"Why did you let him go?" the dwarf demanded finally. "After what they did? After what they tried to do?"
Apollo sank to his knees, suddenly lightheaded as the gold in his veins retreated from the wound in his side. "Because he’s not our enemy," he said, his voice sounding distant to his own ears. "Not our real enemy."
"Could have fooled me," Nik said weakly from where he sat, clutching his injured arm. Blood seeped between his fingers despite his pressure on the wound.
Cale knelt beside Nik, examining the cut with a soldier’s practiced eye. "It’s deep, but clean. We need to bind it before you lose more blood."
Mira tore strips from her already ragged cloak, her face pale with concern as she worked to bandage Nik’s arm. "The bleeding won’t stop," she said, her voice tight with worry. "It’s not clotting properly."
Lyra approached Apollo, her green eyes studying him with that same penetrating gaze that seemed to see more than he wanted to reveal. Without a word, she helped him remove his tunic to expose the wound in his side. The scarred leader’s blade had slipped between his ribs, leaving a neat puncture that welled with fresh blood each time Apollo breathed.
"Not as bad as it could be," she said quietly, pressing a folded cloth against the wound. "But it needs cleaning and binding."
Apollo nodded, too exhausted to speak as the adrenaline of battle faded. The gold in his veins had retreated to a dull throb, conserving its strength to heal his injured body. He would recover faster than any mortal, but the wound still burned with each breath.
Thorin paced the clearing, his axe still in hand as if expecting the bandits to return at any moment. "We should have finished them," he muttered. "All of them. They’ll be back, and next time they’ll bring more men."
"And we’d be no better than they are," Cale countered, finishing the bandage on Nik’s arm with a tight knot. "Killing in defense is one thing. Slaughter is another."
"Tell that to Nik’s arm," Thorin snapped. "Or Mira’s. They didn’t show mercy, so why should we?"
"Because we choose to," Lyra said quietly, her hands steady as she wrapped a bandage around Apollo’s torso. "That’s the difference between us and them. Between us and the forest."
The argument continued as they gathered their scattered possessions and prepared to move on. Apollo listened without joining in, the bow a reassuring weight across his knees as Lyra finished tending his wound.
The weapon had cooled completely now, though he could still feel its pull eastward, an insistent tug that seemed more urgent after their encounter with the bandits.
"We need to find shelter before dark," Renna announced, scanning the forest with wary eyes. "Somewhere defensible, in case they decide to come back."
No one argued. With painful slowness, they gathered their remaining supplies and formed their usual traveling formation, though now their movements were hampered by fresh injuries.
Apollo took his position at the front, the bow in hand rather than across his back, its guidance pulling him ever eastward. Follow current ɴᴏᴠᴇʟs on n0velfire.net
They found a suitable campsite as twilight deepened the forest’s shadows, a small rise with a fallen tree that formed a natural barricade on one side.
Thorin and Cale worked together to build a fire, their earlier argument set aside in the practical necessity of survival. Renna scouted the perimeter, setting simple alarms that would warn of approaching danger.
By the time true darkness fell, they had established a semblance of safety. The fire cast flickering light across exhausted faces as they shared what remained of their rations, pitifully small portions that did little to restore their strength.
Apollo sat slightly apart from the others, the bow across his knees as he stared into the flames. The gold in his veins had begun the work of healing his wound, but the process was slower than it should have been, as if something in the bandit leader’s blade had carried a taint that resisted divine recovery.
"Why didn’t you kill him?" Thorin asked suddenly, breaking the uneasy silence that had fallen over the camp. The dwarf’s voice was quieter now, curious rather than accusatory. "You had the power. We all saw it."
All eyes turned to Apollo, waiting for his answer. Even Nik, pale from blood loss, watched him with unexpected intensity.
"There’s been enough death," Apollo said finally, his fingers tracing the bow’s intricate patterns as if seeking guidance from the ancient weapon. "The bow wanted me to kill him. I could feel it urging me forward, demanding justice." He looked up, meeting Thorin’s questioning gaze. "But justice and vengeance aren’t the same thing."
The fire crackled, sending sparks spiraling into the darkness above. Apollo watched them fade, each tiny light extinguished by the night’s breath.
"Those men were desperate," he continued. "Corrupted not by the forest’s gold but by fear and survival. Killing them wouldn’t have cleansed anything."
Thorin grunted, not entirely convinced but unwilling to argue further. The dwarf turned his attention back to his axe, running a whetstone along its edge with practiced precision.
"The arrow you fired," Lyra said softly, her green eyes reflecting the firelight. "I’ve never seen anything like it."
Apollo tensed, feeling the weight of the others’ attention. The gold in his veins pulsed with warning, urging caution. He’d revealed too much in the heat of battle, let slip power that raised questions he couldn’t answer.
"The bow," he said simply, offering the same half-truth he’d given before. "It has... properties I don’t fully understand."
"Properties," Cale repeated, the word hanging between them like smoke. "That’s one way to describe tearing open the earth with light."
Apollo met his gaze steadily, though the pain in his side flared with each breath. "Would you prefer I had killed them? Used that power on men instead of the ground?"
Cale looked away first, his weathered face troubled in the flickering light. "No," he admitted. "But I’d prefer to understand what we’re traveling with. Or who."
The conversation lapsed into uneasy silence. Apollo felt the distance growing between himself and the others, not physical space but something deeper. Trust strained to breaking by power they couldn’t comprehend, by mysteries he refused to explain.
’They’re afraid of me now,’ he thought, watching their furtive glances when they thought he wasn’t looking. ’Not just wary, but truly afraid.’
The realization stung more than he expected. These mortals, with their brief, brilliant lives and fragile bodies, had become more than just traveling companions.
Their courage in the face of horrors that would break most gods impressed him. Their resilience humbled him. And now they feared him.
"We should rest," Renna announced, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "I’ll take first watch."
They settled into their usual rotation, though Apollo noted how they positioned themselves differently than before, no longer clustered together for warmth and protection, but spread in a loose circle with him at its edge. Only Mira seemed untroubled by the day’s revelations, settling her bedroll near his with a small smile of thanks.
"That arrow," she whispered as the others drifted toward sleep. "It was beautiful."