Contender: The Chosen: Book 1

by Taran Matharu

  The door rattled and Cade looked up, startled from his reverie. It swung open, creaking on its hinges. A teacher stood there.

  ‘Come on,’ the man said.

  ‘Am I going back to the dorm?’ Cade asked, glad that punishment duty might be over with, but sad to lose his private room.

  ‘I said come on,’ the man snapped. ‘I won’t ask again.’

  Cade shrugged and hurried after him. It took a few more minutes of walking to see where he was going. Visitation. The small room where the parents could see their kids.

  Cursing the timing, Cade licked his hands and tried to fix his hair into some semblance of decency for his parents. He was sweaty from the workout, and he knew he likely stank.

  The teacher stood at the window in the visitation room, and Cade sat down on the ragged old sofa, his parents opposite. A coffee table scattered with leaflets of smiling kids lay between them.

  He felt a mixture of joy and sadness fill him when he saw them. His father gave him a thin smile as he entered the room, but neither spoke until he had sat down.

  ‘How are you, Cade?’ his mother asked, putting a hand on his knee.

  She seemed so tired. There were fresh lines on her face.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Cade said, putting on a brave face. ‘I’ve been exercising. Want to see my guns?’

  He lifted his arms and tweaked his bicep. She forced a smile at his cheesy joke, but Cade knew her heart wasn’t in it. His father was no better – he looked haggard. Why didn’t he say something? He just wanted to hear his dad’s voice.

  ‘We understand you’ve been fighting,’ his mother said.

  ‘I tripped, that’s all,’ Cade said quickly, hearing the worry in her voice.

  She shook her head. ‘You don’t need to lie, Cade.’

  Cade felt a flash of anger. The same anger he’d felt when his father had first spoken to him after he’d been arrested. Asked him if he’d done it.

  ‘I’m not lying,’ Cade said, trying to keep his voice calm.

  She sighed and looked away, as if holding back tears.

  ‘How have you guys been?’ Cade asked, after a moment of awkward silence.

  His father paused, and he saw his parents exchange a glance. It was only then that he noticed the distance between them. His father sitting behind her rather than beside her. The way she leaned away while he was speaking. They’d been arguing. He knew it.

  ‘We’re hanging in there,’ his father said, giving Cade a tight-lipped smile. ‘Talking to your old school, seeing if they’ll take you back.’

  Cade took a deep breath, resisting the urge to let his temper run away with him.

  ‘Don’t waste your time,’ Cade said. ‘They think I did it.’

  ‘They said they might consider it, if we pay full price.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Cade pleaded. ‘We can’t afford it. And everyone there will treat me like a thief.’

  ‘Cade, we can’t just give up on your education!’ his father snapped. His mother flinched at the noise.

  ‘What’s done is done. Don’t let it cost us any more,’ Cade said, ignoring the pain in his father’s eyes.

  ‘If you don’t go back, what does your future look like?’ his father asked. ‘You’d be lucky to get into a community college, let alone a top university. This isn’t another few months, this is your whole life!’

  ‘Shut up about that, all right?’ Cade snapped back. ‘You think I don’t know, you think I don’t—’

  Cade forced himself to calm, taking several slow breaths. He hadn’t realised how angry he had become. He’d worked so hard keeping his emotions hidden from the others, but now it was all spilling out on the people he loved.

  Shame heated his cheeks, and he wiped the damp from the corners of his eyes. What was he becoming?

  ‘We’re doing it,’ Cade’s father said. ‘Soon as you get out.’

  ‘It’s not like I can stop you,’ Cade muttered. He sat there, staring at his hands, until his father cleared his throat.

  ‘So,’ his dad said, avoiding Cade’s eyes. ‘You must know why we’re here.’

  Cade stared at him blankly. ‘Because you heard I was fighting?’

  He saw his father take his mother’s hand, and her pull it from his grip. The sight was like a knife in Cade’s heart. They wouldn’t be arguing if it wasn’t for him.

  ‘No, Cade. It’s about me.’ Cade’s mother said. ‘I’m not going to be visiting as often.’

