Chapter 14 — The Ledger of Hunger

They loosened my ropes the next morning, enough that I could carry a bowl, sit, relieve myself. Not enough to run. A guard's eyes stayed on me no matter where I went, spear in hand, boredom masking vigilance.

Merlin remained tied to a post near the camp's edge. His rope stretched just far enough for him to lie in the dirt or rise to pace a circle. He rose when I approached, tail giving a slow wag before his body sagged again, still too drained. I knelt with him whenever I could, hand on his fur, whispering nonsense to steady us both.

It was no kindness that they let me walk the camp. It was assessment. I was stock, and stock needed to be kept fed, visible, worth the price.

The strangeness of it gnawed at me. Bandits should live lean—scatter, steal, scatter again. Instead I saw order. Loot stacked in crates, every one marked with chalk lines on a board. Children lined up with bowls, stew ladled in strict measures. Skins stretched on racks to dry, hides sorted, arrows fletched. A village disguised as thieves, or thieves who had become a village.

But a village couldn't survive on banditry alone. Not this many. Not this well. Something else sustained them. And every time I looked at the ropes around my wrists, or at Merlin tied like livestock, the answer sharpened.

Slavery.

Tov hovered near me as I ate, talking too much and too brightly. "See that one? Don't lend a knife to her unless you want it back chipped. That one there's always got a deck of cards, but the cards are marked. Don't ask how I know. And over there, that's where they keep the pit. Try not to end up in the pit."

He grinned, but his eyes stayed sharp, flitting from guard to guard. His chatter filled the space where questions festered.

At night they tethered me close to Merlin. He leaned against my side, still weak, still tired days later. His breathing slowed only when I stroked his fur, whispering under the noise of the camp.

I stared into the firelight, listening to the hum of a place that wasn't chaos at all. It was a ledger, every mark balanced against hunger. Goods, animals, people. And I was another line waiting to be tallied.

— Fourth day in the bandit camp —