Ab Extra, Salus {Part 3 | Chapters 13-16}

[ficofandalasia]

Part Three: The Victor


Chapter Thirteen

If Pocahontas had made it this far, then let her have the meat. I put my weapons away and turned my back on the scene as the clouds began to darken, turning almost inky-black above me. At first, I retreated back to one of the players’ boxes at the side of the pitch, but as the thunder grew louder and the sky grew so dark that it might have been night, I heard the rattle of rainfall in the distance. Looking up, I realised belatedly that the roof of this box was, in fact, more holes than roof, and was not going to give me much protection.

I gathered the knives that I had been cleaning and headed back down the stairs, into the concrete tunnel that I had been sure was clear before I came down here. The rain would most likely run down the steps, most of the stadium roof having also rotted away, but I had noted a large chunk of concrete which had a relatively flat top to it, about two feet off the ground. With my jacket round my shoulders to protect me from the cold of the walls, I curled onto the block and into the corner and listened to the sound of the rain creep closer and closer.

The noise was almost unbearable by the time that it reached me, and I frowned at the sheer racket of it.  It was louder than any rain that I had ever heard before, even in buildings with metal roofs or... any other place that I could think of. I was on the verge of venturing above ground to see how it could possibly be making such a noise when I saw a lip form on the edge of the steps above me, fill up, and then trickle down.

It was slower than I would have expected. More like gravy, or custard, spilling over the edge of the pan. I watched cautiously as it dripped downwards, layer after layer, making its way slowly but surely down the steps and coating each one as it did so. After what seemed like an eternity, with the unspeakable pounding still going on above my head, it reached the landing on which I was sitting and began to spread out across it.

For a while, I simply watched. It was certainly as clear as water, and here or there little bubbles on the surface made it look like rain. But it was spreading more slowly than any water that I had ever seen, and there was an odd, acrid smell in the air. Eventually, it filled up the landing, spreading out both from the corner in which I sat and the one opposite, and continued down the next flight of stairs.

If there had been a stick, I would have poked that in first to see what happened. I cut the bottom couple of centimetres off one of the straps of my pack and tossed it in, just to see what happened. There was no knowing what the Gamemakers had come up with this time. The woven plastic fabric just sat on the surface and was slowly carried off towards the steps down. Finally, I rolled over where I was sitting, reached down with one hand, and gently brushed my little fingertip through the liquid.

My finger did not immediately fall off or burst into flame, so that was probably a good start. I lifted my hand back up again and looked more closely; it was definitely clear, but thick, and from this angle clearly not water. I was on the verge of sniffing it when I became aware of the slow burning pain that was coating the skin, the redness everywhere that the liquid had touched. It was growing, steady and fast, until it felt like every nerve in my finger was screaming at me and I thought that it was about to explode.

“Shit!” I wiped it against the rock I was sitting on, then fumbled for my medical kit and used one of the pieces of gauze to scrub the skin clean. It did not exactly help the pain, but it stopped it getting worse, which I would take for now. Poking through the kit, I found something that looked like burn ointment, and rubbing it over my finger certainly seemed to take the edge off. Better than nothing, I supposed.

So it looked like rain, it sounded like rain, but it most certainly was not rain. Most likely, it was a concoction of the Gamemakers’ own devising; we had some nasty chemicals in some of the processes we did in District One, but I couldn’t think of anything that acted like this. Nursing my finger, I settled back against the wall, grateful that I had found somewhere securely undercover.

That was when I heard the screaming.

Desperate, hoarse. It made me almost jumped out of my skin as it echoed down the tunnel that I was in, catching on the walls and reflecting back even louder. I recoiled, thinking no more clearly than any animal, my breathing fast and panicky until I realised that it was not coming closer, and that it was not as nearby as it at first seemed.

I had a small square of tarp in my pack, not large enough to use as a sleeping mat but enough to sit on, or to gain some protection. I folded it to a point and dipped it carefully into the liquid, waiting to see if it would eat through or react. It did not, and I withdrew it again, draping it over my head and shoulders so that I could hold it up with a minimal risk of any of the liquid touching my hands. Swinging my boots over the edge, I lowered them into the centimetre-deep liquid, again waited, and only when I was sure of myself started walking forwards and up the stairs to see where the screaming was coming from.

I was lucky; the section of the stadium that I was in still had some areas of roof left, and though the liquid ran swiftly about my boots it did not pour down on me from above. Above ground, the roar was almost deafening, and I cringed from it as I turned to survey the stadium.

The rain - for want of a better word - was torrential. So thick that it distorted the world around it, almost vertical sheets without the wind to angle it aside. Barely a metre away from me, a hole in the roof above let through a shaft of it that would have been as impenetrable as a pillar. And still the screaming surrounded me, bounced back in by the shape of the stadium even with its half-ruined walls.

I had to squint through the rain to see the figure in the grounds. They were on the ground, thrashing, and screaming.

Howling. Shrieking. Wailing. To say that she screamed barely did justice to the inhuman sounds that were leaving her lips, the desperation and agony in them that made me want to run as far away as I could, and at the same time run to help her. She was dressed in pale grey, the same colour we had all started in, and I could see that she was dark-haired, but even as I watched the grey turned to red, her skin disappeared beneath blood that seemed to seep out of her every pore, and steam or smoke seemed to bubble off her flesh.

I watched, transfixed and terrified, unable to look away. Eventually, the screaming stopped, she fell still, and though I could not hear a cannon I hoped for her sake that it was hidden by the continuing sound of the rain.

Only when she fell still did I realise that there was other movement in the stadium. Up by the roof, off to my right, was a nimble moving shape that had to be Pocahontas. To my left, and closer to the entrance, I could see a group of three people standing under cover, hastily shedding outer clothes and throwing aside stone paving slabs that they must have been carrying over their heads. The Careers. I wondered whether it was their fourth member now lying on the ground.

I considered shooting at them, but it was possible that they had not yet realised I was there. I spared a glance to note that Pocahontas must have fallen still, having found a safe place to perch, before concentrating on the Careers again.

