29. Chapter 29 #2
So, I followed behind her as we drifted into the training field and joined the other lords and their riders in their training.
The atmosphere in the camp was strangely quiet for how many people it housed.
Under Lord Alasdar, Clan Katal’s encampment was often tense, but rarely quiet.
While he would regularly whip his followers into a fanatic frenzy against their shared enemy, leaving the threat of coming violence hanging in the air, the nervousness in the camp now was different.
After days of training with the riders and warning them of the coming battle, an uneasy quiet lay over the camp like a blanket.
General Warrick had brought his men to join in the training and spoke with the warriors about the machines that Calix would have constructed: Catapults that would launch flaming rocks and massive mechanical bows that would fire arrows impossible distances.
It had left the riders tense and unsure. Often clan encampments would buzz with excitement before battle—the desert craved blood and the riders itched to spill it—but the presence of foreigners and an unknown enemy made the looming war heavier.
The broken Heart still in my pocket did not lighten the weight of apprehension.
Dhara broke the silence among the lords where we were gathered around the central fire. “I’ve been to funeral’s livelier than the camp tonight.”
“The people need rest,” Izumi observed. “The journey back and the coming battle will be trying. They do not need to exhaust themselves with laka and singing.”
“Worrying about the battles to come is not particularly restful,” Keera pointed out beside me. “And it is hard to rest easy when camped next to those you don’t trust.”
“There is not much we can do to make the rider’s trust the men from Doran,” Izumi argued. “We can agree to an alliance, but we can’t force the riders to have faith in their loyalty.”
“The clans did not trust each other at first, but we made it work.” Dhara folded her arms. “A healthy game of kaman let them beat the lingering doubts out of each other.”
“The men from Doran do not play kaman,” Izumi said.
I cocked my head. “No. But perhaps they could learn. I did.” I stood and dusted off my hands on my pants. “If you set a field, Keera and I will invite Warrick and his men.”
Izumi opened her mouth as if to continue to argue, but Badha elbowed her in the side. “Just because you don’t need a distraction doesn’t mean our riders don’t.”
Izumi sighed. “I’ll find the sticks.”
With that, Keera and I set off in the direction of Doran’s camp. “Hopefully I don’t break anybody’s nose again,” she grumbled.
I shrugged, even as I thought back on the last time we had played kaman with Clans Tibel and Otush. Remembering the ferocity with which Keera had played sent my blood rushing down to pool in my cock.
I shook my head—that was not why I had suggested this. “The riders might respect that. It would be good to remind them how brutally you fight before they follow you into battle.”
Some of the tension in Keera’s shoulders faded. “I suppose I don’t have to worry about being queenly this time.”
“You made a beautiful queen, but you’re even more breathtaking out here in the desert, wild and free,” I told her.
A blush darkened her already sunburned cheeks, but her eyes flashed. “We will see if you feel the same when I hit you across the face with my kaman stick.”
Now, my cock twitched in definitive interest, and I had to take slow breaths in through my nose as we worked to locate General Warrick. When we explained to him our proposition, he scrubbed a hand over his chin.
“I do admit, I liked you better after crossing blades with you,” he said to Keera.
She wrinkled her nose. “I would have liked it better if it wasn’t clearly a play to undermine me, even in my victory.”
“Well then let me make it up to you, by giving you a chance to beat me with a wooden stick in front of your people—if you are willing to risk being beaten back.”
Keera’s eyes flashed again and her responding smile was more a baring of teeth. “Bold words from a man who lost our last duel.”
Warrick chuckled, and I commended his bravery. Not many men would laugh in the face of Keera’s fiery gaze. But he simply called for his men and followed us over to the field Dhara and Elion were setting.
“Are you going to explain the rules?” one of Warrick’s men asked as Badha began passing around sticks.
“Don’t lose,” Dhara said with a wicked grin as she approached.
The man’s mouth fell open in shock, but several men around him chuckled. As different as they were, it seemed even warriors from across the mountains shared some sensibilities.
“Simple. I like it,” Warrick observed as he hefted his stick in his hand. It was long enough to reach nearly to his waist when he rested the tip on the ground, but the end was curved in a gentle hook, perfect for scooping the ball away from opponents.
