We'll that's the end of chapter one. Thanks for reading and reviewing. Ohh and I'd just like to add when I do this 'I' around a word, I know its not proper grammar, but I'm using it to express Adrianas' thoughts.

Hey everybody thanks for reading. Here's my next chap. Tell me what you think.

When I awoke it was to the sound of someone screaming. A scream full of agony and terror. It was a heart wrenching sound of anguish crying our to the world for a salvation that would never be grasped.

" Nooo!" The woman cried. My eyes flew open and I moved immediately to help whoever it was, but I couldn't. My hands and feet were tightly bonded to a stake that had been driven deep into the ground. I strained painfully against them.

" Noo, Please!" She begged. The more I struggled the more pain flared with in my body. My wounds were open and bleeding through my clothing. They stuck to me where I had bled threw them previously. The blood and dirt crusted over the top. I stopped struggling, what could I a single woman injured and defenseless do against an entire army. There was nothing I could do.

" No!" The scream was cut off by the unmistakable whoosh of a sword and the sickening thud of her head hitting the earth. I closed my eyes and sighed with silent regret. I couldn't save my people, I couldn't even give them time to save themselves. My family was gone all except one person ,my brother, he was the only reason I had left to live and I didn't even know if he was still alive.

I opened my eyes when I heard someone enter. He looked down at me with distaste. I glared at him defiantly, though inside I was losing my will. But I would not give him that satisfaction, the satisfaction in knowing I was breaking. He smirked at me and walked to a seat not far from my position on the tent floor. As he walked he walked with his head held high, and his face held hints of arrogance. His midnight colored hair was pulled back tightly and his armor shone in the candle light, he was of importance, that much was obvious.

He smirked at me. I didn't reply but looked away focusing intently upon the shelter above me.

" You are ever defiant, you gave quite a fight, might I inquire as to how a child like you learned to fight in such a manner?" He asked. I smiled to myself and then grimaced as pain spread through the left side of my face.

" I'm not a child." I said between the clenches of my teeth as he bent down in front of me reaching out to cup my face in this hands. He ran a thumb over my broken cheek. " Don't touch me." I hissed and turned away from him. He prodded me in the shoulder with his boot. Tears of pain ran down my cheeks but I refused to cry out.

" Hurts doesn't it." He said and kicked me a little harder, I closed my eyes, bottling up all my pain. He walked to the entrance of the tent.

" I'll send for the healer, he will tend to your wounds."

" Why? Why let me live, why not kill me right here right now?" I asked rolling around to face him. " why not kill me why you have the chance?" The last sentence came out in nothing but a whisper.

He didn't even bother to turn around " Because my lady, your much to...valuable to loose. We haven't had the honor of having a woman in camp for some moths now. " He left with those final words of my fait hanging in the air.

I spent much of the day alone, in severe pain, and starving for food but there was nothing I could do about any of them. I had expected the healer some hours ago but as of yet he hadn't come. My musings were broken when a tall lanky man entered the tent, leaving the flap wide open allowing a cold burst of winter wind to find its way in. I glared at him icily and was very satisfied as I watched him turn back around to shut the flap with a grunt. I shivered violently as the cold air penetrated the thin layer of clothing I had been left with.

The man made his way toward me and I couldn't help but notice his ratty appearance. His very skin hung from his bones and reeked of death itself. His dark sunken eyes glinted menacingly as he knelt down beside me. I turned my head in disgust when he smiled at me revealing the rotting few teeth he had left.

" Pretty lil thing ren't ya." He slurred. I gaged as the smell of his breath hit my nostrils. He laughed at my reaction and ran a hand over my check. I turned my head away from his gnarled hand. He laughed lowly again.

" Pretty ren't they, ts' what happens when ya disobey the King." He grabbed my face and turned it to him. His finger traced over my broken cheek and up to my swollen eye. " He did a nasty job din't eh?" His voice taking on a more gentle side. I nodded and closed my eyes as a new wave of pain washed over me.

" There's really nothin I can do for that cheek of yours. It'll ave to heal on it's own. Let's take a look at them shoulders of yours." He opened the small box at his side. From it he pulled a small dagger, no bigger than the length of my hand. I eyed him warily as he moved behind me. I strained to see what he was doing but my neck refused to turn that far.

" Don't worry it'll only hurt a bit." He said as he released me from my bonds. I gasped in pain as my arms were finally freed. They were numb beyond belief the only other feeling I had in them was a burning pain. A fire spread from my shoulder to my wrist, completely engulfing my arms. I pulled my arms in front of me and cradled them to my chest and wept.

" That a girl, nice and easy." He whispered as he helped me sit up. I was surprised at the kindness this man seemed to suddenly possess. In a place I had expected to only find pain I was instead finding some small amount of comfort from this grotesque man. He was acting almost fatherly toward me. His hands moved to my left shoulder; he silently moved what was left of my clothing away from it. The dried blood causing the cloth to stick to my skin. I wept more as his gnarled hands prodded at the arrow wound causing a small amount of a yellowish foul smelling liquid to drip from the opening. He cursed under his breath and look into my knowing eyes. Having helped my mother in the healing huts when I was younger and having experience some of her methods, I knew exactly what I was in store for. I turned my head away from him and looked at the dirty tent wall.