Only three of them remained; I guessed by the silhouettes that it was Rourke and Helga, from Two, and Shan Yu from Six. From what I had seen, they all had, and were best with, hefty hand weapons, but I would not put it past Helga in particular to have ranged weapons with her. I had ten arrows left, and there were more of them than there were of me. Could I take them out at this range, perhaps fire before taking cover in the hope that they would not find me? Or could I risk combat in the maze that was the stadium, with safe dry paths broken and interweaving with the terrible rain?

I was just about ready to choose combat when I remembered the still body on the ground. Vanessa, I realised, also of District Six. An unusual District to join the Careers pack, but stranger things have happened. What I had thought was smoke or steam was still hanging around her, like a mist, and as the rain began to thin it remained visible, hanging low in the air like a thick rug around her body.

Something was not right. And I knew, without even having to pause, that it was about to get worse.

I crouched down, trusting what remained of the seats around me to provide protection from the sight of the Careers, the muscles in my thighs straining to keep me clear of the liquid still running down the steps around me. The rain was definitely thinning, but once some visibility had returned it steadied, a threat but not a torrent. I doubted that my protective gear could take it, and suspected that any armour that could had long since disappeared into Kidagakash’s explosion.

At first, from where I waited, I could not work out what was happening. Nothing seemed to change, just the falling rain, the waiting Careers, the body on the ground. No hovercraft, which made me think that this rain was even worse than I had thought. Presumably it would damage something as strong as a hovercraft as well.

My first glimpse came from my right, through the ragged section of wall that led down the slope and towards the culvert. A thick mist was creeping up the slope, half-opaque like milk in water, rising upwards as the rivers in spring. I frowned, uncertain what it could be. It did not look like ordinary mist or fog; it did not have the greyish colour. Shifting slightly, I looked to the left and out through the other side of the stadium, and my heart almost stopped when I saw that the whole base of the Arena was covered in it, a thick level, even as water but rising steadily. It flowed around stones and stubs of walls, then swallowed them up as it flowed ever upwards.

If Vanessa’s body had produced such a small pool, what could have produced this flood? The answer snapped into my brain: it was not her body, but the water in it. Whatever the liquid was, it reacted with water to make this gas.

I had thought that the culvert was just a source of water for the tributes, a test to see whether we would remember to clean it first. Now I realised that it was the first part of the Gamemakers’ trap.

A shiver ran through me. What else could be planned? Then again, I supposed that I had little time to think about that whilst the mist crept closer. Coming from the rain, it would be very painful, if not lethal. I felt a burst of gratitude that I had already been in the stadium - and that the gift of the net had been so perfectly timed to keep me there.

The edge of the mist crept onwards, close enough now that I could see the rolling edge of it, like steam coming from a kettle. To cover the whole Arena, the amount of it must be vast, and I wondered how deep it would become. The Gamemakers could not kill everyone - that would spoil the Games. Perhaps Pocahontas, up in the roof, would be the one to win after all. As the edge of the mist made it to the outside of the stadium, I decided to cut my losses, and started to make my way up the steps. Much of it remained sheltered, but after a couple of dozen rows of seats I had to move sideways, climbing over chairs to avoid an oval of the caustic rain.

Voices caught my attention. Cursing all over again, I turned just in time to see Helga raising, of all things, a crossbow, and aiming it in my direction. For a moment I froze, looking horrified, then as I saw the kick of her shoulder - letting me know the trigger had been pulled - I hit the floor.

The bolt skittered away behind me, but searing pain rushed through both of my hands, my cheek, where I had fallen into the liquid. I staggered to my feet, vision blurring with pain, and dispensed with subtlety. I ran up the steps, taking two at a time, throwing my tarp back over my head to give me what protection it could as I bolted through scattered patches of rain instead of trying to climb around them. A second bolt clipped past my hips, then there was a long pause before a third went wildly past my head.

I pushed more force into my running, bolting into the very highest seats were the roof came low and was still mostly intact. The left side of my face felt as if it was on fire, searing with pain and heat, my skin feeling tight and swollen. My sight in that eye was still wavering, fuzzy and with tears rolling down my cheek, and my nose and throat felt raw. As I reached the top, the more secure roof that gave better cover, I dropped the tarp and turned, reaching for my bow and arrow with hands that fumbled and burned with pain.

It was a struggle to knock the shaft on the string, even more of one to tilt my head so that I could look down the arrow with my good eye. I aimed at the middle of the three Careers, Helga, and loosed the arrow without lingering.

A gust of wind flicked it left, and I saw Shan Yu stumble back before reaching up with one huge hand to rip my arrow out. The crossbow was now in Rourke’s hands; he raised it and fired at me again, but I could tell that it was lazy and the bolt went way to my left. I drew back a second arrow - eight left - and fired again, this time making them move apart to avoid it.

It would come down to how many bolts they had, and which of us was more accurate. I took deep breaths, wondering whether I could get close enough to fight hand-to-hand instead, and whether I could take on all three if I did make it that far. Before I could fire again, however, a figure exploded out of the entrance to the steps below me, and came charging up the stairs.

I whirled to face them, unable to see for a second with one misty eye and my heart pounding in my chest. I barely managed to raise the bow to knock aside the spear that was thrust towards me, and then I locked eyes with the tribute on the other side of it.

Hercules. District Five, with its power plants and good schooling and his female counterpart dead in the Bloodbath on the first day. He stabbed at me with the spear again, and this time I dodged aside, sliding low and blocking the wooden shaft with my forearm. I dropped the bow and loosed the staff from my back, sliding it out and into both hands.

A crossbow bolt cut between us, as if I wasn’t in enough danger with a six-foot tall boy whose muscles seemed to have only gotten more defined with hunger swinging a spear at me. I had to step aside from each thrust, knocking the shaft aside, but as the panic cleared I realised that Hercules didn’t really know how to fight. Not face-to-face. His strike against Rapunzel had been out of the blue, and I didn’t know if he’d killed anyone else. Every time he managed to control the spear, he simply attempted to stab me with it, trusting his strength to drive it through.

I may not have been as strong, but I was faster, and I knew what I was doing. I spun my staff, knocked his spear to the side and pinned it to the ground, metal to metal. It shifted my weight and I opened up, the thrill of the fight outreaching the pain in my hands and face, all of my weight dropping onto my right leg as I kicked, high and hard, with my left.

