Contender: The Chosen: Book 1

by Taran Matharu

  What was obvious was that nobody had tended these crops for a long time. Nothing had been gathered, pruned or replanted. Instead, the vegetation had run rampant, left to its own devices.

  It was a relief to find so much food, but at the same time, Cade knew they would have to leave soon. They needed to gather all they could and move to the next area before the timer reached zero.

  But where was the next area? Beyond the fields, he could see the edge of their mountaintop, surmounted by a cloud-strewn sky. Curious to see what lay beyond, Cade waded through the wheat until he stood on the plateau’s edge.

  Green. He had never seen so much of it. A forest sprawled beneath him in a viridescent ocean, stretching as far as the eye could see, lost in a haze of fog before it met the horizon. To his left and right, the mountains stretched in a sierra that curved around, as if they stood on the edge of a giant meteor’s crater. It was awe-inspiring and terrifying, all at the same time.

  A few hundred feet beyond the steep cliffs that bordered their plateau, a waterfall blasted out over the mountainside, filling the air with moisture and forming a deep pool in the forest below. If someone had created this place, they had an artist’s eye.

  ‘It’s a caldera,’ a muffled voice said.

  Spex stepped beside him, his mouth half-full of fig.

  ‘Wait, what?’ Cade asked, pleased that Spex was talking to him. Spex hadn’t quite ignored him since his beating, but he hadn’t exactly been warm to him either. Cade didn’t blame him.

  ‘Like Yellowstone, or Crater Lake. The sinkhole of a giant dormant volcano. We’re standing on the rim. These mountains probably form a ring, hundreds of miles around.’ Spex stooped and scooped up a handful of the dark earth. ‘That’s volcanic soil; black, fertile. No wonder it’s so overgrown everywhere.’

  Cade leaned out over the mountainside and looked down.

  ‘That’s the basin – see how the jungle tilts downwards the further in it gets?’ Spex said, waving a pulp-stained hand over the forest. ‘And the river, following the incline? There’s probably a body of water right in the centre, miles that way.’

  Now Cade saw a river offshooting from the waterfall pool and disappearing into the jungle’s edge. It cut a furrow through the treeline, heading into the undergrowth.

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Cade asked. He tried not to sound surprised.

  Spex shrugged. ‘I have a good memory,’ he said. ‘Geography trivia.’

  For a moment the pair stared out at the expanse of vegetation, somewhat soothed by the breeze and the distant roar of the waterfall. It was an impossible place, Cade realised. An oasis of life contained within a ring of impassable mountains and surrounded by endless dry desert. Was it safer out there, in the great green jungle?

  As if reading Cade’s mind, Spex spoke up. ‘Do you think we’re dead? Like in an afterlife?’

  Cade sighed, watching as Spex chewed his bottom lip.

  ‘If we are,’ Cade said, ‘I think we could die again. Maybe the next afterlife would be better?’

  He was only half-joking.

  ‘Yeah,’ Spex said, forcing a grim smile. ‘Let’s not test out that theory.’

  The boy lifted another fig and groaned with satisfaction as he took a bite from it.

  ‘Speaking of which, what’s your theory?’ Spex asked, mumbling through his mouthful of fruit.

  ‘Too weird and elaborate for a prank,’ Cade replied. ‘Too difficult and pointless for a government experiment. It’s all too unreal. Maybe we’re hooked up to some sort of super-advanced virtual reality, playing a video game to rehabilitate us. Or we’re being used by big pharma to test some hallucinogenic drugs. Maybe I lost my mind and I’m in a psych ward, with electrodes glued to my temples.’

  ‘Dunno,’ Spex said, scratching his chin. ‘This all feels pretty real. And I’m definitely not a figment of your imagination. I’m me.’

  ‘That’s exactly what a figment of my imagination would say,’ Cade said, grinning.

  Spex grinned back and shook his head.

  ‘Well, wherever we are, let’s just focus on surviving it,’ Spex said. ‘I mean, if it’s a dream, let’s make it a happy one, right?’

  ‘Right,’ Cade said.

  It can’t be a dream. Maybe a nightmare.

