The landscape lurched, and Braint stumbled. The grass was muddy and wet, and her cloak was soaked through from the incessant drizzle. As last night's ale came back up, she tried desperately not to let it pass through her nose, but failed. Alrik laughed at her.

"And there I was beginning to think you were not human. You drink like a Larachi, girl."

"I am no Larachi," she replied, trying to clear her nose. Her pride felt futile, considering the state she was in, but she had always despised Larachis.

"I meant it as a compliment. Aodhan and Holda would be upset to hear you take such a tone."

"They are no Larachis either,"

Alrik laughed again, though there was less humour in it this time.

"One day I will guess your tribe, if I have to go through them all."

"What does it matter, anyway? None of us has a tribe any more." She said angrily. "I do not pry into your business, so stop asking about mine."

She spat on the floor and stood up groggily, swigging some water from her flask to stop her head from pounding.

"I would answer you if you did, you know," he replied, in a faintly mocking tone.

"And I will kill you if you do not stop."

He bared his yellow teeth at her.

"Have it your way, then. Can you stand and fight?"

She nodded. "Why?"

"Holda has seen a cart coming. There are barrels on it."

Braint spat on the ground again and began to walk down towards the roadway. The summer had been long and hot, but the weather had turned now and trade had slowed along the Ffordd-Numen, or the Greenway, as the Breelanders called it, though it was never busy, and had not been since the old Numen city of Tharbad had been swallowed by the marshes a hundred years ago. Still, it was land still claimed by the Tribes, and that meant that what she was doing was not an affront to the Gods, though it certainly felt like it.

These were Brigants – outcasts and filth, no-tribes, and when she caught her reflection in the lake as she stooped to drink, she could hardly see any difference between her and them. She did not look her age any more. She had never been strikingly beautiful like her sister, but she had always been pretty, in healthy, slightly boyish way. She was not any more: though she was less than a year into adulthood she looked older: thinner faced, filthy, and her golden torc was gone. She had torn it from her neck and thrown it into a river long ago in despair, and though she had looked for it since, the Gods had accepted the gift, and she would never find it again. She almost began to weep again as she thought of it. Her uncle had made that torc, and when she had gone into the wild for her God-nights, she had dreamt of the great mountain eagle, he had shaped new terminals for it; of her eagle and the dragon that was the mark of the Cambriani tribe and marked her status as daughter of the Haldad of the tribe, though her three brothers were all heirs before her. It was shaped so that when she closed it about her neck the two heads interlocked and bound together. She had been so proud of it: a golden warrior's torc bearing the shapes of the two strongest of spirits, and a design unique among the tribe.

She had meant to wear that torc on her dying day, so that the ancestors would know her when she crossed the river. Without it, she was nothing; worse than nothing. A lowlander at least had enough pride to know what he was, even if it was a peasant serving a long-dead King from a distant land. What was she now? Not even a stray. Brigant – outcast.

She scowled at the grass as she approached the road, and crouched down. The pounding in her head was no better yet, but the dizziness had gone, at least. She crawled forward into position and waited, making sure the rope was taut.

After a few minutes, she could hear the rumbling of the cart and the thudding of hooves as two stout ponies clumped down the wet grass of the roadway. There was cheery conversation coming from the covered cart, and puffs of smoke. That was confusing, but it did not matter; the cart was not on fire. She waited until the wheels drew level with the white quartz marker by the road and tugged hard on the rope. The wooden bars shot up out of the roadway and tangled in the spokes immediately, making the wheels jam and the driver fall forward out of the seat with a yell. Braint sprang up and jogged over to the cart, as Holda, Alrik and Aodhan all approached from the other side of the road with bows bent. The driver was leaning back out over the cart and swearing in confusion, trying to see what had caught in the wheels, but when he caught sight of her, he went white and stared.

"What'sa matter Ham? Branch got snagged in the...?"

Another face was leaning out around the canopy to see, and the man stopped dead as he saw Aodhan moving in front of the ponies. No, not a man: a half-man, like the type that lived in Bree and Staddle.

Braint walked closer. She had not drawn her sword, but she did not need to with the other three's arched bows putting fear into the pair. The driver was old: maybe even sixty years. A shot of leaden guilt sunk through her heart as she looked at him. There was no guard, either. That was worse: it made it feel more like a crime.

"We want not your blood," she said in her heavily accented Westron. "You will give us your silver and your ale, and you will go back the way that you come."

