Chapter Seven

"Ah," Adonis said as the screens showing the view outside the hovercraft went completely black. "We're nearly there."

"The arena?" Dyson asked, polishing off the last of his breakfast and placing his knife and fork on his plate. As two Avoxes set to work clearing the table, he began to wonder what kind of arena he was being sent to. A forest? A swamp? A tundra? He hoped it wasn't the latter; memories of watching the tributes in the Sixty-sixth Games freezing to death flashed through his mind and, even though it was the middle of summer, he shivered in anticipation. But he knew it was no use asking. Adonis wouldn't tell him anything and besides he would find out for himself soon enough.

Adonis nodded. "We must be directly overhead. Won't be long now."

Sure enough, it was only a matter of minutes before the hovercraft landed and Dyson found himself following Adonis down the ladder and into the vast network of catacombs beneath the arena. Following directions, they made their way to the Launch Room which had been allocated to the male tribute from District 5, where Dyson showered and cleaned his teeth, thinking as he did so that it could be the last time he did either of those things, that this underground room could be the last he saw of civilization. Soon he would be in the arena, a place he would leave either as a victor or as a corpse.

Moments after Dyson had finished in the shower, a parcel containing the clothes he would wear in the arena was delivered to the Launch Room. Adonis opened the package to reveal a set of undergarments, grey socks, a beige long-sleeved shirt, brown trousers, a black leather belt, a dark grey hooded jacket and a pair of sturdy black lace-up boots. The exact same outfit was being issued to all twenty-four tributes, as had been the practice since shortly after the Games moved from the Capitol Arena into the wilderness mock-ups that had long been the norm; before that, the tributes had gone into the Games in whatever clothes they happened to be wearing when they were reaped. Such as the dark green dress Aurora had worn when she was a tribute and which she had still been wearing when she was shipped back to District 5 as the victor of the Ninth Hunger Games.

Back in the present, Dyson dressed himself in the clothes he had just been issued. Adonis made sure everything fitted correctly, then took something out of his pocket and handed it to Dyson. A silver pendant in the shape of a crescent moon. The same pendant which Paula had given to Dyson shortly before he left for the Capitol. "Your token, right?"

Dyson nodded, feeling a rush of emotion as he thought of Paula. Right now, she must be sitting in front of the Saxon family's television with Trent and her parents, waiting for the tributes to emerge into the arena. Would he ever get to tell her how he felt about her? Would he ever see her again? And what about his family? How would Rodd and Zeta cope if they lost him? And how would Tia adjust to being an only child after having an older brother for twelve years? Those questions and others circulated through his brain as he fastened the pendant round his neck and tucked it under his shirt. Then he sat down in a chair and waited . . .

After what felt like an interminable length of time, a woman's voice was projected through hidden loudspeakers, telling him to prepare for launch. Taking a deep breath, he stood up and, feeling his heart pounding in anticipation of what was to come, walked across the room to the plate at the far end and stood on it as a glass tube descended over him. Seconds later, the plate began to move upwards, carrying him into the arena.


"Ladies and gentlemen, let the Sixty-eighth Hunger Games begin!"

Claudius Templesmith's voice boomed out across the arena as the twenty-four tributes stood on their plates, which had emerged in the middle of a vast expanse of moorland, a hilly landscape dominated by low-growing shrubs. Which wouldn't offer much in the way of shelter, Dyson thought as he scanned the immediate area, but hopefully the rest of the arena would hold more promise. He and Astra, who he could see standing three plates to his right, had been given specific instructions by their respective mentors. "If there are any supplies within reach, take them, but don't get caught up in the fighting. Get clear of the Cornucopia as quickly as possible. Find shelter." Of course, when Piper and Rik issued those instructions, it had been on the understanding that Astra and Dyson would both be operating alone in the arena, but the two tributes had now formed an alliance which meant they would have to look out for each other, starting by making sure both of them made it past the bloodbath.

