They never got near to the center, where one dasher threw it desperately to a guard before being buried in a tackle, and that guard, with nowhere to run, the opposite black line looming before him, just kicked the sphere as far as he could toward the Biancorso goal.
Back and forth it went, the crowd cheering and gasping, roaring at wild brawls that erupted mostly in between the black lines at center rink. There was blood, lots of blood, and grunts of pain. The frenzy and fury of the melee wracked Catti-brie and the others, even Jarlaxle, who had grown up in Menzoberranzan.
The discordant reality of the sheer violence of these people who sang such mellifluous songs, whose intricate and beautiful art was shown on every wall, every bridge, every pole in Scellobel (and probably the other boroughs), who wore such colorful and creative outfits and danced with joy, and spoke of love and friendship, staggered the woman.
This was the fight in the wine barrel multiplied many times over.
Vessi captured the first points, slipping past a Tivatrice defending warrior with a clever sliding maneuver that had him dropping to his knees below the warrior’s attempted grab, then coming up beyond him and sprinting far ahead to catch a powerful flying kick of the ball from the orc Azzudonna had conferred with at the beginning of the battle.
With no one else near him, Vessi easily outran the Tivatrice warrior and got alone to the window goal, where he dropped the ball down right before the hole and kicked it hard. He pulled it out from the window, gaining three points for Biancorso.
The match never got closer than that. As Catti-brie at last managed to look past the violence, she began to understand the flow of the battle, the quiet tactics playing out away from the ball. The violence and the fury ebbed as time wore on, with several, mostly Tivatrice, carried off the rink, and simple exhaustion turning many of the center-rink brawls into melting grapples.
Biancorso was clearly superior here, faster and stronger and more practiced in the scheme executions, and when the battle ended, they were declared winners with thirteen points to Tivatrice’s two.
“As expected,” Ilina told the three. “The gardeners have not won a battle in three years, since the four orc brothers all decided that it was time for them to leave cazzcalci behind. This is a young person’s war, after all, and orcs do not live so long. An aevendrow soldier might fight for forty years, but for an orc twenty would be a long, long time of such service. Now, come, I will show you to the banquet. You should eat before the next match.”
Beyond the grandstands on every side, long tables heaped with food and drink had been set out. There were even outhouses, far back from the food, fashioned of ice and with deep holes bored into the glacial mountain.
“Cazzcalci is the joy of Twilight Autunn, and the sunset of Quista Canzay is our most solemn moment of reflection, a reminder of the good we have in the midst of harshness,” Ilina explained as they made their way. “For two millennia, the aevendrow have lived here beside the blessing of the hot River Callidae. We remember the strife of the times before that, the wandering, the hopelessness, the grief. This day, this war of cazzcalci reminds us that our peace is earned by vigilance and by sacrifice, and that we must all be ever ready to do whatever is asked of us to preserve that which we have built. There is no aevendrow, kurit, orok, or Ulutiun of Callidae who would not die to save the city, or even to save another borough. When Qadeej breathed upon Cattisola, more people of the other four boroughs died trying to save the Cattisolans than Cattisolans themselves! For that, we are all proud, and we are all one.”
“Until you beat each other senseless in cazzcalci,” Entreri remarked.
“The pain is temporary, the glory eternal,” Ilina answered. “When the brothers Nurgu, the four orcs I spoke of, visit Scellobel or any of the boroughs, they are hailed as heroes, and will be spoken of as such until long after they are dead.”
“Zaknafein would be a hero here,” Jarlaxle said. “And if Drizzt ever finds his way to the rink of cazzcalci, with all that he has learned from Grandmaster Kane, he will dominate the ice, I don’t doubt.”
Ilina didn’t know all those details, of course, but she stiffened at the remarks. “Do not underestimate us,” she warned. “The armies you see in battle before you train for this fight throughout the year, every day, and think of these battles every waking moment and in their very dreams.”
Jarlaxle bowed to her. “I meant no offense, good lady,” he said.
“None taken. Let us all pray that Zaknafein recovers from the phage and so can try to earn his way to fight for Biancorso next cazzcalci.”
Ilina said it clearly and powerfully, but she glanced at Catti-brie as she did, and the priestess of Mielikki noted her slight grimace.
Again, Catti-brie had to remind herself not to tell Entreri and Jarlaxle. Not now. Let them enjoy the day.
“The next battle will be one of finesse against true power, Guardreale against Boscaille,” Ilina told them as they made their way back to the grandstands after a fine meal. “Many think Guardreale will win, and that is my hope. They may be too fast for the timber folk.”
“So they are better, but you wish them to be victorious?” Jarlaxle asked.
