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"Run, run as fast as you can." Those are the only words I can remember from my mother and father. I can't even remember their face, their name, hell I can't even remember my name. That day I ran, I ran off into the desert, three days I ran. The scales on my feet were cracked and bleeding, I was on the verge of death from dehydration. And that's not even when the real hell began. After the three days of running I fell in the sand. And I didn't want to get back up. I just laid there, trying to cry, the dehydration wouldn't let me. I honestly wanted to die. My mother and father dead at the hands of some desert dwelling bandits. Our entire tribe gone, me the last of the Nagaji people. I was only six years old I didn't know at the time how much I should of stayed, how I should've died with my mother and father. That's when I felt hands, warm hands and for a second I thought I might be saved. Then I felt the cold, the cold iron slap around my wrists. Water was poured down my throat and I was given stale bread. I look up and I see a man. A man in the prime of his life, a man with a smile I would fear the rest of my life.

I felt the iron on my wrists, the cold against my scales. Then I felt chains on my ankles as I was chained to a man twice my size. I remember every detail of my life, every finite detail. And I remember the man in front of me his back was covered in scabs. Long scabs like that from a whip. A man was chained behind me as well. Our legs shackled together and we were marched forward. I remember the men around me, all those who weren't chained were actually laughing and merrymaking. I remember at one point they pulled a woman out of the line, they did things to her that no six-year-old should ever have to see. When they were done the man with the smile walked up to her. She was so scared, so broken, so sad. The man laughed as he slit her throat. Her blood poured onto the desert sand. And before we were marched away, my eyes met hers, I still saw the fear in her eyes, the fear remained even though the life had gone. And they left her there. We were marched even more, at one point i chanced to look back. I saw the vultures circling off in the distance and I sobbed a little. A barely audible sob, but the man with the smile heard. It was the first time I felt the whip. The pain was worse than any I've ever felt. A cold burning on my back. I sobbed even more and I was whipped again, and again, and again until I couldn't sob anymore. I felt cool blood running down my back, my scales cracking under the whip. Then I heard a voice, that voice for a moment I thought my salvation. "That's enough we need him to be able to walk back after all, he will make a fine worker for the salt mine." And we kept marching. On and on through the desert, till eventually the sand turned hard beneath my scales. Then as I looked off in the distance ahead of me I saw buildings. Not the leather tents of my homeland, these were made of cold hard wood. I saw a cart leaving, hauling barrels out of the wooden walled encampment. I thought it might get easier at that point. I was only six I didn't know anything, at that point all I knew in my life the pain in my feet and back. And the thought that a roof over my head might make things a little easier, I couldn't have been more wrong.

They pushed us into the camp that night. It was cold, and I was cold-blooded and they didn't even give me as much as a blanket. That night I slept plagued by nightmares, I saw the smile, I saw the poor woman's eyes. I woke up in the middle of the night and I started to cry. I was in a room full of people and I didn't get so much as an "it'll be all right" or "it'll be better from here" all I got was a "shut up kid want them to come in here." I stifled my cries as best I could but I sobbed the whole night. When I first saw light it was the first time I dreaded the light. Normally I would be anxious to be out in the warm desert sun, to bask on a rock with my family and friends. All I felt was fear, fear of what new torture was to come this day. Then the men with the smile walked in. He was holding his whip and he cracked it in the air. He was yelling, "Wake up fresh meat. Today you're learning how to work the salt mine. Everyone grab a pickax when you walk out the last two in line be hauling ore." Most people hesitated slightly but walked forward. I was the third from the last; the man behind me grabbed my shoulder. He pushed me to the ground and walked past me. I stood up but ended up being the last one out. It was the first time I got a good look at the inside of the camp. The middle consisted of an open pit with some one hundred people inside. Some smacking the walls with pickaxes and others push heavy mine carts up hill. I was handed an old looking pickaxe. The wood was rotting and I could barely lift it. The metal