My foot caught Hercules beneath the chin, snapping his head back with a grunt of pain. Dropping my staff, I lunged in to bury one fist in his gut, doubling him over, using him like a marionette with each blow that I threw into place. A kick to his knee sent his feet flying from under him, landing him face-first in the liquid that poured across the ground. He roared with pain, the sound cut off as I stomped on the back of his neck, drew my knife from my belt, and bent to stab it through his spine.

This time, I heard the cannon. There was no time for pause, though, as I got to my feet, grabbing my staff again, and looked around wildly for the careers. They had moved, and I scanned around before catching sight of them further up the steps, moving across one of the paths that looped around the stadium at various levels. I picked up my staff again and readied myself, but Rourke had his hands cupped around his mouth to shout to me.

“Well done, District One! We’ve been looking for him for a while!”

Where they honestly still trying to recruit me to their pack, half way through the Games? I kept my eyes on them as Rourke laughed, then as Helga turned and snapped commands to both, pointing to me and then off to another part of the stadium. The boys nodded, and Shan Yu split off from the others, rising up another flight of steps to come level with me. He was no longer carrying the huge club, but had a great loop of rope over one shoulder and a huge, wave-edge sword on his right hand. As he drew closer, I could see that blood stained the right side of his chest, but it did not seem to hinder his movements or stop him from advancing on me with a feral smile.

I risked a glance towards Rourke and Helga. Their eyes were fixed elsewhere as they moved along the path a tier down, too fast for it to be an effective way of hunting me.

“District One,” growled Shan Yu, dragging my attention back to him as he came within four metres of me. “Fa Ping, yes? Your father killed my uncle in the Quell. Time to restore the family honour.”

His tone mocked the words that I had used in my interviews, the words that had become my little phrase repeated across the Capitol. I was doing this for honour, I had said, for my father. For District One.

I had never said that I was doing this for my brother, or for my life. But it was those things, especially the latter, that were foremost in my mind as I readied my staff and tried not to quail before the sharp-toothed smile of Shan Yu.

Chapter Fourteen

From the way that Shan Yu was licking his lips, I wondered whether he might be the one to turn to cannibalism after all. He was huge, well over six feet tall, with high hulking shoulders that seemed to bury his head with its long black hair. Some sort of inserts made his eyes shine gold, and his teeth had been sharpened to points. His stylists must have gone to town.

He handled the sword as if it was no heavier than a dagger, when it had to be at least a metre long. And, more than Hercules, he handled his weapon as if he knew what he was doing with it.

His first swing seemed almost experimental, a round slash that whistled in the air. My staff spun in my hands to block it with the metal tip, but I felt the blow judder up my arm and almost throw me sideways. I pushed the sword aside, but immediately it was on me again, a hearty thrust from which I could only step aside, the edge of the blade almost going over my thigh.

Not waiting to breathe, to think, I punched Shan Yu in the face. I heard something crack, but with the pain in my knuckles it could have been in me rather than him. He barely even blinked, and then backhanded me in return, his heavy hand slamming into the side of my face. I felt my teeth rattle in my jaw, and blackness flashed across my vision - and that was not even the side seared by my earlier fall into the liquid. By the time my vision cleared, the sword was heading towards me again, and I could barely bring the staff into place in time.

It cracked beneath the blow, but held, and this time I decided on some underhand, and probably rather un-manly, tactics.

My foot connected squarely with Shan Yu’s groin.

I could imagine the groans and laughter in the Capitol as the giant of a boy doubled over, wheezing something that might have been a filthy curse on me and my family, but didn’t matter in the circumstances. Before he could straighten up, I bought my staff round and down onto the back of his neck, metal first. It snapped in two in the middle, but he stumbled forwards, and I gave him a helpful shove along the way.

He did not fall far - only down to the next tier, and a few extra steps. But he did not have to. As soon as he was falling, I was switching to my bow, drawing an arrow, and sending it flying into the time-weakened, brittle roof.

More by luck than intention, I caught one of the metal supports that webbed out above us, and it broke with the arrow’s momentum. The support began to peel downwards, splitting the roof above it like the skin of a peach, sending down a great pouring rush of liquid, heavy as a waterfall. It caught Shan Yu just as he was rising to his knees, and he gave a great cry, a scream, of pain that echoed round the stadium. From this distance, I could see his skin flash red, blister, then erupt with blood that ran down his face, making red streams in the liquid. I could not help the horror that overwhelmed me as I saw the skin of his face melting away, revealing the white bone beneath, and then the crashing sound of the water made me realise that the separating roof was still heading up towards me.

Turning, I continued up the steps. Pain was still searing in my hands and face, throbbing in my knuckles and cheekbone. As I reached the top tier, the roof barely ten feet above my head, I turned and moved along the uppermost of the circular paths. The tearing of the roof reached the edge of the stadium and stopped, a huge triangle of sky exposed above, and I realised that I was breathing heavily, heart pounding, terror flooding my veins.

A cannon went off, announcing that Shan Yu had finally died. I hadn’t realised how long he would last.

Away from immediate danger, the pain from the liquid seemed to force itself into my attention. Tears were still streaming down the left side of my face, and the vision on that side was blurred as I looked down at my hands to see small bloody blisters covering them. I dropped my bag onto one of the seats beside me and rifled through for my medical kit, feeling the skin on my hands peeling off but so full up with pain that it was as if there was no room for any more to add to it.

I found the same ointment that I had used earlier and which had seemed to work on the fingertip, and smeared it over the palms of my hands. This time, taking the edge off the pain was more than enough to make me whimper with relief, and I streaked some around my face as well. It was too sore to rub in, so I hoped that just having it on the surface would be enough.

Thoughts clearing, I finally remembered that Rourke and Helga were in the Arena as well, and spun round. The rain was getting lighter, but I still could not see them, and when I tried to switch back to my bow and arrows my hands were shaking too much to do so.

The mist had carpeted the floor of the stadium, hiding the uneven ground and with only the uppermost points of the large boulders and some golden shards of the Cornucopia still visible. From its rippling, it looked as if it was still rising. I chose a perch at the back of the stadium that had managed to remain dry and sat down, going to put my hands on my knees before the pain made it clear that was completely out of the question. I couldn’t climb much further without going into the roof structure itself, and while Pocahontas was light enough to do that, I wasn’t sure that I was. I couldn’t even remember where my tarpaulin had ended up, and going on top of the roof without it wasn’t much of an option. There was a while before that was going to be needed, however.