  Cade gazed out over the jungle once more. Even as he looked, he thought he could see the shape of something in the mists, a deeper grey that stretched above the trees. Then it was gone, obscured once more by the rolling mists. A building? Or another mountain.

  Cade’s mind turned to the timer, slowly ticking down. And the bones scattered beyond their derelict wall.

  ‘We should go,’ Cade said, motioning at the rainforest with his chin. ‘I think I know where that cave leads.’

  FIFTEEN

  There was a light at the end of the tunnel, in both senses. The cave was a wide, level tube of rock, with edges as smooth and round as a straw. This hadn’t been dug by any Roman, or modern machine for that matter. It was practically laser-cut, and this told Cade it was all part of the game, a passage designed to allow access both to and from the jungle. Constructed by whatever twisted people had brought them to this place.

  If they were people at all.

  ‘You think we’re safer out there?’ Scott asked, squinting at the circle of light at the end. ‘That was a pretty nice stash of food we had up there.’

  ‘We’ve probably got enough to last us a week or two, if we’re careful,’ Spex replied, hefting the heavy sack of fruit across his back. The sacking they had found had been half-rotting, and seemingly used to transport grains from the wheat field to the Keep, but in a pinch they had served to be stuffed with fruit. Holding an amphora and a sack each was all they could carry.

  ‘And after that?’ Scott asked. ‘We need to figure out how to get home, not spend two weeks crouched in a hole, slowly starving to death.’

  ‘If you want to stay and see whatever that countdown is ticking to, be my guest,’ Eric said, his voice echoing down the tunnel. ‘I’d rather take my chances out there. Maybe there are more like us, who made it this far.’

  ‘What if we can’t find anyone?’ Yoshi said. ‘Or find a safe place?’

  ‘We lie low in the jungle, maybe come back and gather more in a week or so,’ Cade said, shading his eyes as they emerged into the light. ‘Whatever the qualifying round is, it will be over by then.’

  Or at least Cade hoped so.

  They emerged from the tunnel, blinking in the late-morning light. It looked much as Cade had imagined, based on what he had seen from above.

  The area surrounding the cave mouth was clear of trees, and it was easy to see why. Tree stumps were scattered as far as a hundred feet to the jungle edge – the occupants of the Keep had needed lumber, after all. To their left, the waterfall roared and the mist from its crashing coated them all with a thin film of moisture. It was a blessed relief, because by now the sun was beating down on them from high in the sky.

  The forest ahead looked daunting from the ground. He hadn’t realised the sheer scale of the trees earlier.

  Once, Cade had visited the giant sequoias in Redwood National Park, even stopped by Hyperion, the tallest one in the world. Now most of the trees that made up the top layer of the canopy looked to easily match Hyperion’s height, with others exceeding it by a full third.

  Worse still, the shadows they cast left the forest interior shrouded by gloom. There were no animals here – no birds, no deer. Only the soft whine of insects hovering around his head. It was eerie, as if some giant predator had scared everything away.

  ‘Let’s take a breather,’ Eric announced, settling on one of the rotting tree stumps. The others followed his lead, though Finch wandered a way further before sitting with his two cronies.

  Uneasy at the thought of entering the jungle, Cade busied himself by approaching the waterfall instead, weaving his way through the thick mat of vegetation that still grew in the clearing. Mosquitoes buzzed around his head and h
e slapped at them, leaving his amphora and food sack on the ground.

  Then he saw it, his eyes widening with shock. He hurried forward, tripping and stumbling to get to the plunge pool at the waterfall’s base. Because sitting there, moored by a frayed rope and half obscured by reeds … was a boat.

  ‘Thank you,’ Cade whispered, though who he was thanking he did not know.

  Kneeling at the water’s edge, he saw it was over twenty feet long, with a cabin and opposing benches inside. It bobbed uneasily in the stirring waters of the lake that had formed around the waterfall’s torrent, tugged towards the broad river that cut into the jungle beyond.

  ‘Damn,’ Yoshi panted, catching up behind him. ‘Jackpot.’

  But now that he was up close, Cade wasn’t so sure. The boat’s hull and cabin were covered in a thick layer of green lichen, so much so that he could barely make out the letters emblazoned on its side. He hauled on the rope and ran his hand across the slimy coating as it drifted closer, revealing the stencil beneath.

