Ahead, trees covered the lower parts of the mountainsides. As the sun moved across the sky, it bathed the smaller peaks in a yellow light, and water droplets glistened on branches. I’d always loved morning time. A fresh day felt clean and new.
I walked along the river until the sun moved overhead and the river’s icy fringes were melted. Brown dirt peeked from between patches of snowy mush. Crack. A section of the river broke off and floated downstream. I snapped a straight branch from a spruce, sat, and carved until the wood became a spear. On the ice, I moved to the water holes and watched the fish swimming by. My stomach growled. I took the spear, aimed and stabbed at the water, missed the fish, then stabbed again.
A freshwater spotter, enough meat for two meals, lodged on the end of my spear. I took my catch to the river bank and sat. The fish flexed and flapped its tail until I knocked it over the head with my dagger. With a heavy heart, I ate none, deciding to tuck it away for later in case I found no other food that day.
I kept moving.
A wolf howled in the distance, and I crouched and cocked my head. Holding my breath I listened for any further sounds. Thixal watched me from afar. I thought about Skelkra. Contestants could only kill each other after they’d claimed their prizes, but the point of the challenge was to get back to Vilseek first. Of course, the others could always make the challenge more difficult. They didn’t need to kill for that, and I, being the biggest threat, would be a likely target.
I looked east towards the hawgrald nesting grounds approximately a quarter-day walk away. The clouds were low, and I couldn’t see the cliffs, let alone the birds. I knew Jeykal was there. The others would be near, too. Lild, the Snake boy, would be after a hard-to-catch water snake. I wondered if he was already downstream where the river ran stronger. He’d probably have to swim in the frigid waters.
I’d rather kill a bear, I thought.
Then, I heard the familiar roar that rippled through my body like lightning, heightening my senses. A bear! My heart raced, my muscles flexed, and goose bumps covered my skin. Further downstream, the river curved around a bend. There the treeline almost touched the river. I made my way to the trees, and kept to the shadows. On the steeper sections, roots and shrubs made sturdy footholds. Then came a more subdued growl. Definitely a snow bear. I stepped carefully through the brush, keeping my footing light and my mind calm. After a hundred or so paces, I crossed a ridge and through the trees, saw a white figure playing in the distance.
As I neared, five more appeared. Two cubs sat in the shallows, swatting at the water and biting each other. When they grew more boisterous, a bear pawed and growled at them for scaring the fish away. I chuckled, and for a moment, I felt sad at the idea of killing one. Ruxdorians respected all animals and never hunted for pleasure, only for survival. Although some men took pleasure in the hunt, they paid their respects by saying a prayer and trying to make use of every part of their kill.
A sow appeared, her fertile stomach swollen. Sows gave birth during the snowtimes, and the cubs suckled safely in a cave until snowmelt, when their mother took them on their first hunt.
I moved closer. If I had arrows now, I could easily hit one, but an arrow would only hurt the bear. If it were tipped with poison, then the bear might collapse, but I wasn’t allowed poison. Regardless, my bow was for hunting food for myself, like rabbits and deer. Somehow, I had to kill a bear with my dagger. That meant getting dangerously close. The thought put my stomach into knots. Snow bears were large, with feet the size of my head and claws sharper than my dagger.
‘Pssst,’ someone said.
I turned to see Skelkra looming in the shadow of a pine farther up the incline. Like me, he wore no shoes, and his only clothing was a loincloth. I found myself staring and quickly looked away. Lust stirred within—the same desire from last night—and distracted me. I frowned. If I wanted to win, I had to keep focused on the hunt.
Snow crunched as he stepped closer.
‘What is your prize?’ I asked, noticing he had a hunting knife lodged in his cloth. Where were his other belongings?
‘Wolf head.’
‘Me too. A bear.’
He frowned. ‘They expect you to carry that all the way back to Vilseek?’
I shrugged.
He took another step towards me, and I tensed. A twig snapped to my left, and I narrowed my eyes to see Abel, an elder from the Snake tribe, making his way down the mountain behind Skelkra.
Skelkra smirked at me. Thixal moved up to join Abel. They whispered to each other.
