A/N: This took forever to write and much longer than usual to edit into a state where I could be satisfied.

Despite being good writing practice, I don't know if I want to write using this tone again. *shivers*

Also, there may or may not be an extra chapter from the main story.

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And here now we gaze upon,

the sands of Illastein.

For the flames of war now arise,

the struggle has yet to come.

Beneath the boots of those we toiled,

but now we say, no more!

Unfurl the flags! Beat the drums!

the rebellion has just begun.

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Yana crouched down, sifting through the sandy soil.  She thought she had seen some green.  There! 

Her thin fingers scraped the soil weakly and the root revealed itself, two tiny nodules clinging barely to life in the dry sand.  It was yama!  With desperate hands, Yana tore the nodules from the exposed roots.  This was good!  The sweetness would make the soup much better. 

She looked up at the sky, almost to Little Night now.  No more time.  The few herbs and edible grasses was all she had but it was better than nothing. 

She half ran and half stumbled back to the village.  The Little Night had started and the shadows hid rocks that scraped her feet but she felt it not at all.  In another few minutes, Yana ran into her house through the doorway. The caked mud and straw bricks were flaking already.  She would have to get papa to fix them, later of course.  Yana nodded to herself. 

"Papa!  Papa!" she shouted weakly, "I have some food!  I have yama!"

There was no reply from the deserted kitchen.  Yana put her rickety basket on the clay floor beside the stove, gently.  A small sound attracted her attention to the main room that her family slept and worked in. 

Yana crept around the door and saw her mother crouching over the place where her father had laid sick for the past week.  Her older brother was beside her.  Her father still lay there, unmoving. 

"Mama?" she asked timidly. 

Her mother just sat there, softly crying.  Yana looked at her father sleeping on the straw and back at her mother in confusion. 

"I even found some yama," Yana said, even more softly. 

Her brother got up and hugged her silently, a pale face and shivering arms hiding her father from view. 

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The hole in the ground looked too small for what Yana remembered of her father's size.  Her mother knelt over the sandy pit, throwing clods of dirt over her father, still crying all the while.  Strangely, despite her brother's cold arms around her shoulder, Yana didn't feel anything other than a slight sense of shock.  Shouldn't she be crying?  Or even a little bit sad?

Yana recalled the last words her father had said, just the morning before he had died.  "You should live to eat, not eat to live," he had said. 

Yana didn't understand that, but she understood that food was important.  Everyone knew that, everyone wanted to eat after all.  That must have been what her father wanted to tell her.  It wasn't that he was hungry and wanted to eat, like she had assumed. 

Her brother hugged her as the grave was covered up with the last of the dirt, leaving only a single mound.  Yana felt his tears staining her hair and let him hold her.  It lifted the numbness a little.  They walked back to the village painfully. 

The commotion ahead of them made her look up. 

There was a band of men among the dirt houses.  Their armour stood out, dark brown leather over faded green cloth.  Painted with a red moon surrounded with three red stars.  The emblem of the Rawi. 

"... between ages ten and thirty here, right now!" The leader of the group was shouting at the villagers huddling in the central clearing. 

The big man glared at them as the villagers looked at each other in confusion. 

"Hurry up!" he shouted, "this is the express order of the Alawi Zain's draft!  You have been given the honour to respond to his call!"

Yana immediately disliked the grin on the man's face.  Nor did the woman behind his shoulder look friendly. 

"You over there! " One of the group shouted at them.  Yana felt her brother flinch and squeeze her tighter.  There was a crunching in the sand as two of the knights came to her.  Two women in thin leather armour and swords that seemed to pulse with an unseen glow. 

"Take the boy," said the woman. 

Yana had no strength to even resist.  No power came to her limbs and despite all her older brother did, screaming, crying, thrashing, the other woman knight simply peeled him off her mother and dragged him back to the center of the village by his arm. 

The same was happening to the other villagers.  The knights fanned out through the village and dragged more of them out of houses amidst cries and protests.  A few of the older boys made a dash to escape but the leader waved a hand and a single bolt of magic burned them into twisted charred corpses.  There were no more would-be escapees after that. 

Yana and her mother sat where they were placed, on the doorstep of their house.  Her brother squatted in the central clearing and looked at them sadly.  Her mother was crying again beside her. 

