‘You’ve got to sign up and win the sword back!’ Millie told me for the third time. 
‘We could just ask the organizer if we can have it back,’ I answered, also for the third time.
‘We tried that the first time you said this, and it still hasn’t worked!’
‘Well, maybe if we provide a satisfactory second prize to replace it…?’
‘He still won’t budge. You know it! Oh, come on, Daffodil!’ She was looking very anxious now.
I ran a hand through my hair while surveying the square. The tournament would start very soon, and the other contestants were all lined up, looking rough and capable. Also, they were all men. 
‘We can buy you a new sword?’
‘We have no money.’
‘Then we could, you know, just forget about it altogether and go home?’
This extracted a frustrated howl from Millie’s throat. ‘I pulled it from the stone! Don’t you get it? I’m supposed to have it, it’s mine!’
‘Alright, alright! Maybe you are supposed to have it - but why do I have to get it back?’
‘Isn’t that obvious?’
‘No. Why don’t you sign up and get it back? I’ll just wait for you here.’
‘Because they’re all men! And I’m just...I’m a girl.’
This caused me to stare at her. ‘What the hell do you think I am?’
‘I - I didn’t mean that you aren’t.’ She had the grace to look ashamed. ‘But I mean, you are far more capable than I am, and besides you’re my helper, right? If I am to become princess of this land, I need you to fix this for me.’
‘The day you become princess of this land I’ll be sure to migrate,’ I grunted, not loud enough for her to hear it.

At that moment, the man we had come to know as the organizer of the tournament stepped up on the stage.
‘Aight, everyone!’ he shouted at the contestants. ‘Prepare yerselves for a rough ride now!’
‘Go!’ Millie whispered. ‘Do it now!’
‘Millie, I told you I don’t want to!’
But she gave me a hard push in the back and suddenly I was stumbling forward, in front of the stage.
‘She wants to join too!’ Millie shouted somewhere in the first lines of the spectators.
‘I don’t -’ I began, but my voice was drowned in the sudden excited murmur of the people.
‘The girl wants to join,’ the organizer called. ‘Can someone pull her on stage?’
‘I want to joint too,’ an unexpected voice said behind me.
I turned. The voice had been one of a young man, but I couldn’t see his face for a cap he had pulled over his head, hiding his features in the shadows. He was cloaked and slightly taller than me.
The organizer took him in, just like everyone else. Then he called: ‘Two new contestants! Hop on and we will commence!’
The cloaked person pulled himself on the platform with ease, then bend down to drag me up. Behind me, the crowd had exploded in applause and shouts.
‘Thank you,’ I mumbled, turning around. I could see Millie waving, jumping up and down. I kinda wanted to wrap my hands around her throat and strangle her.

Reluctantly, I joined the line up of contestants. The organizer started to explain the rules (no weapons, no severe violence and no hurting the bystanders - very comforting), as the cloaked young man leaned over to me and coolly said: ‘You don’t look like you belong here.’
‘Well spotted,’ I hissed back. I was not in the mood to discuss my chances now.
‘This tournament will consist of four stages,’ the organizer man went on. ‘The first, called Endurance, will now commence! Gentlemen - lady, if you please.’
As he spoke, a great barrel had been pulled on stage. We were urged to sit behind a long, narrow table, each with an empty beer pint in front of us.
‘The task is simple. The one of you that drinks the most pints wins! Have fun.’

*

Stage one - Endurance: The Definition Of Beer

Quick mental note list:
·a spade
·five toilet paper rolls
·a fake sword so as to trick anyone into believing it is the real one(therefore not having to compete in life risking games to win the actual sword back)

When I drank my first pint, I noticed how the taste was much like lukewarm water with just a hint of urine. It made me nauseous immediately and I pretty much prayed that the other contestants would be equally horrified, thus giving me the opportunity to win without having to drink so much more as three or four pints.
My hopes were futile. As time progressed, more and more of the inaptly brewed stuff disappeared in our bellies. After my tenth, it felt like I had a balloon in my stomach that had rapidly swollen to the size of a large ball. I glanced down, expecting to look pregnant, but the balloon was surprisingly invisible.
When I looked up again, I spotted that the cloak of the other unexpected contestant had fallen slightly back. It revealed a pale face and I wondered whether he also felt sick by drinking, or that it was perhaps his natural shade.

