9,794 words. And there’s a novel in there, too.
The hell of it was, it didn’t make any sense to just run away, either. He didn’t know where he was, really, and he didn’t think he was better at sneaking through the woods than bandits were. He was shadowing the road, which at least gave him a chance to hear any bandits first, but they’d be better armed and armored in any confrontation. He couldn’t stay and he couldn’t flee.
You could give the caravan up, he reminded himself. It’d be a horrible thing to do, but what’s one more horrible thing in this world? They’ll let you live if you do. They might even let you go.
No, they won’t, he told himself. Best case, they’ll make me stay to be a bandit, and then a couple months later I’d be just like them. If I wanted that, I’d have done it years ago. Gregor didn’t think he was better than everybody else, but he didn’t want to be worse than regular people, either.
I’m being an idiot, Gregor told/argued with himself. Then he paused. Maybe I am being an idiot. What am I good at, again?