Cured (23 page)

I shrugged, “I don’t know, it sort of looks
like a cross breed?” I guessed, feeling as though I were being
called on in class without having done my homework.

Theo
continued, “To me, this monster looks like a cross between a bull
and a boar, don’t you think?”

We all agreed.

“
So maybe
these beasts are the seventh task as well as the fourth task,
right? The Alphas who created the tasks would’ve assumed that we
would slay the beast, because that’d be the easiest
solution.”

Ellina caught
on.
“Of course! If we slew the beast,
it’d make the other beasts angrier, and make the seventh task even
more difficult. But if we tamed it, we could eliminate a whole
task!”

Felix still
looked unsure
and he was eyeing up
Ellina’s arm warily. “I don’t know you guys,” he said. “It seems a
bit farfetched to me, guys. Theo’s just spitballing. Are we really
going to waste hours, maybe even days, taming a monster because of
some random theory? What if this creature has nothing to do with
the one in the seventh task?”

“
What
if
they're right though, Felix?” I
argued. “If we cancelled out an entire challenge it’d save us days
of time. Anyway, I wouldn’t feel right killing the animal, or
leaving it here all tied up like this.”

Felix
groaned. “Fine. But it can be your responsibility.”

I smiled and
nodded. Then crouched to pat the animal’s head. It snorted a little
and anger gleamed in its eye, but it didn’t move. I then started
dismantling the knots that Theo had tied around the creature’s
legs, and retied them around its snout and horns, fashioning a
makeshift muzzle and reigns. I untied the last knot from around the
animal’s hind legs, readying myself for a kick, but the beast
remained motionless. It lay, defeated, on the ground, breathing
slowly. I gently tugged on the reigns I had made, trying to coax
the animal to its feet. Still no movement.

“
The poor
thin
g is exhausted,” I said, scratching
behind its ears lightly.

Felix snorted and said, “Let’s just get out
of this maze and onto the next task. Speaking of, what is next on
the agenda, Theo?”

Theo smirked,
“Didn’t anyone else listen at school?” Felix and I shook our heads
in unison. We had never been good students. But Ellina cleared her
throat.

“Actually I know Hercules’ twelve tasks
inside out, but I prefer not to be such an insufferable know-it-all
about it.”

Theo feigned
a punch to her head, “Shut it you, or I’ll let the beast deal to
you properly next time.”

She smirked, “The fifth task was the horses
of the Aegean Stables.”

“
Horses?!”
Felix sniggered. “Sounds like a breeze compared to everything else
we’ve dealt with. Plus, Ave is pretty much an animal whisperer, so
it’ll be a cake-walk.”

“
I think
you’re in for a wake up call,” said Theo. “Let’s get moving and
Ellina can tell us the story of the horses on our way to the
stables, since she is apparently the brains of the group
now.”

“
Ha!” Ellina
mocked. “The brains of the group
now
?! Don’t kid yourself Theo, I
always was.”

Theo grumbled
and I turned away from the bickering. I pulled the last bread roll
out of my pack, broke in in two, and held it up to the bull’s
mouth. He sniffed the bread before sticking out a long pink tongue
and wrapping it around the roll. The creature chewed and swallowed.
Then looked at me expectantly. I took out my flask and tipped the
last drops of my water into the beast’s open mouth. Then, slowly,
the animal got to its feet. Its eyes trained on mine the whole
while. I maintained eye contact but saw the others moving away from
us in my peripherals. Remembering the technique I had used with
Tiana’s doe, I slowly reached a shaky hand towards the animal’s
nose. He nudged my thumb, sniffed at my palm, and then snorted. I
stroked the bridge of its snout, its hair surprisingly soft beneath
my touch. The animal nuzzled into my hand and I turned to smile at
the others.

“I think he will be okay for now,” I said,
“We will just have to keep him fed.”

“
Great,”
s
aid Felix sarcastically, “Feeding a
mammoth sized boar slash bull. Sounds like fun.”

I threw my empty water flask at Felix’s head,
but he lazily stretched out an arm and caught it with a smug
grin.

