Calvinus

The Kingdom of the Isles

Act 1: The Race

Chapter One

"CHAMPIONS, welcome," a priest said, his arms raised for silence, and Baran and six other boys assembled in the hall looked at him with expressions that spoke of expectancy, and trepidation, pride and dread.

"Shortly you will run for the honour of your house and the honour of the greatest of gods, the might Horjock."

Seven heads bobbed in the expected show of deference at the name of the god and the priest paused, before continuing.

"We expect you to run with honour and bravery. You know there are dangers today, but Horjock only winnows the weak and faithless. Have faith in him and he will bring you success. Act with honour and he will keep you from harm."

Bran listened to the priest's words and took a sly look towards Karl of house Trettien. He thought ruefully that the boy had not begun the day with honour, and there had been no love lost between them. As soon as he had entered the hall, Karl had started on him, telling him that he would be a Trettien slave by the end of the day, and explaining all the dark things they had planned for him. It had almost come to blows, except that Nino and Quintus had stepped in to break things up.

He should not have expected any less of course. Not after what had happened last year. But that was not his fault. What had happened to Karl's cousin was nothing to do with him. His sister, yes, but not him. He had barely even seen the slave – had only taunted him a few times. It was not his fault.

The priest was explaining the route now, and the boys gathered around the old parchment map in the assembly hall, looking at it. None of them needed to see the map, all having long since memorised all possible routes, but they looked anyhow, because that was expected of them.

There was more than one route to finish the course but Bran knew that the shorter ones were more dangerous. There were clear choices to be made, and by now all the boys had a good idea of which paths they had chosen.

The race was an ancient one, the priest explained to them. It honoured the god Horjock and stayed his fiery hand. Bran knew it was more than that too. Although the priests told it as though the race were all about the honour of Horjock, there was also the aspect that the race winner, who would then serve Horjock in the temple for the rest of his life, would also bring honour to his house for the coming year – ensuring that they would rule the kingdom and that the head of the house would be king for the year.

Had it not bee for that, Bran might not have been so keen to run. He did not know that he wanted to serve Horjock for the rest of his life. How was that better than being a slave for a year, which runners up could expect, or indeed a life slave that was the fate of all who failed to complete the course?

But honour of the house came above all, and especially for him. He was Bran of house Aramat, and today he would bring honour to his house. He was sure of it.

***

Caris slipped out of the doorway and ran quickly down the street in the cold pre-dawn semi light. She thought she could hear her mother calling for her angrily, and glanced back over her shoulder. She did not want to go back, so she ran around a street corner towards the market. Just as she did so, she saw her mother come to the door, waving and gesticulating. Too late!

And then, because she was looking behind as she ran, she collided with someone. She gasped and looked up and she felt a sudden rush of fear. Running into anyone bigger than yourself was a good way to earn a cuff around the head, but running into a nobleman from one of the great houses was much more dangerous.

The man let out a gasp of annoyance, and grabbed her. Caris struggled to be free, to slip away again, but the man's grip was strong. She gave up and dropped her head submissively.

"I beg your forgiveness sir," she said in her most polite voice.

"Watch where you are going in future, you little guttersnipe," the man said, and then he casually slapped her across the face. Caris' head spun under the force of the blow but he was not done yet. He grabbed her by the hair, and spun her around, sending her hurtling into a cart, her head banging heavily against the wood.

Caris sank to her knees and the nobleman walked on without a backward glance, although there was a boy with him who did look back at her. There was nothing sympathetic in his look. Indeed he looked like he had rather enjoyed the scene, and as he walked on Caris put her head between her legs and sobbed.

The nobles had been wearing the colours of House Kawabata, but that hardly mattered. All nobles were the same, and Caris knew she should count herself lucky. A large bump on her head, a split lip and bloodied nose and a few other bruises and scratches were a small punishment compared to what was possible. More than one child in such a predicament would have been stripped of their clothes, and everyone knew what that would mean. Presumably these two were too distracted for that, and had left her with her freedom, because the boy was about to run for his.

Because that was where the boy must be going. Nobles from Kawabata never came to the capital except for festivals and The Race, and today was race day. The race was due to start very soon. With the rising of the sun that boy would be joining six others on the great annual race, and that was what Caris had evaded her morning chores to see. She, like so many others, wanted to see the over privileged sons of the nobles running their dangerous annual race to honour the god, Horjock. She wanted to see the humiliation of the losers, and she hoped very much that the Kawabata boy would be one of them. She especially hoped he would be one of the boys who occasionally ran out of time, arriving at the finish past the sun down gong. A boy who could not run the circuit of the capital island between sunrise and sunset on this day, when the night was exactly as long as the day, was not fit to be a member of a noble house, and would be sold into lifelong slavery. That would be fitting punishment for the son of the father who had been so violent to her.

Not every noble ever ran the race, of course. Some sons were never picked to represent their houses, and girls never ran. Nevertheless enough did so that race day was a welcome antidote to the rest of the year where the casual brutality, the air of superiority, the crushing taxes, the oppressive laws and all the ways the nobles exploited the poor commoners bred so much resentment.

Today was the one day of the year that Caris was glad she was not a noble boy. Seven champions from the seven noble houses would run, but only one would finish the day with head held high, and the other six would suffer one of three terrible fates. They would be stripped of their clothes for a year, which effectively made them slaves, although they would wear their underwear around their neck like a collar as a symbol that their slavery was only temporary. That was for the ones that did well. For those who failed to complete the course in the hours of daylight, their slavery would be the. permanent kind she wished on the son of the Kawabata lord, and some might not even survive. As for the winner: he would be celebrated in the temple, but separated from his family, and even though Caris' mother might scream and shout at her, she was glad that such a reward was not ever given to her.

The girl looked at the departing back of the noble who had struck her and wondered if he had ever run the race. Had he worn the collar of his shame and gone naked for a year, serving another noble house before he was released and once again allowed to become a heartless and cruel member of the elite? Had he known servitude and humiliation?

She hoped so, but she did not know for sure. Many of the noble men had been slaves for a year, but by no means all of them. Mother had even said that the ones that had been slaves often were the most hard nosed power hungry ones of all.

Supposedly the slavery knocked out their weakness and taught them the value of hard work. It did not sound so different from an apprenticeship she supposed.

What of the boy though? After the way he had looked at her, she hoped she would see him working naked in the fields where she could taunt him. She hoped he would not win. Most likely even if he lost he would complete the race, however, and then she would probably not see him again. Kawabata were rich, and would very likely buy back their failed son. He would still serve his year naked, but naked in some cushy house role in the Kawabata palace on their island, and Caris had never set foot on Kawabata. Neither did she want to. They had a reputation there for being hostile to commoners, and their fields were worked almost entirely by slaves.

She walked down through the market and out of town, towards the cliffs where she would get a good view of the runners. Others were heading in the same direction and there was the babbling excitement of a festival day. This was, after all, one of the greatest festivals of the year. Today the rulers of the state would be discovered, and a lot of money would change hands in bets on outcomes. Today the main market would be closed, although street sellers would be selling pastries and sweetmeats and snacks and ale. People would get drunk and celebrate, and no more so when they saw which noble sons would be humiliated. Tomorrow the festivities would continue with the ceremonial stripping of the new slaves, and their auctions, followed by the coronation of the ruler of the winning house as King of the Isles for the next year.

Technically anyone could buy a slave, but in practice the indentured slaves, the ones who would be released next year, would always be bought by other nobles, as their prices ran to exorbitant amounts. What was more, few would risk buying a noble slave for a year, as the retribution from the great houses would be terrible if the slave were mistreated.

Life slaves were different of course. A noble boy consigned to life slavery would become houseless, and the great houses would lose interest, but their price was still well out of the reach of the commoners, so other noble houses would usually buy these slaves.

They were still slaves though. Caris remembered the Trettien boy who had been enslaved last year. The ruling house had kept him, refused to sell him back to his own house, and then they had forced him to pull a trap for one of their favoured daughters. Caris remembered his tortured face as he laboured to pull the trap with the girl brandishing a cruel whip, tugging her through the streets to wherever she wanted to be. Rumour had it that she had beaten him to death, and Caris believed the rumour. That sounded like something the nobles would do to a slave.

Making slaves pull traps was one of the affections of nobility. There was an ancient law that said that no animal may enter any city and leave it again. On entering a city, an animal becomes a sacrifice to the god of the city, and so it must be slaughtered, the temple fee paid, and then it may be eaten.

Beasts of burden were kept away from the pristine but crowded city streets. No-one would bring an ox into a city except to slaughter it, and for that reason if you wanted to be transported around the city without using your own two feet then you had to ride in a litter, or be pulled by slaves.

Legend also spoke of another animal, the pony, that was almost as big as an ox but faster and better suited for riding, but there were no such animals now on any of the isles. Maybe in one of the distant lands such things existed, but here it was slaves that pulled traps – although usually in teams of two or more.

Of course the nobles could not possibly walk like normal people. Oh no, they were way too important for that. Caris snorted angrily. She hoped Aramat made that Kawabata boy into a pony slave. He would look pretty dressed up in ponyboy tack.

She would make a point of returning his evil smile then.

So all slaves were naked of course, except when they donned black loin cloths for hygiene reasons. Slaves were naked and then no one else was. Not in public.

There was a very strong social prohibition on public nudity. It had been long forbidden by the great god, Horjock himself, that any free person should go naked in public. The prohibition was so strong that if someone fell so far into debt that they could not pay it, then they would go into the market and remove their clothes as a symbol that they were selling themselves into debt slavery. Removing your clothes in a public place made you a slave.

The nobles used that as a punishment against commoners too. That was what Caris had escaped this morning, because if you crossed a noble and they caught you, all they had to do was pull off your clothes and that was that – you were legally a slave. Of course, if she, a commoner, tried to strip someone like her brat of a little brother then that would not make him a slave, but would instead earn her a whipping, or if the magistrate was in a bad mood, slavery. Commoners could not make other commoners into slaves against their will – only nobles could do that.

At least that was the theory, but a few months ago a woman had been stripped naked and raped in an evening attack, and on that occasion the magistrate had decided that she had asked for it by being out alone at night, was probably of ill repute and had affirmed her slavery, and merely fined the men who had raped her for "taking advantage of someone else's slave." The laws were unjust in favour of the nobility, but common men did better than common women.

Caris reached the top of the cliffs and the scowl she had worn as she thought about these things became a smile as she saw some of her friends already waiting there among the gathering crowds. She moved to join them, sitting down on the cliff top ready to enjoy the sight.

Chapter Two

Nino

NINO removed his robe and tossed it to a waiting slave. His father was telling him once again of the honour he expected Nino to bring the house today, but he had heard this all before.

"Finish first, or you needn't finish at all," his father said, and Nino nodded. He had heard that said many a time, and did not need the reminder. He did not think the reminder helped either. He knew what was at stake, but it hardly helped to know that his father cared so much more about victory than his own son.

There was no secret that house Kawabata had no intention of buying him back if he failed. If he had to serve out a year of slavery it would be in another house, but even after that was over, house Kawabata would hardly welcome him back. They made it very clear that those who failed to win honour in the great race were no longer truly of House Kawabata, and in recent years no boy from the house had been found in such a position. Over the last five years three boys had failed to complete the race at all, and two had died en route, and Nino knew the same was expected of him.

"The honour of the house is above all," his father said and Nino bowed his head in acknowledgement. House Kawabata alone knew the value of honour, but still it had not served them well, with Aramat consistently beating them.

Not this year though. Nino was convinced that this year would be Kawabata's year, and not least because of their preparation. He had been training all year for this event, and the house spies had made many more preparations. Nino knew the strengths and weaknesses of all the other runners, as well as the condition of the course.

He was about to say something about his plans when he heard something outside of the pavilion in which he was changing. He squinted and listened intently. It could be nothing, but he had been trained not to believe that. He nodded his head towards the sound and his father glanced that way and nodded too.

"So the reports are that the quickest route this year is the forest fork, along the salt marsh and then up the creek towards Dead Man's Drop?" Nino asked and his father nodded.

"Aye, that is the route you must take, but hang back and let no one see you take it," his father replied.

"No one will expect it to be clear this year, it is a good strategy."

"Indeed, now come, we must join the starters."

Nino heard another scrabble of movement and then just the faintest flicker of shadow, but enough to confirm his suspicions. He stepped out of the pavilion and there was Wil Lapin sprinting towards the start line.

"It was the Lapin welp then," his father confirmed, watching him run. "Do you think he will take the bate?" Nino asked.

"If he does then that is one less competitor to worry about."

Nino laughed and nodded. If he had sent Wil Lapin to his death then it was because he deserved it. Everyone knew Kawabata had excellent information – probably better than Aramat's – but trying to overhear race plans was dishonourable, and Wil Lapin would surely be under the curse of Horjock now.

Bran

Bran shivered as he undressed. He was not cold. It was a warm spring morning and although it was early, the sun not yet risen, the air was already warm. That was not why he shivered, and neither was it because he was undressing in public, because he was only stripping down to the undershorts of his house colours; colours of which he was very proud. The red and white of house Aramat were bold and distinctive, and had long been associated with the ruling elite of the Kingdom of the Isles.

"You will bring honour to your house today," his father said, a hand on his bare shoulder, and Bran looked up into his father's eyes and shivered again. Yes, he hoped to bring honour and to return his house to power once more, but would he?

Would he be celebrated as the race victor later today? or would he face the shame of losing? the year of humiliation? Or worse, would he fail to complete the race by sundown and be taken from his family, and made a houseless slave, forced to serve another family entirely?

The chance of such abject failure was remote, but possible. Last year not one but two boys had been still out past sun down, and one of them was the slave who had just served them breakfast. He had long since recovered from the broken leg that had prevented him completing the race, but he would never recover his former status, nor even his freedom. Those weak and useless individuals whom Horjock made slaves were ordained to remain slaves for life.

Bran rarely noticed the slaves, but today he had looked at the boy, formerly from House Kawabata, and noticed him for the first time. He had been allowed to wear a loincloth because he was serving food, but of course the loincloth was the black of slavery. No slave could ever wear colours again, and they usually performed their tasks naked.

Naked! in public. Slaves had no shame. They were allowed none. But even if he completed the race before sun down, Bran knew that he would be naked for a year if he did not win. Losers of the race were also not allowed to wear their house colours except for the collar of cloth around their neck for the next year, nor would they wear any other clothing. They would look like slaves as penance for their failure, and for all intents and purposes they would be – sold like common slaves for one year of indentured service. Bran did not want that to happen.

But then there was the other terrible thought: if he won, he would be taken to the temple of Horjock where he would be celebrated for his victory. The temple was a huge and beautiful complex on the mountain at the heart of the capitol island on which they now stood, but it would mean he would have to leave home and all his friends, staying here on this island and never returning to the island of Aramat.

"We will come to see you at the temple," his father promised. But how often? Families went to the temple four times a year, and Bran doubted his father would come more often than that, so how often would he see his father again? He had asked the question, and his father had just looked at him with a strange look in his eyes, like he regretted something, and then said, "we won't forget a victor of the games. We will come to see you for as long as you live."

Bran was not sure if he really believed his father. After all his cousin Rixon had won last year, and he did not think his uncle had spent any longer in the capital than anyone else. But that at least did remind him of one reward of winning: he would see Rixon again. He had always enjoyed playing with Rixon, and the two boys, along with their cousin, Quintus who loved on the abutting island of Aquila, had spent many happy hours fishing in rivers, exploring in the woods, playing war games and imagining themselves as soldiers or spies. He had missed Rixon, but if he were to win he would see him again at the temple. He would have to leave his immediate family here, but he would have a friend there.

They would be winners together. Bran and Rixon, and he imagined all the ways the priests would honour them, and people who came to the temple would be in awe, and house Aramat would be filled with gratitude, and their deeds would be sung and praised, and they would know the favour of Horjock and…

And first he had to win.

That was not going to be easy. Rixon had been twelve when he won the great race, but this year there had been no twelve year olds in the whole of House Aramat to run, so they had turned to the oldest boy they had. Bran had only just turned eleven, and although house Morrigan was fielding a nine year old, two of the houses had twelve year olds, an advantage that made Bran shiver again. He desperately wanted to win, despite having to leave his home, but he did not know if he could.

He remembered the day his father had told him he would be racing, and how he had felt both fear and then anger, and how his father had told him it was a great honour, and how Bran had retorted that he would rather wait another year for that honour.

