A no more!

Defend the city! Your broad mouth opens wide and your white teeth flash as you laugh loudly for the first time in months. Two weeks ago, a soft skinned representative of the city council with a bag of coin gathered all the slaves from the merchant's quarter in the open courtyard that the merchant's houses faced. He offered to free and arm any **** who was willing to man the walls. He poured a pile of gold coins - enough to buy you a passage back to the southern continent. No even more than that. To any man who was an experienced warrior, he offered enough to get you home and buy a small herd of cattle. But you knew that to fight on the walls of this doomed city was a **** sentence, and that that gold would never find your purse.

To your surprise several of the slaves stepped forward and accepted the offer, and more than a few of them glanced in your direction. You towered above all the other men in the square, even Djuba, and back home your skill as a warrior was renown.

At twenty-six years of age, you were young but experienced enough to have two dark tattoos on your broad chest and your scared face looked more like a fighter's than any of the slaves who volunteered. When the balding man stepped up to you and showed you the gold you pretended to be simple in the head and not understand what he was offering.

Defend the city! Defend the men and women who paid for you to be brought across the great sea like a bird flying North in the spring to avoid the heat of the southern summer. You would rather die than fight for the greedy merchants in this city. Why should you defend the people who tore you from your family and whipped your back raw until your rage turned inwards? To the fat merchants you were just 'Simple Lippy' easy going and content with your new condition but inside you always looking for a way to get home with enough coin to buy a village and settle down as a chief. Enough money to buy six heavy breasted wives to give you babies to fill every house.

Escape was easy; you could have fought your way free the very first week, even make it to the marshes that Djuba is always talking about, but unless you could grow wings or steal a drake to ride, you need a great ship to take you home. That was the problem; even if you found someone to cut away the heavy black collar that ringed your neck, the captains of those ships would surely recognize an escaped **** if you approached them. No, no dark-skinned warrior ever returned to their home without papers to prove their freedom. Even then you’ve heard tales of ship captains who would seize free warriors during the passage and sell them back to the gold-robed cowards who valued strong warriors and brown skinned maidens of your homeland.

Until now, escape was too risky, but with the fall of the city, it might be time to make your move. There should be more than enough opportunity to take advantage of the chaos and loot some of the nearby wealthy merchant's houses. With a pocket full of gold and gems amid the flood of refugees you may find the opportunity to finally get home. And who better to finance your escape than the inhabitants of the city who brought you from your homeland and profited from your labor these past two years.

"Not the temple Djuba, when the time is right, there will be enough treasure for the two of us right here in this neighborhood." Like your master, many of the merchants living in this wealthy district were rich, and most had either young wives or pretty teenaged daughters. "Maybe even each get our own 'Vestal Virgin' from the Temple of Athena too."