In the rain everything looked grey and bleak. She stood beneath a mighty oak tree and tried her hardest to enjoy the shelter it gave her. Every now and then a raindrop would find its way through the maze of leaves and branches overhead and drop down on her clothes. But it didn’t matter. She was always cold now, cold and trapped, might as well be wet too.
Back home there was no walls, no forest, no hills. You could see for miles around you. Some mornings she had left her bed early, slipped into her lover’s kaftan and left their tent just to see the sun rise an almost impossible distance away. The air would still be cold, like every damn day in the outlands, and she’d feel like there was still magic in the world, like in the stories of the world before…

She watched the road in silence for a few minutes until she was satisfied that no one was following her, and she turned away from it.
Roads were like double-edged swords in her mind. They made travelling easy, and she could easily walk twice as far on a proper road than on the desert sand in a day. On the other hand other people had found out the same thing and at any given time someone could come. Sometimes the strangers didn’t bother to look, sometimes their eyes filled with hate and they wanted to fight. It had taken its toll on her.
She kept walking for a little while and found a small clearing where she sat down. Tired, exhausted, but there was still work to be done and little time. You can rest when the sand claims you.

Despite the rain she managed to get a fire going and sat close to it for warmth. Her blanket was spread out under a tree much like the one by the road, and in a little while she’d retire to it and try to sleep. A sound from behind caught her ear and she turned around quickly.
“Who’s there?” She asked without thinking, and regretted it immediately. In the Gurgan outlands no one understood Gor. She repeated the question in the outsider-language, but it was too late. If her native language hadn’t revealed her identity, surely her brown skin would do the job. Silence. Seconds turned into minutes and she grasped the shaft of her wooden weapon a little bit tighter for every time she blinked.

Footsteps.
She brought up her staff and got into a fighting position. All her weight on her right leg, the left leg slightly in front, only her toes touching the ground. Her right hand gripped the shaft tight and held it at her hip while the left hand held it loosely at arms length in front of her chest. The staff had made a swooshing sound when she got ready, after that only the soft pat-pat of raindrops could be heard.
The leaves on the bush in front of her started to rattle and she got ready to strike. A red and white face poked out, it was furry and looked almost like a dog, yet different somehow.
She relaxed her stance and looked at the small creature with a smile.
“Oh woe is me, such a horrible demon has come to plague the fallen Caz dan Ro further.”
She spoke in Gor, for she was once again convinced that she was all alone…

She put out the fire and went to bed. Even though she was going to sleep she held her weapon in her hand. As she closed her eyes the image of a pale-skinned woman returned to her mind like so many nights before. Her face twisted into a mask of fear, surprise and agony. How she loathed that woman, not only for being an outsider, but for costing her everything. She fell asleep shivering, cold, wet and alone.

I had only seen seven summers when my world was changed. It was only seven summers when I started to track my age by how many times I had to visit my mother’s grave. My mother who was killed. Murdered. Murdered by Gors. Murdered in front of me, while I just watched. There was nothing I could do.

The blade in my shoulder wasn’t what stopped me from doing something. It was my own weakness, my own fear, my own fault that caused my mother to die. I could have stopped them. I could have at least died as well, then maybe I would have some sort of honour. Instead, I sat there and stared as I watched them burn my mother.

Set a flame, her flesh melted away as she screamed from the pain. Her golden hair that I loved with all my heart turning black, as flames danced down them towards her head. Her cheeks went away first. They slipped off her face as if they were wet clay on a plate. The rest of her flesh followed, large swaths turning black. I sat there as they made me watch, made it so that I would forever remember exactly how my mother was killed.

I lay there as they raided my home, took everything that I had ever known, and then watched them bandage my wound. Making sure that I couldn’t even die. I was given no mercy. I was left there in the wreckage of what was once my home, with nothing but the memory of my mother’s screams to keep company.

By the time my father had come back, I was blue from the cold. My father… My father blamed himself. His cries were what woke me from my stupor. His arms wrapped around me, as he begged for forgiveness. I didn’t understand. I still don’t. It was my fault, yet my father just looked at me with pity. He looked at his home with despair, and he looked at what was left of my mother with something I had never seen in him. Pure hatred.

He swore to me that day, he made me swear to him, that we would avenge my mother. We would not let her death be forgotten. Those that had killed my mother would rue this day. They would die at our hands. We would burn them. We would turn them to ash.

When he tried to light a fire to warm me, I screamed. I could see my mother was in those flames. I could hear her screams once more. My mother was dying all over again. I couldn’t take it. I cracked, I broke. I leaped into the flames screaming, trying to grab for something that wasn’t there. Funny how seeing my mother burning didn’t brake me, but the memory of it did.

It has been ten long trips to where my mother’s remains were buried. My father could not bear to be near where we were once a happy family, and our new home is nowhere near it. I spend the time that I do not work, training. I’m training for the day that I will finally be able to crush the Gor that killed my mother, the Gor that destroyed my world and shattered my father.

My father who even with all his bravado and his speeches, turns from a proud lion into a meek mouse at the very idea of leaving our home. My father who is no longer the man made that oath with me all those years ago. He is a broken shell of a man, unable to see that we must leave, we must go and hunt those Gor and that if we cannot find the one that killed my mother, than we must simply kill every single last filthy Gor that stalks this planet.

It is because of my father’s meekness that I am leaving. We will be visiting my mother’s grave for the eleventh time soon; it is during that journey that I will leave. It is during that journey that I will start my life once more. It is then, that I will avenge my mother, or die trying.