  ‘Witchcraft,’ he read, furrowing his brows.

  A strange name for a boat.

  ‘Yeah, that’s one explanation,’ Yoshi said.

  Cade blinked the sweat from his eyes. Could they survive on the boat, out there in the jungle? It was certainly better than a hut made of sticks and leaves.

  ‘Hell yeah,’ Spex shouted, hurrying over with the others. ‘That’s our ticket out of here.’

  ‘Ticket to where?’ Scott huffed, collapsing on to a nearby tree stump.

  ‘I don’t care, but I’m not hauling this with me through Jumanji over there,’ Yoshi replied, nodding at the jungle and setting his food and water on the ground.

  ‘We don’t even know if it’s working,’ Cade said. ‘It looks old.’

  But not so old as the Romans, clearly. What this modern machine was doing here was anyone’s guess.

  ‘One way to find out,’ Finch said, leaping aboard.

  For once, Finch was going first … but it didn’t seem like the boat would be dangerous.

  Cade sighed and followed, stepping into the cabin.

  The inside of the cruiser was as mouldy as the outside, with two upholstered benches for sleeping on either side, along with a tiny latrine at the end. But what was strange was the long lengths of wood lying along the bottom, as well as rough, makeshift oars stacked like kindling in the corner.

  ‘Looks like the owners didn’t use the motor,’ Cade said. ‘Must have used punts and oars to get it up and down the river instead.’

  Even as he spoke, he noticed a set of keys hanging from a corkboard on the wall. He took them and stared incredulously.

  ‘It won’t work,’ Yoshi said, ducking in behind them. ‘Fuel’ll have gone bad.’

  ‘Fuel doesn’t go bad, jackass,’ Finch said, snatching the keys from Cade while he was distracted. ‘It’s millions of years old.’

  ‘Whatever.’ Yoshi shrugged.

  Finch stomped back to the exterior and jabbed the keys into the ignition. To Cade’s surprise, the lights on the dashboard flickered, but there wasn’t even a cough from the engine.

  ‘Like I said, fuel’s gone bad,’ Yoshi said, glaring at Finch. ‘You ever see Mad Max? That film was inaccurate as hell. You leave gas in a car’s fuel tank for a year, it won’t start. If the gas is stored in a tanker, or a barrel, maybe you got a decade, but after that, might as well take out the engine and hitch a horse to the front – it’s back to the Stone Age. You’re the jackass.’

  ‘So we’ll row it, then,’ Cade interrupted, stepping between the two. ‘The current will do half the work; we just need to guide it.’

  ‘And what if there’s another waterfall?’ Finch asked, distracted by the suggestion.

  ‘We swim for it,’ Yoshi said.

  Finch grinned, but there was no warmth to his smile.

  ‘Maybe we take the boat, leave you here,’ he said. ‘Since you want to swim so much, seems like you don’t need it.’

  Cade saw him shift his weight to his back foot. In a fair fight, Yoshi would have a shot. But he wasn’t the one holding the pickaxe.

  ‘Nobody wants you here,’ Yoshi said, ‘Maybe we should leave you.’

  ‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ Finch said, his face darkening. ‘If you want to leave, then leave. But the food, the weapons, this boat, the Keep. That’s mine. I own it.’

  Cade could see Finch’s fury, bubbling beneath the surface. Waiting to erupt. Yoshi’s hands balled into fists.

  ‘How do you figure?’ he said.

  ‘Because I say so,’ Finch replied. ‘Your betters say so.’

  And then, ever so slightly, the pickaxe lifted from the ground.

  This was it. Cade predicted that in seconds there would be a bloodbath. He had to do something. Even if it meant putting himself at risk.

  He was already at Finch’s side, just out of view. Cade wasn’t a threat to Finch. He was a nobody, a weakling. Not part of the equation.

  He made himself a threat, evening the odds. He took two quick steps, placing himself behind Finch. It was time to show he had some fight in him after all.

  ‘You sure about this?’ Cade said.

  His hand strayed to his pocket, and he grasped the hand-axe. He didn’t know if he’d have the courage to use it, but it gave him a semblance of a chance if he had to defend himself.

