I had endured eighteen hour shifts on occasion but that was after a good night's rest in a bed. Definitely not after pulling myself out of a lake after being unconscious for some time.
I had no way of knowing how long I sat by the fire opposite Ray, warily watching one another in a pained silence. Perhaps it was my imagination but I sensed that being with me this long grated heavily on her nerves. She had said she was trained to kill quick and efficiently. Sharing a fire with someone she planned to kill went completely against that training. The Careers had shown contempt for us in training but that neutral area was a world apart from the arena.
But she had no weapons and being weak herself, she lacked the strength to kill me with her bare hands. Trying to kill me would be ugly and I might kill her or just injure her. Either was unacceptable.
I was thinking like a Career now.
I couldn't kill her. I didn't know how. A piece of wire with surprise on my side had won me that first time. Fighting Alba had been the heat of the moment, and I had had a spear and a blade. Now I had nothing and strong as my hands were… I didn't think myself capable of beating or strangling her to death.
But she had no weapons either and her injured arm was a serious deterrent. I had no idea how many times the thought had run through my mind that if she attacked me, I had to go for that weak limb. Thinking like a Career…
Or maybe just someone who wanted to stay alive.
Night was rapidly descending when I finally asked the question.
"Are you waiting for me to fall asleep?"
Ray said nothing for nearly a minute before sighing. "Would you believe me if I told you I want you to fall asleep, so I can go to sleep?"
"No, I wouldn't."
"Pity."
"You really think I could trust you?"
"I know you can't trust me." She smirked bitterly. "That's the worst part. Right now, we need to trust each other and I am the last person you would trust."
"Second to last." I countered.
"Maybe." The smirk remained. "I've been thinking about how to kill you all day, and I've got nothing. Everything I could do makes me vulnerable, so I do nothing."
"That's not comforting."
"I'm here to kill you, not comfort you."
I wondered if she had any idea about the words that came out of her mouth.
Ray sighed again. "I am tired. I am hungry. I am hurting." She flexed her left arm and winced. "I don't think you would try to kill me in my sleep… But I don't know who you've killed or how… And I know you're not an idiot so you know the best time to kill me is when I'm asleep." She was rambling and I wondered how little she had spoken since arriving here. I seriously doubted the Careers had meaningful conversation. "It's dark. No one's going to be out now. We both need sleep."
"Yes we do."
She lay down though she was clearly still keeping an eye on me. I continued to lean against my tree, doing the same. I had thought earlier in the day how simple it would have been to die here. But now… I wasn't as resigned.
Though I was powerless against the desire to sleep. The resignation came on again and I let myself drift off.
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My dreams featured wheels. Lots of wheels. If nightmares were when you were scared in your sleep, what did you call dreams which were boring? There might have been a comfort in boring if the rumbling of millstones hadn't been a constant hell for me.
It was dark. Very dark. It had to be the middle of the night. My boring dream had woken me.
There were some embers in the fire still alive, tiny red specs in the darkness. It was cold and all I had was my jacket that was still faintly damp. I twisted my back to ease the aches that had settled into it and a shape started at the movement.
"RAY!"
She woke immediately and kicked at once at the shape looming over her. A very masculine grunt responded as her heels slammed into its groin and knocked it over. In the darkness, I saw the glint of a sword.
My eyes adjusted to the dark as Ray and her opponent rose to their feet, becoming more than just vague shapes.
"Renown, you asshole." She sounded calm, much calmer than I would have been. Much calmer than I was.
"Hey, Ray." He rhymed deliberately and I couldn't tell if he glanced in my direction or not.
It was as far as the small talk went. Renown lunged with astonishing speed but Ray dodged to the side and chopped his outstretched arm with her hand. He kept hold of the weapon but the way he shook his arm told me she had given him something to think about. He went for her again with a vicious slash at eye level but she stepped again and I recalled my struggle with Alba. I had kept her at bay with my spear but Ray knew what to do even while unarmed.
I pulled myself up against the tree as Renown thrust again and this time she seized his wrist, tugged him off balance and dealt him a kick. She used her hurt leg and even as Renown grunted in pain, I heard her whimper. The pair spun apart, reminding me of dancers and making me wonder about the connections my brain made when I was in mortal peril.
Renown had the only weapon but as well trained as he was with it, Ray was equally well trained at fighting at a disadvantage and continued to dodge and duck his increasingly wild attacks. I realised she was frustrating him, that with her injured arm and leg she was still giving him hell. She skipped about in the dark, favouring her good leg and looking for an opening.