Many boys, of course, never had to race at all, so it was indeed an honour. It was not an unexpected one though. Bran had always known there had been that gap in the ranks of house Aramat. There had been a virus that had killed many babies when he had been a baby himself, and house Aramat had lost more than most, so that there were not that many boys to choose from this year, and he was simply the oldest. It did not inspire him with the confidence that he would be the best, but Bran was determined. He was not going to endure the shame of loss, and the knowledge that he lost hold of power for his family for the first time in five years.

House Aramat were the natural rulers of the Kingdom, and with Horjock's blessing he was going to prove this once more.

So it was that Bran went to line up alongside six other boys and the watching crowd hushed in expectation as the current King of the Isles, the ruler of house Aramat, raised his flag, looked directly at Bran, gave a curt nod of recognition and then dropped his hand to start the race.

Bran wasted no time and started sprinting.

Karl

Karl Trettien frowned as he looked over the other competitors. The race would be a tough one, what with Rin able to out run them all at a push, and Bran with his strong finishing ability. Then there was Nino, whose determination outclassed all but his own. Wil, Quintus and Cai were lesser threats, but one should never underestimate any champion chosen for this race. They all had their strengths… and weaknesses. Karl thought he knew what those were.

He lined up close to Nino, and nodded at the Kawabata champion. Nino nodded back, almost imperceptibly and then both boys looked forward. Probably no one else even noticed.

Bran took care to stand at the far end of the line from Karl, and Karl smiled as he saw it. Good, let the Aramat brat cower. In any case, Karl thought, he would deal with him later. All in good time.

Brat, he thought. The word was not strong enough, but bastard would not do either. Bran was a true born son of the house, and it would almost be better if he were a bastard. Of course, the houses tended not to race their bastards, even assuming they acknowledged them rather than leaving them to grow up as commoners or less. But if Bran had been a bastard at least he would have a little less culpability for the evils done by his house. As it was, he was true born and every bit as guilty as the rest of them, and Karl would have his revenge on him by the end of the day. The only question, as far as he was concerned, was whether the gods let him live as a slave or die. He hoped it would not be death though. Death was too good for Aramat and its sons, but through a clever alliance, it mattered little whether he won the race or Nino did. Either way, Bran would tomorrow find himself property of house Trettien for at least a year, and then The house could be avenged of the blood guilt of Aramat.

Karl smiled again. Perhaps Nino was even more driven than he was, because he wanted to be there to see Bran's year of slavery, and that would not happen if he won. Instead he would content himself as he lived among the champions at the temple of Horjock, knowing that he was the one to avenge and bring glory to his house. That was a tempting prospect but he remained just a little conflicted about it.

No matter. What was important was the race plan. He looked frontwards, recounting the things he must do, the routes and risks he must take. The plan was daunting, but one that would certainly bring him glory if he could execute it well. He stilled his mind, waited for the flag to fall, and then… then he ran.

Quintus

Quintus Aquila breathed deeply to calm his nerves. The task ahead of him was daunting, knowing that if he was to win the race he had to beat his cousin, Bran, as well as several other boys who must be just as able as him to win.

He had raced Bran often enough over the years, and he knew that it had to be a good day when he would be the victor. It was not impossible, but Bran was older than him, bigger and faster, and that was true of at least three other runners too. If Quintus were to lay bets, he would bet on finishing in fifth place.

He was not laying bets though. He was running for the honour of house Aquila, who had no better candidate than him this year. The gods had chosen him as surely as the house elders had, and Quintus wondered whether the gods had some mighty purpose as to why he must race against his cousin and best friend. At least one of them would end the day enslaved for the year, although at least one of them could also, if he won, be reuinited with Rixon, the champion of last year.

Quintus had a theory about that. He believed Bran would win today, and next year his house would enter him again, despite having come as a runner up this year. Then, with the experience gained this year, he would prevail and become the champion, and he, Rixon and Bran would all be celebrated as heroes, reunited together in the temple of Horjock.

That was his theory, but if he was right, that still left him a year with both friends gone and he as a slave. There was also the possibility that he would win this year, but that would mean losing Bran forever, even though he would be back with Rixon. In many ways he thought that it would be better if Bran won today, and maybe his role was to make that happen. He looked at Bran and smiled. He was not looking forward to his year of slavery, but none of that would matter if he won the race next year and he was reunited with a victorious Bran.

Cai

"But why do I have to run?" Cai asked, not for the first time. "If I can't win, why do I have to race at all?"

Cai's father frowned, and squatted down in front of his son who was stripping down to his undershorts in preparation for the race.

"We have been over this, Cai. If a house has any eligible boys then they must enter a candidate for the race. To do otherwise would dishonour The Great God and the gods of Morrigan. In any case you do not know that you cannot win. The gods will be with you and Horjock will give you strength."

"But he will give them strength too," Cai pointed out. "And they are all older than me. I am only just old enough, and if the race had been next month Math would be old enough too…"

"Enough," his father said, raising a hand to stop him. "The race is not next month, it is today on the day that the night and day are equal and summer beckons. Today is the day the gods ordained, and the law is the law. If you do not race then our whole family will be disgraced. We will be ineligible for a generation, and will lose our noble status. You would make our house poor and powerless? Do you want your mother and your sisters to be mere free women? Do you want us all to be commoners?"

Of course he did not want that, but that did not make Cai feel any better. Yes he should see his sacrifice as being for the greater good of the house, but all he really knew was that he almost certainly could not win the race, and that meant he would be a naked slave for a whole year, or even longer should he fail to finish by sundown. Still he knew better than to defy his father, so he finished getting ready and joined the other boys on the starting line.

***

For a brief minute Cai spurted ahead of everyone but Wil, and thought perhaps the gods really were going to give him a famous victory, but running on sand was hard, and his lungs soon began to burn so that he had fallen behind everyone right from the start. As feared, he realised that he was indeed the slowest of the runners. Nevertheless he ran the race with a dogged determination, watching the others vanishing into the distance.

Cai knew what to do. His father had been clear enough. No shortcuts, and no heroics.

Take the long safe route and don't dawdle, and he would have good time to finish before sundown. Slow and steady, accept that he could not win, but make sure that he was not disgraced by failing to complete, or killed in the attempt. Those were the important things, and Cai resolved to follow the instructions closely.

Rin

House Neped was technically a great house, entitled to race each year, but in all the years as far back as anyone could remember, they had never once won the race.

Rin was determined that would change today. All his life he had been training for this event. There had been a prophecy that a boy would come born to a father who had thrice rune the race for the house and thrice failed. Rin's own father had been selected three years in a row to run for house Neped, and had endured three years of slavery as a result of his repeated failures.

Despite his repeated failures, he had come close in his twelfth year, only being beaten into second place by a last sprint by the Trettien champion.

Rin's father had survived his slavery, although he still had the marks of it on his body. He saw them as marks of pride, rather than shame though, and when he had married and had children, he had raised up his eldest son to be the champion who would prove the prophecy true. Rin was fast, strong and adept in all the skills he needed for the race. He could swim better than any boy his age, he could survive in the wild with no shelter and nothing to eat. He had trained day in and day out to be the fastest boy Neped had ever produced and his father had drilled into him over and over every aspect of the race – all the dangers, all the risks, all the possible shorter routes, all the pitfalls.

It was well known that most of the great houses trained their boys hard for this race, but Rin knew he had been trained harder and was better prepared than any of them.

He could have run last year or the year before, but other boys had represented Neped then. His father had held him back, because this year was the year he had maximum advantage. He was at the upper end of the age range allowed to race, being twelve years old, and he had put on muscle and size to the point he was sure he would win it.

Looking at the other boys on the start line, he knew that they saw it too. Bran looked at him and then looked away, whereas Nino regarded him with a cold appraising stare and Karl sneered. Only Cai gave him a shy smile, the Morrigan boy knowing he stood almost no chance of winning, and so less competitive than the rest. Rin nodded back at him and moved through his warm ups, making sure his muscles were ready for what would soon be demanded of them.

"Good luck," Quintus said to him, his voice quiet and high pitched with nervousness.

"Luck has nothing to do with it," Rin answered, "Horjock judges us and chooses the greatest."

Quintus looked like he might say something else, but then he just shrugged and walked away. Rin supposed he should have said something friendlier, such as wishing the Aquila boy luck in return, but what was the point? He wanted to win. He did not want anyone else knowing luck or the blessing of Horjock. Today the honour would be for Neped, and the prophecy would be fulfilled at last.

The boys lined up and fell quiet as they waited for the start, and then the flag was dropped and they were off. Rin set off at a run, but not a sprint. It was important to pace yourself on this race, as it would last a long time. Everyone ran at the start because it was expected and people were watching, but only a fool expended all his energy in a sprint, which is what Wil Lapin was doing. He watched and tutted inwardly. No doubt he would be passing an exhausted Wil Lapin soon enough.

Only that was not to be, because even as Rin had prepared and prepaed for this race, other houses had made their own preparations. As Rin ran up the beach he was aware of Nino Kawabata running close, and then Karl Trettien was there too. He put on a burst of speed, but Karl kept pace and then quite deliberately ran into him.

Rin stumbled and then let out an angered yell of pain as something struck him hard in the back and sent him tumbling forward into the sand. The fall hurt but did not injure him, but even as he realised it was Nino who had struck, using some of the fighting techniques his house was famed for, he felt another sharp pain in his knee as Nino kicked it from behind and the side. Rin let out a cry of pain, which was cut off as he was kicked in the head, and then the boys were running off together.

Rin pulled himself to his knees and spat blood from his mouth. His knee hurt and as he got to his feet he could tell that it was twisted. The kick had been carefully aimed to do maximum damage. He staggered forward and moaned, clutching his leg. Ahead he saw Karl and Nino looking back and then exchanging thumbs up signs.

The race was long, and such an act was not enough to put Rin out of it, but it was definitely going to slow him down. He limped on and was dismayed when more boys passed him. He hoped his knee would loosen up, but in the meantime he was losing ground. He could barely manage a loping walking pace.

Karl and Nino were way ahead of him now, and clearly they were acting together. If they did this once they would do it again. They were going to stop him and anyone else from winning the race if they could, damn them. Other boys would have seen what they did, but there was nothing they could do. The race had no one to call foul play. It could not be stopped, nor could anyone be disqualified. What happened in the race happened.

Rin growled as he limped onwards, cursing himself for allowing them to get so close.

Wil

Wil stopped on the beach and sank to his knees. He was exhausted, having just run the first two and a half miles, much of it on the beach, flat out, but now he was past the first fork. He had taken the left fork but he knew most boys would go right. stick to the open ground and wade out on the mud flats of the salt marsh before swimming the channel to pick up the path beyond. That was what he would have done too, had he not found out what Nino Kawabata intended.

Anything could happen, he knew, but he had not been able to shake the feeling that he would soon be crossing the finishing line a shameful fifth, behind the bigger and stronger runners from Aramat, Trettien, Kawabat and Neped, and house Lapin would once again be denied power, forced to bend the knee again to one of the greater houses. He hoped it was not house Aramat again. Everyone agreed that it was time that another house held the throne, but surely no-one really thought he was the one to stop them?

Wil had felt dismay when he had been chosen to race for house Lapin. Why him, he asked. His father had ruffled his hair and told him not to worry, and whatever happened, he would always be proud of his son. That had not been an answer though. Why had he been chosen and not Yves? Yves was two months older, and taller and stronger than Wil. It made no sense that house Lapin would not choose their most able participant.

"Sometimes the right outcome does not come from a frontal assault," his father had said with a sad smile that told Wil that he did not really expect his son to win either. "Do your best, use your brain, follow your heart. I am sure you will do us proud."

How could he do his father proud, though, if he lost the race? Because that was what would happen. From the moment he was chosen, Wil knew that he would lose this race. He would not be the oldest nor the fastest nor the strongest person on the field and he doubted he was even the best at using his brain or following his heart. The odds were stacked so high against him winning, that Wil only really had been concentrating on finishing before sundown.

And there it was: he was working so hard to earn himself a year of humiliation, instead of a lifetime of slavery. The very best he could hope for was to have his house coloured undershorts taken from him, cut and hung around his neck, and then he would wear only that collar of cloth for the rest of the year.

The thought that this would be his fate at the end of today filled him with dread. Not least because when another cousin of his, Etienne, had suffered just that fate last year, Wil had been more than happy to laugh at him and taunt him. He had never liked Etienne, and the feeling had been mutual, so Wil had been happy that Etienne was not the one to reverse the fortunes of House Lapin.

He had also been happy to taunt him because he had assumed that Yves would be chosen to run this race. Yves was the natural choice, and after Yves there were others better suited than he was. Wil was small for his age, and surely the worst possible choice. It was like they didn't even want to win! But that was stupid because everyone wanted to win the race, and all losing houses shared the shame of losing.

"Just remember," his father had said before the race, "that house Lapin always buys back our losers."

He meant it as a comfort, but again Wil took it as a sign that his father expected him to lose. Still, it was some comfort. Losers of the race went naked but for their underwear made into collars of shame for a whole year. Naked like slaves, and so they were slaves in law too.

Slaves of the winning house, but whose year of service would be sold off. Many houses did not bother to buy back their losing boys, because they were expensive and in disgrace. Many of the losers ended up serving the winning house or one of the other houses for a whole terrifying year.

Not house Lapin though. Despite not having held power for over 20 years now, house Lapin was rich, and every year when they lost the great race, the elders of house Lapin bought back their boys. They still had to go naked like a slave, but for the collar of shame, and they were still technically slaves, but their duties were light and usually involved being forced to study and work in the family businesses. Usually when they were ceremoniously allowed to put clothes on, as Etienne had done just this morning, they would choose to stay on in the business, and although no one forgot that they had been losers, they still were given positions of authority in time.

So Wil fully expected the shame of losing, and being forced to spend a year naked, and as a slave, but at least he knew his family would buy him back.

Nevertheless he did not want that. He did not want to have his family forced to pay good money to house Aramat or whichever house won this year. He did not want Etienne taunting him about how much his failure had cost the house. In fact, he wanted to show Etienne just what a true boy of house Lapin could do. He wanted to be the first boy in his lifetime who won the race for house Lapin.

He was not going to do it just by running though, which is why he had been spying, first on house Aramat, and then on house Kawabata, looking for clues as to what they would do, and he had struck gold with house Kawabata.

It was funny because his mother had given him a warning this morning.

"Under no account should you take the short route through the swamp. Many boys have died over the years doing that, and almost none have succeeded."

Almost none. Almost was the word, because everyone knew about Rodin five years ago.

The boy who had started house Aramat's current winning streak. He had taken the short route and beaten all the odds to win the race. Such a victory that everyone knew Rodin's name, even though he had been in the capital these past five years, with the other victors at the temple.

No one had repeated the feat since, but of course House Kawabata would have sent expendable slaves up there to scout it out. There were many dangers in the swamp and surrounding forests, but if they had cleared a path and checked it was safe then the potential rewards were immense. The route was far shorter than the alternative, and anyone taking this route could build up an unassailable lead.

Yes there were greater dangers that way, and everyone knew boys died sometimes in the race, but the danger brought honour. If he avoided the short route when he knew that house Kawabata had already made it safe – or as safe as it could be – he would deserve his fate of a year of slavery, because he would have been too scared to grasp victory when it was offered.

No doubt five boys would take the right fork and swim the deep water channel, but Nino was coming this way – he had spoken of his plan. He would hang back and then take the short route unobserved, which was why Wil had spent all his energy on that mad sprint at the start of the race, to reach this point first. Now he just had to stay ahead of Nino Kawabata, and the race was his. He had pushed himself hard, but as long as Nino was not aware he was ahead, he could hope that the Kawabata boy would not run so hard, and he might hold onto his lead.

What did his mother know anyway? She was just a woman, and the women never ran the race. He would show her what it meant to be a man.

He got up and set off at a brisk lope towards the swamp.

Chapter Three

Caris

CARIS watched from the cliff top and clearly saw the moment when the Kawabata champion and the Trettien one attacked the lithe looking Neped boy. She saw him sprawl in the sand and winced as the Kawabata prick kicked his knee. She shouted her rage at him although she was too far distant for her words to be made out. All the same he glanced towards the cliffs as though he had somehow heard, although his gaze did not linger for long.