“
Nice
reflexes, man,” c
lapped Theo, “You sure
you’re not a Prime?”

“Just naturally talented in every way.”

“
Shut up
Felix,” s
aid Ellina, “Let’s
go.”

I led the
way, tugging lightly on the beast’s reigns; it followed me without
a fight. We started down a concrete path, which we assumed led the
way to the next task.

“
So tell us
the story of the Alien Horses, Oh Wise One.” Felix poked Ellina’s
side.\

Ellina giggled, “Aegean, Felix. The Aegean
Horses.”

“
Don’t worry
man,” Theo consoled Felix, “I, for one, am glad. Alien Horses would
have been a lot more worrying. Tell us about the
Aegean
Horses, Ell.”

“Well, to make a long story short, basically
Hercules was sent to clean some really grotty horse stables that
hadn’t been cleaned in forever. Turned out they were too gross for
him, so he rerouted some nearby rivers to do the job for him.”

“Rerouted…?” Felix voiced my doubt.

“Er. Yeah,” said Ellina. “He literally moved
the entire river to flush out the stable.”

“Oh good,” said Felix a little too brightly.
“So all we have to do is pick up some rivers and move them? Easy
peasy.”

We ignored
him. “So we are going to have to clean?” I asked. “Sounds pretty
straight forward.”

“
And luckily
for us,” Felix said, “Cleaning is a women’s job, so you two girls
can get to work on the grime whilst Theo and I do more manly stuff,
like hunting down some dinner, with Meatloaf here.”

“Say cleaning is a women’s job one more
time…” Ellina growled under her breath. I grinned at her unexpected
violence, but I was used to Felix’s sexist remarks. I turned to
him,

“Meatloaf?” I asked.

“Yep. That’s what I am gonna call him.
Fitting, don’t you think?”

I laughed, “I love it! But you realize the
fact that you named him means you’re getting attached.”

“
Never,”
s
aid Felix.

We walked in
silence, and without rest, for a few hours except for a stop to
feed Meatloaf the rest of his bread roll. We caught a whiff of the
stables before we saw them. Soon, the stench grew so potent that,
by the time we neared the wooden structures, we were all pinching
our noses in disgust. The stable looked as though it were falling
down, and most of its red paint had peeled off or become brown with
dirt. We walked around the structure to the front and found only
eight stalls. To our surprise, they were occupied. The horses in
them were beautifully groomed, with shining coats and combed
manes.

“
If someone
takes so much effort with grooming the horses, why don’t they look
after the stables too?” Ellina asked.

“
I am
guessing Tiana has engineered the
horses
to maintain a perfect appearance,” I said. “My Aunt likes things to
be beautiful. It’s why she invented BeautySerum.”

“So, we’ve got to clean this pigsty?” Felix
asked.

“Wait a second,” said Ellina, “Hercules bent
rivers, right?”

Theo laughed,
“I know I might seem just as heroic as Hercules,” he winked. “But I
don’t think, even with my superior strength and stamina, I could
bend a river.”

Felix groaned. “Shut up, man. Vanity only
suits me.”

“Vanity doesn’t suit you.” Ellina and I said
together, before bursting into laughter.

Then Ellina
said, “I didn’t mean we should bend rivers. I meant we should find
them. The horses need water to survive, so there must be a water
source around here somewhere. We should use it to fill our flasks
and keep Meatloaf happy. And where there is a river there are
usually fish, right? So we can eat, feed the bull, and
bathe?”

I swooned a
little at the idea of bathing. “YES!” I yelled too
enthusiastically.

“Wait,” said Theo, “I have an idea…”

“NO!” I yelled again, fearing that Theo was
about to remove the prospect of washing from our schedule.

He laughed,
“You can have your bath, Avery. But I think we should manage our
time. I mean, we cant exactly clean the stables while the horses
are standing in there, so we should do that while they're at the
river. One of us should follow the horses, while the others start
cleaning.”

