Cured (22 page)

I grinned in her direction, but neither of
the boys seemed to notice our enthusiasm towards this new plan.
Felix took his shirt off. This was my favourite challenge yet. We
made our way back to the previous intersection and took a right
turn, running into yet another dead end. After two more failed
attempts, everyone was cranky, and Ellina and Felix had started
their insistent bickering. I took the two bread rolls from my
backpack and halved them, handing them out. We ate and took a sip
of precious water from our flasks, before continuing. The next
right turn did not take us to a dead end, instead leading to
another intersection.

“
Thank the
Lord,” s
aid Felix. “Another dead end
might’ve killed me. Ha-ha! Get it?! DEAD end! Killed me!
HA!”

No one was
listening to him. Theo and Ellina were both staring at the pathway
on the right. I followed their gaze and saw the hedge move
slightly. Felix noticed the movement too, and fell
silent.

“
Something’s
there,” s
aid Theo. “Stay right here you
two, Ellina you come with me.”

She nodded and they began to move down the
right pathway.

Then
I heard Theo curse loudly and yell,
“RUN!”

I didn’t need any further direction; I
grabbed Felix’s hand, turned and sprinted down the left pathway. We
ran until we hit another intersection and then stopped. There was a
loud pounding of feet, too loud to be Theo and Ellina following
us.

“
We’ve gotta
keep going Ave,” w
hispered Felix, tugging
me to the right. We started running again. I tried to remember each
direction we took as we wove our way around the labyrinth, but lost
count of the turns we were taking after the fifth intersection.
Finally Felix came to a stop. My heart was burning and I panted
loudly. I tried to hush my breathing as we both strained our ears
to listen for any sign of our friends, or whoever, whatever, else
was hiding in the maze. Silence.

“
We lost
them. Or it. Or whatever was chasing us,” said Felix, his hands on
his knees as he caught his breath.

“
Yup, but we
also lost Ellina and Theo.” I replied with a sigh.

After getting our breath back, we decided
that we needed a plan, rather than just aimlessly wandering through
the maze.

“Maybe we should just call out for them?”
Felix suggested.

“Yeah but then whatever was chasing us will
hear too.”

“Do we really have a choice?”

I agreed, and
we started to yell out for our friends, making our way through the
labyrinth, turning at random.

Finally I
heard a shout. I instinctively clapped my hand over Felix’s mouth,
and shouted out again. Another reply came from a long way in the
distance. Theo. I led Felix in the direction of Theo’s call. We hit
an intersection and I called out. Theo yelled back and we turned
left, following the sound of Theo’s voice. We carried on this way
until we didn’t need to shout anymore. We were so close, that we
could hear their footsteps.

“
Avery?”
c
ame Theo’s voice, so close it sounded as
though he were standing in front of me.

“
I’m
here,
” I said, my voice nearly a whisper.
I heard him curse. He was right in front of me. But there was a
twenty-meter high hedge between us. I looked up at the wall of
thick foliage and pressed a hand against it. Solid as if it were
brick.

“Hack through the hedge?” came Ellina’s
voice.

“
It’s too
thick,” s
aid Theo. “Reckon we could climb
it?”

I heard a
rustling as they attempted to scramble up the wall, followed by two
loud thuds and a curse.

“
Damn it. The
hedge can easily hold our weight, but there is nothing to hold onto
but leaves. We can’t get any grip.”

Then I had a
thought.
I opened my backpack, and pulled
out one of the bread knives.

“I don’t we will be strong enough to cut
through the maze with a bread knife, Ave.” said Felix.

“
No,
” I agreed. “ I was thinking
we could use it to make a rope from the vines.” I started to saw at
one of the thick stems in the hedge. But even using all my strength
barely made an impact. “I’m not strong enough,” I
sighed.

“
But we will
be,” s
aid Theo from the other side. I
moved back as far as I could, and threw the knife with all my
strength over the hedge. It cleared the top and Theo yelled
out,

“I underestimated you, princess, you have
been practicing your throwing.”

