Warriors Of Latan

Chapter 17

It sounded like a small war going on beyond the hill. Ezintis bawled, men shouted, hooves thudded on hard-packed ground, and every so often something went thump or whuck. It couldn't be a Rutari raid, not this close to the main village, but Blade was curious. He ran out of his hut, hurried up the hill, and looked down on the field along the bank of the stream beyond it.

More than two dozen Uchendi warriors were riding back and forth on ezintis. Each warrior was guiding his ezinti with one hand, and the other hand held something like a polo mallet with a wicker cup on the end. They seemed to be chasing small feathered balls around the field, trying to catch them in the cups of their mallets. If they couldn't do that, they'd whack each other or the ezintis with the mallets. Blade saw two men go sprawling on the ground, but both promptly got up again, cursing much too loudly for injured men.

Blade was almost at the edge of the field before anyone noticed him. Then someone shouted, scooped a ball into his cup, and slammed the ball straight at Blade. Blade didn't even have time to consider ducking. He felt a whfffff as the ball nearly parted his hair.

«Hey, you-!» Blade shouted. He went on to describe what the man's mother had eaten the night she conceived him, who his father had been, and why no woman would touch him. By the time Blade ran out of breath the man was laughing so hard he could barely stay on his mount. He rode over as Blade bent to pick up the ball.

«I am sorry, Blade. It seemed a good jest.»

«Well, it was not you whose skull might have cracked,» said Blade. The ball was solid brass, wrapped in leather and with feathers woven into the leather. The weight made it fly far, but the feathers made it fly wildly.

He tossed the ball back to the rider. «I have not seen this game played here before. What is it called?»

By now other riders had seen Blade and come up. «It is called nor,» said one. «We are the White Tree team, or will be. We practiced to play against the Black Rock team of Winter Owl. Why do you ask, Blade? Is there a game like this in England?»

«There is, and I have played it.» He hadn't played much polo, and none since he left Oxford. He didn't have the time or money to keep in practice, let alone maintain a stable of ponies.

Several riders exchanged significant looks. «Would you like to play for us?» said the same man.

«As a rider or as an ezinti?» said someone else, and there was laughter. «No, in truth,» said the man, «you may laugh, but look at him. He could carry you on his shoulders for half a game, Friend of Lions! What ezinti could carry Blade? Certainly not mine, and I would not let him try, either. He may be needed for other work than carrying vast English warriors before long.»

Everybody stopped smiling at the reminder that war with the Rutari could not be far off. Blade had to admit the man had a point. He weighed two hundred and ten pounds; most Uchendi warriors weighed a good deal less. He would be enough of a load for an ezinti to slow it down, and success in nor depended heavily on speed.

It wouldn't help, either, if he wound up playing against Winter Owl. He didn't know how important having his team win was to the warrior, but why take chances?

But why not take a chance? He couldn't go on sitting on his arse much longer, not with the Uchendi needing help. Even if he a

«I will play as one of the White Trees, if there is an ezinti fit to carry me. I will not need one who can carry me fast, as long as he can carry me for a full game.»

«How can you hope to play at all, if you are slow?» said Friend of Lions. He sounded honestly confused. «That is not the way of nor. «

«It is not the old way of nor, this I know,» said Blade. «But the old way of a thing is not always the only way or even the best way.» He was bluffing about the game of nor. He didn't have much idea of what he was going to do once he got on the back of an ezinti. He did want to start getting the Uchendi used to the idea of change, and this was too good an opening to miss.

Friend of Lions shrugged. «You are the best judge of what you can do, Blade. Perhaps you are not so good a judge of the game of nor, but I will give you my own second mount for your riding until the game.» He gri

That was the standard penalty for killing or stealing another man's ezinti among the Uchendi. To most men, it was as good as a death sentence. To Blade, it sounded almost like an opportunity to spy on the Rutari with the blessing of Uchendi custom.

That might be handy.

Don't get ahead of yourself, he told himself. If you don't make a good showing in the game of nor, Friend will just take away your mount and you'll have even less honor than before.

«Among the Uchendi, I shall be as one of them, unless the spirits of my English ancestors turn their faces away from me. Now, let me see this stick you use in the game of nor.»

Blade quickly discovered that to him the cup-ended stick was much more important in the game of nor than good riding or a fast ezinti. Blade had a longer and stronger arm and a sharper eye than any of the Uchendi riders. He could pick up a ball faster than any and hurl it farther and more accurately at the goal. The goals were foot-wide holes set in the top of mounds of earth at either end of the field. The ball had to be thrown accurately into the hole, not just slammed toward it and allowed to roll in.

It was also to Blade's advantage that when he swung his stick against another rider, it hurt. In practice, he and everybody else pulled their blows. On the day of the game, everybody would be striking full force. Broken bones were common in the game of nor, and dead ezintis not infrequent. There had even been dead men, although Uchendi warriors were hard to kill.

«Nor seems to be how you people practice for war,» said Blade one evening, after a practice session that left him with bruises all over and a split lip. He'd scored six goals, so he was feeling rather good in spite of the aches and pains.

«It is,» agreed Friend of Lions. «But I do not know if the Guardian will allow us to use man-strikes with the sticks in this Great Game. The Rutari watch and wait, and all of our warriors must be whole and ready to fight when they come.»

«That is so,» said Blade. «But why doesn't the Guardian just give the order not to strike?»

«It might anger Winter Owl,» said Friend of Lions. «His team has five of the strongest man-strikers of the Uchendi. They would lose much strength if they could not play as they usually do.»

No need to ask if the Guardian feared to anger Winter Owl. Blade began to wish he hadn't sworn to play against the warrior's team. However, it was too late to back out now without letting down the White Trees. That would be just as bad as angering Winter Owl by helping to beat his team.

There was one consolation. Blade now had an ezinti of his own, a sturdy if rather slow-wilted beast. He could ride out of the village any time he wanted privacy, as long as he was back before nightfall. He didn't need to ride very far before he had enough privacy to start testing with bow and arrows while he waited for the Great Game of nor to take place.

The bow was no problem. His harness made a good one, just as he'd expected. If it got too hard he would dip it in a cold stream to make it more flexible; if it got too soft he would lay it on a sun-heated rock. Ezinti sinew made a good bowstring, and he'd found reeds tough enough for arrows to use for demonstration and practice.

He'd want wooden arrows with stone or even bronze heads before the war started. Unless he could find a poison for them, pointed-reed arrows wouldn't do much damage to the shpugas. Those hairy hides would repel a light bullet, let alone most arrows! Newly trained archers couldn't hope to hit vital spots and cause any significant damage.