The bloodbath. The pitched battle which kicked off each Hunger Games as the tributes fought over the supplies piled up in the enormous golden horn in the middle of their circle. It always resulted in several fatalities and always ended with the Careers claiming the bulk of the supplies. Which meant they usually wanted for nothing while the rest of the tributes, those who managed to escape the fighting, had to struggle just to stay alive. And attempting to get a head start on your opponents wasn't an option. Each plate was surrounded by landmines which remained live for sixty seconds after the tributes emerged into the arena; anyone who moved from their plate before that time was up, or who disturbed the mines in any way, would be blown to kingdom come. Indeed, only last year, District 11's female tribute, Almond, had dropped the small wooden ball she had brought into the arena as her token shortly before the countdown hit zero. The resulting explosion had been so powerful that there was very little left of her.

There had, Dyson recalled, been some speculation that Almond had dropped her token on purpose, choosing to die on her own terms rather than those set out by the Capitol. But she wasn't his main concern right now; figuring out how to get himself and Astra clear of the Cornucopia was. He sized up his opponents, noting that he was flanked by Synthia from District 3 and Randall from District 10, Astra by Lara from District 7 and Valerie from District 9. If he had to, he could probably take them on easily, though Randall might present something of a challenge, as would Lara if she could get her hands on an axe. Such as the one he could see propped against a crate. The Careers, however, were another matter. Even spread out around the circle of tributes, they were still the strongest fighters in the arena. And, the moment the countdown ended, they would be ready for anyone brave, or foolish, enough to challenge them.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two

One.

The gong sounded, releasing the tributes from their plates. A few chose to cut their losses and run without stopping to grab any supplies, but most were drawn to the bounty which lay before them. A bounty people were prepared to kill to get their hands on.


Having seen a black backpack almost directly in front of his plate, Dyson bent down to grab it. However, as he straightened up, he found himself face to face with Pleat; the District 8 girl had had her sights set on the same backpack and the expression on her face told him she was prepared to do whatever it took to get it. Including killing him with the machete in her hand. Well, not if he could help it. As she came at him, swinging her machete, he tackled her to the ground, wrestled the machete out of her hand and sat astride her chest. Then, before he could stop to think about what he was doing, he slashed her throat with the blade in his hand.

Pleat clutched at her throat, trying desperately to avoid choking on her own blood. But it wasn't long before she gave out and went still, never to move again. Horrified, Dyson looked down at her, his mind struggling to take in the fact that he was sitting on a dead girl, a girl he had just killed with the weapon he held. Get out of here. He had to get out of here, had to put as much distance as possible between himself and the carnage unfolding around him.

He stood up and turned to run, stopping only to look for Astra; she was his ally and allies were supposed to look out for each other. But was it already too late? Had she already . . .? No, he could see her sprinting away to his left, a small blue pack in her hand. Hoisting his own pack over his shoulder and tucking Pleat's machete into his belt - it would come in handy if he had to defend himself - he began to run in her direction.

"Astra! Astra, over here!"

She looked round, a startled expression on her face. But it quickly turned to relief when she saw that it was her district partner and ally; she had nothing to fear from him, for now at least. She knew that would change later, especially if she and Dyson both made it to the latter stages, but all she cared about right now was having the companionship of a fellow human being. The thought of having to face the Games alone as Piper had wanted her to do had filled her with dread for the past few days until, on the night before the tributes were sent to the arena, she could take it no more. That was when she had come to Dyson and suggested that they team up. Even though she knew the alliance couldn't last, it was still better than the alternative.

"Come on!" Dyson said as he drew level with her. "Let's get out of here!"

And, with that, the tributes from District 5 began to run, aiming to get as far away from the Cornucopia as they could before the cannons sounded to mark the end of the bloodbath. That would mean the other survivors had left the area where the golden horn stood and some of them, especially the Careers, would be on the hunt.


The first blast from the cannon came when Astra and Dyson were well clear of the Cornucopia, booming out across the arena to let the survivors know the initial fighting was over. Pausing, the two tributes counted each shot as the cannon fired again, and again, until it had sounded a total of seven times. Seven cannons. Seven tributes dead on the opening day. Which meant seventeen were still alive, including themselves, though that wouldn't remain the case for long. Over the coming days, sixteen more tributes would die, until only a single victor remained. Astra and Dyson both knew the odds were against either of them being that single victor, but at least they'd both managed to escape the bloodbath. But who else was left?

