Marcellus is less than impressed when we get back. He's packed most of our good supplies into the six biggest backpacks, including all our remaining food and first aid gear. He throws one of the packs at Citrine and tells her to get her own bandages out and stalks off to the lake to fish out a replacement sword and knife from the pile of unwanted weapons he had already tossed in the water.
Other supplies that we weren't planning on using have been thrown in there as well, or otherwise destroyed to prevent any of the other tributes coming in after we have left to take them. I grab the remains of one of the smaller tents that Marcellus has possibly used for sword drills and cut the material into long, thin strips for extra bandages. I also empty out my day-pack and transfer anything I want to keep. I toss the two fish, which are starting to smell after a few hours in the heat. Maybe if we run out of food and my sponsors stop providing I'll eat from the arena. Until then there's no point risking that it's poisonous.
I know that poisonous fish do exist—one of the girls I trained with, Shell Kimura's family farms a weird fat spiky sort in special tanks and ships directly to the Capitol. Supposedly it's sold as a delicacy there, and people pay extra for the risk of death if their slice isn't perfectly prepared. There's also poison perch that the Capitol modified and released near rebel soldiers during the Dark Days that looks like an ordinary perch, but eating them can make you violently ill for days. According to some of the older people in the District, it's the main reason we lost one of the larger battles of the war.
Of course I have no doubt that the Gamemakers could easily invent their own types just for this arena. I can't remember if there was anything at training about identifying edible animals. Even if there was I'd probably be as bad at it as I was with the plants.
I decide to take a nap for a few hours before we move out, curled up in the shade of the Cornucopia out of the direct heat. The gentle murmur of conversation lulls me to sleep for a bit until I roll over and bang one of the bites on my leg against the metal horn. Carla and Citrine are also sleeping, though as always the girl from Two wakes immediately as I groan and stretch. I'm not sure if she ever actually sleeps properly.
About an hour before sunset a pair of parachutes descend bearing food. A small basket of plain bread rolls lands between the pair from Two. A larger basket lands in front of me—hot seafood chowder and a loaf of our thick salty district bread. I share mine with Anita, and offer some to the others, who turn it down. Carla and Marcellus don't share theirs either. It's a loud statement from our mentors about who has and hasn't been up to scratch so far.
We head out as the sun drops below the horizon, lighting our way with flashlights carried by Citrine and Anita, probably our two weaker fighters right now. As we pass the trees where both Marcellus and I heard rustling I slow for a long look and see him doing the same. In the fading light it would be quite difficult to see anything that stayed still. If it was a tribute and they are still around, at least we haven't left them anything much at the Cornucopia. I turn away as the anthem plays and reveals the cannon we heard earlier was for the scrawny girl from Twelve. Marcellus snorts derisively and waves us on towards the north-east, in the direction she was killed.
Once again we're forced to slow once we get past the more open grassy plains and into the denser trees. With only two light sources it's hard to see the ankle-turning tree roots or the leg-grabbing brambles. When Marcellus, who is insisting on leading at a very fast walk that the rest of us are struggling to keep up with, stumbles into a patch of stinging nettles he calls a halt.
I can hear him swearing under his breath as he rummages through his bag for a spray, snapping at the girls to give him more light and at the same time keep watching outwards. When he leads us out again it's at a much slower pace, and even though we keep our eyes and ears tuned for any signs of movement we find nothing.
We stop again around midnight in a sheltered clearing. It's a warm enough night that no one can be bothered with the tents that Carla and Marcellus are carrying. I re-treat my bites and scrapes and burrow down into my sleeping bag, trying to ignore the stinging and catch a few hours sleep. I doze in and out, waking alternately from a niggling pain, a twinge of my leg muscles, still not used to running all day and several times from the rustling of leaves and branches.
I'm mostly awake when Anita pokes me for my watch, and after my hour am still wide eyed. I don't bother waking Citrine, who probably needs the sleep more than I do. The others stir as the golden morning light starts peeking through, throwing long morning shadows across our bland breakfast of dried fruit and crackers.
Packing up and moving out through the trees feels routine now after nearly five days in the arena. Initially Marcellus demands we walk in silence, but it soon becomes obvious that anyone around would hear us coming half a mile off and the girls start a low chatter. Carla and Anita run through who is left besides us: the obvious threats, Ida and Tarris from Ten and the high-scoring Markus from Eight; the barely memorable boys from Three and Five and my big, sturdy friend Rosie from Eleven are still out there too. By our count there's one more. Anita is sure is one of the girls, but none of us can remember who.
