My name is Hana. My father once said we had a family name, but I can’t remember it anymore. I was three and a half summers old when the bandits attacked my village. They chose the deep chill of winter to attack, a time when my people were sitting around warm fires in their homes. We were a comfortable and happy people, not expecting to be attacked by others we never antagonised.
I remember my father. He was a strong and kind man. Gentle but also firm if we misbehaved. He always told me to be kind to my sister Anna, because we never knew when I would need her in my life. How little I appreciated at the time as to how true his words would be.
My father often travelled away from home for long periods and mainly during the summers. Mother told me he was working for the kingdom and that he needed to be there to help people. He was at home with us that day they attacked. All I can remember were noises of fighting outside, of my father taking his sword and telling my mom and us to stay inside. I never saw him again.
The bandits set fire to our house, forcing us to escape the flames. They waited for us outside, laughing as they captured us, pulling Anna and I from my mother’s arms. They threw both of us into a closed wooden cart with other crying children. It was terribly cold. We had to hug each other to keep warm. A small hole in the roof allowed us some light, but it also allowed the cold air in. A few of the children never made it that first night. My first introduction to death was something no child should have to see. We travelled for many days, and they never let us out.
When we finally reached our destination, they pulled us out into a large, enclosed compound with other children, both catkin and humans. I think I saw my first elf there but I couldn’t talk with her, we never stayed outside for long. I couldn’t see where we were because of the high walls, but it sounded like a busy place because there were many people talking outside. They then put those horrible leather slave collars on us.
We soon realised it was impossible to escape or to call for help. We felt pain in our bodies when we at first tried to escape when the compound’s guards weren’t paying attention. Our captors only laughed at us when they dragged us back to our cells. We realised that the guards pretended not to be vigilant to get a laugh out of us. When we tried to call for help, the same pain hit us.
One day they separated Anna and me. When they tried to take Anna away from me, I bit one of them and he hit me with a flat hand onto the ground so hard that my ears were ringing. They then tied me up so that I couldn’t move. Later some men came to look at me in the cell, shaking their heads and talking about slave prices. I don’t want to speak about that anymore.
Later, I was reunited with Anna again and she told me something similar happened to her. She didn’t fight them though, and perhaps that’s why her slave price was higher than mine. Later we were taken by those closed wooden carts to a ship where forced us to board and put us into the hold. Before they put me into the hold, I saw the city of Yaden for the first time. I also saw the sea for the first time and didn’t understand what I was looking at. Our ship departed and I for the first time I understood I wasn’t coming home again.
There was little light below and it was hot, humid and stuffy. There were about thirty children and many of them became seasick. The sailors seemed friendlier than our captors and they didn’t laugh at us like the guards in the encampment. They were afraid of the first mate because he had a short temper. He seemed a little kinder towards us which was probably why the sailors never hurt us. Once a sailor hit one of the children, the first mate punched that sailor so hard he stayed in a coma for a day. After that, I never looked for trouble with the first mate. Perhaps my attitude change made up his mind, but he decided to pick on me to be responsible to the others and we received a bit more freedom to walk on deck at certain times. I made a decision that in order to stay safe for me and Anna, I needed to become stronger.
One day I gathered enough courage to ask the first mate if he could teach me to fight like him. When he asked me why, I told him I wanted to be able to protect myself and Anna. He thought about it for a while then told me he would only teach me if I didn’t cry, argue, or quit. I agreed to listen to him and not become emotional. Perhaps it was some of my father in me, because I know he’d want me to stay strong for both Anna and me. From then on, I learned how to fight. He used martial arts, and he taught me to fight with my hands before I even learned to hold a weapon. Everyone watched our sparring sessions and the other sailors sometimes watched with interest. He never pulled his punches; he was hard on me. As a result, I quickly learned to stay nimble. When he hit me during a lesson, I never cried in front of him. But when I was back in the ship’s hold, I’d cry in the dark where others couldn’t see me. Many times, Anna held me and comforted me.