“Should we call teams?” Dhara asked.
“Perhaps our high lords should each call their own team,” Izumi chimed in, her eyes sharp and calculating. I was glad she conspired for us now. All gazes turned to us, and I squared my shoulders.
“Dhara, join my team,” I called.
Keera scrunched her nose at me. I knew she would have wanted the lord on her side, but I was all too happy to deprive her.
To my surprise, she called Izumi over to her side, and it was my turn to frown.
As much as Izumi and I had been rivals through the years, I was accustomed to having her at my back.
I claimed Elion next, and Dhara grunted in displeasure next to me.
“We’re supposed to play against each other,” she hissed as he approached.
Apparently the fact that she slipped into his tent at night when she thought nobody was looking—still holding on to the pretense that others did not know what was between them—hadn’t calmed her prickly nature.
“Maybe it’s time to do things a little differently,” Elion murmured, seemingly unperturbed. “Times have changed, after all.”
I ripped my attention away from their whispered conversation to watch Keera call Aderyn over.
Aderyn frowned. “I’ve never played. And I’m slower than I used to be.”
“Which is still faster than nearly anybody else I know,” Keera shot back.
One by one, we divided up the rest of the assembled warriors, dividing Warrick’s men between the two teams. Warrick himself ended up on my half of the field, with Badha and the new Lord Demir of Clan Padra standing behind Keera.
With the teams set, Keera and I marched to the center of the field, facing each other with squared shoulders.
She raised her chin, and the light of the setting sun behind me flashed in her golden eyes.
These days, we stood shoulder to shoulder in our fight against our shared enemies, but there was something intoxicating about being her opponent—watching her zero in on you like a caracal on her prey with defiance in her expression and a firm set to her jaw.
My own hackles rose, the predator lurking inside me rising to match her own. I had shed the name of the Viper like a snake shedding its skin, but it hadn’t been completely inaccurate. As we crossed sticks and leaned into each other, I froze, every muscle perfectly still as I readied to strike.
Aderyn stood over us, holding the ball above our heads. Keera grinned at me for one long second, and for a fleeting moment, nothing else in the world mattered—not the game of kaman or the war or the Heart—as long as I got to be on the receiving end of that smile.
Then the ball plummeted to the ground between us, and I lashed out. I rammed my shoulder into Keera’s, knocking the angle of her stick aside just enough to sweep the ball through my legs and to Dhara who waited behind me.
Keera wasted no time driving her elbow up under my ribs, pushing me back enough to slip by me.
Warrick jumped into her path, and Dhara charged up toward the net at the far end of the field.
Warrick and Keera locked their sticks together, Keera trying desperately to push past him as he brought his bigger bulk to bear.
I was so distracted by the way Keera reared back, ready to slam her face into Warrick’s with reckless abandon, that I barely noticed Izumi running in from the side.
I lunged in front of her, successfully guarding Dhara, but it was too late. While Izumi distracted me, Badha slipped by me, swiping the ball out of Dhara’s control expertly. Izumi disentangled herself from me just in time to bat it away and run down the field in the opposite direction.
The game raged on, back and forth across the open field until the air was thick with dust and shouts.
While some of the men from Doran had been hesitant at first, they eventually jumped in with fervor, exchanging bruises with clansmen like they were born to it.
As I watched Keera charge after Elion down the field only to be nearly taken to the ground by Dhara, I mused that she had been right.
In the Ballan Desert, nothing bred trust and banished fear quite like the challenge of combat. When bloodshed was not an option—or at least more blood than was spilled by the occasional split lip—kaman seemed the next best alternative.
“Erix!” Warrick shouted, the only warning I was given of the ball now speeding in my direction, swiped away from Aderyn, who had been about to slap it toward the net. I raised my stick, ready to bat the ball toward our own end of the field, when Keera flew between me and it.
I took off after her, but she ran like the wind.
Her hair came free of its braid and tickled my face as I chased her down.
I might have longer legs, but Keera had the free spirit of the desert in her, and it carried her with incredible speed.
The reckless abandon with which she did everything poured down the bond between us, spurring me on.
Ten yards away from the net, I abandoned my stick entirely, giving up on stealing the ball away and intent on just stopping her.