Chapter Seven: The Fire
When I awake, I peek my head out of the cave to find that it's early morning and the snow has stopped. Despite this, I don't want to leave behind my warm bath just yet, so I venture into the forest and set some snares. Might as well stock up on fresh game while I'm staying put.
Peeta wouldn't have wanted to leave either, but I promise myself it's only one more day. Or even just a few hours.
With that in mind, I make the most of my remaining time in what may very well be one of the few luxurious getaways in this particular region of the world. The waterfall makes for a good shower, reminding me of the one in the Training Center, and there may have been a jacuzzi as well but I never tried it, so I make up for it in the pool. I'm probably scarring Buttercup for life but I don't care. The water is so relaxing that it makes me forget about traumatized cats and dead people, just for a little bit.
Later, when I'm fully pampered and dried off, I go out and check my snares. I repent for any horrific memories emblazoned into Buttercup's tiny brain by bringing back a decent haul of three rabbits, a squirrel, and a couple of fish from the river. We have a late lunch (or an early dinner), and then I pack the leftovers into my game bag. It should hold us for a while, or at least until we reach the Wall. Buttercup seems to understand we're leaving his little lion's den and gets a final drink from the waterfall while I pull together the rest of my things.
Stepping out of the cave for the last time, I pat the rocks in thankful farewell, then turn for a final look at its splendor.
"Goodbye, Peeta," I murmur, because even if he isn't here, I want to believe he was. I want this beautiful cave to be his final resting place, not the sewers underneath the Capitol.
If he cannot follow me beyond the Wall, then this is where I must let him go.
"Don't ever leave this cave," I tell him. The words catch painfully in my throat, but instead of letting myself cry, I press the three middle fingers of my left hand to my lips and extend them to the cave's entrance. Then I steel myself and turn away, heading for the river.
Not long after we start following it again, we reach a point where it forks east and west. Following it west, I presume, will take me to the Shadow Tower. But according to Benjen, Castle Black is where I want to go. I have a message for his nephew, anyway. So we head east, winding along the forest and picking up anything edible along the way.
Despite our late start, we manage to travel a good distance by nightfall. But I get a strong feeling that tells me I've gone far enough for now. It's one of those gut instincts I've learned to trust over the years, and since I'm now living in a world with the walking dead, I furtively check my surroundings and start looking for a good camping spot with a tree to sleep in. I find one, and after warming by a small fire, I climb up and settle into my sleeping bag.
I don't know when I nodded off, maybe it's been a couple hours, but suddenly I jolt awake with a gasp at a tremor in the earth that shakes my tree. I figure out pretty quickly that it wasn't a dream-fall, or my imagination, because for one thing Buttercup gives a short angry wail and scampers up to a higher branch. For another, it happens again. And again, and again. Like the heavy footsteps of something, or many somethings. Marching, lumbering intently towards their destination. It seems far away but I can still hear it, still feel it, and I know whatever this thing is, it's massive. Positively mammoth—
A heart-stopping bellow trumpets through the air, jolting me again and turning my entire body to gooseflesh even inside the heat of the sleeping bag. I try to take deep breaths and immediately recognize the smell of smoke on the air. Glancing around wildly, I think I can make out a flickering glow through the trees to the east.
Fire. A forest fire. Close enough that I should be worried?
Freeing myself from my sleeping bag, I hastily climb up higher, my heart thumping along with the earth as more trumpeting roars tear the night's once still silence to shreds. I emerge through the canopy, and what I see leaves me breathless and clinging to the trunk for dear life.
It's a safe enough distance that I don't need to leave my post, but miles beyond my part of the woods is a center stretch of trees set ablaze. It's quite possibly the biggest fire I've ever seen, bigger than the wall of flame that chased me in my first arena. This time I'm seeing it from the equivalent of a Gamemaker's front row seat, so the heat and smoke don't sting my eyes, don't impair me from witnessing the dreadful inferno that lights up the night with a horrendously magnificent shade of orange. Somehow I don't think Peeta would find this very beautiful.
Beyond the trees, there are many little lights, moving fast across the snow. It takes a second for me to realize they're torches, people running in the darkness. The source of the bellowing charges in front of most of them, emitting yet another war cry.
It's a living, breathing, colossal woolly mammoth. And it's stampeding toward a thick, solid fortification of ice and snow, a towering wall that makes it look like a puny kitten in comparison while the human mob around it looks like a swarm of ants. At first I wonder if a younger mammoth is ambling along next to it, until I realize it's walking upright on two feet.
That's a giant. That is a giant walking side by side with a mammoth. And that might even be a giant riding it.
Sucking in a shuddery breath, I start to retreat below the branches slowly, but then I stop and turn on the camera and my microphone.
"Beetee," I hiss between breaths. "Are you awake, are you there?"
He's mentioned that he sometimes stays late or even overnight in his workshop when he's got a momentum going with his projects. Even if Peeta wouldn't love this sight, I can bet it's relevant to Beetee's interests.
"Beetee…" I adjust my microphone. "Beetee, there's a mammoth."
After a few seconds, I hear the wheels of his chair approach his desk as he settles in. "Well," he says softly, and I can just see him adjusting his glasses with a fascinated smile. "Would you look at that."
"Oh, I'm looking," I mutter, still in disbelief. The creature trumpets again and there's no way Beetee didn't hear it. "I think they're using it as a weapon. Trying to attack the Wall."
"I figured you were thinking of how much meat you could get out of something that size," he says, in pretty good humor for someone who's seeing an extinct creature emerge from a forest fire.
The hunter in me shivers longingly at the thought. I can't imagine killing a whole mammoth by myself, but a single leg from that beast could've fed my family for weeks. "Well, if I could bring down an arena…"
Beetee chuckles at my sardonicism, but the roar of the charging masses and their large woolly friend almost drowns him out. The giant on the ground has now broken into a run. I feel the vibrations from all the way over in my tree, and my breath hitches at the tremor. I quickly turn off my camera and withdraw below the treetops, making my way down until I reach the safety of my fastened sleeping bag.
"Just thought you'd like to see that," I tell him, while leaning back and resting my head against the trunk.
"Stay safe, Katniss," he reminds me, and we click off.
Now I'm left with only the roar of fire and war cries to lull me back to sleep. In the distance, someone keeps blowing a horn. Two blasts, a pause, then two again. During lulls, I hear the unmistakable sound of steel clanging and arrows flying through the air.
"DRAW!" a man's voice carries on the wind. "LOOSE!"
His commanding shout sends a fresh wave of chills up my spine. There's a battle raging at the Wall. If I had left the cave when I'd planned, if I hadn't stopped to camp so early, I would've been way too close for comfort.
Instead, I try to stay awake until I'm sure neither the fire nor the battle will be spreading my way. Both seem to be confined to the Wall and a particular section of forest that's separated from the rest. Eventually the thuds and yells become enough of a lullaby that I find myself drifting off.