They refuse but then things get wierd

After another look around her companions, the Hunter nearest the road returned her attention to Matt. “We refuse. Artemis’s Hunters do not swear to a boy because he tied a few lines through the trees. Cut us down, or do not. The oath is not yours to demand.”

Five minutes of arguing had brought him back to the same choice, except now everyone involved was more irritated. Matt let out a short breath that came uncomfortably close to a laugh. “I guess you want to remain trapped there.”

The answer should have been another threat. Instead, the woman in the snare stopped trying to work her shoulder beneath the cord, and the two near the road abandoned their efforts to untangle their legs. With nobody disturbing the branches, the steady drip of water from the canopy became audible again.

“Yes,” the nearest Hunter said. “We do.”

For a moment, Matt stared at her, then searched the others for someone who found that answer as absurd as he did. All six had stopped trying to escape. The sudden agreement sent his attention straight to their hands, checking for a knife passed between them or a knot loosened while he was arguing. “You want to stay caught in my traps?” His voice rose despite him. “You were threatening to kill me over them!”

“That is what I said.” The Hunter nearest the road glanced at the dagger beside his thigh. “You may put the knife away. If you leave the lines alone, there is no reason for you to approach us.”

The invitation did nothing to loosen his grip. A minute ago, getting him within reach had been exactly what she wanted, and now she was offering to let him stay beside his tree as though they had finally settled a minor disagreement. “You wanted me to cut you down. What happened to that?”

“We have stopped pulling against each other, for one thing.” With a small movement of her bound legs, she allowed her companion to shift a boot away from her shin. “The line is bearable when neither of us is tightening it. Getting us loose would require you to come here with a blade, which you have made quite clear you are unwilling to do.”

“I’m unwilling to get stabbed afterward,” Matt said, watching the other woman’s hands while she settled. “That doesn’t explain why you suddenly want to stay.”

“Because I would prefer this to having you cut a loaded line while worrying about whether I intend to reach for my knife.” Irritation sharpened her voice. “At present, I know what is holding me and where I will land if it gives way.”

The explanation was practical enough that Matt almost followed it before remembering she had spent the last five minutes ordering him to do precisely that. None of the knots had changed. Neither had the blade in his hand, nor her opinion of the person holding it. “Then tell me which line to cut. You were perfectly happy to give instructions before.”

“Leave them alone would be my instruction.”

Behind her, the Hunter in the snare eased her head away from a wet cluster of leaves. The movement pulled the cord across her shoulder, and Matt caught the tightening around her mouth before she settled again.

“That’s hurting you,” he said, glad to have something visibly wrong to point at. “You can’t seriously want to spend the night like that.”

“Only when I turn.” After testing her weight against the branch beneath her, she found a position that took some pressure off the shoulder. “This supports me well enough. I can feel my hands, and the cord is over my jacket.”

“So you’ve checked that it isn’t cutting off your circulation.” Matt looked from her pinned arms to her face, waiting for some sign that she could hear herself. “That’s a reason you can tolerate it. How does it make you want to stay?”

“For tonight, I am willing to tolerate it.” Her gaze moved toward the dark ground beneath her. “Getting down would leave me sitting in that until we moved on. We have already travelled through the storm, and there are several hours before dawn. I would rather rest.”

Matt glanced at the muddy hollow, then back at the woman hanging over it. Dry ground began barely a few feet beyond her boots. Somehow she had looked at the available arrangements and chosen the one involving a rope around her arms.

“There’s an entire forest you could rest in.”

“And you chose this part of it,” she replied. “The ground rises toward your hammock, the trees break the wind, and anything approaching from the road must pass the outer lines. It was a sensible place to stop.”

Hearing his own reasons repeated back to him made the conversation worse. The campsite was sensible. Being caught in its defences was the problem, and every Hunter present seemed to have quietly removed that part from consideration. Near the road, the pair finished adjusting their legs without either attempting to free them, while the woman against the trunk rested more of her weight against the bark.

“You were threatening me over those ropes,” Matt said. “Now you’re explaining why you’ve decided to sleep in them.”

“They have held through everything we have done to them,” the Hunter by the trunk replied. Her bow remained pinned behind her, its grip beyond her fingers. “The anchors are sound, and the knots have not slipped. I do not expect to fall merely because I stop struggling.”

“You called them coward’s snares.” The compliment had brought his attention back to her hands. Both remained trapped, though that offered less reassurance than it should have. “You don’t get to spend five minutes promising to murder somebody and then start praising his knots without expecting a few questions.”

“We like your trap,” said the woman nearest the road. “You have been told why.”