We sailed for many days. I only know it took at least two moon cycles. We only saw land far in the distance, and we never saw any other ships or people. Once I asked the first mate where we were going. He told me that if the world I knew was a square, it would be the opposite side of that square. I had no idea squares could be that big. I learned a lot about sailing and for some reason the first mate didn’t hold back on information about sailing.
Halfway through our journey we anchored at a city the first mate called Port Shyllnor, but he didn’t say anything more about it. We never berthed in the harbour but instead anchored offshore. From what we saw from the sea, the city looked very run down, not like the port we came from. There wasn’t any high buildings except for a fort, and there were lots of trees. More trees than Hana and I ever saw. The first mate called it a dangerous jungle. He said it was why we travelled by ship, although that was also dangerous. Sometimes ships disappeared and no one knew why. A few sailors rowed the first mate and captain to the port in a small boat and they didn’t come back for a few days.
On the first night, one of the children, a girl called Sandy, suddenly went missing. The sailors took away our privileges and we spent most of our time in the hold. If someone knew what happened to that girl, no one said anything. When the captain returned, he became very angry about the missing girl and blamed the first mate for being too soft on us and said he would dock the money from his pay. I’m not sure why he blamed the first mate, he had nothing to do with Sandy.
After getting fresh food and water, we sailed again. Later a storm hit our ship and for six days we hardly ate or moved. The first mate regularly checked to see if we were okay. Anna became very seasick. I felt helpless because I couldn’t do anything to help her. Many of the other children also became sick and the smell became terrible. Our ship was badly damaged, and we were forced to return to Port Shyllnor for repairs. For the first time since we sailed on the ship, we could step on land. The land moved when I stood still and it took me a day to feel better. The first mate said it was my body getting used to the land again. I didn’t like that feeling.
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We stayed in houses near the jungle, and we couldn’t go anywhere. They removed some of the children and we never saw them again. I think the captain sold them for money to fix the boat. It was hot and the jungle animals made lots of noises. Sometimes through my window I could hear animals moving in the jungle next to us. The other children never noticed the animals, but I always knew they were there. We didn’t try to run from the house because the captain warned us, he would sell us. We didn’t like it there.
About ten days later they put us back on the ship and we continued sailing.
After a long time on the sea the captain suddenly announced it would be our last day and that we were going to land at Firestone City the following afternoon. For the first time the first mate told me he had a daughter my age and that I reminded him of her. He didn’t get to see her grow up because his work took him away from home for long periods of time.
He said he didn’t know what the future held for me, but he told me never to give up and to keep training to become stronger, that way I’d more likely be respected than if I was someone’s plaything. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but something told me to trust his words.
Firestone City looked far bigger and built-up compared to Yaden. Buildings looked bigger, mostly built with red bricks, and tiled rooves. When we walked off that ship, the first mate’s responsibility for us ended and within a few days we found ourselves split up and in an open slave market.
Normally, no one wanted to purchase a pair of slave catkin girls, especially since they sold me off as a fighter and Anna as a house help. A wealthy merchant purchased me within the day, and he became my master. I never saw Anna again. I cried for a long time. I suspected the first mate arranged a buyer for me. With that I lost the last contact with my family, and it devastated me. My new owner recognised my talent with martial arts and with my determination realised I could become an effective tool. The merchant arranged for a certain man to train me to become an assassin.
He taught me how to use various weapons combined with the art of stealth. My master wasn’t a nice man. He used me to dispatch people his enemies. But my success became my master’s downfall. Other merchants realised that those who opposed my master eventually died, and soon they plotted his downfall. In the end, it was tax avoidance that ended his life. Someone accidently slipped up on a few important payments to the kingdom’s officials and they found out. All evidence of course pointed to my master and as soon as they handed his estate to the kingdom as payment for overdue taxes, a corrupt official tried to abuse me. After I seriously injured the man, they kept me in jail for a long time until they sent me to the slave market in Firestone.
Some summer seasons passed, and they sold me many times. My violent nature and my distrust of men caused master after master to sell me in fear of their lives to the point slave traders valued me so low that even the dumbest slave traders avoided me. In a last-ditch effort, someone auctioned me off as part of a larger group to a pathetic excuse of a slave trader, desperate to recover from his poor business decisions.
