I
-Cam-
Twenty three other tributes. Twelve of them were someone's daughter. Eleven of them someone's son. The odds were, in theory, twenty three to one, though Cam thought them a little shorter than that. Still not exactly in his favour though.
There were a couple Cam had to be careful of. There was the big bastard opposite him who'd been eyeing Cam up since the first day of training. Nicodemus was his name, or something like that. Cam was never any good with names. He was at least six two, and, Cam thought, probably as wide. That would be scary enough, if it weren't for the fact he was fast too. Cam could deal with dumb muscle, he spent most of his life dealing with it back home, but Nic was not dumb muscle.
Then there was that girl from District 1. She was not to be trifled with either. Everything about her was sharp, fast, deadly. Cam hoped someone else would deal with her before he needed to.
The timer on the cornucopia was counting down, but the lower it got the more time dilated, opened up. Threatened to swallow Cam whole, lose him in the perpetuity that existed between the numbers two and one.
And then zero.
And Cam leaped from his pedestal and straight for the bounty in the shadow of the cornucopia.
Nic did too, as did the girl from District 1 and a handful of others. Most of them ran for the surrounding woods.
Smart people, Cam thought. But I'm not here to fight smart and die hungry. I'm here to win.
In the stock pile of weapons and equipment were the usual assortment of swords and spears that Cam had seen in other Games, along with bags which probably contained bottles and matches and other survival gear. There was a crossbow there as well, and two smaller ones designed to be used with just one hand, like a pistol. Cam marked one of those for himself, and a thin curved sword he liked the look of.
He saw one girl grab a bag and then make a dash for the forrest.
She, Cam thought, is a victim. The thought stopped him cold. He never used to divide the world between takers and target, killers and corpses waiting to happen.
Cam had never been a particularly nice person, he'd always had a bit of a ruthless streak, but it had taken the form of the tiny criminal empire he ran back in District 11. Back home Cam was what people called a whipjack. Someone who'd buy stolen goods, and sell them back to the people they'd been stolen from, with a nice percentage for himself, of course. He didn't kid himself that just because he didn't steal anything his hands were clean, but everyone has to make a living. He also ran the most crooked book in the whole of Panam. People would bet on anything, and Cam was happy to let them, because he knew how to rig the odds. Have them ever in his favour.
Except for now, he thought.
He'd been stood still for maybe a second, but it was long enough for the landscape to have changed somewhat. There was a body laid spreadeagled leaking blood into the ever growing pool around him. There was a sword on the ground an inch from his hand, and one through his stomach. To Cam's left there was a kid, no more than fourteen, knelt down, begging for his life. Stood over him was one of the careers. A girl from District 2. Tallish, and lithe. Fast. Would sting like a whip, Cam suspected, if he gave her the chance.
Best avoided, for now at least. Then he looked back at the kid. He'd wet himself. The girl drew her arm back for the kill.
"Hey, ugly," Cam called. It was a lie, she was the precise opposite of ugly, but Cam had learnt that the fastest way to get a girl's attention was to insult her vanity. That had been the case with the girls Cam knew anyway. He suspected he didn't know the right kind of girl.
He ran for her so that he arrived just behind his words, but he wasn't fast enough. She turned and saw him coming for her, got her sword in the way so that Cam would do the work for her and impale himself, but Cam had never been one to do what others wanted of him. Cam had built up enough momentum so that stopping would be impossible, but he managed to direct himself slightly to his left, it wasn't much, but it was enough for the sword to just scratch his arm rather than open him up.
Cam collided with the girl from 2 and they went sprawling to the floor. They rolled a few paces before the girl got free of Cam's grasp and just seemed to glide onto her feet without any effort at all. Somehow she still had her sword.
I'm fucked, Cam thought as he struggled to get to his feet.
Cam wasn't giving himself enough credit. He'd always been able to look after himself. Working with criminals and peasants who'd recently been cheated out of their limited wealth meant that he often had to defend himself, he'd gotten good at it, plus he'd been honed during training. He wasn't the strongest, or the fastest, but he was enough of both to give him a fighting chance. So his mentor had said anyway.
Logically Cam knew that the fight took three or four seconds at the most, but it stretched out around him in slow motion like the clips his mentor made him watch over and over.
2 aimed a stab high, towards Cam's heart. He slapped the flat side of the blade and sent the stab wide as he took a step forward. He grabbed the wrist of her sword arm and aimed a strike at her elbow to make her drop the sword. It worked, but he had to pivot at the waist to do it which left a lot of Cam for 2 to aim for and she took advantage of it by bringing her knee up and into his kidneys.
Bendy, he thought as they took a step apart.
Cam noticed 2's eyes flick behind him for the merest hint of a second, before she turned tail and ran for the trees.
Cam almost wanted to follow her rather than turn and find out who was behind him, but he wasn't leaving the cornucopia empty handed, so he turned.
"Nic," he said.
Nic nodded a greeting, a smirk on his face. He'd claimed the crossbow.
They stood apart for a second. Cam's mind was racing.
He's slower than me. Slow enough? I don't know. I have to slow him down more if I'm going to grab any weapons. The knees, go for the knees.
Cam started for Nic, who loosed a shot from his crossbow. It went high and wide. Cam was aiming to run past Nic, rather than into him as he had with 2. He jabbed his elbow into Nic's side on the way past, not hard enough to do much damage, just to slow him down enough to give Cam time to kick Nic in the knee. Cam felt joints crack and tendons stretch as he drove his foot into the back of Nic's right knee. Nic's leg folded and his body followed it down. He collapsed face first into the dirt.