Caris fumed as she watched the Neped boy get to his feet and limp onwards, clearly hurt from the encounter. That was so unfair. So like the nobility. They spoke fine words about honour but ther ewas not a shred of decency in any of them.

Despite that thought, she hoped the Neped boy would recover and win and show house Kawabata what true honour was. She stood up and started shouting "Neped, Neped, Neped!"

Bran

Bran saw what happened to Rin, but he did not stop to help or to intervene. Such things happened on the race, and all that truly mattered was making sure that it did not happen to him, so he ran on, moving into second place, passing Cai who was flagging already after an ill adviser early spurt.

Bran doubted that Karl and Nino would bother with Cai. He offered little threat, so he knew they would come for him, and sure enough Karl was running hard on Bran's heels now. Bran knew that Karl held a grudge against him. He had not needed Karl's earlier angry words to tell him that – it had all been there in the race preparation.

He had often thought to blame his sister for that, but as his mentors had explained, the feud between Aramat and Trettien ran longer and deeper than the actions of one angry girl.

Still, there was clearly a very personal element to Karl's animosity, and Bran knew it was not wise to let the Trettien champion catch him. If it was just the two of them then perhaps he could win any fight they had, but a fight would slow them both down so much that either Nino could join in, or else just run past them and leave the two of them as runners up.

Bran had no idea whether that would matter to Karl, but he was not going to find out. Instead he kept running, and on open ground he had the advantage. He was the better runner, and so Bran could run him close but not catch him.

They passed the swamp fork and Bran ran onwards, keeping to the coastal path. The forests around the swamp were wild and dangerous, and no one ventured that way, so the coastal path was far clearer and, importantly, safer. Bran knew better than to attempt the fabled short cut. Instead he headed for the boardwalks that led to the jetty close to the deep channel of the river.

Normally a ferry ran across this river mouth. For a copper coin you could cross the river on a small boat, rowed by a ferryman. Not today though. The ferry did not cross the river on a race day, and Bran knew he had to swim for it. He ran down the jetty, and realised that Karl had gained ground on him.

"Tomorrow," Karl shouted, his voice ragged from panting so hard, "you are going to be a slave paraded around all Trettien for people to laugh at."

Bran did not answer, just dashed along the jetty and dived, aware of Karl mere seconds behind him.

Now he started to swim hard across the water channel. He swam straight across, as he had been taught, knowing the current would carry him downstream from the ferry landing, but knowing also that fighting the current would waste too much time. Instead he swam with strong powerful strokes to reach the safety of the far bank.

Karl was close, and at one point made a grab for Bran's leg. Bran kicked and felt his foot strike Karl with a satisfying hardness. After that he was able to swim clear of the Trettien boy and make landfall. He glanced back and saw Karl making landfall just a little downstream of him. No time to stop now. Bran ran onwards to rejoin the path.

Wil

The swamp stank. It was damp and the ground uneven and Wil could not walk as easily as he had expected. He kept tripping, and once fell headlong into an area of mud that threatened to suck him down. He scrabbled backwards, his heart pounding. Quicksand, and he had almost walked into it. It was only because he had fallen that he noticed it.

He kept going, moving carefully now, searching out dangers. He saw a snake moving and gave it a wide berth. He avoided the webs hanging from trees, and carefully stole across roots and through water gulleys.

Despite his care, he was moving reasonably quickly, and he knew hew was making good time. There was no sign of Nino behind him, so he must be doing well enough. He wondered what he would do if Nino caught him up. Would the Kawabata boy know he had been spied on? would he care? would he try to stop Wil or just run past him leaving him to chase for second place?

As time went on, however, Wil became increasingly confident that he must be moving at least as quickly as Nino. He was tired, and the morning was warming up now so that his body dripped with sweat, but he had pushed through his first feelings that he could not go on and had found those deep reserves of energy that kept him moving.

He had crossed much of the water of the swamp and now ahead he could make out where the river that fed the wetlands cascaded down the gorge from Dead Man's Drop. That was where he must go, and he knew that once he reached the gorge the greatest danger would be slipping and falling, and that the wild animals of the forest would not follow him there.

Wil slipped past more webbing, knowing the fearsome reputation of the spiders that had made them, and glad that he would soon be past this place. He swatted at a biting insect and strode onwards.

That was when he saw the crocodile. He was almost on top of it when he realised what he was looking at was not a tree root or fallen tree, but one of the fearsome creatures at the top of the food chain here. His heart hammered in his chest when he recognised it and he stopped dead. Had the crocodile seen him?

He saw its eyes on him. The animal did not move but it was looking at him. Very carefully he stepped backwards, and only then did he see movement behind him.

Wil let out a whimper of terror when he realised that there was a crocodile behind as well as in front, and now he looked around, he thought maybe he saw others too, and all doubt left him when one slid off a bank and into the water and started moving towards him.

It was moving fast and the movement started the one ahead into life, as both animals competed for the prey that had kindly walked right into their trap. It moved so fast that Wil knew he could not outrun it. He screamed, and turned, fled, just missing another animal by swerving at the last second, but he was not going to make it. There was only one thing to do. Wil jumped and grabbed at a low hanging branch of a tree. He only just caught it, but he did. He caught it and pulled himself upwards, just barely climbing free of the snapping jaws of a crocodile.

Now he scrabbled his way along the branch. It bent and creaked dangerously but somehow he managed to climb into a nook of the tree.

And there were the crocodiles, all setting down beside the tree to wait. One slid away into the water, as if disgusted that its lunch had evaded it, but the others just remained where they were, waiting for him to drop from his perch. One of them backed into the water almost at the base of the tree and submerged again until only its big reptilian eye seemed to remain above the water, fixed firmly on Wil.

He was stuck! To climb out of the tree would bring certain death, but there was nowhere else to go. He had to wait, but the crocodiles were not going anywhere. He knew their reputation. The crocodiles would wait as long as it took. They could sit still all day and into the night, waiting for him to fall asleep and fall from the tree. They would not go anywhere.

If he was careful, Wil knew he could wait them out. Sooner or later slaves would be sent out to look for him – but not until after sunset. When the slaves arrived they would find him and fetch crocodile baiters. He would eventually be rescued – probably.

But if he waited for rescue that would have its own consequences. Wil felt terror just as large as the terror of running from the crocodiles. If he waited for sundown then he would not have completed the race.

He had been so stupid. He had hoped for glory, had taken this short cut despite the very clear warning from his mother not to do so. If he waited until sundown he would be made a permanent houseless slave. A non finisher – the worst shame anyone could bring on his house. Better that he throw himself into the maw of the crocodile now, and be recorded as having died en route then to be dragged in by slaves, knowing that tomorrow he would permanently join their number.

Wil considered jumping and letting the crocodile eat him. He knew he deserved it. He knew now that Nino was not coming. It was inconceivable that Nino had not known that the crocodiles were to be found right at the mouth of the gorge, where they could not be avoided. Nino must have known that this route was impossible, which meant that he had tricked Wil.

Wil cursed his hubris. Why had he tried to win when all he was expected to do was to finish? Even if he could escape the crocodiles now, he would have to backtrack out of the swamp and return to the main path, and he would have lost so much time by then that he would be hard pressed to finish the race – indeed as each moment passed it became increasingly impossible.

So the honourable thing would be to jump. One quick jump into the mouth of the crocodile and his death would be honourable. He would be one of the fallen on the great race, mourned for his sacrifice. Not to jump would leave him an outcast, unmourned, unloved and facing a life of servitude.

He tried not to think what Etienne would say about that.

Wil looked into the eye of the crocodile and tried to jump, but his body would not obey him. Jump. He had to jump.

But he did not want to die. He could not do it. He could not.

And then he started to cry.

Chapter Four

Cai

CAI clutched his side and watched the figure of Quintus vanishing into the distance. He was exhausted already and they were only a couple of miles into the race. Still he was not in last place. He remained ahead of Rin, so that was something. He dropped to a walking pace for a while to rest and then forced himself back to a slow jog. He was approaching the river crossing and he was not looking forward to this.

Swim straight across. Never fight the current. That was what he was taught, but when he reached the ferry landing he saw the current for the first time and it seemed stronger than he had imagined. The tide was retreating and the water was running faster for that. It looked terrifyingly fast to the young boy.

Cai swallowed, looked over his shoulder. Still no sign of Rin, but it made little difference. He just had to finish the race. Don't worry about who was in front or behind – just finish, and his father would be proud of him.

Cai jumped into the water inelegantly and started to paddle his way across. He could feel the current pushing him downstream towards the sea, but he kept swimming as he had been taught. The far ferry landing was vanishing quickly, and he felt like he was not making good progress. He looked ahead in fear as he gulped in air and kept swimming, his strokes weakening all the time, his arm strength slowly being used up.

Don't fight the current. He had the strong urge to do just that as he was swept further and further towards the sea, but he didn't. The warnings had been clear. Still he swam, and in a panic he wondered if he should turn back. Was he even half way across the channel yet? He was so tired and the water was cold.

Cai didn't give up. He wouldn't give up. He swam onwards, and saw the sand banks and dunes of the river mouth pass him by. Gods, he was being swept right out to sea.

Cai swam harder than he had ever swam, but now he felt the slight swell of the inner sea and saw the land receding from him. He sobbed and called out a prayer to Horjock and his own house god, Morgannock, god of the sea. Save me, he prayed. Save me!

He thought about the dangers of the sea too. There were sharks of course, but also jelly fish that could render you unconscious with their sting. There were eels that could bite and fish that would feast on your flesh. Maybe none of these were particularly likely here in the river current, but that did not stop his mind racing over all the possibilities, terrifying him as he was swept further and further from the safety of land.

Cai prayed again and made one last exhausted effort to swim across the rip current that was ferrying him out into the deep sea water and at last he was out of the current, and no longer being swept out. He turned and he swam towards the shore.

He was a long way out, and He had little energy for swimming. He had swallowed a fair amount of sea water and yet he felt thirsty and tired, but he kicked and swam onwards. It seemed to take a very long time, but eventually he felt shingle beneath him and was able to stand up, waist deep in sea water. He had done it. He had crossed the river.

Cai slowly waded to shore and knelt there a while, thanking his house god for his deliverance. And then he set off to find the path.

That was no easy task though. He was on the beach now and cliffs prevented him climbing up anywhere except a strip of land back along the river bank he had been swept past. He had to wade and pick his way over rocks and vegetation to try to find the path again, and several times he had to turn back when the vegetation was too overgrown for him to climb through. It seemed to take a frustratingly long time before he finally made his way back to the ferry landing on this side of the river, and at last he could pick up the path and run again. He was sure that by now he was in last place. It felt like the river crossing and trek back had taken him hours.

Rin

Rin felt his anger boil away inside, and he thought about what he would like to do to Karl and Nino when he won the race. But first he had to win it, and now the direct run was not going to do it. He tried to run and winced, limped and nearly fell again. He wanted to cry with the frustration of it, but that would not do. Instead he let out a loud roar of anger. He could not lose. There was the prophecy to consider. He had to be the one who would win for house Neped.

What he needed now was an alternative tactic, and he knew already what that had to be. He had considered it long before the race, but had discarded the idea when he knew he could run so well. Now, however, everyone – even Cai – was vanishing into the distance, and he was being left behind. He could hobble home and probably complete the course by sundown, but he could not see how he could win a straight race now.

There was only one alternative, he knew. The swamp. He would go through the swamp. It was dangerous, of course, and his father had warned him of the dangers there, and especially of crocodiles.

There had not always been crocodiles in the swamp. They had been brought here as animals sacred to Horjock many many years ago. Rin did not know where they had been brought from, because none of the other islands had crocodiles, although they did cross to Kawabata once and had to be brought back by baiter slaves.

Crocodile baiting was a dangerous business and many baiter slaves died in their role, or at least had lost limbs which often amounted to the same thing for a slave. No one would keep a slave who could not work. It was dangerous and uncertain work, which is why it was left to the slaves, but Rin had spoken to one slave about it.

Crocodile baiting was also not full time work. The services were only occasionally needed so the slaves who knew what to do were usually found at other tasks. Rin had seen one slave some months ago carrying a litter to bring him to the harvest feast, bearing scars all down his torso and leg. The slave, twice Rin's age, had knelt and bowed his head, along with the other litter bearers, waiting for Rin to climb in.

He had not climbed in though. Instead he had spoken to the slave. There was no prohibition against talking to your slaves, even if no one did it much. Rin had been curious though, and asked about the scars and the slave had explained that he got them from a crocodile, and then the fascinated boy had a long conversation with the slave all about the ins and outs of crocodile baiting, and how to avoid being eaten.

It sounded scary and Rin would not have considered it, but he needed the shortcut now, and if he met the crocodiles he hoped he had learned enough to avoid them. He knew how fast they swam, and their ability to move quickly on land, albeit only in short bursts. He knew how they attacked and drowned their victims, and he had some idea how to bait them, although he lacked any equipment to do so, so mostly he would just use his knowledge to avoid them, he hoped.

Rin turned into the swamp and worked his way towards Dead Man's Drop.

Once he began to climb that, he knew he would be safe. He climbed up onto a ridge of higher ground, looking carefully for basking crocodiles. He could not see any so he moved onwards. It was surprising that there were none of the animals to avoid in the lower swamp. Where were they?

He walked onwards towards the narrowing of the gorge, where the quiet swamp waters would begin to rise over a stairway of rapids towards Dead Man's Drop. The gorge sides were closing in here, creating a natural gateway to the mountain path beyond.

That was when he spotted Wil, still some distance away, stuck up a tree, white faced and desperate, surrounded by crocodiles, who were leisurely waiting for him to fall out. Rin chuckled and shook his head. Wil clearly had not known about what to expect on this short cut. More fool him for trying it then. Still he was safe in that tree if he just waited for sundown and ignominious rescue.

This was a problem though. The crocodiles were so high in the gorge that it was impossible to go round them. The waters of the swamp flowed around a series of hillocks here on which trees grew, but there was no path to Dead Man's drop that avoided any swimming except the exact one that Wil had taken.

That left an awful realisation for Rin: this route was too dangerous. He should turn back now and follow the coastal path instead. And yet here he was, Dead Man's Drop in sight ahead. A steep climb that avoided the longer mountain path and would take him straight to the Priest's Walk. If he could get past the crocodiles then he would have built up the lead he needed, whereas if he turned back now he would have wasted so much time that he would be lucky to finish the race by sundown and would join Wil in a life of disgrace and servitude.

He could not turn back. He had to use the fact that the crocodiles were busy waiting for Rin to find a way past them. He would have to divert of the path, give them a very wide berth – so wide that they would leave him alone. That would be possible though.

Rin saw a stretch of water he would have to swim, still some way from the tree where Wil was trapped. That would take him to another spit of land that looked particularly overgrown, but if he went that way he could work his way around and wade through some shallows to the gorge side, which he thought he could climb onto, and scrabble his way back to the mountain path.

Swimming was the danger. The crocodiles would know he was there of course, and they could move fast. Still he had the knowledge he had gained, and was sure that there was time. He was a strong swimmer, so he searched the water very carefully until he was sure that none of the crocodiles were too close, and then he slipped into the current.

As soon as he began to swim with strong strokes towards the spit of land he heard the ominous sound of crocodile bodies slipping into the water. Rin swam as fast as he had ever swum now, but then he saw his mistake. He had missed one of them. He had tried so hard to find them all, but one of the crocodiles shrugged off a mud coat from the water and was moving towards him, and fast.

It was a terrifying miscalculation, but he could still do it. Rin tried to fight down the feeling of panic that was threatening to overwhelm him, and so he kept swimming with powerful strokes for the land spit. The crocodile was closing fast… very fast, but he felt ground under him and was up and running at once. A crocodile is very fast on water, but on land it can only keep up any speed for very short bursts, so Rin ran hard and fast into the underbrush, quickly putting a safe distance between himself and the animal wishing to eat him. He had done it, he thought with a sense of relief so palpable that he could almost hear it in the rushing blood in his ears and the hammering of his heart. His legs turned to jelly, and he knelt down to catch his breath and pray a prayer of thanks to Horjock.

When he was done, he stood up, looked back at the river where the crocodiles had given up on him and gone back to waiting for Wil. He presumed that the one at the foot of Wil's tree had not bothered to stir itself for the small prospect of catching Rin, when its own meal was just waiting to drop into its maw.