I tried to drink some water, only for my stomach to revolt and vomit it back up again. The heaves threw me forwards, almost onto my hands and knees, but I managed to keep my balance as the water spewed out of me. Wherever it hit a patch of the rain, it sent up wisps of white mist.

Shaking, I straightened up again and looked around me again. For a moment, there was still no-one to be seen, then I looked straight across the stadium to the far stands, where the seats were little more than lines of darker grey on lighter. There was movement; at first I thought that it might be Rourke and Helga, but then I realised that there were too many figures, and a flash of bright blue made me certain. Kidagakash, and those still with her. I wondered how - and why - she had kept so many of them alive.

Staying still and wearing what I was, I supposed that from the distance I would be relatively camouflaged. Despite the fact that I was still in close range of the other tributes, I did not particularly want to fight any more. I hoped that the Gamemakers would not try to ‘encourage’ me into more kills, but figured that today had been more than busy enough that they would have plenty of material for their screens. Besides, this Games was burning up far faster than previous ones had done, deaths coming in hours rather than over days or weeks.

Unusual. From the Arena to the pace to the way that the tributes were behaving, it was all unusual.

My mouth and throat were sore, though I could barely notice it compared to my hands and face. Tentatively, I reached up to touch my cheek, but could not clearly feel anything. There was no texture, barely anything other than pressure beneath my fingertips. It sent a chill down me. I pulled back the sleeve of my jacket ten centimetres or so and pressed the inside of my arm to my cheek instead, sending a slash of pain across my face, but finally realising that my skin was puffy to the touch, oily with the ointment I had smeared over it. I snatched my arm away and tried not to think about it too much, wrenching my sleeve back into place.

The mist was still creeping up. It now completely covered the floor of the stadium, had crawled up the low walls around it, and was spilling over the top into the lowest row of the seats. As far as I could tell, all of the others had made the same decision that I had: to sit and to watch.

The rain was now so light that it was barely more than drizzle, not enough to hinder our vision but a warning that we should not venture out beneath it. Also enough, apparently, to keep the hovercraft away from coming to collect the bodies. I tried not to think about the rain eating them away, and failed miserably. With it, the sound had dulled, though my head still pounded in its aftermath.

At first, I thought that I might have been imagining the trumpets that cut through the sound of the rain, but as they continued I looked around and up to the sky. There, on the dull grey of the clouds, appeared the Capitol Seal; then it faded, and Snow White, the face of the Games, appeared. Her lips were the same colour as the blood that had been spilled in here.

“Good afternoon, tributes.” She didn’t have that same cheeriness that a lot of the other Capitol people that I had met did, and for that I was grateful. Instead her voice was soothing, calming, more like a teacher talking to her favourite class. “Now, I’m here to invite you all to a Feast, tomorrow at one hour after dawn, in the stadium - but there’s one little catch. I’m afraid that we’ve only got eight chairs. So, unless there’s one fewer of you before too long...  I’m afraid we might just have to cancel the Feast.”

She winked out once again.

Eight places. Nine of us left? I must have missed another of the cannons in the sound of the thunder; I remembered ten. But one more would have to die before the Gamemakers’ latest round of horrors was done. Another twist that I didn’t remember seeing in earlier Games.

I didn’t want to kill any more today. Rourke, Helga, Kidagakash... they would take too much energy, too much adrenaline that I didn’t have after two fights and the pain from everywhere that the rain had touched me. I could not help the fear that it was still at work, still eating away at my skin, but the fact that it still hurt actually reassured me at this point. If it had burnt much deeper, my nerves would have been destroyed as well, and the pain would stop. There was only so far that it could have reached.

I shook my head to myself. Hopefully Rourke and Helga would go after Kidagakash’s group, and I would be able to avoid the brawl. Unless the Gamemakers had something else in mind again, in which case, let it come. I was too tired to care.

At least at first, there was nothing. No movement from the group that I could faintly see opposite me, no sign of what was left of the Careers. Another whiff of the acrid smell hanging in the air made me cough, and before I knew it I was coughing so hard I could barely cling to my seat, black spots appearing in my vision, blood coppery in my mouth. I fought to control my breath and drew my hand away from my mouth to see a streak of red.

Although the mist was far below me, it was still rising higher. I had my suspicions.

Perhaps it would have been easier if one of the others had just come over and kill me then. Spitting blood and burning up, I probably would not have put up much of a challenge. Then it would be eight, the others could go to the Feast, and the Capitol could cover up my treachery as if it had never happened. My head whirled, and I looked desperately for any way that I could go higher up, but there was only the roof above me.

I almost thought that I was hallucinating when I saw movement, to my right, up on top of the roof. The tiny figure of Pocahontas, wrapped in some dark fabric that must have been waterproof or similarly protective, was up on top of the roof, the rain falling around her. She should have been safe up there, but - again I squinted, my left eye still streaming - she seemed to be backing away from something, moving towards the edge.

Struggling to my feet, I moved around to my left, bringing her into a clearer field of view. It had to be her: there was no other as small, and I doubted there were any that could move so fast. As I watched, she dodged sharply to the side, from something that I could not see, then ducked and moved along the ground almost on all fours. Something shot past her, a black flicker among the falling rain, but I still could not see what was going on.

Suddenly, she screamed, and grabbed her leg, falling to her hip and still trying to scramble away. I rose to my feet, remembering her at the reaping: a slip of a girl, with shiny dusky skin and hair that disappeared down beneath the picture that they had used to reveal her score. Seven - good, for someone from her District. Her stylist had not dressed her and Kocoum so much in costumes as in themes, the same way that Wei had dealt with us: they had worn gold, patterned to suggest grain, with shots of green to suggest leaves and stalks. In her interview, she had been quiet, mild and innocent, doubtless capturing the heart of those who had watched.

She might have softened mine as well.

I tried to hold my bow and draw an arrow, but my hands would not answer me and my weapons slipped from my loose grasp. When Rourke appeared on top of the stadium roof, I supposed that I should have expected it. He was wearing some sort of armour that glinted in the light; it must have cost a fortune to the sponsor or sponsors that sent it to him. Whatever it was made of, doubtless it would protect him from weapons as well as from the terrible rain of the Gamemakers.

