Ghostcountry's Wrath (34 page)

And there was the grin. That damned, wicked, secretive grin that, along with the sly twinkle in the boy's eyes, told Brock he could trust him about as far as he could throw him.

Speaking of which, he supposed it was time he did some throwing. Sparing his opponent his best cocky glare, he turned to face the target pole that centered the arena. And shuddered involuntarily. It hadn't been there when first he and Sandy had passed that way, but then, when he'd turned from agreeing to this stupid contest, there it was: twenty feet high, and with a skull on top that might, from its fangs and length of muzzle, be bear. He was beginning to understand Sandy and Cal's aversion to magic.

Squaring his shoulders, he gave his sticks (similar to those he had seen in
Last of the Mohicans)
an experimental swing, then clicked the cups at the ends together like salad tongs. Red (he'd heard no name for his opponent's brother) had given them to him, saying they were his own and to use them well. Yeah, sure, like he was supposed to play a game he'd never played before for impossibly high stakes and win!

“I will grant you five practice throws,” Fatty (so Brock had christened the dark twin, being unable to remember his real name beyond Fat-something-or-other) laughed, and without further comment, flipped a small object in Brock's direction. He grabbed at it with his sticks but, as he'd expected, missed. Blushing furiously, he bent over and clumsily picked it up with the wooden cups. Roughly the size of an unhulled walnut, it was made of two pieces of buckskin not unlike those that covered baseballs, laced together with rawhide over a lightly padded stone core that probably made it hurt like hell if it hit you—which he suspected Fatty would be sure to arrange.

As if he had heard that thought, Fatty cleared his throat and backed off a way to give him room. Brock gnawed his lip, rearranged the ball in the basket of his sticks and, aping the single example Red had given him, drew both hands back over his right shoulder and threw, releasing the ball at what he hoped was the optimum instant.

It wasn't. The sphere shot straight up in the air, then plummeted to earth at Brock's feet. Fatty snickered.

A second shot fell short of the pole by two yards. The third sent the ball backward.

Number four was closer. And number five almost hit.

Maybe if I tried ten more times I might make it once,
Brock thought gloomily. His opponent merely grinned again, retrieved the ball from where it lay by the pole, backed up ten paces, threw—and smacked the skull so hard a fragment of the cheekbone broke off and fell to earth.

“You get first throw,” Fatty told him with another grin. “Since this is war, I will not wish you luck.”

Brock nodded, then wandered up to where the ball still lay at the base of the pole and picked it up with his sticks.

Only his reflexes saved him.

He heard the soft thud of feet rushing toward him and had just time for a glance from the corner of his eye to show Fatty charging straight at him, before his opponent was practically atop him.
Dammit! he'd forgotten that the rules let his adversary try to stop his shots—which apparently included stopping him!
Desperately, he dashed away, striving to put the pole between him and the onrushing boy, hopefully thereby delaying him long enough to get in a shot.

And succeeded well enough to spin on the fly and throw. He was reasonably on target, too—until Fatty simply flung one of his sticks into the air and knocked the ball back toward him. Brock scrambled for it, realizing suddenly there weren't nearly as many rules as he'd thought, and that what remained didn't necessarily favor him. Still, he was agile if not strong or longwinded, so he managed to snatch the ball before Fatty could interfere further.

Or so he thought. He had held the ball in his sticks for maybe two seconds before he felt himself hit by something heavy, strong, and purposeful, and carried backward at least ten feet. His skin flinched from that contact, as if he had received an electric shock. The air smelled strongly of ozone.

And then the ground slapped him and showed him stars.

When his vision cleared again, it was to see Fatty's bare back filling most of the horizon, and to feel the weight of his body across his chest as Fatty calmly snapped off a shot while sitting atop him.

Brock jerked and twisted but could not escape. And of course the shot hit dead on.

And what made it even worse was the fact that not only was it a clear hit, but it bounced back so precisely that, even allowing for Brock's writhing, Fatty was able to catch it in his sticks. Which gave him a second clear shot.