As if the
animals had been listening, the horses simultaneously knocked open
their stall doors and began to canter away. Theo immediately turned
and sprinted off after them, waving at us over his
shoulder,

“
I’ll be back
when they’re done.” He caught up to them easily and ran alongside
until we could no longer see the strange group.

“
I guess that
means we are cleaning,” I said, tying Meatloaf to one of the stalls
and pulling up the sleeves of my jersey. We found two shovels and a
pile of washrags at the back of the stable. Ellina and Felix
grabbed the spades and started shovelling the mountains of horse
excrement out of the stable and into a pile out front. I dunked a
rag in a very grimy looking trough, which had a puddle of water in
the bottom, and started to scrub at the stall’s walls.

Theo soon
returned with a smile on his face, “Stop shovelling, I have an
idea.”

We all stopped.

“
The river is
really close. Only about half a kilometer away.”

“So…?” I asked confused.

“
So if water
is running a half a kilometer away, chances are if we dig a little
way down, we’ll reach water not far from ground level.”

“
If we use
the
river to clean the stables it’ll be
much easier.” Ellina said, and jabbed her shovel’s blade hard into
the earth. “Quicker too.”

Theo took
Felix’s spade off him and began to dig alongside her. I tossed
Felix a washrag, and we continued to work on the
stalls
, knowing we wouldn’t be much help
with the digging.

It wasn’t
long until Theo and Ellina hit water. It was only a meter beneath
the ground. After they had uncovered enough water, they began to
length the hole, turning it into a trench that ran along the front
of the stalls. By the time the horses returned, the trench was
quite impressive and the water was reasonably deep. It also blocked
the horses from returning to their stalls, meaning that we could
continue cleaning as they grazed on the other side of the trench
happily. By the time the sun began to disappear, the stable was
finally clean, so we filled in the trench and let the horses back
into their stalls. We were all in good spirits having knocked out
two challenges in one day, so we chatted happily on our way down to
the water, Meatloaf in tow.

The river was
wide, surrounded by rocks, and pale blue in colour. I sighed with
happiness, knowing that hygiene was not far away. Then I pulled off
my trainers and dipped a toe into the water. I squealed. Icy cold.
But we hadn’t bathed in so long that we all stripped down and dove
in eagerly. I paddled to the other side of the river, enjoying the
way the water soothed my aching muscles. Upon reaching the other
side, I dragged myself onto the rocks and scrubbed the layers of
grime from my body and face, before combing my fingers through my
matted hair, pulling out the knots ruthlessly. As I dragged the
last dreadlock out of my hair, Theo swam up beside me.

“
Shave it
off,” h
e said with a wink, “No
knots.”

He shook the
water from his head and ran a hand through his dark hair to prove
that it wasn’t knotty. I sunk back into the water and swatted him
over the head. “But then I might look as ugly as you!” I
laughed.

“
Oooo ouch
Avery, that one cut me deep.” He splashed water in my face and I
began to choke. Coughing and spluttering, I planted both my hands
on top of his head and pushed as hard as I could, submerging him
under the water.

He struggled
under my grip
and grabbed at my sides,
trying to tickle me. I laughed, pushing his head deeper under the
surface. The tickling stopped. Then I felt him go limp. I swore and
wrenched his face up to the surface.

“
THEO!” I
yelled into his face. But his eyes were closed, his expression
blank. There was no movement. “THEO!” I yelled again. I felt tears
rush to my eyes and my whole throat closed in terror. I gulped and
whispered, “Theo?” Then the corners of his mouth twitched. I raised
my hand and slapped his cheek as hard as I could. A red swell
blossomed on his cheek, but disappeared immediately. He burst into
loud laughter.

“I HATE YOU!” I screamed at him.

“Nah you don’t.”

“
I do!” I
yelled, “I hate you with every fiber of my being. I am going to set
Meatloaf on you. Yes. That is what I will do. I will train him to
attack and then set him on you, and none of us will rescue you
because you are a sick and twisted, egotistical, sadistic,
ridiculous…” My voice trailed off as Theo laughed and laughed. “AND
WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?!” I was hysterical.