A few minutes later, some of the men had started to sing. Half an hour later that singing had turned to something that sounded more like inexperienced members of some obscure cult were practicing their dark chanting. Still more later, most of the men had turned quiet as well as a delicate shade of green. I myself was not feeling much different. I was playing with my somaniest pint (I had given up counting, feeling it would only make me depressed), postponing the moment when I had to bring it to my lips again, when de cloaked, capped man talked to me again. He had given up a little while ago, following suit of a few others.
He said: ‘You are persistent to win that money, aren’t you?’
‘No thanks,’ I said, looking apprehensively at my beer jug. ‘I’m no competition for you, I just want that sword.’
‘Is that right?’ he said, his voice quite muted. I supposed he wasn’t feeling very well either. ‘I see then.’ 
I drank half of the pint, my eyes tightly shut. Then my stomach seemed to give a great surge and I dashed away from the table to throw up off stage.
That’s where Millie found me sometime later, pale and trembling in a corner with the cheers and whistles of the crowd ringing in my ears.
‘You did really well,’ she said, holding my hair so that I could puke without getting dirty.
I shook my head. ‘I’m quitting this right now, Millie. This is crazy.’
‘No!’ she cried, ‘you shouldn’t! The sword -’
‘In case you failed to notice,’ I said, wiping my mouth with my sleeve, ‘I lost.’
‘Yes, but you lost late enough to stay in game. You can still become runner-up easily, you don’t even have try to win this tournament after all.’
For the second time I shook my head. It hurt like hell. ‘You want Merope down, not me.’
‘Okay but…imagine you win all the next stages. The others don’t seem all that competent - some quit drinking even before you and the others are too drunk too do something else now! We could still be winning a lot of money…We could even buy my sword back from the runner-up in that case!’
I sighed but had to admit that the bag of money did look awfully tempting.
‘Okay,’ I told Millie, ‘we will see what the next stage will be. If it is not as sickening as this, I’ll do it. Otherwise I quit.’
‘Deal,’ she said, helping me up on my feet. ‘Come on now. I expect they’ll give you some time to recover.’

*


Stage two - Competence: A Rock, Me And A Hard Place

Quick mental note list:
·a spade
·five toilet paper rolls
·a fake sword so as to trick anyone into believing it is the real one(therefore not having to compete in life risking games to win the actual sword back)
·litres of lemonade to secretly switch with beer
·never stray off the path. Just don’t.

The second stage took place the next day, for which I was very grateful. I guessed to others were too, or at least I heard them bragging all the way down to a valley just outside town. Only me and the cloaked young man were silent, both apprehending the next test (or so I deducted. It was hard to tell really because, like I said, he didn’t talk).
‘At this and the next stage,’ the organizer man (whom I had began calling Bob in my head) bellowed, ‘you will be allowed to pick someone from the audience to team up with, provided you share the winnings.’
‘How is anyone supposed to share a sword?’ I muttered. ‘Break it?’
The hooded man looked my way, and then turned his gaze off me.
‘Now, we have set up a bit of a parcourse for you guys and gal. Your goal is a simple one: retrieve the stone that’s on the peak of Devilshill. For the newcomers: that’s north until you cross the river, then follow it upstream.’
‘But the river -’ one of the men said. I wanted him to finish the sentence but he didn’t, apparently feeling that anyone understood what he was talking about.
Bob smiled pleasantly. ‘Exactly. You’ll have to figure it out. Now, on with it! You will get three objects that might or might not be of help to you. Then you may pick a partner and get going. You have the whole day. Return here, winning or quitting.’
Attributes were handed out at random. I watched what the others got (a spoon, an empty jug, a pitchfork, a left-hand mitten) until someone pressed my own items in my hands. I looked down on it: a bone whistle strapped to a leather cord to hang around your neck. I tried it, but it gave no sound. I also had a pebble the size of a chicken’s egg, and a cotton bag.
Millie came up to me, her hair tied back into braid. ‘What’ve you got?’
I hung the whistle around my neck, chucked the pebble in a pocket and hung the bag to my shoulders. ‘Just this. You’re coming with me, I take?’
‘Course I am. It sounds a bit like fun.’
‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘Crossing a patch of wood, retrieving a stone from a hill doesn’t sound altogether challenging. I wonder what the catch is.’
I glanced around. Most others had found a partner to team up with; few others had chosen to remain alone. This included the hooded man. I tried to discover what his items were, but it seemed as if he were empty handed.
‘Winners of last stage will get a headstart entering the forest,’ Bob called. ‘Please line up in order; the girl - ah, two gals now, I see - stand next to last.’
We obediently moved down the line. ‘I hope we’ll catch up on them,’ Millie sighed.
‘I wonder if we’ll know where to catch up as well,’ I answered. ‘We don’t know the area and if we get lost, we can screw it.’
Since we were only second to last, I looked over my shoulder to see who would enter the woods last of all. It was the cloaked guy. He had donned his cap once more, hiding his eyes but revealing the rest of his face. He was shaven and quite delicately built. At least he didn’t look like one of the coarse farmers that lived here.
‘Good luck,’ I said, because I could tell he had caught me looking at him.
He smiled at me.
‘Where are the items they handed you?’ Millie asked curiously.
‘I don’t need them.’
I raised my eyebrows but tugged at Millie’s sleeve to indicate that she shouldn’t get near him. He somehow worked on my nerves. Even though he had smiled, there was something that struck me as odd. Though, maybe it was just a sense of natural competition. We were, after all, trying to beat each other in this game. Then again, hadn’t I told him that I wasn’t even trying to win?
‘Yeah right, that’s why he’s ended up last,’ Millie whispered to me, as we both turned around to face the entrance of the forest once more.
One by one, the teams or the odd lone ranger disappeared behind the trees. Finally we, too, made our way there. Before the sky disappeared above the tree tops, I took a glance at the sun, orientating myself.
‘North until we reach a river,’ I said. ‘Well. No point hanging around.’

