The Dim Continent: Series Finale (The Legend of the Gamesmen Book 3) Page 8

  They encountered two snakes along their path. One they heard through its rasping hiss, but never actually saw. The other, when Drail brushed thick vines aside, suddenly appeared across his palm. With a yelp he’d flung the thing away.

  Adeena pronounced both harmless, though she’d not seen either. No one questioned her call.

  On the third day he chewed his hard cake lunch as he walked. Sitting while they ate had proved impossible, as rocks or fallen trees to sit upon were rare, and the hoard of insects inhabiting the platt made standing still unpleasant.

  Drail’s legs ached from the effort of traveling with the things tied on his feet. He could only hope they’d have time to recover before playing an actual game.

  Adeena trudged just ahead of him, and despite all his concerns he found himself smiling. The guide was as tired as any of them, but stubbornly refused to show it. The telltale squaring of her shoulders appeared more frequently, and she no longer looked back to gauge their stamina. He suspected this last was to deny them the chance to gauge hers.

  When she stopped abruptly, Drail swiftly stepped beside her.

  Ignoring him, the girl inserted her hands into a particularly dense veil of vines, and pulled them apart.

  Sunlight burst through. Gratefully they emerged from the platt.

  The mood lightened as the sun warmed a countryside furred with shrubs and trees. Now the expedition could walk abreast. Manten made a ribald comment and even the Defense Master laughed.

  Adeena said nothing, but he saw her shoulders relax as she knelt to untie her spread-shoes. He quickly did the same.

  Shoes stowed - apparently lots of these were kept at the entrances to the jungle - Adeena suggested a break before moving on. They did not, however. Supposedly the Terrin village was near, and Jason urged no more delay.

  Drail agreed. Not from eagerness to see the village, but a need to distance themselves from the swamp forest.

  Tryst’s relief was short-lived.

  As the girl led them up a winding path, a tree at the crest of the hill moved. No, not a tree. A Terrin.

  It balefully watched them with eyes glittering above green-tinged fangs. Covered in fur, the creature looked more like an upright bear than a civilized being. And though the elevated angle made height hard to judge, the watcher looked enormous.

  Remembering the Terrin in the Black Arena, he knew the impression accurate.

  Tryst had known this plan meant playing comet again, but in a vague echo to the dangerous whole. Now, with the monster looming, he realized the possible carnage in battling Terrin on the field. Visions of Port Leet games flashed, of young Kayle’s injury and his own nervousness before playing. Stars, how big the Skullan must have seemed to Drail and his friends - how formidable, how dangerous. And here they blithely trotted into a whole new level of danger.

  Adeena strode on to mount a tier of log steps and stand level to the waiting Terrin. The top of her head barely reached past its belly.

  Its eyes fastened on the men. “What chance led you here?” it growled.

  Someone behind him gasped. Tryst remembered Jason had not seen a Terrin this close.

  “A lucky path of intention,” Adeena spoke firmly.

  The creature silently assessed their party for a handful of blinks of the sun. Then the fangs tilted, hopefully in a Terrin nod.

  Adeena beckoned them to join her. They climbed the steps.

  The Defense Master’s head reached a level between the thing’s breast and shoulder. His Skullan body appeared a twig beside a full grown tree. Observing him balefully, the Terrin’s twin fangs glistened though the hair hid its lips.

  Adeena solemnly bowed and with a flourishing gesture, stepped aside. “I present the gamesmen of the Hand of Victory.”

  Seeing the startled faces of his companions and the Terrin’s unreadable reaction, Tryst clamped down a wild desire to laugh.

  When Drail was a boy playing his first comet games, Raston taught him a trick.

  The other boys, larger and with muscles more developed, would glare down at him, making all his confidence vanish in a blink of the sun. He lost those early games. His grandsire told him to look not at their eyes but at their movements. Observe tendencies and weaknesses - that was the way to win.

  Now Drail calmly observed the village as they walked, allowing himself to see it objectively rather than feel fear.

