Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Chapter 11

The men, all without shirts, marched in single file out from the middle of a thick knot of grim guards, all with arrows at the ready. Each man in the column making his way toward the center of the field was painted with strange red symbols. The lines, whorls, circles, and arcs covered their faces, chests, shoulders, and arms.

They looked like they had been marked in blood by the Keeper of the underworld himself.

Kahlan noticed that the man at the lead had designs drawn on him that, while similar, were slightly different. In addition, he alone had twin lightning bolts on his face. Starting from the temple on each side, in a mirror image of each other, the top part of each bolt zigzagged over the eyebrow, the center lobe of each lightning bolt passing over the eyelid, with the bottom of the zigzag slashing over the cheekbones, finally terminating in a point at the hollow of each cheek.

Kahlan found the effect viscerally frightening.

Glaring out from the raptor gaze at the center of those twin lightning bolts were penetrating gray eyes.

It was hard to make out what the man looked like beneath the distraction of lines. The strange symbols, and especially the lightning bolts, confused the features beneath. Kahlan suddenly realized that he had found a way to hide his identity without the mud. She didn’t let so much as a smile slip onto her features. While relieved, at the same time she wished that she could see his face, really see it, see what he looked like.

He was not as big as some of the other hulking players, but he was still a big man—tall and muscular, but not muscled the way some of the thick, heavy, bull-like men were muscled. This man was built in a way that was all the right proportions.

As she stared at him, Kahlan suddenly feared that everyone might see her transfixed by the man. She could feel her face flushing.

Still, she stared. She couldn’t seem to help herself. This was the first time she’d really gotten a good look at the man. He looked exactly the way she somehow knew he would. Or maybe it was that he looked just the way she dreamed he would. The cold first day of winter suddenly felt warm to her.

She wondered who this man was to her. She made herself rein in her imagination. She dared not daydream about things that she knew could never be.

While the other point man laughed, the man with the gray eyes waited before the referee, his cutting gaze fixed on his counterpart.

She had known the instant she’d seen the painted designs that it would be viewed by these soldiers as empty bravado. The painted designs were the sort of visual statement that, if not backed up by a man of the right nature, would in such circumstances be the worst kind of presumption, the kind of provocation that would bring him brutal, if not lethal, treatment.

Hiding his face was one thing, but this was altogether something else. He was putting himself and his team at great risk by making such a proclamation in paint. It almost seemed that the lightning bolts were meant to insure that no one could miss that he was the point man, as if he meant to direct the other team’s focus and attention to him. She couldn’t imagine why he would do such a thing.

Following their point man’s lead, the team that wasn’t painted had all started laughing. The crowd, too, had joined in, laughing, hooting, and calling the painted men, and in particular the point man with the lightning bolts, names.

Kahlan knew without a doubt that there was no more dangerous mistake to be made than to laugh at this man.

The painted team stood as still as stone, waiting while the crowd went into a riot of laughter and mockery. The other team shouted insults and taunts. Some of the women camp followers threw small things—chicken bones, rotten food, and even dirt when nothing else could be found.

The players on the other team called the man with lightning bolts the kind of names that caused Kahlan to absently cover Jillian’s ear with a hand, pressing her head to Kahlan’s chest. She wrapped her cloak around Jillian. She didn’t know what was going to happen, but she knew for sure that this game was not going to be a place for a girl.

The point man with the twin lightning bolts stood with an expressionless look that showed nothing of what he might be feeling. It reminded Kahlan of herself when she put on a blank expression when facing certain kinds of terrible challenges, a blank look that betrayed nothing of what was building inside her.

And yet, in this man’s calm demeanor Kahlan saw coiled fury.

He never looked her way—his gaze was fixed on his counterpart—but just seeing him standing there, seeing all of him, seeing his face, even though it was covered in painted lines, seeing the way he held himself, seeing him at length without having to quickly look away . . . made Kahlan’s knees weak.

Commander Karg nudged his way in through the wall of guards to join Emperor Jagang at the side of the field. He folded his muscled arms, apparently not at all concerned about the uproar his team was causing. Kahlan noticed that Jagang was not laughing along with everyone else. He didn’t even smile. The commander and the emperor tipped their heads close together and spoke in words Kahlan couldn’t hear over the jeering, laughing, and vulgar insults being shouted by the crowd.