She still felt nothing at all. 

After almost thirty boys and girls had been collected, the knights seemed to be satisfied.  They were joking and laughing at each other, the word 'slave' was mentioned. 

Then the village square exploded.  The knights reacted first.  A trio of unseen things flew out from one of doorways of the huts and exploded into sudden red blossoms in front of the knights.  As quickly as the first, another salvo arrowed out, men and women charged in from the sides wielding farming implements, hammers and kitchen knives.  The farmer, the woodcutter's wife, and others.  They were all people she knew, wearing angry expressions that she hadn't ever seen before.

Yana watched numbly, squatting in the doorway of her house, as the knights fired back with a spread of magic.  That was what the invisible bolts and those things on their swords were.  Magic.  For all her short life, Yana had only heard stories of magic told.  The knights fired indiscriminately, bolts flying wildly in all directions. 

The charge was short lived and futile.  The people who she had grown up knowing, the village she knew all the time, they burned.  Burning in a haze of magic, screams of rage and the smell of roasting flesh. 

Before her mother pulled her back into their house, Yana saw her brother being yanked up from where he lay flat and dragged away in front of another knight.  Then she was pressed flat to the floor, with her mother lying on top of her, crushing her to the dirt.  She could still hear the screams even though her mother's hands clapped around her ears and hugged her tight. 

It took an eternity for the screams to stop.  But even when her ears fell silent, the smell of burning straw, mud and human flesh remained like a miasma around her. 

Yana lay still, not daring to move under her mother.  But when air began to turn bad enough for her to start coughing, she wriggled out to find the house burning around them. 

Her mother... Yana looked away reflexively from the horrible wound on her back. 

The thought skittered across her mind but it disappeared down the same numbness that had been creeping over her lately.  She had to find her brother. 

Yana turned and tottered out of her burning house.  The village outside was a sea of flames, bodies and fire everywhere.  The sunlight on the clearing had been blotted out by a grey column of smoke, leaving only the flickering fire light dancing across the ground in a grey background. 

The knights were gone.  Yana ran across the square, checking the bodies for her brother but he was not to be found.  Here and there, the odd survivor knelt or wept, dragging the bodies of their relatives. 

"Where's my brother?" she asked a man who was kneeling over a half-burnt body. 

He looked up at her blankly.  His face was streaked with soot and baked red down one side.  She knew this man and the dead woman... Yana made the thought disappear again. 

"Where, my brother?" Yana repeated her question, pointing at the square the knights had gathered them into. 

"They... they took the people and ran," the man said, "down the road... towards town.  "

Yana looked down the dusty road.  Her brother was gone that way.  She nodded her thanks to the man but he was already turning back to the unrecognizable body on the ground. 

She looked at the road again and simply walked out of the village. 

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The boy looked up from his post, trying to stay awake in the warm midday sun.  A stern hand rapped his paka leather armour, jerking him awake.  Without even waiting for his apology, the squad commander was gone already. 

He looked up to the deserted road.  No one would brave the curfew to leave and who knew what else lurking outside these walls.  So why was there someone walking towards him?  Ah, they collapsed. 

The boy shot off his seat and peered closer. 

"What happened?" the commander snapped. 

"There's a person out there," the boy said.  "Sir," he added belatedly. 

"I don't see anyone," the man replied, "the sun bake your brains?"

"I did, sir," the boy said, "by your leave, I'll go take a look.  "

The man considered the action for a moment before nodding.  There wasn't anything better to do during a curfew anyway. 

The boy approached the collapsed figure when he realized it was a girl, younger than him by a few years.  "Oi!  Over here!" he waved to the other mercenaries manning the gate. 

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She was aware of a light covering above her.  A sense of dark coldness, or just less light outside her eyelids.  A pounding heat stayed inside her head, trying to get out. 

"You're awake," a boy's voice said next to her. 

Yana opened her eyes to see a stone ceiling.  Where was she?

The boy who spoke came into view, "here, drink this.  "

He helped her up and pressed a cup of weak alcohol to her lips.  She drank greedily.  The boy refilled the cup and fed it to her again.  The heat receded a little. 

"Who are you?"

He looked older than Yana, not an adult though, more like her brother.  But he wasn't her brother. 

"Yana. "

She looked at the boy questioningly. 

