood was a woman, not a man. Morhin would never have seen her if he had not been so close. She was very well hidden inside her cloak, the same way he was. Cureous, but not wanting to get side tracked on his agenda, Morhin simply nodded and said in a low voise, "Sorry. I'll buy you another drink." He tossed a few coins on the counter and left for his room. Where, if the Inn Keeper had aranged, waited some slave traders who would be most anxious to sell him slaves.

[Cyrith]

The Inn Keeper handed Cyrith her drink and she placed a few coins on the counter as payment. She got one sip out of until someone from behind bumped into her, causing her to drop and slip her drink. She was mad.
Cyrith turned around to face whoever bumped into her. She saw a man with what appeared to be a very surprised look on his face and was just staring at her.
She said nothing as he placed a few coins in the counter, paying for her next drink and then watched as he quickly walked away as if though he was in a hurry or something. Cyrith just shrugged her shoulders and reordered the same drink as before and pushed the coins forward then once again, sipped her drink when she recieved it.

[Morhin]

Morhin walked down to the end of the hall where his room was. After taking a quick look around, he opened the door and went in. The room was dark, so Morhin lit a lantern. As light filled the room he knowtest that he was not alone. Two men were hiding in the corner of the room.

"I assume that you are the men the Inn Keeper arranged to meet me?" Morhin asked. One of the men walked into the light and quickly looked him over before saying in a very low voice. "You interested in buying slaves?" Morhin nodded and said, "You know where I can get some?" To which the man answered, "Only if you can pay for them?" Morhin gave the man an evil smile and tossed a bag of coins onto the table. "For your time, the rest I'll pay upon delivery." The man picked up the coins smiled. This was going to be a very profitable sale. "Any particular type you interested in?" he asked after he had tucked the back safely into his belt. Morhin leaned forward and said very low, "I'm looking for young girls, anything under the age of 16. And as many as you have." The man looked at Morhin in curiously for a moment then furrowed his brow in thought. "I can get you a dozen by tomorrow night. Most are 12, but there is at least one 14 year old with the group. If you need more than that, give me a little time and I'll get more. All I've got in this area is a dozen. The price....50gold coins, each." He added with a nasty grin.

Morhin returned the man's grin and said, "I'll pay 75 gold each, if you can arrange to have more sent here." The man looked at Morhin hard for a moment and then his smile widen. This was indeed going to be a profitable business deal. "Tomorrow night, just outside the town is an old barn. The girls will be there. It's a pleasure doing business with you." The man got up and headed for the door when Morhin added, "There will be no mistakes or double-crosses." The man made a mock hurt face and said, "I would never double-cross such a great client. If I double cross you, may I be brought before the Grand Warmaster who hates slavers more than anything else." With a half attempt at a bow, he, and his companion left.

Morhin locked the door behind them and smiled to himself as he layed down. "My friend, you have no idea that the words you said in mockery will come true."

[Cyrith]

Cyrith rested her hand in her chin and pushed her empty mug aside. She didn't want to hang around any longer. Although it was an Inn, she had no desire to rent a room for the night. She couldn't anyway. She shifted through her pocket. Out of coins. Money has been hard to come by these days. Cyrith crossed her arms over her chest and scanned the Inn, studying the people around her, looking for her next target. She spotted a drunk man over by the door, his money pouch peaking out of his shirt pocket. Easy target. Cyrith casually walked towards the door and like an expert pickpocket, quickly swiped the pouch unnoticed. The old drunk will not notice it missing for a while.
Stepping out of the Inn, Cyrith then made her ways towards the stable where she had left her horse. It was there that she open the pouch and counted the coins. '20 gold? This is all you had old man?' she thought to herself. She had suspected it wouldn't be much due to it's light weight, but it was better then nothing. She sighed and put the punch in her bag. She could get at least one small meal out of. She had resorted on stealing just to survive. She could easily work odd jobs here and there, but she was just too proud and didn't want to serve or work under anyone. Her life wasn't that bad.