He was still holding the crossbow, but as he advanced on Pocahontas he slung it over his shoulder. I expected him to draw a sword, but he did not. Again, I struggled to hold my weapons, this time just about getting a grip on the bow and managing to put the arrow to it, but as soon as I tried to draw, I felt it cut into my skin and I gave a cry, releasing it again.

My breath choked in my throat as the blood ran down my fingers, the skin split in clean lines. Before I could summon even thoughts, a scream rang through the air.

I turned, tauter than the bowstring, head snapping round to Pocahontas once again. Rourke held her on one arm, hand wrapped around her neck, even as she fought in his grasp like a fish on a hook and screamed for longer than I thought that any breath could last.

“No!” It came out involuntarily, choked and tasting of blood, and with a wrench of my arm and ignoring the pain I drew an arrow and loosed it, cleanly, in Rourke’s direction.

The wind caught, and it missed. But it did not matter anyway. Rourke had taken Pocahontas to the edge, lifting her over, and released her into the terrible yawning maw of the stadium below. As she fell, her face was exposed, and her scream began to bubble as she wheeled in the air, a terrible shape falling, floating down, sharp against the mist, until she was swallowed up by it and her scream was cut off.

A moment later, there was a cracking, thudding sound as her body hit the hidden ground below. Then the cannon fired, and all was still again.

Chapter Fifteen

Rourke laughed, and I wanted to tear him apart with my bare hands. But even in the seconds after the cannon fired, the rain petered out and stopped. The clouds started to move away as quickly as if they were being sucked out - perhaps they were - and the tide of the mist turned as it began to lower away once again. I raised my bow once again, my hands shaking but my teeth gritted, and fired one more of my rapidly diminishing arrows.

I saw it hit, in a flash of metal, but it bounced away and skittered over the roof. As I lowered my aim, breathing through my mouth but with my throat still raw and tasting of blood, Rourke turned and raised his hand to me as if in salute.

“District One! It shouldn’t be long before we see you again. At the Feast tomorrow, perhaps?”

He laughed. I suppressed the urge to make an obscene gesture by telling myself that it was not something that Ping would do. Instead, I forced as much of my things as I could back into my pack, folded down my bow, and shouldered my things. This second Bloodbath had gone on more than long enough for my liking.

I practically fled from the stadium. Running was impossible, and I could only walk so fast before the jolting of my own steps became too much for my injuries, but I did my best to keep moving. Rourke could decide not to wait until tomorrow, or he could start an all-out battle with Kidagakash’s group. And there was still another tribute unaccounted for, unless I had missed more cannons than I realised during the terrible drumming of the rain.

I made my way down a few streets, then wove through the ruins of houses until, I hoped, I was out of sight of the stadium and would not have been followed. I found somewhere dry to sit, and tried applying more cream to my face and hands. This time, it didn’t seem to help so much, and I gritted my teeth against sobbing although I could still feel tears rolling down my cheeks. I told myself that it was just watering from the smoke hurting my eyes.

The sky darkened, and time blurred as pain burned across my skin and into my flesh. I curled into the corner where I had hidden myself, shaking, struggling to find any angle to rest my head at that did not result in stabs of pain. It was impossible to imagine fighting in such a state; I could not even get the meat out of my bag to eat.

The sky was darkening when a flutter of silver caught my eye, a third parachute. Many tributes in the past had been almost showered with gifts, given so many that they had not even been able to retrieve them all without having some of them stolen by others. I leapt out, grabbed it, and retreated to my corner again in case anyone else had seen it and decided to come near.

There was only one thing that I could imagine it being. The clasps were so tight that I felt more skin getting pulled off my fingers before I managed to open it, leaving smears of blood on the small black packet. Finally managing to rip it open, I found a small tube, and the moment that I squeezed some out onto my finger I could feel relief flash like ice on the skin.

“Thank you,” I whispered, then, louder and looking up to the sky: “Thank you, thank you.”

I smeared the cream over my face first, this time being relieved enough to even rub it very gently into the skin. I dribbled some water into the corner of my eye and blinked it out again, feeling it wash away some of the pain that was there as well.

As the terrible pain receded, I managed to drag together the remnants of my thoughts and piece them into something solid. My face, as much as I could see it in the reflective surface of the silver tube, was reddened and blistering, but it had done better than my hands. They were stripped raw, red and white streaks of flesh visible underneath. Nausea hit me again. I had to breathe deeply until the black spots in front of my vision passed, and swallow several times, before looking up and away to the pale blue sky.

Compared to the burns, the other pains in my body were minor. My joints ached from fighting, and the knuckles of my right hand sparked with pain every time that I tried to move them. My head throbbed. I could sip water without my body throwing it up again, though, and I finally managed to bring myself to eat some more of the meat that I had gathered earlier that day. I was grateful for the tight seal that had kept it safe.

As time wore on, the sky darkened, and I huddled back into my corner even as tiredness and fear warred over whether I should sleep or not. My body was starting to feel dull, distant. It was an effort to look up as the anthem played, and the Seal was painted across the sky.

The Capitol must have been falling over themselves. After two days without deaths, especially so early on, they would have been all put panting for some violence and bloodshed once again. There was only so much that could be interesting about watching us scrabble for water and try not to starve to death. Even I, interested in what it took to survive in the Arenas, had felt myself becoming impatient after a while.

So the Gamemakers had rolled out the tension and the drama, and had the body count to show for it. I kept sipping water as the faces began to show. Hercules, from District Five. Shan Yu and Vanessa, both from District Six. Pocahontas from District Nine - my heart ached just looking at her picture, how young she looked, no matter how much I tried to pretend that it was not the case. And, to my surprise, Tarzan from District Eleven. I could not remember hearing a cannon for him, and had not seen him in the Arena. Perhaps he had met with one of the others, before the rain and the mist, or perhaps he had been killed by one of them. In any case, it did not matter: we had our eight. And now they were giving us until the morning, and the Feast, to recuperate. Doubtless the Capitol was waiting breathlessly for it.

I tried to get comfortable against cold concrete, with about as much success as could be expected, and waited as keenly as the Capitol vultures.

