Page 37 of Blood of the Fallen
Next, Chieftess Yura proceeded to call the contenders. “Zenib.”
A woman of around thirty stepped forward to face the triad and, like them, beat her chest with her fist.
“Achak, Desna, Chepi.” The other three followed suit, doing the same.
The Chieftess called me last. “Sheela.”
I lifted my chin higher, tightened my fist, and thumped it against my chest. Strangely, even though I was only mimicking the others, the gesture felt like a promise to give the contest my best try, to do it proudly.
“The first trial is set,” Chieftess Yura announced.
A drumbeat began behind her and, for the first time, I noticed Nosh sitting on a stump, a drum held tightly between his legs as he set a steady beat. The Chieftess turned on her heel, stepped out of the circle, and led us to a clearing at the edge of the river. At a spot that had previously been flat, there stood a waist-high mound of dirt. It was about forty feet long and tightly packed.
At six-foot intervals, there were five stakes topped with small flags made from buckskin, each a different color.
“In this first trial, you will dig a den. The passage needs to be at least eight feet long and large enough to hold and protect six pups. The entrance will be on this side of the mound, and the exit on the other.
What?!
My breath caught. This wasn’t something Ila and I had gone over. I have no idea how to build a den. Frantically, I searched for her in the crowd. She was standing next to Bethel, and as our eyes met, she seemed to say,Instincts, Sheela. Just let your instincts guide you.
Don’t panic,I told myself.You can do this. How hard can it be to dig a hole?
Without preamble, the Chieftess started calling out names and a color matching those on the flags. “Zenib, white. ”
Zenib walked and stood by the stake with the corresponding flag color.
Chieftess Yura went on. “Achak, yellow. Desna, blue. Chepi, purple. Sheela, red.”
We all took our places by the matching flags. Desna threw a nasty glare at me, then shifted. Her wolf was black and large, her eyes a piercing yellow. The other contenders shifted too until I was the only one left in human form. I panicked as everyone watched, and I seemed unable to shift. My gaze roved over the crowd until it met Kall’s. He gave me a gentle smile that seemed to say,You’ve got this.An instant later, I was standing on four paws, nervous energy making the fur on my back stand on end.
Nosh had settled to the right side of the mound, and with a nod from the Chieftess, hit his drum once.
“On the third drumbeat, start digging,” the Chieftess instructed.
Beat.
“The last two to come out on the other side will be eliminated.”
Beat.
“May the sun and the moon guide you, and may the best wolf win.”
I took a deep breath, shutting off my whirling thoughts and allowing my instincts to come forth. As they clicked into place, my front claws grew thicker and elongated to points sharper than any dagger I’d ever wielded.
Beat.
Digging became my only purpose. There was nothing else but the frantic motion of my front legs clawing at the compact dirt in front of me. It was like running in place, paws rising and falling, tearing and flinging dirt back. Soon, as the hole gained depth, my back legs began kicking and kicking, sending dark earth backward.
I kept my eyes narrowed to thin slits as dust and clumps of soil fell from the top. A dank smell clogged with my nostrils until I tasted loam in the back of my throat. When the passage was long enough to contain the length of my body, the dirt I’d kicked back started accumulating, shutting me in.
I’ll be buried alive!that small part of me that was still Jazmin screamed inside my head.
Clenching my teeth, I pushed her away. She had no place here, not at all. Immediately, my instincts let me know what I should do. Backing up slowly, I used my hind legs to kick the accumulated muck out of the hole. When the dwindling sunlight poured back in, I went forward again.
Not bad,the woman side of me quipped.
My wolf huffed, making it clear she needed no compliments from anyone. Instead, the frantic digging continued, alternating between making the hole deeper and kicking back the dirt that had collected in the back.