I reached down and sank my fingers into the dirt as Renown appeared to come millimetres from cutting her throat. The wild swing exposed him and she was on him, driving her fist hard into the side of his neck with a meaty thump and she spun away as Renown brought his elbow questing around for her. She retreated back as Renown followed it up with her an advance of vicious swings that cut only air but drove her back. I pushed myself forward.
Ray backed herself against a tree, Renown lunged and the blade struck the trunk as Ray slipped to the side, right into Renown's swinging left arm, trapping her and I saw his head go forward and heard his forehead strike her skull as he drew back the sword for a final thrust.
I leapt and latched hold of Renown's back and he bellowed in surprise and then shrieked as I drove my handful of dirt into his eyes. He was a sack of muscles that rippled underneath me as I tried to get my arm around his neck as he stumbled away from Ray. I didn't see his elbow but I felt it strike the side of my head, knocking me off his back, blotting my vision with stars and filling my ears with a piercing tone.
It was pure instinct that made me lift my legs and kick. He was wiping at his eyes but his guess at where to lunge with the sword would have skewered my left leg to the ground and my boots knocked the weapon from his hand. I rolled over and pushed myself upright.
Renown stumbled back as he got the dirt out of his eyes and I cast my eyes around for something, anything to use but all there was were sticks and I hurled them in desperation, trying to drive him back away from the fallen sword. Ray was kneeling on the ground, clutching her head and the moment Renown could see straight he would be right after me. Right after me. I put my head down and charged.
He was bigger and stronger than me but he still went down as I slammed into him. I rolled away and dived for the blade but it was no longer there.
Now it was Renown's turn to dodge as Ray thrust at him. He wasn't as nimble as Ray and his movements appeared clumsy though Ray's lunge lacked the force of his and now I realised she was as exhausted as I was. There were three of us fighting and only Renown had his strength.
I took hold of another stick and snapped it as Renown dodged around and took hold of her right arm and slammed his knee into it, making her drop the sword as she punched him in the face with her left fist. I went forward as he returned that punch with one of his own and it sounded like he broke her nose. He drew his fist back for another and then bellowed as I drove the jagged end of my stick into his leg.
It didn't penetrate deeply but as I avoided his fist and twisted away and ripped it out, I opened the shallow wound. Renown bellowed again and his face appeared to boil behind the dirt I had encrusted it with. I saw his foot coming at me but I couldn't move fast enough to avoid it and it slammed into the back of my left thigh, numbing my leg and I went down.
I grabbed another handful of soil and threw it in his face and rolled to avoid another kick as he spat out the grit and furiously rubbed his eyes.
He came down beside me as Ray tackled him and I kicked him in the head as he grabbed at my other leg and heaved, pulling me toward him. He rolled, putting Ray underneath him and for a moment we were awkwardly tangled by each other's groins and then Ray squealed and I couldn't see why and I dug my fingernails into his face until he screamed and I felt blood on my fingertips and he released my leg to pry my hand away, seizing my fingers and I screamed as I felt something break. He suddenly released them, screaming again.
I scrambled away and so did Ray. Like me, she had grabbed a stick and stabbed him and whether by accident or design, she had struck him in the same place I had. Even in the dark, I could see her lips and chin darkening while the rest of her paled. She turned suddenly and stumbled away, away into the trees.
Renown's gaze was fixed on me and he picked himself up and took a step that made him growl with agony and then another and another, inexorably coming at me and fighting every instinct in his body that told him to stay down and off his injured leg. The dirt and the blood from the marks I had clawed into his face were mixing and my nerve broke at his implacable advance.
It was a pure adrenaline that made me move swiftly and run back to my starting tree and grab my pack and Renown roared again and I heard him fall as he tried to run as well and his leg betrayed him. A stick smacked my arm and I ran, leaving him behind in the dark.
I didn't run away blindly, I chose my path carefully and sped on and quickly enough I heard other footfalls that tapered away as I approached. Ray stood with a long and sturdy stick in her grip and she didn't relax at the sight of me.
"Come to finish me off?" She asked and I saw she was leaning on the stick.
Behind me, I heard Renown yell again. "Are you mad? You think I'm facing that on my own? Come on." I went to push past her and she swung the branch at me but the strength and speed she had used to avoid Renown's sword thrusts was gone and I only had to raise my hand to catch the swing. "Ray, he's hurt and neither of us can finish him off, not now. I want him dead and I can't do it. Neither can you. Not alone."
She tried to pull the stick from my hand but her nose was still dripping and with every drop she grew weaker. "You trying to make an alliance with me?" She laughed wetly. "Look where that got me."
"Do you want him to kill you?"
Ray found the strength to pull the branch from my grasp. "No."
"Then come on."
I was using someone else to keep me alive. I was definitely a Career now.
