Chapter 77: Discovery
Lorcan decides he needs to see if he can find the tribute that needs his help. It is an irresistible urge that, for some reason, he cannot counter, so he takes what is of use to him from the second backpack and prepares to set out again. The berries which had been wrapped in the note begging for help were Nightlock berries. Lorcan wonders if this is the reason his fellow tribute needed help. Had they accidentally ingested some of the poison berries? He hopes no one would take them deliberately as the only promise they held was the promise of certain death. Maybe they had planned to use them on someone else? He has no idea, but Lorcan puts them back in the paper and places them in his pocket.
He crosses back over the stream and begins his walk along the tree line again. The search for food and an opportunity to rest would have to wait. The afternoon sun is casting shadows on the forest floor and the earth is damp and pungent where the light does not reach it. Every now and again Lorcan takes the time to stop and listen, as Katniss had taught him to do, making sure he is alert to any dangers lurking in the woods. He can hear soft bird calls, and the occasional scampering of woodland creatures in the trees, but nothing that alarms him too much. Lorcan knows he can't call out to the troubled tribute without alerting others to his whereabouts, so he continues to move stealthily through the woods in search of his companion.
It is the smell drifting towards him on the gentle woodland breeze that convinces Lorcan he is headed in the right direction. The direction of death. He has never smelt death before, but he knows, instinctively, this is what it smells like. Assaulting his nostrils is a gruesome and sickening smell which makes his stomach churn. Lorcan doesn't know if he wants to go any further. He understands that what he is about to see, he can never "unsee", and that disturbs him. He isn't sure if he is ready to confront death in all its brutal reality. And brutal it is. Lorcan only has to walk a few more feet to find what he has been looking for. Ramsay's remains. And it is only his remains…the wolves had made quite a feast of him. Lorcan can see the rope that had bound Ramsay to the tree and wondered how either Verity or Ottilia could have accomplished this task. He remembers Verity taking in the knot tying lessons that Katniss had provided and becoming quite skilled, quite quickly. Lorcan begins to think Verity might be behind Ramsay's demise. Ottilia is much too delicate to carry out this sort of attack.
Lorcan realizes there is nothing he can do for Ramsay now. The call for help was answered too late and the outcome has already been decided. Flies are covering Ramsay's body and Lorcan feels he needs to let nature take its course. The only thing to do now is rescue the rope Verity has tied around the tree and see if he can make use of it himself. First, he will have to wash it off in the stream to remove the ugly stain and smell of death because, if he doesn't, the wolves will be after him next. When he finishes untying Ramsay and gathering the rope, Lorcan moves quickly away from the body, and begins to vomit. His belly aches with the retching, and also the grief brought on by his discovery. A boy is dead and though he was not a friend, he was still a person, a person who was too young to die. Lorcan's final salute to Ramsay is also an act of compassion as he covers what remains of Ramsay's body with branches and provides what little dignity he can to his fellow warrior. Lorcan doesn't think about the people in the Districts watching him, glued to their screens, waiting to see what a Capitol child will do when confronted with the evil of the Games. His actions are unexpected. The District people realize these are not the actions of a self- centred Capitol creature. They are the actions of someone willing to put others before himself, someone who cared deeply about the life and death of another. Lorcan is not what they were expecting at all.
Ebony has managed to find some of the fodder she had been looking for and is beginning her ascent up the mountain. It is not very high, but still requires skill and she is more used to skiing down mountains than climbing up them. Her pack is lighter, now that she has begun using the gear the Gamemakers had provided, so the first part of the climb is relatively easy. Ebony realizes that she will not make it to the top before it gets dark. She will need to stop and rest along the way. Looking for a shelf or an entry on the face of the mountain, Ebony searches for spot where she can shelter for another night. She is already losing strength, not having eaten or drunk anything since the start of the day.
About 50ft above her and to the right, Ebony can see a break in the face of the mountain. She won't know until she gets there if this is what she is looking for, but she directs her feet towards it and uses her ice pick to maintain her grip as the ascent steepens. Suddenly, there is a boom and Ebony recognizes the sound of the Capitol's cannon. Another tribute is dead. The mountain has claimed its second victim. Ebony wonders what has caused the death of this second tribute and how much they actually took in of what Beetee had been trying to teach them. Beetee was a tech guy, a high tech guy, and there wasn't much technology here, but he knew about survival and had done his best to instruct them, as well as warn them about the gruesome concoctions of the Gamemakers. These were many and varied and, if nature didn't get you, the Gamemakers concoctions would.