As Jagang and Commander Karg spoke at length, the other team took to dancing around the field, arms raised, the recipients of the mob’s esteem even though they had yet to score a point. They had become heroes without having done anything.

These soldiers, devoted to dogmatic beliefs, were motivated by hate. They saw any individual’s quiet confidence as arrogance, his competence as unjust, and such inequity as oppression. Kahlan recalled Jagang’s words: “The Fellowship of Order teaches us that to be better than someone is to be worse than everyone.”

The men watching believed in that creed and so they hated men for appearing to proclaim with paint that they were better. At the same time, they were there to see a team triumph, to see men best other men. It was unavoidable that beliefs as irrational as those taught by the Fellowship of Order would produce endless tangles of contradictions, desires, and emotions. Shortcomings made evident by even the most basic common sense were plastered over with a liberal application of faith. Anyone who questioned matters of faith was held to be a sinner.

These men were here in the New World to eliminate sinners.

Order was finally restored by the referee calling for the crowd to settle down so that the game could start. As the spectators quieted, to a degree at least, the man with the gray eyes gestured to the referee’s fistful of straws, inviting his opponent to draw first. The man drew a straw, smiling at his choice when it came out looking like it surely had to be a winning length.

The man with the gray eyes drew a straw that was longer.

As the crowd hooted their disapproval, the referee gave the broc to the point man with the painted face.

Instead of going to his side of the field to start his charge, he waited a moment until the crowd quieted a little and then graciously handed the broc to the other point man, forfeiting the first turn at an attempt to score. The crowd erupted in wild laughter at such an unexpected turn of events. They clearly thought the painted point man was a fool who had just handed victory to the other team. They cheered as if their team had just been victorious.

None of the painted team showed any reaction to what their point man had just done. Instead, they moved off in a businesslike manner, taking up their places on the left side of the field, ready to defend against the first attack.

When the hourglass was turned over and the horn blew, the attacking team wasted no time. Eager to score quickly, their charge was instantaneous. They all yelled battle cries as they rushed across the field. The painted team raced toward the center of the field to meet the charge. The roar from the crowd was deafening.

Kahlan’s muscles tensed in anticipation of a terrible collision of flesh and bone.

It didn’t happen the way she expected.

The painted team—the red team as the guards had already taken to calling them—deviated in their direction of charge, splitting in two and pouring to either side around the advance blockers, going instead for the rear guard. Such an unexpected and amateurish mistake was a stroke of luck for the team trying to score. Following his blockers and wing men, the point man with the broc went through the gap the red team had left open, racing straight up the field.

In an instant both wings of the red team pivoted and the opening snapped closed like great jaws, tumbling the charging blockers inward. The painted point man charged right up the middle—toward the center blockers coining for him. Just as they were about to tackle him, he sidestepped one man and whirled around, slipping between two others.

Kahlan blinked in disbelief at what she had just seen. It looked as if he had squirted like a melon seed right through half a dozen men converging on him.

One of the bigger men on the red team, likely one of the wing men, went for the charging point man with the broc. Just before reaching him, though, he dove at him too soon, so that his diving block was too low. The man with the broc jumped right over him. The crowd cheered at how deftly their man had just evaded a tackle.

But the man with the twin lightning bolts also made a flying leap over his downed wing man, using his back like a step to launch himself. He met the other point man in midflight, hooking him with an arm and upending him in midair. The reversal of direction was forceful enough to dislodge the broc. As he came crashing to the ground the man with the gray eyes caught the loose broc while it was still in the air. His foot came down on the back of the fallen point man’s head, driving his face into the mud.

Kahlan knew without a doubt that he could have easily broken the man’s neck, but he had deliberately avoided doing so.

Blockers from every direction dove for the painted man who now had their broc. He pivoted, changing direction. They landed where he had been but he was already gone. They crashed down instead atop their own point man.

