The Champion, Page 2

  Amber sighed.

  “So … dino meat and Le Prince’s projector?” he asked.

  That earned him a grin.

  “It’ll have to do,” she said, feigning disappointment. “Although I don’t think I’d like to look at another Hydra as long as I live.”

  “You’re telling me.” Cade shuddered. “I’m just glad I only had to fight one of their alphas. The last contenders fought hundreds of them … and won.”

  The pair linked arms and began the long journey back down the mountain. At the top of the trail they gazed out over the red-sand expanse that stretched as far as the eye could see.

  “You ever wonder what happened to the Romans who were here before us?” Amber asked. “Quintus’s legion, and the ones that came before?”

  Cade bit his lip. He had pondered that very thing. The soldiers, Earth’s prior contenders, had marched away to attack another species in one of Abaddon’s rounds. An attempt to move up the leaderboard, and away from the red line that would mean Earth’s destruction if they dropped beneath it. But then they vanished. At least, Cade and his friends hadn’t come across them yet.

  Was there another caldera somewhere in the distance? One populated by the primeval beasts of that rival species’ past?

  There was still a lot they did not know. Cade wasn’t even sure if they would be defending an attack from a species below their leaderboard, as they had in the last round, or attacking a species above them to move up the leaderboard, as the Romans had.

  “Cade?”

  He hesitated, unwilling to turn their happy evening sour. “Abaddon brought us here to replace them. That means they’re … not here anymore. Let’s leave it at that.”

  Amber gave him a half smile. “I like to think they’re still out there.”

  Cade doubted it. It had been years by now.

  “You never know,” he said. “Let’s hope so.”

  He took her hand. It was time for their first official date.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Food. It had been the contenders’ obsession for months, as inescapable as the hunger that had clawed at their bellies every waking moment.

  Cade had dreamed of food most nights. Of his mother’s pakoras, fresh from the pan. Sweet jalebis, pretzel shaped and dripping orange syrup, ready to dissolve in his mouth.

  But that night, with his first full belly in months, it was not food that occupied his dreams. No, only the giggling laughter of Abaddon, as claws and teeth reached for him from the recesses of his mind.

  Cade jolted awake, cold sweat pooled on his chest. It was still dark; the red of the moon through the cracks in the shutters was all that lit the Commander’s Room, which he still shared with the other boys.

  He sat up and shook himself like a dog, as if he could rid himself of the nightmare. There was no such luck though. Even the soft snores of the others did not turn the oppressive darkness into anything less scary, the primordial part of his brain keeping his heart beating fast.

  “You’re awake.”

  Amber’s voice called out from the doorway, and Cade looked up to see her figure silhouetted against the flickering light of the Codex and its timer. He wondered if he had been crying out in his sleep and she had heard him from the girls’ room across the hall.

  “Come on, might as well check on the smokehouse. It’ll be light soon.”

  Cade groaned and rolled from the bed, careful not to tread on the snoring form of Quintus. The other boys had brought bunk beds from below up to the room—still too afraid to sleep in the ground floor barracks.

  But the young legionary was more comfortable on the floor with a straw-filled mattress. He had taken to sleeping there while Cade recovered, to attend him if he needed water or help reaching the toilets far below. The arrangement had just stuck. Not that Cade minded.

  Cade tiptoed over, and Amber led him to the round stone table in the room between the girls’ and the boys’ rooms.

  “We need to talk,” she said, sitting down and motioning to the next chair over.

  “Oh?” Cade said.

  He sat on the stone chair, and only now did he see her clearly in the flickering blue light of the ticking timer. Her face was drawn and grim, stark contrast to the smile and soft kiss she had given him the night before.

  “After our night together … I … I don’t think we should be together anymore.”

  Cade’s heart twisted in his chest.

  “I don’t understand,” he choked, the cold shock of disappointment chasing the sleep-drunk fog from his mind.

  “I just … you’re not a good match.”

  Amber tossed her hair and leaned back in the chair.

  “The whole night, all I could think of was … how fragile you are.”

  She motioned at him, summing him up with a dismissive wave of her hand. Cade felt his throat close up, and a hint of tears prick the edges of his eyes.

  “Amber…”

  But he could not think of anything else to say. It was so sudden. Had he read their date so wrong? They had talked through the night, watching the sunset, even as their heads nodded in sleep. A soft kiss goodbye, heartfelt and tender. It had all been so perfect.

  “I need to think of my future here,” Amber said, seemingly ignorant of the abject misery her words were causing him. “I need someone who’s going to look after me. You know?”

  Amber had never needed, nor wanted, a protector. She was as independent as any girl he’d met.

  “This isn’t like you, Amber,” Cade said. “Why are you saying this?”

  She smiled, but in the ethereal glow it seemed to have a cruel twist to it. It was familiar somehow.

  “I just can’t be with someone as pathetic as you are.”

  Cade reached for her hand, and as his fingers brushed her own, he felt a static shock. Amber’s smile turned into a shark-like grin, even as her face shrank and morphed, and her figure shrank before his eyes.

  Within moments, he was looking down at a cherubic little girl, her chubby legs dangling from the chair.