Rin shook his head and grinned. Poor, foolish Wil. He had blundered in unprepared, but he, Rin would conquer the swamp now. He just had to cross this overgrown land spit and climb onto the cliff face, and if he was careful, he could still do it. He waded his way into the dense undergrowth, still smiling. He could win this race. He would win it. No cheating Kawabata or Trettien turd was going to stop him. He was Rin, who raced with crocodiles and won. He was Rin the invincible, the thought. He was going to win!

And that was when the plant grabbed him.

Rin let out a cry as a tendril snaked around his leg, tripping him up. He sprawled headlong, and as he fell he grabbed at his leg. There was blood seeping around where the plant tendril was wrapped around his legs, so he pulled at it to try to get it off. It was stuck fast, but as he pulled, two more tendrils whipped around and grabbed his arms, and then another one grabbed his other leg.

Rin realised at once what it was that had him, and as he did so he felt a hot feeling in his undershorts as he wet himself. No. No this could not be true. These plants, the yateveo, were supposed to be all dead. They had been purged long ago. There were none left… that was what he had always been told.

The tendrils pulled away and Rin's limbs were pulled with them, and at the same time they sprang upwards lifting him high above the ground. He could see Wil still in his tree, most of the crocodiles still ranged out below him waiting to eat him. He could see the plant below him, and the small hillock on which he had sought sanctuary hiding it from sight. No wonder it was overgrown, he realised, despite his shock. No crocodiles or larger animals would come close to the yateveo so there was nothing keeping the vegetation down here. Why hadn't he thought of that?

Now more tendrils were coming, probing him as if searching and exploring his body. He kept his mouth shut as one came close to his face, and tipped his head away from it until the tendril moved away. He struggled violently against the tendrils that held him, but there seemed to be some kind of hooks in the plant flesh that bonded them to his body, and they would not slip free.

Another tendril pushed at his face. He knew what they were looking for, and whimpered in terror. He clamped his mouth shut again as a tendril probed. It pushed at his nose, but the hole was too small. It pushed at his ear, but again the tendril was too large to fit in there. It then pushed at his lips but he was not going to open his mouth, and he clenched his teeth hard. If that tendril got inside him he was dead, and he knew it.

Other tendrils were probing his chest, his back, his legs. He was glad he had his shorts on as it pushed into his bum crack. The fabric held. Maybe he could survive this. Maybe. Maybe someone would come to search for him, if he could just keep the tendrils out.

And then he saw one tendril lining up by his navel, and as he watched, it seemed to narrow, and change shape to a hard and sharp point.

Oh no, he thought. No, no, no! He wanted to sob with despair, as he looked at it approaching, and be felt a terrible knot of terror inside that seemed to start right in his groin and all through his stomach. No… please no, he thought.

The tendril suddenly darted forward with a speed he had not seen yet – so fast he was not aware it had moved before it stabbed its way through his navel. For a moment Rin was too shocked to react, and then the pain hit him and he screamed in an agony of despair. He screamed and screamed, and knew that Wil would hear his cries, but knew that made no difference. He felt the tendril pumping, and knew what was happening, felt it inside him as hundreds of spores were ejaculated into his abdomen, where they at once began feeding on his gut. He felt a terrible sharp pain inside as the spores began to feast on him, and Rin knew with a certainty that he was already dead. All there was for him now was the pain of the waiting. Nothing could save him now.

Another tendril pushed at his shorts, and Rin screamed out his terror, forming one word, over and over: No. No, no no.

The yateveo did not listen and suddenly another stab and his shorts tore as the tendril punched its way in, tearing through his sphincter and then thrust deeper and deeper inside him. He could feel it begin to pump its load of spores as it fucked his boy hole, throbbing and pulsing inside him as wave after wave of the spores shot into him, and he could see his stomach distending, and he knew he was going to die. He was going to die. Oh gods he was going to die.

Why had his penis gone stiff ? He was going to die and yet the tendril was pushing against his prostate, pulsing, throbbing, and he had a stiffy making a tentpole in his shorts! He tried to will himself into submission, but the throbbing tendril fucking his but kept doing what it was doing, stimulating his prostate in a way the boy had never experienced before.

Rin's body arched and he went rigid as the plant seeded him again. He gasped, and his eyes watered and he screamed. He screamed in terror and in pain, and the moment he open his mouth another tendril slid into him, pushing it's way into his mouth. He shrieked and then he gagged, but he bit the tendril. For a moment he was swallowing it, and because it was in his throat he could not breathe. Gods he could not breathe.

Rin bit down hard. Harder than he had ever bitten anything before, and his teeth sank into the yateveo flesh, and mercifully the tendril withdrew, but still the other ones were pumping more and more of its seed into his body, and Rin knew what was happening. Once the seed was in you it ate you from the inside, consuming the host body to germinate the seeds.

He writhed in pain, and yet even as he did so, the tendril in his bum so stimulated his prostate that his stiffy exploded, and Rin orgasmed in his shorts for the very last time. He felt a moment of pleasure in the release that seemed to shut down every other part of his brain. For a brief moment there was just the shocked pleasure of orgasm, and he closed his eyes and gasped, every muscle stiff as he thrust his hips forward, still impaled on the plant shoot that fucked his butt.

His penis throbbed in time with the plant tendrils that were filling him and filling him with the seed that was killing him, and now Rin was held immobile, his eyes wide in shock, his body wrapped tightly in the tendrils and his insides being eaten away. His prostate, that had given him such pleasure, now started to burn, and that feeling spread into the base of his cock, and then seemed to explode into his balls. He screamed again, a desperate confused scream of agony.

Finally, as his struggling weakened, the plant lowered him into its gaping mouth, and a sticky substance surrounded his body, but not his face. Slowly Rin was cocooned in the stuff, the protective coat that held him prone now as he was slowly eaten away from the inside out. Now the yateveo laid him down on the ground and retreated to its dormant state.

Rin lay on the ground in shock, unable to move, his limbs glued into position, feeling himself being consumed. The agony was terrible. His gut was on fire and now the spores were consuming all his internal organs, his muscles, his blood. Every part of him hurt. No, that could not possibly describe it. Every part of him was tortured beyond endurance as he was consumed from the inside out.

It took him three hours to die, and several more hours before the spores burst from the cocoon. Rin's body just a tattered skeleton inside now, and the fully germinated spores drifted away on the wind.

Wil saw every minute of it.

Chapter Five

Cai

CAI knelt down at the side of the path and retched. He was not sure why he felt so ill. Was it the sea water or the berries he had eaten? He had thought they were safe berries, but now he was not so sure. He threw up the meagre contents of his stomach and sobbed. He was, at least, climbing the mountain now, but as he looked up at the height of it he was overawed by how far he had to go, and it was already after noon. He had lost so much time at the river, and now he was losing more as he puked his guts out in the ditch.

As soon as he was able, he stood up, wiped his mouth on his arm and started to run again, but his stomach was cramping and soon he had to drop to a walk again, before dropping to his knees and retching again, his stomach refusing to believe that it was truly empty.

Cai looked up again at the huge mountain he had to climb, and felt his heart sink. He had to do this. He could not give up. He had to finish the race before sundown. He had to.

Nino

Nino felt the hot afternoon sun burning his back. He was near exhaustion, thirsty and tired, but he was also doing well. He had crossed the river, swimming from the jetty, and worked his way inland. This route ensured there was plenty of drinking water, although there was little to eat. Still he had found some berries and wolfed those down, and that had helped with his energy levels. The path had been winding up the foothills on the lee of the sacred hot mountain, and although the rock here was not as warm as it could be in places, the heat of the day was sapping his strength once more, now that the sun was high in the sky.

He could see some of the front runners. There was Karl Trettien, and Bran Aramat, leading the way as expected. Rin Neped had not passed him, so he supposed the injury they had given him had served its purpose. He had known for some time who the runners would be for this race. The Kawabata spies were renowned for their ability to elicit information, and Nino had been told who his competitors would be before some of the competitors had known themselves. Trainers had told him what to expect, and the strengths and weaknesses of each competitor.

Karl and Bran were both from houses who trained their boys hard, and aimed to win the race. Rin Neped had been the greatest threat though. Neped may have the reputation for failure, but he knew that Rin had been a very strong candidate. The house had real potential for a first winner in him, and thus Nino had formed the plan with Karl that took him out when he could still be caught. Rin's weakness had been that he was not the best sprinter, so could be caught when everyone was fresh, which was exactly what they had done.

There was something else though. There was no sign of Wil Lapin. He had raced off at the start and Nino had not seem him since, but he was not concerned about Wil. He was certain that the boy had foolishly taken the shortcut through the swamp, and was most probably dead, but if not, he was making his way back to the main path by now, having realised the shortcut was impossible this year. If Wil had not taken that route, Nino was sure he would have caught him by now.

Not so Karl and Bran though, and if Nino was going to win this race he had to beat the other competitors one at a time. The climb was where he could narrow the gap between them. Bran and Karl were both good runners but his instructors had said they would both have more difficulty with the climb. That was when he was to close the gap, just pushing the pace a little. Not enough to cause exhaustion, but slowly closing the gap they had built.

He ran up the slope, putting on a little more speed, spending a little more energy, so that he would arrive at the cliff face more or less at the same time as the other two. It was a long exhausting climb but no one was stopping to rest.

As he drew closer Nino could see Bran and Karl running almost neck and neck, but obviously not in a friendly way. Considering their house histories that was no surprise, and as he got closer again he could hear the needling from Karl, and the angry responses from Bran.

"You run like a girl," Karl said.

"Shut up!"

"I am going to make you my personal slave when I win."

"That is not going to happen."

Obviously, Nino thought.

As taunts went, that one was stupid because if Karl won then he would be going into the temple, and Bran would be shipped off to one of the islands as an indentured slave. Still, Bran didn't think to make that point.

"Did house Aramat run out of boys this year so they had to race a piglet instead?"

"Fuck off!"

"When you are my slave that's what I am going to do… in you."

And on and on, and Nino could see how it was getting to Bran. The boy was bristling with pent up fury, and it was perhaps slowing him just a little. Was his anger making him careless?

At last they reached the point the roads divided, the left fork leading up towards the cliff face and the notorious Priest's Path, the right fork leading to the still steep, but longer Pilgrim's Path. Karl grabbed at Bran as they approached it and Bran had staggered, allowing the Trettien boy to get to the fork just ahead of him and he immediately stopped and turned, blocking the way onto the narrow Priest's Path.

It looked like the two of them were about to have a fight, but neither wanted to do so in such a precarious position. The gorge sides were steep, and the Priest's Path was perilous.

Fighting there would almost certainly see them both tumbling over the edge and to their deaths. They did not trust each other, but neither did Karl just run on ahead, instead standing where the old wooden supports of the gorge bridge would provide him some protection from a sudden onslaught from Bran.

The climb to the temple of Horjock was one of the major dangers of the race, and many boys had fallen to their death on the cliffs. Here, on the southern and western slopes, the cliff was passable, unlike the Wall that created an impenetrable barrier to the north east.

Nevertheless the climb was so notorious that it had become a part of the house strategies, and looking at Karl's face, Nino knew that this had been his strategy too. Slow Bran down, make him angry. But then why? Why arrive at the fork at the same time as your fiercest rival, having just made him so angry that he might push you off the moment you stepped out onto the ledge?

The answer to that came when Karl turned to Nino as he arrived panting, putting hands on his knees and leaning forward to catch his breath.

"Do you want an alliance?" he asked.

"What kind of alliance?" Nino responded warily, looking at Bran who was glowering but still too scared to step out onto the ledge. "You want to push him off?"

Such things had happened of course. Or at least everyone supposed they had. Winners of the race were not always innocent of the deaths of some of the other runners, and Nino was not averse to the idea, although they would have to pretend that it had been a terrible accident.

Karl smiled at Nino.

"No, I am not going to push him off, so long as he takes the Pilgrim's Path,"

"Fuck that," Bran snarled, and then added, unwisely, "besides, I will just double back and come this way."

"Follow us if you like. If you get too close we will push you off, but it doesn't matter because you can't come where we are going. Nino, you and me are going to take the Chain Walk."

"Piss off," Nino said, shaking his head, "How many people have died doing that? We might as well have tried to climb up The Wall and saved ourselves the run."

Nino put his hands on his hips and glared at Karl, annoyed by that infuriating smile of his. The Chain Walk was suicide, and he had never considered taking it. The chain ran vertically up the mountain from the Priest's Path, and out over a ledge, allowing a considerable length of the path to be bypassed, and bringing you out almost onto the temple plateau. If you climbed it quickly it was a short cut, but the chain itself was anchored under the upper overhang and scrabbling over the overhang was impossible if you were on the chain.

That was where the teaming up was required. Thrust through the top chain ring was a slat of wood which you could shimmy along to reach one of two ropes. At each end of the slat there was a rope that you could use to climb up over the overhang, if you still had the arm strength to do it. The problem was the slat was not anchored into the cliff, but simply wedged through a special larger rung of the chain. If you climbed along the slat on your own, the slat would overbalance you and drop you the thousand strides to the southern shore below. The only way to reach the ropes was to pair up. One person would inch one way across the slat, and the other would inch the other way, and when you reached the rope, you had to very carefully transfer your weight to it in perfect unison so that you did not drop the other person as you took a hold of it.

It was a very dangerous short cut, and one all the house Kawabata strategists had cautioned against. If you got stuck on the chain walk then you quickly would lose any gains to be made, and if your partner panicked, your life was in their hands. Even climbing the chain was hard work, and you could easily slip and fall doing so. If the person in front fell, they would take anyone below them down with them.

In a race that only one boy could win, it was better to ignore the chain walk and hope everyone else did too.

Apparently House Trettien felt differently.

"Come on Nino, do you want to let Aramat win the race again?" Karl asked.

"No, but if we both fall and die, that's what will happen." Nino put his hands on his hips and glared at Karl.

"I'll do the Chain Walk with you," Bran offered, looking at Karl, "unless you are too much of a coward."

"A coward, no. But I am not stupid. House Aramat does not care who it hurts, so you think I would trust you with my life?" Karl asked, his face turning to a sneer.

"Why should I trust you?" Nino asked, hands on his hips now.

"Because we both want the same thing. The end of Aramat rule, and we make a pact. Whichever one of us wins, we get our house to send the loser back to his own house. No holding on to the losers like Aramat do."

Nino looked at the two boys and recalled a story he had heard about Bran's sister. Last year the Trettien loser, Stijn, had been kept by Aramat, not bought back at exorbitant cost by his own house. There was no love lost between the houses, and it clearly had stuck in the throat of the elders of House Trettien to pay so much money to Aramat for their race loser, so he had been left to serve his year of slavery in house Aramat.

That had not gone well, with Aramat seeking to make an example of the Trettien boy. They had made him the personal slave of Bran's sister, and she had taken to having him pull her pony trap around. The work was too much for a single slave and when he collapsed, rumour had it, she had beaten him to death on the spot with her whip.

Technically there was no law against that. Slaves are property, and it was not uncommon for slaves to die in punishment for their laziness or other wrongs. Slaves could be beaten to death, or executed. In some cases they were even taken to the top of Dead Man's Drop to be ritually impaled and then, when they were dead, their bodies were dumped over the cliff edge to feed the crocodiles. That was how it had gained its name, and recent executions of several notorious criminals and slaves probably explained why the crocodiles had taken to living at the foot of the cliff.

So yes, there was no reason a slave could not be punished by death, and even an indentured slave was, in law, a slave for their year of servitude. If an indentured boy did something so terrible that it deserved such punishment, then all would consider it right and fair. Still, Stijn Trettien's only crime had been to collapse of exhaustion, and even if he was technically a slave, he still would have expected to return to his house at the end of his year of servitude. His death was a terrible sleight, a grave offence against House Trettien that could not easily be forgiven.

You could therefore see why Trettien might hold a grudge about such treatment, and it was remembering this story that finally persuaded Nino. House Kawabata did not take sides in house disputes, but even if he lost, and even if Karl were not true to his word, Nino felt he would probably fare better under a Trettien winner than an Aramat one. In any case they had already agreed to co-operate before the race.

There was also his father's warning in his mind. Come back first or not at all. Such was the Kawabata code of honour that he knew his father meant it. He had to win the race, and this was his best chance of doing so. Karl just wanted Bran defeated, whereas he actually wanted to win. If he climbed the Chain Walk, he knew he could win – he would win. He would bring such honour to his house that his father would be forever proud of him. If he died in the attempt then he was just doing as his father commanded.

