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"Does one ever try to just brain the other and then walk back to the home side with the ball?"
"You get that sometimes, but both sides hate a plain old brawl. Slugging's no way to pump up your mojo, or your tribe's."
A stir of excitement broke out in the crowd when a wandering wild, or unreined, legworm dug a feeding tray toward the challenge field. A pair of legworms with riders hustled out at full speed for a legworm, about the rate of a trotting horse. By judicious use of the mount's bulk, the furrow was redirected.
By the time that ended the two parties had returned from the center of the challenge field. The Dispatcher looked downcast.
Valentine edged closer to the center of the line of people, but many others had the same idea.
He couldn't hear through the babble. "What's up?" people called.
Word passed quickly in ever-expanding circles. "The Wildcat challenger is a Grog! Some kind of import!"
"Ringer!"
"Damn them."
"Take a knee, everyone!" someone bellowed.
Everyone but the Dispatcher sat down. He looked around, nodded to a few, and spoke out to the squash field of foxtailed heads.
"Yes, you heard right. They've got a big Grog they're using in the challenge. Biggest one I've ever seen-even standing on all fours he's bigger than me."
Valentine judged the Dispatcher at about six-three. Ahn-Kha's size. Could there be another Golden One wandering the Cumberland Plateau?
"I saw a man challenge a Grog when I was eight," a well-muscled, shirtless man said, presumably the contestant, as everyone else had jackets or knits against the cool of the morning-warming fast as the sun rose.
"I remember that one," the Dispatcher said. "Fontrain died from his injuries. There's bad blood for this one. According to their Dispatcher, Tikka killed a man when she got taken into custody. Could be they're looking for payback.
"We're going to forfeit," he continued. "It's a hell of a ransom, but I'm not risking Tuck's head over a challenge."
"Might be a bluff," the shirtless man, presumably Tuck, said. "They're trying to get you to fold up by showing you a big, mean Grog. I'll go out there. It's my skull."
"And end up like Fontrain?" the Dispatcher said. "No."
"That means a feud," a craggy-faced woman sitting cross-legged next to Valentine said to everyone and no one. "Oh Lord, lord."
Valentine stood up. "Sir, I'll take a whack at this Grog."
Hundreds of heads turned in his direction. The Dispatcher straightened.
"You ever even held a legworm crook, son?"
"I've played grounders with Grogs," Valentine said, which wasn't quite true. He'd whacked a ball around with a cross between a hockey stick and a cricket bat a few times as Ahn-Kha taught him the fundamentals of the Grog game, and ended up bruised at all compass points.
Consternation broke out in the crowd; much of it sounded approving. "What do we have to lose?" "Leastways if he gets his head bashed in, it's no feud."
"Can we trust you, um, David?" the Dispatcher asked.
"I don't see how you can lose. You're ready to forfeit. Worst thing that could happen is that you pay the ransom anyway and get your riders back."
"Let David do it," the woman next to him called. "Let him take that Goliath."
The crowd liked the sound of that.
"Okay, boy, strip down and grab your crook."
"I've got one request, Dispatcher."