‘I’ve been walking all day,’ Skelkra said.
‘Me too.’ I guessed that meant he hadn’t killed a wolf yet. For the moment, I relaxed and refixed my gaze on the fishing bears. Skelkra wouldn’t try to sabotage my efforts, knowing how challenging my quest was already. We’d trained many hours together, and I was fairly sure he liked me.
‘How are you to hunt your beast?’ I asked, nodding at the knife lodged in his loincloth.
‘I must strangle it.’
I threw him an incredulous look and scanned his body. His upper torso bulged with muscle. His shoulders were broad, the muscles in his neck tight.
‘How are you to kill yours?’ he asked.
‘With a dagger.’
He inhaled sharply. ‘You’ll die.’
‘No, I won’t.’ How could he insult me this way after witnessing my battle skills?
‘Of course you will. Look at you. A bear is three times taller, two times wider, and a hundred times stronger than you. You will have to kill it in one blow. That’s impossible, even for me.’
‘Well, I’m not you.’
While his gaze slid to the river’s edge, I focused on our nearness, which both exhilarated and worried me. My hand slid to the knife at my hip, sitting out of his view.
‘Why did they give you a bow, then?’ He nodded at the weapon strung across my body.
‘To hunt food, I suppose. I don’t know.’
‘Do you have a plan yet?’
I scowled at him. ‘Of course I do!’ My irritation faded as I gazed into his eyes. My lips relaxed into a small smile. ‘A cub won’t do. A sow would be too ferocious. Like you, I will set a trap. For a male, maybe two or three years of age.’
He flashed his teeth. ‘Good.’
Then he sidestepped behind me and pressed his chest lightly against my back, his warm breath caressing the hairs on my neck. Over my left shoulder, his face came into view. Ecstasy held my body captive. I couldn’t move. My legs trembled…my skin tightened.
‘I could help,’ he whispered, slipping his right hand over mine. Stroking each of my fingers, he uncurled them from the hilt of my dagger. His breathing quickened. It was warm and sweet, and I fought the urge to lean back into his arms.
I took a deep breath, turned around, and pushed him away. ‘I don’t want your help.’ I swept my eyes to the Watchers, who’d stopped talking to observe our closeness. While their expressions were unreadable, I was sure they disapproved of what was blooming between Skelkra and me.
‘It’s not against the rules to work together,’ he said.
‘I must do this alone and prove I am strong.’
‘I worry that you’ll be killed.’ The light in his eyes dimmed as his head drooped.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I said angrily. ‘I’m agile and fast. I don’t need your concern.’ But I did want him close.
Frustrated by the conversation, I moved closer to my target, considering the different traps I could set. A traphole would give me the advantage from above. But digging the trench would take too much time. A simple meat trap would be quicker. With food being scarce, the bears would be desperate for anything they could get their paws on. Distracted by the food, the bear wouldn’t expect my attack.
I removed my bow and plucked the string. I needed arrows, so I scanned the hillside for saplings.
Skelkra caught on. ‘Let me make the arrows, and you hunt down bait that we can both use. Agreed?’
I c
onsidered him for a moment, acknowledging the time it would save and the possibility of increasing our bond. After we had our kills, we would go our separate ways then. ‘Fine,’ I said.
We started scaling the massif. The forest grew denser, until I had a fine selection of straight saplings. Rabbits ducked under brush, and I heard a wolf cry in the distance. Skelkra angled his head to listen, and hunger bloomed in his eyes. I gave him a knowing smirk, and he smiled back. We found some flat ground and scraped away the snow. A cliff hung overhead, providing us a temporary shelter.
‘Why are you helping me?’ I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘We’re not enemies. The true test is in surviving the elements. Snowstorms are coming. I’ve nothing to eat. No shoes. My feet will freeze off, eventually. I don’t want to die before I’ve even attempted the task. Pooling our possessions will help us live.’
I disagreed with him. The elements worried me less than the damage our tribal animals would do to us in a fight. Looking at Skelkra’s exposed flesh, I imagined how easy it would be for a wolf to claw away the layers. ‘Have you ever killed one with your bare hands?’
