------------- The Chronicles of Taure – Grace

The snow had picked up and was beginning to stick on the muddy ground, not just the chilled limbs of the trees. She waited in the shadows, hidden and perfectly quiet. Even without her heavy cloak and hood, her mask and gloves, she wouldn’t feel the chill. She had a natural, or perhaps it was unnatural, resistance to heat and cold. Unless it froze so hard that all the trees in the forest died, she’d be perfectly comfortable running around in the nude,… not that she’d ever consider doing such a thing. There was a reason she kept cloaked and hidden, and not just from these bandits she was tracking. If any saw her face, her skin, she’d be in trouble. Besides, there were a few that did know her face, and most of them wanted her dead.

In a world ruled by men, a female Bountyhunter was at a distinct disadvantage. In world of white skinned northerners, even those of the so-called midlands, a black woman was at best a curiosity. More likely, she would be seized and thrown into the nearest jail cell until someone could figure out who she belonged to. Some would see her color as a mark of evil. She’d be hauled off to an inquisition. No doubt they’d heard stories of the hordes that lived in the south, crazed wildmen, sorcerers and monsters that roamed the deserts beyond the southern plains. They’d name her demon spawn, a spy for those intent on invading their lands, slaughtering their women and raping their cattle. From Grace’s experience with her own people, they probably weren’t that far off.

Grace Steele,… she’d chosen her own name when she finally gained her freedom in the north,… was born with the greatest of disadvantages. She was a Sahuni girl. To most northerners she was not even human, a primitive throwback, unevolved, uncultured and ignorant. To the men of her own people, she was a waste of flesh, incapable of fighting, hunting, or providing for the tribe in any way other than pushing out more mouths to feed. She would be less than property, less than a pet, of no more importance than the laziest hunting jackal. But she had a few things going for her. She grew up fast, and she had beauty of few other Sahuni women. That made her a prize to be fought for. But before any male in her tribe tried to take her, the entire tribe was wiped out by another. The few women that the invaders considered worthwhile were taken as slaves. The others were raped to death and their bodies burned on the pyre of the village. Thus began her life as a slave.

The rest of her tale is a sad and bloody one, coming to a close only after she was finally bought by a northman named Bear. She looked back on Bear now with something bordering fondness. He had never raped her but he had beaten her on occasion. She began to understand that his treatment was not meant as cruelty, but to train her, teach her how to protect herself. He had taken her as an apprentice, to learn his craft. He was a Bountyhunter, a man who tracks down those with a price on their heads, and he was getting old. When he at last fell in battle, slain by a bandit chieftain in the mountains north of Blackstone, she set out on her own. But no one would hire a Sahuni woman. So she adopted the identity of Steele, for the axes she wielded, and hid her form behind masks and gloves and cloaks. A few months later, she managed to track down the bandit chieftain and returned his head to the Sheriff of Wyrwood. Her new life had officially begun with the clinking of ten gold coins.

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