"You're in the gatehouse.  We're on watch and found you collapsed on the road just outside.  "

Yana nodded her thanks.  She remembered now.  The two day walk, feeling the sun wring her dry and glue her eyes to the road until there was nothing in the world but endless dirt and dry grass.  She remembered walking until the walls entered her view, the flood of relief at seeing it, and then nothing.  Yana got up. 

"So where are you going?" the boy asked, holding her back on the wooden bench. 

"Find my brother.  "

The words came out clipped and broken.  It seemed like forever since she had talked and her lips had forgotten how to make sentences. 

The boy looked at Yana, he didn't believe her.  "Who is he?  Is he here in this city?"

She gave him the name, "don't know.  Knights took him for slave, headed this way.  "

"oh," the soft sound and look of pity on the boy's face burned her.  Yana avoided his gaze. 

There was a scraping noise as the wooden door swung open to admit an adult man.  A big man, like that slaver who... Yana halted that thought once again.  She was getting good at this. 

"Hey, you're up now.  Glad to see that.  "

Yana saw the man eyeing her speculatively and decided that she also didn't like him.  His eyes were like those slavers, wondering how much she was worth. 

"I've decided, you'll join our group," the man said.  There was a smile on his face.  Yana didn't trust that smile. 

"What?!  You can't make a kid like her fight!" the boy exclaimed. 

Yana just blinked stupidly at the man. 

The man's smile turned cajoling.  "Shut it, boy.  We just need the numbers.  It doesn't matter if she can fight.  None of us are worth anything next to a knight anyway.  One more pair of hands to collect the nobles' coin is always welcome.  So, little girl, want some easy money?"

Yana shook her head.  She had to find her brother.  She couldn't join them. 

His smile faltered.  "You don't have parents?  Join us, its best thing for you.  You get food, a place to sleep and even earn some money.  All we do is watch this gate, just don't sleep in the sun.  "

"She has to find her brother, he was taken by slavers," the boy explained for Yana. 

"Slaves don't get released," the man shook his head.  The oily smile turned into an equally oily pity.  She was still not liking him.  "Give it up.  You're too young to do anything.  Maybe if you join us, you'll save up enough money to buy him back when you're older.  If he's still living.  "

But her brother wasn't supposed to be a slave!  "Not sold.  Knights just took him," Yana said.  How could he turn into a slave just like that?  They had no debt, no one would even lend them money. 

"I meant what I said.  Slaves don't get freed," the man was frowning now, "not if a kid like you protests.  Who's going to believe you?  They'll just take you for a slave too.  Plus you can't even find him right?"

Yana stared at the man.  That... yes, she did understand.  If she just walked up to the slavers and ask for her brother, she'd turn into a slave herself.  No, she had to find her brother!  But it was impossible.  Where would she go?  Who would tell her how to find her brother?  Was he even here in this town anymore?

All the doubts that had been ignored during her mindless trek surged him like a black wave.  Her eyes felt dry and scratchy but no tears would come.  She just wanted to cry into her mother's arms.  But that was impossible now. 

The tide of darkness rose in her mind- Yana caught her breath and slammed the door shut on her memory.  No, don't think about it.  She only had to find her brother, that was all, then everything would be all right. 

"I.. have, find him," Yana said dully, "find my brother.  "

The man snarled something unintelligible. 

"But-" Yana shook like a leaf as the man grabbed her shoulder. 

"If you want to find your brother, you will do what I say," the man said forcefully, "join us, grow up.  Save your money.  Then you will find your brother.  "

Was it really that simple?  And that sounded like it would take a long time.  Yana said so. 

"Yes it will, but you will find your brother afterwards, all right?"

Yana blinked away the remnants of her tears.  Could she really find her brother after this?  All right, then she could do it.  Yana nodded. 

The man bowed a short welcome, "then it's good to have you.  I'm the squad captain.  Boy, wash her up and show her where to sleep.  "

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"We got a job!"  The commander raised a cheer. 

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The rest of the gang didn't respond. 

"Ahem, today we attack this merchant.  Chase away his guards, free the slaves, show them out the back door," the commander glared around.  The gathered men and women nodded. 

Yana shifted under the heavy and oversized cloths she had been made to wear.  The dagger strapped to her waist was longer than her hand, but she could not even use it.  No one expected a little girl to fight, the weapon was just to fill a number. 