head of the tool was rusted over. The man who handed it to me said," be lucky you're too small to push mine carts. Now hit the white out of the rock and if you stop well whip ya good. And you don't want to have a cut in a salt mine." I was pushed down the ramp into the pit. They chained me to a spike pounded into the rock and i swung the pickaxe. It was a weak and feeble swing one that only flaked off a few specks off the way but a swing it was. I swung the pickaxe like a pendulum for it was an impossibility to lift it into a proper swing. But on one swing the pickaxe broke. The rusted metals weight cracked the rotted shaft of the tool. A slaver walked over to me and I pleaded with him. "Please... please it was an accident I swear." He dragged me to the center of the pit where there was a wooden stockade. He threw my neck and hands into the slot and locked it closed. My feet could barely touch the ground as I stood on my toes to prevent my neck and arms from bearing all my weight. That's when I felt the whip again. And not just once. Again and again the whip tore against my scales. It didn't make the long slashes you would expect. Nagaji scales are too hard for that. It was the blunt force of the whip cracking against my back that hurt the most. It tore off scales on my back leaving triangular wounds bleeding onto the stone floor of the pit. Again and again the whip hit my back. Even looking back I don't know how many times. Then the men were all laughing as one said," we don't want that cut getting infected do we boys." They began taking handfuls of the rock salt and tossing it onto my back. It seared with such pain I screamed. I screamed so loud so loud I must have hurt my throat because I was coughing more blood onto the stone floor as they walked away still laughing. This time I didn't cry, I couldn't if I tried. I just stood there in the stockades. That's when I died, that moment lying there defeated I tried to think of my name... and nothing came to mind. I had forgotten my own name. And that's how I lived, every day I worked in that mine, every small mistake bringing the whip. I strove not to make mistakes, everything I did I learned to do perfectly to appease the men who held me. If I didn't know I soon learned. They even taught me to read and basic arithmetic if only too count there gold for them. Even the other slaves hated me for some reason. At the time I couldn't place as racism. I didn't know what racism was. But the people inside that mine did. They stole my stale food and stagnant water; they mocked me and even beat me at night in the slave quarters for no reason other than me being foreign. The "snake man" or "the damned lizard". I worked and lived like this for ten years. Ten long years I toiled in that mine. At one point in my incarceration I saw a man die. A slave grew too frail to work and they loped off his head right in the middle of the pit. I wondered what that would be like... would it be better to die... would death make this pain go away... make the whipping stop... finally let me learn my name. I thought like this for a long time. With each passing day I grew more and more tempted to jump into the pit headfirst. Or bang my head against the stone wall till the world ceased to exist. That's when it happened. I was ordered to clean out the master's quarters. I obeyed as I always did but this was the first time I've ever even been allowed into the masters rooms. they pushed me inside and slammed the door behind me yelling," It had better be clean lizard." I began to scrub the floor and clean the hallway obediently. Then I opened the last door in the hall... inside was a lavishly furnished room. Full of things I haven't seen before. I knew of war in my tribe but have never before seen its instruments. Inside the room was a set of mail, armor hanging upon a rack, with a bastard sword at its side. That's when I decided... I am going to die... and I'm going to die taking at least one of the foul horrors with me. It took me several tries but I donned the armor correctly. It was loose and not fitted for me, with no tunic underneath the cold metal rubbed the scales on my chest irritatingly. Then I grabbed the sword. My first thought was its weight; it was heavier than the slavers made it look. I found a shield hanging on the wall and strapped the wooden wall onto my arm. Last was the helm. It was cold against my head and cut off all form of peripheral vision. But I felt something strange as I took my first steps in the armor... I felt safe... for the first time in a long time I felt like I was safe. Then my thoughts returned to death. I swung the sword experimentally. For hours in those quarters I swung that sword, learning as I did with all tasks my slavers gave me...quickly. Not long later I heard the door in the hallway slam open... my whole world stopped... my hands shook... the only thing I