I grinned
smugly and leaned back against the hedge, listening to Theo carve
away at the vines whilst Ellina tied the plants together to make
one long rope.

“
Okay,”
c
ame Theo’s voice, “I think it’s long
enough to reach you now. I’m going to throw it over the top of the
hedge. Heads up!”

The makeshift
rope came flying over the
wall, and
landed in Felix’s hand. Felix wound the end of it around his wrist
and reached for me with his other arm, clenching it tightly around
my waist.

“
Ready.”
h
e said, his grip tightening further
around me. Suddenly we were lifted off the ground, and swung
face-first into the hedge.

“
Ow!” I
moaned with a face full of greenery.

The plants
scratched and caught our clothes as we were dragged
up
, up, and finally reached the wall’s
top. Once we were settled on the hedge, I looked down, and
waved.

“Nice to see ya.”

“
Avery,
look,” said Felix, straddling the hedge and motioning around us.
“You can see everything from up here.”

I looked
around. He was right. We could see every intersection and pathway.
I scanned the labyrinth, but stopped when my eyes fell on
something. A creature. A huge, hairy, four legged monster that
stood only a few turns away from Theo and Ellina. Surely that was
what had chased us earlier. It was an enormous animal, some sort of
cross between a boar and a bull. It had huge ivory tusks, but stood
as tall as a bull with curled horns atop its head, and the stocky
build of a bull rather than a pig’s stature. I pointed, lost for
words, and Felix nodded, pointing in the other direction. There was
another one. I scanned the rest of the maze. There were four beasts
in total.

Theo shouted,
“Can you try memorize the pattern of the maze whilst you’re up
there?”

“
There isn’t
one!” I replied. I looked down at the twists and turns that the
hedge wove in below us. It
was completely
random.

“
I have an
idea,” s
aid Felix, “but I’m not sure
it’ll work.” He took off his backpack and rummaged through it. “I
need something to draw with.”

I understood
his idea immediately. He wanted to sketch the maze,
but I didn’t see how it could work, “Even if we
had something to draw with, what would we sketch it on?”

“
Hey!”
exclaimed Ellina, “I brought some coal with me from last nights
fire in case we needed to camp in the maze tonight!” She opened her
pack and pulled out three lumps of coal. “Catch!” She threw them up
and Felix caught them one by one. Then he handed them to me.



“
The exit is
there,” he said, pointing. I saw the break in the maze that he was
referring to, but I still didn’t understand the plan. Then Felix
stood, turned his back to me, and patted his bare back over his
shoulder. “Blank canvas, Ave.”

I picked up
the first piece of coal and began to sketch the best path through
the labyrinth onto Felix’s back. It didn’t take long, and we were
quite close to getting out if we took the fastest route. Only a
handful of intersections away. Unfortunately there was an
obstacle.

“Reckon we can get around an angry looking
giant bull, or boar, or whatever it is?” I asked the two on the
ground.

“
No sweat,”
r
eplied Theo.

“
Then let’s
go,” I said, tossing the coal back to Ellina and patting Felix on
the back. Then I stopped in my tracks. I looked down. Crap. We were
really high. Suddenly Ellina and Theo looked very small, and the
distance between them and us seemed even higher than the tallest
turret of my home on Olympia.

“
You’re gonna
have to trust me, princess,” Theo yelled up. Oh god. He looked
really, really small from twenty meters up. Felix put a comforting
arm around my shoulders.

“You battled a lion, Avery Rose, I’m pretty
sure you can manage a little jump.”

I looked down
again, shuffling my toes over the edge of the wall. Theo held his
arms out in a cradle and I closed my eyes. Felix gave my shoulder a
squeeze.

“I’ll catch you Avery, I promise.” Theo
reassured me.

That was all
I needed. I counted to five and tipped myself off the
edge.