‘Ooh, look!’ Millie said, about an hour later. We had made our way through the dense and dark forest with some difficulty. ‘It’s some kind of trail.’
I nodded. It was only a small patch path, hardly wide enough for two feet to stand next to each other. Ferns and brushwood grew over it.
‘Maybe a hunter’s trail,’ I said.
‘D-do you think there’re wild beasts in this forest?’
‘Probably some,’ I shrugged. ‘Well, it conveniently leads north.’
We set food on the trail, me leading, Millie right behind me. I tried to listen carefully, because surely the others must be somewhere around. However, all I could hear were the cracking of branches under our feet, the rustling of trees and birds and the wind, making eerie sounds in the tree top heights. The cloaked guy had not caught up on us, or maybe he’d just gone for a different direction.
Suddenly, the path split up, a new trail leading off into the undergrowth. This trail was even smaller than the one we were following now, barely more than trampled ferns and kicked away thickets.
‘That’s odd,’ I said. ‘Looks like it’s trodden on freshly, doesn’t it? Look at those plants bending back.’
‘Someone from the tournament?’
‘Must be.’
‘But the trail bends away from the path. We were told to head north, right?’
‘Yes. But perhaps the path made a slight curve. We might not have noticed, and I’m starting to lose my sense of direction here.’ I scratched my nose, thinking. ‘Someone else went this way at least. I say we follow.’
This smaller track soon led us away from the few patches of sunlight that fell through the branches. Even the sounds seemed to dim, as if someone had thrown a filter on us and the forest around us.
‘This is eerie,’ Millie whispered.
I did not answer, but that was mainly because I, too, felt like a thousand invisible eyes where watching us.
Suddenly, the trail ended. I stopped so suddenly that Millie bumped into me.
‘Ouch,’ she said. ‘What?’
‘Dead end.’
We were silent for a while. Then Millie shakily said: ‘But that’s impossible. Someone just walked here.’
I let my eyes dwell over the forest ground, hungry to find more trampled plants, to discover that someone took a turn and went the other way. Nothing.
‘That’s really really scary,’ Millie said in an undertone.
I got myself together. ‘I’m sure there’s some sensible explanation for this.’
‘Like what? A deer that walked up to here and dissolved? Some giant...giant bird that decided to take wing?’
‘Yes…no! Of course not. Someone set a trap for us, that’s what this is. We’ll just turn back and…’
I failed to suggest what we would do after that, because as I turned around, I noticed that the forest ground was clear, like no one had just walked there. We had wandered off too far and it was so murky here that I could not even see the first trail.
‘Right,’ I said, trying not to sound panicky. ‘Do you remember which way we came from?’
Millie had gone very pale, I could tell this even in the shadowy light of the forest. She pointed a trembling finger. ‘I-I thing we passed that tree.’
But as we made our way back, she uncertainly looked around. ‘Or maybe we didn’t pass here…Oh gosh, Daffodil, I think we really are lost.’
I nervously fumbled with the items I had gotten beforehand. None of them were of any use. I really wished I had gotten a compass or something, or even one of those pitchforks to help me feel less fragile out here, unarmed. ‘You know, I think we should stop moving before we get ourselves even more lost. I stopped facing that tree.’ I turned around. ‘So the trail ended about here, and you were right behind me Millie, so this is where you must have been. I’m sure we didn’t make too many weird turns. We’ll just have to determine north again, and make our way back to the old trail.’
It sounded far easier than the looming trees and the dense air made it feel. The sun was blocked out from view and I couldn’t think of any other marks to check our direction on.
‘Maybe…’ Millie said hesitantly, ‘maybe one of us should climb a tree.’
‘Try and see the sun, you mean?’ I peered up, ‘It might work. What are your climbing experiences?’
‘None,’ she admitted. ‘Well, I did a climbing course once, with school…but that was just a wall with a lot of knobs and we were all secured in this climbing harness…You?’
‘Same, but without the wall and the harness. But at least I am stronger than you and I’m not wearing a dress.’