heard was my frantic heartbeat in my chest as I walked out into the hallway. Standing as tall as I could hoping to project an air of confidence. He laughed, "Ha ha ha looks like you found the bosses old army stuff lizard, get it off play times over." I readied the blade and the shield, I bent my knees slightly, I held my breath. Time passed in slow motion as the slithering sound of the slavers sword leaving its sheath was the only thing in my world." Have it your way then ya runt". He ran forward raising his sword high into the air; I brought up my shield and felt the bone jarring impact of his blade slamming against the wooden wall strapped to my arm. I kept my sword back ready to thrust as soon as I had an opening as again his sword met my shield. He hacked at the wood like a madman until he raised his blade too high... I saw an opening. I swung my shield outward and caught him in the face. The metal lined rim of the shield met his mouth and I felt the cracking of bone as the blow shattered his jaw. As he staggered backward I thrust forward... my right hand pushing on the blade felt resistance that easily gave way... he made a sound... like a low gurgling then fell backwards. My blade exiting his chest as he did, then there he lay... dead... I looked down at him as blood began to pool on the floor. It was the first time... the first time I looked down and saw blood that...that wasn't my own. I heard the door slam again and a voice, "Ferald what happen... oh curse the gods." He tried to draw his blade but I was upon him to fast and lunged my blade through his neck. He fell forward slumping limply against me, smearing the chest plate of my armor in gore. I pushed him off and reclaimed my blade, what was once shining silver now dripped red. I pushed open the door and walked outside into the camp. The slaver named Tork was standing a good forty yards from me. He had a shortbow he used to scare the slaves when they slacked off. And more than once missed hitting a leg or a arm. He drew the bow back as he saw me and I raised my shield. I felt a thump as I walked forward. Then another and another as arrows thumped into my shield. When I finally got close to him he tried to draw a blade, I thrust through his chest then kicked him off the blade and he fell... he fell the thirty feet into the pit and landed with a thud that made me cringe. I looked out across the pit I have worked my whole life, all the slavers stood there drawing there blades looking up to me... the slaves looked up too... they looked up at me... I banged my sword against my shield and I screamed. I screamed louder than any time I have ever been whipped, or had salt thrown on my wounds, or was beaten by my fellow slaves. because I screamed in rage, in challenge, in triumph, a warcry that made all cringe slaver and slave alike cringe in fear. Then they came... they ran up the path from the pit and along its edge. I ran too... I ran screaming towards them, and then we met. My shield took one in the face and he fell, my sword took another, and another. I fell to a haze of slashing blades and blocked blows, crunching bone and ripping flesh. Every hit they could land merely skidded off my armor. I counted as they fell... one, two, four, ten, fifteen. As I reached thirty-seven my body was tired, my muscles burned, my sides ached, my lungs screamed for air. I searched for something to swing at, the next blow to block, the next body to cleave and there was one... the mas with the smile was on his knees. Clutching at a wound in his side looking up at me. He spoke quietly, defeated" please... you took everything I have, you have bested me Nagaji, please leave me with my life." I thought for a while then decided. I brought up my sword and said," you showed no such mercy." I executed the man with the smile. then the camp lay silent. I stood, panting, coated in gore and looking out over the pit... I saw nothing but slaves... no more masters... no more whips... no more nightmares. And I screamed once more, I screamed in victory raising my bloodstained sword high into the air. The slaves no... the men. The men and women, the children and the elderly joined in... they cheered as I ran down into the pit and broke their bonds. Some hugged me, other simply patted me on the back but the message was the same. As a group we ran to the front gate and flung it open... a huge open plain lay before us... and as the slaves left I went back... back into the slavers quarters and found a mirror and looked upon myself... I looked upon myself and realized... that scared little child is dead... that I have been reborn. I stared for a long time at the mirror, and then I decided. This is who I am, this blood covered warrior is what those slavers made me, And the thought passed through my mind that I will do this again, and I will save people my fate. Then for the first time in my life... I smiled