Page 10 of Hell’s Weapon

“You said we had to make it over the mountain alive, not be first to cross the finish line. So, it doesn’t matter that I’m last. Leave me to assess,” I snap back.

He’s silent but doesn’t move away. I can feel the heat of him at my back, it makes my skin burn. Trying to ignore it, I focus on the scrambling humans, attempting to figure out the pieces I’m missing about this challenge.

When the first explosion happens, I brace against showing any kind of reaction with the panther shifter breathing down my neck. Screams ring out as a few of the contestants are sent skyward in pieces.

There it is.

That’s what you get for rushing.

“How did you know?”

“I didn’t. But I’m not stupid. Climbing a mountain is physical, yes, but it’s too simple.” A second explosive is stepped on and another couple of humans are taken out.

Swinging my head to the right, further than the parameters of the markers, a few of the contestants that went that way are now also screaming. The terrain there is grassier, long stems, easy for Sprites to hide in. I can’t see the little fairies from this distance, but from the swatting and darting motions of the group now losing their shit, I’d bet that’s what they’ve discovered hiding in the fauna.

“If you don’t start soon it will class as a failure, which means you die,” Officer Needs-a-decent-lay-to-chill-the-fuck-out taunts me. “Not that I’d particularly mind, but it seems a waste after the effort I had to put into capturing you.”

“I’m going, alright?” I huff. Turning, I walk the first few steps backwards, just so I can give him my best glare. For good measure, I also raise both middle fingers, before taking off to tackle this thing.

Chapter 5

Wyatt

“Woohoo!” I yell, hands cupped around my mouth, as I reach the first plateau on the hillside up the mountain. It echoes throughout the valley.

Oh my god, this is exhilarating!

After nearly eight months in a prison cell this is exactly what I need–freedom, and a challenge to test my body.

If we could throw in a few guns and a bad guy to hunt, I’d think we’d landed in Heaven instead of Hell.

Answering my prayers, an explosion below spikes the adrenaline in my blood as it tears through the earth further down the face of the mountain, at my five o’clock. I’m not too egotistical to admit that my heart also does a little skip and has a moment where it thinks we’re the one who has died. But I quickly recover, and with a little less bounce in my steps I continue up the path to get a better look. It seems a few of the fellow prisoners tried to take the straight route and have paid for their mistakes.

Okay, so this is a booby-trapped hike. My lips tug at the new challenge I’m facing. I love nothing more than getting my adrenaline going and this just pushed it to the max.

Scanning the rest of the crowd, I note how we’ve all fanned out. Some are to the left, others are still trying to tackle the steeper but direct route, and a final bunch decided on the grassier route to the right. I bet a waterfall runs down there in the spring, by the amount of plants and shit growing there. The path I’m on, which looks a bit like an old animal track, is mostly gravelly rocks and a few sprigs of tough little bushes. About half of my prison mates are strung out along the first section of it, the fittest of us racing out ahead.

Do those trying to take shortcuts not see that this path has been marked? Are they really so lazy that they are willing to cut corners, or in this case try to go as the crow flies? For a second, I question my own judgement. I’d noticed the little wooden markers dipped in yellow from the starting point. They are spread out enough that they weren’t obviously a marked path but as you reached each one you could see the way tracked out to the next one. And we’re not being timed, it’s not the quickest who wins. You’ve got to be smart.

A second landmine detonates, sadly sending a few more bodies firing up into the sky, making it rain blood. I hope it’s none of the cool people I’ve met in the last month. But if they’ve gone and got themselves killed then clearly they’re not as cool as I first thought. And I guess it means I have less competition already, for whatever this recruitment process is.

Not going to lie, the whole ‘we’ve landed in Hell and are now fighting to work for none other than Hades himself’ thing seems a tad dramatic. I’ve heard of experimenting on prisoners, scientists using them like human mice to test new drugs, or run fucked up mind tricks on, but this is a new one to me. And I’ve lived in the morally dark grey shadows for nearly all of my thirty-five years. So, why am I playing along? A competition was laid out and there’s nothing I love more than a challenge. Beating a load of highly trained criminals, fuck yes, I’m all over it.

Do I believe we’re actually in Hell? Pfft. Come on. Although the portal was a good trick. And how we landed in the countryside from the canteen hall, I’ve yet to figure that out. My brain doesn’t feel fuzzy like I’ve been drugged. I’m ninety-nine percent sure this isn’t some Matrix level bullshit, but then again how would I know? Wherever the fuck this is, it beats the prison cells.

There’s a sudden commotion behind me, from within the grassy channel running down the hillside, and what I see might be making me re-evaluate the whole drugging theory.

Several of the prisoners are being attacked by what look like fairies! Tiny humanoid creatures with wings, are flapping about, dive bombing and flying circles around the screaming inmates. As the group in orange jumpsuits run past, trying to escape, I get a closer look at the things chasing them. Their skin has a greenish tinge, and they have little pointed ears, but other than those features, and the wings, they look completely human.

A female one comes to an abrupt halt as she spots me completely rooted to the spot.

“What are you?” I ask in wonderment.

She cocks her head and offers me a bright smile. “I’m a Sprite, have you never seen one of us before?”

Shaking my head, I take in her tiny form, she’s barely longer than the palm of my hand. “A Sprite?”

Instead of staying to chat, she zips off, giggling as she goes.