Taking One for the Team (4 page)

Delegate shook his head.  "Be a lot of angry people.  Can't guarantee—"

"Then no," said Coach.  "We got a good season coming up, and I'm not risking it."

"Four thousand gallons of trade," said the delegate.  "Not counting the cattle."

"We'll do better'n that in a month."

"You can—"

Coach put his sandwich down.  "We're both busy.  We say no, you gotta go out to where the Rain are playing, see if they'll bite.  Me, I got a team to coach.  What's your actual offer?"

"Punishment for three of your team.  Any of those three get permanent injuries, we pay you a thousand.  Career enders, five thousand, deaths, ten.  And that's it."

"Which three?" asked coach.

"You, obviously," said the delegate.  Coach nodded.  Yeah, if there was one guy in a position to make the team try to lose rather than try to win, he was it.  "And them two," he added, pointing his chin out to Born and Raven.  "They're the best you got, least according to scouts.  Money'll be hitting there if it hits anywhere."

Coach thought about it, called over to Raven.  "What do you think?" he said.  "Take it?"

"Pick someone else besides Born," she said.  "Otherwise no.  How the hell do you think Longkey and Ratmouth are going to bribe a guy who can't talk?"

"With money and gestures," said the delegate.  "Same as everyone else."

"Besides," said Raven.  "You can't count on a tower to lose a game for you.  Maybe he'll let in a few more goals than he should.  But a runner playing for the wrong side is a threat all over the field."

Born was just standing on his stump, left hand chain coiled, right hand chain still making lazy circles.  He was listening, but he wasn't reacting any.

Delegate considered, shrugged.  "Hell if it matters, but the other wing, then.  Not as good, but I guess he could mess more shots.  Better off if you don't lose, either way."

"The game is a game," said Coach.  "It don't care if you're right or honest or anything.  Just if you can hit a target with a ball more often than the other guy."

And that was it.  They were going to be playing Equinox again.  And while Raven had said that towers didn't lose games, that didn't include monsters like Equinox's center.

Whiterock was fifty miles inland from Cowport and a hundred and ten from L&R.  But a lot of Longkey families had their high-ground homes in Whiterock, so it was close enough to neutral ground.  They got there five days before it was scheduled, and got to work.

Only way to score against that Equinox center was to go in close.  So Raven worked with Born, and with Katy, and with Train over on left tower, trying to get in close enough to score without getting pinned.

Damn hard, though.

Damn hard to practice that without getting cuts and bruises; put a foot wrong, crack an ankle—well, they had three reserves, but they were better as runners than as wings, and damn if a reserve was going to beat Equinox.  And damn if there wasn't a contract that meant every angry cock in Cowport was going to be plowing her raw for breaking that ankle.  But she worked, and the towers worked, and she didn't break her ankles, though she came closer than anyone was happy with.

Then came game day.

Big crowd.

More people than Raven had seen in her entire life, all crammed into one pre-crunch stadium, with big gaps where the concrete had fallen in, and thinner crowds where it looked like it might.  Ten thousand people?  Twenty?  It didn't . . . there were one hundred and eighty-seven people in Longacre.  Eighty-six, now that she'd left, maybe one or two more if Werry'd carried her pregnancy to term, and the baby or babies were healthy.  More than twice that was too many and didn't make sense.

It gave her pause, but then it was vest on, and helmet on, and game on, and once there was the clang of chains and the thump of feet on dirt, none of that mattered a good godammn.

This time, Equinox knew them, and they knew Equinox.  Equinox's gold wing stuck on her ass like a pimple, and the blue wing was doubling up on her more often than not.  So she shoveled the ball off to Pranah, whose side was left open, and he'd flick it to Chev, to Rache, back to Pranah, and even with Equinox's monster at Center Tower, he was scoring regular.

So was Equinox.  Born was doing his best, and Katy got in some good hits, but the Equinox runners were damn tight, and when she wasn't dogging after Raven, their blue wing had a hell of an arm.  So Raven took the ball when she could, went closer than was safe, and took tries that were worth trying.

