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THE ATTACK
(Day 3 - Morning)
"Berries!"
Emma's cry of delight catches Merida's attention immediately. She looks where the girl is pointing. Sure enough, just uphill is a mass of dusty greenery. She recognizes the familiar arched vines, tinged with rusty red and hung with nodding clusters of shiny black fruit. It's like meeting an old friend here in the Arena.
As his sister races ahead, Jack shoots Merida a worried look. "It's all right," she reassures him. "They're blackberries. Bit of a weed, but we eat them by the bushel in District Seven. They're good for ye."
"If you say so," he says, and they follow Emma eagerly up the rocky slope.
Game meat and nutrition bars are hardly a balanced diet, and their bellies are grumbling for something fresh and sweet. Even the heavy thorns that scratch at their hands and catch in their sleeves can't discourage them for long. Within minutes, all their mouths are full, and their fingers and faces are stained red with the sweet juice.
Emma is giggling as her brother tosses berries at her. The ripe fruit leaves splattery red marks on their skin and hair as they laugh and dodge, trying to throw and eat at the same time.
"Stop that," Merida says, half-heartedly - they ought to be gathering a store of these - and then flinches as a berry bounces off her ear. "Right, then!" she exclaims, whirling about. "Who threw that?"
In that moment, she realizes three things. Jack is grinning unrepentantly at her, with his hands full of squashy berries. Emma has stopped laughing. And the forest around them has fallen silent.
"Jack," Emma whispers, with a fluttery little tremble in her voice. She takes a step back, away from the foot of the slope.
Wolves. There are three of them, slinking toward them through the trees. No, Merida decides instantly - not wolves. The wolves in District Seven are intelligent and cautious animals, and avoid humans whenever they can. These creatures are red-eyed and bony, with heavy claws and shaggy blue-gray fur.
Mutts. She reaches for her bow, shifting her feet into a firm stance on the rocky ground.
Everything seems to happen at once.
The Mutts bound forward.
Jack thrusts his sister behind him, and snatches up his staff with his other hand.
Merida draws quickly, sighting on the nearest Mutt as it leaps toward them. She looses, and the arrow strikes its throat with a wet thock, flipping it backward in midair.
Fumbling for her next arrow, she sees another Mutt circling Jack and Emma. It snarls and lunges, and Jack swings his staff with both hands like a stickball player. The end of it connects with a crack that sends the Mutt sprawling. Broken jaw, Merida thinks, at least. Broken skull, if they're lucky.
Where's the third one? Bow at the ready, she peers into the trees…
It leaps from the side, catching her by surprise, jaws snapping at her face. Merida whirls and brings up her bow just in time to block. Her arrow tumbles away, forgotten, and the Mutt's teeth snap together on the curved steel, inches from her nose. Its full weight hits her like a ton of bricks and they tumble back into the blackberry brambles with a crash of breaking branches.
Sharp thorns sink into her flesh from what feels like every direction. Merida screams, twisting to get free. The stinking bulk of the Mutt feels like it's smothering her, all hot fur and reeking breath, dripping hot saliva onto her face. She flinches away from the clashing jaws and grips her bow in both hands, pushing as hard as she can to hold its teeth away from her throat. Her muscles burn and tremble with the effort…
Something thuds against the Mutt's back. It howls and lifts its head. Emma is running up the slope, stooping to snatch up more rocks as she comes.
"Leave her alone!" the younger girl cries, and flings a stone the size of her fist. It bounces off the Mutt's snout. The creature snarls, and bounds down the slope toward her.
Released from the Mutt's weight, Merida can suddenly breathe again. She starts to surge to her feet, bow clenched in bleeding fingers, and lets out a cry of pain. Her loose clothes and long curls are tangled hopelessly in the thorns.
"No!" she cries, and twists as far as she can to grope among the vines with her free hand. Where are her arrows, where did she drop them, there isn't any time -
With a faint whistling sound, an arrow sprouts from the Mutt's neck. It stumbles, and falls in a heap at Emma's feet.
Jack reaches her a second later, slipping and sliding up the stony ground. His improvised staff is cracked, and smeared with blood. Three Mutts down.
"Emma, what were you thinking," he shouts, grabbing his sister and checking her frantically for injuries. Emma twists out of her brother's grip, drops her handfuls of rocks and runs to where Merida is still untangling herself from the blackberry thorns.
"Meri, are you okay?" she cries, wading into the vines to help pull her loose. "How did you do that?"
The arrow is still sticking out of the dead Mutt, straight up, like a little flag fletched in red. Merida sits up and wipes a trickle of blood out of her eyes. "I didn't," she says, breathlessly. "It wasnae me."
A twig snaps. All three of them turn as one to stare into the trees.
Half hidden behind the trunk of a pine, a dark-haired silhouette silently raises his bow in salute, then melts away into the morning mist.