Disclaimer: I obviously don't own anything as nice as an entire cast, crew, and film. Or any of the old legends.

The sixth sense that came with living on the steppes told me to look up and see the rider far off into the distance. The horse was going fast towards my home. A sense of foreboding came over me as I looked from the rider to the girl beside me. Galina's soft brown eyes were alert as she looked at the rider. She turned to me and I saw that she too felt unnerved by the anxious paced rider. We were Sarmatian's and to see a person on horseback riding over plains was nothing unusual, but there something wrong…

"We should hurry." I said quietly and nudged my horse to go a little faster. The gray mare was nothing so low as a packhorse, but she was not a war horse like my ebony colored Kolaksay, named after the first horse lord of our ancestors. Galina nodded and hastened. We had been gone for a day to find wood. Our people were nomads of the steppes where there were not many trees. The large amount of wood carried in the sacks on the sides of our horses would last our tribe for a fortnight or so. Some strange instinct carried in my beating heart urged me to turn my horse and go as far away as possible. I tried push the feeling down and closed my eyes. I felt the horse walking beneath me. She was tired from hauling a load of wood and a girl of thirteen summers around. I tried to match the beating of my heart to her hooves hitting the soft grass. I knew what she wanted. For her next step to be the last with the burden she carried. To be unbridled and unhindered. To drink and eat and rest. I heard voices and I opened my eyes. The relaxed posture of my body and face turned to tension as I looked at the faces of my tribe. Our small temporary huts were empty of most of their inhabitants who had gathered around the rider. I recognized her as a distant cousin and I slid off my horse fluidly. I resisted the urge to leave my horse standing with the heavy load unlike Galina and quickly unsaddled our horses. My considerate behavior ended there however and I left the wood on the ground and let the horses go where they please. I walked over to where the crowd was talking furiously and found my father. His face was set grimly as he looked at my mother who was crouched, holding my nine year old brother as if he was still an infant.

"Isolde…" My father said relieved.

"Romans." I said understanding. My father gripped my shoulder tightly and I looked around. When the Romans last came to our tribe, eight summers ago, they had taken the only four young men of our tribe. The males were all either married and in their thirties, or below the age of twelve. For the past twenty years mostly girls had been born and few boys. I looked at my brother. He was just a young boy and certainly not ready to be taken by the Romans as a soldier. We had no young men to spare. There were so few boys at all, and if the Romans took them, I didn't doubt that they would be killed. Our tribe was in danger of dying out I realized.

"What are we going to do?" I heard Branwain ask her mother. I looked at my fiery, dark haired cousin and immediately knew she would cause trouble if the Romans tried to take her young brother.

"They couldn't possibly want to steal a group of children from their mothers could they?" Galina said appalled. She was three years my senior and still she was to naïve and tender to understand the infamous greed of Romans. I did wonder though. The Romans spared us, as they put it, for our superior horseman skills. What did they really expect to gain from taking boys who could be better trained in just a few more years?

"When?" I asked father.

"Tomorrow. They came to your mother's kin a few days ago and took a few of the boys. Boys! Not even fourteen winters old!" I could see the rage in my father's large coal blue eyes, so like my own. I thought for a moment and counted the boys over the age of five. There were only five. It could be reasonable enough I decided.

"Hide them." I said at last. Several heads turned my way.

"Hide them?" My uncle asked, not sure if he had heard me.

"Send them away for a few days. Say that a plague came and took most of the young ones. Say they died in a raid. They can't take dead boys." I said calmly. I looked around at my tribe. Most of them were my father's kin. I didn't want to see anymore of my family taken by the Romans to serve in some bleak outpost for an empire built on the backs of slaves and conquered peoples. My father and uncle nodded at me, acknowledging the wisdom of my words.

"I thank the gods you were not born a boy to be stolen from us." My father said with respect. I personally didn't think the idea was that revolutionary, it was dangerous. Who knew what the Romans would do in their wrath? Especially if they found out the truth. Out in the middle of Sarmatia a Roman could get away with anything, especially if it had to do with barbarian horse people. But I wasn't about to say that. It was our best chance at preserving our tribe, and I would risk my own life if only to have one up on the Romans.

It was settled. I kissed my brother's cheek and told him to be good as my uncle put him and my cousin on a horse together. He and another of my kinsmen would take all the boys over the age of five and a few of the girls for good measure and hide out for a few days. When it was safe to return, my aunt would go fetch them back.

"Be good." I said fondly to my brother. I looked at my cousin, Arghil, gripped his arm. He would be a young man soon and I could see the small flicker of regret in his eyes that he would not be going on an adventure to the Roman empire. "You'll have plenty of chances to prove yourself." I said firmly. "You'll stay here, become a man, wed and live the way we did before the Romans."

He nodded and wiped away all traces of sadness. I stepped back and allowed Branwain to access the boys. The tribe had agreed to tell the Romans that a disease had taken the young ones a few years back. It was completely reasonable, but I knew every man and woman would have a blade ready to defend themselves lest something should go wrong.

Later that night I sat outside sharpening arrows. I felt two figures approaching me. Galina and Branwain sat on either side of me. We were all so different, but they had been my closest companions since we were small children. Of course, living in a small tribe, one couldn't be picky. Galina, the eldest, was doe-eyed and willowy. Her light brown, almost gold hair was unusual for our more southern tribe and caught many eyes. Branwain was short with hazel eyes and brown hair several shades darker than my own. I tried to picture us all in a few years, married with children. It seemed hazy and far off and I realized what I already had felt for a long time. I did not want the life that waited for me here. I didn't scorn it by any means, but spending my life with my tribe, eventually marrying and raising children who would be eventually taken away to die for Rome, did not appeal to me. I needed more of a purpose. I pictured myself fighting and wandering all my days and let a small smile cross my face. My mother often called me bloodthirsty, but my father called it the battle lust of a true warrior. It had made our people great once, my father told me.

"I would give anything for some of father's wine." Branwain said wistfully. I chuckled.

"Did he ever find out it was us who stole the last of it? Of course Isolde and I only got a drop or two before you guzzled it down…" Galina said with a light air of annoyance. Branwain smiled in fond remembrance.

"No… Mother suspected though…" She said. We sat in silence for a while longer. Branwain eventually went back to her home, and then Galina. I stayed outside most of the night unable to shake off the feeling of foreboding and even stranger, excitement.

Woooow I missed writing! Review please!