The Quarry

[Rage Menelas]

[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]The man was a truly splendid specimen. He was tall, about six inches taller than Ryan, thin and sinewy with roped cords for biceps and forearms. A dark leather vest laced across his chest and a short kilt of the same leather fell midway down his thighs. His eyes were of the palest blue coloration and were almond-shaped and slightly tilted upward at the corners. His nose was long, thin and regal with a very shallow bridge. He looked Ryan dead in the eye brazenly, fearlessly, wordlessly. They stood locked like that for a small eternity. Finally the man spoke.

“Did you come from the flying stone?” he asked in a deep baritone.

Ryan was shocked to hear him speak English. “How...” he began and then decided to keep it simple at first, just answer his question. “Uh, yes... I came from the flying stone. My name is Ryan Manniks.”

“Aerose,” he stated bluntly, striking himself in the chest with a dull thump.

Now Ryan's eyes went to his weapons. There was the six-foot long bow, a quiver of arrows at his belt and from a baldric slung from his neck was what appeared to be a sheathed long knife. Ryan suddenly felt horribly vulnerable. He knew some TaeKwonDo, had boxed in league in the Navy, used to be a fair hand in fencing with a saber, but was not certain how handy these skills would be against a man armed thus, especially since he had nothing but his bare knuckles with which to defend himself.

“You will come to my hut for dinner. Come.” The man turned and strode away, supremely confident that his invitation would be accepted.

Giving Saar'floe one last forlorn look over his shoulder, Ryan decided he had better follow. What were his options? He did not want to offend this man. Besides, with the ship system down he couldn't even feed himself. And he was stuck with the clothes he had put on this morning: jeans, tennis shoes and a long-sleeve black tee shirt. Oh, well... it could be worse. At least it was warm enough right now for his light-weight clothing to be adequate.

He shrugged and followed his host off into the distance...