The commander led them down the busy market street and turned into a dark alley.  "And remember, we're pretending to be ISL, so if you see actual knights, run!" the man hissed.  That got another round of nods. 

"Yana, come here.  You go to that shop and look inside, tell us how many guards are there," the man said once they reached the alley next to the target. 

Yana walked forwards without saying anything.  The boy scurried along behind her, glancing worriedly at the commander.  But the man didn't stop him. 

She peeked around the corner, seeing the three men outside the shop area.  She held up three fingers. 

"There's three of them," the boy called back. 

"Easy enough, all of us at once!" the commander shouted.  The entire gang came barreling around the corner, yelling all the way. 

The three guards looked up at them and raised their weapons.  The first three bolts out of their bowguns slammed into the woman in front and she went down screaming.  Then the howling gang reached the guards and it devolved into a melee. 

Screams of shock and panic filled the air as pedestrians cleared out of the street.  A smell of smoke drifted past Yana's nose as flickers of flame licked the edges of her vision.  The town... it was burning. 

A hand on her shoulder snapped her out of the memory. 

The boy patted Yana, trying to be reassuring and charged out behind the gang.  Yana didn't move.  She couldn't move.  The smoke was coming back. 

Crouching in the alley, Yana crawled backwards and slipped into the space between the rows of buildings.  The back alley between the shops was a dark place, filled with looming knights and slavers. 

Ahead of her, the back door of the shop that was their target flung open, five people wearing collars tumbling out.  There was a cart waiting for them.  And men carrying swords. 

"Get in," the armed men ordered, kicked and pulled the slaves into the cart.  Into the cage on the cart. 

Yana squeezed herself into a gap in the walls, trying to turn invisible.  It didn't work.  One of the men came up to her, licking his lips menacingly. 

"You there, come here!"

She shook her head mutely.  Her tiny knife was in her hand, trying to put the point in between them. 

The man advanced on her.  Yana wanted to run away but her trembling legs weren't cooperating.  "Put that down and come here, or I'll hurt you," the man brandished his sword threateningly. 

"Oi, she's mine," a familiar voice growled.  The commander was standing in the back door of the shop. 

The slaver looked at him and clicked his tongue.  "I just wanted some extra money.  No hard feelings, eh?"

The commander shrugged, "you got what you wanted, so pay up.  "

The slaver nodded at the other men around the cart and they tossed their swords to the dirt in front of the commander followed by a bag of money.  "There, your weapons.  The Lawi will pay us for replacements once he sees his new slaves and a ruined competitor.  "

The commander smiled back and the cart trundled off.  Yana saw one of the women in the cage staring out at her.  The eyes followed her all the way until the cart left the alley. 

"Come Yana, we're heading back," the commander snapped at her. 

Yana turned away from the empty alleyway to see the rest of the gang nursing their wounds behind the shop.  And the three bodies laid out on the ground.  One of them was the boy. 

His entire left shoulder was missing, a hit from a forcebolt.  His empty eyes looked up at the dark sky above them, not seeing the sun. 

"Darn boy ran out without orders," the commander sighed, "there goes my drink money.  If you don't want to die like him, Yana, you just listen to my orders.  You'll be fine.  Understood?"

Yana just stared the corpse.  The darkness grew a little deeper. 

"We're done here, move!"

"What about the bodies, commander?"

"Leave them.  "

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"You see that warehouse there?  That's our target," the squad commander whispered to them.  He pointed at the rundown wooden building. 

The hot afternoon air had emptied the streets.  Especially this salty dockyard near the sea, the few coastal ships languished in the desultory heat. 

"The False Hero uses that warehouse to smuggle for the ISL.  We've been told to burn it down," the commander looked around and got a series of nods.  "We have eight to their four guards, and I don't feel any magic," the commander said.  The eight did not include Yana.  "We'll charge in from the front, kill them quickly and torch the place.  "

Yana tugged on the man's sleeve questioningly. 

He looked down at her, "um, you go round the back.  Take this lamp and sneak in.  Set a fire and get out.  "

Yana wondered what she would do if there were guards at the back.  Perhaps she would just sit down somewhere and wait instead, no one was expecting anything from her.  She nodded. 