To stop me from becoming violent, his amendments to my slave contract were so severe that I couldn’t but obey every command he issued me. Fortunately, he was so afraid of me, given my openly hostile history, that he never dared touch me, although he continually threatened to sell me off to some perverted man he could con. Not finding anyone to buy me in Firestone, we travelled to Shimmerstal to hopefully out-distance my renowned, and poor reputation.
Unfortunately, between his questionable personality and my poor history, most slave traders and potential buyers steered well clear of us. I tried to force the trader to give up and send me away, to rather let me die on my own than be bothered by my nagging presence. I could survive on my own in the wilderness or in the slums of the city. Unfortunately, I didn’t plan on his trader’s tenacity and his dumb luck in conning ignorant fools.
For days we trudged through Shimmerstal’s streets until by pure luck, he finally found an idiot in a market square in Shimmerstal. Although I continually glared at the idiot with evil intent the man totally ignored me, seemingly stuck in his own little world. The salesman easily coerced the idiot to purchase me before the guy realised he’d been conned. I seethed at my plan being thwarted and as soon as the slave trader left the area, I senselessly beat up the new master. But unlike the other masters I beat up, this man was different.
During the fight, the man whose name I later learned was called Shane, produced a magical flame on his hand. The first mate once told me that a long time ago true martial artists were able to produce flames on their hands. I immediately stopped, shocked at seeing a living revelation, although I later discovered the guy never realised he used the skill. Something about the man confused me and I decided to stop hitting him until I discovered why I felt the way I did.
We called a truce, and I was taken to his lodging. There I quickly realised that if I were to survive under my new idiot master, I needed to gain his trust. I devised a means to force the inn’s owners to move me closer to him, although I confess, I didn’t expect to be in the same room as him. Even then, he never tried to take advantage of me, although I hoped he would at least try and confirm the reason why I hated men.
The next day we ate breakfast as if I were not his slave, the meal tasted far better than anything I had eaten before. For a moment it felt as if I were at home again. Then I met the idiot’s master.
Something in me realised that Grenfell, the blacksmith master, was someone I should respect. He even gave me small gold to purchase equipment for myself. His only request, to look after the idiot he called his apprentice. I confess I wasn’t prepared for that, although given my level of combat skill, I far surpassed my idiot master.
I soon discovered that my idiot master, Shane, pulled surprises out of the air, as easily as a magician pulling magic tricks out of a bag for children. Things I would never freely divulge to others, he openly shared with me. I felt he was either an idiot or someone I could trust with my life. And yet he always took my words seriously. Even the rewards he received from the quests he shared evenly with me.
Somehow the idiot managed to meet the king of the kingdom, something I would never have expected in my life. Shane never spoke down to me in His Majesty’s presence, nor did he treat me as anything less than his equal. There I also met Karato. His combat strength was immense, and he reminded me so much of my father that I perhaps trusted him more than anyone else. I even received a kingdom grade weapon, something I never deserved, but for which Shane sacrificed his share for my benefit. Karato offered me some training me like the first mate, but unlike him, he wasn’t so ruthless.
It was difficult for me to understand why my idiot master became so excited with some of the things he did, although I confess, I couldn’t help getting excited through his enthusiasm. But when he casually gave me a storage ring, saying it belonged to me and that he would never take it back, my discovered my first feelings of hope. For the first time, I dared to hope that I could find Anna again.
On our quests I learned discovered I could trust him. I relied on his decisions as much as he trusted my abilities. When the monsters attacked our cart, I feared we would not live to see another day. And yet, despite our obviously bad situation, he was calm and offered a logical solution. His actions were so radical I never thought they would work, and yet every step produced well thought out, solid results. As I sat in that cold, freezing river with my life ebbing away, I decided to trust the idiot called Shane. While the ogres and goblins fruitlessly searched around for us, I quietly told myself I could look forward to the future that Shane offered me. Something told me, he would become an amazing person, someone who could change the world. How little did I appreciate, just how right I was.