Cam didn't wait to see how long he stayed down, he just dashed for the cornucopia.
The initial bloodbath had fizzled itself out. Most people were gone, or laid on the floor dead or dying. Cam noted with a twinge of sadness the corpse of Jodi, the girl from 11.
No one had taken the sword Cam wanted, but both of the small crossbows had been claimed, so he grabbed the sword and ran for the forest. There was a small green bag in the grip of a girl who'd fallen on her face, a knife embedded in her back.
She doesn't need it anymore, Cam thought as he took it and ran for the trees.
He didn't notice that the boy he'd helped hadn't made it out.
-Jenny-
Jenny noted with annoyance that the fingers on her right hand still didn't do quite what she wanted quite as quickly as she wanted them to do it. Feeling was returning to her lower arm, but too slowly. And she was pissed off that she'd lost her sword.
It really would have been best to avoid the guy from 11,she thought, oh well, at least I've got the measure of him now.
She took stock of the equipment she still had. One small knife and a pack that contained just one water bottle, some string, and some dark camo paint.
Useless.
She tried making a fist with her right hand, then swore and started walking nowhere in particular. She'd planned to meet up with her partner from 2, but she'd seen him go down moments after it started.
She wondered what had happened to the guy from 11. Bad things, she suspected. Nic was a hard guy. If she could bet she'd put her money on him. Not that it would be productive. She'd either lose or not be around to spend her winnings.
She scanned her surroundings, then sat in the shade of a tree and tried to form a game plan.
Her partner had wanted to go to ground for a day or two and let everyone else tire themselves out, but Jenny hadn't been a fan of that idea. She'd have gone along with it so she wasn't on her own, but now she was anyway she could play things her way. Part of her wanted to think that she hadn't wanted to be on her own so that she had someone around to take the first hit, a safety in numbers thing. But she knew that that wasn't the whole truth. Part of her was just scared out of her mind.
She was trapped in an arena with people who wanted to kill her. And she was scared.
She'd trained for this, grown up knowing it would happen, but it doesn't prepare you for the visceral gut shot that is standing across from someone who wants to see you dead.
She didn't think anything could prepare someone for that.
No, gotta snap out of it. Can't let the fear eat me or I'll be handing the games to someone else.
She decided to stay close to the cornucopia, try and pick off anyone stupid enough to go back there to scavenge for supplies. Plus she guessed that's where the inevitable alliance would base itself. She wanted to keep an eye on them. The ones that grouped together would be the biggest threat to her.
She tried to make a fist again, the twinge in her arm had gone all together now.
I'll have to watch out for 11, she decided, he'd have had me if the fight had gone on longer.
-Cam-
Cam's kidneys ached. He was pretty certain he'd be pissing blood for a while thanks to 2. Of course, a while had taken on a whole new meaning now. If he survived until the end of the first day that would be a while.
After a few minutes of running from the cornucopia Cam had slowed down and started walking vaguely east. Or at least he thought it was east. He never was much good at navigation. Soon the forrest thinned out and became a ruined town. Well, it became a pretty convincing fake ruined town. It looked like it was modelled off of one of the richer districts, as even half destroyed most of it still looked better than anything Cam knew from home.
The skyline, fragmented as it was, presented two buildings that were much taller than the rest, Cam suppressed his first instinct and made a b-line for the shorter of the two, assuming anyone else wouldn't suppress their first instinct and they would head for the bigger one.
There were two paths up the building, one far easier and more obvious to spot than the other. They led up opposite sides of the building and their paths were pretty well separated from each other. Cam took the easier of the two routes, assuming that anyone intelligent enough to choose the second tallest building would also chose the most difficult route up it.
He found a secluded corner of the skeletal building which had a good view of the approach from the forest but which should also be hidden in shadow as late as it was in the day. He sat down and took stock of his situation.
Well, there was the fight with 2, he thought. He wondered what would have happened had it had chance to play to its conclusion.
Nothing good.
In their brief exchange he figured he walked away the loser.
Nic on the other hand he dealt well enough with. He'd got the sword he wanted, and a bag which he hadn't counted on getting. It hadn't been exactly a bad day thus far.
Bad was another term which had suddenly taken on new meaning. Because compared to any day from his old life this one had been awful.
He opened the bag and tipped its contents onto the floor.
A long, heavy jacket fell to the floor with a dull thud, followed by a small folding knife, useful for skinning an animal but not much more. Not that Cam knew how to skin an animal.
No water bottle, that will be a problem.
He'd have to venture back to the cornucopia for that. Or get lucky and get one from another tribute. Though the precise mechanics of getting one from a tribute were something Cam didn't want to think to much about.
Cam got up and put the jacket on. It was dark, almost black, fell to his thigh and had a hood. It was thick enough to keep him warm at night. He cut the straps off his bag and tied the two longest ones into a belt which he tied around his waist over the coat to stop it flapping about too much when he moved. He slid his sword into the belt so that it sat at the small of his back. He practiced drawing it a few times until he had a smooth motion down.
He settled in for the night and waited for the pictures of the dead to be projected onto the sky.
Seven died the first day.
Both of the tributes from 12, one from 11, one from 9, 7, 5 and 2.
The kid had been from District 9. Cam felt hollow when he saw his image suspended in the night sky.
