Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 83205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
He takes a step forward.
I clench my fists, willing him to keep moving.
The stranger pauses, looking around the canyon. The wind is in my favor—he will not pick up my scent. With luck, the snow-people will be silent long enough that he will not notice them until it's too late. Keep going, I say silently. Two more steps.
The male in the snows below hesitates a bit longer, then takes another step.
And another.
On his third, the ground below his feet dissolves. His arms go up and he disappears into the pit.
I whoop with joy, surging to my feet. At my side, the snow-people hoot alongside me, a cacophony of noise that for once doesn't bother me. Scrambling down the steep cliffs, I race to the edge of the pit, determined to make it there before my enemy climbs his way out.
When I move to the edge of the pit, I see him seated below, his hands cradling one bent leg. His furs are scattered around him, and instead of looking afraid, he seems angry. Pissed, Aidy would say. He glances up at me with glowing blue eyes and his lip curls. "I don't know what kind of game this is, but I'm not in the mood. You broke my keffing ankle, friend."
It's not what I expected him to say. Nor did I expect him to look the way he does. I thought he'd look a bit more like me, to be honest. That he'd be a mixture of all races—mesakkah, praxiian, some moden, some a'ani, whatever is thrown into the mix to create the strongest candidate. I thought he'd look as tired and worn as we are, wearing tattered furs and eating whatever this miserable planet tosses our way.
The male below is praxiian, though. Perhaps not pure-blooded praxiian (there's something a little too flat about his features and his coloring to be a true praxiian), but it is clearly the majority of his genetic makeup. His mane is a striped dun, stark against his white fur cloak. His clothing is well-made, too. The foot he cradles is shod in a boot that would make Aidy envious, and he has a variety of knives and weapons at his waist, held by a tooled leather belt. He looks healthy. Clean.
He's thriving.
I realize in that instant that Aidy and I are not. We are struggling because it is only the two of us, and the snow-people are more of a hindrance than a help. Our energy is spent every day preventing them from fighting when we could be using it in other ways.
For a brief moment, I feel a stab of resentment toward this male, that he is doing so well here on this planet and I, for all my scheming, am not. "We are not friends," I say back to him, hiding my frustration. "And you know very well what sort of game this is."
The male bares fangs at me. "What are you talking about?"
"The game." I gesture at our surroundings. "We have been sent here to play, and I am determined to win. Give up now and I will take you captive. Do not force me to eliminate you."
It's a bluff—Aidy has asked me to bring him back and I will, because I refuse to disappoint her. But this male does not know that.
His nostrils flare with irritation, his gaze flicking to the top of the pit, where I loom over him. I can practically see his thoughts, see the plans as he discards them, one by one. The snow-people are lining up around me, and he is obviously outnumbered. "Very well," he says slowly. "I will go with you if you promise I'll be safe. And you help me bind my ankle."
I flick a hand at him. "Toss your weapons up and my army will get you out of the pit."
He eyes me dubiously. After a long hesitation, he tosses up a dagger. Then another. His spear is snapped in half at the bottom, and he tosses each end up to me. Each time he flings up a weapon, he shoots me a look of pure disgust and loathing. Eventually there are seven knives, the spear, and a bola tossed up to me.
"Is that everything?" I ask.
"What, you think I have a knife shoved under my tail?" the stranger snarls back at me.
"It'd explain the attitude," I retort back. "This is nothing personal. It's just gameplay."
"What keffing game?" he shouts up to me. "Are you a madman?"
"You know very well what game," I say, though the more he protests, the more I think about Aidy's comments the other day. How she wonders if there is something different about this game because nothing is going as we expected. How the "smooth people on the beach" do not leave. Unsettled, I gesture to a few of the snow-people to jump down into the pit to lift him up.