The Warden

Chapter 3

Since when did I consider my days 'traditional?' thought Kyla, scowling. Then again, she had lived a few centuries longer than the average bag of bones and such an extension had to take its toll in some manner or other.

Her scowl deepened. Nostalgic sentimentality must be mine.

But such sentiment distracted. Distractions slowed one's reaction time. A slower reaction time meant mistakes. And mistakes ultimately meant an untimely death.

Death was not acceptable.

Kyla clicked her teeth together testily. She hadn't traded her soul to the Dark Moon herself, wallowing an additional four centuries on Werold's green backside, simply to die because she couldn't control her reminiscing. Shoving away her thoughts of the past, like shooing annoying gnats, Kyla crossed her arms with a solid thump.

All she needed to do was find who she was looking for and get on with it all.

The milling figures on horseback presented her with slim pickings, but having justified watching a ramshackle hovel for months on end in the hopes that such squalor and poverty would produce greater humility in an individual with no results, she could hardly dismiss perusing a somewhat athletic bunch of children—children by her standards at least.

Of course, like all things, time had changed the sport. Four hundred years of natural evolution had tamed the beast a bit, its environment become more civilized. Bland in Kyla's mind.

Both teams squared off on their prospective sides of the rectangular playing field. Though some distance, the creaking leather of saddles, gloves, and reins reached her ears. And beads of sweat had already begun to collect on more than a few of the players' brows in spite of the fact the match hadn't begun yet. Two players clopped their way atop their mounts to the center, lips pursed as short breaths rushed between. A referee awaited them, no more than a few years older than any of the players on the field, but trying his absolutely best to appear obligatorily stern. The players eyed each other. The official eyed them. Every person present had their focus trained on those three individuals.

As the referee raised his arm, both centers leaned forward in their saddles.

"Oh, get on with it already," muttered Kyla.

The referee snapped his arm down. The match began with a thunder.

In principle, the game of bolae was not too complicated. Two teams of up to ten players faced off with no more than six on the field at any given time—two forwards, three back-fielders, and one keeper, who guarded a tall pole on either end of the field. The objective of both teams was quite simple: throw and wrap a bola—an arrangement of cords with weighted ends—around the pole within any of the three designated scoring sections of the two poles. Of course, there were other rules that accompanied the game—how long you could ride with the bola before you had to pass to a teammate or forfeit possession, penalties for rough play, and so on—but that summed up the main objective fairly well without cluttering it with unneeded minutia.

The Domrae lad's team had won the scramble, their forward having snatched the bola from the ground with his hook, an implement each rider carried expressly to recover the bola from the ground. However, Kyla recalled more than a few occasions when it had found other more violent employments.

Already the bola and spun wildly between several players. Hooves beat into the sod, churning up chunks of mud and grass, as each player urged his mount to speed only to change directions rapidly as soon as possession was stolen. Shouts rang out. Some of encouragement. Others of communication. And as always, where sports are concerned, more than a few insults. The spectators threw their own voices into the mix, boiling up the stadiums space with raucous exclamations.