There was no smile to suggest she was enjoying his confusion, and Matt could not decide whether that made her more convincing or considerably more dangerous. The bow behind the trunk remained inaccessible, the knife still lay in the leaves, and nobody had gained an inch while he was distracted. Every explanation contained something he could verify for himself, yet none accounted for six furious Hunters deciding they wanted to remain tied up in his campsite. If they were trying to draw him closer, he would have expected a plea for help. Apparently he was supposed to be won over by an informed appreciation of his rope.'

“You like a boy’s trap.” Matt heard how ridiculous it sounded, but the woman nearest the road brightened before he could decide what to ask next.

“It is wonderful, actually.” With an appreciative look along the cord, she traced its course through the undergrowth. “The first line draws attention away from the second, and trying to avoid that brings you straight into the snare. Even the branches you scattered serve a purpose. We followed every approach you left us.”

The pleasure in her voice made Matt glance toward her companions, expecting at least one offended response to that description. Instead, the woman against the trunk examined the nearest anchor with renewed interest. None of them seemed troubled by whose work they were admiring.

“You make it sound like you enjoyed that.”

“Now that I can see how it fits together, I rather do.” Her smile looked as genuine as her earlier glare. “You made excellent use of what was here. I would like to see how you arranged the outer lines when it is light.”

Matt kept his eyes on her while checking the distance to the tree beside him. He had heard Hunters praise good work before, usually when another Hunter had done it. Being asked to explain his own required considerably more suspicion than he had apparently brought with him.

From the low branch farther in, another woman watched his cautious shift with amusement. “You need not look so alarmed. Nobody is asking you to join us.”

“I wasn’t worried about being invited.” Matt glanced at the knife in the leaves, then back at its owner. “I was wondering when you planned to start trying to kill me again.”

“You have been told we wish to stay.” The Hunter nearest the road seemed puzzled that this had failed to reassure him. “You may remain by your tree if it pleases you. We have asked nothing else of you.”

Being granted permission to stand in his own campsite finally exhausted his patience. “Right. You like my traps, you’re letting me stay in my own campsite. Apparently you like me now.”

“We do,” she said, and the woman against the trunk nodded with a small smile.

The dagger slipped from Matt’s fingers and struck a root before falling into the leaves. Its clatter barely registered. A Hunter of Artemis had just agreed that she liked him, while another was looking at him with an expression he had never seen directed at a boy during any of their visits to camp. He must have misheard the answer, though that left the smile unexplained.

“Sorry, you like me?”

“Yes, you.” Her gaze dropped toward the fallen dagger. “You might want to pick that up before you lose it in the leaves.”

At the reminder, Matt crouched hastily, keeping his attention on the nearest pair while his hand searched for the hilt. Neither moved toward him. One even shifted her boot away from the blade to make it easier to retrieve, which did more to unsettle him than another threat would have.

“You were going to kill me,” Matt said as he straightened, keeping a firm grip on the recovered dagger. “Now you’re helping me find my knife?”

The nearest Hunter’s smile faded at the reminder. “We were angry, and you were sensible enough to keep your distance.” Her attention lingered on his tight grip before returning to his face. “I am sorry we frightened you. I would rather you felt safe talking to us.”

An apology had been nowhere among the answers he was prepared to hear. Matt looked toward her companion, expecting the familiar contempt to reappear at the suggestion that a Hunter owed him one. Instead, she was watching him with a fondness that made him wish he had stayed behind the tree.

“We discussed that already,” he said. “You thought keeping my distance made me a coward.”

“Then we were unfair.” The second Hunter admitted it readily, with a small, rueful smile. “You stood there arguing with all six of us because you had enough sense to want a promise first. I rather like that you would not let us bully you.”

Five minutes earlier, every objection had earned him another threat. Now the same woman sounded pleased with him for making it, and Matt could find nothing in her expression to suggest she was waiting for him to believe her so she could start laughing.

“And that made you like me?”

“It is one of the things I like about you,” said the woman against the trunk. “You also noticed when the cord hurt her shoulder. You were still watching for that after everything we said.” The warmth in her voice left him staring. “You need not look so surprised that we noticed.”

“After an oath,” Matt insisted, clinging to the part they seemed determined to overlook. “I offered to help after an oath. I wasn’t coming over here just because somebody smiled at me.”

“Good,” the nearest Hunter replied, her smile returning. “I would hate to think a little kindness was all it took to make you forget a threat. Keep your condition.”

The agreement left him with his mouth half open while she glanced toward the tree where he had been standing. “We have no wish to be released, and you need not come any closer. But I would be glad if you stayed and talked to us.”

The dagger had begun to feel awkward in his hand. Putting it away would be stupid, yet keeping it ready while they found things to like about him was becoming difficult to bear. Nothing in the last few minutes fitted the argument he remembered having. Every time he pointed that out, somebody offered another patient explanation, looking at him as though his stubborn refusal to be reassured were something they found endearing.