  First impressions reminded him of temporary arenas, such as found in the Flats of Beard. Numerous platforms littered the area - with no sign of long standing buildings. On closer examination, however, these platforms appeared solid and well-crafted.

  And they had roofs.

  As their party strode through the center of a larger structure, he recognized a huge kitchen with stone fireplaces, kettles, and presumably dinner vegetables being sliced on massive tables. Such tables lined the central platform, those surrounded by giant chairs. Tables of lesser height filled the remaining space, with square mats replacing the chairs - presumably to sit upon.

  The gathering hall and dining room.

  Smaller buildings appeared to be work areas, where hairy inhabitants whittled wood and shaped metal utensils. These artisans paused to watch them pass, and did not resume their task.

  Farther on clustered a sea of small platforms, with woven vine walls on two sides. For privacy, he decided. Glimpses of colorful dangling cloth suggested sleep slings.

  Sensing Manten beside him, Drail turned to confront his friend’s gaping mouth. Glancing at the others, he saw the same astonishment, the same nervousness echoed on face after face. His friends, he realized, had never been taught Raston’s trick.

  Drail threw back his head and laughed.

  Adeena watched the gamesman laugh, his thick braid flopping with the gesture. Foolish, stupid.

  Fearless. Yute’s own luck, she admired him.

  Other skins had come, declaring themselves gamesmen. All expressed interest in playing across the Dim Continent, though few ever ventured beyond the gate. Although she herself had never led such a group, she’d sat at the campfire and heard the tales spun by other guides. Few games had ever been played. When an ignorant skin saw his first Terrin, actually stood beside him to stare upwards like a small child at a grown man, courage vanished as a whisper wing in the mist. Reactions ranged from disbelief to terror.

  Never laughter.

  She recognized Drail’s laugh, of course. It was defiance at the whim of Eutykia, the goddess of chance. An acknowledgment of Yute - the affectionate short name - setting a tough dinner table, and an affirmation that one would eat all the same.

  Drail was proving to be something rarely seen off the ships from the Great Continent. A real man.

  Smiling at him, she strode on behind the solemn creature that led the way. Taking them up the path to the Terrin with the red glow about his head. The glow, she knew, was from ashbark powder, in the red tint marking the Leader.

  The Leader studied the group as the guiding Terrin growled a single word. “Gamesmen.”

  Adeena had dealt with many Terrin in her guide years and grown accustomed to their peculiarities. So it startled her when the Right Hand - the Terrin who served the leader - escorted them toward the circle in the moss.

  He must be Right Hand. No other would dare do so.

  Drail and the others stood where indicated, confusion shading their faces. Apparently these gamesmen didn’t recognize the field.

  “Comet,” she said, and waved her hand.

  Drail’s brows rose as he grasped her meaning.

  “This is an arena?”

  “A comet field,” she corrected. The fields in Creesby were all dirt, marked by the line where grass was allowed to grow. Here the entire field was the moss carpet Terrin liked. The boundary was more mystery than demarcation. Perhaps the fields in Missea differed even more.

  “We play here? Now?” the one called Olver burst out.

  “So it seems.”

  The skin men exchanged long looks.


  Drail stepped away, bending to touch the moss before stretching his legs wide. With a shrug and a grin, he began warming up in a ritual sequence of muscle movements. The others slowly followed his lead.

  Old Merle moved beside her. “Where are the opponents?”

  Adeena pointed to the skin men emerging across the field. The old man stood close enough she felt his start. “Those aren’t Terrin.”

  She blinked in surprise. “Did you think to play Terrin?”

  A full five blinks of the sun passed. And then Drail burst out laughing once more.

  Tryst watched the Right Hand approach.

  A telling title, he mused. It indicated the creatures were right and left handed, like Skullan and Trumen.

  The thing moved with a loping gait, as if the knees struggled with smaller motions. Catching Jason’s steady gaze, he saw the Defense Master found the Terrin movement inferior, giving the ‘skins’ an advantage. But then Jason never saw the speed of the Terrin in the Black Arena.