His clothing shifted quietly as he sifted through the small box at his side. I knew what he was looking for a needle to sew the torn skin back together and knew just how much it was going to hurt.

flashback

" No, momma! Please no!" Adriana begged as her mother dragged her 8 year old squirming daughter into the healing hut. Adriana dug her heals into the ground and began to cry. " NO!" she shouted as her mother picked her up and plopped her on to the fur mat. Another older woman came and held Adriana down as her mother closed the flap of the hut. Her mother grabbed a small fish bone needle and thread from the small rack in the middle of the hut. As Dolinaya approached her daughter, Adriana began to squirm and struggle more.

" Adriana, daughter, please it must be done. Would you rather contract an infection and have us take off your arm completely." Dolinaya said her soft spoken voice sounding oddly stern and intimidating to her child. Adriana stopped her struggling almost instantly. She sat still and silent in the old womans' arms. Leaving behind no trace of the ranting child that had been there only moments before.

" Yes momma." Adriana murmured regrettable. She missed the small smile that spread across her mothers aged face as she looked down at her young daughter. Dolinaya knelt down beside her daughter and pulled her arm to her chest. She examined it closely, checking to make sure that there was no offending objects still with in.

" Hold still, my little warrior." She whispered soothingly. Dolinaya approached the rather large wound with the needle and thread. Adriana shied away from the movement, trying to withdraw her arm from her mothers hold. Dolinaya sent her daughter a look that clearly spoke of the entire conversation that had just ben held. Adriana held her head away from her mother, not wanting to see the gruesome act of her mother sewing her bloodied and torn skin back together.

She felt the needle enter her tattered skin and the thread as it pulled through. Adriana shuddered against the old womans' chest and wept as her mother continued to sew.

End of flashback

I glanced at him and the needle he pulled out. The length of it gleaming eerily at me. I shuddered. Gods how I hated this! I turned my head from him and stared at the dingy wall of the tent. He took that as his cue to begin. He first wiped the crusted blood away and packed a few herbs within the wound. The herbs burning at first slowly began to dumb the pain. ' Maybe this wouldn't be as bad as I thought'. The needle entered my skin slowly, tugging at my skin as the coarse thread wove through my flesh. The sharp pain I remembered was only a dull pain this time around.

I turned back around and looked at him. His eyes trained on my shoulder, his brows furrowed in concentration. His dark eyes glinting in the dull light that filtered through the tent.

" I never got your name." I said softly, he paused in his sewing motion for nearly a second before he began again. He said nothing until he was finished with the front side of my shoulder. He tied off the string and looked me straight in the eye.

" Honestly I don' remember my given name. It's been a long time sense anyone's called me by it." He grabbed a hold of my upper body and turned me to the side.

I spoke," Then I shall give you a name. What about Anlaf or Heahmund...no... Beroun. That one seems to suit you. To me you will now be Beroun."

He looked at me strangely. A small hoarse laugh that sounded more like a grunt came forth from the man.

" Your and interestin' one lady."

I arched an eyebrow and turned my head back around so I could see him. He began the back side of the wound.

" You have no idea, Beroun, no idea." We sat in silence the rest of the time he treated me; however, when he was finished I couldn't help but ask him the questions that were on my mind.

I spoke, " Beroun," he turned back to me as he was making his way out of the small tent. " Why are they here, why are they doing this to my people?"

He looked at me sadly, " Ya aren' the only ones, there were villages before ya and no doubt there'll be one after ya... The king wants power, he wants land, and he wants the food that this land provides." his voice dropped to a whisper and he moved closer to me. " by gaining this land he gains control of the hole eastern sea board and all it's ports." He scrapped a small map into the ground in front of me. " See here, he's takin' out all of ya's along the coast cause theres no one left to challenge him inland until ya hit Quintinnia and there to far inland to have to worry bout him. Ya see cause they get all their traidin from the west so he doesn't affect them. But you, the tribes along this coast have control of the same land and ports the Hougizianas use." He scribbled more islands into the map.

" How do you know all of this?" I asked as he paused in his explanations.

" The King isn't so secretive when he's unconscious." He said with a small smile. I raised an eyebrow at him and he continued.

" As I was sayin, the larger tribes use the same port the Hougizianas us and they are our dear Kings largest enemy.."

I cut him off as the Kings plan became evident " So by cutting off their port supply he cuts off their food and by cutting off their food he makes them weak and vulnerable to attack...He's weakening his enemy before he attacks them. Then when he defeats them he gets their land...and he'll have ours and with the size of his army..."

Beroun looked me straight in the eye and finished for me " and no one can stop him..." Things could only get worse from here, there was no doubt about that.

well thanks for reading, I promise the chapters to come will get longer. It's just going to take me little while to get into a groove. Its pretty hard to getting any time to type when you play sports, have horse, go to school and work. Thanks all and good night.