Geirrod struggled to regain consciousness. It felt as if he was deep underwater and struggling to reach the surface, far above. He felt sick with shame and embarrassment, knowing that his fall would have made a noise that would have alerted any enemies nearby. It was a mistake that a child might have made. Tarvos would tease him mercilessly about it, but far worse would be Alvaldi's disappointment. Geirrod had been proud and delighted to be given the scouting job up in the rocks, but now Alvaldi's estimation of him would be far reduced. It would probably be a long time before he trusted him with anything important again, and the shame of that sickened him.

  He had to rejoin the others. He must only have been senseless for a few moments, or the others would have come to find him. Was it possible they didn't know? He felt a surge of hope at the thought that he might be able to cover up his mistake. Maybe the others didn't ever have to find out.

  He climbed back to his feet, being careful to keep his head below the surrounding rocks. Skoll migh still be around, and if so he mustn't be seen by him. There were voices coming from down on the path. They encouraged him for a moment, until he realised they were the wrong voices. He felt his guts tightening up in fear as he lifted himself up to look.

  He almost gasped aloud when he saw bandits standing and walking around with casual ease. There were bodies on the ground, and he almost wept with terror when he recognised his friends from the Six Tribes. What was worse was that they weren't all dead. There were two men standing with their hands tied behind their backs. Tarvos and Fornjot. Another, Hyrrokkin, was struggling weakly as bandits stuffed cloth into a wound in his bare chest. Nearby was another man having his hands tied. Skoll. It seemed fugitive and pursuers had run into the bandits together.

  The prisoners put him in a terrible dilemma. If they'd all been dead he could have crept timidly back to Festival City and told them what had happened. They would mourn the loss of their warriors and sympathise with him for having seen the tragedy. The head wound that he could feel trickling blood down the side of his face would enable him to say that he'd taken part in the battle, but had managed to get away. No-one would be able to accuse him of being a coward. He would be free and clear, with the rest of his life in which to forget the truth.

  There was Daphnis, of course, and the thought of his sister spending the rest of her life as a bandit's wife pained him terribly, but unwilling women were taken by bandits as wives all the time. They adapted to it and assimilated into their new lives. She might even learn to be happy. She might learn to love the bandit and she would certainly have children that she loved. After a few years she might refuse to return to her own tribe even if the opportunity presented itself. Such things were a reality in this world. Other families learned to accept the loss of a sister or daughter. The William Tell clan would do the same.

  The prisoners complicated things, though. He couldn't just lie and say they'd all been killed. The Six Tribes had spies scouting the lands beyond their territory, and one of them might be watching the bandit camp. If so they couldn't help but see a troop of bandits returning with prisoners. When they reported back, Geirrod would be exposed as a liar. He would be publicly shamed. Maybe sent into exile as a coward. Better to die in a vain attempt to free the prisoners.

  He looked at Tarvos, who was shaking his head to drive away the fuzziness and regain his senses fully. What would he do if his and Geirrod's places were reversed? He knew the answer with complete certainty. He would try to free him, even knowing that he would definitely die in the attempt. Tarvos was a man of honour. A man of courage. He would die bravely and honourably.

  That decided him. He would try to free the prisoners. He removed the sling from around his head, looked around for a suitable stone and fitted it to the leather cup. He braced himself to rise to his full height...

  But he couldn't do it. He was afraid. Once he revealed himself, the bandits would come charging into the rocks and kill him. He was safe so long as he remained hidden. They didn't know he was there. So long as he remained hidden, they would just move off and leave him behind. Self loathing filled him. Get up! he shouted at himself. Throw the stone! He couldn't do it.

  Another bandit appeared, leading Daphnis by the arm. She cried out when she saw Tarvos and he cried back at her. They tried to run to each other, but they were held back by bandits holding their arms. Geirrod saw Tarvos shaking with fury and despair, but all Geirrod felt was misery and shame as he slumped back down behind the rock.

  The bandits spent a few minutes bandaging wounds, and then they prepared to move on. One of them picked up a spear belonging to one of the Six-Tribesmen, but another, a man with the headpiece of skylord quills that marked him as a shaman, shouted at him. "Leave it," he said. "It is still loyal to its former owner. It will turn in your hand if you try to use it in battle."

  "But look at the quality," the first bandit said, running his hand up and down the plethin shaft. "And the point is made of steel while we have to use obsidian. We can't just leave weapons of such quality."

  "They are cursed," the shaman insisted, though. "They should he burned to cleanse them of evil."

  "No fires," said the man who seemed to have taken the role of their new leader. "Just leave them to rot and rust. Come on, we have to get out of here before someone ambushes us in turn."

  The first bandit nodded reluctantly, but he gave the spear one last admiring gaze before laying it gently on the ground.

  They formed a column with one bandit in charge of every prisoner, and then they set off along the path, further into the highlands. Geirrod waited until they were out of sight, and then he made his slow, careful way down to the path. He turned to face the way back to the grasslands and Festival City.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  He found he couldn't move. His friends were behind him, going the other way. He couldn't just abandon them. But what could he do if he didn't have the courage to attack the bandits? Maybe he'd think of something, he told himself. Maybe something would happen to give him a chance. He knew he was deluding himself, but he couldn't just abandoned them. He couldn't.

  Sobbing with misery and terror, therefore, he picked up a spear, then turned and began walking in the other direction, following the bandits.

  ☆☆☆

  Tarvos had never felt so miserable and wretched as when the bandits were marching them back to their camp.