  Much could be learned by watching the creatures play comet. But then, they might be too busy trying to survive to actually observe.

  Two Terrin carried an odd looking ring of points to field center, maneuvering it round the hairy lump in the middle - the cone, he realized. This comet cone was larger than those used in Missea, and somehow covered in fur. And the center circle, the perimeter that no player was allowed to cross without the judge’s permission, was a circle of animal tusks, pointing outward to impale any who came too close.

  By the Great Goose, did they cannibalize their own kind for a mere game?

  Another Terrin followed, bearing a pail and a clutch of long…what appeared to be feathers. Those he dipped in the pail, and then brushed over the circled tusks.

  “Do not go near that circle,” Tryst said aloud. Manten and Olver exchanged a startled look.

  Adeena frowned at them. “Of course you do not.”

  “Are those Terrin fangs?” Tryst demanded sotto voce.

  “Those are darop teeth.”

  “Darop? Those things we walked over in the swamp jungle?” Olver spluttered.

  The girl nodded.

  “Stars,” Olver whispered.

  A Terrin with a yellow glow around his head loped out across the field. One of the men - Trumen, surely - strode out to meet him.

  “Go,” Adeena nodded.

  “But there’s only two teams.”

  The guide scoffed. “Challenge enough for you.”

  Still frowning, Drail trotted away.

  “Are there other dangers?” Jason demanded.

  Adeena’s face revealed incomprehension. “Besides darops?”

  Tryst sighed.

  Long ago he’d woke in a strange land with strange customs. The most treacherous times came when he thought himself on familiar territory, only to realize he was not. To request a favored food, to find the name meant something different there. Or walk on a ship to sail home, to discover an expensive mark of health was required.

  Here they stood about to play what should be a most familiar game. What price their ignorance now?

  Poised at the edge of the field, Drail felt himself more in a dream than awake. Dark moss instead of sand beneath his feet, a dead predator’s teeth where the cone should be. Proportions all wrong, with such a vast play area, large comet balls, and larger spectators.

  Far larger spectators.

  The judge’s head glowed yellow as he beckoned, four balls at his feet. He stood far from field center, though Drail realized the center was too well guarded by fangs to stand there. Stars, this felt odd.

  He trotted across the soft carpet, testing its slippery properties. They ought to practice a day before playing in such a different environment. They ought to practice an entire moon.

  To his surprise, the moss covering gripped his feet more surely than sand.

  As the other team captain approached, Drail noticed the man’s team spreading out onto the field, drawing closer. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder, hoping Manten assembled the Hand of Victory.

  “I’m Bran,” the captain said, grinning like a boy about to play games with his friends.

  “Drail.”

  The Terrin judge grew impatient. Or perhaps merely wanted his dinner. “Choose,” he growled.

  The captain - Bran - lifted a hand, hesitated. Drail bent to snatch his ball.

  And rising again, caught Bran’s stabbing gesture, snatching at air, then pulling fist to heart. The man’s head was bowed as if standing before a Tower of Zaria.

  He then grabbed a ball.

  The Terrin raised paw to air. Drail watched, fascinated to see if a similar gesture followed. Thus he was caught off guard.

  “Comet!”

  Bran spun, shooting his comet towards his already running team. Drail glimpsed one man racing towards the cone before he whirled to his own men.

  Lagging only slightly behind, Olver sprinted toward him while Manten peeled off toward the cone. Passing his ball to Olver, Drail continued his turn to see Manten angling to guard the ring of teeth from Bran’s teammate.

  The man threw the ball toward the cone yelling, “YUTE!”

  After competing in Missea for so long, Drail found himself gaping. Comet was won by sinking a high value ball, and not necessarily first. Skullan played for time, allowing the soot covering to wear off and reveal the number of dots beneath. Thus knowing the value of the ball before they sank it.

  It seemed a different strategy prevailed on the Dim Continent.

