Chapter 3: Ch.3: Chains

The months after the raid at Krak passed by like a blur for poor little Freia. She was sold multiple times over, each time taking a different role in the family she was bought by. Life as a slave in the northern kingdom wasn't as bad as it was further south. Due to the climate and the harsh ground, farmers needed all the help they could get, no matter who the extra hands belonged to. Many were the fields that Freia was forced to prepare in exchange for meager clothing and cheap food, but it was much better than the fate other slaves often were thrown into.

Months soon turned to years, and although she was only ever bought at cheap prices like a tool on rent, Freia started to grow according to the labor she was thrown into. Her body developed into a lean young adolescent, and due to the strength she started to gain from all the farming, alongside the diet she was already used to, her musculature became more prominent at first glance. This caused her jobs to eventually change from farms to lumber camps.

Getting used to wielding axes to chop dry wood and bringing trees down with saws all day long, and sometimes through the entire night as well, took quite some time. Her clumsiness got her hurt and injured many a time, with her legs and arms suffering the most from stray cuts, large splinters and bruises from falling logs and misplaced saw blades. Still, things could be worse, so she just kept her mouth shut and kept working as her body grew in size with each passing year.

Eventually her nineteenth year of life came to be. Once an innocent young child, Freia grew into a hardened labor slave. Lean from the lack of an abundant diet, and heavily muscular due to the sheer weight of the tasks she was bought to perform, Freia did become quite a valuable product for the band of thieves. So much so, that they started to seek how to best put her to use, and eventually they stumbled upon one certain corner in the northern capital of Va'Khaz: The pits.

The pits were a collection of underground fighting rings. Often making use of slaves and indebted people, they were thrown into a stone circle surrounded by bloodthirsty spectators. Forced to fight to the death most of the time, these people were hardened warriors that fought arranged fights or simply for the glory of living to see another day. They were treated marginally better than regular slaves, so the chance was there to put Freia's body to good use since the amount of people that would buy her for less than reputable purposes were certainly a collective few the band didn't have access to.

And so it was that Freia was sold to the pits. Under the management of the local branch of the underground operation, all fighters were given a made-up name. A character that would become more interesting to watch than random villager number 4. Due to her above average size and the vibrant colors of her hair and eyes, Freia was given a special name: The Marauder. It was an ironic name the owner of the pits came up with on the spot, mainly due to the background of the band of thieves that sold her to him.

"We can't have some idiot fighting out there, the people want a spectacle! Tell me, slave, do you know how to fight?" The man asked, a disgusting smile formed on his face as he asked.

"I know how to wield an axe." Was Freia's response.

At this point in her life Freia had already given up hope in escaping her fate, even if she managed to run away from the band of thieves before, she had nowhere to go. And by law she was the rightful property of the band anyways, so she would be considered an outlaw no matter where she went. And a life on the run was no better than being trapped down there in the darkness anyways.

"That'll have to do then. Rathion!" The man yelled to the side, one of the doors on the room opened and a large man entered. He wore tattered rags and a leather outfit, a sword remained sheathed on his waist.

"You called, sir?" His voice was clearly old, the man himself was probably around his forties or fifties already.

"Teach her how to not get killed, will you? And don't break her too bad, I'll need a fight in a week and I want her in good condition."

"Yes, sir." The man looked at Freia and glared a little, before grunting for her to follow him outside the room.

The slave followed the man named Rathion through many corridors of cold stone until they reached a patio of dirt and wooden structures. It was apparently a training center, identified by the many other fighters training all sorts of weapons against simple mannequins made from wood and straw. Before she turned back to face Rathion, she found herself with a wooden stick in the shape of a rudimentary axe being hit against her abdomen, forcing the air out of her lungs for a second and throwing her to her knees on the ground.

"This will be your training weapon. Master said you'll need to train, so you will train. Now stand up, we're going through the basics and you better not complain." Rathion glared down at her and waited, a longer stick remaining on his other hand.

"Yes, sir..." Freia stood up, holding her wooden weapon tightly on her right hand.

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"Alright, pay attention. The first thing you have to understand is..." And so the first lesson of many began.

An entire day was wasted on eliminating the conceptions Freia had of fighting, Rathion hit her time and time again to rectify her posture, and the entire lesson passed by without a single correct motion being performed in accordance to her master's own words.

"You're worse than I thought. At least you don't seem too tired, that's good. Go now, good luck finding a place to sleep."

Rathion left with those words, walking through the same door they had entered through and locking it behind himself. The far away wooden structures had already been filled by sleeping fighters, other scrawny-looking men and women seemed to just sit beneath one of the stone roofs all huddled together to sleep. Freia didn't even let out a sigh, she simply did as the other weak people did and went to sleep, only to wake up with a slight pain on the back of her neck due to the lack of any bedding.

The day had begun, and so did her next lesson. She already had a decent physical build and good stamina, so those steps could be skipped for the sake of brevity. Instead the next six days were spent with Freia finally learning the basics of wielding an axe for actual combat. How to hook her opponent's weapon, how to grapple them to the ground and how to beat their heads in for the shortest and easiest possible win. The last day was spent with Rathion handing her real weapons. A small round wooden shield and an iron wood-chopping axe that she was actually quite familiar with.

"I did all that I could. If you die, it will be a shame on my name, so you better survive your first fight." Rathion was certainly a rough teacher, but a good one nonetheless.

"Yes, sir." Freia had gotten used to his harsh words, and had begun to learn how to read in-between them.

A pat on her shoulder made sure to give her some confidence, and that night Freia did get to sleep on a proper wooden bed for the first time in the entire week thanks to beating the absolute shit out of the weakest fighter in the group, taking over his position in the wooden structure used for resting.

On the dawn of the seventh day she woke up at an early hour, all fighters that were scheduled for that day were given slightly better food than the rest, alongside some actual clothes to use in the stone fighting pit. Freia's clothes were rather revealing, as expected from a woman fighter, her body was probably the one thing that would really give her some attention to begin with until she made a proper name for herself.

With bandages covering her chest and leather braces to give her some actual protection on the arms, her back was given a nice fur cloak that was way too short to actually cover her back, alongside some hide armor for her legs and a pair of decent-looking boots that were just a bit too big for her. Most likely taken from a previous fighter that died in combat.

At around mid-day she was dragged off to the pits proper, the exclamations of the spectators riled her up, and without her teacher in sight, Freia did felt quite nervous. But once her name was called to go out there and fight, she walked with calm in her breathing, to find herself in the middle of an enormous room. A giant boulder carved in half sat in the middle for the two fighters to battle within. A wooden fence surrounded it at waist height to keep them from falling onto the crowd, and the people watching were all wearing some kind of weird wooden mask.

"You ready to die, girlie?!" A maniac-looking man screamed from the other side of the pit as the two entrances were locked by enormous metallic chains.

"Not today." She replied, gripping her weapons tightly as she walked forward.

The man lunged forward, jumping and trying to deliver a stab with his trident, giving the fight a proper and rushed start. The moment itself had finally come, and Freia found herself reacting by instinct. As if she had been in such a life-or-death scenario before.

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