Perhaps he was still asleep. That would account for ordinary camp cord holding six immortal Hunters who had developed an appreciation for it, followed by an apparently sincere interest in the person responsible. His dreams had managed stranger things, although usually he had the decency to forget them afterward.

A drop struck the back of his neck and slid beneath his collar. At his involuntary twitch, the nearest Hunter looked up into the branches above him. “A little to your left,” she suggested. “There is less dripping beneath that part.”

Matt nearly moved before catching himself. Being given helpful advice about where to stand made it considerably harder to maintain the suspicion that she was waiting for a chance to hurt him. “So you want to stay where you are,” he said carefully, “and you like me.”

“Yes.” Her smile returned, warm enough to leave him searching for something else to look at. “You can ask again if you need to. I would rather repeat myself than have you standing there expecting us to hurt you.”

From farther in, another Hunter leaned her head enough to see past the woman beside her. “You could tell us your name. We should have asked when you first came out.” A small, apologetic smile accompanied the admission. “I would like to know what to call you.”

Earlier, his name had changed nothing. Now she waited for it with an interest he had no idea what to do with, and nobody interrupted his hesitation to demand an answer. The woman nearest the road merely shifted her attention toward her companions, giving him a moment as though she understood that six Hunters watching him fondly might be a little much.

Beside the tree, Matt tried to remember whether the ambrosia in his duffel was supposed to help when the problem was something wrong with his head. Before he could decide whether eating any would make matters worse, a rustle beyond the perimeter drew his attention toward the dark undergrowth.

Whatever was wrong with him, or with them, six Hunters unable to reach their weapons were hardly going to help if something found the campsite. “Look, I have to cut you down. If a monster comes through here, I’m not fighting it while you tell me how much you like the ropes.”

Around the perimeter, attention shifted toward the woods. The woman against the trunk tested the distance between her fingers and her bow before reluctantly letting her hand relax. “We would hear it coming,” she said, though the glance she gave her trapped weapon suggested she had already considered what Matt would say to that.

“And then what? Give me instructions?” The dark approaches beyond them offered little reassurance. “I set this up so I could wake up and run if I had to. I can’t do that with six people tied to it.”

Concern crossed the nearest Hunter’s face. “You should not have to stay because of us.” After another look at the cord around her legs, she turned back to him with obvious reluctance. “Very well. If you think we ought to come down.”

Agreement followed in small nods and disappointed looks that Matt tried not to examine too closely. Getting them out of the ropes would at least give everyone something sensible to do, provided he survived helping them. “The condition still stands,” he reminded her. “Before I come any closer.”

“Of course. Tell us the wording you want.” The ready agreement left him staring for a second, searching her expression for the offence that had accompanied his earlier demand. Finding only patient interest, he gave her the terms before she could reconsider.

Each swore on the Styx that she would neither harm him nor seek revenge for the traps, encourage anyone else to do so, or falsely accuse him of an ambush. Matt listened to every word, half expecting an objection when one Hunter finished and the next began. None came. After all that arguing, they seemed happy enough to swear once doing so would put his mind at ease.

Starting with the pair nearest the road kept him clear of the lines carrying anyone’s weight. Matt crouched beside their legs and worked the blade beneath the first binding, explaining where to shift before he cut. Both followed his instructions, and the nearer woman rubbed her freed ankle while watching him work on the remaining loop. “Thank you. Would you like me to help with the others?”

“Yes,” he said, only to tense when she reached for her knife. The movement stopped before her fingers closed around the hilt, and she indicated the Hunter supported by the low branch.

“To cut her loose,” she explained gently. “You can stay on the other side if you prefer.”

Being understood so readily was almost as uncomfortable as having to explain himself. With a nod, Matt moved toward the anchor while she took her companion’s weight. Easing the line between them let them lower the woman clear of the roots, and the remaining Hunters came down more quickly once there were enough free hands to help.

Soon all six were standing among the slack cords, brushing leaves from their clothes and checking their equipment. One examined the bow that had been pinned against the trunk while another gathered the cut rope from the mud. Nobody reached for an arrow. When Matt backed toward his hammock, the nearest woman stepped aside to let him pass.

Packing gave him something to do that required very little thought. The hammock came down damp along one edge, which he folded inward before pushing it into the duffel beside his clothes. His sword remained where he had left it, and the paperback had somehow survived the night as well. Its continued good condition was becoming difficult to appreciate.

“Are you leaving already?” The Hunter who had helped him stopped beside the next tree, close enough to speak without crowding him. Her disappointment made Matt concentrate on working the zipper around a stubborn fold of fabric.

“I’m awake. Might as well get moving.”

“There are still several hours before dawn,” she pointed out, looking toward the road.

“I noticed.” With the bag finally shut, Matt lifted it onto his shoulder. Getting back to the route would be simple enough; everything after that could be worked out somewhere