"I guess we'll find out when we find them and kill them," Carla says with a laugh.
The conversation dies out to muttered swearing as we hit another bramble patch.
~xXx~
Around mid-afternoon Angelus steps behind a tree to take a leak and stomps back looking grumpy. His right leg is coated half-way up his shin in foul-smelling muck.
"What's the matter, did you fall into a stream?" Carla asks pointedly.
Angelus shakes his head. "Swamp," he says shortly, lip curling as he tries to shake his foot clean. "By the smell of it a big one."
Now that he mentions it, I can smell something on the wind. Sure enough another hundred feet on the trees thin out a little and the ground becomes a patchwork of glistening mud and murky pools. Small, chirpy birds flit around the tree-tops and a constant grating of insects and frog bellows fills my ears.
I've never been out in the swamps up the coast from our District, just sailed past them on a boat a few dozen times, but it's still more experience than any of the others have had. Amazingly they are willing to take my lead, and eventually we agree to move along parallel to the swamp edge, watching out for any movement that might mean mutts or tributes, or for any sort of path of solid ground that will let us go out further safely.
"Also, check for leeches and ticks regularly," I say, prompting both my allies from One to squirm a bit. I keep that in mind, and decide if I find any harmless looking crawlies to drop one in Angelus' sleeping bag the next time we make camp.
It's even slower going than the bramble forest, and within an hour all six of us have stepped into at least one muddy puddle. My soaked sandals weigh down on my feet, making me more prone to stumbling, and the clouds of bugs are a constant annoyance. At least the mud is nice and cooling on my bites and scratches, sealing over hard and preventing stinging sweat from dripping in them. I have to hope that the cream I used will keep out any infection; I'd hate to fight my way through the Hunger Games only to lose my leg or arm to a parasite.
As soon as we find a clear solid piece of ground Marcellus calls for camp. He wants us to stay in sight of the swamp, ignoring all arguments about escaping the biting insects and foul stench by heading back into the forest as he starts setting up the tent that us three boys will share.
Carla wrinkles her nose and gives in, setting up the girls' tent behind ours and facing away from the murky marshland. "Just watching our backs," she says innocently when Marcellus raises a questioning eyebrow.
Angelus still isn't happy and stalks away back into the trees, claiming he's going hunting somewhere that he won't have to get muddy. I spot a couple of leeches hanging off the back of his calf and decide to let him discover them for himself. Instead I collect up some dry wood and start a little fire in-between our two tents, stretching out beside it to dry my soaked sandals.
"Do you think that's a good idea?" Citrine asks when I add some damper wood, causing a billow of smoke up amongst the treetops. I shrug, not really concerned since we'll outnumber anyone who would try anything.
"Let them come," Marcellus grunts as he settles his own sodden footwear to dry as well. "Save us the effort of chasing them."
Mags delivers again at dinner time, though I notice the unspoken comment when I lift the lid of the pot and find a bland vegetable stew. The price of sponsor gifts rises day by day, and watching me fall into muddy puddles or being attacked by swarms of carnivorous fish isn't winning me any extra sponsors.
Once I finish eating I strip off my thin vest and shorts and start washing out my wounds with a little of my bottled water. Anita whistles as I reach around to clean the back of my shoulder, inadvertently flexing my arm muscles.
"Giving us a show Finn?" she asks teasingly.
"Of course," I tell her cheerfully. "I'm the one who's good at stripping and flirting remember?"
Marcellus snorts and asks, "Is that what you did to get your Nine in training?"
His tone isn't threatening like Angelus' would have been, and to be fair I did strip my shirt off during my private evaluation, so I answer him with a grin. "Absolutely. And I showed off my spear-work too. They loved it."
Anita groans and smacks the back of my head in a friendly manner.
The cannon boom makes us all jump. It's a fair way off, down towards the south-east. Probably not Angelus, though I can hope.
"What do you think, head down that way tomorrow?" Carla asks hopefully.
"No," Marcellus says firmly, ignoring the groans. "For all we know it was someone falling off a cliff or into a stream full of those vicious fish you all nearly got eaten by. We'll stick up here for another day at least. I'm sure there's at least one tribute hiding in here."