‘No,’ he said, and pulled out a flat, dry piece of pine. ‘Found this before. Good for a fire plank.’
‘They didn’t give you flint?’
‘No. You?’
I shook my head.
My mind processed our previous conversation. Something niggled at me. Did he genuinely care about me, or were his intentions just about survival? I knew he was attracted to me, but he played with the hearts of many girls. Maybe it was both. Maybe he liked me, and he needed my help.
‘What else did they give you?’ I asked.
‘Not much. I am stronger than you and the other competitors. So they have punished me for it.’
Hidden in that statement was the arrogance he was known for. But arrogance was expected in the future leader of any tribe. Confidence inspired confidence, and in terms of raw strength, yes, he was the strongest. But his size slowed him down and made him less flexible. When we’d wrestled, he could pin me, but I always managed to slip out of his grasp.
I snapped my spear in half, took the fire board from him, and carved out a groove. I picked up the broken stick and rubbed wood against wood. Minutes later, I touched the fireboard and found the wood warmed. I took the small sack from my bag and wrapped it around my hands to protect them from friction. The wood finally blackened, so I frayed the edges of my knapsack, cut away the fibres, and scrunched them into a soft ball. I pushed them into the hollow of the pine. Skelkra took over for me, and I watched the muscles in his back tighten and relax as he worked the wood. I found some leaves and twigs to start the fire.
He observed the kindling. ‘We’ll need something bigger than that.’ The wood smoked, and he stopped to blow on it.
‘Everything’s wet.’
‘Go farther up the mountain, then.’
I stood, took two steps up the incline and hesitated. I turned my head slightly, my eyes fixating on Skelkra, and then my knapsack. Would he take my things? I decided I would risk it, and continued up the mountain. I found a dead tree sticking out over a ridge. I kicked at it until it snapped and dragged the log back to the fire, which had grown to a hand-sized blaze.
‘We need more sticks,’ he said.
I sighed and went downhill this time. A splash in the distance caught my attention. For a moment, I thought a bear had jumped in the water, but then I saw Lild, the Snake boy, pulling himself from the river. He clutched at his half-naked body and marched on the spot, trying to get warm. Water snakes were difficult to catch if you didn’t have a net. For a moment, I felt sorry for him, but my pity faded when I spotted his blazing fire. They must have given him flint.
Something flicked my back, and I spun around to find Skelkra inches from my face. ‘You’re not focusing. Don’t worry about him or the others.’ His eyes settled on the boy.
‘Or you?’ I mused.
‘Well, that’s different.’
Splash. I turned back to watch Lild. ‘He has it hardest.’
‘You have a knack for underestimating your own danger.’ He touched my arm. ‘When you fight the bear, I want to watch. I can intervene if you need me to. Could be the difference between life and death. Death is worse than shame.’
‘And what about your shame? If your tribe learns that you helped me, they won’t trust you to lead. You’ll never bond to anyone.’
He grinned playfully. ‘Perhaps.’
His smile made my heart do little flips. He stepped forward, reaching both hands to my waist, his cold fingers making me shudder. At the same time, heat enveloped me, and my chest tingled. I traced his collarbone with a fingertip, not sure whether to pull him closer or push him away.
I glanced at Thixal and Abel, who were staring at us, and blushed. ‘They see.’
Skelkra’s eyes opened wide, his mouth parting slightly. ‘You’re ashamed of me. Of course you are.’ He stared at his feet. ‘You are the Bear. You could have anyone.’
’It’s not that,’ I said reassuringly. I touched his face, gently raising his chin so our eyes could meet. ‘My victory must be flawless.’
He stroked my hair and cupped his hand around the side of my head. I nuzzled it.
‘We are the strongest. It doesn’t matter which one of us wins, for eventually we’ll both rule together, won’t we?’
My soul blazed with excitement. ‘You mean that?’ I held my breath.
His fingers traced around my waist and moved up my spine. He bent his elbows, and eased himself against me. My heart jumped uncontrollably.
Taking my shoulders firmly, he whispered, ‘Yes.’
