Sacrifices

“It is time, my love.  The soldiers have just entered the village,” my husband whispered.
         
I couldn’t believe it.  Why our village? Why my baby? It had been seventeen years since our village had been Chosen.  I had lost my baby sister in that last Choosing Day so many years ago, and now they had come for my daughter. I couldn’t bear it!
         
“Please, Nyssa!” He bent down and pressed his forehead to mine and pleaded, “It will be worse for us if we make them have to come in here to get her.” 

I could not do as he asked.  I heard him, but it was as if he spoke to me from very far away.  All I could do was sit in my chair by the hearth and hold my beautiful, perfect little girl. I gazed down at her tiny, pale face and stroked her soft downy hair.  She was wrapped tightly in the blanket my grandmother had made for me when I was a baby. 
         
How could I just hand her over to a race of people who would make my child their slave?  A viscous warrior race, the Tengal had conquered my people over five hundred years ago. They let us live in relative peace as long as we paid our yearly tribute.  They did not want our crops.  They had no use for our gold.  They only wanted our children.  Each year, they crossed our borders and selected five random villages where they would take all the children less than three summers old. We never knew which village would be chosen or when they would come for us. 
         
Our children were the sacrifice for our safety.  Our babies were the price of our peace. The boys were used as slave labor, but it was the girls who were worse off.  Most girls were sold as sex slaves.
         
I could not bear the thought of one of those beasts putting his hands on my little one so I could sit in safety, eating, sleeping, and living my life at her expense. The horror of what she would have to endure was too much for me.  I couldn’t do it.
         
There was a pounding at the door.  “Bring us the child!” bellowed a voice.          

“Please, Nyssa!” my husband begged.

I looked up into his eyes. Tears were flowing down his face.  I reached up and gently stroked his cheek.  “They are not taking our daughter,” I said confidently.

“If you do not come out, we are coming in!”

“Nyssa, there is nothing we can do! They will take her. We can not stop this!”

Smiling down at my beautiful baby, I said calmly, “They are not going to take her from us.”

The door suddenly burst open and three soldiers stormed in.  The biggest strode over to us and tossed my husband aside as if he were nothing bigger than a sack of grain.

He laughed when he bent over me.  “This child is tribute!” He snatched her from my arms and handed her to the man on his left. He grabbed me by the throat and lifted me slightly off the ground. “Be thankful you have your lives!” and with that he tossed me to the floor as well. I quickly struggled to sit up, gasping for air.

“Captain!” the soldier holding my baby, said.  “This one is dead!”

“What?” the captain raged. He took my baby back and roughly stripped off her blanket and leaned down to listen to her chest.  Her chubby little arms flopped lifelessly to the side. He turned to glare at me. 

He slowly walked over to me, his boots crunching in the dirt of our floor. Looking at me with disgust, he dropped my daughter into my lap. Snapping his fingers, the other two soldiers walked over to my husband and kicked him several times in the back and stomach while I hurriedly wrapped my baby back up into her blanket.

Then, without another word, they left our home. 

I gently cuddled my baby and rocked her, stroking her softly. 

I heard my husband coughing and moaning beside me, but he sounded far away again.  “See,” I said smiling, “I told you they were not taking our baby!”