  Abaddon’s avatar.

  “Your face!” Abaddon giggled. “My my, you do care about that silly girl.”

  Cade stared, speechless.

  Abaddon jumped to the ground, her face contorted with malicious pleasure.

  “You must forgive my little joke,” Abaddon said, pointing a pudgy finger at his distraught face. “Or rather, forget it swiftly, and listen well. I will only instruct you once.”

  Cade’s heart, already racing, seemed to rattle in his chest in anticipation of the cruel god’s news. Their time of rest was over. From this moment until the timer reset … they would live in terror.

  “My little crew of contenders has matured well,” Abaddon said. “But watching you battle here bores me. It is time for you to fly the nest, little bird. To succeed where those before you failed. It is time to attack.”

  The girl motioned behind Cade, where the Codex’s flickering timer was replaced by the leaderboard—that pyramid of symbols that denoted where each of the pantheon’s contenders sat within the game.

  As before, mankind was represented by a human skull. The red line under the third row delineated where humans and the other species above them would have their home planet destroyed should they fall beneath it.

  “You only have one path to attack upward—this species, here.”

  The block above the human skull flashed, and a symbol appeared there. To Cade’s surprise, the symbol was not dissimilar to their own—humanlike but for the enormous eyeholes, nonexistent teeth, and an upper skull that was distended like a soccer ball. It was, in a word … alien.

  Abaddon paused, as if waiting for Cade to speak.

  “What happens if we fail?” Cade managed.

  Abaddon giggled.

  “I will abandon you in their territory to fend for yourselves. Perhaps you can scratch out some form of existence in their lands. But that is not the real consequence. If you lose, I will not be bringing new contend
ers to the keep. It will be left undefended, and the next attack from below will find no resistance. Your planet will fall beneath the red line and … poof.”

  Abaddon clapped her hands, wiggling her dainty fingers.

  “Who are they?” Cade asked. “Are they sentient? Do they have weapons?”

  Abaddon tapped her button nose. “Your Roman counterparts garnered little knowledge of this species before failing in their attack.” She chuckled. “It has to be written down for the Codex to record it. Why, they did not even have time to give it a name before they were defeated! But you have the skull as a clue. Be glad you have that, at least.”

  “Where will we go?” Cade asked. “And what are the rules?”

  Abaddon tossed her golden curls.

  “There are no rules, other than that there cannot be a single enemy left alive in their headquarters before the timer runs out. As for where, you will find out soon enough.”

  Cade shuddered involuntarily as the little girl’s sweet voice spoke of death. It was sickening.

  Abaddon giggled again. “But you have not asked the most important question.”

  Cade drew a blank.

  “You must leave in exactly two hours, or the round is forfeit,” Abaddon said. “Gather in the desert, and follow the rising sun.”

  And with that … she was gone.

  CHAPTER

  5

  “How long now?”

  Cade did not even have time to register who had spoken, instead shouting over his shoulder as he poured the well’s bucketful of water into his amphora. “Ten minutes!”

  The keep was a mess of activity, as the newly woken contenders hurried to ready themselves for the attack.

  Yet, in the cold light of the early morning, Cade took comfort in the preparations they had made before Abaddon had spoken.

  In a way, the threat of the slavers’ return had been a blessing in disguise. What little food they had was packed in sackcloths, ready to be moved in case they had to abandon their home.

  Their weapons were kept sharp and by their bedsides, as was the linen armor of those who had fought in the arena. Bedding and sackcloth tents had been prepared to take with them, and the sleds they had used to transport the sauropod meat to the smokehouse were ready to go as well, one for each of them.

  But there was still so much to do. Amphorae had to be filled with water, and Bea and Trix had volunteered to run to the graveyard in the desert to gather spare jugs to refill for their journey. Even now, he kicked himself for not doing so before.

  The meat, now smoked, was being packed to take with them, and an amphora of rendered fat was brought too. The rods and nets they used to catch fish, rare though that was, needed to be taken from their place beside the river.

  Fruit they had left on the trees—to stop them rotting—had to be picked from the mountaintop and brought along. There was another week left on the timer, and they needed enough food to last them.

  And with each moment, they remembered other things they needed. Utensils to eat with. Spare sackcloth for crafting. Sticks to hold up their tents, should the place they were going have none—certainly the desert would not yield any.

  Moreover, the sun would bake them to a crisp if they had to march across the desert without cover. So makeshift parasols were under construction, made by the deft fingers of Quintus and Yoshi. By some good fortune, Quintus had built one before, to shade him as he fished along the riverbank.

  A shatter of crockery followed by a scream of frustration sounded from behind him. Bea and Trix were back, and one of the amphorae they had brought from the desert had smashed on the cobbles.

  Ignoring their annoyance, Cade tugged one from their arms and uncorked it, then began to fill it as he had done with the others.

  “Well done,” was all he managed. “You take over now.”

  He dropped the empty bucket back in the well and turned to survey the others. Their sleds were lined up in front of the door in the keep’s wall, almost all fully packed.

