Night Song (The Guild Wars Book 9) by Mark Wandrey (best ereader under 100 .txt) 📕

it worked. Bonus—the spectators could knock a ball flying whichever way they wanted if it passed them. In the few seconds she observed, one spectator grabbed the ball and two players had to fight to get it back while the other team scored. She turned slightly to find Rex, and sure enough his eyes were locked on the moving figures connecting and spinning through the center of the open space. He figured this out the way she’d figured out the conduit.

“I am Makori, the onnogo for today’s Eshtoo.” The large white and brown Zuul gestured behind and above them. Sonya’s translator offered coach and referee for onnogo, and she filed it to ask Isgono. “These are the rules. This match is zero G grappling and scoring, no weapons. The aim is to get your opponent to submit, either by grappling or an overwhelming lead of points. If you lose contact with a wall and cannot get back, you must leave the game for five minutes. Twice, and you are out of the match. If you lose contact, you are an obstacle on the field.” Without looking, he gestured at a brightly colored Zuul whose entire body had become a shield or battering ram for two other Zuuls’ charge.

“You spar for the honor of your homeworld. Do only those things your people there would consider honorable. No maiming. Excessive biting is dishonarable. Any lasting injury you do uneccessarily to others will be done to you.” Makori secured himself and tapped a fist to his chest.

That Sonya could decipher perfectly well. Part of Makori’s role as coach or referee was also to enforce the answering injuries. It didn’t seem entirely sensible to have two hurt mercenaries when you might only have one, but she supposed it prevented careless injuries from happening too often.

“Any other rules in Eshtoo?” Rex asked, impressing Sonya with his restraint. “How many points to win? How many teams and how many on each?”

“The match ends when you submit. Double points for getting the other team’s ball into a lighted inshi, single for your own. Make allies if you can. Until we know your clan, you fight for Earth, and the rest for Zi and Ja, so you are outnumbered.” Makori tilted his head slightly, not quite a baring of the neck. “Make your clan proud.”

Rex’s grin had a lot of teeth in it as he flexed his powerful arm and leg muscles. “You bunch of wankers never seen a fair dinkum rugby scrum.” He flung himself into the melee before the translator finished its last word.

* * *

Drake pushed off a bare second after Rex, though he angled for the nearest tower of crates. Rex, of course, went straight into the heart of it.

He’d never been one for allies, and he’d always been outnumbered. This was nothing new to him at all, except he was facing fellow Zuul for a change.

Out in space, rocketing toward a group fighting over a ball, he could already see the others responding to the Earth pups’ arrival. He smiled. A new player has entered the game. A medium-sized Zuul with some gray on his muzzle and a sneer pushed off another player and wound up for a devastating punch as Drake approached. Drake pulled in his limbs and spun, legs back. There was a slight grunt of surprise as the other Zuul’s punch missed completely, throwing his attacker crazily from the reaction of zero G. Drake completed his roll just as planned; his knees caught the older Zuul in the back of the head, knocking his opponent silly.

* * *

Rex and his four siblings entering the game swelled the number to at least 30. Sonya seemed to have a basic idea of what was going on, maybe better than he did. She tended to think tactically, while he thought one-on-one. He knew their sudden jump into the game had caught all the others off guard, at least momentarily.

Rex suspected the game was more like rugby, an excuse to drink and beat the shit out of each other. The way one of them immediately had a go at Drake confirmed it. As soon as he saw a ball, Rex used a random Zuul’s head as a springboard and redirected his flight toward it. He caught the ball with his finger claws, and as soon as he pulled it in, someone caught him with an elbow to the ribs.

He grunted, both with the pain and appreciation. “Not bad, mate,” he said, and slammed an elbow behind the unknown opponent’s ear. He bounced off a spectator, who tried to steal the ball.

Rex was nice and only rung the bloke’s ears with a strong slap before rocketing away from the wall. The pattern of lights was random; however, it did follow a sort of predictability. They never lit the next one closest to it. So he picked a point and shot toward it, hoping one of the nooks would light before he got creamed. A foot hit him in the side of the head, proving him wrong, and the ball spun away.

Rex collided with a wall, which he grabbed hold of to avoid drifting away. He didn’t want to get caught freefalling in the center, as that looked to be a bad thing. It only took a second to spot the Zuul who’d hit him, a nearly silver female who was eyeing him, curious what his reaction would be.

“Good hit,” he said in Zuul. She nodded before going back to the game.

* * *

Ripley angled perfectly to intercept a pass, catching the ball and rolling around it to protect her steal. She snapped into a full stretch, grabbing another player to bleed off the change in momentum, and grinned in his face before she spun off toward the wall.

She hadn’t been in her element in the obstacle run on the way to the hangar bay gym,