"Help—!"
"Mother! Father!"
The harrowing screams pierced the heavens. A woman clung to a bandit's leg with both hands, begging him to spare the child he had snatched away. Her voice broke with every plea. "Please, let him go! He's only a child—"
For a moment, the bandit seemed to soften.
But he still tore himself free of the woman's grasp and kicked her hard in the shoulder. As she cried out in pain, he hurled the child to the ground. The child landed headfirst, and his neck snapped with a sharp crack. His body and head lay at a grotesque angle. The sight drove the woman completely mad.
She had tried to fight the bandits to the death, but they had subdued her.
The youngest and prettiest women were bound and thrown over the backs of horses. The somewhat older ones weren't given that treatment; the bandits tied them together in a long line with ropes. As for the village men, they were all killed, regardless of age. The bandits savagely stabbed every corpse several times with their weapons. Some were so mutilated they were unrecognizable. They were well and truly dead, left to lie in the wilderness.
Half an hour later, the bandits rode off laden with spoils.
They were herdsmen from the Ten Crows tribe.
Ever since the Longwu Commandery Governor had been brutally murdered, the border walls and fortress checkpoints had become little more than low, useless obstacles to them. Raids like this took place every few days. Their group had been late to the game; their brothers in the neighboring tribes had already made a fortune. Every time, they returned with a full haul of gold and silver, food, women—everything they could want!
How could they not be tempted?
They had the women of their