"Yana, you go first," he said and pushed her forwards.  The commander did not watch her walk away.  "Get ready, we'll attack on my signal.  "

Yana walked down the side alley, dully noting how the dirty children and beggars avoided her and her dagger. 

Three weeks since she walked to this town.  And no closer to finding her brother.  Only the prospect of getting paid enough to hire out a request from the same order of knights kept her here. 

She looked at the back entrance of the warehouse.  There were two men sitting down in the doorway with cheap wooden spears leaning against the brick walls.  She couldn't get in like this. 

Yana sat down across the street to wait.  They would leave eventually or she would just wait for the others to come find her. 

What was she doing here?  Her brother wasn't in this town, not in the slave markets nor had any of the slavers seen him.  But there was food, and a bed.  The others left her alone.  There was a little money. 

But her brother wasn't here.  There was no one here...

Yana shivered in the heat and brushed the darkness away.  The action was starting, there were yells and the unique sound of firebolts detonating from the other side of the dockside warehouse.  A faint whooshing noise she would never forget.  The guards at the doorway abandoned their posts, grabbed their spears and rushed to help. 

She lifted the covered lamp and walked into the building. 

The bales of cloth wrapped food lined the walls and were stacked to the roof.  She could smell the dusty weight of windeye flour and the salty earth of preserved meats.  There was so much food in here!

Food that could have made her life easier, that could have fed her village for a year or more.  An image rose in her vision, the miller, the blacksmith, everyone in the village was dancing and enjoying the food.  So much food here.  Her parents- Yana jerked away from the raw memory. 

Why did she have to burn all of this?  Yana looked at the paka oil in the lamp.  Just pour it, set the fire and get out.  But her hand refused to move.  We live to eat, not eat to live.  She recalled her father's last words. 

Yana put the lamp down.  No, burning the food was not right, it couldn't be!  What sort of person would she be, to destroy food that could feed hundreds of people?  There had to be something wrong with doing this!

"They know where we are, we'll have to find a new warehouse," a voice came from the front of the warehouse.  A man concealed by the stacks of food.  Yana crouched down and squeezed herself in between the sacks of flour. 

"Do you think we'll need it, Morey?  Will Cato really send us more supplies?" It was a girl this time.  High and young. 

"He will, Nal.  Minmay's peasant rebellion is over and they still have too much food.  Cato pledged to send more and I'm sure he'll keep his word, he's as opposed to slavery as I am.  "

"As long as you're sure.  ... It was hard, not seeing you for so long.  "

"It's only been two months, what's made you so clingy?"

A pair of boots appeared in her view.  Another more familiar man entered the warehouse from the back door.  "Yana?" the commander asked incredulously. 

"Who's there?" the man shouted immediately.  There was the sound of running. 

"Set the fire, Yana!  I'll hold them off for a moment!  Then we run!" the commander drew his sword.  Streaks of blood drying on the metal drew Yana's eyes.  "What are you doing?  Move!" the commander shouted at her. 

Yana struggled to her feet and picked up the lamp.  Burn the food?  She hesitated. 

The running man and another young woman came running around the corner of the stacks.  "Halt!  Lay down your weapons!" the man shouted. 

"Oh Selna, that's the Hero!" the commander shouted, "Yana?!"

Yana trembled, the lamp shaking in her hands. 

"Give me that!" the commander grabbed the lamp from her as the Hero charged towards them.  He grabbed at the refilling cap. 

"No," Yana whispered.  The vision danced in front of her again.  No, she couldn't let him burn it!  Her father appeared and shook his head sadly, repeating his last words.  We live to eat.  She grabbed the commander's arm, "don't burn it!  We can't burn the food!"

"Get off me!" the commander threw her off with a shove.  He swung his arm and a flash of metal buried itself in her stomach.  "Obey my orders next time!" he growled, not even noticing he had stabbed her in his panic. 

"Nal!  Stop him now!"

Yana felt the metal hit her like a solid block that blew out all her breath.  She slid down in shock as more shouts came from above her.  She couldn't breathe.  There was a flash of magic and a rain of blood splashed all over her. 

Boots ran up to her and hands grabbed at her.  "Shit, she's a kid!"  Yana blinked dumbly up at them, feeling her blood drain away through the hole in her.  The pain crawling up her guts made her want to scream but she couldn't draw enough breath.  Even pulling in air sent pain burning into her lungs. 