[Morhin]

The first thing that went through Morhin's mind was a curse at himself for letting his guard down and falling asleep. The second thing was how to survive. Morhin had fallen asleep as soon as the two slavers had left. He had only locked the door and not braced it with a chair as he normally did. He had awoke suddenly to find two men standing over him, both armed with wicked looking knives.

Without waiting for the men to state their intentions, Morhin swung his leg out and kneed the man on his right in the gut and rolled out of the way of the other man's knife. Instantly he was on his feet and had his own knife in hand. The regarded Morhin a moment before rushing him. With speed and skill that he had learned from the Elves who raised him, Morhin blocked one of the knives with his own and countered the other with a simple parry of his arm. Using his momentum, he disengaged his knife from the first blade and hit the man in the back of the head with the handle of his knife. The man fell on the floor, unconscious.

The other attack chose that moment to strike while Morhin's blade was out of line. He raised his knife for a stab at his neck, but Morhin caught the blade in midair. It then became a fight for control of the blade. Morhin was keeping the blade merely inches from his throat. Suddenly two more men rushed into the room, each armed with a mini-crossbow, a popular weapon among assassins. With little time to spare, Morhin shifted his weight and twisted the knife, arm, and man before him to the right and crashed through the window. To his good fortune there was a small roof under his window that sheltered the Inn's firewood from the rain. Morhin and his attacker landed on it before falling to the ground. Once on the ground, a quick kick across the man's head was enough to knock him out.

Morhin sprinted to the nearest building and dove through an open window before the two men with crossbows could get a shot at him. He closed the window behind him and then slumped to the ground with his back against the wall, trying to ketch his breath. He had dove into the stables and was now sitting in an occupied horse stall. The horse looked up from his feed bucket and starred at Morhin who nodded to the horse and said, "Well, I think I just got thrown out of my room for the night. Do you mind having a bunk mate tonight?"

Morhin hid behind the stall wall when he heard the door open. A figure stepped inside. Silently drawing his knife, Morhin made ready to finish the fight.

[Cyrith]

Although still unhappy with the quantity of her steal, Cyrith just shrugged and made the best of it. It wasn't the first a steal have been poor. She pushed open the door of the stable and stepped inside. She wanted to tack up her horse and leave as soon as possible. The sun would go down soon and she needed to find at least a decent enough place to sleep for the night. She never really cared where she laid down, as long as it wasn't somewhere open where she would be vulnerable to attacks.
Cyrith removed the hood of her cloak, letting her dark hair fall loose. Her horse still had it's head in the feed bucket. She took it as he didn't care much for the kind of feed provided and was just eating so that he wouldn't be hungry, but rather slowly. He could be a picky eater at times. Cyrith walked up to the stall and leaned over the wooden panel. "Hey there boy," she spoke softly to her four-legged friend and petted his nose.
It didn't take long for Cyrith to get the feeling that someone else was there. Those senses she had learned to pick up rather quickly especially when she was a female always traveling alone. She opened the stall door and stepped inside. As if though she knew where to individual was, with her quick reflexes she reached over and grabbed a hold of the fabric of the unknown visitor's clothing and held onto it tightly. She didn't want to spook her horse and make a lot of sudden movements. "You!" she said in a harsh whisper. "What are you doing?! Were you trying to steal my horse?!

[Morhin]

Morhin waited in slience. He was surprised when the figure removed it's hood, revealing a woman. The same woman I bumped into in the Inn. Morhin thought to himself. My her movements, he guested that she was not with the men who had tryed to kill him just moments ago. But that remained to be seen. When she spoke to the horse that was in the same stall as the one he was hiding in, Morhin held his breath. Suddenly, the woman steped inside the stall and grabed sleave of his left arm.