  Drake’s armor, that which Cade had worn in the battle against the alpha, was too heavy and hot to wear through the trek in the desert. It lay packed atop his own sled, the one at the very front.

  To his surprise, everyone but the twins were waiting for him beside their sleds. Quintus and Yoshi had only managed four rudimentary parasols, but they were big enough to be shared between two people if they walked beside each other.

  All in all, they were as ready as they could be. He stood beside the well, staring at the Codex, which had begun following him again.

  There was a smaller timer below the first, denoting their time to prepare.

  00:00:01:11

  00:00:01:10

  00:00:01:09

  “Come on,” he called over to Bea and Trix as they filled another batch of amphorae and lowered the bucket once more.

  00:00:00:57

  00:00:00:56

  00:00:00:55

  “That’s the last one.” He tapped Bea on the shoulder. “Leave it. We can’t risk it.”

  He picked up two full amphorae and stumbled over to his sled, loading them as carefully as he could amid the morass of sacking, sticks, and rope.

  The twins followed, taking up their stations beside their sleds and looking mournfully at the pile of empty amphorae they had left behind.

  “Move out,” Cade bellowed. “We have to get to the desert, now!”

  They pulled, the runners of the sleds scraping against the ground. The wood screeched along the cobblestones, then began to judder over the bones in the muddy field beyond the keep.

  Ribs scattered beneath Cade’s feet as the Codex hovered in front of him, the count dropping slowly.

  00:00:00:19

  00:00:00:18

  00:00:00:17

  “Come on!” Cade yelled, heaving on the rope as the desert sand shone ahead, just beyond the shade of the cliffs on either side.

  He felt the crunch of sand and salt beneath his feet as the timer ticked down to zero. He dropped the rope and staggered, turning to see the others grind to a halt beside him.

  His eyes turned to the Codex, waiting. For three juddering breaths, he waited. But if they had missed it, there was no indication. Only the flicker as the smaller timer disappeared, and the larger one continued its inexorable count.

  “Did we make it?” Amber panted.

  Cade turned toward her, and his eyes widened. Just behind them, a giant, opaque force field had bisected the canyon, blocking their return to the keep.

  “There’s our answer,” he said, feeling a twinge of annoyance. Part of him had hoped they’d be able to bend the rules and sneak back to the keep for more water. He should have known better.

  “So what now?” Scott wheezed, flat on his back behind them.

  Cade turned to the blazing sun, already feeling his skin burning under its glare.

  “We walk,” he said.

  CHAPTER

  6

  The walk was hell. One that was made harder by their flimsy parasols, which could only cover three pairs. Every ten minutes, two of them would switch places, for there were eight of them walking the desert.

  And even with this paltry shade, there was little to protect them from the reflection of the salt crust in the desert. The fair-skinned Bea and Trix, as well as the freckled Scott, were struggling the most.

  They had stopped to make headscarves from the spare sackcloth they had brought. But after a day’s walk, their water stores were already beginning to empty. If they did not see their destination within a day, they would die in this desert.

  “How much farther?” Bea asked.

  Cade, leading the train of sleds alongside Amber, gazed once more at the horizon. But it was devoid of all life. Just an endless glaring white.

  “There’s nothing,” Cade called. “We should take a break.”

  He waited for the others to catch up, and they gathered in a circle, sitting on their sleds with their parasols held high.

  “Maybe we shou
ld travel at night,” Amber said after the group had caught their breath and gulped down more water.

  “Then we can’t follow the sun,” Grace replied.

  “Is that what we’re following?” Yoshi kicked the sand in frustration. “Then we’re on a wild goose chase.”

  Cade furrowed his brow. There hadn’t been time to tell everyone the full scope of Abaddon’s instructions.

  “Well, it’s what Abaddon told us to do. Why do you say that?”

  “Because the sun moves. We’ll be curving from left to right. Basically a meandering circle, depending on how this planet is positioned.”

  Yoshi illustrated his point with a sweeping finger.

  “Well, what should we do instead?” Cade asked.

  Yoshi shrugged. “We’re at Abaddon’s mercy. His little toys to move as he likes. I’m just saying he’s set us a pointless task. At the very least the Codex could be leading us instead of this sun crap.”

  Scott chuckled bitterly. “Well, maybe he just wants us all tanned for when we go into battle. You know, we gotta look good for the show.”

  Grace rolled her eyes, though Cade saw the edges of her lips twitch.

  He looked to Quintus. The young legionary was not the most talkative, but Cade had hardly heard a word from him since they had set off.

  “Quintus … what do you think?” he said loudly, for Quintus was not watching their lips, but rather staring at the ground.

  His friend looked up, and only now did Cade see the dejection in his eyes.

  “My legion was three thousand, and … there were a few hundred others. They did this before us. Walked into the desert. They had weapons. Food. Much more than we.”

  He bit his lip. “We are eight. Hungry. Little armor. How can we win where they … did not?”

  His words echoed the heat-fuddled thoughts that Cade himself had been having. He’d been trying to ignore them; they were a bridge to be crossed later.

  No one spoke, but he saw their eyes turn to him.

  “Abaddon would not put us in a situation we had no hope of winning,” Cade muttered.