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“Hamlin, hold fast!” She rushed over to push her way between Hamlin and Yash. Hamlin didn’t ask question; he just dug in.
    She took the rope in her hands, examining it. Looking over Yash’s shoulder, I saw what she had spotted, and my heart dropped.
    “Bring him back up, Hamlin. Don’t let go—you’ve got all his weight for a moment.”
    Muscles bulging, Hamlin started to arm-over-arm Gabriel back up. Lindadawn put her hand over the spot on the rope, then moved Yash’s hands over hers, so he was back on the sound section rope. It took only a few seconds to bring the confused Gabriel back over the cliff edge. We gathered around , looking at the spot in the rope. Very clearly, the vine had been cut almost through. Gabriel was pretty light, but there was no way the vine could have held him. Once the cut had gone past Hamlin, Gabriel would have fallen to the river below, bouncing off the rocks.
    Sabotage! But we caught them this time. Well, Lindadawn had caught them. The cut had gone through my hands, and I’d never noticed it. The field staff must have realized we would use the vines as a rope, and they had carefully made the cut hoping we wouldn’t notice it. Like I never noticed it. Like most of us hadn’t noticed it. They wanted a dramatic death to start off the challenge.
    Gabriel sat there, pale as a ghost as the rest of us checked over the rest of the vine rope. It was solid. Yash made a sort of bow around the cut, isolating it and making sure it never took any of the strain. He pulled on it, testing it before nodding to Hamlin. Without a word Hamlin got back into position on the rope. We joined him, and he motioned for Gabriel to slide over the edge again. For a moment, I thought Gabriel would refuse, but he crossed himself and slid off. We lowered him until he got to the rock face below. We could feel the weight come off the rope. Bernie positioned himself on the rope bridge where he could watch, and he kept giving us an update of Gabriel’s descent, telling us to give or take up slack. Gabriel made it down and untied the rope, and we hauled it back up. A feeling of relief swept over us.
    One by one, the others made the descent. Ratt had it the easiest. She weighed only 35 kg, so with laugh, Hamlin lowered her basically alone to the bottom, her feet kicking to keep her off the rocks. Heck, at 35 kilos, I probably could have taken care of her myself, but it was fun hearing her shriek with laughter as she was lowered to the bottom.
    Julie had a little harder time. She fell a number of times as she climbed down. But we were able to hold her up each time. Alfhid fell once, too, but no damage done.
    Finally, the four of us were left. We decided that since Hamlin was bigger, I would help with him and then go third-to-last. Hamlin was a rather large load. Add that to the fact that we no longer had him helping, it was much harder to take up his weight and lower him. My arms were shaking by the time he made it down to where he could get on the rock face. Without Bernie to guide us, we kept it too tight, not giving him enough slack to go down, and he had to shout up for more. He finally made it down, and we hauled up the rope. Now it was my turn.
    The rope felt uncomfortable tied around my chest and under my arms. It was a vine, after all, stiff and somewhat unyielding. But I sat down, feet over the edge, and slowly slid off. My butt dragged Hamlin’s shirt, knocking it off and sending it down the cliff. I watched it fall. Someone reached out to grab it, but it was too far out, and it fell into the water to be washed downstream. Well, if anyone was going to be without a shirt, I guess Hamlin wouldn’t mind.
    I swung back and forth as I was jerkily lowered. My feet eventually touched the rocks, and I turned myself back to grab them. The climb down from there wasn’t too hard. The rough cliff face offered plenty of hand holds. The rope around my chest was cumbersome, but I rather thought I would keep it tied around