"Who do you think we'll see in the sky tonight?" Astra asked, giving voice to the question which was on both their minds.

"We'll have to wait and see." Dyson already knew the identity of one of the dead tributes - the image of Pleat lying on the ground, her throat slashed, had imprinted itself on his mind - but not that of any of the others. "I suppose it would be too much to hope that six of those cannons were for the Careers," he added, picturing the tributes from Districts 1, 2 and 4 in his mind. The pets of the Capitol. The ones who had a head start on the tributes from the other nine districts when it came to training for the Games. They were invariably the biggest threat in the arena, not least because of the pack they always formed to hunt down their opponents. It was rare for even one Career to be eliminated on the first day; any more than that was virtually unheard of.

Since there were no other tributes nearby, at least none that they could see, Astra and Dyson decided to take the opportunity to check their packs and see what supplies they had obtained from the Cornucopia. The contents of the packs were always random, but you could generally find something that was of use. Opening his pack, Dyson pulled out a packet of crackers, a small first aid kit, a bottle of water, a folding blanket, a packet of iodine tablets, a box of matches and a ball of twine. Astra's smaller pack contained a packet of beef jerky, another bottle of water, more iodine tablets, a mess tin and a small dagger. Not bad; at least both of them were armed now, so they'd have a chance of defending themselves should any of the other tributes attack them.

However, neither of them was ready to initiate any attacks yet, especially Dyson. He hadn't set out to kill Pleat; he'd just seen her charging towards him with a machete and things had escalated from there, culminating in him slashing her throat with her own weapon. Self defence, he told himself. He'd killed her in self defence; had he not done so, he might well be on his way back to the Capitol, and from there to District 5, in a wooden box. Instead, he was alive, for now at least.


As the sun set on the first day in the arena, Astra and Dyson made camp beneath a rocky outcrop. Hungry and thirsty after having been on the move for several hours, not to mention that neither of them had eaten since this morning, they drank from their water bottles and pooled their meagre food rations, taking two crackers and a piece of beef jerky each. Not a very filling supper, but that was all the food they had in their packs, so they would have to eke it out as far as they could. Water was no problem - there were several small ponds dotted around the arena - but, once the food in their packs was gone, they would be facing starvation unless they:

A: stole from the Careers' stash, which would almost certainly get them killed, not to mention that they had no way of knowing where the Careers had set up camp.

B: waited for their sponsors to send food to them. Trouble was, they didn't know if they even had sponsors, if all their hard work at the interviews last night had been enough to convince any wealthy Capitol citizens that they were worth backing.

C: attempted to live off the land. That might be their best bet; they'd both spent time at the edible plants and trapping stations during training and had picked up a few useful tips. Such as not eating anything they weren't absolutely certain was safe. Far too many tributes had died over the years because they mistook a poisonous plant for one which was harmless; neither Astra nor Dyson had any wish to add to those statistics.

The last of the daylight had just faded when the opening bars of the national anthem heralded the start of the nightly death recap. Looking up, Astra and Dyson watched as the Capitol seal hovered in the sky for a moment, before being replaced by the face of Axle from District 6; since he was the first to appear, they needed no-one to tell them that the tributes from the first five districts had all survived and so had Monica, who would have appeared before her partner had she also fallen in the bloodbath. Next up was Lara from 7, one of the tributes who had stood on either side of Astra during the sixty-second countdown, followed by . . . Dyson already knew Pleat was going to appear, but the sight of the District 8 girl's face hovering over the arena still caused him to feel a pang of guilt. She was dead because of him, because he'd slashed her throat with the machete that was now tucked into his belt. He'd known from the moment Janus called his name at the reaping that he might end up killing a fellow tribute, but he hadn't expected it to happen so soon.