"How do we stop him from following us?" Nino asked and Karl smiled, seeing that Nino was going to agree.

"Can't stop him following us, but if he climbs on the chain, we kick him off."

Bran looked at Nino and then at Karl, his face showing a rush of emotions: anger, betrayal, fear, before he turned and bolted for the right fork and the longer Pilgrim's Path.

"Quick, let's go!" Karl said and ran down the left fork, climbing over boulders onto the ledge.

"Fuck!" Nino said as he ran after him, thinking he was surely going to regret this.

Chapter Six

Bran

BRAN was angry… so very, very angry with Karl. Why did the boy have to hold that grudge? And all that constant needling had been getting to him. Did the Trettiens really intend to buy his indenture and have him serving as a pony boy? The scary thing was that Bran could believe it was true. If he did not win, he could believe they would try to do exactly that. Who would blame them?

He told himself that his house would never allow that. Of course Aramat would buy him back. There was still the fact that the King's own grandson, Finn, was only nine, and the next oldest Aramat boy. If Bran lost the race then surely his own house would buy him back and he would spend his year of slavery training to do better next year, so that Finn would not have to run the race himself until he was old enough to stand a chance of winning it. That would be the logical thing to do.

Still, the only way to be sure of anything was for him to win the damned race. That would be bad news for Finn, of course, but good news for Aramat. If he won the race he would have the victor's reward and Finn would just have to run when he was just turning ten next year.

He just had to win but right now that was looking unlikely. He wondered what the King thought. If he won then he would be king again, but his grandson would have to run at the age of ten, suggesting that he would be the one spending a year indentured. That is unless one of the twins ran instead, but they were even younger. A win this year probably meant a loss next. Did they even want him to win?

Winning was unlikely now but not impossible. If Karl and Nino went up the chain walk they could both die, and then he would be well placed to win, if Wil Lapin was not ahead of them.

Bran did not know where Wil was, but he doubted that a Lapin boy would really be in the lead. So, if Karl and Nino failed on the chain walk he could win the race… but not if he took the Pilgrim's Path. He had to take the Priest's Path, or risk being overtaken by one of the stragglers.

He could win it, he knew that. He could still win, but it was not in his hands now. It was in the hands of Horjock, and in the hands of the god, Bran was not entirely sure he would find the blessing that he needed.

He desperately needed that blessing now. There could be no doubt that if he won the race now then it was because he was chosen by Horjock. No one would deny it. If he stood beside Rixon in the temple then no man, nor any woman, or girl, could ever challenge his right to be there, because Horjock himself would have spoken.

His thoughts drifted, jumping from one thing to another, the way thoughts do, to a day last summer. Late last summer. It had been the afternoon siesta time, with most of the adults indoors. Although there were always slaves working at this time, they too worked in shaded orchards or vineyards or tended to tasks indoors out of the midday heat. Bran loved that time of day, and he had headed straight for the headland that separated Aramat from Aquila, where Quintus was already waiting. The tide was low that afternoon and Quintus had been able to walk across the causeway that joined their islands The boys did not stay by the causeway, however, but instead turned towards the outer sea, picking their way across rocks to reach the quartz sand strip of beach that faced the great ocean. There was not much swell today but still the waves here broke in crystal clear tubes across the rocky reef, and the boys quickly shrugged off their heat sticky clothes and dashed into the water together to cool off, laughing and giggling as only two boys really know how.

It was a scene they had repeated many times when the tide was low and the day hot, and they had almost lost their sense of daring at what they did. Both boys knew the law well enough, though. To go naked in public was prohibited by Horjock, and although there was no one around, and the beach was isolated and away from even the island causeway, still it was considered a public location. If the boys were caught they knew that their noble status might save them from a life of slavery but it would certainly earn them the thrashing of their lives.

Today they played in the gentle surf, throwing their bodies forward as waves took them and carried them inshore, before swimming out to do it again.

They giggled and splashed each other, chased each other, raced and generally enjoyed the cool ocean water and slight cooling breeze as they fooled around in the sea and then exploring the rock pools on their private beach.

Only on that one day it had not been private. Bran's sister, Bethan had followed them, and had seen them playing naked on the beach, and Bran still winced at the memory of the caning he had endured when father had found out too.

Canings and lectures, and damage limitation. "Did you consider that you might not even be allowed to run the Great Race?" his father had demanded, his anger lending strength to his right hand as the cane landed on Bran's backside again and again. Bran had not considered that, and he dared not voice the retort that he did not care either way. He had not wanted to run the race, even though he had long known he was destined to do so. He did not make the retort though because of where else it would lead, and what else might have been said. Instead he endured the caning and kept his private thoughts to himself.

When the caning was done he was made to stand in a corner of his father's private study, hands on head, and yes, naked.

"Think about how it feels, and imagine how it would feel to be that way always. Don't think it could not happen, it could. It nearly did. You were lucky, boy. But for the foresight of your sister, things could have been far worse. It is a good thing she brought this to me before that happened."

And so he had stood there in the study, his butt flaming hot, and his face burning almost as much with shame. So much shame, he recalled, that it was best not to dwell on it now. Best not to remember it all.

Bran shook his head, rubbed his eye, his hand coming away wet when he did so. He sniffed and turned to doubled back, to follow Nino and Karl down the Priest's Path. He would show them, he thought. He would show them that he was no slave, but a true son of house Aramat, a worthy winner of the Great Race. He would bring honour to his house and to himself and Horjock would vindicate him once and for all.

He would show them.

Wil

Wil had been lying with his head pressed against the tree trunk, feeling thirsty and tired, when he heard the voices coming from the north, in the direction of the sea. He looked up and peered into the trees and shrubbery but he could not see anyone yet. He listened carefully, and over the buzzing of insects, and the trickle of water over stone, and the call of birds and the rustle of small animals, he was certain he could also hear the murmur of voices.

"Help!" he called, and as soon as he did so the voices stopped. "Help me!" he called again, louder and more desperately.

Now the voices had stopped but there was something else. Splashing water, and the movement of vegetation, and there in the middle distance two slaves appeared. He vaguely recognised one, and they both had a Lapin mark on their chests. These were his father's slaves.

Wil looked at them feeling a surge of relief, even as they took in the sight of the crocodiles and their own expressions grew tight lipped and anxious.

It was forbidden to aid any boy on the great race, and sending out slaves in this way was quite a risk by his father. He must have been watching somewhere and when Wil had failed to reach the checkpoint, he must have sent the slaves anyway, in defiance of the law.

If he took aid he would be under the curse of Horjock, he knew, but Wil did not need them to aid him exactly – he just needed the crocodiles gone. He needed the distraction.

"Come here, bait the crocodiles. Get them away from this tree," Wil called, using the voice of authority he had learned to use when commanding slaves. The slaves, for their part, looked ready to turn and run. They nodded their heads though and moved tentatively closer.

Wil looked at the slaves and felt a surge of pity for them. Of course they were frightened, but whereas he would have thought, just this morning, that their feelings were inconsequential, he had just spent many hours brooding about his fate in a tree, thinking that come tomorrow he might also be a slave. For the first time in his life he looked at his father's slaves as something more than property.

Pity was not going to save him though. If he told them to run back, to fetch more help, his own fate would be sealed. He would not be rescued before sundown, and the rescue itself would count as a forfeit of the race. If these slaves could just get the crocodiles to move, however, then he might possibly still make it up the mountain in time. It was doubtful even then, but it was his best chance. If he could climb Dead Man's Drop, the time saved might just be enough.

So there was no place for pity. He looked the slaves squarely in the eyes.

"You will bait these crocodiles and distract them so that I can reach the high ground over there. If you do not do this, my father will hear of it, and he will have you both punished with death."

They looked back at him, and their fear was apparent, but there was something else in their gaze. Hatred? Yes, probably that was it, but Wil knew the lesson his father had explained about slaves: you don't want them to love you, you want them to obey you.

And obey they did. They knew his was no idle threat. If his father lost a son through their inaction, they would certainly be put to death, and most painfully too. They looked at the crocodiles and then at each other, had a brief discussion, scrabbled around for handfuls of stones and then split up, circling around. Wil called out to them, pointing out where all the crocodiles lay. Having spent so many hours up his tree, he knew exactly where they all were. To make the high ground it would only be necessary for two or three of the beasts to move and he directed the slaves to those.

Now the slaves approached the animals and started to throw stones. Their aim was good, but the crocodiles did not seem too bothered at the stones landing on their thick scaly hide. One caught a nose though and that did elicit an angry reaction that had the slave running back with a cry.

Still the one at the base of his tree had not moved, and Wil shouted at the slaves. "You have to get closer. Closer!"

The crocodile had seen the slave. Wil could see its eyes following the man's movements.

He got ready. This was his moment.

When the crocodile moved, its speed was incredible. It made a sudden surge and the slave turned and screamed as he ran. Wil lost no time, dropping from the tree, his legs buckling, as he rolled and then got to his feet and sprinted as fast as he could for the high ground.

Behind him the slave was screaming louder, his voice filled with sounds of agony and despair. Wil did not even turn to look back, but just ran. He saw a crocodile swim towards the spit of land he was on, and ran faster, harder than he had ever run in his life. He leaped for a rock, scrabbling up onto it and out of reach of the gaping maw of a crocodile that was so close he could smell its acrid breath as it bit the air where his foot had been just a split second before.

He scrambled higher and knelt on the rocks, out of reach of the crocodile, panting, his heart pounding painfully in his chest, making his head ache and throb.

He had done it.

He looked back at a trail of blood and saw several crocodiles thrashing and fighting over the body of the slave who had got too close.

There was no sign of the other one, but that did not matter. They had done what they needed to do.

He had a chance again.

Chapter Seven

Cai

CAI knelt down in the stream that was running off the mountain and drank deep of the water. It tasted sulphurous and was tepid – on any other occasion he would have spurned it, but now he was so thirsty that he drank deeply. He had finally stopped vomiting, but only because all the contents of his stomach had long since been left behind at the side of the path. Now he was hungry, thirsty and light headed and there was still a long and steep climb ahead.

There was no time to waste. He had to keep moving. He wanted to give up, but he could not – he would not. To give up now would be to abandon his family. To give up would see him made a houseless slave forced to live his life out on one of the other islands. He would not do that. He would not give up. He would make it. He would.

Cai forced himself back to his feet and walked on up the long mountain path, wiping tears of frustration from his tired eyes.

Nino

The Priest's Path was narrow, steep, and to the right hand side it disappeared into a sharp drop down the cliff. Below them, Nino could make out the narrow Pilgrim's Path, sometimes carved into the rock, and at other times built as a wooden ledge that hung out over the almost sheer drop to the sea below. He couldn't see Bran on the path, and wondered if that was because he had already cleared that section or not.

Mostly, however, he tried not to look down too much as it made him feel giddy and sick. Looking upwards at the almost solid cliff wall was little better, as he knew that he had to ascend the full height of the cliff to reach the temple of Horjock. Still, the daunting task ahead was better than the sickening drop to the sea below.

And then, almost before they knew it, the boys were at the chain, and Nino looked up at it, feeling sick. The chain itself clung to the bare pale cliff rock, a rusting remnant of the lifting gear that had been used to haul timber up to the plateau at the top of the mountain where the temple of The Great God had been built.

When the building had been completed, the lifting gear had been dismantled, but this chain had been left. It had been used to anchor scaffolding to the rock. The chain was invisible from above, and only reachable from this point on the Priest's Path.

Now it rose above them like a metal linked vine, climbing the cliff side. To start with it dangled tantalisingly at an angle on the rock itself, but higher up it rose in a vertical line to the peak. The lower climb could be managed quickly and easily but it was the upper climb where the risks truly lay. It could be climbed, but it was still just a chain.

The technique for climbing the chain itself was one Nino had been taught, even though he had been cautioned not to use it. Push hands and feet between the chain and the rock face, wherever it ran close to the rock, for safe holds to rest on, or use the links for fast climbing with sufficient grip to pull your body upwards.

Karl climbed onto the chain first and Nino saw at once that he too knew how to climb.

He moved up it as quick as a monkey, and then called down. "Come on, it is only a short cut if you do it fast."

Yes, Nino agreed, and that was why going up it was foolish. If Bran had taken the Pilgrim's Path, then they were already on the shorter route. They did not need to climb this way.

And that was when Nino spotted something. Back on the Priest's Path, the way they had come, there were birds circling and cawing angrily. That was no surprise, because those same birds had taken flight when they had gone past just minutes before – disturbed into flight but not straying far from their perches and ready to mob anyone who came too close to their nests.

No surprise, therefore, that the birds would take flight, but they should have calmed down by now. Unless someone else was on the Priest's Path, and that confirmed for Nino what Bran had done. He had run down the Pligrim's Path with exactly the hope that it would dissuade them from climbing the chain, and then he must have doubled back to follow at a distance, just out of sight, but not so far away that he could not catch up in the final sprint.

Bran is a fast sprinter, the spies had reported. Don't let him be too close when you reach the plateau or you will be outrun.

So if Bran was just behind them, the chain was the only way to beat him. Nino fought the urge to curl up in a ball and cry, and instead launched himself onto the chain and scrabbled after Karl. The two of them ascended quickly, even though their height was already making exertion harder.

The chain seemed to go on and on, and the metal felt cold now, and a little damp. Nino looked down just once, and nearly wet himself. If he fell now there would be no saving him.

Instead he looked up at Karl, puffing and panting, his face red with exertion, his fingers red and raw as he too climbed the chain.

And then they were at the overhang. Karl reached it first of course, and took a hold of the top chain link, a larger loop through which an old grey plank of wood had been pushed and fastened with a rotting rope that looked like it had been constructed from swamp grass, and had deteriorated somewhat since then.

Karl swung his body out to the right sight of the chain, making room for Nino to climb up on the left until he too had his hands on the top link. The climb had been exhausting, and Nino could feel his arms trembling. Was that exertion or fear? Probably both, but he could control neither, especially as he looked at what he had to do next.

A nauseous wave of doubt crossed him. He could not do this, he thought. He could not. He looked into Karl's face with an expression that showed all the terror he felt, and Karl's expression was little better.

"We could just go back down," he said, his voice small. By now Bran would be well past the base of the chain, and if they doubled back now they would surely have lost the race, but at least they would be alive. Right now a year of slavery and his father's eternal displeasure looked infinitely preferable to the alternatives.

"We can't go back. Climbing down is harder than going up. We have to do it now. We have to," Karl said, and it seemed like he was trying to convince himself too. "We have to go on and win this thing. Except Wil Trettien is somewhere up ahead."

"Wil took the swamp route up to Dead Man's Drop," Nino answered him with a smile.

"You are sure? The swamp path?" Karl asked, his face brightening.

"I am sure. The sneak was spying on me so I sent him there myself."

"Then he is dead, or he doubled back and is behind us."

"I know it," Nino said with a smile. "I was considering that route myself but we got some information about it. The storms and easy feeding last month brought the crocodiles down to the gorge mouth. They have young on the sands there. There is no way through."

"Fuck,why didn't anyone tell me?" Karl asked, and Nino shot him a quizzical look. "I nearly went that way myself."

"And you didn't because you had a much safer route in mind?" Nino asked, and then his face split into a smile. "Come. on, we need to do this before I turn my house colours brown."

And with those words Nino reached out and took a hold of the plank. As he did so, Karl took a hold of the plank on the other side, counterbalancing it. The plank swayed and seemed to shiver in the air, and then tilt too much one way and then the other.

"Steady… we have to do it together," Karl barked.

"You don't think I don't know that?" Nino retorted. And very carefully they inched out further and further with their arms, the wood plank swaying alarmingly.

When they were close to full stretch, the boys knew what they had to do next.

"On three," Karl said. "One, two, three…" and then both boys let go with their feet together. Nino could not help the squeal of fear that escaped his lips, but if Karl noticed it, he was too lost in his panicked grimace to comment. The two boys swung free, the wood slat overbalancing a little too much towards Nino, until Karl moved his hand hold out to correct it.

Once the initial panic passed, Nino looked to Karl, nodded and began inching outwards, shuffling his hands along. A splinter of wood ripped into his fingers and he yelped in pain but did not release. Time enough to sort out splinters later. For now he had to stay alive.

