Claimed

She’d lived within sight of the family home for all the sixteen summers of her life. There were a few travelling traders and some officials that occasionally came to through their valley, but most of her life it was just her, her father and three older brothers tolling away with this subsistence farming. It was all she knew and, for the most part she had been happy with her lot in life. Yes, there were harsh winters and hot summers, sometimes feast, often famine, but they world mostly left them alone and it did the same in return. That was until the day that the horde came.

She’d been on the sunny hill side, tending their livestock when she saw the group of mounted soldiers appear at one of the ridge lines. Her father had always told her to run and hide when strangers appeared, but the sparse vegetation offered nowhere to shelter. She made a dash for a rocky outcrop to try and hide in one of its crevasses. She hoped she wasn’t seen, that the strangers had other interests and would ignore her and leave them be. This hope was quickly extinguished as she heard the roar of hooves come closer and closer until they were nearly atop her hiding place. She heard them stop and dismount yelling to each other with words she couldn’t understand. The creaking of leather and ting of metal hitting rocks were the sounds of their armor and swords as they searched for her.

She made herself as small as she could in the rocky hole, but they found her anyway and dragged her out by her foot. She defiantly fought back, thrashing her limbs and screaming, throwing fists at them but the men were too strong, and the group easily subdued her. Close up their faces looked different from the men of her family. They resembled one of the travelers from distant lands that had passed through a few summers ago.

The men scrutinised her then started to pull at her clothing. Their foreign words were lost on her but she recognised lust in their eyes. She was pinned to the ground then one of the men kneeled between her legs whilst the other two held her arms apart. The man starter to remove the armor around his groin. She struggled and yelled again breaking one hand free until the other man drew a dagger and placed it at her neck. She froze with the words of father running through her mind ‘survive at all costs, there nothing you can do dead’.

The men holding her arms jeered and started to tear at her clothing, exposing her breasts. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears as she felt her under garments being wrenched from around her groin and strange hands fumbled between her thighs.

Another man appeared behind the solider that was between her legs. He yelled in their foreign tongue and the men immediately released her and stood up startled with a formal salute. She looked at the new man, ha;f dressed but still frozen in fear. He was scolding the other soldiers who now had their head bowed in deference. She assumed this man was their superior and the embellishments on his armor seemed to support this idea.

Once he had finished berating his men, her turned to her. He surveyed her, inspecting her body through the tears in the rags that had been her clothes and pushing aside her hair to inspect her face. She hoped that this man might be her saviour from these brutes, but he barked orders at the men and they bound her hands and gagged her. She was lifted onto one of their horses, riding in front of the soldiers like a child. The soldiers spurred their horses with the group riding up the hill and out the valley that had been her entire life.

They rode for hours, passing through burned out villages. There were soldiers looting homes and bodies on the ground. She could see flames and trails of smoke from distant farms on fire with farm animals running free. She’d never seem much of the world but was certain that this wasn’t its normal state.

It was close to darkness when they arrived at the enemy encampment. There were a village of tents, all various sizes, with many campfires and soldiers running errands. It was more people than she’d ever seen, all in the same dress uniform and ethnicity as her captors. The soldiers leered at her as she was led between their ranks. Some were injured and being tended to, others sat by the fire, exhausted and a distant look in their eyes. She was pulled by her restraints to one of the bigger and more ornate tents near the centre of the camp. Inside were several young girls bound to the tent poles. She was also secured with her hands above her head with her back to the pole and then left among the group of confused and distraught girls. She could do nothing but weep until an exhausted sleep took over her.

She awoke to a slap in the face. Startled, she looked around for the source of the assault and saw a tall older woman peering down at her. The woman brusquely inspecting her. She examined her body, scalp and teeth, as if she were livestock for sale at market. She spoke quickly in the foreign tongue to another women, who was taking notes. She removed the gag and spoke to her in a different language that she also didn’t understand. Then she spoke to her in her own language. “How old have you?” Her tone was harsh and not all the words made sense as she clearly wasn’t fluent, but it was enough for her to understand. “Sixteen” was all she replied. The woman spoke to the notary, conveying this foreign tongue and it was scribbled down. “You have husband. You have children?” questioned the woman. She decided not to answer this time, and this was rewarded by and even harsher slap. ”No, not married or children” she replied. “You know man?” came the old woman’s next question. “Which man?” was her reply as the question didn’t make sense. The woman looked at her puzzled by her response, then rephrased the question “Has a man known you?”.