Cold sweat trickled down her back.
“Do you know him?” Yanis asked.
Anoor followed his gauntleted hand toward a competitor whose eyes burrowed into her. He looked away when he saw her looking, but she recognized him. It was Sylah’s friend.
“He’s a friend of a friend.”
Yanis quirked an eyebrow before donning his helmet once more. It was nearly time.
There were forty-five competitors in their group. Sylah had told her to take her time and listen to the others’ opinions before going in with hers.
“Sometimes other people are right; just make sure you don’t listen to the people who are wrong.” Anoor whispered Sylah’s words into her helmet.
“Begin.” Her mother screamed the word just as the wind picked up.
—
The smell of urine permeated the air. Someone had pissed themselves. Already. Jond sighed into his helmet. The wind hadn’t even really kicked in yet.
“Right—”
“I say we try ‘rabbit in the hat.’ ” A young woman with pink armor began scouring her plan into the dirt on the arena floor. “We keep two groups of twelve, here and here…” She pointed to the two makeshift sand dunes she had drawn on the ground. “Then the final group defends until the last moment, until we rush up behind the others.” Most of the team were nodding.
Jond ground his teeth. “Wrong.” He stepped up. “We do that, and they’ll skewer us in the middle. You see that mound of terrain—that gives them the advantage.” The group debated for a while, their voices getting louder and louder as the tidewind picked up.
Jond suddenly realized he couldn’t see Anoor. She needed to make it through this round so Sylah could carry out her task, but in seconds he’d lost her. Then she crept into the corner of his vision dragging a large metal sheet.
He ran over to help her.
“What are you doing?” He had to shout to make himself heard.
“Making shelter.”
Oh, she was clever. The rest of them had launched themselves into an argument, and she had quietly gone off and began to build the one thing that would help keep them alive. He ran over to the others, who were still arguing.
“We need to build a shelter.” He had to follow the shout with hand gestures until they understood.
The group began to spring into action. Within ten minutes a ramshackle hut had been created out of the metal sheeting and other bits of rubble they could cobble together to keep the roof on. It was crowded but they’d all got in.
“Where has she gone now?” he hissed into his helmet. Anoor wasn’t in the hut. He shouldered his way out.
“What are you doing?”
She was still dragging metal across the course. She’d had to go farther afield to get it.
“We need to cover up the flag,” she shouted at him.
He understood. It was pointless coming up with a strategy if the flag blew away and into the hand of their enemies. It was already spinning out of control in the wind.
He ran to help her complete her task, picking up errant pieces of wood and metal that he found littered around the flag. Another competitor—a tall man with a scorpion helm—saw what they were doing and joined in. Together they created a small tentlike structure that protected the flag from blowing away. He hoped it lasted.
Once they were done, they ran back together across the area into the shelter where their team was still arguing. Anoor hung back from the group and let them shout it out. Jond watched her. He could only see her eyes, but she was assessing, listening. Eventually she spoke.
“Speed.” No one heard her, so she tried again. “Speed will be the only thing that will win this.”
A few of the competitors closest to her heard her but shrugged her off. Jond stepped up.
“Listen to her,” he commanded the group. A few had already begun to look at him sideways as if he were the leader. “Go on.”