Biography:

The slave caravan traveled long through the desert night, the sands shifting and swirling among the deep orange dunes rising out of the desert floor. The slavemaster lead the procession of bodies, his whip cracking when one of the children stumbled and fell, their connected iron chains dragging them when they could not walk. Ahead the carts and tents dragged on slowly, a mixture of the famed desert Western breed horses and camels drudging forward in inches through the icy night. In the morning they would reach the far end of the Chaos Wastes, as its unforgiving sands would give way to the Kali Desert and the oasis capital city of Tal Kalam.

The line of slaves stretched twenty bodies or so in count, misshapen and tiny forms with barely energy enough to fight the sinking sands with their bare feet. Among them the tallest of the females, the red-haired one near the middle, cast a hate-filled scowl to the sweaty man with the whip and brilliant red turban, then spit at his feet. The heads of the others remained downcast, and as the master halted the line none paid attention to the blows given across her bare and sunburned back. The salty tears that bleed from her brown eyes stung her burnt face. She tasted blood as her teeth bit into her lower lip, but never did she utter a cry to the pain. He would not have that satisfaction.

* * *

The chambers of the room were harsh yellow stone, their rough-cut edges illuminated in the flickering light of the firepots in the four corners of the merchants' apartments. Directly below the cries and toll of the slave area were faint but audible, the workers of the desert mine and the cracks of the master's whip, all normal to the outcropping mines on the border of the Kali Desert. The king's scholar felt his heart weep for the small girl tossed before him. With a raised hand he signaled the guards to leave from the iron-lined oak doorway they had brought the child through.

His expression was void as he watched the form of the young teenage girl on hands and knees against the fine tile floor. Her sweat-soaked garments were scoured with lashes from the whip, dried blood staining the cloth along with the fresh and still wet. Her hair was ragged and unkempt, and one would not have known it was red among all the dirt and clay. Keliar Rashaka could not bring himself to hold the child, not even knowing she was his brother's only surviving daughter. It had taken him five years to find the child after their murder, but here she was, and she was his property now. There could be a better life than that of a common slave.

Keliar touched the fine silk of his robes and fought tears. "Come with me now, Khael. There will be no more of this. You will learn true skills in the king's palace."

* * *

The palace courtyard of Tal Kalam rang with the banter of practice staffs and the falling of water from the myriad of elaborate marble fountains spread about the grassed area.

"Got you!"

Khael Rashaka looked up from her study of the ancient histories, the rough parchments between her hands slipping to the ground beneath her crossed legs. She smiled at the boy several yards away, nothing more than a small upturn of her lips, and watched the golden jewelry catching the sparkle of the sun's rays, marking him as one of the princes of Tal Kalam. The dark-skinned boy smiled radiantly, his long black topknot swinging as he lifted his practice staff high above his head. Khael laughed and shook her head, then motioned at the three defeated men breathing deeply and sprawled out on the green. "You three should really try harder. It is not right for the brother of the Heir to so easily defeat three of the Kalam's Ward!"

The laughter died quickly as Keliar appeared in his finery from the one of the open side-doors of the palace courtyard. Khael placidly watched the old man approach, now near bald, but with a refinery to his motions and features that suggested his scholarly patience and court importance. Yet now his grey eyes took on a worried expression as he drew away the First Ward to the Princes to speak near the green's edge. His words chilled Khael, and the youngest Prince took notice, commanding away his trainers as he made his way to the King's Scholar and First Ward. Khael's expression slipped, her eyes going cold from the deeply troubling news. The Prince touched her bare arm and caught her gaze. "Khael?"

"Away with you, Murrain. The Scholar and I must speak privately." The look of outrage meshed with personal injury as the boy looked upon the Ward and opened his mouth to protest. Never had she sent him away before or refused his unspoken questions, but still Khael did not acknowledge the young lord. "I said away with you!"