Each movement set the wooden pivot swaying, and several times only quick action by one boy or another stabilised the swing in time, but as they moved further from the pivot point things seemed to improve.

What did not improve was arm strength, as the boys hung doggedly over a drop so far that anyone on the beach below was barely visible. A distance that could not be covered in a thousand strides on the flat. Nino felt panic again as his arms shook and ached and he longed to let go. Almost there. Almost there, he thought. He could almost reach the rope.

Karl was almost there too, and he looked across the gap now at the other boy.

"On three, we reach for the rope, yes?" Karl nodded, his face white with fear. "One, two…" and then the world lurched, and Nino felt a terrible sickening falling sensation in his stomach as the board tilted and swung downwards. He let out a shriek of terror and hung on, not noticing as he peed his pants. The world swayed in a nauseating manner and Nino found himself hanging on with torn and aching hands to the fully pivoted board, swinging close, but maddeningly out of reach of the chain itself, as the now empty elevated end of the pivot banged against the rock overhang.

Karl had let go early, and as Nino held on, hugging the old grey board, he could see the Trettien boy scrabbling up the rope and over the overhang of the rock. At the last moment he looked back, almost apologetically, but something about the look left Nino in little doubt that the move had been deliberate.

If you think you might be double crossed, make sure you act first. That was what he had been taught, but he had forgotten that lesson. Karl Trettien hadn't.

Nino felt his grip giving way. He could not reach the chain. He looked at the drop below and shrieked.

"Help!, Help!"

He did not expect any help. He was going to die. Karl Trettien had killed him. He knew terror and despair but still he cried out.

"Help me! Please!"

And although he knew it was useless, still he heard a voice.

"Hang on, hold on. Don't let go! I am coming."

Nino looked down and saw the chain was quivering and then around a spur of rock just below, a head appeared. Quintus! Quintus was coming up the chain, alone. Why?

"Don't let go. Hold on! I am almost there, Quintus panted, labouring up the chain as quickly as he could, but Nino's arms were past exhaustion now, and his grip was slipping. He felt the wood shift under his hands, more splinters filling his skin. He saw blood streak across the wood, and he was slipping ever closer to its end. How long could he hang on?

"I can't… I can't hold it!"

"Just hang on, damn it. Hang on. I am coming!"

Quintus kept climbing, and Nino thought, this must be some terrible final mirage. A promise of rescue that was not real, and was anyway going to come too late.

"I knew he would double cross you. I knew it. I saw you climbing, and I just knew it. Hold on and we can both still make it. Reach out to me."

Nino looked in terror at the boy on the chain, an arm outstretched but tantalisingly out of reach. Even if by some miracle he grabbed Quintus' hand, he would simply pull the smaller boy off the chain. In any case he had no way to swing himself closer.

"I can't," Nino wailed, his voice redolent with despair.

Quintus nodded, coming to the same conclusion, but he was not done yet. He clambered to the pivot, and started to work his way outwards along the raised length recently vacated by Karl.

"I will counterbalance you and then you have to grab the rope and climb. Do you hear me Nino? You have to grab the rope when I counterbalance."

"I can't. I can't hold it any more."

"Yes you fucking well can," Quintus said and threw himself out onto the beam. He scrabbled along it so fast that Nino could not help but think he must be half ape.

Impossibly the beam began to pivot back up, but Quintus was smaller than he was, it was not quite enough.

"Grab it!" Quintus screamed, terror evident in the pitch of his voice. "Grab the damned rope NOW."

And Nino tried, but he could not quite reach, and he had no strength left. He reached out, closed his hand, felt the rope for a second brush his fingers, and then he knew despair more fully than ever before or ever would again. He was falling… falling… falling.

Crack!

His head hit rock on the way down and Nino knew nothing more, ever again.

Chapter Eight

Quintus

QUINTUS leapt at the same moment as Nino, and his hands closed on the rope. He clutched it, his legs slamming painfully into the rock. For a moment he dangled precariously, but his grip was sure. Even as he held onto the rope though he heard the scream of Nino's fall and looked down in terror at the boy falling down the rock face, colliding with occasional outcroppings, leaving long red smears before bouncing down further and further to the waiting rocks below. He felt sick, and dizzy from the height. At last he found the self preservation instinct that allowed himself to haul himself up and over the overhanging ledge and onto the rock above. Once there he just knelt for a while and sobbed.

He recalled how he had climbed the trail wearily, his legs feeling weak and his head pounding in the midday heat. He had been sweating profusely on the lower slopes, and he knew that there were a number of boys ahead of him. His cousin Bran, Rin, Karl and Nino had all passed him early on, and he felt like he was running flat out just to keep one of them, Nino, in sight.

He had trained for this day of course, having been informed last year that he was the preferred champion for house Aquila this year. That was not a surprise. He was now the oldest boy in House Aquila under the age of 13, and thus eligible to race.

House Aquila was small, and nearly every boy ended up racing. He had known for as long as he could remember that one day he would almost certainly race, and being from house Aquila, he would almost certainly lose.

His father and his uncles had all raced in their day, and all served their year of slavery. The house saw that as a rite of passage, although in recent years there had been two occasions when the house could simply not afford to buy back their champion for the year, and in consequence those boys had spent very miserable years as slaves in another house.

So yes, he had trained hard because he did not want to be a slave, even if there was less shame in it than in other houses. He did not want the risk that he would be sent away to live as a slave in some rival house for a whole year, not to mention the risk of not completing the course in daylight and thus being made a slave forever.

He did not want to have to be naked even on the island of Aquila for a whole year either. He wanted to be only the third boy from House Aquila to win the race in living memory. He wanted people to speak of him as a champion who brought honour back to the house, so he worked on his fitness and learned all he could about strategy, and every day for a year he had run at every opportunity he had, and people had smiled and encouraged him and told him how well he was doing, but still, he was younger than Bran, Karl and Rin. Twelve was the oldest age a boy could run, but those houses ensured they always entered an older boy, and one who had the best chance for winning. Quintus was just the oldest available, and at ten years old, he probably was not old enough.

That was why he had been flagging. Still he could see Nino, and as he climbed the gorge he realised that Nino had stopped. What was more, there were others there. He recognised their house colours even before he could make out their faces: Bran and Karl.

He narrowed his eyes but did not let up his pace. His breath felt raw in his lungs, and he was desperate for a break, but if there was a chance to catch up with this many boys, he was taking it.

He didn't catch them up though. He saw Bran make a run for it down the Pilgrim's Path, and the other two boys darting along the higher but more treacherous Priest's Path. Every boy who wanted to win the race always took the Priest's Path, although the Pilgrim's Path did not take much longer.

He had thought he might take the Pilgrim's Path, knowing he was not going to catch up with the other three boys, but now as he approached the fork himself he saw Bran doubling back and setting off down the Priest's Path after all.

"Bran," he shouted, almost at the fork himself, and Bran turned. He might not have stopped for anyone else – this was a race after all – but Quintus was his cousin and his friend so Bran did stop, but just long enough to tell him what Karl and Nino intended.

"They are mad!" Quintus said, shivering.

"Probably, but it is not a short cut if they take too long, so I am going to beat them still," and with those words Bran set off down the path and Quintus followed.

When they had reached the chain, Bran had taken a decision to run on past. The chain climbed directly up the cliff path whereas the Priest's Path itself wound its way back and forth along the ledges and nooks of the cliff. Although significantly longer, you could take the Priest's Path at a near run if you were brave enough, and Bran hoped to beat the climbers to the top.

Quintus, on the other hand, was close to exhaustion and he knew Bran well enough to know that he could not beat him in a straight race. They had run together often enough on the shores of their island homes, and Bran was bigger and faster. If he followed his cousin, then he knew the best he could hope for was second place, and he doubted he could beat Nino and Karl to the top either, which is why he stopped at the foot of the chain to look up.

He could see them climbing still, not so far ahead: Nino Kawabata and Karl Trettien. He knew neither boy well, but his father had briefed him on all the candidates, and one warning stuck in his mind. Be careful of Karl Trettien – he will do anything to win.

Quintus knew how the chain worked, and he did not much want to try it, but two thoughts crossed his mind. Firstly, he could climb the chain too and even if he had to double back, he was close enough to the end of the race and with enough time that it would make no difference. He would lose nothing to climb the chain, and perhaps gain some small bragging rights of having been one of the few boys ever to do so.

So nothing was lost by climbing, but it was the second thought that caused him to start to climb. Karl Trettien could not be trusted. Everyone knew that you had to trust your partner implicitly if you wanted to survive this short cut, but could Nino really trust him? And if not, what would House Kawabata think of the boy who saved their champion's life?

And so he had climbed quickly, and had watched in terror as the boys had made their precarious synchronised journey. He was terrified that they would make it and leave him alone, forced to back track, and he was terrified that one of them would slip and fall, and he was equally terrified that he would be proved right about Karl. There was just no way this could end well.

Then he saw the moment that Karl leapt, and Nino did not, and the wooden beam pivoted, the now empty end crashing against the cliff face, the whole chain it was anchored too shuddering as Nino started to scream. He lost sight of Nino for a moment behind an outcrop of rock, and so he scurried up the chain as fast as he could, even before he heard the screams for help.

"I am coming, hold on!" he shouted again and again and all the time he thought he was too late, and Nino would fall on top of him, sending them both crashing down the cliff face. He had never climbed anything so quickly, but even as he reached the wooden beam he could see it was hopeless. Nino was too weak, hanging with the last of his strength, his bloodied hands slipping to the very edge of the beam. Quintus worked his way to the edge of the beam, refusing to think about how dangerous this was, and how stupid he was being. All he knew was that he wanted to rebalance the beam, but it would not. He just did not weigh enough. It tilted, but it was still not horizontal, and yet Quintus was right at his end of it.

If Nino fell now then he would be in the same position, facing certain death. He had to give Nino the chance, but that was all he could do.

The rope was tantalisingly close to Nino now. Had he not been exhausted and panicking he might have a chance. As it was… Quintus could not dwell on that. It was this or nothing. If he was going to save Nino's life, this was the best shot there would ever be.

"Grab it!" Quintus screamed, terror evident in the pitch of his voice. "Grab the damned rope NOW."

And Nino tried. As he leapt for the rope, Quintus leapt too, almost leaving it too late.

Already the board was shifting down, and he grabbed and flailed for his rope. He nearly missed it. It nearly slipped from his grasp, but he caught it one handed, swung round, wrenching his arm painfully as his body smashed against the rock. He yelped his pain as his shins hit stone, and then scrabbled to improve his hold, before he even took in the fact that the other rope was empty still and there was Nino, falling, leaving his red speckled path down the cliff face.

***

When he had pulled himself over the lip of the overhang, Quintus threw up, retching and sobbing. He had failed. Nino was dead.

And then he looked up and he saw Karl, some distance ahead, but not as far as he should be, and he was limping.

He was limping! He was hurt.

Quintus knew he must have hurt himself on the same leap that had left him bloodied and sore. Quintus was hurting too but it was his arm that hurt the most, and he knew something… he could still run.

And so he did.

Quintus ran, and his lungs started to burn. The air was thinner up here and he was already exhausted, but still he ran and his heart pounded, and up ahead he could see his goal. He could see the temple of Horjock, the watch tower, the gathered elders and priests lining the route, and he could hear their cheering. He could see Karl limping as fast as he could, and people were screaming and shouting at him to run, to run, because there was someone behind, and that someone was him, Quintus.

He knew then that they were the first, and he could see something else. He was gaining on Karl and although Karl looked behind and saw him and kicked on as fast as he could manage, Quintus was going to catch him.

It was close. So very, very close. They were within sight of the temple arch that signified the race end, almost within touching distance of it when Quintus slipped past Karl and in a last and almighty effort crossed the line first.

Quintus collapsed, exhausted, on the ground. The cheers and shouting seeming deafeningly loud as people slapped him on the back, ruffled his hair and shouted their congratulations.

He had won.

He, Quintus of House Aquila had won the Great Race.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

Chapter Eight

Karl

IT had all gone wrong for Karl when he swung on the rope. He had almost missed it and in his mad scrabble to take a hold he had banged his leg hard into the rock side, wrenching his knee. He still had found the strength to climb to safety, but his knee had been hurt, and Karl had been left thinking ruefully that perhaps this was the punishment of Horjock for what he had done to Rin with Nino.

They had hurt Rin's knee and now he had hurt his own.

He had not given up though and had run on for the line. It would have been enough. He was still far enough ahead of Bran that his injury would not have lost him the race. But then Quintus had been there, running like crazy for the line. Karl had seen him coming but could not believe it.

Quintus? How had he got here so quickly?

If he had been fit he could have beaten Quintus in a sprint, and even with his injury he very nearly did, but right on the line he had watched Quintus surge past him, and he had been left feeling a terrible anger, his victory snatched from him at the last second.

How? How had he done it?

Quintus! How?

Bran

Bran was not far behind when Quintus and then Karl crossed the line at the end of the race. He had run the treacherous paths of the Priest's Path with little regard for his own safety. He had scrabbled up rocky slopes, even when the rock had been hot to the touch. He had braved the hot mountain, and nearly made up for the time lost for taking a longer route than Karl, but in the end it was all for nothing. Karl was there, and so was Quintus.

Quintus! How had Quintus made it? He was in awe of his cousin, and also a little glad, but he was shocked too. No one would have expected Quintus to cross the line first – not even Quintus himself. To see his cousin beat Karl was some consolation despite the terrible feeling of failure that he had not succeeded. For the first time in five years the King of the Isles would not come from House Aramat.

He should not be surprised. Horjock had spoken and found him wanting, and Bran knew why. He knew, oh gods, he knew, but he did not want to think on it. He did not want to remember.

Bran dropped to his knees for a rest. He was exhausted and ashamed, and there was no honour to be gained now from running. He would cross the line in a few minutes even at walking pace, and that was enough.

Perhaps it was more than he deserved.

Memories came back unbidden.

He recalled the day once more that Bethan had found him swimming with Quintus. Yes Quintus had been there too, and that seemed to be the great irony of his own defeat. Horjock found him wanting but not Quintus, and that meant that what was important was not that they had been swimming naked. Of course it wasn't. Quintus' own father, Bran's uncle, had laughed and admitted conspiratorially to Bran that he used to swim naked in that very same spot when he was a boy.

No, it was not that which Horjock had spoken on. It was the other thing.

Bran thought back to that late summer day.

He had been wrestling with Quintus in the shallows when he happened to look up, straight into the eyes of his older sister. She was staring back at him with a look caught between horror and fascination, but it was not her look that had worried Bran, it was her pony boy slave, Stijn. Bethan had been riding in her stupid pony trap when she had set out to follow Bran at a distance. She had lost sight of him and had crossed the causeway to look for him before turning back and eventually stumbling on the beach where the boys were playing.

Bethan's look had been horrified, when she had found them, but the look on Stijn's face had been the more frightening. He was panting from the effort of pulling the trap, sweating profusely in the afternoon heat, but on his face was not the look of defeat and acquiescence he normally wore. Instead there was something else. His eyes were narrowed and even around the bit in his mouth Bran could make out a sly smile on his face, and saw at once that he had made a terrible miscalculation.

He had assumed that anyone who did see him on this beach would be from his house, or else a slave, or perhaps a commoner. His own house would punish him but not force him into slavery, commoners would not dare denounce him, and slaves would not be permitted to nor believed if they tried. Thus he had thought that punishment for skinny dipping was the worst that could happen.

Stijn, however, was an indentured slave. He would go back to his house and become a noble, and when that happened… he could tell anyone what he had seen, and of course he would. He would denounce the boys from two opposing houses, and then they would be summoned to court, and yes, in theory they could indeed be forced to become slaves. Stijn would be ritually released from slavery on the day of the Great Race and if he denounced them there then neither he nor Quintus would be permitted to run. Reserve runners would be forced to run instead, and in Aramat that would be the King's own nine year old grandson.

Bran had never considered that his actions might prevent him running the race, but now he was faced with that prospect he could see how disastrous it would be to force the King's son to run, and almost certainly lose the race. He felt sick with dread at the thought, and the thought of what his father would say.

Quintus looked where Bran's gaze had taken him and he turned pale as he too realised the repercussions of Stijn seeing them like this. He hurried up the shore and grabbed his clothing, dressing quickly. Bran did likewise. Meanwhile Bethan had turned the trap homewards.

