Treasures of Fantasy - Margaret Weis [119]
Though he was facing his foes in a game, not in a shield wall, Skylan was surprised to feel a pulsing of excitement as he put on his helm, buckled on his breastplate, and took his place in line with his comrades, standing directly behind Keeper, who, as captain, walked in front.
The Barbarians were at the back of the parade, the very end, the last to march. The preeminent team this year belonged to the Empress. Her players were dressed in rich panoply with feathers in their helms. Their bronze skin glistened with oil. Their long black hair was plaited and braided. They wore gold armbands and specially tooled boots. They had their own drummer and trumpeter, their own colorful standards. Their captain rode in a chariot festooned with the team colors, and as they set out along the parade route, the crowd went wild. Men called out well wishes and shouted for their favorites. Women blew kisses and tossed flowers. Children ran after them, hoping for candy, which slaves of the Empress were tossing to the crowd.
The rest of the teams moved out. Skylan and his team waited, growing hot and weary in the bright sunshine. Keeper had warned him that few people stayed to the end of the parade to see the “unblooded” teams.
“Those who do will be wondering how much money to risk on us,” the ogre predicted. “Or they will stay to laugh.”
The crowds had thinned by the time the Barbarians started along the parade route. People watched quietly, not cheering. But no one was laughing either.
Skylan and the Torgun walked on proudly because they were a proud people. He could hear the ring of their armor, the thud of their feet, and the ogre’s grunt of astonishment.
“Look at them, Skylan,” said Keeper in a low voice. “They are slaves.”
The slaves of Sinaria—slaves to masters or slaves to poverty—remembered the strange foreign slaves who had valiantly hauled their broken ship through the streets of their captors with a song of defiance on their lips. The other teams had slaves on them, but these were slaves who wore golden armbands and smelled of fragrant oils; their children were fat. The slaves who waited for Skylan and the Torgun were thin and gaunt, with the pinch of hunger in their cheeks. Their children played in the gutters with the rats and died of starvation.
These slaves dare not cheer. Their masters might be watching. Perhaps they were not even supposed to be here and would face a beating when they went back to their duties. The city guards, standing on the corners to keep the crowd in order, were keeping a baleful eye on the gathering, always on the watch for signs of rebellion, always quick to put it down.
One man began to clap his hands. Others followed his lead. Skylan heard the applause and he thought of their last practice session, which had been a fiasco. His face burned. He began to wish he’d paid more attention to Keeper’s attempts at training them. Perhaps, as Zahakis had said, Skylan couldn’t stand to be beaten at anything. Or perhaps, looking at the pot-bellied, scrawny children, he didn’t want to let these people down.
“We are going to make fools of ourselves,” Keeper muttered, echoing Skylan’s thoughts.
“Maybe not,” Skylan said.
Keeper snorted. “Are you joking? Sigurd can’t count. He’s always moving too many squares. Grimuir keeps facing the wrong direction, and yesterday young Farinn tripped over his own feet and cracked his head on a boulder.”
Skylan had to admit the ogre was right, but his warriors were failures because they hadn’t taken the game seriously. He could see by grave expressions on the faces of his men that they were taking it seriously now.
“How do you think we will do this day?”
Keeper gave a grunt and rolled his eyes. “With luck, no one will get killed. With luck.” He laid gloomy emphasis on the word.
The champions