Dan didn’t spend all his time watching the village. Hunting wouldn’t do itself. And sometimes food came in the form of roots and bark, not prey.

  By late afternoon he was moving carefully through the forest, not stalking or hiding, just searching for edible plants and medicinal herbs. Food and medicine never grew right where you needed them.

  The dogs followed close behind, tails swaying, ears pricked. Suddenly they froze and gave a low, muffled growl. Dan crouched, pressed his palm to the ground, and waited. Footsteps. Soft, cautious. Then a faint crack of a dry branch. He signaled the dogs to stay quiet and crawled forward through the brush.

  On a small clearing between the trees, five hunters moved silently. Tall, muscular, their faces painted with ochre, dressed in short hides around their waists. They were tracking something, maybe an antelope or a boar. One of them jumped over a fallen trunk, slipped, and fell with a heavy thud. The others ran to him, shouting. One crouched down, another gestured sharply. The injured man groaned. Dan couldn’t make out the words, but the scene was clear. The man’s lower leg bent at a wrong angle. Both bones were broken.

  For a moment they stood around him, then one took off a necklace made of teeth and laid it on the man’s chest. Without a word, they turned and walked away, leaving him there.

  Cruelty? No. That was simply their world. A man who couldn’t walk meant danger for the group. A mouth that couldn’t feed itself meant death for others. It wasn’t malice. It was survival.

  When the sounds of their steps faded, Dan waited a little longer. The dogs whined softly, eager to move. He stood and stepped into the clearing, keeping his hands open and visible.

  “Hey… easy. I won’t hurt you.”

  The wounded man hissed, dragging himself back. His eyes were wide with panic. Dan didn’t move closer right away. He spoke calmly, softly, his voice steady, and showed his hands again before kneeling down. The dogs settled beside him, watching.

  He pointed at the broken leg, then at himself, then made a simple gesture. Help. The man breathed hard but didn’t pull away. That was already progress.

  Dan scanned the area and started working. First he needed sturdy branches. Two would do. He snapped a few, stripped the bark, then found a vine strong enough to tie with. He placed moss under the leg for padding, bound the splints tight. The man cried out but didn’t resist. Dan tore a strip of bark with healing sap and wrapped it around the wound. Then he patted the man’s shoulder, quietly reassuring him.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  He built a stretcher from two long poles and cross-branches. Lifting the man carefully, he tied him in place so he wouldn’t fall. The path back was long: over stones, through the trail he himself had made days ago, and finally toward the river where his small raft was hidden.

  At the bank, he paused to catch his breath. The dogs jumped aboard first. Then he slid the stretcher onto the raft and pushed off with a long pole. The current moved slowly, as if carrying them gently. The air grew cooler with the coming dusk.

  By the time they reached the island, the sun was setting. Dan carried the man into the hut, laid him on the bed of furs, gave him water, and checked the leg again. He changed the bandage, packed fresh moss underneath.

  That night he slept near the fire with his spear beside him.

  At dawn, he brewed a bitter tea from bark, ground it into a paste, and rubbed it on the man’s thigh. It dulled the pain a little. The important thing was that he was alive. His breathing was steady, his eyes clearer. He no longer looked at Dan like a threat.

  When the man woke fully, he lay still, staring at the roof, at the faint lines of smoke curling up from the dying fire, at the dogs curled nearby. And at Dan, who sat crushing bark in a stone mortar.

  “Alive,” Dan said quietly without turning. “That’s a good start.”

  He knelt beside him and touched the bandage. No heat. That meant the swelling hadn’t turned bad. He changed the moss, tightened the splint.

  The man watched every move, his eyes alert. His fingers trembled slightly, but not from fear. It was curiosity, focus, maybe even respect.

  “What’s your name?” Dan asked, tapping his chest. “I’m Dan. Dan.”

  He pointed at himself again, then at the hunter.

  The man said something long and rough, his voice gurgling with strange syllables.

  “Right…” Dan chuckled. “I think I’ll just call you Bob. Works for me.”

  He pointed again. “Bob.”

  The man didn’t understand but nodded anyway, accepting it.

  “You know, Bob,” Dan said while rinsing the cloth, “sometimes I wonder if this is all a mistake. You’d probably prefer if I’d just left you there. Or died somewhere along the way.”

  He glanced at Bob. The man met his gaze, calm but wary.

  “They didn’t throw me here for nothing. They want me to do something. Otherwise why would you be here?”

  Bob nodded slowly.

  “The thing is, I’m a soldier, not a prophet. I know how to cut, stitch, and carry the wounded. Not how to build worlds.”

  He tightened the bandage again.

  “But if not me, then who? Guess we’ll just have to try. Even if you don’t understand a word I’m saying.”

  Bob nodded again, a little more firmly this time.

  During the day Dan showed him how to grind bark, how to wrap the leg. Bob tried, clumsy but eager. He spilled water once, dropped herbs twice, but he learned. And most importantly, he no longer looked at Dan with fear.

  The next day he tried to sit up. Dan stopped him. Too soon. But he noted the will in him.

  Every night by the fire Dan talked to him. Words didn’t matter. The tone did. The warmth did.

  Days passed. Dan kept changing the bandage, showing every move. Bob now helped silently, copying his motions.

  He was still hurt, still weak, but the fear was gone from his eyes. What replaced it was respect. And the first hint of trust.