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From time to time Jillian peeked out between the big men to try to see what was happening on the field. When Kahlan noticed Jillian rubbing her bare arms and that she was beginning to shiver in the cold, she wrapped her cloak protectively around the girl, sharing her warmth with her.
As time wore on, each team scored a point. With the game tied, time almost out, and both teams unable to gain much of an advantage, Kahlan knew that it might last quite a while in overtime play until a winner was decided.
It didn’t take as long as she’d thought it would nor did it need to go into overtime. The point man of one team was tackled low from behind while at the same time another blocker, in a coordinated attack, flew in from the front, hitting him square in the chest with a lowered shoulder. The point man went limp and hit the ground hard. The tackle looked like it might very well have broken the man’s back. The crowd went wild.
Kahlan turned Jillian’s face away and pressed it in against her instead. “Don’t watch.”
Jillian, on the edge of tears, nodded. “I don’t know why they like such cruel games.”
“Because they are cruel people,” Kahlan murmured.
Another man was designated point man as their fallen leader was carried away to a deafening roar of satisfaction on the one side, and angry yells on the other. The two sides of onlookers seemed on the verge of combat, but when play swiftly resumed they were quickly caught up in the fast-paced action.
The team who had lost the point man fought desperately, but it soon became apparent that they were fighting a losing battle. The new point man was not the equal of the man they’d lost. When the last regular play of the hourglass was finished they had lost by two points—a resounding victory for the other team. Such a point spread, as well as eliminating the opposing point man in such savage fashion, would add greatly to the winning team’s reputation.
Jagang and the officers looked to be pleased with the results of the game. It had proven to have had all the elements of brutality, blood, and ruthless triumph that they believed Ja’La dh Jin should have. The guards, intoxicated with the murderous ferocity of the play, whispered among themselves, going over what they had liked best about some of the more violent clashes. The crowd, already worked up by the game, was excited all the more by the ensuing whippings. They were fired up, eagerly anticipating the next game.
As they waited, they began a rhythmic chant, impatiently urging the next teams out. They clapped their hands in time to their monotone cries for action.
One of the teams emerged from the crowd at the far end of the field on the right. By the way they cheered, the crowd recognized a favored team. Each player raised a fist over his head as they strutted in a circle around the field, showing off for their fans. Men in the crowd, as well as the women camp followers, cheered the team they knew and supported.
One of Jagang’s guards standing not far in front of Kahlan commented to the man next to him that this team was more than merely good, and he expected that they would badly maul their foe. By the hooting of the crowd, most onlookers seemed to be of the same mind. Apparently, this was a popular team with the kind of hostile reputation the men of Imperial Order liked and remembered. After the previous game, the mob of soldiers was aroused and eager for blood.
The vast crush of soldiers all stretched, craning their necks to see the other team as they finally made their way out through the crowd on the left. They emerged in single file, no fists raised, no show of bravado.
Kahlan stared in surprise along with everyone else. A hush fell over the crowd. No one cheered.
They were too astonished to cheer.
CHAPTER 11
The men, all without shirts, marched in single file out from the middle of a thick knot of grim guards, all with arrows at the ready. Each man in the column making his way toward the center of the field was painted with strange red symbols. The lines, whorls, circles, and arcs covered their faces, chests, shoulders, and arms.
They looked like they had been marked in blood by the Keeper of the underworld himself.
Kahlan noticed that the man at the lead had designs drawn on him that, while similar, were slightly different. In addition, he alone had twin lightning bolts on his face. Starting from the temple on each side, in a mirror image of each other, the top part of each bolt zigzagged over the eyebrow, the center lobe of each lightning bolt passing over the eyelid, with the bottom of the zigzag slashing over the cheekbones, finally terminating in a point at the hollow of each cheek.
Kahlan found the effect viscerally frightening.
Glaring out from the raptor gaze at the center of those twin lightning bolts were penetrating gray eyes.
It was hard to make out what the man looked like beneath the distraction of lines. The strange symbols, and especially the lightning bolts, confused the features beneath. Kahlan suddenly realized that he had found a way to hide his identity without the mud. She didn’t let so much as a smile slip onto her features. While relieved, at the same time she wished that she could see his face, really see it, see what he looked like.
He was not as big as some of the other hulking players, but he was still a big man—tall and muscular, but not muscled the way some of the thick, heavy, bull-like men were muscled. This man was built in a way that was all the right proportions.
As she stared at him, Kahlan suddenly feared that everyone mig
ht see her transfixed by the man. She could feel her face flushing.
Still, she stared. She couldn’t seem to help herself. This was the first time she’d really gotten a good look at the man. He looked exactly the way she somehow knew he would. Or maybe it was that he looked just the way she dreamed he would. The cold first day of winter suddenly felt warm to her.
She wondered who this man was to her. She made herself rein in her imagination. She dared not daydream about things that she knew could never be.
While the other point man laughed, the man with the gray eyes waited before the referee, his cutting gaze fixed on his counterpart.
She had known the instant she’d seen the painted designs that it would be viewed by these soldiers as empty bravado. The painted designs were the sort of visual statement that, if not backed up by a man of the right nature, would in such circumstances be the worst kind of presumption, the kind of provocation that would bring him brutal, if not lethal, treatment.
Hiding his face was one thing, but this was altogether something else. He was putting himself and his team at great risk by making such a proclamation in paint. It almost seemed that the lightning bolts were meant to insure that no one could miss that he was the point man, as if he meant to direct the other team’s focus and attention to him. She couldn’t imagine why he would do such a thing.
Following their point man’s lead, the team that wasn’t painted had all started laughing. The crowd, too, had joined in, laughing, hooting, and calling the painted men, and in particular the point man with the lightning bolts, names.
Kahlan knew without a doubt that there was no more dangerous mistake to be made than to laugh at this man.
The painted team stood as still as stone, waiting while the crowd went into a riot of laughter and mockery. The other team shouted insults and taunts. Some of the women camp followers threw small things—chicken bones, rotten food, and even dirt when nothing else could be found.
The players on the other team called the man with lightning bolts the kind of names that caused Kahlan to absently cover Jillian’s ear with a hand, pressing her head to Kahlan’s chest. She wrapped her cloak around Jillian. She didn’t know what was going to happen, but she knew for sure that this game was not going to be a place for a girl.