Morhin could have moved like lighting and have his knife to her throught before she knew what was happening. But sudden movements would startal the horse and then who knows how things would go. So instead, Morhin mearly said, "I'm looking for a place to sleep. You might say I got thrown out of my room." He glanced at the horse and then added, "Your friend was kind enough to let me shair his stall." Slowly, Morhin sheived his knife and stood up. "And who might you be?"

[Cyrith]

Cyrith guessed that this man obviously did something stupid enough to be thrown out. She has seen many drunks get thrown out of Inns many times because they were too wild and caused nothing but trouble and this man was not drunk. Perhaps he started a fight. Not like it mattered to her anyway. It wasn't her concern, nor did she really care. Cyrith kept out of others people's business as often as she could. She really hated when someone would pull her into it at times.
"That is none of your concern. All you need to know is that I am the one who owns this horse now get out of the stall!" Cyrith said as she pushed the man out of the stall. "Once I tack him and leave, you have it all to yourself."

[Morhin]

Morhin stood about 8 inches taller and easaly weighed 100 pounds more then the woman. But even then he was shoved out of the horse's stall. Despite being almost killed by assassins, Morhin was not about to be ordered around by this woman. "Well, excuse me little sister. Didn't mean to interupe your horse's beauty rest." He made a mock bow and then reached for what looked like the horse's saddle. "Perhaps you'd like me to saddle him for you, little sister. He's much to big for you."

The door to the stable creeked open and Morhin instantly droped the saddle and pulled out his knife. Standing in the door way was the slave trader, with a look of concern on his face. "Sir, I just heard that you were attacked. I am very releaved to see that they didn't get you. I do hope that you still want the slaves." Morhin did not put away his knife, but nodded to the man. "Yes, I still want them. And no mistakes." "Of course, of course. The girls will be delivered tomarrow night. Good night sir." The slave trader seemed disipointed that Morhin was still alive, but that didn't bother him. He was most likely behind the sudden attack. But Morhin would just have to wait untill tomarrow to find out.

Suddenly remebering that the woman was still there, Morhin turned back to her and eyed her. Maybe she was in on it, maybe not. But he was going to have to find out. Morhin couldn't risk being discovered, not yet. "Now perhaps you would care to tell me who you are, Please?" He added please to the end but his tone said that it was anything but polite.

[Cyrith]

"You insult me, sir," Cyrith said glaring at him. "Do not let yourself be so easily deceived by a small woman. I am well capable of handling things most women cannot." Again, Cyrith pushed the man away and off to the side and then reached for a brush and began to groom her horse. "And don't call me little sister," she added. "You have no place to call me such." Cyrith's brother always called her little sister, rarely did he address her by name, but when he died, Cyrith grew to hate the words 'little' and 'sister' in the same sentence.

Cyrith almost paid no mind to the man who walked into the stable, until the mentioning of slaves was brought up. She blinked and stopped grooming her horse and then glanced over at the two men at the corner of her eye, shocked at what she was hearing. Slave traders. She still feared them but she kept it hidden. These girls they were speaking of, Cyrith wondered what age group they were.

When the slave trader left the stable, the man looked back at her and addressed once again, wanting to know who she was. Cyrith's look of shock quickly turned to anger. She put the brush down and said in a low, bitter voice, "You're a slave trader?!" With more force than before, Cyrith shoved the man out of the stall once again and but this time around, she unsheathed her sword and pointed it at his throat. "I could kill you where you stand..and don't take me lightly, I am not afraid to kill a man if I have to."

[Morhin]

Morhin was suddenly realized that he had made another mistake. He had let his guard down again. But he felt surprisingly calm, despite having a sword blade pointed at his throught. Two things stuck out in his mind. One, the bitterness that this woman had said "Slave Trader." So the woman apparently hated slavers. That was good, although she belived him to be one. Two, the fact that he was still breathing was a very good sign. She hadn't gutted him on the spot. Morhin belived that she would kill him, but he wasn't going to wait for her to make up her mind.