Fortunately, he didn't have long to think about it before Pleat faded from the sky and Mallow from District 11 took her place. So Pleat's district partner, Linus, was alive and so were the tributes from 9 and 10. Which meant the last three dead tributes could only be . . . Moments later, Husk appeared in the sky, followed by first Stoke, then Cormac from 12, before the seal reappeared as the anthem ended with a flourish. So much for Cormac's promise that he would not be leaving the arena until he was the last tribute standing; he hadn't even made it through the first day. And that meant District 12's wait for a third Hunger Games victor continued.


Moments after the seal had faded from the sky, leaving the two tributes with only the moon and stars for illumination, Astra yawned. "I'm tired - I think I'll . . ." She was cut off by another yawn. ". . . try and get some sleep."

Dyson was about ready to call it a night himself - it had been a long day and he had been on the move for most of it - but he knew he couldn't sleep yet, not when the Careers could be nearby. They were probably combing the arena for victims by now, especially since there had been so few fatalities in the bloodbath. Which meant he would have to sit up and keep watch while his ally slept, ready to wake her up at a moment's notice should it be necessary to move on. And he would have keep hold of his machete at all times, the machete which still had Pleat's blood on it. Tomorrow, he would try to find time to clean it; in the meantime, he took the blanket out of his pack and unfolded it, tucking it around Astra.

"Thanks," she said, closing her eyes and allowing herself to drift off.

"Well, what are allies for?" All the same, Dyson reminded himself that he must not think of her as anything else. Sooner or later, she would die - and the fact that she was one of the youngest tributes in the arena meant it would probably be sooner. All he could do was hope that, when the time came, she went quickly and that her end would not be too gruesome. For now, though, he watched as her breathing became slow and even, then turned his back on her and faced out across the arena, watching and listening for any signs that one or more of his fellow tributes might be nearby.


"I can't believe we let eleven of them get away!"

It was Salacia who made this somewhat peevish remark as she and the other Careers milled around their camp following the end of the death recap. "I mean," she went on, "how can we call ourselves Careers if we can't even take out a few kids from the poorer districts?" On the whole, the bloodbath had barely lived up to its name this year; just seven tributes had died and one of them, the girl from District 8, had even been killed by another non-Career. The boy from District 5, if she recalled correctly, not that it made much difference where he came from; she was going to make sure his face appeared in the sky one night. She was the youngest member of this year's pack, having only turned fifteen a few days before the reaping, but she was already deadly with a trident, as she had shown during her private session with the Gamemakers. And, though she hadn't managed to make a kill this morning, she was determined to give Panem a public demonstration of her skill with the three-pronged spear.

"Look at it this way, Sal," said Fathom, who was seated across from his district partner. "This means more tributes to kill later."

"Don't call me Sal!" Salacia's voice grew dangerously quiet as her fingers tightened around the handle of her trident. From the tone of her voice, Fathom might have ended up on the wrong end of those sharp prongs, but, before she could move her trident into an attacking position, Garnet spoke up.

"I think we should get going. The others won't come to us and that means we've gotta go hunt them down." He mimed thrusting the sword he held into an imaginary tribute, then turned to Lupus. "That OK with you?" As was almost invariably the case, the District 2 boy had emerged as the de facto leader of the pack, meaning the others looked to him to make all the important decisions. Such as when to leave their camp in search of tributes to kill.

Lupus answered by standing up and shouldering the mace he had chosen as his weapon. "Right," he said, addressing the rest of the pack as if he was a general and they were his troops. "We're moving out. We're going to hunt down the other tributes - and we're not going to stop until at least one of them is dead. We'll search the whole arena if we have to."

"Yes." Bellona brandished a halberd, a cross between a spear and an axe, a dangerous glint in her eyes. "They can't hide from us forever. Let's go!"

And, with that, the tributes from Districts 1, 2 and 4 set off to hunt down the remaining non-Careers who had survived the bloodbath, hunt them down and kill them. They did not bother to leave anyone on guard; there was no need, not with all the traps they had rigged to keep anyone from outside the pack from getting at their stash. If any tributes from the other nine - no, seven; the kids from 11 and 12 were all dead - districts were foolish enough to try raiding the Careers' camp, they would not live to regret it.

As the Careers left their camp, Lupus threw back his head and gave the same imitation of a wolf's howl he had given at his interview the night before.

The hunt was on.