By number three, Brock had recovered enough to try to block the ball's return—which he did by striking at Fatty's stick with his own. Fatty, however, only chuckled, clamped his thighs closer around Brock's body (it was getting hard to breathe!), and threw again.

He almost missed; indeed, barely grazed the skull's forehead, but it was enough. Another hit and he'd have won round one. Brock doubted he was good enough at quasi-cricket to manage so decisive a victory in the second. Meanwhile, he put all his strength into bucking as the ball arched back toward them, simultaneously thumping his opponent on the head with his sticks—if Fatty could cheat, so could he.

“Now, you're getting the hang of it,” Fatty laughed as Brock indeed managed almost to dislodge him. Nor did his opponent catch the ball. Instead, it zipped past him, rolling to a stop near where a grim-faced Sandy was standing beside Okacha beneath the black-trunked tree. Fatty was off him in a second and running. Brock dived after. Closer he came…closer. But it was too late, for even as he put all his frustration into one final burst of speed, Fatty snatched the ball and threw.

And of course hit home, thereby assuring his victory in the first round.

Brock was disgusted. He did not meet Sandy's eyes—nor Okacha's, never mind the dark boy's or his twin's, as he dropped the ballsticks where he stood and reluctantly claimed Calvin's war club from the panther-woman.

“I thought you were a warrior,” Fatty taunted as he strolled calmly up.

Sudden anger welled up in Brock. It wasn't fair, dammit! Fatty had cheated—and cheated—and cheated! But he didn't dare let himself get riled; that'd give the twins a moral victory as well as a technical one. But he had to burn off his anger,
had
to. Without really thinking about it, he slammed the war club into the black bark of the honey locust tree.

The world turned white! Sound that was beyond noise overwhelmed Brock's senses, even as it snatched him from his feet and slammed him to the ground. A hard, crisp sound it had been, like ripping paper amplified a million times.

Or like lightning!

When he could see again, it was to gaze upon Fatty's face looking shocked and stricken. He had dropped his sticks and his mouth was a perfect
O.
His cocky Mohawk was singed. “If you promise not to do that again, I will concede victory.” He sighed.

“And if you promise not to do the same to the other tree, I will likewise,” said his ruddy brother, trotting up to join them.

Brock stared at them stupidly, then sought Sandy for explanation. From where she had likewise been knocked to the ground, she merely shrugged dazedly and looked pained. Okacha, however, showed a secret smile. “If you won't tell them, I will,” she whispered to the twins.

The boys looked at each other, as if each wished the other to go first. Finally Red spoke. “The trees are sacred,” he said. “They grew from the water that gushed from our mother's womb before we were born. Our father gave them to us to remind us that trees are our brothers, too. Also, the roots fill all the land here, and bring knowledge to the trees and tell us things, so that we do not have to go about ourselves. But when he gave them to us, our father told us to protect them with our lives. That we allowed you close enough to strike one made him angry. We dare not allow that again—for he will be watching us now!”

Brock blinked at his opponent, still half-dazed himself, both from the brief, if intense, exertion of the contest and from the vast sense of relief that flooded him.
He had won!
Against all odds he, Stanley Arthur Bridges (here he admitted the name he had told no-one present) had triumphed against a boy who surely was not a boy; who—if what he suspected was true—was probably some sort of demigod. Not that it mattered. What mattered was the victory. Now Calvin could go free; now they could proceed on their way and… And put an end to all this foolishness, he realized, at that moment acknowledging once and for all how sick he was of magic, how much he longed for the ordinary.