The sky was so perfectly clear that I could see it begin to lighten well before dawn actually came. It had been comforting watching the stars, tracing the same constellations as I had seen at home, no matter where I was. Add to that the silence from the cannons, and the night might almost have passed for peaceful.

As dawn came closer, I ate the last of the meat which I had packed, applied another layer of cream to my burns, and readied what weapons I had. My staff was broken, and I was down to five arrows, leaving me with only my knife and my own body to count on. I knew that Kidagakash and her pack were well-equipped, but that they would also be running short on food, and I doubted that she would be as foolish as I had been and eat raw meat. What was left of the Careers would have no choice but to be there.

Of course, there was always a possibility that there would be no food at all, or that there would be a trick. Would the Gamemakers dare to lace the food with poison? I had never seen it happen, but I remembered commenting to my father years ago that it would be an easy way. He had just shaken his head, and said quietly that it would not happen.

I supposed he was right. It was far more entertaining for the Capitol to make us kill each other instead.

I could probably have outlasted the others, I knew that. If there had not been a Feast, all that I would have needed to do was keep fishing, keep hoping that raw meat would not make me sick, and protect myself if any of the other tributes came after me. But if there was food at the Feast, I was just about done for. This was just about the sparsest Games that I had ever seen, in terms of supplies, and I was stuck right in the middle of it.

At the very least, I would have to see. There was bound to be fighting, but if there was no food to be had then I would get away from it as best I could and go back to my survival strategies. If there was food, then fighting would not be an option; it would be a necessity.

I was still wondering how the hell I was going to achieve anything as I started to make my way cautiously towards the stadium in the thin pre-dawn light. The moon had already set. There were plenty of entrances to the stadium, plenty of hiding places and shadowed corners where ambushes could be laid. Thinking of Pocahontas, I reminded myself to check the roof as well.

I made it to the shadows of the stadium without incident, camouflage jacket on, knife in my hand. Slipping into one of the many entrances, around some buckled metal which scratched my thighs and which I hoped would have deterred others, I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Feasts were usually secondary Bloodbaths. What surprised me the most, though, in a grim sort of way, was the fact that it had come so close after the whittling down of the group to eight.

Back home, they would be interviewing friends and family now. My throat suddenly constricted at the thought; if I was here, then they would be looking to interview Mulan. Wei would be bought in as the stylist for my family, as he had been mine, and my father’s many years ago. If I had been the praying sort, I would have prayed for them then.

They must have done the interviews for tonight, preparing them to be interspersed with the news of the Feast. Not something that I had seen before, but somehow it did not surprise me. Or perhaps they would only show the interviews with the families of those who came out alive.

If more than one person even did come out alive.

I wondered afresh why Kidagakash was keeping those with her alive. In the earlier times, I could have understood - it was good to have allies, or distractions, or generally other people around. It staved off loneliness, spread the load of what you had to carry, and meant that you could work together. This late in the Games, however, it seemed like madness to still have a group of five people, four of whom clearly had no fighting skill. There were survival Arenas, and there were fighting Arenas, my father had once said. This was clearly the latter. And they had all seemed to trust her, a ridiculous idea when only one person was to leave alive. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was able to take a watch one night and kill them all whilst they were asleep, without any of them making a sound. Then there would only be four of us left, all Careers, and the more traditional showdown could begin.

I judged it to be dawn as I crept up the stairs, one step at a time, with my knife still ready in my hand. When I reached the top I dropped to a crouch, settled myself behind a couple of broken seats that would get rid of my silhouette, and looked around the stadium.

For a moment, there was nothing. Then a flicker of movement overhead caught my eyes, and I looked up to see Rourke patrolling on the roof. He had the crossbow in his hands, and I had no doubt that he was still wearing the armour that he had been given yesterday. There was no sign of Helga, though.

A flash of blue made me reach for my bow and arrow, but as I turned I realised that it was just a scrap of fabric, tied to one of the pieces of metal in the mess at the base of the stadium. Not that I could remember it being there before. I was still watching it, frowning, when I realised that I was not all that far from where I had fought Hercules the previous day. If I was lucky, his spear would still be here, not taken by the hovercraft. Though spears were not my weapon of choice, they were better than nothing, and had more reach than a knife.

I waited until Rourke’s back was towards me, then ran nimbly up the flight of steps to the level where Hercules and I had fought. The concrete was dry, and to stay behind the chairs I crawled on my hands and knees, breathing a sigh of relief when the spear came into view at the next landing, still in place. Another glance to be sure that I was out of Rourke’s sight, then I snatched it from the ground and drew it back into cover with me.

It was not a good weapon. It was not a bad weapon, and frankly any weapon right now was a good thing, but it was not well-made and had not been well-used. The shaft did not properly balance the head, and the edges were knocked and marked. There was still dried blood on it, and I pushed the image of Rapunzel out of my mind at the touch. But it was a weapon all the same.

Slowly, the sunlight became stronger. At least the Gamemakers had deigned to give us a clear sky to judge when it was one hour after sunrise. Even so, I could feel myself starting to grow impatient as time wore on and my muscles cramped from staying crouched out of sight.

“Come on,” I could not help muttering to myself, no matter how useless it might be. Doubtless there would be tiny cameras recording this; perhaps the Gamemakers would even be using it. District One’s male tribute, desperate for action again, despite the wounds he still carried. I was faintly disgusted with myself, but stronger than the disgust was the desire to live, and the sheer fact that I was sick of being stuck in this Arena and playing this Game at all. I just wanted to go home, hold my father tightly, and not have to wake up knowing that people were waiting for me to kill someone.

Normally, a Feast was raised up from underground, but after what Milo had done on the first day I doubted that was going to be a possibility. It did not surprise me when two hovercrafts came into view, larger than the usual ones, with a large container suspended beneath them. Despite myself, I thought of food, and my mouth began to water. I would have traded all the rations and raw meat in the world for one apple; I would have traded all the apples in the world for one mouthful of my grandmother’s steamed eggs.

Eight people left. Seven people standing between me and home. I could do that.