"Why?" Anita asks, and elaborates when Marcellus glares at her. "Why would anyone choose to hide out in this foul-smelling, bug-ridden swamp when there are perfectly nice beaches and forests down that way?"
"Because they don't think anyone will come looking for them in the foul-smelling, bug-ridden swamp," he says shortly. "But they are wrong."
"Maybe the girl from Twelve was hiding out here, but they, I dunno, ate a poisonous frog and died and now there's no-one?" I suggest, and get scowled at in return.
"We are following the edge until we find a path or any sign of tributes for at least another day, maybe two. If any of you don't like it, I'm happy to settle it with a fight. No?"
He looks around at all of us until we all shake our heads. It's too early to split our pack, most of us have no natural survival skills and a fight between us would probably end up with all of us losing out.
"Good," he says. "I'm going to catch an early nap. Make sure someone catches the anthem to see who that was, otherwise sort out a guard shift schedule. When that…when Angelus gets back, tell him he gets the midnight guard shift. We'll head out at sunrise."
He climbs into the tent and after ten minutes I hear him snoring. I drink up the last of the water bottle I was using for cleaning and hunt through my bag for my other one.
"You know, we may need to go get water tomorrow," Carla says thoughtfully as she looks at her own half-empty bottle. We've been re-filling them at every lake and stream and have plenty of purifiers, but we haven't crossed one of those since early morning. The heavy, humid weather combined with all our trekking means we've all been drinking more than usual too.
Anita snorts. "Yeah, maybe Marcellus will accept that as a good reason, unlike everything else."
"Maybe," Carla replies with a small smile, and I wonder if she knows something about Marcellus that the rest of us don't. It wouldn't be surprising; I don't know much about how District Two does its training, but even if they didn't have much to do with one-another before the Games they had the whole week of pre-Games prep time to get acquainted.
The anthem plays as Angelus walks back into camp, still looking grumpy and mud-spattered.
"Did you catch anything?" Anita asks cheerfully, knowing full well he didn't.
He snarls at her in reply and stomps into the tent, probably loud enough to wake Marcellus. I silently hope my ally from Two punches him or something and turn back to the sky which is showing a picture of a scrawny, pinch-faced boy.
"That's Five, right?" Carla asks. "Eddy or something."
"Eddison Stewart," Citrine mutters under her breath. She's the sort who doesn't say much but sees and hears everything, at least when her eye isn't swollen shut. I wouldn't be surprised if she remembers all the names. I personally don't see the point. Unless I'm going to work with them, I'd rather not know who I'm killing. It's bad enough remembering that if I'm getting out of here alive, that all my allies sitting or sleeping nearby will have to be dead.
I shake my head, trying to force those sorts of thoughts out and away. Nothing I can afford to worry about, because no matter what it won't make things any better.
"I'll take first watch if the rest of you want to catch some sleep," I say, forcing my voice to stay cheerful, as though I wasn't thinking about any of these people being dead a moment ago.
"Wake me in a few hours," Carla says amicably as the girls get up and start retreating to their own tent.
It's a lot harder to judge the time without a good view of the near-full moon, but I catch enough glimpses through the trees as it rises to make a guess at my two hours. Carla wakes while I'm unzipping the tent flap and I reach in to give her a hand upright. We end up face to face in the fire light, her eyes glittering as they catch reflections of the glowing wood. She grins in the darkness and reaches up to ruffle my hair the way Anita would. Like my mom used to before she died.
I shiver and take a controlled step backwards, pointing to my pile of mostly dry branches I collected while waiting.
"Thanks," she says softly. "You go get some rest now."
I go, trying not to think about the feeling of her fingers in my hair as I climb into the tent and discover Angelus deliberately sprawled on a diagonal angle, effectively taking up all the space left beside Marcellus. I decide not to bother about whether or not the wriggly I shove down his shorts tomorrow is poisonous, grab my bag and set up beside the tent. Carla gives me an odd look until she catches the expression on my face.
"He's a jerk," she mutters as I crawl into my bag, pulling it up tight over my head in the hope it will keep some of the bugs out.
Somehow, through the constant buzzing, croaking and chirping I manage to fall asleep.
