The crying started before they saw him: a child's voice, high and desperate, calling down from somewhere in the pines. Help. Somebody. Help me.
They found him hanging from the top of a tall tree, a little boy of six or seven, wrists and ankles roped, swinging, sobbing, begging the passing holy men to cut him down. Bandits had killed his family, he said between sobs, and strung him up here to die, and he had been hanging for days, and would the kind masters please, please help.
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