It was a very good file, and I had myself freed in a couple of minutes. I stood up and stretched my legs.
“Hey! How’d yew get free?!” The burly blackrat who was the slavemaster yelled, starting toward me. I whipped out one of my hidden throwing knives from under my tunic, held it up, and grinned at him for a second before throwing it. He looked shocked when he saw the knife hurtling towards him. That was probably the last thing he saw.
Next, I hurried to the door and bolted it securely. I tossed the file to a weasel who had been sitting next to me. His whole back was scarred with whipmarks.
“When everyone is free,” I called to the rest of the slaves, nodding towards the weasel who was working away with the file, “We can borrow some axes and sink all the ships, except one which we will sail. If you want, we can rescue the other slaves on other ships.” The slaves looked doubtful. “When we are all free, that’s the time to make plans,” A ferret called out, snickering. “You think you’re sneaky don’t you stoat!” He sneered.
I grabbed my throwing knife from the dead slavemaster and cleaned it off idly.
“If that’s the way you feel,” I said, shrugging. I began to play with the slavemaster’s whip, snapping and cracking it in the air.
The ferret spoke through clenched teeth. “If you weren’t the bratty beast that planned to get captured and was ready, then maybe you would see my point of veiw!” Several other slaves murmured their agreement, except the weasel, who was still busy filing.
I looked up. Something he said made me angry. I whipped the side of the ship and glared at him. “What’s your name, ferret?” I asked, keeping my tone level and trying to control my rising temper. “Diskur.” He replied, in an equally level tone.
“Well Diskur, I spent three seasons of my life trapped on a tiny desert island, eating nothing but roots and drinking nothing but water! The only thing I tried to do was to avoid the thousands of adders that lived there, forever seeking me out! Would you rather do that than be a slave? I wouldn’t. How many seasons were you here?
“Five,” He answered cooly.
“LIAR!” Hissed the old scarred weasel, who was now standing up, having freed himself.
He turned towards me. “He was here one and a half seasons. I was the one who was here five. Furthermore,” He continued, “He is showing off a remarkable show of stupidity, making our rescuer mad.” He bowed his head at me in greeting. “Who wants to kill some blackrats? ‘Who’s with me and Zyneera?” He tossed the file to a fox sitting in front of him, and soon everyone was free. There were about twenty of us in all. Diskur had sulkily agreed to help, but I was keeping an eye on him.
It was not until we had slain all the blackrats on the ship we were on (Ok I’m skipping some details but I want to get this part done) when I realized that I had not told the weasel- or anyone- my name, but he had said it. ~To be Continued~