Finally, I was his, and he was mine. I pointed back up the mountain. ‘Before the fire burns out.’
He inclined his head, took my hand, and pulled me up the mountainside. We grabbed more firewood on the way back to our camp and I found myself glowing on the inside. Everything I’d wanted had come true, and together, we would win the challenge.
Back on the ridge, the fire grew. I placed a log on the hot coals, making them crackle and hiss. I took one of the saplings Skelkra had collected, skinned the main stem, placed it over the fire, and heated it. When the stick had heated, I removed it from the fire, worked out the bends and curves of one section, and placed another section over the heat. I repeated this until the stem was dead straight.
‘Here.’ Skelkra took it from me. ‘I’ll do the rest. You find deer, goat, anything.’
I left him to track game. Thixal followed far behind. I stepped along the mountainside, carefully inspecting trees, mud, and snow. Eventually, the slope levelled, and I could walk in a straight line. The next peak ascended beside me. The trees thinned, and I spotted rabbits ducking under the brush. Horn-shaped prints showed me the direction a deer had walked. On the ground beside them were half-chewed leaves. I touched the crumpled, slimy foliage: still moist.
I ran back to Skelkra. ‘Deer prints to the south, up the mountain,’ I said.
He passed me the first bare-shaft arrow.
‘Don’t you want to hunt?’ I asked him.
He frowned. ‘They gave the bow to you. Only you can use it.’
I groaned, snatched the arrow from him, and ran back to the hoof prints. The sun had moved down towards the western horizon, so the forest animals would be on the move. I stood for a moment, listening. The wind wailed around the cliffs and trees. Tiny birds chirped. In the distance, I heard Lild’s splashing and the growls of the bears. Closer, a twig snapped. Pine needles rustled, and a tree rat jumped from one branch to another. A thump sounded to my left, followed by a whoosh. I crept toward it.
The forest opened to a clearing surrounded by rock. At the other side, the stag I’d been tracking nibbled on shoots. I carefully grasped my bow, and the piercing screech of a hawgrald made me drop the weapon.
There was a flash of jade through the tree tops, then the bird swooped down and clamped its deadly, dagger-length claws around the stag�
��s antlers. The animal made a mournful sound while it writhed, trying to free itself. Trees swayed under the force of the winds produced by the hawgrald’s flapping wings. Sparrows darted, and rodents scampered. The predator continued rising until it spotted me and screeched. It dropped the stag, tilted its wings, and dived at me with claws spread.
Chapter III
PAIN SURGED DOWN MY SPINE as the hawgrald’s talons pierced my shoulder. I swung my fist, knocking the bird across the head. My knuckles throbbed, but a rush of energy allowed me to pick up my bow and arrow before springing away. While darting between trees, I took out my arrow. The bird hovered above, following me as I ran beneath the shelter of the branches. Cover was sparse, and the hawgrald beat its wings faster and faster. I braced myself to be carried off into the sky.
I made it to a clearing, took my bow and nocked an arrow. I turned, aimed, and let go. The arrow lodged under the hawgrald’s wing. It shrieked, making my ears ring. It continued towards me, but the wing trembled and eventually drooped. The bird hit the ground, spraying snow against my face.
Skelkra ran up behind me and lunged at the bird’s neck, slicing it with a knife. The beast gargled for a moment and then thrashed its wings about, knocking Skelkra against a tree. Its eyes wide and panicked, the bird gasped for air. With each gulp, its eyelids closed a little more until it collapsed to the ground. Blood trickled from its beak.
Skelkra stood and wiped his knife on his loincloth. ‘It’s no deer, but it will do.’
My legs still trembling, I leaned against a tree. And to think, Jeykal had to kill one of those beasts.
‘Did you hear its cry?’ I said, realising that every time I left the camp, Skelkra seemed to follow me.
‘Of course I did.’ Skelkra touched my shoulder where the hawgrald had scratched me. ‘The wound is shallow, but you should wash it anyway.’
Blood from my shoulder dripped onto the snow. If the other challengers knew I was injured, they might be tempted to take advantage of my weakness. Skelkra slid his arm around mine and for a heartbeat I forgot my injury.
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