"It is my first battle too. Perhaps when we return victorious, we can regale one another with stories of our bravery."
- —Kata, meeting Valkia
Kata was a shield-maiden of the Schwarzvolf tribe of Norsca, a girl not much older than her fellow tribeswoman Valkia, the future Daemon Princess of Khorne. Despite being a shield-maiden, Kata was quiet, subservient, and as feminine as a harsh life on the Eastern Steppes would allow.[1a]
Kata had participated in the battle against the rival tribe that the Schwarzvolf tribesmen had been at war with for about a year. During the conflict she had met and befriended the Schwarzvolf Chieftain Merroc's daughter Valkia. Kata's friendship with Valkia was something of a vehicle of opportunity for Kata's own advancement. Being of childbearing age and having heard that Merroc intended to take another woman to wife to sire more heirs, a friendship with Valkia would put her in his sights.[1a]
Kata was said to have a keen ability to read people and it was she who first recognised the blossoming love between the Schwarzvolf warrior Radek and Valkia. However, she was also the first to recognise something dark and destructive lurking within Valkia, although she could never divine exactly what it was.[1a]
Kata's ploy succeeded; she married to Merroc shortly after the Schwarzvolf's final battle with the rival tribe, and became the mother of his last three children. She bore him his long-awaited male heir, Edan, as well as two daughters. Merroc loved Kata deeply and even Valkia came to love her as the mother she'd never known, despite the scant difference in age between them.[1b]
Merroc's health eventually began to decline as a result of age and illness, and Kata feared for the safety of her children, particularly her son Edan. She did not trust Valkia with the boy, as his existence barred her from ever inheriting the leadership of the tribe. Eventually, Merroc was murdered by Radek, and the grief at his death led Kata to her own: she committed suicide by drinking poison. Her body rotted in her tent for several days until Valkia discovered her fate.[1b]
Briefly, Valkia considered slaying Edan as well as Kata had feared, but ultimately decided against murdering the child. She never knew what made her decide to spare her baby brother that night, however she would come to regret it when Edan had grown into a man.