~xXx~
The next day is miserable. It's even hotter when I wake than it has been any other day so far. I have to force myself to only drink a few mouthfuls of water when my body is demanding the whole bottle, since we may not get any more soon.
I'm sure Mags could send me some, but I'd rather not have her waste good sponsor money on something we should be able to get ourselves. Marcellus grudgingly agrees that if we don't find anything in the swamp by midday that we'll head back south and look for a water source. The swamp mud stinks more and more as the temperature of the day rises and all of us are scratching bug bites that the spray in Anita's first aid pack can't seem to help.
I had hoped that the hot weather would at least dry up some of the swamp edge, but like yesterday all of us end up stepping in a few stinking mud-puddles and by mid-morning my sandals are once again soaked through and heavy.
Eventually we do come to a stream that looks mostly clear, and even better there's a pile of branches and vines that doesn't quite look natural. Undoubtedly a tribute is here, or at least was here at some point.
Marcellus orders us to spread out and search, and I notice the others glancing up into the trees probably remembering Wheela, though the branches of the trees here are a lot thinner and sparser. I go poke at the rough shelter some more, mostly as an excuse to stay clear of the swamp for a few minutes. As I cut the vines and knock away the larger branches I spot a flash of green and yellow—a small, brightly colored pack that the owner had tried to coat with mud to hide it. Inside the bag is a coil of wire, an unused box of matches and an opened packet of jerky strips. Surely no-one would leave this behind unless they were only going a few steps away or are dead.
I pick it up and turn to say this to the others when Anita calls out, "Hey, down here."
She's right by the stream where it connects to a muddy, brackish pool of the swamp and stands up holding a water bottle.
"There's a-"
Her words are cut off as a huge dark shape lunges from the water and clamps its jaws down on her outstretched arm. I've never seen a gator before, but I've heard stories and this monster exceeds them all.
Carla moves first, racing in from the side and driving her sword into the creature's eye, causing a spray of blood but not making any difference to the clamped jaws. Anita shrieks suddenly, and jabs with her spear, but it's in her off-hand and at a bad angle, and the sharp point deflects against thick scaly hide.
The creature starts shuffling backwards towards the water, easily dragging Anita with it and she screams again for us to come help her. I force my frozen legs into action and run in behind her just as Marcellus arrives and chops down at the top of the creature's head. Despite his strength, the sword ricochets off the thick hide as well, nearly rebounding into his face. It does slow the backwards drag though, and I drop my gear and grab Anita from behind, wrapping one arm around her waist and clamping the other onto her forearm just outside the heavily fanged jaw.
From this angle I can see the stream of blood running from her wrist, where it has been pierced. Which is surprising, since I wouldn't expect to see anything at all. Further in I catch a glimpse of silver, the metal drink bottle she was holding, which appears to be keeping the monster's jaws wedged slightly apart. As I watch there's a crunching noise and the gap narrows.
I don't have any time to worry about how much it will hurt her—if I don't act now she will almost certainly lose the hand, which at this stage of the Games will mean death. I haul backwards as Marcellus strikes down again, twisting hard to the left, and her hand pulls free moments before the jaws clamp completely shut.
We both fall backward in a heap and I scuttle backwards on all fours, dragging her with me until I feel safely out of reach. Marcellus strikes one last blow across the scaly snout and the gator monster thing retreats back into the brackish water.
Suddenly the whole world that was spinning and roaring becomes eerily still and quiet. Then the birds and insects start chirping again and we all let out a breath of relief.
"Owww," Anita says, running her uninjured hand up her arm, which is scored deeply with a jagged five inch tear.
Angelus, who I notice stayed well back during the entire encounter snorts loudly. "Why don't you go wash that off in the stream."
Anita responds by grabbing a handful of mud and throwing it at him, which splatters satisfyingly across the left side of his face.
"I vote we get the hell away from this swamp," she replies, her voice still slightly ragged and edgy.
Marcellus' face clouds with that stubborn look, but Anita jumps in again before he can speak.
"The reason I grabbed the bottle was because it had a huge dent in it. I bet the kid from Twelve was filling it when that monster jumped out and bit her in half or something. And even if it wasn't, anyone who stays around here will get eaten by that eventually. Let's go down that way where we know some of the others are."
Finally Marcellus concedes. "Fine," he says after a moment of consideration. "Wrap that up and we'll head down that other finger of land."