Changes

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.

This was not how they had planned things! ::They have the ball!:: He “shouted” into the minds of his teammates, together with the projected image of the Gray with the ball, who was even now pelting toward the South goal. Mags and Dallen skittered across the ground to intercept him, the rest a few paces behind.

::How?:: Gennie blurted incredulously, then got the image from Dallen exactly as it had happened. Her reply was rude and laden with exasperation at herself for not foreseeing this very thing.

But their Foot were on it, as fiercely determined to prevent a goal as Mags had ever seen them. No matter where the ball went, they were there first, and instead of hitting it back hard, they hit it into the most awkward places they could. The third time they blocked it, one of them managed to shoot it into a tangle of bushes, and at that point it became a scrum again.

It stayed a scrum, right in front of the South goal, until the whistle blew and everyone had to back off, because it was time to start the third quarter and get a change of horses.

“Where did that play come from?” Corwin asked, wiping his head and neck down with a towel and accepting water from a runner.

“Fetching Gift,” Gennie said, her voice thick with disgust. “Oh, too bloody smart altogether, he’s using it to bunt the ball, just a little. He doesn’t have to stand off and concentrate on it to do that, he just needs to see it.” She took off her helmet, dumped a pail of water over her head, and jammed her helmet back on. “They’ve been keeping that little play a secret, that’s for sure.”

“Then we’d better not put the thing in the air,” Corwin warned. “He’ll bunt it there too.”

“Well... then we have to keep him from seeing the ball,” Jeffers said slowly. “Which means one of us has to mind him.”

“That’ll be me,” Wess volunteered immediately. “This rack of bones is no good in the scrum, and he’s tall enough I’m practically sitting on a cliff. I’ll mind him for the entire quarter.”

Now it was scarcely fair for Wess to call his horse a “rack of bones,” but it was one of those “gift horses”— very well bred, rather too well bred for Kirball, and very tall. The gelding was like lightning on straight, even ground, but he couldn’t turn the way Jeffers’ ponies could, and he got very nervous when his footing was uneven. Oddly enough, he’d take getting rammed and was astonishingly even-tempered about herding or being herded. In fact, his temper was the best thing about him.

“All right; that will leave us a Rider short, so we’ll just have to make up for it. By the way, Foot, damn fine job on that save.” This, in Mags’ opinion, was one reason why Gennie was such a terrific captain. “Now remember that if the ball gets in clear sight, it just might start to act unnaturally, so be alert. Expect it to change direction at any point. So, heads up, stay sharp, we’ll have to play this quarter by best guess, and go all out in the last. Hup!”

The third quarter was a frantic mess. Wess did manage to keep the Fetching Gray occupied during most of it, but the time or two he broke free and got an eye on the ball, it clearly had a mind behind it. There was no telling where it would go for certain, and all they could do was follow it. And one of those times, the other team scored a goal.

The timing could not have been worse for South; they’d made a series of spectacular saves, but the ball was still in front of their goal. One of West’s players managed to scoop the ball into the air, but instead of hitting it toward the goal, he smacked it in the opposite direction. Mags thought he was mad, until he realized that the Fetching Trainee had gotten free of Wess—

He realized that too late. The ball suddenly acted as if someone else had hit it with a paddle in midair—