The hovercrafts manoeuvred to the centre of the stadium, right above the destroyed ground, and began to descend. Once they reached about twenty feet, the container almost flush with the ground, they stopped, and winches lowered it the rest of the way. A metallic clang echoed round the stadium. I heard the change in the pitch of the hovercrafts’ engines, the lessening of the strain on them, and as they lifted away they took the top and sides of the container with them, revealing the food beneath.

And oh, what food it was. The table must have been six metres long, a metre wide, and it was full to bursting. Fat glazed meats, bowls of ripe fruit shining as the sunlight creeps over the edge of the stadium to catch at them, loaves of bread cut open to reveal their fluffy white interiors, bright silver fish, pitchers of water and milk and goodness only knew what else. There had to be enough food there for a hundred people to eat well, and even as I stood in awe of it, a sickening realisation washed over me.

The Gamemakers wanted this fight to be the last.

It was an excessive amount of food, obscene. Enough that any of us watching, and beginning to feel the claws of hunger in our bellies, would surely be going mad with desire just at the sight of it. I had found fresh meat, gorged myself on it, and still I could feel the call in my brain. Food is survival, it reminded me. Survival is winning. And winning is going home. But this was no one-man packet of lifesaving rations, designed to let someone carry on a little longer and have a small edge. This amount of food was meant to be killed for, because whoever did not have control over it would never have a chance of surviving against whoever did.

The sixth day, and the Gamemakers wanted the Games to finish already. Not only would we have the smallest Arena in history, we would have the most deaths as well. It was difficult to hold on to the thought, though, as my stomach twisted in hunger and my brain raced to try to plan my next move, and it was taken out of my hands anyway as the other remaining tributes sprang into action.

Chapter Sixteen

Rope snapped down from close to where Rourke must have been standing, above me. It cracked like a whip as it unfurled, reaching all the way down to barely above the ground level. I craned my neck to see the top, but a slender form had already leapt on and was sliding down, fast - Helga, blonde braid whipping about her, face set in a grimace. She had cloth wrapped around her hands as she dropped, landing heavily but without any sign of pain, and some sort of translucent grey fabric that covered her from neck to ankles. I started, almost reaching for my bow and arrows, but there was every chance that she was wearing armour as well. It would not do to waste what few arrows I had left.

I rose to my feet, ready to run down and damn the danger, when the rubble almost at Helga’s feet seemed to split open. Kidagakash erupted out of nowhere with what sounded like a war cry, no spear in her hand but the flash of a knife visible, and slammed bodily into Helga before the other girl could react. I could remember no camouflaged material among the things we had taken from the Cornucopia, five days that seemed a lifetime ago, until I remembered the one that Pocahontas had been hiding under.

The two struggled viciously, all tight punches and grappling, muffled curses spat onto the air from time to time at what must have been snatched moments of spare breath. Helga slammed a fist into Kidagakash’s middle, but in return got her head wrenched back and was almost thrown to the ground before she managed to regain her feet.

Something smacked into the ground near to them. A crossbow bolt; Rourke must have been firing on both at once, not caring who he hit. Well, I had always known that the Careers turned on each other sooner or later. It was just that usually there were more of them left, and fewer other tributes. Another bolt, and then a third, so close that I could barely believe it did not hit at least one of them. He had to be well-supplied to be using so many of them. Perhaps that was what his sponsors had been using their money for.

One of the bolts hit the ground at their feet, and then the camouflaging fabric was flung aside with a shove to reveal Milo, grey smears on his face and with a pack hanging empty in one hand. Before Rourke could fire again, Milo jumped to his feet, crossed the few feet to the table, and launched himself up and over it. It was only then that I thought to look at the table itself, beneath the groaning weight of food, and see that it was solid. Impossible to crawl under to hide - but a good barrier, if you could get on to the other side of it. I could see Milo, half-crouched, starting to grab food and stuff it into the bag that he held, despite the bolts now aiming at him instead, still two or three a minute. One of them seemed to skim across his shoulder, but I could not see from this distance exactly what had happened.

I could not sit out any longer. The best way to avoid becoming Rourke’s target would be to move now, whilst we were still at our densest, and I hoped that the rest of Kidagakash’s pack were not waiting with slings or throwing knives.

I plunged down the steps two at a time. My pack slid round my shoulder and I pulled it round to the front, slipping open the drawstring. Get food and get out. Let the others fight it out, and come back when things had thinned out somewhat, or I could figure out how to deal with Rourke. I hit the ground running, hands and face still burning with pain but my body feeling better for moving, and only slowed when I met with the uneven, shattered area of ground.

Slabs of concrete sloped back and forth, and a thin cloud of dust still hung in the air from where the table had kicked it up. Gravel skidded under my feet. I lunged towards the table, grabbing at the nearest food which seemed reasonable - fruit, bread, foil-wrapped blocks which I hoped would be something more akin to survival rations - and putting it into my bag as fast as I could. A crossbow bolt thudded into the table not twenty centimetres from my hand, but I kept going, my heart pounding in my chest.

Part of me wanted to fight. Fight rather than scavenge, turn and face the others. But for the sake of survival, I held it back, forcing myself to concentrate on filling my bag and think of filling my belly.

Milo moved closer to me as he ducked down again, then crawled a couple of metres before popping up. I threw him a glance, warning him as well as checking how close he had come, then grabbed one of the large bottles of orange juice and stuffed it into my bag despite the weight it would put on. He would not fight me.

He took a jerky step, then hissed something that was lost beneath an outraged scream from Helga, on the other side of the table. I looked up to see Kidagakash, blood on her face, bring down her dagger in a vicious arc that disappeared out of my sight. Helga was down; it was time for me to go.

Silver in the corner of my vision made me look round sharply. Milo had a knife in his hand, knuckles almost white with the tightness of his grip, and before he could turn against me I crossed the space between us in two steps and slammed my first into his face.

He snapped back, then lost his footing and fell to the ground in an ungainly sprawl. With Helga gone, we would be down to only seven tributes, and this was no time to be respecting alliances which I had broken days ago. No matter how honourable it might seem. I grabbed a long, rusted piece of metal from the rubble, pointed its wickedly sharp end towards him, and steadied my aim just over his heart.

