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The point man with the twin lightning bolts stood with an expressionless look that showed nothing of what he might be feeling. It reminded Kahlan of herself when she put on a blank expression when facing certain kinds of terrible challenges, a blank look that betrayed nothing of what was building inside her.
And yet, in this man’s calm demeanor Kahlan saw coiled fury.
He never looked her way—his gaze was fixed on his counterpart—but just seeing him standing there, seeing all of him, seeing his face, even though it was covered in painted lines, seeing the way he held himself, seeing him at length without having to quickly look away…made Kahlan’s knees weak.
Commander Karg nudged his way in through the wall of guards to join Emperor Jagang at the side of the field. He folded his muscled arms, apparently not at all concerned about the uproar his team was causing. Kahlan noticed that Jagang was not laughing along with everyone else. He didn’t even smile. The commander and the emperor tipped their heads close together and spoke in words Kahlan couldn’t hear over the jeering, laughing, and vulgar insults being shouted by the crowd.
As Jagang and Commander Karg spoke at length, the other team took to dancing around the field, arms raised, the recipients of the mob’s esteem even though they had yet to score a point. They had become heroes without having done anything.
These soldiers, devoted to dogmatic beliefs, were motivated by hate. They saw any individual’s quiet confidence as arrogance, his competence as unjust, and such inequity as oppression. Kahlan recalled Jagang’s words: “The Fellowship of Order teaches us that to be better than someone is to be worse than everyone.”
The men watching believed in that creed and so they hated men for appearing to proclaim with paint that they were better. At the same time, they were there to see a team triumph, to see men best other men. It was unavoidable that beliefs as irrational as those taught by the Fellowship of Order would produce endless tangles of contradictions, desires, and emotions. Shortcomings made evident by even the most basic common sense were plastered over with a liberal application of faith. Anyone who questioned matters of faith was held to be a sinner.
These men were here in the New World to eliminate sinners.
Order was finally restored by the referee calling for the crowd to settle down so that the game could start. As the spectators quieted, to a degree at least, the man with the gray eyes gestured to the referee’s fistful of straws, inviting his opponent to draw first. The man drew a straw, smiling at his choice when it came out looking like it surely had to be a winning length.
The man with the gray eyes drew a straw that was longer.
As the crowd hooted their disapproval, the referee gave the broc to the point man with the painted face.
Instead of going to his side of the field to start his charge, he waited a moment until the crowd quieted a little and then graciously handed the broc to the other point man, forfeiting the first turn at an attempt to score. The crowd erupted in wild laughter at such an unexpected turn of events. They clearly thought the painted point man was a fool who had just handed victory to the other team. They cheered as if their team had just been victorious.
None of the painted team showed any reaction to what their point man had just done. Instead, they moved off in a businesslike manner, taking up their places on the left side of the field, ready to defend against the first attack.
When the hourglass was turned over and the horn blew, the attacking team wasted no time. Eager to score quickly, their charge was instantaneous. They all yelled battle cries as they rushed across the field. The painted team raced toward the center of the field to meet the charge. The roar from the crowd was deafening.
Kahlan’s muscles tensed in anticipation of a terrible collision of flesh and bone.
It didn’t happen the way she expected.
The painted team—the red team as the guards had already taken to calling them—deviated in their direction of charge, splitting in two and pouring to either side around the advance blockers, going instead for the rear guard. Such an unexpected and amateurish mistake was a stroke of luck for the team trying to score. Following his blockers and wing men, the point man with the broc went through the gap the red team had left open, racing straight up the field.
In an instant both wings of the red team pivoted and the opening snapped closed like great jaws, tumbling the charging blockers inward. The painted point man charged right up the middle—toward the center blockers coming for him. Just as they were about to tackle him, he sidestepped one man and whirled around, slipping between two others.
Kahlan blinked in disbelief at what she had just seen. It looked as if he had squirted like a melon seed right through half a dozen men converging on him.
One of the bigger men on the red team, likely one of the wing men, went for the charging point man with the broc. Just before reaching him, though, he dove at him too soon, so that his diving block was too low. The man with the broc jumped right over him. The crowd cheered at how deftly their man had just evaded a tackle.
But the man with the twin lightning bolts also made a flying leap over his downed wing man, using his back like a step to launch himself. He met the other point man in midflight, hooking him with an arm and upending him in midair. The reversal of direction was forceful enough to dislodge the broc. As he came crashing to the ground the man with the gray eyes caught the loose broc while it was still in the air. His foot came down on the back of the fallen point man’s head, driving his face into the mud.
Kahlan knew without a doubt that he could have easily broken the man’s neck, but he had deliberately avoided doing so.
Blockers from every direction dove for the painted man who now had their broc. He pivoted, changing direction. They landed where he had been but he was already gone. They crashed down instead atop their own point man.
The red team now had possession of the broc. Even though they couldn’t score until it was their turn, they could keep the other team from scoring. For some reason, though, the man with the gray eyes charged across the field, flanked by his two wing men and half his blockers. They were formed into a perfect wedge as they crossed the field. When the painted men reached the scoring area on the opposite side of the field, the point man heaved the broc into one of the nets—even though it was not their turn and the point would not count.
He followed the broc, recovered it from the net, and then, rather than keeping possession in an effort to deny the other team an opportunity to score, he trotted back up the field and with an easy underarm throw tossed the broc back to the point man still on his knees spitting out mud.
The crowd gasped in confused astonishment.
What Kahlan had just seen confirmed what she had believed from the first moment she’d looked into the man’s raptor gaze—this was the most dangerous man alive. More dangerous than Jagang, dangerous in a different way, but more dangerous than Jagang. More dangerous than anyone.
This was a man too dangerous to be allowed to live. Once Jagang realized what she already knew—if he didn’t already know it—he might very well decide to have this man put to death.
The team with first turn took the broc back to their starting point on the right and, in a fury to redeem themselves and score a point that would count, charged across the field. Surprisingly, the red team waited rather than running to stop the advance as far away from their goal as possible. A mistake, it would seem, but Kahlan didn’t think so.
When the attackers reached the red team they threw themselves into the defenders. The red team abruptly bolted in every direction, evading the overconfident blockers. As they ran, the red team came around and their own blockers formed into a crescent formation. As they raced across the field they scythed down the opposing wing men and blockers, as well as the point man. The big painted wing man stripped the broc from him, then tossed it as high as he could into the air. The man with the lightning bolts, who had already dodged, darted, and threaded his way through the line of charging men, ca
me through at a dead run and caught the broc before it hit the ground.
By himself he had outrun all the men of the other team chasing him. When he reached the opposite end of the field he heaved the broc into the net in the corner opposite to the one he’d thrown it into the first time. The blockers dove for him but he effortlessly sidestepped and they crashed to the ground in a heap beside him. He trotted to the net and retrieved the broc.
“Who is that man?” Jagang asked in a low voice.
Kahlan knew that Jagang meant the point man with the lightning bolts painted on his face, the man with the gray eyes.
“His name is Ruben,” Commander Karg said.
It was a lie.
Kahlan knew that wasn’t the man’s name. She didn’t have any idea what his name really was, but it was not Ruben. Ruben was a disguise, just like the mud had been, just like the red paint was now. Ruben was not his real name.
