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( Valdemar (12): Collegium Chronicles - 3 )
Mercedes Lackey
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The Collegium Chronicles, Book 3
Dedicated to the memories of Martin (Marty) Greenberg and Mark Shepherd.
We’ll miss you.
Chapter 1
Mags shaded his eyes and peered across the uneven ground of the Kirball field at the opposing team huddled up in front of their goal and forced himself to relax. There was no point in getting tense. This was only a game, after all. He had to keep reminding himself of that, even as nervous sweat trickled down the back of his neck, and inside his gloves his palms were moist.
Only a game being played in front of hundreds of people . . .
::To most of whom you are just a red shape on a white horse. Even with Colin calling the gameplay, they still wouldn’t know who you were.:: The voice in his head was as familiar as his own now, warm and slightly amused.
“Thanks fer makin’ a lad feel special, Dallen,” he muttered under his breath, knowing the great white horse-shaped smart-aleck beneath him had very keen ears.
::Don’t mention it,:: came the cheerfully cheeky reply.
Mags was wearing red rather than Herald Trainee Grays because his Kirball team’s color was red—although to be strictly accurate, only his padding and helmet were red. But since the Kirball field was deliberately awash with dangerous obstacles, the players wore full-body protection, so very little of his Grays were showing. The same went for the rest of his teammates—unrecognizable in padded helmet in red, metal face-guard in red, neck collar, shoulder pads, upper and lower arm braces, elbow and knee cups, thigh protection, chest and backplate, and armored boots. They looked more prepared for combat than a game.
Not that most people would ever have recognized this as a game field either. Gullies corrugated the field, which also contained a major ravine, little hills with abrupt drop-offs, stone fences as well as rail fences, culverts, bridges, and even a stream that led into the river. There were no big hills, but there were bits of very steep slope, enough to make even the most sure-footed Companion pause. It most closely resembled the obstacle course, or perhaps a steeplechase racecourse. But unlike the obstacle course, there was no pattern, no obvious path you were supposed to take around the field. It was, in fact, far more random than nature would have created, a calculated randomness that ensured that there were no “easy” places anywhere except in front of the goals.
At either end were two identical little stone buildings, with ramps up to the tops of them. The ramps had been stone too when the game had first been played; now they were stone and rammed earth, and the squat towers were buried to their ramparts in the rammed earth. After the first four games, the stone ramps had been deemed a bit too narrow and dangerous, and earthen slopes made sure there were no abrupt drop-offs. Flagpoles thrust up from the tops of the towers, flying pennants in the team colors, red for South and green for West, flapping bravely from the tower-tips in a brisk breeze. They needed that breeze today; it was wicked hot. It wasn’t only nerves making Mags sweat. The bathing room was going to suffer a stampede.
Beneath him, his Companion, Dallen, was as steady as a statue, which made him feel steadier. It wasn’t nerves that bothered him so much as the ever-recurring dread that he would somehow let the team down. He wasn’t the only one who felt that way, though, so he was in good company. He knew this because he could sense it. He wasn’t just a Mindspeaker who could make himself heard by anyone whether they had the Gift or not; he had just a touch of Empathy too. Enough to be useful most of the time—enough to tell him that his teammates were fighting similar knots in their guts.
The emotional stakes were much, much higher today than they had ever been before. The Kirball game they were playing was part of this concluding day of a week of presentations, tours, and demonstrations put on by all three Collegia for the benefit of the parents and relatives of Trainees and the townsfolk of Haven. Valdemar was bigger than ever, with Trainees coming from farther afield. The Collegia were changing; some people liked the changes, while others were fighting any change at all. The King wanted to show what the results here were, and he didn’t want even a hint of elitism or a shadow of secrecy to color peoples’ perceptions of the Collegia. He reckoned the best way to nip rumors in the bud would be to throw open the doors for a general look around.
::Give us a slosh of that water then, would you?:: Dallen craned his neck around and opened his mouth; Mags obligingly poured most of the water from the half-gallon sized bucket the team runner had just brought them down Dallen’s throat. A lot of it sloshed out of Dallen’s mouth but enough of it went down to quench his thirst. Mags tossed the empty bucket to the boy, who ran it back to the sidelines to be refilled. Having a team runner was a good idea—especially as the team runners were mostly from the Healers’ Collegium. They generally knew when you needed something without needing to be asked, since the ones with Healing Gift also had Empathy.
“Huddle up!” ordered the South team captain, Herald Trainee Gennie. Swathed in her armor and helmet, only her voice betrayed who she was. The whole team converged on her, including the Foot, who moved into the center, standing at the heads of the horses and Companions.
This game wasn’t just for Herald Trainees—which was, in part, the point. Each team had been made up of four Herald Trainees, four Riders—who could be anyone with a horse or horses who had tried out for the team and won a place—and four Foot, who could also be anyone, but in practice, tended to be young Guardsmen. In a real fight, Heralds would fight alongside everyone else. In Kirball, Herald Trainees learned how to use their Gifts and skills in partnership with people who had no such advantages.