With speed that had come from years of training, and a little blessing of being of elvish decent, Morhin sprang. His left arm shot out and pushed her blade out of line, then moved in and grabed her wrist. His right hand still had his large knife in it. As he moved to grab her, he layed the knife against her throught. "And I am not afraid to kill a woman, though I have never done so before." He remained motionless for a moment then slowly steped back and returned his knife to his shieve. He knowtest that he had not moved quick enough. A long, but not very deep cut appeared on his left arm where he had run it along her blade.

"Although you probably won't believe me, I am not a slaver." Said Morhin in a low, quite voice. "I hate slavers. And what you just over heard is a ruse. I am trying to rescue those who are now being held as slaves. From them, I might learn more about where the top leaders of the slave trade hide, and then they will be delt with." Morhin's tone had hardened to an icy tone. His fists shook with anger at the thought of inocent children being beatend, of young girls forced to sleep with curle masters. He looked back at the woman in frount of him. He had to find out who she was now. Now that she knew who he was. With his right hand, Morhin pulled out a silver handed whip from his belt. "Now, you will tell me who you are. I cannot let you go now that you know of my plans. Unless you can convence me that your not in leage with the slavers." Morhin spun the whip over his head and cracked it. The noise made all the horses in the stable jump and whinny in fear. "Who are you?" Morhin asked again.

[Cyrith]

Just as quickly as Cyrith put her blade to his throat, the man was even faster and had her by the wrist and his own blade to her throat before she even realized it. Cyrith was surprised at this man's quick speed. He was quicker to react than most men. Something was strange about him already. 'I am not afraid to die either' she thought to herself. She felt the man step back and Cyrith quickly turned around in time to see him return his knife to it's sheath and noticed the long cut on his arm left from her sword. With a single an yet careful swing of the blade, she shook the blood of the sword and resheathed it.

No, Cyrith was not sure if she could believe him. Although his icy tone and shaking fists as he spoke, she thought it could be possible he was telling the truth, but he also could be acting. She could not tell him who she was. "I am not with those slave traders," she said. "I cannot stand slavery."
When Cyrith saw the whip in the man's hand. She tried to keep herself from tembling at it's sight. Everytime she saw a whip it always meant one thing. She closed her eyes and tried to convince herself that maybe she was just seeing things, however, the sound of the whip cracking in the air was proof enough that it was real. She held back the urge to want to shriek but took off back into the horse's stall and ducked into a corner, facing the wall.

[Morhin]

Morhin studied the woman for a moment. She claimed to hate slavery, but she could be lying. Woman were the best lyers. His mind went to an old memory of another woman who had lied. Morhin shook his head to clear it. He hated the memory and shoved it far from his mind. The woman in front of him, that was his current problem. She seemed to tremble at the sound of his whip, but kept her composure. She was strong, that much he could tell.

Morhin decided that he wouldn't have to kill her, at least not now. He'll know soon enough if he should have killed her just now. Morhin returned the whip to his belt and then examined his arm. It wasn't a bad cut, but it would leave a scar. But what was another scar to him. He took a strip of cloth and tied it around his arm.

Picking up the brush that the woman had dropped, Morhin went to another stall and began to brush the mare inside. "You should probably get ready to ride out." He said as he tossed the brush back to her and through his saddle on the mare's back. "I think those slave traders are trying to get the money without delivering the goods. They may try again. And, They may think that you are with me." He looked over the top of the saddle at her. She looked like she hadn't had a decent meal in a while, or ever for that matter. He sighed and added. "If you think you can trust me, I'll be over at the Eye of Rhun. It's a small Inn on the end of town. I know the Inn Keeper personally and you can get a decent meal and bed without worrying about slave traders." Morhin led his horse out of her stall and mounted her. Before he left, Morhin tossed a small bag of coins at the woman. "That's for any trouble you may get in because of me. If you do go to the Eye of Rhun, tell the Inn Keeper that Morhin sent you." With that, Morhin rode out of the stable and headed out into the night.