"Gold, she means," said Alrik, showing his yellow teeth in his most charming leer.

"Silver, I mean," she corrected.

The old man gaped at her and then scowled. The half-man looked petrified.

"Bloody thieves!" the old man howled. "What right have you!? What bloody right!?"

"The right of Carrach, the waystones!" Holda said, glaring at the old man with something close to hatred. "You passed them a league back. That means you are in the lands of the Old Gods now, and you made no offering, nor asked no passage!"

"Asked no passage? You bloody mad, you filthy whore? There's no folk what lives 'ere! These is King's lands and they's empty!"

Braint stepped closer, quickly putting herself between Holda's bow and the old man, so that Holda had to move around. He had given Holda the right to kill him by offering such an insult, though he likely did not know it.

"She is right. These were tribe-lands once. That claim has not been forgotten."

"And them tribes is gorn! All buggered off east long ago, din't they? Driven off by the King, bless 'im!" the old man snarled.

"Their ashes and bones are still here, and your King is just as dead as they are. Come now, father. You do not have to die here. Give me your silver and leave the barrels and you may go."

The man bridled, whilst the half-man had barely moved, still sitting bolt upright and shaking.

"I ain't your father, little girl! And if I was, I'd be ashamed of you! I ain't about to be robbed by no child!"

With that, the old man drew a knife from his belt with one hand and lunged to grab her with the other. With snakelike speed, Braint stepped back, drew her sword and slashed in one fluid movement, knocking the knife cleanly out of the old man's hand. She raised her left hand to divert his grasp, but he never even came close: a barbed arrow shot past her shoulder and buried itself in the old man's neck.

"NooOOOOOOO!" came a rising wail from the half-man.

Braint stepped back, eyes wide and mouth open in horror as the little man dropped out of the cart and ran to the gurgling old man. Braint could not say anything. Her heart was hammering, and she felt sick again. The little man began to weep as the elder's breath stopped; howling like a child.

"No, Ham! HAM! You've killed him! You've killed Ham! You killed him!"

Braint opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. Instead, Aodhan strode over and kicked the half-man fully in the mouth, knocking him back against the cart and breaking his teeth.

"Stop! STOP!" Braint rushed in and slammed into Aodhan, knocking him off his feet, from where he glared at her and spat on the ground. "What are you doing!?" She shouted, in the tongue of the tribes. "Haven't you done enough? You just killed an elder! Not a guard! Not a man-at arms! AN ELDER!"

"He was attacking," said Holda dismissively.

Braint was breathing heavily, barely able to think. Alrik cursed from the back of the cart.

"This is no ale. It's leaves! Dried leaves!"

Braint looked down at the dead man and felt guilt tighten at her throat. Alrik had moved back to the front of the cart, carrying a firkin with a broken top. He grasped a handful of long dried leaves from it and waved it in the hobbit's face.

"What's this rubbish, little cripple?" he demanded, grabbing at the halfling's blood-soaked collar.

"P-pipe weed. Y-you smoke it! In a p-pipe" he stammered, shaking like a leaf.

"What good is that? Where's your ale? I want your ale!"

"W-wineskins! Under the seat!"

"W-wine, is it?" He slapped the hobbit hard across the face.

"Leave him alone!" Braint yelled furiously.

Alrik looked across at her with contempt on his face, then snatched a leather purse off the hobbit's belt and threw it to her.

"Make yourself useful, girl. Count out the coin." he said, without his usual humour, before turning to ransack the cart. The other two were already rolling the barrels off the road into a pile by the bushes.

Braint's lip quivered and she blinked hard, trying to stop tears of shock rolling down her face. She crouched by the hobbit and gave back the purse.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I didn't want this to happen. I'm sorry."

The little man rolled over, hiding his face from her, and curled up on the ground, weeping and cradling his broken mouth. Braint stood, feeling sick with shame. When the other had emptied the cart, she stooped to lift the old man's body back onto it, but Holda stopped her, leaning in and wrenching the arrow back out of the man's throat with a spurt of blood.

"No need to waste," she said, coldly.

The hobbit had not stopped weeping by the time she had loaded the old man's corpse onto the cart, chanting the prayer for the newly dead under her breath. When she tried to rouse him He simply told her to go away and curled up tighter.

Braint backed away, her heart leaden.

Holda stared at her. The fervent look in her eyes was frightening.

"Feel no pity, Braint. They are on the Gods' lands. This is mercy."