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

but here…Ripley preferred flying, the thrum of engines and the interplay of a ship’s many systems coming together to defeat gravity, but she could learn to love zero G. She slammed the ball across an encroaching Zuul’s face, a howl building in her chest, then twisted as three more converged on her position.

She didn’t have to look to know where Sonya was, and hurled the ball to her sister with enough force to get herself out of the way of her incoming attackers.

* * *

Sonya snapped her jaws and snagged the pass from Ripley, keeping her motion in one direction to rebound the ball onward to Rex.

Too late, she realized Rex was in the crosshairs of two females—both aiming for him before the ball was in play, and both looking incredibly pleased to have him in their reach—so she pushed back off the wall with one foot and a slight twist, angling herself back into his path.

Neither of the females paid any attention to her, but Rex got the ball ricocheting before the other Zuul made contact, and Sonya cocked her head a moment, considering helping her brother.

No, she decided, jaw dropping slightly. Let him enjoy fighting his way out. With barely a flick of an ear, she flipped and released the ball halfway through, directly for Drake. She caught sight of Shadow, still hooked on the ground by the entrance, his attention on the nook lights.

The distraction cost her—at least three arms snagged on her various limbs, and she forgot about Shadow as she twisted around the closest, smallest Zuul. Using him as leverage, she kicked them both off from a larger female, while the third attacker hung on.

The small Zuul yelped and bit her leg, and Sonya kicked him, too, catching his sensitive muzzle just as a ball slammed into his midsection.

“You’re welcome!” Drake called, and Sonya laughed, firing the ball back to Rex again as her remaining attacker tried to get her in a headlock.

“Do or do not,” she said mockingly, even knowing none of the Zuul around her would understand.

* * *

They’ve figured us out, Rex thought as he caught the ball again. He had to fight off a pair of females almost instantly, barely hanging on to the ball and getting a nasty punch in the ribs for his efforts. One of the females was sent sailing away, while the other hung onto her handhold as he jumped clear, but she’d earned a fistful of his tail fur as a prize. That’s bloody dirty pool.

It only took another second as he soared across the space to realize he wasn’t going to be allowed to score. They were all over him. Drake, Sonya, and Ripley were being watched closely. All except…Shadow. He was against one side, eyes closed in concentration. If you looked at him, you’d think he was cringing in fear. Rex knew better; Shadow had no fear. That was actually one of the things that worried them most about their brother. His actions often bordered on the death-defying.

No, he wasn’t hiding or fearful, he was analyzing. Rex was almost halfway across when Shadow’s eyes snapped open, and his muzzle pulled into a grin. Bloody mutt figured it out! Shadow looked right at Rex and winked. Yup.

Rex analyzed his flightpath. There were no fewer than five Zuul after him, from every other team—if there were teams, really. None were near Shadow; they were completely ignoring him. However, if he threw the ball to him, they’d intercept it. He had to pay a toll.

The big conduit that ran through the middle of the chamber was less than a meter away. At the last possible second, he hooked an arm out. The impact was jarringly hard. As he flexed his bicep as much as he could, he looped around the conduit, changing his course radically. When he released, his speed increased, and he was now rocketing toward Shadow.

“Get him!” someone yelled.

Rex could see two more rebound toward him. Too late, he thought, and threw the ball. The interceptors hit him with bone-crushing force. He heard an arm bone snap, and yelped in pain.

* * *

There are patterns in all things, Shadow thought as he clung to the container. The others ignored him, thinking he was too afraid or timid to play. Fools. Shadow watched the game for a minute, making sure he understood, and his siblings were going to be okay. He’d help them if he thought they needed it. Scoring appeared to be almost as important as fighting, and since most of the others didn’t seem too interested in scoring, he decided to concentrate on that.

The flashing pattern of the nook lights was the trick, and the reason he had yet to see a score. He let his eyes unfocus and watched. Yes, there is a pattern. After he’d watched long enough, he closed his eyes and ran the combinations. His brothers and sisters desperately wanted pinplants. Shadow didn’t care; he didn’t need them. All things were possible with an orderly mind.

Then he had it. The pattern used an algorithm, which he’d found. Easy, once he realized its initiating sequence. His eyes snapped open and instantly lit on Rex, who was rocketing toward him, seconds from a catastrophic collision with two opposing players. The look on his stronger brother’s face was questioning. Shadow nodded, and Rex immediately threw the ball to him just before he was clobbered.

In the second before the ball reached him, Shadow ran the algorithm, spotted the point in the lights’ sequence, and calculated the next spot. Eyes followed the ball’s path, and opposing players realized it was going to Shadow, the new player everyone had ignored.

Shadow didn’t jump out to meet it, didn’t look around for the next person to pass to. He simply smiled as it came to him, turned to the right, and stuffed it into