A Warrior's Heart

Journey

I've never seen a wrykka before and I'm not sure of I want to or not. They are probably more feral then their masters are.

As we ride farther into the desert, it gets hotter. The wind has died down and sweat shines on my skin. The other girls in the cage have been aroused from their sleep by the heat, and start looking around. One of the girls, her hair sticking up in different angles, looks behind me and gasps. I turn around.

There it is.

Ahead of us the Rhadjari camp looms ominously .All the prisoners in the cages have noticed the camp, and soft whimpers and cries come out of their mouths. The sounds make me think of a pig being led to the slaughter. They know that hell awaits them there. My stomach swirls in anticipation and fear.

As the horses pull the cage nearer to the camp, sounds of the camp fill my ears.

Shouting, screaming, cursing. Females rustling with cooking wares and starting fires to prepare the morning meal. The goddess Asmuna's sunlight is just staring to glow over the camp, bathing it in golden light, and making the desert sand shine. I admit, it's beautiful, but a place that holds such suffering does not deserve to also hold such beauty.

The horses pulling the cage make a left, to the farthest side of the camp, where I suppose the newest addition to the slaves will be unloaded. As we draw near to the destination, the unmistakable sound of metal clanging against metal catches my ears. There is fighting going on. For some strange reason I'm curious to see.

The cages have come to a stop. The Rhadjari who had been raiding were being greeted by the others from the camp. The cage door opens and I look into the face of female. She looks about a few years older than me.

At once I can see that she is beautiful, but that beauty is torn in two by a white scar running from the middle of her forehead, down her nose, towards her jawline.I can't tell if she has any other scars.

"Get out. Or I'll give you the same scar that those pretty eyes are admiring," the female says in a low voice.

The girl behind me pushes me and I stumble to the ground. I look back at her. She doesn't look at me. Her eyes are for the female in front.

" Follow me.", the scarred female says. None of us protest. We know better than to disobey.

I take a closer look at the female. She doesn't have any other scars or thana's marking her as a Rhadjari, and no features of an iskrai, so she must be human. I can't help but wonder how she got her scar. And how a human survived a Rhadjari camp. She leads us to a dull brown tent and motions us inside.

"Line up, all of you. Come, faster now." She says in a hard voice.

We all do as she says. Then she stands in front of us, giving us a once-over then starting from the front of the line she assesses our bodies. Mouths are wrenched open and peered inside, breasts are unabashedly weighed and arms and legs are tested for strength. When the woman is done with me, I have a sick feeling in my stomach. Being poked and prodded at as if you were cattle will do that to you.

In the end, the woman takes aside six out of a total of twelve girls, the prettiest. Some are hollow-eyed, some stare openly at the woman's scar, mayhap wondering how she got it. She pays them no attention, instead she speaks.

" My name is Ashe. I will not lie to you or soften the truth. You will all from this moment on, be slaves. You will serve the Rhadjari, some of you in different ways from the others.," she nods to the six girls she had taken aside. One of the girls started crying. The unsoftened truth sunk into to us. We had a few ideas about what being a slave to a Rhadjari meant.