"I have to get back… the tide…" Quintus said and Bran waved him away. Of course he had to go. Bran did not blame him, although he would have done anything to keep Quintus with him. That was impossible though, and so he left Quintus and ran after Bethan.

"Bethan, it's not what you think…" he started.

She had rounded on him angrily, and then… then there had been the argument. The worst argument he had ever had, and the consequences of that? Well of course that was why Horjock was judging him and not Quintus.

Could he have done anything differently? No, of course not. There was nothing he could have done. If he could have stayed Bethan's wrath… well at least there might have been less bad blood with the Trettiens, but what happened had happened, and Bran sighed heavily, his shoulders slumped in defeat as he walked to the temple of Horjock, to be greeted by a priest who showed him to the cell he would wait in now until the coronation tomorrow.

It was not his fault, he told himself. How had any of this really been his fault? No one would understand. No one could ever possibly know and understand, but it really was not his fault.

Cai

Cai laboured up the last stretch of the Pilgrim's Path. He had not dared the Priest's Path, even though time was short. He had been too ill, and was too exhausted so had taken the safer but longer route. There was still time, he told himself, and pushed himself, not stopping or resting but doggedly moving onwards and upwards.

And now it was the last stretch, the terrible climb levelling out, and the wind suddenly reaching him and cooling the sweat that had clung to him on the way up. The finishing line was within sight, still a thousand paces away, but clearly visible. There was the Temple of Horjock atop the rocky plateau at the summit of the hot mountain.

The sun was very low in the sky now, and he knew he was running out of time. Still the gong had not sounded and so he forced himself into a last sprint. The ground was dry and dusty, and he was thirsty, but he knew there would be water soon. Water and dishonour for not winning the race – but to him that dishonour was honour after all, because he had done it.

He had reached the end, he thought, and his father would be proud.

He had reached the finish before the sun set. He had saved his house from being stripped of their noble status, and although he would be a naked slave for a year, he had endured so much, worked so hard that his house colours worn around his neck would bring honour, not dishonour.

Hopefully his family would buy him back – they had promised they would – but whatever happened, he would feel proud of finishing the race.

One last sprint, but his ankle turned on a rock and he yelped as he sprawled to the ground. He got straight back up again but his foot hurt. He would not let that stop him though. He limped on as fast as he could, and there it was the finish line. Almost there… almost there. How much time did he have left? He hobbled and sobbed, tried hopping, but his good leg was so tired he could only do that for a few steps. He stopped, gathered all his reserves of determination and hobbled on, yelping each time he put weight on his bad ankle.

He was in tears from the pain, but also the relief… almost there…

His father was there, calling him, screaming his name and he felt a fierce pride as he limped on… Just a few more strides and he would be finished. He was so close…

And then the gong sounded.

Cai looked up at the tower horrified.

No! No…he was so near…another few seconds and he would have made it. But the gong had sounded. He was out of time.

His father's face looked almost startled, and then dismayed, angry maybe. Cai knew his own face mirrored the expression. But it did not matter as here came the temple guard to take him away, and he realised with a sudden sick sense of despair that he was not Cai Morrigan any longer. From the moment that gong had sounded with him on the wrong side of the temple, he knew, he was no longer a Morrigan. Now he was just a slave. Forever.

"I don't want to be a slave!" he screamed in despair, trying to push the temple guards away, but it was no use. "Please, I don't want to be a slave."

Wil

Wil climbed the rubble at the foot of Dead Man's Drop and looked up. There was an almost vertical cliff by the drop itself, falling straight into the swamp. That was why it was so named of course. That drop to the swamp was exactly what was wanted when dropping the dead bodies of executed slaves from the top. Nevertheless that sheer drop made it unclimbable. That was not the path that was used as a shortcut, but Wil knew it was nearby. But where?

He moved along the base of the cliff, following a gentle upward slope as he did so. There was more vegetation here, but as he followed it, he realised that there was bedrock forming a kind of path between trees and shrubs on either side. The vegetation did not grow on the bedrock, so the path survived, despite the fact that only a handful of people could have walked this way in living memory.

The swamp was not a place that anyone would willingly visit. Full of dangerous beasts, and now, Wil knew, equally dangerous plants, and filled no doubt with the ghosts of executed traitors, criminals and slaves, it was not a safe place for anyone to venture. And yet Rhidian Aramat had come this way and won the Great Race six years ago. He had braved the dangers and survived, and Wil too had survived to this point. Now there was just the climb, which Rhidian had managed in record breaking time.

Wil followed the path past some more trees and stopped, and stared. What was this?

In front of him was a ruin of some kind, but of what? No one had ever spoken of their being a ruin here at the foot of Dead Man's Drop.

He moved closer, and marvelled at the stonework in front of him. The building looked sound but the forest was reclaiming it, with trees growing in and around the building and vines clinging to the walls.

It looked a little like a temple. Not nearly as large as the temple of Horjock, and lacking its intricate colonnades, but still much more than a shrine to one of the lesser gods.

But what god? Why had he never heard of this?

He wanted to investigate, to enter the building. but he had no time. Already evening was approaching and the mountain was still in front of him. How did he climb it?

He skirted the temple and then saw what he was looking for, and again he was in shock. How could this be here? Who built this?

There, cut into the rock of the mountain itself, was a stairway leading straight up.

He looked up, and saw that the steps seemed to go on and on although they zig zagged back and forth and became steeper and narrower higher up. They ran all the way to a ledge of rock so dizzyingly high up that birds were not flying that high.

That was the way then.

Wil was about to set foot on the first step when he heard a voice.

"I was expecting a Neped boy, and yet a Lapin is what I see."

Wil spun round and found himself face to face with a man dressed in strange grey garments, including a skull cap that hung round his head.

"Who are you?"

"That is the wrong question, little rabbit. The question is who are you?" the man said, his voice rasping as though with age or perhaps lack of use.

Wil frowned and stepped back. Where had this man come from? The temple perhaps? But surely there could be no one in that place. It had looked totally abandoned.

The man offered Wil a hunk of bread. Wil looked at it dubiously, although he was ravenously hungry and thirsty too.

"It is forbidden to aid the racers," he said, but the man just threw his head back and laughed.

"And what will happen to me if I aid you? I care nothing for your laws." Wil's frown deepened and he stepped further from the man.

"I will be under Horjock's curse if I accept…"

"I see you are already under Horjock's curse," the man replied, "so a little bread will not worsen your fate."

"You mean the slaves?" Wil said, glancing behind him. "They did not aid me – they were just baiting croc…"

"No, no. You bear more guilt than you claim for that, but Horjock cares nothing about slaves. Horjock is the god of the free, not of slaves. Still I see that you are under his curse. I see it lie heavy upon you. You cannot escape it. Not until a year from today."

Wil frowned. The man was rambling, talking nonsense, and yet it made a kind of sense. "So someone has won the race already?" he surmised. It would hardly be surprising as it was already getting late.

"Yes, yes. That is so," the man replied, still offering food. "Take some, it will aid you on your climb."

Wil tentatively took some bread, and bit into it. It tasted fresh and good. He nodded his appreciation. He should get going, but a couple of minutes rest was going to make little difference now. Still, the man had said he was under the curse for a year. A year today the curse would be lifted. Was he saying he could still make it? That he could still complete the race before sundown? He looked at the lengthening shadows dubiously.

"You say I will reach the temple of Horjock before sundown?"

The man said nothing. "You said I would be under the curse exactly one year? I will be a slave for just one year?"

"It is as you say," the man replied.

Wil found it hard to believe, but still he wanted to believe it.

There was no reason to trust this stranger, but his words still gave him some hope. He looked again at the stairway up the mountain, again marvelling that no one seemed to even know this was here. If someone were to clear out the dangers of the swamp, this could be the safest, fastest and best route up the mountain.

Thinking about the dangers brought Rin to mind though. This man was expecting Rin. Was he some kind of Neped spy? And yet if that were so then he would not have helped him. He doubted that were so, but in any case he felt the need to unburden himself regarding Rin's death.

"Rin Neped… he didn't make it. Some plant thing got him. It was horrible… but there was nothing I could do."

The man looked at him gravely and nodded.

"Ah but prophecies are tricky things," he replied and Wil frowned. The man began to draw in the dust with his feet and Wil looked at what he drew, realising that the image he was seeing was both a picture and a word. He had seen the image writing before, but only priest's studied it in depth. This man was a priest then?

The picture was of a bird, and Wil recognised it as making a sound. Tal. Just that one sound, which did not mean anything on its own.

"What prophecy? Is it something to do with that?" he asked, pointing at the drawing in the dust.

"No, or yes. Who can say? That is drawn for the future, but what future that is, that is tricky. The future is not a map, and it cannot be read. Still there are beacons that shine in the shadow, and ward against the night. Nights of fire and death where one sits in the dark, cowering and covering his face as he denies who he is, expects only death, and where one symbol may be enough, and one image may ward and save many lives," the man replied, his words tumbling out in a breathless rush.

"So yes, that is for the future," and then he scuffed over it with his foot. "But you destroyed it? How is that for the future?"

"I destroyed only the image of the thing. The thing itself is where it needs to be."

The man was babbling, and Wil sighed. He was wasting time. He wanted to know about the prophecy and the temple and everything else, but time was short. Surely too short. He had no time to waste.

"I have to…"

"Yes, you do. Go now," the man replied and waved him away dismissively. Wil bit his lip but wasted no more time on the strange man. Instead he started to run up the steps. When he looked back, the man was gone.

The steps were a fast route up the mountain side and went on and on, but they were cracked and worn. Wil could climb quickly but had to take care. When he was maybe a third of the way up the mountain, however, he came across a problem. The winding stair path stopped abruptly, where a section of the mountain had clearly fallen away. He recognised the scar of Dead Man's Drop. Beyond it the stairway carried on, eastwards, towards the summit, but there was no way across the drop. Instead a small rocky ledge ran in the opposite direction, and as Wil followed it around, he saw that it led up a scree covered slope that would allow him to climb to the top of Dead Man's Drop.

He ran up the scree slope, feeling it give way under his feet, but his speed carried him most of the way up it, and then he could catch roots and branches of mountain bushes to pull himself up. He was at the top of Dead Man's Drop, but he still had to make his way to the Fork of the Ways, and easy walk from here to the south. From there he would have to choose the Priest's Path if he was to have any chance of finishing. But what chance? The shadows were long now. How much time did he have?

Surely enough. The priest had confirmed it so Wil ran onwards along the path that condemned prisoners were so often led, and towards the Fork of the Ways. His legs ached, his side hurt, but he did not stop.

It had been a quicker route, but not quick enough. Too much time had gone by, and Wil knew with a sick certainty that nothing he could do would get him to the top of the mountain before sundown.

When he reached the Fork of the Ways he could see to the west, and even as he watched, he could see the sun slipping below the horizon. It was over. He was out of time. The old man had been babbling, mad.

Wil considered throwing himself from the cliff, but he could not bring himself to do it. Instead he sat down on the path, pulled his legs up tight to his body and cried. That was where the searchers found him four hours later, and marched him to the temple, to spend a miserable night in a cold cell, waiting… waiting for the morning… and after that? After that what? He should have thrown himself off the cliff when he had the chance.

Chapter Ten

Quintus

CORONATION day was the second day of the spring festival, and the men of the great houses were all gathered in the temple square, along with the priests, and selected women and even some commoners. All had journeyed up the Pilgrim's Path, either carried in slave litters or making the climb on their own.

The noise was incredible as a nervous but triumphant Quintus was escorted from the chamber he had spent the night in, freshly washed and fed, but still wearing just his striped underwear. As he stepped out into the temple square there was a cheer, and even screams of delight, particularly from House Aquila, but House Aramat were applauding happily too, and nobles of the other houses clapped their hands politely and stood in respect for the champion of the Kingdom of the Isles.

Quintus felt over-awed as every eye fell on him. He knew he should do something or say something, so he raised an arm in recognition and the applause grew louder. It was incredible, unbelievable. He, Quintus Aquila, was champion of the Kingdom of the Isles. He saw his mother waving, and trying to look happy but tears were running down her face. He waved to her, and felt a lump in his throat, knowing he might never see her again.

He might have been overwhelmed with the sadness of that, but at that moment a priest stepped forward, holding the elaborate winner's garment, and started to dress him. Quintus stood still as several priests fastened the gold and jewelled belts to him, dressing him as a champion deserved.

Then he was handed the staff of Horjock itself. Quintus took it reverently, and bowed his head to the priest who handed it to him. The staff was beautiful, inlaid with gold and gems. It was one of the most precious objects in the kingdom, and perhaps the most important symbol of them all, and here he was, carrying the fabled staff, said to have been wrought by the god himself. He looked at it and imagined all the victors who had held it before him, and all the kings, and imagined the moment the great god had plucked it from the heart of the hot mountain and given it to the first men long, long in the past.

Quintus knew what he must do, so he took the staff and crossed to where the elder of House Aquila stood. Octavius Aquila bowed his head to Quintus: the only time that the house elder would ever acknowledge a child in such a way, although Quintus knew he was no child now. He was a man now – the champion of the Kingdom of the Isles. It was as a man that he handed the staff to Octavius, who took it and held it up. There was a cheer and then, as one, everyone present began to chant the oath of allegiance to the new King of the Isles. Quintus spoke the words too, and now tears ran freely down his face. He had done this. He had brought the kingship to House Aquila, and King Octavius would rule the kingdom this year.

After the oath of allegiance was done, and cheers swelled and then finally ebbed once more, it was time for the losers to be paraded into the temple square. There were some new cheers but also jeers and taunts now as four sorry looking boys were marched in between an escort of priests. They were lined up in front of Quintus, and the boy's eyes fell on Bran for a moment and he felt the lump in his throat again. He was not looking forward to this part, at least where Bran was concerned. Still it had to be done.

As was the custom, he began with the person who had finished the race second. Karl Trettien looked at him, his face not concealing his anger and hatred. Quintus looked back at the boy who had killed Nino, and knew that what he was about to do was too good for Karl. Karl deserved no mercy.

He stepped forward, took the ceremonial knife from a waiting priest, and with it he cut away Karl's green and white striped underwear. He held it and then looked Karl full in the face as he fastened it around the boy's neck.

"I won't forget what you did," he whispered to Karl, and Karl flinched just slightly. A twinge of conscience or was he just feeling the shame of his nudity in front of all these people?

When the collar of indenture was fastened securely, Quintus pushed his hands on Karl's shoulder and the boy scowled as he was forced to kneel at the victor's feet. Quintus gave a grim smile as the Trettien boy was forced to accept his new servile status, and to acknowledge Quintus' superiority. Tradition had it that all new slaves must immediately learn to kneel to their superiors.

When he was on his knees, Quintus turned away from him. Karl was beneath his contempt now, just a slave for the next year.

Bran was next, and Quintus tried to change his expression to an open smile for his cousin as he cut his underwear away. He wanted to convey his friendship, and the fact that he regretted what he was doing, but the expression was just lopsided and confused. Still Bran seemed to understand and bowed his head meekly to allow Quintus to cut his red and white shorts from him.

Quintus carefully twisted the fabric as he hung the collar of indenture around Bran's neck.

"Bran…" he said, wanting to say more, but he had no words to express what he felt. Would Bran run the race again next year? A boy could represent his house two years in a row and there was that gap in House Aramat that might make them do so. Perhaps he could run it again, or perhaps he had missed his chance. Quintus hoped that the dream of the three or them: Quintus, Rixon and Bran, being reunited in the temple was not gone, but he thought it might be. How often would he see Bran in the future? He could not know, so he wanted to say good bye, and to deny that it was good bye, and to tell Bran all he felt for his friend. But Quintus was ten and not good at expressing his feelings in words, so he said nothing more, and Bran said nothing back.

The collar was fastened, and Bran was being jeered by the onlookers. Quintus' duty was done, and he blinked away tears as he went to the next boy.

Cai had not finished on time, although he had been so close. Still the law was the law, and again Quintus regretted what he must do. He gave Cai a small smile, but Cai's head was down and he was clearly crying. He did not notice the kindness Quintus wished to convey, so Quintus just got it over with quickly. He used his knife to cut the boy's orange and white shorts away, and let the fabric fall to the ground, discarded. A priest picked up the expensive coloured fabric and ceremonially burned it in a small brazier.