I looked for a tree that seemed sturdy and reached up high enough.
‘This one, I suppose.’ The ash tree I was pointing at seemed ancient. Its trunk and branches were gnarled and knobbly, with deep groves in the bark.  I placed my hands somewhere so I could drag myself up, then sought for a spot for my feet.
I had about reached the first, low branch when Millie called: ‘What if you slip and fall down?’
‘Well, that depends,’ I panted, ‘on how high the spot is I fall down from.’
‘And in the worst case?’
“I’ll break my back, my neck and all my limps. But that’s just the absolutely worst case, so don’t worry yourself yet.’ I heaved myself even higher. The branches grew less broad here; I had to cling to the tree’s stem.
From down below, Millie’s voice sounded even more anxious: ‘What should we do if the absolutely worst case does happen?’
‘Me - I’ll do nothing.’ My foot slipped and I grabbed a bough just in time. ‘You: make sure that you get out of my way before I crush you.’
‘But if -’
‘Kindly shut up,’ I huffed. ‘Else I’ll make sure I’ll drop on you.’
After a slow climbing I finally reached a point from where I could see most of the sky. Squinting, I tried to orientate myself, tried to find the sun through the many layers of hazy clouds.
‘Do you actually know what time it is?’ I called down.
‘Not sure - around noon?’
‘I thought so.’ I pointed: ‘I think the sun’s about there. It’s hard to tell exactly, but that spot looks a bit brighter.’
‘You sure?’
‘No, but I think we’ll just go with that. I can’t hold on like this for long.’ As I said it, I felt my fingers losing their grip. Warily, I began to make my way down, making sure my feet found steady support before I put my weight on them. When I stood back on the ground, I sighed. My arms were trembling with the effort.
‘So, that’s north alright. You don’t have a knife on you, I’m sure?’
‘No,’ Millie said. ‘Nothing.’
‘Me neither.’ I retrieved the pebble from my pocket. It had one fairly rough side which I pressed to the tree’s bark and made a gash down. I had to cut three times before the mark was well visible.
‘Whoever set this trail won’t fool us again,’ I said. ‘Let’s get going.’
We moved back in the right direction, pausing occasionally to mark one of the trees. Quite soon we stumbled upon the first path once more. I saw Millie’s relieved face and knew that I must look the same. The downside was that we had to leave this track in order to keep heading properly north. We continued leaving marks on trees, and even drew some chalk white signs on a few large rocks we encountered.

Finally Millie held up her hand, saying: ‘Do you hear that?’
I nodded, knowing she meant the sound of rushing water somewhere nearby. We quickened our step, until the trees cleared and we came upon a glade. Across it, a river flowed down, cascading down a number of steep slopes further on. The current was fast, dragging ripped-off branches and fallen leafs with it as it hurried past us in a surging fashion.
‘I guess that’s the river he mentioned.’
‘No doubt about it.’ I inspected the opposite river banks with my eyes. They were both very steep and I couldn’t spot one single safe crossing point.
‘I think we ventured up too far,’ I said. ‘We’re supposed to cross, but there’s no bridge or anything here. Let’s just follow the stream down for a bit until we get to a crossing point and then go up once more. It’s a pain, but I guess it can’t be helped.’
‘Don’t bother yourselves,’ a voice spoke. I almost shrieked out of surprise and turned on my heels towards the sound. It was the cloaked guy, emerging from the trees into the glade. ‘There’s no bridge down there, nor further up the stream.’
‘Oh,’ I said, momentarily lost for words. ‘So-so you’ve checked, then.’ It was another of those stupid, pointless remarks, as it seemed obvious that he had. I wanted to put my face down in the stream to cool my burning cheeks.
‘I have.’
Millie, who seemed not to be bothered with anything and actually glad to see another living person, asked: ‘But how are we expected to cross, then? I mean, that stream’s a bit too much, isn’t it?’
He smiled. It was not particularly friendly, nor specifically hostile. ‘Not for an expert.’

And he simply stepped into the water, without as much as a flinch that betrayed his discomfort.
I had begun saying ‘You shouldn’t do that,’ but by the time I had reached ‘do’ he was already halfway the river; not sunken, not swimming, not exactly drifting - but walking, quite steadily, on wide stepping-stones.
‘The heck,’ I uttered, after gawking and staring at this for a bit. ‘There were no stones in the water earlier!’
He took a glance over his shoulder, so that the cap fell off his head, revealing a cascade of flowing, dark brown hair and a rather amused pair of eyes.
‘Oh, really?’ he asked, pretending, I’m sure, to sound bemused. ‘You must have been mistaken.’
As he reached the other shore, the stones he’d been walking on were rinsed by the river water. They did not emerge again.
He raised his hand in a goodbye - I think it was - pulled the cap over his head once more and disappeared into the other half of the forest, leaving us utterly shaken.