Ebony tries not to let the cannon disturb her concentration too much as she edges her way to what now looks like an entry on the mountain face. Breathing heavily, she finally manages to pull herself up and in to a small space with just enough room for her to sit or lie comfortably for the night. She needs to start a small fire and had gathered some pieces of wood earlier in the day, before starting her ascent, that she can use now to help keep herself warm. She will melt some more snow to drink, but food is still a problem. Ebony needs food for energy and she has none. She doesn't have matches either, but manages to use a flint and stone to get the fire started. She doubts there are any other tributes close by to trouble her as she sleeps, so she builds the fire up as much as possible before closing her eyes. Behind them she sees dead tributes floating through the air, calling out for help and reaching out to her. She wonders what her Grandfather is doing about the Games he helped to promote...the Games that might see his granddaughter get killed. The Capitol music wakes her up at midnight. Another 4 tributes are dead and they are about to find out who.
The evening of the Mentors arrival back in District 12 had caused quite a stir. People were aware that Katniss had produced her own Propo and the military vehicles rolling into the town were an indication of how the Government of Panem felt about that. The fact that there were Peacekeepers stationed outside Peeta and Katniss' door, and at the entry to the Victors Village, was a sign that the government were taking the threat of this rogue citizen seriously and, going by Katniss' previous reputation to galvanize the people, they weren't going to take any chances on her making more trouble for them.
The house was as they had left it and the children were soon in bed. This gave Katniss and Peeta some time to decide how they were going to handle the current situation. Apart from the home detention, they needed to decide if they would watch the Games and see how their tributes were faring.
"Peeta, I think Haymitch is right. He feels he needs to watch the Games as a way of showing support for his tributes. We are invested in what happens to them now, too, because we trained them, and we are the ones who agreed that the Games should go ahead" says Katniss.
"I'm not invested in watching any more people…children…die, Katniss. I am invested in finding Snow and bringing him to justice. I can't help my tributes now and I don't want to watch them die, either" Peeta replies. He is still bearing the wounds he inflicted on himself after sending them off to the Games, and the biggest wound of all is the one to his soul.
"It's not about entertainment, Peeta. It was entertainment for the Capitol crowd, but it's not for us. It's about somehow remaining with them to the very end and acknowledging what they are going through. Plenty of people, people in the Districts, would have watched us, not because they had to, but because they wanted to see us survive and hoped that we would. I want these tributes to survive and I also want to be with them, to know, if they don't" Katniss tells him.
"What are their chances, Katniss? If they don't kill eachother, Plutarch will make sure they die. Only one of them can escape the first Arena. How can we even choose who we would want to survive?"
Peeta is feeling the full weight of his connection to the tributes and can't contemplate any of them dying.
"Who lives and who dies is out of our hands now, Peeta. It is in Snow's hands and it is in their parents hands. It is also in the tributes hands. Of course we don't want any of them to die, but watching their progress in the arena won't be what kills them. I want to hold out some hope for them and, if I know what is happening to them, then maybe I can still hold out hope for their survival" Katniss says.
Peeta knows there is a part of him that wants to know how his tributes are doing also.
"Katniss, you can watch the nightly tally, and then you can tell me who is still alive. I don't want to watch the killings or experience the suffering of the tributes. I can't do anything about it and it hurts me that I have been a part of creating their ordeal" Peeta says.
"It hurt us both, Peeta" Katniss reminds him.
Peeta doesn't want to watch the tally and retires to bed. Katniss tunes into the broadcast of the nightly tally and four tributes names and faces flash across the screen. Roman, Tribute 11, lost his footing on the mountain and fell to his death; Sophie, Tribute 4, died of dehydration after failing to find water in the desert; Maximus, Tribute 10, died when a giant, genetically mutated mosquito, sucked all the blood from his veins in the jungle and Ramsay, Tribute 3, died after being attacked by wolves in the woods.
Katniss is going to have to tell Peeta…one of their tributes is dead. She will wait until the morning. Peeta is in no mood to hear the news tonight.