The fall was
brief, too brief for a scream, but long enough to make my stomach
twist into a very complicated knot. I landed in Theo’s arms and he
bent his knees with my weight to relieve the shock. Then he gently
lowered me to the ground. “Easy,” he smiled. Before holding his
arms out for Felix.

“This is emasculating.” Felix shouted.

“
Nah, don’t
worry about it man, I’d be honoured to be your knight in shining
armour.”

Felix grunted and took a deep breath.

“I’m not so good with heights.”

“It’s barely higher than the fall you took at
training.” I assured him.

Felix frowned
and looked down worriedly. I watched his expression as he had a
mental batt
le between his ego and his
fear. Finally, he shut his eyes and threw himself off the hedge.
Theo caught him and Felix batted his eyelashes, his hand to his
forehead,

“
My hero!”
h
e gushed, as Theo dropped him to the
ground.

Felix walked
in front so that we could read him like a map, and we told him
which way to turn, taking the directions off my sketch. We got to
the last turn and I stopped still.

“The beast.” I whispered.

“You guys stay back.” Ellina whispered.

Theo and
Ellina moved past Felix and I, taking the lead. Theo had the vine
rope coiled around his arm, and he quickly fashioned it
into a noose, one of the knots we had learnt
about in training. He motioned for Felix and I to remain still, and
tugged on Ellina’s hand, pulling her around the corner with him.
There was a moment of silence, then a snort that was definitely not
human. Then came the advancing stomping of hooves, the scuffling of
feet, and a squeal from Ellina. A series of curse words, shouted
commands and shrieks of terror later, there was finally a loud
thump. I exhaled, realizing I had held my breath through the
duration of the fight.

Finally Theo
grunted, “It’s over. You’re safe.”

We rounded
the corner
to find the beast lying on its
side, legs bound by the rope, Theo sitting on its broad chest,
Ellina standing next to it, cradling her arm. Felix immediately ran
over to her and examined the injury.

“
What
happened?” I gasped as I approached her. There was a large gash
that stretched from Ellina’s wrist to her elbow. The sleeve from
her black pullover had been torn off in the battle, and a thick
coat of blood replaced where the fabric once was.

“
Got caught
by its horn.” She inhaled sharply as Felix reached towards the
wound. “It’ll be alright.”

Felix used
the last scraps of his shirt to fashion a tourniquet, like he had
done for my ankle days earlier. He wrapped her arm up tight, his
hands gentle and his expression pained.

“Better?” he asked once he was done.

“
Better.” she
nodded, smiling at Felix’s concerned expression.

I looked away.

“Are you okay?” I asked Theo.

“
I’m
fine,” he said. “Just a few bruises.”

I nodded.
Then looked at the beast. “I don’t think we should just leave it
there.”

“
The
alternative is taking a ferocious, bloodthirsty monster with us,”
said Felix, still stroking Ellina’s arm. “Look at what it did to
Ell. We can’t exactly befriend it, Ave.”

I looked back at the beast, lying helpless on
the ground beneath Theo’s weight. I made my way around to the
creature’s head and knelt down. Its eyes were huge, almond shaped,
and a rich gold in colour. I reached out a tentative hand. The
animal’s gaze followed my movements suspiciously, but it never
attempted to lash out. I smiled.

“
If my Aunt
created it, which I am sure she did, it’ll be tame-able.
She never made an animal that couldn’t be
tamed,” I said confidently. “Anyway, it might come in handy to have
a beast as our bodyguard.”

“
I think
Avery’s right,” s
aid Theo. “I think the
beast could be a huge advantage.” He slid off his perch on the
animal’s torso and landed lightly on his feet. “Do you remember
what Hercules’ seventh task was?”

“The bull!” said Ellina.

“Right,” nodded Theo, “ A bull. And what does
this beast here,” he tapped the animal’s head with his hand, “look
like to you? Avery?” He turned to me.