“We’ve had the first quarter, and we took it slow, by agreement between me and the West Captain,” Gennie told them. “We wanted the townies and the parents to get a good grounding in Kirball before we went all out. That was why I told you all to play easy and slow. So, now it’s time to show the game proper. Gloves are off.”
“ ’Bout time,” Pip grumbled. Trainee Pip was certainly the most keen Kirball player on the South team, and may have been in the entire Collegium. He and his Companion were never happier than when they were scrumming.
“Now here’s where we need to talk show versus strategy.” She grinned at Pip, a flash of teeth showing behind the metal faceguard. “Remember that the point of this whole match is to give the crowd a show. It’s a demonstration, and we need to think about how it will all look from out there.” She waved her hand at the crowds pressed in along the fences around the Kirball field. A steady murmur of voices came from beyond the bounds. “So don’t scrum too long, or they’ll get bored. They’ll like a bit of football, but they’ll like running better.”
“West team never lets us scrum much anyway,” Halleck pointed out.
“It’s those evil little ponies of theirs,” said one of the Guard Foot.
Jeffers, son of a wealthy tradesman, gave him a hurt look; he was mounted on his favorite Kirball horse, a scrappy little pony that looked ridiculously small under him.
“Present company excepted, of course,” Corwin amended. “Your ponies aren’t evil, Jeffers.”
“Not evil to you, anyway,” Jeffers corrected.
There were three ways to score. The first was to lob a Kirball through the windows or the door of the opposing team’s tower. That was one point. The second was to occupy the tower and hold it for a quarter candlemark. That was ten points, and so far no one had ever had the temerity to try it. Sure, you could get in there, but neither horse nor Companion would fit inside, and the enemy Foot were only too eager to mob you and drag you out, ending your occupation. Meanwhile, your own team didn’t dare abandon their goal to
come to your rescue lest the opposition make goals while they did.
Lobbing balls was a lot faster and easier than an occupation, and your ten points could easily be negated by what they did at your goal while your team held them off while you occupied.
The third was to steal the opponent’s flag and get it back to your tower. That was fifty points and pretty much game-ending, because you had to get the flag back to your home base in order to make the score, and it was pretty harrowing to have an entire team bearing down on you while you tried to do that. Foot generally guarded the goal and the flag, although game-winning ploys had, in the games past, been engineered by one of the Foot sneaking close enough to the opposing team’s flag to snatch it.
The Foot obviously didn’t use mounts, and the Companions were as much a part of the team as the Herald Trainees who rode them, but the Rider units, now—that was where much of the uncertainty in Kirball came from. Mags didn’t know horses, didn’t understand horses, but obviously they weren’t Companions. They could be pressed and harassed in ways the Companions would just shrug off. Many of them didn’t like being crowded into the fence around the field, nor the close quarters in a scrum. None of them liked being rammed, although by this point they had become somewhat inured to it.
Not West team’s ponies, though. Like North, the West team’s Riders were all rich enough to have a mount for each quarter. Unlike North, these were all tough, hardy little mountain ponies, smart and fast, and, if Mags was any judge, as insanely happy to play the game as their owners. They were almost as good as the Companions, in his opinion. Sometimes it seemed to him that all they lacked was Mindspeech. And he wasn’t altogether sure some of those ponies didn’t have that, as well. The scrum didn’t bother them the least bit, they played football with zest, they’d nip in along a fence and scuttle like weasels, and they had no problem with forcing a collision.
What they lacked was sheer size; bigger horses and Companions could ride them down or bowl them over—there were no fouls in Kirball, since it was, at bottom, training for war. The size disadvantage might be the main reason why the other teams hadn’t immediately swapped out their mounts for similar ponies.
You couldn’t use trained warhorses for this, though; warhorses would be downright dangerous on a Kirball field. They were trained to use hooves and teeth in defense of their riders, and while Kirball was designed to be rough, it wasn’t supposed to be lethal.
Mags looked up and down the field, which was entirely surrounded on all four sides by spectators. There were the Trainees from all three Collegia, of course, shoved up tight against the fences in clots of gray, light green, and rusty red. In among them were the Whites of full Heralds—mostly the teachers here, since summer meant that the Heralds were out in the field in force—the sober forest-green of Healers, the scarlet of Bards, and the dark blue of the Guard. But far outnumbering those colors were the colors that were not uniforms. There were parents and siblings of those Trainees of all sorts who could make the journey here, Guards out of uniform, and up on some elevated viewing stands, nobles of all ranks and ages in all their finery as well as those who were not nobles but merely wealthy. Scuttling about and hoping not to be noticed were the pages and squires attached to the Court, who probably should have been at some duty or other, and carefully avoiding anyone’s eyes were servants in palace livery other than that of the Guards who were doing the same. Then there were the townsfolk, invited up for this day so that they could see for themselves what the Trainees of the Collegia were about—all craning their necks from behind the rows of Trainees and teachers and nobles and family.
