Trojan Slave (Book 1)

Chapter 1

Trojan Slave

Chapter 1

It was only a year ago. One year ago that Elpis was ripped from her home, her family and her friends. Still, she vividly remembered the smell of the smoke as the fires roared through her village, hearing the screams of the begging women upon the beach as they took their last dying breath. Now at the young age of seventeen she should have been married, possibly with a child of her own. Yet that life, that dream she longed for, was cruelly torn away from her. One mere year ago today.

Elpis let herself think back to her life before, for just a single solitary moment.

The tiny Island on which she had grown up, was of no consequence in the world. So small was the island, nobody had even thought to give it a name. There had been few visitors in her sixteen years of being on what had only been known, to her, as a peaceful place. Those that had come had shown utmost surprise at the villagers' presence. Her father had promised her to Akakios, whom was the son of one of the few visitors that chose to remain on the Island a few years previously. Akakios truly lived up to his name. He was a good, kind man, the sort of man that would have made a perfect husband.

Akakios was dead now. Barely a man.

Elpis sat and reminisced on the days she would play on the white beaches from a young age, along with six other children from her island, all of a similar age. The clear sea sparkling like a jewel. The laughter of children, as clear as the summer skies in the still air. Picking out shells with incandescent pinks and blues that shimmered in the scorching sun. Her soft, black hair pinned back with strips of cloth, the silken strands bouncing as she ran with abandon. How she longed to be back there.

From a young age Elpis' mother had taught her, along with her younger sisters, how to keep a house. Cooking, cleaning, collecting the herbs and flowers for healing took up the majority of her life. While she was unable to wait for the day she would become the maker of her own home and have children of her own to teach, to love, and to laugh with. All this would have come true within the following month. If not for the invaders.

There were no warriors on their Island, as they had never had the need for such a profession. All was to soon change, as an army of marauders came in the night and destroyed everything. Buildings lit up the night sky, screams of terror pierced through the land. Ultimately those who had tried to protect the innocents had been cut down. Elpis' father and Akakios among them. The few who remained were soon to be herded down onto the beach. There had been six ships on the coast, the darkest of shadows to take them to the depths of the Underworld.

Men were separated from the women and children, there were few of the village men left by the time she had reached the white sands. As the men were dragged to the furthest boat, the only thing to be heard were the cries of their women that had been left behind, continually filling the beach.

The men from the other ships then chose at will. There seemed no rhyme or reason to the process. The elderly and the young were the next to be taken. Elpis would never forget that night, she could never forget all the sounds nor all of the horrific smells, not as long as she lived.

Her two brothers, so young and terrified, were taken by one rather frightening male, her mother tried to cling onto each of their hands. Yet nothing could stop their departure. Their mother was taken next, it was only due to small mercies that meant two of her sisters went with her. Elpis had prayed to any god that would listen that they would be able to stay together, although she knew in her heart of hearts that it would not be that way. Elpis' last remaining sister was still to be chosen when Elpis was taken, their fingertips parting as her hand slipped from Charmion's. The last and most prominent image she had of Charmion, was her tiny young face crumpling, leaving nothing but fear and anguish. With a sharp intake of breath, Elpis had been whisked away with three others around her age, placed unceremoniously onto the same ship that brought her to the half-life she lived now. The life of a slave.