47-51 in Equinox's favor at the half.

Serious faces at the half, and then coach laid it down.  They were playing well; they had the rhythm, and were scoring more often than not.  But Equinox was doing better.  They kept playing the way they were, they were going to lose.  Time to try something better, and seemed like the better that he'd come up with was letting Chev loose on the inside of the center tower's range.  Could be he'd get pinned, could be not, but if he did, Chev was the weakest runner.  Trading Chev for one of that tower's chains wasn't that bad a deal, and if he didn't, he'd be scoring a little higher.

It was up to 57-56 in Equinox's favor when Chev got pinned.  He'd been doing well, but that was a solid pin, three rotations covering arms and legs before the prickle-catch bit.  Chev squirmed a bit, tried to either get loose or convince the tower to waste another chain on him, but he wasn't getting loose, and Equinox's center wasn't going to be fooled by anything.

Score went up to 68-60 Equinox after that.  So Raven decided to pick things up.

Just like she'd been practicing with Born and the other towers, just like she'd danced with Born when they'd been storming.  Going into close range on their center tower, up and over and under and past and through the center's chains.  When she got the ball that close in, she'd score; anyone could've scored that close.  The trick was dancing well enough to keep from getting hit, not in scoring on tries.

Coach wasn't too happy with that.   But he wasn't mad about it either.  Just sat with his cane in his lap, and watched, and sometimes scratched notes on his pad.  Raven only saw him when the ball was back on their side of the field, or when she'd backed out of range for a breath and a spit.  When she was dancing with the Equinox center, he was all she saw.

It was a bit like missing her target, really.  They didn't like each other.  They didn't know each other.  But they were close to each other, as close as two people could be.  She could see when his muscles tensed, she knew when he was tired, and knew what he was thinking.  And he knew her just as well.

Every exchange, she risked a pin for a score, and though she got it every time, there was only one way the dance could end.  Both of them knew it; she danced and threw, he aimed and swung.

Rest of the team was helping as best they good.  Pranah and Rache and Cali running interference when they could, using Raven's distraction to sneak in points when they couldn't.  And from the look of the board, Born and Katy and Train had stepped up their game too.

It was 95-87 Bobcats when the Equinox center landed a chain.  Raven'd gone under his left hand chain, took a running jump off Chev, launched a scoring try in midair.  And then his right hand chain looped back around in a turn that must have made him bend backwards in half, and which still hit hard enough that the chain was wrapping.

Twist, get a hand out, and then a bright burst of pain from the wrist.  Busted.  Then the chain wrapped her legs, and the prickle catch hit, and she went down, maybe three feet from Chev.

One chain left on their tower, and damn if he didn't give her a look like he was going to use it.   Let him—center tower with no chains, and Bobcats would score on every try.

He didn't.  Didn't have to; she was caught, and he was at half strength but Bobcats were down two.

Wrist hurt like hell when she moved it.  Right hand, which was going to make things hard.  But there was blood, and mud, and the little bit of slack she'd earned with that twist, and two months of spending her game nights wrapped in chains, tight and loose.  Raven jerked and twisted and got the blood between the links.  Left side of center, well clear of the left side tower.  Twist and jerk and then pull out of it, grab the ball on the bound, and put it into the goal.

Maybe there were ten thousand people in the stands, maybe there were twenty.   But they roared like goddamn anything when Raven got clear, and put that ball in the goal.

And damn if the Equinox center didn't try to pin her with that last chain.

Yeah, her right wrist hurt like hell, and yeah, she hadn't been expecting it.  But it was game fucking on, and she heard it and ducked it, and picked up the ball on the bound and scored again.

Then the Equinox runner picked it up and took a dash.   Raven followed, brought him down with legs and her left hand, picked up the ball and dumped it to Cali.  Cali to Rache to Pranah to Rache to score.

