Hello! This is my third Fanfic, its for the Tortall books. Sorry but any characters you know won't come up for a bit. However, you shouldn't have to wait too long! I've just changed unis cos I'm studying in Germany for a year but I've had to wait a bit to get connected - and I thought the Germans were so punctual! Anyway, it means that I've written a few chapters in the time its taken to connect me so there'll be two or three all at once. Yay! (That's if anyone's reading it!) Sorry the first ones only quite short, its more of an introduction thing cos its not in any of the countries or has any of the people in it. If you don't like it go and read Emperess Mage by Stargirl-Rebels, its really quite good and should make up for reading something you didn't like.

Anyway, make yourself a brew, sit back and enjoy!

****************** The Beginning

To the east of the lands of Tortall, Galla and Scanra lay a ridge of mountains known as the roof of the world, and beyond these mountains lay yet more lands, little roamed by the westerners. Some of them were wild and exotic, populated by tribes who lived high in the trees of immense rainforests; others were so harsh that only a few poor souls managed to scrape a living in them. Rendar, however, was quite similar to the western lands as it bordered the mountains and there was some trade between the east and west.

At the bottom of one of the mountains, though not the one high enough to be called THE roof of the world, there was a farmstead owned by Ralf, a broad, middle-aged man verging on seven feet tall with shoulder-length hair and a bushy beard of bright red. His beautiful blonde wife Dara had died over ten years ago at the birth of her raven-haired daughter Dala. Dara had also left a legacy of three strapping strawberry blonde youths of sixteen, fifteen and twelve, with a few failed pregnancies in-between.

Ralf had long doubted Dala was his, but there had been a five-month long snowstorm all those years ago, when Dala had been conceived, and although the farmstead received many travellers returning to or coming from the west, none had stopped by in this period as the snow had been impassable. Still the man considered the girl a blessing. She cleaned up and cooked for him and his sons and in a few years she would be considered a woman and his bed had been cold for so long. Still, a quick fumble now and then did him no harm.

The cold awoke Dala under her thin blankets in the bed she made beneath the kitchen table. The young girl shivered in the scant silvery light afforded through the thin gap in the wooden shutters and, rising from under the table dressed only in a thin undyed cotton dress, she thrust them open to reveal the pale light of early dawn. The fields that she saw stretched for miles, though only those in a five-mile radius belonged to her father. These pastures were no good for growing grain but they contained many sheep, which were useful for wool, and goats that were used for milk. No one else lived nearby save a shepherd who lived in the barn of their farmstead with his daughter Selmana, five years Dala's senior. Still not an adult in Dala's eyes, the shepherd's daughter had lain with her two older brothers and if the shepherd knew, he had not forced a marriage, maybe someday hoping that Ralf himself would take a fancy to her.

That was unlikely. She was plain with mousy brown hair and dull brown eyes and a little stocky too. Not like Dala. She had pure white skin and cloudy grey eyes full of mystery, the girl showed promise of growing into a beautiful woman. She often wondered if she looked like her mother, for she bore no resemblance to the rest of her family. The shepherd had once told her that her mother had been incredibly pretty, but had never given the girl a description of her.

Now Dala was called from her thoughts by the shepherd shouting of the sheep in the fields. It was time too, for Dala to be at her tasks. She lit the kitchen fire and stove and went outside to fill the kettle with icy water from the pump, some of the cold water splashing on her bare feet and making her shiver. It was already cold enough as the season was now early autumn and soon the snows would be upon them. It would mean an end to the travellers and traders who stopped by, sleeping in their barn.

These people were a welcome break to Dala, who grew tired of the constant monotony of her father, brothers, Selmana and the shepherd. In these months all of them grew irritable, tired of each other's company, and she was generally favourite for lashings from her father's belt. In recent years she had guessed it was because she had a strong resemblance to her mother, and so her appearance caused her father great pain.

How wrong she was.

Stumbling inside with the heavy kettle she placed it over the fire to boil and returned outside to milk the goats. With this milk she made a big pot of porridge, which she left to warm over the stove. Selmana soon came in to take over after she had washed by the pump. Now it was Dala's turn to go outside and wash. Rooting in a chest in the corner of the kitchen, she pulled out a simple pale blue dress and a dry towel and then ventured outside with her belongings.

Cautiously, she stripped off by the pump, for it was cold, and then hurriedly splashed the icy water over her thin frame, setting her teeth to chatter. The block of harsh soap sat on a small stone shelf nearby and as she picked it up it shot out of her hands. Bending down to pick it up she happened to glance up and saw her father leering out of his second storey window at her. Pretending not to have seen, she quickly turned her back on him and continued her bathing at speed. Hurriedly, she dried herself and pulled the dress on, itsthin woolly material not really enough against the outdoor cold.