The red team now had possession of the broc. Even though they couldn’t score until it was their turn, they could keep the other team from scoring. For some reason, though, the man with the gray eyes charged across the field, flanked by his two wing men and half his blockers. They were formed into a perfect wedge as they crossed the field. When the painted men reached the scoring area on the opposite side of the field, the point man heaved the broc into one of the nets—even though it was not their turn and the point would not count.

He followed the broc, recovered it from the net, and then, rather than keeping possession in an effort to deny the other team an opportunity to score, he trotted back up the field and with an easy underarm throw tossed the broc back to the point man still on his knees spitting out mud.

The crowd gasped in confused astonishment.

What Kahlan had just seen confirmed what she had believed from the first moment she’d looked into the man’s raptor gaze—this was the most dangerous man alive. More dangerous than Jagang, dangerous in a different way, but more dangerous than Jagang. More dangerous than anyone.

This was a man too dangerous to be allowed to live. Once Jagang realized what she already knew—if he didn’t already know it—he might very well decide to have this man put to death.

The team with first turn took the broc back to their starting point on the right and, in a fury to redeem themselves and score a point that would count, charged across the field. Surprisingly, the red team waited rather than running to stop the advance as far away from their goal as possible. A mistake, it would seem, but Kahlan didn’t think so.

When the attackers reached the red team they threw themselves into the defenders. The red team abruptly bolted in every direction, evading the overconfident blockers. As they ran, the red team came around and their own blockers formed into a crescent formation. As they raced across the field they scythed down the opposing wing men and blockers, as well as the point man. The big painted wing man stripped the broc from him, then tossed it as high as he could into the air. The man with the lightning bolts, who had already dodged, darted, and threaded his way through the line of charging men, came through at a dead run and caught the broc before it hit the ground.

By himself he had outrun all the men of the other team chasing him. When he reached the opposite end of the field he heaved the broc into the net in the corner opposite to the one he’d thrown it into the first time. The blockers dove for him but he effortlessly sidestepped and they crashed to the ground in a heap beside him. He trotted to the net and retrieved the broc.

“Who is that man?” Jagang asked in a low voice.

Kahlan knew that Jagang meant the point man with the lightning bolts painted on his face, the man with the gray eyes.

“His name is Ruben,” Commander Karg said.

It was a lie.

Kahlan knew that wasn’t the man’s name. She didn’t have any idea what his name really was, but it was not Ruben. Ruben was a disguise, just like the mud had been, just like the red paint was now. Ruben was not his real name.

She suddenly wondered what made her think such a thing.

She knew from the way he’d looked at her that first time their eyes had met the day before that he knew her. That meant that he probably had to be someone from her past. She didn’t remember him, and she didn’t know his real name, but she knew it was not Ruben. The name just didn’t fit him.

The horn blew, marking the end of the first play. The hourglass was turned over and the horn blew again. The red team was already down at their end of the field, back beyond their starting point. They didn’t bother to give themselves the advantage of getting up to the sections of the grid where they were allowed to start their attack.

Instead, the man Commander Karg had said was named Ruben, already in possession of the broc, gave a slight hand signal to his men. Kahlan’s brow twitched as she watched carefully. She had never seen a point man use such hand signals.

Men playing Ja’La usually seemed to function as a loosely coordinated mob, carrying out the designated job of their position—blockers, or wing men, or guards, as seemed fitting to each man in each circumstance that came up. The prevailing wisdom was that only if each man acted as he saw fit could the team expect to deal with the unexpected variations that came about during play. They were, in a way, each reacting to what fate dealt them.

Ruben’s team was different. At the completion of the signal, they pivoted and in a coordinated fashion charged ahead of him in formation. They were not acting as a loosely coordinated mob; they were behaving like a well-disciplined army going into a battle.

The men of the other team, by now enraged, each man driven by the desire for revenge, rushed to intercept the team with the broc. Crossing midfield, the red team turned as one, going for the net to their right. The defending team all went for them like bears on a tear. Their blockers knew that their job was to block, and they meant to stop the advancing red team before they could reach the scoring zone.

But Ruben didn’t follow his men. He broke left at the last moment. All by himself, without even his wing men for protection, he alone went diagonally the other way across the field, heading for the net to the left. The bulk of the two teams collided in a great heap, some of the defenders not even aware that the man they were after wasn’t under the pile.