  ‘You’re not?’ Cade’s heart quickened.

  ‘Did you not get my letter?’ his mother asked, and now he could see her anger too as she glared at the guard behind them.

  ‘I’ve been on punishment duty,’ Cade whispered. ‘Remember?’

  His mother took in a sharp breath.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Cade said quickly before she could ask about it.

  ‘Money’s been tight lately,’ she said. ‘What with the fine for the laptops, the fees for this place. I’m going back to work. It’s full time and with the drive up here being so long …’

  Cade felt his heart quicken in his chest. The visits were painful for him, true, but they were the only thing that reminded him of the outside world. That there was a life waiting for him, if he could only get through this.

  And his mother, having to go back to work? She loved being retired. Had worked hard her whole life just so she could.

  This was all his fault.

  ‘We’ll still call every week, OK?’ Cade’s mother said. ‘We love you.’

  Cade closed his eyes, trying to fight back the black wave of despair. This wasn’t fair. None of this was.

  Tears sprung up in the corners of his eyes, and he turned his face away. He couldn’t let them to see him cry.

  ‘Love you guys,’ he whispered.

  They had driven a long way to see him, but he couldn’t bear it a moment longer. He stood and nodded to the guard.

  ‘Cade,’ his father’s called, his voice almost pleading.

  He didn’t look back.

  NINE

  Place: Unknown

  Date: Unknown

  Year: Unknown

  ‘It’s a prank,’ Cade said. ‘It has to be.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Finch growled.

  Cade closed his eyes, trying to remember.

  ‘The Ninth Legion supposedly went missing in the early second century, probably somewhere in modern-day Scotland,’ he said, thinking back to the long discussions he’d had with his father on the matter. ‘The theory goes that most of them were slaughtered in an ambush by the ancient Picts … who must be our tattooed friends in the ditch over there. It’s one of the most famous historical mysteries ever.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of it,’ Scott said.

  The others grunted in agreement.

  ‘So you’re saying this dead guy was a Roman soldier?’ Eric asked.

  ‘That’s right,’ Cade replied. ‘Thousands of men struck from the admittedly sketchy Roman record, but nobody could ever figure out why.’

  ‘And then they ended up here? Like us?’ Jim wondered aloud. He earned himself a glare from Finch, as if even talking to Cade was a sin.

  ‘Or that’s what they want us to think … whoever they are,’ Cade muttered. ‘But it couldn’t be. For one thing, this was almost two thousand years ago. Jesus was crucified less than a century before these guys were around – even a perfectly mummified body would be in way worse shape than those corpses are.’

  ‘So, what? This all some sort of joke?’ Finch asked.

  ‘I can’t think of any other reason they’d put this here.’

  ‘Just to see how we’d react?’ Finch said with a sneer. ‘You’re saying someone’s gonna pop up with a TV camera and shout “surprise, we kidnapped you and flew you to a desert, and pitted you against some monsters that tore a bunch of you to ribbons, then we put some obscure historical prank here after you almost died of heatstroke, isn’t that hilarious”? That’s what you’re saying?’

 
; Cade shook his head. ‘Maybe they were re-enactors? Like they do with the Civil War?’ he ventured. It seemed thin, but it was the best explanation he had.

  ‘I don’t give a crap what that thing says,’ Gobbler said. ‘All I know is I’m starving and there’s nothing to eat but two-year-old or two-thousand-year-old dead dudes. We need to move on.’

  Finch stood and picked up an amphora, and his two sidekicks did the same.

  ‘I say we keep heading in the same direction,’ Finch said. ‘You can follow us if you want.’

  He glanced at Eric as he spoke, ignoring Cade, Scott and Yoshi. Then the trio left, lugging the water behind them.

  Again, the others looked to Eric.

  ‘He’s right,’ Eric said grudgingly. ‘We should take as much water as we can carry – hopefully we’ll come across more soon enough. I don’t think whoever brought us here wants us to die of thirst in the middle of the desert. They have other plans.’