  Finch’s head turned slightly to the left, but he dared not take his eyes off Yoshi. For a few heart-stopping moments, Finch hesitated. But it was Yoshi who moved first, stepping back and to the side, making room for Finch to go.

  Finch walked by slowly, his back straight as a ramrod, ready to defend himself at any moment. Then the boy was gone, leaping from the boat’s back-end to join his cronies.

  Cade breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘You got my back if things kick off later, yeah?’ Yoshi muttered once Finch was out of earshot.

  Cade hesitated. Would he? Or would he run away, take his chances on his own?

  ‘I’d rather there were no problems,’ Cade said, feeling a twinge of guilt run down his back. ‘I’m a lover, not a fighter.’

  Yoshi shook his head.

  ‘I thought I could count on you,’ Yoshi said, banging Cade’s shoulder as he walked out. ‘Guess I was wrong.’

  He jumped back to shore, and Cade was alone on the Witchcraft.

  Cade groaned, sitting on the mould-covered bench with a squelch. When the food got low, things would kick off. Maybe even before. He imagined facing down Finch, Gobbler and Jim, armed with nothing but a rock. Somehow, it filled him with more dread than the vipers had.

  The sooner they found more people, the better.

  SIXTEEN

  The boat rocked in the water as they shoved off, using the makeshift poles they had found inside. Cade sat at the front, with everyone but Finch’s crew beside him. He had thought he would end up guiding the boat with his oar, yet as the current took them and they began to drift down the river, he found no use for it. Finch had commandeered the helm of the boat while the others paddled at intervals to keep it in the centre of the river.

  They followed the main waterway, though there were several places where tributaries split to their left and right. Even if they had wanted to change course, they were at the mercy of the current, and Cade doubted they could redirect the boat easily with their oars.

  The river had by now broadened to as wide as a tennis court was long, but even in the daylight it seemed somewhat gloomy, the canopy casting much of it in shadow. Still, among the rush of water and the chirping of birds, Cade began to feel at ease for the first time. He took off his boots and dangled his feet in the water, revelling as the cool liquid washed the blisters, sweat, and grime that had gathered there in their trek across the desert.

  Then a dark shape passed beneath. It was deep down, murky among the green, trailing fronds that made up the river bottom. But the size alone made Cade jerk his feet from the water – it looked almost as long as the boat itself. Perhaps relaxin
g would have to wait.

  ‘Good idea,’ Spex muttered, moving up to crouch behind him. ‘God knows what’s down there.’

  ‘I don’t think God had much to do with this place,’ Scott sighed, stretching out on the bow. ‘But it’s nice to be out of that sun.’

  Cade shook his head and stood, peering into the jungle on either side for something, anything that would give them some clue as to where they were. But the trees at the water’s edge were thick with leaves, stretching for the meagre sunlight that filtered through the gap in the canopy along the river’s centre. It was as if twin halves of a leafy roof arched over the water, with a long strip of clear sky separating them.

  Even as he looked up, something came down from the sky, plummeting towards him like a meteorite. Cade scrambled back with a yelp.

  He landed on Scott in a tangle of limbs, eliciting a tirade of curses. But there was no splash, nor thud. Instead, the object hung there, hovering in the air, just as it had above the stone table at the Keep.

  The drone. It followed in tandem with the boat, as if perched above the stern upon an invisible pillar. Cade could only gape as it pivoted its lens-like front towards them, looking for all the world like a robotic teardrop floating on its side.

  ‘What the hell,’ Scott groaned. ‘It’s following us?’

  As if to compound their misery, the drone projected the timer once more.

  05:06:43:12

  05:06:43:11

  05:06:43:10

  ‘So, no matter what we do, that timer’s gonna end with us next to this thing,’ Spex said, scratching his head. ‘Kind of makes me think we should have stayed at the Keep.’

  Eric let out a groan of frustration, then stood.

  ‘Why are you following us?’ Eric demanded, standing up and prodding at the drone with his oar. ‘Stupid damn thing.’

  Immediately, the drone moved closer … and answered.

  ‘I must retain proximity to contenders at all times.’

  It was a dull, polite, robotic voice, but one that sent chills down Cade’s spine.

  He stared at it. All this time – it could understand them?