Only one guard had been lagging back, saw what Ruben was doing, and was able to turn in time to block. Ruben lowered a shoulder and caught the guard square in the chest, knocking the wind from him and sending him sprawling. Without pause as he reached the scoring area of the field, Ruben heaved the broc into the net.

The red team sprinted back to their side of the field, forming up for a second attack while they still had time left. As they waited for the referee trotting with the broc across the field, they all looked to their panting leader for his hand signal. It was quick and simple, a sign that, to Kahlan, didn’t look like it meant anything. When the referee tossed Ruben the broc he immediately broke into a dead run. His team was ready and sprang out ahead to fan out in a short, tight line before him.

When the angry, disorderly cluster of men of the other team were almost upon them, the red team pivoted left, scooping up the blocking charge, deflecting its momentum left. Ruben, not far behind his line of men, broke right and raced alone across open ground. Before any of the blockers could reach him, he yelled with the effort of heaving the broc from way behind the regular scoring zone. It was exceedingly difficult to make a shot from that far back. Thrown from there, a shot that went in was worth two points rather than one.

The broc arced through the air over the heads of net guards jumping wildly for it. Confused by the strange single-line charge, they hadn’t expected such a long-shot attempt to score and hadn’t been ready for it. The broc just made it into the net.

The horn blew, signifying the end of the red team’s scoring period. The crowd stood stunned, mouths hanging agape. In their first turn at play, the red team had scored three points—not to mention the two points Ruben had made that didn’t count.

A hush fell over the field as the other team huddled in a confidential discussion of what to do about the sudden turn of events. Their point man made what appeared to be an angry proposal. All his men, grinning at what he suggested, nodded and then broke up to begin their turn with the broc.

Seeing that they had obviously cooked up a plan the crowd again started cheering encouragement. Over the cheers, the point man growled orders to his men. Two of his guards nodded at words Kahlan couldn’t hear.

At his yell, they charged across the field, gathering into a tight knot of muscle and fury. Rather than going for the scoring zone, the point man abruptly hooked right, leading the charge oddly off course. Ruben and his defenders shifted to meet the charge but weren’t able to bring their full weight to bear in time. It was a brutal impact. The strike had deliberately targeted Ruben’s left wing man to the exclusion of all the other men, abandoning even the show of an attempt to score in favor of doing damage to one man in order to harm the red team’s ability to play effectively.

As the crowd cheered in anticipation of first blood, the pile of men got up one at a time. Players painted red yanked their opponents back out of the way, trying to reach the men at the bottom of the heap. The left wing man for the red team was the only man who did not get up.

As the team with the broc ran back to form up another charge, Ruben knelt beside the downed man, checking on him. It was obvious by his lack of urgency that there was nothing to be done. His left wing man was dead. The crowd cheered as the fallen player was dragged away, leaving a thick trail of blood across the field.

Ruben’s raptor gaze swept the sidelines. Kahlan recognized the appraisal. She could almost feel what he was thinking because she had also appraised opposition and weighed odds. The guards with arrows put tension to their bows as Ruben rose up.

“What’s going on?” Jillian whispered as she peeked out from under Kahlan’s cloak. “I can’t see past all of Jagang’s guards.”

“A man was hurt,” Kahlan said. “Just stay warm, there’s nothing worth seeing.”

Jillian nodded and remained huddled under Kahlan’s protective arm and the warmth of her cloak.

The play of Ja’La was not halted for anything, even a death on the field. Kahlan felt great sadness that the death of a man was all part of the game, and cheered by the spectators.

The men with bows stationed around the field, watching over the captives who played on the red team, all seemed to be pointing their nocked arrows toward one man. She and the man with the lightning bolts painted on his face had something in common: they each had their own special guards.

As the crowd chanted for play, Kahlan felt an odd, tense, foreboding in the air.

The broc was returned to the team with time left in their turn at play. As they formed up, she knew that the moment had passed.

Kahlan saw a grim Ruben give his men a stealthy signal. Each of his men returned a slight nod. Then, just enough for them to catch his meaning, Ruben stealthily showed them three fingers. The men immediately assembled up into an odd formation.