  ‘Sure,’ Scott said, picking up one of the containers. ‘They’d much rather watch us get eaten by a mutant. Makes for better entertainment.’

  They saw the clouds before they saw the mountains. The white mantle stood out in the empty sky, hanging above a dark stain on the horizon. That stain soon became a sierra of the same brown rock as before, but this one seemed to stretch for miles and miles around.

  As they neared, the oppressive heat from the sun began to dampen, helped along by a gentle breeze. But what was strange was that the clouds did not move from their position above the mountains despite the wind, as if held there by some invisible force. Cade didn’t mention this to the others, who seemed oblivious. Things were weird enough as it was.

  The four of them approached what appeared to be a broad natural entrance, with two cliffs jutting on either side. They let out a collective sigh of relief as they stumbled into the shade, but there was little time for respite.

  Because there were bones here, littered all through the canyon.

  Finch and the others were standing just ahead of them, staring at the remains scattered across the dark soil. It looked for all the world like an elephant’s graveyard, but there was no rhyme nor reason to their sizes and shapes. A ribcage that looked like it might have come from a whale rested nearby, while closer still the basketball-sized skull of an unidentifiable fanged creature lay half buried in the ground. And there were human skulls too, interspersed among the rest like dice on a game-room table.

  How long these had been there, Cade could not tell, but it sent an icy chill up his spine despite the muggy heat. The air was suddenly moist here, as if it had rained recently, and the scent of decomposition fouled his nostrils.

  ‘Well, this is just great,’ Yoshi said, crouching to examine one of the yellowed human skulls. ‘Do you think this is what happened to whoever came before us?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Cade answered, biting his lip. ‘But it’s not like we can go back.’

  The canyon was as wide as two football stadiums end to end, with sheer cliffs on either side, stretching as high as office buildings. Yet, as Cade scanned their surroundings, he saw Finch’s trio hurrying towards a structure directly opposite them, hundreds of yards into the valley. His eyes widened as he saw it. A wall.

  ‘Come on,’ Eric grunted, leading the way.

  It felt like a long walk, their feet squelching through the rain-damp mud, crunching over bones with every other step. As they neared, Cade saw the wall was at least twenty feet high. It was built in a haphazard fashion – some parts red brick, others stone and mortar, with some sections plastered over with a rough cement.

  The entire structure was crumbling, with cratered holes and scorch marks along its surface. And worse still … furrowed scratches, large enough to be seen even from a distance. No animals Cade knew of had claws as large as whatever had made those markings, and he found himself avoiding looking at the ground for fear of seeing the remains of the creatures that had.

  Now he could see a ramp of cobbled stone going up the wall’s centre, where a set of double doors were built deep into the structure. Already, Finch was banging his fists against it, yelling hoarse pleas to be let in. But there was no response. Only the susurration of the breeze.

  ‘It’s locked,’ Finch said, kicking the door with frustration.

  Cade sat on the edge of the ramp and groaned with relief. His feet were sore from the day’s endless walking, and the amphora clutched beneath his arm had chafed his side raw. Somehow, even in all this chaos, he wanted to sleep. Sleep for days, if he could.

  ‘I know I’d rather be on the other side of the wall than this one,’ Eric said, approaching the wall and running his hand along it. ‘More vipers could come soon. Maybe that’s what this is. Another test?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Yoshi said. ‘And looks like some of those skeletons back there didn’t pass it.’

  Cade uncorked his amphora and took a deep swig, steadying his nerves as the lukewarm liquid pooled in his stomach.

  ‘We should get a move on,’ Eric murmured, moving closer to Cade. ‘Night is coming.’

  Cade glanced up and saw the sun had already made its slow descent behind the mountains, and a chill had begun to fall around them. Light was fading fast. As his eyes dropped, they took in the wall once more – damaged but intact.

  ‘We climb,’ Eric said. ‘That’s the only option.’

  ‘And break our necks?’ Finch snapped. ‘We’d never make it up that thing.’