Behind them were the Companions, of every size and shape and age; bonded or not, they were here to see the game.
And mounted up and trotting or striding in and out of the crowd were the players of the other two teams, telling all and sundry how the game was played—and how it should be played.
Glancing at them, Mags felt the nervous sweat start up all over again.
The South Grays were himself, Pip, Gennie the captain, and Halleck. The South Riders were a mix of young nobles and townsfolk who were also taking classes at the Collegia. Jeffers and Meled were two of the latter, Reese and young Lord Wess the former. Their four Foot were all young Guardsmen, though when the teams had been started, two of them had been thought too young to join the Guard proper. Corwin, Danvers, Holly, and Beales. All four were young for the Guard, young enough to be kept here at Haven for a year or two to get in some serious training while living at home before being sent out to a Guard garrison somewhere else. Sixteen was generally the youngest that the Guard would take, and the youngster had to be a very mature sixteen at that. Eighteen was preferred. They were all only sixteen, and the Captain of the Guard here very much approved of Kirball as fine training for them.
They had relief players now, too: two Foot and one Rider. The Herald Trainees, however, had now concluded that while it might be a fine thing to be a Kirball hero, it was also a lot of work, and you had better be at the top of the athletes to play. So the sixteen Grays who were on the four Kirball teams had no relief players.
On the other hand, Kirball had aroused enough interest among the nobles that now all the Riders had four mounts, one for each quarter, presented to them by noble patrons. Jeffers’ father had presented him with carte blanche to pick a fourth mount for his birthday. Somewhat to his shock, Jeffers had passed by all the big, handsome high-breds that had been offered him and had chosen a second little cob as like to his scrappy favorite as a twin. The others hadn’t had a choice; three nobles had presented them with mounts they deemed suitable. Still, none of those (literally) gift horses had been utterly wrong for the game, and if they were not outstanding, they were certainly good enough for an “easy” quarter.
The first quarter had started off quickly, no matter what Gennie said. There had been nothing “slow” about it. West had nipped in as soon as the game was on; one of their Riders had snatched the ball and made a dash for the goal and got it in. The rest of the quarter had been running up and down the field, over the obstacles, with no one getting a clear advantage until right at the end, when Gennie and Pip had taken clear control of the ball and had traded it back and forth until Halleck got into good position, and he had bunged it in to tie the score.
“Strategy, strategy,” said Gennie. “We can’t tire out those ponies, but we can make them, their Riders, and maybe even their Trainees lose their tempers and get grumpy. And we can wear out their Foot. So let’s leave off trying to goal for this quarter and do that. Pip and I will harass the Foot, make them guard their flag; Mags and Halleck, you and the Riders play some hard football with their Companions and Riders. Don’t be afraid to get bruised, but don’t knock anyone over, either. Not yet, anyway.”
Pip raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that going bit hard for an exhibition? We might upset some parents.”
Halleck snorted. “Not as long as there’re no broken bones or broken necks. People like to see some danger as long as everyone walks away from it.”
Corwin nodded. “Maybe you didn’t hear it over the noise, but me old man was shouting at me from sidelines, telling me to break some heads. He don’t mean it literally, but he’d have been the first one on his feet shouting hurrah if I’d pulled someone down.”
“No broken heads, but no easy quarter of it either,” Gennie told them. “If we’re given the gift of a goal opportunity, take it, but otherwise, we concentrate on giving them a hard time, and not letting them score on us.”
Pip laughed. “Now, wouldn’t it be the height of irony if West’s captain is telling his team the exact same thing right now?”
The Companions all snorted. Gennie grinned. “That’s why we’re against West for this exhibition, instead of North or East. Harkon couldn’t be more unlike me and still be in Grays. Dean wants a good exhibition game, not a mirror-move chess match.”
It was their ball, and Mags had it, and when the whistle blew, signaling the start, he feinted to Pip,
then dropped it straight down among the legs of the Riders. He and Dallen stayed to contest it, while Pip and Gennie headed straight for the West goal, momentarily confusing the entire West side, half of whom thought Pip had the ball, and half, seeing Mags drop it, knew it was down among the feet of their mounts.
It took West a moment to sort themselves out, then they were all back into the scrum, leaving their Foot to be harassed by Pip and Gennie.
Now, one of the West’s Grays had Fetching Gift. They knew that, of course, and West knew that they knew, and in all the games that had been played before, he had never actually used it.
Until now.
They had always assumed that anyone using Fetching Gift would be standing off to one side and concentrating hard to manipulate the ball into the goal, or (more likely) grab the flag from afar, since it was a tricky Gift and required absolute concentration.
So they had assumed. They hadn’t counted on the wielder using it for something very small. “Kicking” the ball into the open, for instance; that didn’t require any more concentration than hitting it with one of the Kirball sticks. But that was exactly what he did, and the moment he did, one of the other West Grays pounced on it like a cat on a catnip toy.
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