Chapter 1

I quickly ran away from the burning village; all of my friends, family, and possessions—gone. The only thing I had left was my worn out, blue, cotton dress I was wearing. I could feel the heat from the large fire, and the fire was big enough to make the night sky glow.

The neighboring country, Atrox, was much larger compared to our country of Fons, and much stronger, too. For many years, the Atroxians would raid our villages, taking our valuables and even taking some of our people as slaves. We were such a poor, tiny country; we had barely any valuables—let alone being able to have enough to feed one person. They would always take them all away from us—our valuables and food. Did see our village more useless than before now; worthy of burning it all to the ground? Atroxians were barbaric.

I, along with the other villagers, ran as fast as we could out of fear of being slaves. The stories that were told by the prisoners and slaves of Atrox, they said that they didn't treat the slaves and prisoners well at all—we heard stories that death was more inviting than living as their slave. Atroxians are terrible, extremely fearsome, which is why we had to escape as fast as we could.

I ran as fast as I could, trying to get as far as way as possible. I as I continued to run, I slowly began to hear the sounds of horses galloping. I looked over my shoulder, to see two men on horses, chasing after me. I tried my best to run faster, I felt my heart beating loudly, faster and faster. I was on the verge of tears when I saw them rapidly getting closer. The riders came beside me, on at each side. One had their eyes closer together, the other one with a strange lip shape. But both had unusual pale skin and dark hair and eyes—which is how most people of Atrox looked. Their faces were painted with red lines, one reaching from the bottom lip to the chin, another line across the bridge of the nose reaching from one ear to the other, and their eyelids painted red—the painted face of Atroxian Raiders. One grabbed onto my hair and stopped his horse, greatly tugging on my hair. I let out a cry of pain.

"Haha! What a funny girl! She honestly thought she could out run our horses!" the man who was grabbing onto my hair stated, getting of his large horse.

"Such a stupid girl!" the other laughed as he got off his horse. He had some rope with him, and tried to tie my hands behind my back. I tried to struggle to get loose, but my effort was halted to a stop by a fist to my stomach.

I was tied up, and was taken back to the direction of my village that was no longer. I saw about five small wagons filled with people of the village. I knew some had survived…and some were killed. Our village hadn't had many people—most of them died from famine and illness, but there were fewer people than our village originally had. The two men lifted me up and tossed me into one of the wagons. I sat up. The wagons began moving north to the village of Atrox. I looked over to the other villagers; each and every one of us knew that we were no longer free.

A/N: Thank you for reading!

For future reference, I write the way the people of the culture speaks because I find it fun that way! I hope you enjoyed!