Challenge

They stood on the lee side of the mountain. Jonah and Cassandra looked down into the deep green valley in this desolate place called the Wisterias Dessert. It had been a hard and brutal battle in the last few days. The warrior tribes of the Grender and the Sortians lost many a man, and had only joined forces to try to hold off the onslaught of the conquering Trentians. The Trentians were a particularly brutal tribe. They wanted land, they wanted women, and most of all; they wanted gold. No slaughter was too large for them to consider. No crime too horrendous, nothing was beyond their taste for sadism.

Cassandra was the Sortians Princess, the ruler of a warrior tribe which was decimated along with Jonah's army, and during the watch of the carnage, they had formed a pact, no a need, to combine their forces to save their people. Quite like Jonah, Cassandra was a powerful and respected warrior. After the battle, they decided that she should go back to Grender with Jonah to learn his clan's ways so that they can combine forces and survive together.

As Jonah dismounted from his dragon - he took her chin in his hand while looking into her eyes and said, "You know if we are to beat the Trentians, we can't do it singularly - we have to join up. This you know is fact Princess".

Annoyed at the presumed familiarity she looked into his eyes as she shook her chin free from his grip. "I understand that" she said. "I just will not appreciate the jabs or a sneer of your people at your 'captured' treasure, for surely that is how we shall appear".

Jonah shook his head. "No - we arrive as equals - nothing more - nothing less. I will explain your position, and you will be granted the respect you deserve". He took the bit out of the dragon's mouth, and only using the lead, they began the long descent into the valley. There was an uneasy silence between them, she knew that in order to be accepted as an equal she must first establish her worth as a warrior in his tribe, a difficult task seeing as his clan tended to look towards their women as property. She knew of his clan - and refused to believe that they would take her for what she was.

She mumbled, "they will treat me only as a woman, I am a warrior, I shall not stand for anything less".

As they came closer to the walls of the village - she heard the blasts of the horns to announce his arrival. As she looked up into the watch towers - smiling at herself when she realizes that it must be this way with all the nomad tribes of the deserts, the gates swung open. She watched as a throng of people were ready to rush to meet him in the distance. Suddenly Jonah curses as a breeze unfurled a crimson banner posted along the city wall. Grabbing Cassandra he quickly shoved her into a small tent and clasps his hand over her mouth. "Cassandra listen this is going to be more difficult that I thought. That banner is my uncles; he must have claimed leadership of the tribe while I was gone. With most of my men wounded and far from here, my standing is at a disadvantage. You are going to have to pretend to be my slave. His power is great now and we will have to establish your worth another way.