  Hyrrokkin was on his feet and walking, but was hunched over in pain and would occasionally spit blood on the ground. His breathing was heavy and laboured. Tarvos didn't know how he was even standing, and suspected that it was just the man's stubbornness and pride. With Skoll wanting to join their enemies, that meant it was up to him to represent their clan. To uphold their reputation.

  Tarvos felt admiration for the man, but most of his thoughts were for Daphnis. She was at the front of the column, with Fornjot and two bandits between her and him, but she was holding her head proudly and only the occasional twisting of her tied hands betrayed the fear she was feeling. Now and then she turned her head to try to look back at him, but the bandit walking with her gave her a slap on the head to make her look forward again.

  The path led up and up into the hills, and when they stopped to rest one of the bandits pushed Daphnis down onto the ground and opened the front of her oversized tunic to stare at her body. He started removing his own clothing, but another bandit gave him a clout on the head and told him to stop. "She belongs to another man," he warned him, indicating Skoll.

  "She belongs to us now," the bandit replied angrily.

  "The law is clear," the other bandit told him, though. "It is a crime to take the wife of another man. Skoll might be one of us soon, if Suttungr accepts him."

  "And if he doesn't?"

  "Then Skoll will die for our sport, along with the other men, and we will compete for her. If you want her for another wife, you will have to prove your worth with the sling.'

  The bandit grumbled, but he stood and moved away from Daphnis, who struggled back to her feet. The other bandit buttoned up the front of her tunic for her. "I apologise for the rough treatment," he told her, "but soon you will be the wife of a man of the Hammerhorn clan; a position of great honour. You will find us to be respectful and gentle. I believe you will like your new life."

  Daphnis just glared at him, but then she looked back at Tarvos with doubt in her eyes. "Forget him," the bandit told her. "All the women we take feel the same at first but they all come to accept their new life. You will as well."

  "Never," said Daphnis, looking him straight in the eye.

  The bandit smiled. "You have great strength and spirit," he told her. "Whoever wins you will be a lucky man. Maybe it will be me."

  "If you take me as your wife, I'll cut your throat in the night," she replied, still looking him in the eye.

  The bandit laughed. "We have the good sense to keep sharp objects away from new wives," he said. "When your belly begins to swell with your first child, you'll feel different. You'll see."

  He stepped away from her and yelled to the others to get moving again. A few moments later they were once again walking up the slope, higher into the hills.

  As they went, the bandit that had spoken to Daphnis went to walk beside Skoll. "Why did you choose someone so old?" he asked. "She is virtually an adult woman. Young girls assimilate much faster. Both of my wives remember virtually nothing of their former lives."

  "He chose her because she is betrothed to me," Tarvos called forward.

  The bandit's eyes widened. "Is that true?" he asked Skoll.

  "He and I have been rivals ever since I beat him in a sling contest two years ago," Tarvos replied. "He's afraid to face me in battle, and so he steals my future wife instead."

  "The last time we fought, I left you drooling senseless on the floor of the great hall," Skoll called back.

  "Because you cheated by striking the first blow before I was ready."

  The bandit laughed. "It seems the alliance between the six tribes may be on shaky ground," he said. "Maybe we only need to wait and they'll be fighting amongst themselves again, the way they were a few generations ago."

  Neither Tarvos nor Skoll responded to that, and so they marched in silence, leaving the bodies of their former comrades further behind them. When Tarvos looked back, he saw the skylords swooping lower in the sky, their black eyes already fixed on the unexpected feast.

  ☆☆☆

  They spent the next day descending the other side of the Spine, and the sun was approaching the western horizon when the land opened out before them. The lowlands west of the hills were covered in forest; tall trees sagging under the weight of masses of yellow flowers. The flowers, and the swelling seed pods behind them, were the only part of the plants that looked healthy. The leaves were brown and cracked, and even the thickest branches were wrinkled and wilting as the plants withdrew their water deep down to the tubers for the long summer. The ground was already covered with the first shoots of the spring plants that would replace them, their purple tips pointing upwards like a field of daggers. Those they trod on exuded a foul-smelling sap from their broken stems.

  The bandits were chatting amiably as they walked. "Soon we'll have to move morth," one of them was saying. "We don't want to still be here when the daggertooths come out of hibernation."

  "I killed a daggertooth once," another replied. He had fiery red hair that had made Tarvos wonder whether his mother had once been from the Merlin Clan.

  The other bandits gave a collective sigh. "Here we go again," one of them said. "The story of how he killed a daggertooth."

  "Be fair," another said with a grin. "He's only told us about twenty times so far. I for one am looking forward to hearing it again."

  "You just happened to be digging a well in the right place," the first bandit said to the redhead. "It could have happened to anyone. And it's not as if it gave much of a fight. The thing was still turned to stone."

  "I never claimed to have killed it in battle," said the unfortunate victim of their teasing. "I was just trying to make conversation. I'm sorry I mentioned it."

  "Until the next time you mention it."

  The bandits laughed merrily, and Tarvos felt his heart sinking into despair. He'd been entertaining some mad, desperate hopes of escaping, but now they were walking on a path where the newly sprouting plants were trodden down by the regular passage of feet. They must be getting close to the bandit camp, and once they reached it all hope would be gone. The leather cord binding his wrists mocked him with its painful tightness. Was there anything he could do? Anything at all, no matter how hopeless?

  He couldn't think of anything, and then one of the bandits was shouting and pointing ahead. The ground was sloping down towards a narrow river, and as they passed the last grove of trees the ground opened up to reveal a cluster of conical tents by the side of the water. The lead bandit raised his hand in greeting, and three guards standing at the perimeter of the camp waved back. The guards shouted out to the camp behind them, and a moment later women and children were running out to welcome the bandit warriors and their captives.