And then she was up for the bound, and scored, and scored again, and then the timer blew at it was 103-102 Bobcats, and it was the loudest goddamn thing in the world.  Hell, even some of the folks wearing L&R colors were up and shouting.

Equinox's center came off his stump, tapped her shoulder as he came down.  "Looks like I'm in for a rough night of it on account of you," he said.  "But seeing play like that. . ." he shook his head, tapped her shoulder again.  "Almost worth it.  Sorry about the wrist."

Raven grinned up at him.  "See play like that again next time we match.  Wrist'll be fine."

Then it was back to the bench so that coach could splint up her wrist.  Looked clean, and she'd healed up worse before.  There was a bit of dicker with the Equinox coach about untying Chev—didn't take too long, because their coach's heart wasn't in it.  He was in for a rough night back in Longkey and Ratmouth, and it didn't seem like watching some solid play had seemed quite as fair a compensation as it had for the center tower.

Well, his problem.

Raven's problem . . . wasn't a problem, exactly.  But playing close like that had meant that she hadn't missed many tries.  She'd gone 31 for 48, which was some sort of record for a league-rated dispute match, and over 60%, no question.

So that was it.  Turned out that next up was Cali, whose target was 25 scoring tries.  Coach thought he'd been holding back a little, and that'd push him to take the point more often.  Wasn't wise to let Rache and Chev make all the runner tries, or they'd be targeted.  And after a win like that one, coach wasn't tying anyone to the stump.  Day off, and they'd earned it.

Only, well.  It had come to be the rhythm of the thing.  Too early to try to sleep, still buzzing with the energy of the crowd, the yells of all those people at once when she'd broken loose and scored four in a row, left-handed.  It had been like a single many-throated animal, it had been like one of the pre-crunch giant planes, bursting out into the sky.

She had a bit of the sweetcorn and mutton, talked a bit with Katy and Pranah—they were hellaciously impressed with what she'd managed, anyway—and Cali, who was a bit apprehensive about having to score that often in league matches.

"It'll be fine," she said, when he was done explaining.  "Get to know everyone a little better, anyway."

He scowled at her, but there was a bit of lightness in that scowl.  And hell; he'd enjoyed fucking Raven's ass often enough—now it was his turn to take it from Born.  No way that wasn't fair.

More than fair, really.

Born had been exhausted after the match.  Hell, he'd let fewer points through than that Equinox monster, and that was a hell of a thing for anyone.  So when everyone else was shouting and running and clapping Raven's back, he'd sat on his stump, and breathed, and gave Raven a nod and then a shy, happy smile.  And then stumbled back to his tent, and went to sleep.

Which was where Raven found him.  Not sleeping; sitting cross-legged, looking at Raven's curse-marker, which had fallen loose during the match.

He held it up to her, a little shamefaced.  She took it, and then took his hand, and led him out to the game field, only pausing to grab one of his chains as she left.

There weren't quite so many crickets or katydids in the pre-crunch stadium.  It was echoingly quiet, a little spooky.

But Born knew what she wanted; his broad, sure fingers undid the catches on her vest, untied the laces of shirt and trousers.  They were gentle along her skin, along the stiff peaks of her nipples, and she moaned, but held herself back, as he looped the coils of chain around her, tightened the prickle-catch, and then laid her down over the center tower's stump.

He was slow and gentle, and pushed in, first in her mouth, and she took as much as she could.  And then, with oil and patience and strength, into her ass.  She yowled like a cat, twisted and growled and then when his hand found her clit, came, the pain in her ass and the ache in her thighs all coming together at once.

He used her there for a while, and then pulled out, cleaned off, and lifted her up.  He didn't lose control until he was holding her by the chains around her chest, and then pushed her down onto his cock.  She bucked against him, her skin hot on his, as he came, and she came again.

She'd made her target, and the next game night she'd been getting to know Cali a little better.  But when that was done, and he was back in the camp, she'd be going back out with Born and his chains.  And after that, and after that, until they were both done playing and found somewhere to settle down.