Once the boy was safely beneath the courtyard walkway edge and shielded by its marble fountains, Keliar continued, his voice grave and bordering on the edge of hysteria. "They have taken the First Prince. Gone without a trace! His Majesty is in a rage! He would have ordered an outright war on the Osirin Hand if I had not been there to coax the impossibilities of finding the Heir that way! You know the Hand's corruption stretches to our own courts and lords. They will kill the boy if the King does not bend to their will and any open attempt to locate and rescue Talominy will result in his execution.

"I have convinced His Majesty to allow me to assign a section of the Ward to search out the Heir. Khael, you will go?"

The red-haired woman found it difficult to meet the pained gaze of her most beloved patron, but with a visible effort she managed. "You know I would never shy from my duty. Rest assured, old friend, Talominy will be found. I leave at once."

* * *

Khael Rashaka was born to merchant parents and their traveling caravans amidst the Wastes of the West. There she lived humbly with them and her two sisters until the family was laid siege by desert thieves and then murdered. Yet she was spared, chosen for her fiery red hair to be a slave in the mines, red being a rare color and sign of good luck to the desert peoples. Here she remained until the brother of her father, a scholar and consul to the King of Tal Kalam, discovered her whereabouts and took her into his safety within his lord's palace to be trained in the arts of history, etiquette, politics, and combat. Iniated into the ranks of the King's Kalam Ward, she proved to be a swift and patient warrior, if not an especially strong one. So well did she exceed her training and set expectations that at the age of twenty-three, Khael was named First Ward, a position whose sole purpose was to train the Princes of Tal Kalam in the ways of the world and to give her life in the name of their protection.

The First Prince of Tal Kalam and direct heir to its thrown was taken captive by a secretive band of thieves and assassins calling themselves the Osirin Hand, and Khael has accepted her duty to search out the young Prince Talominy at all costs. She travels under the disguise of a horsemaster looking for work while searching for her lost master.

Personality Description:

Khael is a careful thinker and keen observer. She will rush into no situation without first weighing the options and possible outcomes, and so the woman is not often surprised. She takes in details like a hawk and notices things others would not, and rarely forgets a misdeed or insult. Headstrong and confident, Khael could be called arrogant by some, but she prides herself in knowing her own limits and being a fair judge of others abilities. She simply has little patience for the weak and unskilled and has no qualms about stating such. The world is powered by the strong, and she makes certain that she is included in this category. There is a difference in being judgmental and judging accurately at a first impression. Above all others, the lazy hold Khael's greatest contempt, seeing as she herself is highly motivated at anything she does. A fierce drive to succeed motivates her every action, and honor and loyalty are her code.

Physical Description:

Khael could be considered attractive ? her features are well proportioned and groomed, and she contains many of the physical traits appreciated in the land; but her expression and stance suggest someone one would rather avoid than approach in any hopes of courtship. No matter how skilled at concealing her true purpose, several things are immediately apparent to anyone with a reasonable knowledge of the world's kingdoms (though luckily for her, these individuals are few). 

Khael's sunbronzed complexion suggests her north-western origins of the desert sands. She is tall, toned and lithe in build. Her hair is close-cropped to her head, the main body no more than an inch and a half at its longest in the front. The color is a bright adobe red, brighter in the only long section: the two chin-length locks that frame her face and that are occasionally braided. Her eyes are a very light hazel and almond-shaped, their motions emphasized by thin brows. Her chin is sharp to match her jaw line, with her lips almost as expressive as her eyes in the rather blunt facial expressions she makes.

While traveling into the unknown lands, Khael wears simple, tan coloured garb, with a studded leather breastplate and greaves for protection.  Her hooded cloak is of the same drab colour as the desert itself.  Her cloak is the standard fashion of the Northern Kali, with the extra length being wrapped around the front and thrown over the left shoulder.  The hilt of a short sword can be seen protruding from the opening of her cloak.  The delicate intricacy of the hilt alone hints at the fine craftsmanship of the Northern Desert Kingdoms.  Khael rides a great, grey beast of a horse, bearing the fine musculature and stature which is the hallmark of the north-western breeds.