Cai was houseless now, and although people jeered and some from his house ceremonially turned their backs on him, Quintus thought the jeering was more muted than it had been for Bran or Karl. Cai had given the race his best shot, and but for his injury he might have made it on time.

The law was the law though.

Quintus sighed and moved to the last surviving boy. Wil too had been crying but he was not crying now. He looked fully into Quintus'. face and Quintus looked back, but he did not have a smile for Wil. Wil had been full of stories of crocodiles and he had told people of the death of Rin. The stories were terrible, but there had already been suggestions from the priests who had been tending Quintus overnight that Wil should have thrown himself to the crocodiles for the good of all, and that he had been assisted to escape them by two slaves, one of whom was dead and the other had been so badly injured that he was not expected to be allowed to survive.

Quintus did not know if he would have killed himself had he been in Wil's place, but there was no doubt that his defeat was the most dishonourable of all. There was no doubt that this boy deserved his life of slavery, so Quintus ceremoniously cut Wil's blue and black underwear from him, and looked full in the face of the Lapin boy as he trod the material into the dust.

Now the jeers and booing was full volume again as the priest picked up Wil's former house colours and burned them, and then the four naked boys knelt under the full force of the crowd's disdain.

Quintus turned to the King of the Isles and spoke the ceremonial words.

"My liege, I give you slaves for House Aquila."

Octavius stood up and responded in kind. "I thank you, Quintus, Champion of the Isles, for your gift."

And now the auction began.

Karl

Karl glared back at the Aquila boy who had stolen his victory at the last minute. He had spent the night brooding about the loss, and still there was no part of him that thought that the result had been right. Losing to Bran, Rin or Nino would have been galling, but they had all been strong contenders. Not Quintus. No one had thought he could win, and what made it worse was that House Aquila was so closely aligned to House Aramat that it would hardly benefit his house to have this change of leadership. Karl had cursed his lack of foresight not to disable Quintus when he had the chance, early in the race. That failure had allowed Quintus to steal victory, and also to spread scurrilous tales of how he had all but murdered Nino. Nino had just been too weak and scared to jump when he should, but House Kawabata were unlikely to accept his version of the events now.

So now Karl suffered the ultimate indignity of being stripped of his house colours by the younger and weaker boy, knowing that every watching eye saw him as the weaker one. He scowled as his house colours were turned into the collar he must wear for a full year, and then endured the scorn of the watching crowds. He found his father among the crowd, stony faced, and felt a new tug of failure. He had wanted to win so as to know his father's pride in him, but instead he would only ever be the son who failed. There would be no second chance for him, as he would be too old next year. Only his younger brother, Sjors, could possibly win the Great Race now, and how galling would that be? to be the son who had failed?

Karl stood naked, aware of the eyes upon his body, seething with anger, humiliation, failure. He was glad when attention turned at last to Bran. At least House Aramat had finally been deposed, and Bran would know the same humiliation of failure, but with Aquila holding power, what would become of the arrangement that was to have seen the Aramat boy bought by his house? He did not know. Probably Bran would escape that fate, be bought back by his own house. Aquila would not oppose that, and so Stijn must wait at least another year to be avenged.

When all four boys had been stripped, and Wil and Cai's house colours had been ceremonially burned, Quintus spoke the words that transferred their ownership to the King of the Isles, and then the auction began.

Karl had never watched the auction before, but he had heard about it. The reality of it seemed noisier and less structured than he had imagined. He knew that the King's Deputy would run the auction, and that the deputy was often the father of the Champion of the Isles. That was how it worked today too, but it seemed almost as if there were four or five auctions going on all at the same time, as elders from all the houses discussed and plotted with each other. That was not unexpected, as most houses did not want to overpay for their boys by bidding against each other, and Karl supposed that right now House Aquila was arriving at an arrangement with House Aramat over buying back Bran.

That was the first surprise for Karl though, because where he had expected House Aquila simply to announce that Bran had been sold or gifted to House Aramat, the King's Deputy instead raised his hands, and spoke, his face a mask as he spoke without emotion.

"Lot 1 is Bran of House Aramat, indentured as a slave for one year. Who will bid on this fine slave?"

Karl could not believe that Bran was being sold, and looking at him, he saw that Bran felt the same way. Surely he must have expected that House Aquila would keep him or pass him back to House Aramat, but it seemed the alliance between the houses did not run to such niceties.

Except it then became clear that something deeper was going on, because House Aramat made no bid. Kawabata made the first bid, and then his own house raised it. Aquila clearly felt the price was too low still and added their own bid, but still there was nothing from Aramat. Karl watched in astonishment and Bran's face burned with humiliation, and a pain that must have been born in this betrayal of him.

Trettien raised the bid again and Aquila did not push their luck. Neither did Kawabata make another bid, now that they saw Trettien were keen on him.

"Any more bids on lot one?" asked Quintus' father. Surely now Aramat would make their bid. Surely Aramat, the richest of houses would not begrudge the sale price to their neighbours and allies on Aquila. Karl waited with baited breath, and the whole temple square seemed to grow quiet, waiting, but no last bid came.

"Sold to House Trettien," and that was the end of it. Bran was sold to House Trettien for the year.

Karl felt a moment of elation and exhaled a shout. "Yes!" Despite Aquila snatching victory, still the aim of acquiring Bran Aramat had been achieved. Karl was delighted and he saw a grim smile on his own father's face in the watching crowd.

Aramat had turned their back on their loser, no doubt angered by his failure. They had not even tried to buy him back, perhaps as a warning to their future runners. Whatever their thinking, this suited Karl just fine. Bran would now suffer the wrath of House Trettien, and Stijn would indeed be avenged. Despite the fact that he was now himself for sale, Karl still managed to hold his smile at that thought. He looked at Bran and winked. Bran blushed, scowled and looked away.

Bidding started then for Karl. He had expected no special consideration from House Aquila, and when the bidding started he was not surprised that no deals had been made. His own house did bid for him, but so did Kawabata and Aramat. Even Neped put in a bid but were soon priced out. Karl understood why. Quintus' story had made the rounds and Kawabata wanted vengeance, whereas perhaps Aramat wanted him as collateral for their own enslaved son. Neped too wanted vengeance on the boy who had attacked their champion. Karl realised that he was not popular, but only as the bidding went higher and higher did he realise how that lack of popularity made him very desirable property.

He looked at his father, who was with the other house elders, tight lipped, looking furious, but he did see his father's hand raised, the bidding going again to Trettien, and still Kawabata raised it.

When the bidding was done, Karl was sold for five times the price of Bran, but thank the gods, Trettien had finally prevailed. He had been bought back into the safety of his house, but at a terrible cost that his father would no doubt never let him live down.

There was less interest in the other slaves. Cai was bought by House Neped, but only, it seemed, because no one else much wanted him, although perhaps also in recognition of the friendship between their houses. Perhaps Cai's duties would not be as demanding as they might otherwise have been – but still, who cared? He was under the curse of Horjock now.

House Morrigan might have expressed an interest, grateful to their champion for running the race at all, despite the odds against him, and thus preserving their noble status. They might have sought to purchase him and treat him well, albeit as a slave, but there was a long standing convention that the former house of a life slave did not buy him back, because that would imply a tie that no longer existed.

House Aquila would not be happy with that price, but could comfort themselves with the money already made. Wil was bought by House Kawabata, who paid much less for the life slave than they would have paid for Karl, indentured for just one year.

Karl supposed he should not be surprised. He was still a Trettien, but Wil was nothing now. Why would anyone assign much value to him? Again, his own former house did not even bid on him.

With the bidding done, the slaves were led away, and again there was booing and jeering as they were led out of the temple to begin the long hike down the mountain, before they would be sent to their new homes. Karl looked at the others and smiled. He did not care about Wil or Cai, but he was very happy he would see Bran's humiliating year. That was one small compensation of not winning the race.

Karl wondered what Quintus was thinking now, as the other runners were being marched away, leaving him alone in a temple he could not leave.

Quintus

Quintus shivered as he watched the slaves being led away. He could not believe that Aramat had not even bid on Bran. He felt so bad for his friend, and again a little guilty that he had won the race, rather than Bran. Now Bran was to serve the hated House Trettien, and he was under no illusions about how badly that could go. He wanted to beg his father to do something to help Bran, but what could be done now? They could have refused to sell him, but Quintus knew that Aquila needed the money from the auction, and it was foolish to turn away the slave price when Aramat themselves would not buy him. Quintus understood all this, but still he feared fro his friend, and worse, he knew that he had few ways to discover Bran's fate. Would the priests tell him how he fared? He had no idea.

Two priests and the high priestess had come to him now, to escort him into the temple. He looked one last time at his parents, and his mother looked distraught. That was no surprise, but the look on his father's face was. His father also had tears in his eyes, and looked distressed. Quintus had never seen him show any such emotion, and that set Quintus' stomach fluttering with anxiety. He tried to smile at his father, but the man did not smile back, just raised a hand as if in farewell.

If he could have, Quintus would have turned and run back to hug his mother and beg to stay with her, but the priests flanked him closely, as though to prevent any such thing. Quintus swallowed and walked on through the great entry colonnade of the Temple of Horjock, the cheers and adulation ringing in his ears and then fading away as slaves closed the two giant gold leaf inlaid doors, shutting out the outside world.

"This way," the High priestess instructed, and led Quintus towards a second set of doors leading to the inner sanctum of the temple, the altar of Horjock. Quintus followed, and stammered out a question he had been wanting to ask, but that had not seemed appropriate until now when they were, more or less, in private.

"What happens now? When will I meet the other champions? When can I see Rixon?"

"They are waiting for you beyond that door," the priestess said, her voice not unkind.

Quintus smiled and walked towards the door.

Bran

"Bethan, it's not what you think…"

Bran remembered the words he had said desperately to his sister that fateful day at the end of last summer. He remembered how he had felt: desperate, ashamed, angry. Mostly angry, because if she had not followed him then who would ever have known? If she had not brought Stijn with her then who would have cared? But she had followed him and she had caught him with Quintus, unclothed in public like a pair of common slaves. She had caught them and so had Stijn, the stupid Trettien loser whom she had been treating as a pony boy since the last race.

"Sure Bran," she huffed, and then looked at him squarely as he jogged along beside the trap in the late afternoon heat. "But what in the name of the Lord of Fire were you thinking?"

"You can't tell father."

"Of course I am going to tell father!" Bethan said, "You think he shouldn't know about his son parading about like a common slave?"

Bran said nothing for a while, just jogged along beside the trap, blushing, and thinking nervously about what his father was going to do to him.

"Bran, they might not even let you run if this gets out. Did you think of that?"

"I… I don't think father would tell anyone else Bethan…"

"You think you can keep this secret?" she scoffed, looking meaningfully at Stijn as he laboured up the gentle slope, puffing and panting as the cart slowed to a walking pace.

Bran looked too and brooded. He felt a rising tide of anger in him and decided to let it spill out.

"I don't care. I don't care because I never wanted to run the fucking race. You think I want to end up like Stijn? or worse? You think I want to run and maybe die, and even if I win I get sent away forever? You think Horjock cares if I have a little bit of fun before that?"

"Is that what you think?" Bethan spat. "You think that poor little you gets a choice? Gets to run around being a pampered little rich boy and never having to grow up and be a man? You think anyone even cares what you think?"

"Look at who is talking, riding around in your stupid pony cart! Its not me who is pampered!" Bran shouted back, his voice loud as his anger deepened, but he could see Bethan becoming angrier too. Maybe he had hit home, or maybe it was something else, but her mouth tightened and her cheeks dimpled the way she did just before she had a screaming fit. Bran braced himself for the onslaught, but Bethan didn't scream or shout. Instead she just looked at him coldly. More coldly than she had ever looked at him before.

"At least I am who I am," she said and her words were cold too.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

Bethan's eyes flashed but Bran saw a change come quickly over her face and she shook her head quickly. "Nothing, forget it."

"It's not nothing. What did you mean?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does," Bran persisted. "What do you mean? You are who you are? What does that mean?"

Bethan's eyes narrowed. She shook her head, put a finger to her lips. Bran was getting more and more infuriated now.

"You are such a… a cunt!" he said, using the worst word he could think of to describe his sister. "You pretend like you are all something special, but you are not. It's me who has to run the stupid race, and me who has to leave my family if I win."

Bethan scowled.

"No you don't," she spat.

"No I don't what?"

"You don't have to leave your family you moron," she snarled and then looked him directly in the eye.

"What I am about to tell you – you can't tell anyone. Mother and father think I don't know. They think I was too young to remember, but I do remember. I remember mother's tears when I was little. She was always so sad. And I remember all the time she spent in the kitchen garden. I didn't understand it then but now – now I do.

"There is a stone in the herb garden. You have seen it yes? White marble?"

"What has this got to do…" Bran began, but Bethan went right on talking as though he hadn't said anything.

"Bran, when the fever struck House Aramat, all the boys your age died. You know that right? After Rixon they all died. Everyone under the age of two."

"I know! You think I don't know why I have to run the race? I know that. Everyone but me died," Bran retorted, angrily, huffily.

"No Bran," she said quietly. "They all died. Every last one of them."

Bran stopped jogging, his mouth open, wanting to say something but he could not think what to say. The pony trap pulled ahead, Stijn labouring hard as he pulled the trap and rider through the afternoon heat.

"Liar!" he shouted at last, but nor before they were already cresting the hill and about to disappear from view. Bethan gave no sign that she had heard, just drove Stijn onwards, leaving him to walk more slowly towards his inevitable caning. But the threat of punishment was not uppermost in Bran's thoughts any more.

Bethan was wrong, or a liar. She was just trying to hurt him. And what of that stone? Yes mother placed flowers on there in a bowl sometimes but it was just decoration wasn't it?

It was just a stupid lie. She just wanted to get back at him for calling her a pampered cunt.

But then why didn't mother treat him like she treated Bethan? Why did Bethan get to have a slave boy when he just had to train and train for the Great Race?

That was obvious too though, wasn't it? Because he had to run and Bethan never would.

And what about the way Quintus' parents were with him? Why weren't his parents like that? Why was it Quintus' mother who gave him treats and told him stories and bandaged his knee when he fell, when his own mother didn't do those things?

No. It was a stupid, stupid lie. It was all lies.

Because if it wasn't a lie, then who was he? If he wasn't a son of Aramat then how could he represent them at the race?

Horjock knew it was a lie. Horjock would prove it. He would win victory with Horjock's help because then everyone would know Bethan was a liar.

Everyone would know…

And that had been the worst of it.

Bethan had said it right in front of Stijn. Stijn had heard it all. How could Bethan have been so stupid to say all that in front of the Trettien indentured slave?

It turned out that this last did not matter. That was the last time Bran saw Stijn alive.

But it was not his fault. It was Bethan's fault. She should not have said any of what she said. If she hadn't said that, she wouldn't have…

Maybe what happened next was an accident. Maybe she hadn't intended to do it. She just got angry and went too far with the whip.

A terrible terrible accident. Stijn had collapsed in the heat on the way home and Bethan's legendary temper had got the better of her. That was what everyone thought. She had laid into him with the whip so mercilessly that Stijn had died right there where he had fallen.

It was not his fault.

That was what he had told himself, over and over. It was not true, and not his fault.

Horjock would vindicate him.

But Horjock had not. Horjock had done exactly the opposite. Instead of giving him victory, the god had given victory to Quintus so that none would doubt that the victory was Horjock's gift, and none would doubt that he, Bran, was found wanting.

Horjock had spoken and what Bethan had told him was true after all, and that must be why his house had abandoned him too. They would not pay the indenture price to have him back because he had never been one of them. Better to treat him as a warning to future boys about the price of failure. Better to let him be bought by House Trettien to mend fences and reduce tensions. He was a pawn, just a pawn. A worthless piece in a game of strategy that could be sacrificed for the greater good.

If his parents had truly loved him he doubted they could have let this happen to him, but he knew now that they never really had. He knew why too. He knew why his parents were ready to sacrifice him for the greater good of the house.

He had visited that marble stone often since Bethan had told him. He had visited and looked over the patterned white surface, and then one day, just last month, he had thrust his fingers into the soil and found the tiny inscription below the soil line.

My Beloved Bran, it read.

The true Bran Aramat was buried there.

But if Bran Aramat was buried there, then who, in Horjock's name, was he?

End of Act 1

NEXT PART