For a shattering instant, my eyes met his. There was fear there, of course... and surprise. As if he had honestly thought he could win. The knife fell from his hand, and he made no move to oppose me, as I stepped forward to gather my weight and-

A foot hit the injured side of my face. Bright lights exploded in my vision, and I might have screamed, as I was thrown sideways onto the ground myself. Sharp concrete bit into my side, knocked against my head, but all that I could feel was the splitting skin on my cheek and the pain that threatened to squeeze my eye out of its socket. Blue blurred across my vision, then I realised that Kidagakash was leaning over me, hand wrapping around my throat, dagger still raised in her hand.

I struggled, trying to cry out, but I could feel where her fingers had locked tightly onto my jugular, pressing down with blunt precision. Within seconds, dark spots were filling my vision, my head growing heavy with blood.

My head fell back, body growing slack even as my mind screamed. The last thing that I saw before my vision went completely was Kidagakash, leaning over me, and it surprised me that there was no triumph in her expression.

I was surprised to open my eyes again. My stomach lurched, and I thought I might vomit, but regained myself and tried to make my way up again. I made it to my hands on knees, managed to interpret the sounds that I was hearing as words, Kidagakash ordering Milo to run, Rourke bellowing in fury far above me.

The ground felt as if it was shifting beneath my feet, and the roof seemed to be moving. Squinting, I realised that at least the second part of that was almost right: something, someone, was moving in the roof. I recognised Quasimodo’s silhouette as he grabbed hold of the rope which Helga had swung down, climbing up it nimbly, and leaping out right in front of Rourke. The crossbow was knocked from Rourke’s hands as Quasimodo grabbed hold of him and, with a furious shout, threw him from the edge of the roof.

Just as Rourke had done to Pocahontas the previous day.

It might have ended the same way, as well, had Rourke had grabbed hold of Quasimodo’s ankle as he fell, dragging the younger boy with him. They both fell for a heart-stopping instant, then Quasimodo reached out for the rope with both hands, a pained cry ripping from his lips as he skidded down it. The rope smeared red with his blood, but they stopped, still at least ten metres from the ground.

Even I, as a Career, would have been thinking about my own survival first. But Rourke pulled a knife from his belt, expression manic, and reached up to thrust it into Quasimodo’s thigh. It slid in up to the handle, blood spurting from the wound, and another cry on Quasimodo’s lips faded to a whimper before his arms went slack, and they fell again.

They hit the ground heavily. The giddiness in my body finally dissipating, I struggled to my feet, once again picking up the metal spike that I had been wielding. To my right, Milo cut away the charred fabric straps that had twisted themselves around his leg and, as Kidagakash had commanded him, ran. The She-Devil herself was already leaping back over the table, running towards Quasimodo and Rourke in their slumped heap.

Run or fight. The only two options that ever existed in the Games. Choosing my weapon over my pack, I slung myself round over the table as well, kicking aside a bowl and scattering fat purple cherries all over the now heavily-stained white tablecloth. My eyes fixed on Rourke, getting to his feet with bright red blood sprayed across his chest, so intently that I did not even notice the arms reaching for my calves until it was too late.

For a second time, I fell to the ground, throwing my arms up to protect my face. I rolled to see Helga, bruises starting to flower on her temple and blood matting in her hair, her eyes glazed but fighting to remain fixed upon me. She pulled a slim tube from her belt and pointed it straight towards me; I recognised it instantly as a Microbolt, a District Two speciality weapon which put the power of a crossbow into a device barely bigger than a tube of lipstick. They only had one shot, but that shot was a powerful one. Adrenaline and fear struggled in me as I kicked her arm aside and scrambled to my feet again, but by the time that I turned round a cannon was already sounding overhead.

Quasimodo lay in a pool of blood, arterial-bright. Over him stood Kida, teeth bared in a snarl, dagger in hand; Rourke faced her, not quite daring yet to reach for the sword at his hip. Without quite daring to turn my back on Helga, who was slowly getting to her feet, I circled round so that I stood about two metres from Kidagakash, waiting for the flicker of her eyes in my direction to show that she knew I was there.

“One last alliance, for old times’ sake?” I said through gritted teeth.

If we had all been Careers, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so angry. If it had been me, or Maleficent, or Kidagakash, that Rourke had thrown off the roof the previous day, perhaps it wouldn’t have felt so underhand. But it had always been watching the Reapings that killed me, knowing that the tributes from other districts would not be prepared in the way that I was.

“Why, Kida,” said Rourke, a slightly manic edge to his voice, “it looks like the boy’s sweet on you.”

He drew his sword and pointed it towards the both of us, even as Kida growled in frustration and sank her stance a little further.

“Go, Fa Ping,” she said, shaping my name carefully. “This is not your fight.”

Her eyes flickered in my direction once again, but the only move that I made was to drop my weight down and ready the makeshift weapon in my hand. Rourke had wanted uneven odds; let him taste them now.

“Eeny...” Rourke’s sword moved back and forth between Kidagakash and me, “meeny... miney...” The sword came to rest on me. “Mo.”

He did not get any further. Helga walked up beside him, raised the Microbolt to his temple, and pulled the trigger.

Even Careers thought twice about attacking their District partners, and then it was usually when there were only Careers left and squabbles had started to break out among them. Despite the fights that had erupted over the Feast, there had been only one death: Quasimodo’s. And Helga and Rourke had been working together from the beginning.

Perhaps that was why Rourke’s face fell into a look of slack surprise as the bolt went in through his temple, so hard that it cracked through his skull on the other side and protruded as a bloody spike. He collapsed slowly, knees first, then his waist, the sword not falling from his hand until he was keeled over on the floor.

Helga looked round to us, a slight smile tilting up one side of her mouth. Rourke’s cannon sounded. “Six?” she offered.

I could almost feel the anger radiating off Kidagakash, barely even needing to look at her tight-limbed posture, the glare in her eyes. “This is not how it was supposed to end,” she ground out, making a slashing gesture with the knife in her hand. “This was not how it was supposed to be.”

Helga sneered. “The Games end with twenty-three bodies, and I don’t really want to be one of them. Rourke was getting too cocky. If you didn’t want to do it, you shouldn’t have volunteered, She-Devil.”

“You do not und-”
The next words were cut off as the ground cracked and popped, then a hollow boom rung out from beneath us. The world roared, grey dust and gravel filling my vision, and I heard a scream that could have been anyone’s as everything crashed away.