Hands tore away her clothing around the wound and tried to press it shut, but the hole went all the way through her.  "She's been stabbed!  Nal, can we use a firebolt to stop the bleed-"

"Morey, that wound..." the young woman shook her head. 

Yana still struggled, trying to draw breath but failing.  It was too painful.  She was going to die.  "Brother..." she whispered.  She was never going to find him now.  Somehow that hit her worse than the prospect of dying.  Yana shut her eyes, squeezing out tears that ran down her cheeks.  The wound flared again with heat, somehow she sensed that the man was trying to save her.  She didn't want to die!  But trying to stay awake was so tiring now. 

"She's just a kid!  Damn it!" hot drops of liquid hit her arm but Yana didn't register it.  Already feeling in her arms and legs had gone away, leaving her with only the clawing fire in her stomach. 

"What's your name?" the young woman asked, "where do you come from?"

She was going to die.  Yana choked but managed to draw enough wind to whisper back, "Yana.  Rist village. " She could at least tell them who she was. 

The noises above her floated away as she sank down into a dark painful sea.  Maybe they'd find her brother for her. 

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Morey smacked the floor, the Em in his fist cracking the brick.  The girl had stopped moving some time ago, despite his desperate attempts to seal her wound and reinvent CPR.  It wouldn't work, he wasn't trained, but he had to try.  It didn't work. 

"Child soldiers," he snarled, "they're using child soldiers now.  "

More ISL people came running up to them, Morey didn't look up to see who they were. 

"Two of them sneaked in the back, trying to burn the food," Nal said, "both dead.  "

"Is Morey all right?" that voice was Ereli. 

"We're not injured," Nal said, "one of them's about six to eight years old.  "

Ereli gasped and ran up behind him.  She was probably staring the girl from behind him.  Probably too horrified for words. 

"Harlos, you here?" Morey asked without looking up from the tiny hand he was holding. 

"I'm here. " The Fuka, central figure of the ISL, stepped up. 

"What happened to the slaves we recovered from Rist village?  I remember tracing and raiding an underground auction a week ago.  Was that them?"

"That was them," Harlos's voice was quiet, "was this girl from that village?"

Morey nodded.  "She was looking for her brother, taken from the village," Morey explained. 

They all went silent.  Some crazy alchemist had enchanted metal collars with a spell that blew up on a signal.  None of the slaves from that raid were recovered when the alchemist had killed them rather than let them be freed by the Hero.  Completely crazy. 

"That alchemist is still a hostage, right?" Morey asked. 

"We have him kept half-dead by magical shock," Harlos confirmed, "the Lawi hasn't responded to our ransom demand.  "

"Chop his head off and stick it on a pike in the main square.  I want a new poster explaining what he did.  "

Ereli's gasp from behind Morey was painful to hear but expected. 

"It will be done," Harlos snarled viciously, happily.  She had hated that man with a white hot fire and had constantly protested exchanging the noble's retainer for mere money until Morey shouted her down.  He was sure she would carry it out. 

"The Lawi will come down hard," Nal said, "she'll squeeze the population searching for us.  "

"So be it, we have enough guns and hands.  It's time we met her on the battlefield," Morey breathed out and stilled his trembling voice, "find out this girl's story too, Harlos.  I'm sure she has one to tell.  "

Unseen by him, the Fuka nodded.  It wasn't fair, that he was going to turn this young girl into a martyr.  It wasn't fair that she had to die, unable to even scream in pain.  Her death was pointless and tragic.  He should honour her and let her rest, but Morey also knew what this story could do.  He peeled off her stiffening fingers. 

"And we'll need a special grave," he choked, "and someone clean up the blood.  "

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All historians of the Illastein Slave Rebellion know the tale of Yana.  Told by the singers and gossip, variations and embellishments have eroded her account through time.  Some accounts don't include her father taken by sickness.  Some add an obviously false romance with the boy in the mercenary company.  Others never include the boy at all. 

Many historians have noted the way that her trials seem to echo the grievances and struggles of the population at that time.  Which are true accounts, it is hard to say.  But that Yana existed is a fact beyond doubt, that her story played a pivotal role in sparking the general uprising is a fact that is engraved into the future history of Illastein.