Genna Liorthan

The eldest of eight children, Genna Liorthan’s mother died giving birth to number nine when Genna was only twelve. Her father, not taking his wife’s death well, took to the bottle, leaving Genna to support and feed the family as best she could from their isolated home.

Lean times followed as Genna tried her best to stretch what stores they had out for as long as possible, but she finally had to face the inevitable – he was never going to crawl out from the bottom of the bottle and if anyone was going to feed her family, it would have to be her.

Her first trip out with a bow and arrow didn’t go well, but she learnt quickly, a quick mind and good reflexes making up for any kind of formal training. Over the years, she grew tall and strong, taking care not only of her father, but also the rest of the family, feeding and protecting them, tending to them when they were sick and making sacrifices that needed to be made to ensure that their home was as happy and comfortable as it could be.

She’d always known that she was different, that there was something that set her apart from the other children in the household, but it wasn’t until some years after her mother’s death that the man she had always called ‘father’ told her that he was no such thing – that he had met her mother whilst she was pregnant and that only his love for the woman who had become his wife had led him to raise her as his own.

All this was related to Genna in a fit of drunken rage, the end of which was her ‘father’ walking out of the house and disappearing for the next few months.

He returned a changed man. Clean cut and healthy, he walked back into the house three weeks after Genna turned seventeen. And he wasn’t alone. He brought with him a young woman who he took no time in introducing as his new wife and mother to his children. It insinuation was clear, but to back it up, he told Genna to her face that she was no longer welcome in his house, that she should collect her belongings – he even managed to sound magnanimous that he was allowing her to take items which he considered as rightfully his – and be out of the house before sundown.

Homeless and alone for the first time in her life, Genna took to the road lacking direction or purpose with nowhere to go and nobody to turn to, it seemed her only advantage in life was her skills with the bow she took with her when she left.