They waited briefly as the other team started across the field at a dead run, yelling battle cries inspired by their brutal accomplishment. They believed they now had a tactical advantage that gave them the upper hand. They were confident that they could now dictate the course of the game.

As the team with the broc charged across the field, the red team broke into three separate wedges. Ruben led the smaller center wedge, heading for the point man with the broc. His two wing men—his big right wing man and the newly designated left wing man—led the majority of the blockers in the two side wedges. Some of the men on the team with the broc shifted to each side as they charged ahead to block the odd outrigger formation should they try to turn in toward their point man.

The strange defensive tactic drew scorn from Jagang’s guards. From the comments Kahlan could hear they were convinced that the red team, by splitting up into three groups, would not have the weight of enough blockers left in the center to stop the point man with the broc, much less handle all the men coming at them. The guards thought that such an ineffective defense would give the aggressors an easy score and probably cost the life of another member of the red team in the center group—very possibly the point man himself, since he was now virtually unprotected.

The two outer red-team wedges cut through the sides of the charge, not blocking in the expected manner. The legs of men on the attacking team flipped up through the air as men were violently upended. Ruben’s center wedge smashed into the main group of blockers defending the point man with the broc. He tucked the broc tightly against his stomach and, following behind some of his guards, leaped over the tumbling tangle of men.

Ruben, at the rear of the center wedge, running at full speed, deftly evaded the onrushing line of guards and sprang over the pileup of his blockers. As he jumped, he pushed off with one foot, twisting as he leaped off from the ground so that he spiraled through the air. In midair, as they came together, Ruben hooked his right arm around the other point man’s head as if to tackle him, but the momentum of his spin suddenly and violently twisted the man’s head around.

Kahlan could hear the sound of the pop as the point man’s neck broke. They both crashed to the ground, Ruben on top, his arm still around the other man’s neck.

When men from both teams scrambled to their feet, two men from the attacking team were down, one on each side of the field. Both men rolled in pain with broken limbs.

Ruben rose up over the point man lying dead in the center of the field. The man’s head lay twisted back at a gruesome angle.

Ruben scooped the loose broc up off the ground, trotted through the stunned, confused players, and threw a point that didn’t count.

The meaning of what he’d just done was clear: if another team played specifically to harm anyone on his team, then he would retaliate with a withering response. He was giving notice that by their own actions they were choosing for themselves what would happen to them.

Kahlan now knew without doubt that Ruben’s red paint was no hollow display. The men on the other team lived only by his grace.

Surrounded by nearly uncountable captors, with dozens of arrows pointed at him, this one man had just laid down his own laws, laws that could not be avoided or dismissed. He had just told his opponents how they would play against him and his team. It was a clear message that, by their own actions, Ruben’s opponents chose their own fate.

Kahlan had to school her features and keep herself from smiling, from shouting with joy at what he had just accomplished—from being the only one in the crowd to cheer this one man.

She wished he would look at her, but he never did.

With their point man dead and two other players now out of play—the ones primarily responsible for what could only be described as the murder of the red team’s left wing man—it looked like the favored team was on the verge of an unprecedented loss.

Kahlan wondered just how many points the red team was going to win by. She expected it was going to be a rout.

Just then, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the messenger rushing up, waving an arm to get the emperor’s attention as he shoved his way through the big guards.

“Excellency,” the excited man said in a breathless voice, “the men have gotten in. The Sisters there at the site asked for you to come at once.”

Jagang asked no questions and wasted no time. As the play on the field resumed he started away. Kahlan glanced back just in time to see Ruben tackle the new opposing point man hard enough to rattle his teeth. All of the big guards swarmed around the emperor, opening a clear pathway before him. Kahlan knew better than to draw his attention by not following close behind.

“We’re leaving,” she said to Jillian, still huddling for warmth under Kahlan’s cloak.

Holding hands so that they wouldn’t become separated, they turned to follow Jagang. Kahlan looked back over her shoulder.

For a brief moment, their eyes met. In that fleeting instant, Kahlan realized that even though he hadn’t looked her way once throughout the game, he had known exactly where she had been the entire time.