Long Live

Prologue

"Catherine!"
I sat up in bed when I heard my mother running.
"What is it?" She asked, frightened.
"It's a raid! Get the children up and tell them to go to the barn!" He ordered.

Her silence was absolutely bone chilling. I could hear screaming and crying outside, and there was fire everywhere.

"Kaitlynn! Daniel! Get up!" I heard my mother call, handing me my coat and shoes, and handing Daniel his own.
"Both of you. Run." She said breathlessly. "Go to the barn and hide. Don't go into the stalls, but hide in the hay. Go to the loft or anything. Just bury yourselves in the hay and don't come out until we come for you. Do you understand me?" She asked, pulling us into a tight embrace.
"Yes Momma." I answered, but Daniel only nodded.
"Good. Now go!" She said, pushing us out the window.

Our feet landed in the snow, and Daniel lifted me into his arms as he ran to the barn. He put me down only when we were inside.
We climbed the ladder to the loft, and Daniel buried us both in the hay.

"Be very quiet." He whispered to me, and I obeyed, barely even breathing.
We waited in the loft, hearing only screaming and yelling until the barn door opened and we heard voices.

"Get the horses but leave the rest." One man said gruffly.
"Yes Sir." Another answered.
I heard them lead our horses out of the stalls and I kept quiet, but when I heard someone on the ladder I stopped breathing.

"Search for any valuables! We found jewelry in one barn!" The first man called, and the third man started sifting through the hay, and I barely heard Daniel curse under his breath.
The man kept moving the hay around until he barely brushed my shoe, and I squeezed my eyes shut, but it did no good. The man uncovered my foot and dragged me out of the hay, standing me upright.
"What have we here..?" He smirked, but he looked away from me when I saw Daniel stand up and charge toward the man, punching him in the jaw.
He stumbled but caught himself and drew his sword, and I started to cry.

"Please don't hurt him Mister!" I pleaded, pulling on his arm, but he sneered and kicked me aside, raising his sword above my brother.
"RUN!!" Daniel screamed. "RUN AND DON'T LOOK BACK!!!"
Frightened by his tone, I jumped from the loft and took off running as fast as I could out of the barn, and I heard Daniel yelling loudly, but I didn't stop. I ran faster and faster until I reached the edge of the woods behind out house, but that was when I heard yelling behind me.
"Grab Her!!" Someone yelled, and I tried to ignore the burning in my chest and keep running.

I dodged trees and branches, slipping on snow every now and then, but finally I thought I'd gotten far enough away.
I slumped quietly against a tree trunk and brought my knees up to my chest, hugging them. Now I would wait for Daniel or Mother and Daddy to come and get me.

I sat quietly for a few minutes before I heard crunching in the snow and branches breaking, and finally voices.

"Why are we going through all this trouble for one little girl?" A man asked and I froze.
"Because they said to take all of the girls, and I'd rather do a little extra walking and complete my task than get in trouble for leaving one. Besides, she can't be older than seven. She's not that far from.."
I squeezed my eyes shut as if it would make them unable to see me curled up against the tree, but it was useless.
"Well, would you look at this." The man said to his comrade, grabbing my arm and forcing me to stand up.

"Please let me go." I struggled against his grip. "I just want to go home. I promise I didn't do anything wrong!"
The second man looked slightly pained and nudged his partner.
"Come on, let's go. I don't like being out here this late at night."
The man who was holding me didn't let go as we trudged through the snow, out of the woods, and finally back through my yard and through the back door of my house.
"Come on, Dan. Just go around the house, would you? She doesn't need to see that, she's just a little kid!" The man who wasn't holding me complained.
"Not for long. Little kids all need to grow up." The man I assumed to be Dan snarled.

The other man jerked me away from Dan and carried me outside, around the house, and finally to a group of men, horses, and other children.
"I've got her." He said, setting me down rather gently and tying my hands together with a leather cord and instructing me to sit down with the other little girls.

The men talked for a very long time, and I kept looking for Daniel, but I never saw him. They brought other boys around, and other girls, but no grown ups, and not Daniel.
Finally after what seemed like hours and hours, they assigned one child to every two soldiers, and I became stuck with the one who had found me in the woods, Dan, and the man who had carried me to the group instead of taking me through the house.
The men rode on the horses, and I was seated behind the nicer man who told me to hold onto his belt so I wouldn't fall off the horse, so I did, and we rode quietly for a long time.

Hours later, in the pitch black of night the men decided to make camp, so they started a fire and separated the girls from the boys. The girls at one fire, and the boys at another, and we all huddled together around the fire for warmth and comfort as the soldiers all talked and laughed.

"Kaitlynn." I heard someone whisper my name. "Kaitlynn.."

I turned around and saw one girl, Felicity who I sat with in church a lot. She was a big kid, about thirteen years old, almost a woman, and I loved her.
I hugged her as best as I could and buried my face in her chest.
"You need to listen to me." She said seriously, and I looked up at her.
"I know you don't understand what is going on, but you have to listen. If they tell you to do something, do it. No matter what, and you need to be very quiet and very well behaved, okay." She said, seriousness in her face.
I nodded.
"Yes, but why?"
"Because you need to be perfect from now on. These people don't like us, and they might hurt you if you don't listen and behave."
I nodded and looked down.
"When do we get to go home?"
She shook her head sadly.
"I don't think any of us will ever go home again." She said, kissing my head. "But from now on, you need to be strong and be good for your family's sake, and you need to trust God that he'll get you through this. Okay?"
I nodded again and she slipped back to where she'd been sitting and I stared into the fire, saying nothing else.

We ended up spending the night there in the cold, and the next morning, they divided all of the children up.
They took away all of the boys and took them into the woods, and then the girls were separated into two groups.
First the girls older than ten were taken into the woods, and then the younger girls like me followed about an hour later.
We all lined up in a single file line and there were at least five guards around who began to inspect each of us girls.

The first girl in line was pulled away from the group and they examined her hair, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, teeth, neck, and continued down her body until they sent her to one soldier, then they continued down the line, checking each girl and sending her to one of two groups guarded by a soldier.
In the end, they took the larger group deeper into the woods and the smaller group which I was included in went back to the camp site.
Because most of the day had been spent with the inspections, once we got back everyone sat by the fire and said very little. It was getting dark and so far only the little kids had returned, boys and girls, but there was less than 1/4 of the amount of children we'd originally had.
Finally Felicity returned with two other girls and then six or seven boys returned as well and Felicity sat next to me.

"Where are the rest of the kids?" I asked quietly.
She shook her head sadly.
"They aren't coming with us." She said quietly as I heard a blood curdling scream coming from deep in the woods.
Felicity covered my ears and pulled me into her chest, rocking me gently, but I wasn't dumb, even for being only six. They weren't coming with us because they would all be dead.. Tabitha, Ruthie, and Gina would all be dead and I'd never see them again... Well, until I went to heaven I guess, at least that was what Mommy and Daddy told me.
"They're dead.." I said quietly, and Felicity closed her eyes. "My Mommy and Daddy.. and.. and Daniel." I started to cry a little, unable to stop the tears.
Felicity just held me.
"Yes Katie. They are.." She said sadly. "My parents and brothers are dead too.."
I didn't say anything else, I just let her hold me.