  Fortunately Manten’s instincts sent him diving between gamesman and cone, leaping to catch the ball, rolling across the moss and back onto his feet.

  He launched the sphere from twenty paces away - straight into the cone. Olver’s ball sank a blink of the sun later, though Olver was much closer. The other team ceased.

  Silence reigned - before the Terrin roared.

  Drail turned slowly, fearing attack. The hairy things leapt into the air, crying battle words and other shrieks he didn’t know. But they remained in place and off the field.

  Bran trotted to him, the man’s astonishment giving way to another grin.

  “Yute - that was well done! You Missean types usually waste time being afraid to take your shot.”

  Pounding his shoulder, Bran led him off the mossy field.

  Tryst had been to many celebratory feasts, including a few for dignitaries with bizarre customs. This feast would raise that mark to a whole new level.

  To begin with, Terrin ate only vegetables. They roasted thick roots over a center fire built to blaze in a low, wide circle. They dipped fingers into wooden bowls filled with mashed bitter fruit. Odder still, they wrapped large leaves around a thin red pea pod to munch between waving the thing in the air as they talked.

  And talk they did. The Leader and his Right Hand relived the short game over and over, ascribing luck to this move, skill to that. Drail and his Hand of Victory often spent time analyzing a game for mistakes and areas to improve, but even they never debated the thing for an entire meal. Now mere spectators argued over the likelihood Manten could make the long shot again, or had he missed, the chance Bran’s team would have won.

  Surely a pointless conversation.

  Bran himself, who seemed partial to the pea pods, had other words on his tongue. “Your team is skilled. Surely too skilled to leave the Great Continent for us.”

  The conversation around them paused. All waited to hear the answer.

  “We wished to try our might against a Terrin team,” Drail replied in his easy way.

  Tryst caught Jason’s look of approval, and had to suppress his grin. Jason thought Drail used clever subterfuge, but the gamesman merely spoke from his heart.

  “Seems a long chance venture for a short chance gain,” the Right Hand rumbled. Terrin voices were gravelly, as if strained through a very rough throat.

  Jason licked his fingers, head tilting down as if looking at his plate. “Do Terrin ever travel to the Great Continent to p
lay?”

  Tryst knew that ploy. His defense master was carefully watching the Terrin through his eyelashes.

  “Long chance venture for no gain at all,” the Leader said. “Terrin do not leave our home.”

  Reading expressions on fanged faces proved impossible. Yet most likely - or the shortest chance, as his host might say - was these particular Terrin had not left the Dim Continent.

  “Surely Terrin have traveled in the past,” Tryst said. “Some of you must have seen the Great Continent.”

  The Leader peered at him for several blinks of the sun. Then, “You skins value the attraction of your homeland too high.”

  Jason sent him a swift glance at the Leader’s delay.

  Customs vary, of course. None knew that better than Tryst. On the surface, however, the Leader’s reply had taken too long.

  He guessed the Leader and his people had never left the Dim Continent, and had no desire to do so. But the Terrin knew something, if only rumors.

  Of that he was sure.

  On the journey to the first Tower, Marra often traveled between the two elders. Now she deliberately followed in their wake.

  Kirth seethed, her lips pressed thin against the anger threatening to spill out. Marra had never seen the elder lose her temper before, and could only wonder at her reaction. Tinge, too, was silent, and though that was not unusual, the Terrin did seem profoundly annoyed.

  The sun grew warm in the afternoon, and as the trail lead out in the open there was no cooling shade. Moist patches spread between Marra’s shoulder blades and beneath her arms. Either the temperature was worse than that of the desert, or her time in Missea had lessened her resistance to it. She watched Kirth carefully for signs of heat exhaustion, though viewing the elder’s back made that challenging.

  At last a stream appeared, surrounded by trees clustering close to the rushing water. Tinge perched upon a fallen log, drinking long and deep from an odd-shaped water pouch. Marra hesitated, as Kirth merely leaned against a tree while she drank.