  Already Cade’s eyes were scanning the structure’s surface, mapping a path to the top. It was possible. Just. He knew his reputation among these boys. Knew what they thought of him. A spoiled, geeky kid who didn’t belong.

  Now was his chance to show he was useful. To earn their respect.

  Cade took off his boots and socks, flexing his toes. After a moment’s thought, he tied the laces together and hung the heavy boots around his neck, not wanting to leave them behind.

  ‘You’re gonna climb?’ Finch asked, with raised eyebrows.

  Cade nodded.

  ‘Better you than me.’

  ‘Eric, can you give me a leg up?’ Cade asked, ignoring him.

  He approached the wall and pushed his hands into a crack between two bricks. Even as he did so, the edge crumbled, and he was forced to dig his fingers in deeper to get a decent grip.

  ‘Leaving us so soon?’ Finch called. ‘What a shame.’

  ‘I’ll see if I can unlock the door from the other side,’ Cade replied through gritted teeth, scraping his feet against the wall. He found a toehold and pushed, before feeling Eric’s shoulder against his backside, heaving him upwards.

  He dug his nails into a claw mark and pulled, even as another shoulder found its way beneath his free foot. He pushed off and found a crevice for his hand, and now the exhaustion of the day took hold of him as he held himself by his fingertips, standing on tiptoes on the shoulder beneath.

  ‘You’re heavier than you look,’ Scott called breathlessly from below. ‘Up you go.’

  Cade looked down as Scott pushed his foot up with an arm, and Cade made a desperate grab above, his fingers scrabbling against the concrete before digging into the gap between some bricks. He was halfway up the wall now, but no longer had the support of the others beneath him. He found a new toehold and held himself there for a moment, coughing dust from the mortar he had dislodged. For once, he was glad of the weight he had lost.

  ‘We’ll catch you, if you fall,’ Scott called helpfully, giving Cade the courage to push up once again. He latched on to a loose brick and heaved upwards.

  On he went, focusing on one hold after another. With each move upwards, his arms were forced to take the strain as his toes searched in vain for purchase. But each time he managed it, with some helpful shouts about where to put his feet from below. Even Jim called out, though a hiss from Finch swiftly silenced him.

  Finally, muscles twitching and limbs trembling, Cade reached the parapet. With a Herculean effort, he hauled himself over the top and, seeing a platform of
rock built just beneath the crenulations, collapsed on his back, taking deep lungfuls of air. After a full minute, and with some trepidation, he rolled on to his side and looked out at what lay behind the wall.

  Relief flooded over him like a cool balm as he took in the view. Because there in front of him were buildings.

  TEN

  The iron bar that secured the doors was difficult for Cade to lift, as it had rusted into the iron brackets that kept it in place. But eventually it clattered on to the floor with a clang, and Finch barged him aside, eager to get away from the bone fields.

  ‘Now, this is more like it,’ Finch called out, throwing his arms wide. ‘Looks like someone survived long enough to build this place.’

  Cade couldn’t help but agree with him. The main building looked more like a medieval keep than anything, though built from the same materials the wall had been and only three storeys high.

  They stood in a courtyard of cobbled ground, overgrown with weeds, just in front of a looming entrance. The doors there were missing, with the inside dark and foreboding.

  To the left, Cade could see what looked like stables, though many of the tiles from the roof had fallen in. On the right, though half blocked by the building’s edge, there was a dark cave that seemed to disappear into the mountain beyond. Unsurprisingly, that seemed far less tempting to explore than the building’s interior.

  But none of these discoveries were what excited him the most. No – it was the stone well that stood in the centre of the courtyard, complete with an iron bucket, a rope and a circular trough that surrounded the well – clearly used for watering horses or some other animal. Maybe they wouldn’t die of thirst here after all.

  Eric handed him his amphora and Cade drank long and deep. The others did the same, and Finch finished his off with a burp before tossing the pot to shatter on the floor.

  ‘There could be food in there,’ Finch said, wiping his mouth and nodding at the building.

  Nobody wanted to go first. Finch turned to Cade and shooed him towards the entrance with a grunt.