“A fine game.” Fatty grinned, seeming none the worse for the wear, either physically or mentally, now that he'd regained his composure. Without further ado, he turned and strode back toward the shelter, leaving Brock and his friends no choice but to follow. An instant later, the dark twin flopped down beneath the awning, motioning Brock, Sandy, and Okacha to join him. Calvin did likewise, curled up between Brock and Sandy. The red twin reached behind him and dragged forward a pottery jug, which he passed to Brock. Brock sniffed it, smelled water tinged with something spicy and earthy—and was instantly thirsty beyond belief. An exchange of gestures with his hosts seemed to indicate that drinking was called for, so he took a long swallow—and was immediately refreshed. When he had chugged his fill, he passed the pitcher back to his adversary, but the boy shook his head and gestured that Brock should distribute it among his friends.

Sandy took it gratefully, Okacha almost as eagerly, and when they poured some into a bowl and set it before Calvin, he lapped at it with vigor.

“You can stay as long as you like,” Brock's former opponent said. “But I ought to warn you that we can be rather unpredictable hosts. We are not always as you see us now.”

“We need to be traveling anyway, don't we, Sandy? Okacha?” Brock replied, making a move to rise.

“What about your friend?” the red boy wondered. “You evaded my question before. But how did he come to be in that shape? And how do you propose to change him back?”

Once again Brock shot Sandy a wary glance. “Show him, Brock,” she sighed.

Brock hesitated, then reached into his pocket and pulled out the uktena scale necklace. He extended it in the palm of his hand, ready to snatch it away should the need arise.

Instead, both boys vented gasps of surprise, though neither moved otherwise. When he thought they'd had time enough to recognize what he held, he closed his fingers over it and drew it back. A glance at the boys showed their faces to be masks of chagrin. “Only one thing in all the Worlds looks like that,” Fatty observed.

“The scale of the great uktena!” his twin agreed.

“Had we known you bore such a talisman,” Red continued, “we would not have challenged you. For surely the fact that you carry such a thing marks you as a very great warrior indeed. At the very least, it marks you as a
friend
of a very great warrior.”

“It…belongs to Cal here,” Brock replied anxiously. “He used it to change shape so he could come here, but left it with us so we could change as well. But then Tsistu tricked us, and—”

“Tsistu!”
Red spat. “That one is the plague of half this Land, with his tricks and his jokes and his deceptions.”

Brock shrugged. “He was our guide. He said he owed us—that is, Cal—a favor. He did fine until right at the edge of the…World, I guess you could say, before this one.”

“That would be his way,” Red agreed. “But had we known he was involved in this, we would have had yet another reason not to test you. It is enough that Tsistu does, without us lowering ourselves to his level.”

“I—” Sandy began.

A growl from Calvin interrupted them. Brock glanced down to see the sleek beast looking powerfully unhappy. Even as he watched, it raised a paw, and reached toward the scale Brock still clutched in his fist.

He relinquished it, but felt a chill as the panther closed a heavy paw around it and brought it against his opposite footpad. Brock felt his heart skip a beat. Surely Cal wasn't going to
change
here. He'd seen the process before, and it wasn't pretty. To do so here seemed…well, it just seemed rude!

But it was too late. For scarcely had he caught the bright flash of blood between the panther's paws, when, with a flood of heat, Calvin lay crouching between him and Sandy. Brock jumped back reflexively, saw her do the same. Unlike before, it had taken almost no time at all. He had caught only a twisting of the air.

“God bless—that
was
fast!” Calvin gasped, as he blinked, stretched, and found a more comfortable—and modest—way to sit.

“You're not kiddin'!” Sandy breathed, reaching over to enfold him in an awkward hug that segued into a lengthy kiss.
So much for pollution,
Brock thought. Or maybe that didn't matter now that combat was over and nobody was doing magic.

“The drink hastened the process,” Fatty supplied helpfully.

Calvin eventually let go of Sandy, whereupon he looped the scale back around his neck. He did not speak.

The twins looked uncomfortable. “It occurs to me,” Red mused, “that we have heard of you. For are you not the one once called Edahi, and later Nunda-unali'i and other things? We are sorry we did not recognize you, though truly we did not expect such a one as you to come here, at least not yet. Still, that does not excuse us. And in compensation, we would offer you a favor.”