Reaching up, he covered my eyes with the blindfold and his arms rested on the sides of my neck.
‘You will be going north.’ Axil’s deep voice infiltrated my mind and I gasped slightly. Of course. He was king now and as such had all of the powers of the king wolven. Mental communication in human form while touching skin was one of them.
‘You will be deep in the dead lands with no trees or bushes for shelter. No small game or berries for food. The only water you will find is inside of the round bulbous plant that looks dead but is not.’
Whoa. What?
‘Why are you telling me this?’ I sent the mental message to him and hoped it was received.
I felt his fingers trail against my neck then, very briefly as he slowly pulled away from me. ‘Because the thought of you not coming back makes me forget how to breathe.’
He was gone then, his footsteps retreating with the other soldiers.
I was angry in that moment. Axil Moon was breaking the rules to help me and it wasn’t fair to the others. Not only that, but he was acting like he wanted me to win this thing and that really infuriated me. He had his chance with me when we were fifteen. He had said no and dug his grave, so now I was going to make him lie in it.
The sled lurched forward and I reached out and grasped onto the handle as Eliza yelped beside me. Cold hard wind slapped at my face and arms for hours and I couldn’t get what Axil just did out of my head. He gave me inside information because he thought I was too weak to win this on a level playing field? That wasn’t fair! And it pissed me off. Don’t speak to me for five years and then summon me to fight as your wife, then tell me you regretted inviting me and then give me information to help me win? This man was a mess! What was he thinking?
We rode all morning, all afternoon and into the early evening. The frigid chill in the air turned to a warmth that was only possible in the dead lands. The dead lands spanned a large part of our territory and backed up to the Nightfall border and the coast of the sea. It was a weird corner of our realm that got a blast of warm sea air and harsh sunlight so nothing grew out here.
The dead lands ran for hundreds of miles, so even knowing where we were told me nothing. But knowing we’d gone north inside the dead lands told me I had to go south to get back to Death Mountain. I stewed over the unfairness of the king telling me all of this information until the sleds finally stopped.
“Get off!” a guard snapped and I backed up off of the sled. “Don’t move!” he ordered and then I heard a loud thump, like a body falling onto the floor.
“What was that?” someone asked and then another thump.
Thump. Thump. Thump. One after the other I heard the sound of my fellow competitors being disarmed and all I could do was brace myself.
A cold rag came over my mouth and I didn’t even fight it. I breathed in a huge lungful of a pleasant smelling aroma as wooziness washed over me and then everything went black.
Thump.
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“Don’t touch her!” Eliza snarled and I sat bolt upright, just in time to see Ivanna stalking towards me with a sharpened rock in her hand. Dizziness washed over me as the effects of whatever drug they had used fled from my system. Eliza was crouched in front of me, and the sound of snapping bones filled the open air. She was shifting to protect me and honor our alliance. Had she not, I might already be dead.
Now that Ivanna saw I was awake she faltered and I stood, a little unsteady, but fisted my hands ready to fight.
There were half a dozen girls still passed out on the ground and three more were off in the distance, scattered and running in different directions. It was bright out, morning by the position of the sun. We’d slept all night.
It was a miracle nothing had eaten us; the dead lands were known for being full of bearin.
Muffled moans and groans began to ring out as the other women woke up. Ivanna and I were locked in a stare and I grinned maniacally. “We can do this now if you want,” I told her, cocking my head to the side.
I would enjoy killing Ivanna: she had no honor if she was going to bludgeon me with a rock while unconscious. She’d lost any respect she had gained from me.
Eliza had fully shifted into her wolf form now and I was surprised at how big she was. She stood a good head taller than my wolf and looked thicker too. Her lips peeled back into a snarl as she growled at Ivanna.
“But you might have trouble fighting us both.” I smiled.
Ivanna swallowed hard, dropping the rock and putting her hands up in a playful gesture. Now that all of the other girls were awake and looking around at the vast open land, I didn’t feel right about having the knowledge Axil had given me and keeping it to myself.
“My brother got drunk last night with someone who gave him inside information,” I told them all. “They took us north, into the dead lands. No food will be found and the only water comes from a bulbous plant that looks dead.” Was that everything? I couldn’t remember.
“Why are you telling us?” one girl asked, standing unsteadily.
I shrugged. “I want to win on an even playing field.”
“She could be lying,” Ivanna mused, her dark hair slicked into a nice bun, as she glared at me. “Her brother is a master at mental manipulation. This could be a trick to get us to head south and not waste time looking for food.”
I rolled my eyes. “Suit yourselves.” Reaching down, I grabbed the clothes Eliza had dropped before shifting and picked them up. She might need them later. Then I tapped on her shoulder and started a brisk walking pace to the south. I would bet my lucky hunting knife none of the city girls knew which way south was. They could probably smell their home in wolf form if we’d only traveled for an hour or two out, but at my estimation we’d trekked twelve hours on a briskly paced wolf sled which meant we were probably two days from making it home on foot. If we didn’t get lost. The lack of food would slow our pace and if we didn’t find water it would affect our stamina as well. The other three girls who’d gone off in all directions would be stuck out here for a week and eventually succumb to the elements.
Eliza stayed in her wolf form, which I actually thought was smart. “You’re a really big wolf. You should do all the rest of your fights in wolf form if you can manage to shift fast enough.” Now I saw why her name had been thrown into the ring for top contender. She was as big as the male wolves which was a huge advantage when fighting a smaller female.
She looked up at me and gave me a wolfish grin, appearing to like my compliment.
“And thanks for having my back just now. I owe you one,” I added as she happily trotted beside me.
I peered behind me to see that the girls had gathered into a little group and seemed to be arguing about something. Probably whether or not to believe my advice. That wasn’t my problem. I told them what I knew and pretty soon they would realize it.
“We need to find water. Let me know if you see any plants, even if they look dried up and dead,” I told Eliza.
She immediately put her snout to the ground and took off ten paces ahead of me to the south, sniffing the dirt like a tracker wolf.
We would need to pace our return to Death Mountain and because of the dense fog in the distance, I couldn’t see anything beyond a few miles. We could go without food but needed water.