“Biancorso’s warriors are fast enough to defeat Guardreale, I think. You witnessed Azzudonna in the first moments of the fight! Boscaille is stronger, across all three lines. They are lumberjacks and swing heavy axes all the day long, and so, too, swing heavy fists in cazzcalci. Biancorso is better suited to beat Guardreale, I think. That is how we won last year, and the teams have changed little.”
When they got back to their seats, they found that the blood had been cleaned and the lines and window trimmings repainted, now in the colors purple and forest green.
The second match began exactly as the first had, with a burst of pressure from some mechanism below the rink throwing the sphere high into the air. The battle played out along the lines Ilina had predicted, except that Boscaille prevailed, the decision coming down to a last charge where a Guardreale kurit dasher leaped for the window, thinking to go right in with the ball. But at the very last moment, a Boscaille warrior hit him broadside, deflecting him enough off target that, while he still managed to get the ball into the window, he didn’t follow, cracking his chest and skull against the side rim and bouncing hard to the ice.
That same warrior kept enough presence of mind and situation to reach into the window and pull forth the gah, stopping it from going in deep enough to catch the slide, preventing a tie.
Catti-brie found herself breathless as fifteen thousand Mona Chess onlookers groaned as one, and six thousand B’shett fans roared in victory.
Ilina informed the friends that it was late afternoon when an exhausted and dispirited Guardreale lost to Tivatrice in the consolation battle. She and Emilian took the companions back to the banquet for dinner, and when they returned, they found a most unexpected surprise awaiting them.
Their hosts had brought Zaknafein out to witness the final battle, bearing him on a litter, which they had set beside the long bench seat reserved for the visitors to Callidae. The joy the three felt at the sight didn’t hold, however, for Zak couldn’t even respond to them with anything more than an eye blink and a half-hearted raise of his still-drow right arm. The left side of his torso and his right leg seemed almost twice their normal size, and much of his skin shone with a burning red hue.
“We knew he would not find the strength to sit through all the battles in this long day,” Ilina whispered to the three a few moments later. “But we wanted him to see this last battle, to share this with you, at least, under the magic of Twilight Autunn. And it is magic. You will see.”
But Catti-brie had a hard time accepting such claims with her friend so clearly dying.
Chapter 20
Sunset for Zaknafein
Catti-brie couldn’t take her eyes off of Zaknafein. His breathing was labored, likely from the weight of the swelling on his chest. Ilina had quietly assured her that he wouldn’t die this night. Th
e chaos phage was accelerating now, as it had taken more than half of his physical body, and the aevendrow had seen this before and so could now, they believed, accurately track the demise. Ilina hadn’t admitted it openly, but Catti-brie thought that he would certainly expire the next day.
The magic wouldn’t be back by then. Catti-brie couldn’t help him. That was the worst part of all, the helplessness.
Jarlaxle sat between her and Zak’s litter, holding his oldest friend’s hand, often tenderly stroking the back of Zak’s hand. This was tearing him apart, Catti-brie could see. All of the companions had watched friends die in battle, suddenly, brutally, but in an unsubtle way. This withering was worse.
She was so focused on Zak that it took her a moment to realize that the Grande Coliseum had gone perfectly silent around her. She turned to Ilina to ask about it, but the priestess put a finger over pursed lips to silence her, then pointed to the sky.
Catti-brie looked up.
It was a long while before she looked back down.
The last couple of days had been low daylight, the circling sun barely below the horizon locking the land in perpetual twilight. Now, for the first time since Catti-brie and her companions had arrived here—and for the first time in half a year, if her guess was correct—the sky above deepened in darkness, a true fall of night. The stars seemed as soft lights gaining in intensity, igniting a million tiny fires in the black void about them. The “distant celestial smoke,” as they called it in Icewind Dale, came clearly into view—as clearly as anything she had seen atop Kelvin’s Cairn, like a double streak of parallel clouds running across a section of the sky.
The waning half-moon hung low, a backward D, its pale-hearted light turning the Grande Coliseum a bluer white, much like the uniforms of Biancorso.
She took a deep breath, relieved to see the night sky again, and yes, thinking it magical as Ilina had told her.
“It is beautiful,” she whispered to the woman beside her.
“Wait,” she replied. “It has only just begun.”
Catti-brie wasn’t sure what she might be talking about, but before she could ask for clarification, the whole of the Callidae gathering began to chant again, somberly, a different tune whose few words made Catti-brie think they were calling to the sky itself, asking for something.
She blinked then, a few times, thinking it a trick of her eyes when she saw a ribbon of green light appear. She even rubbed her eyes.
But no, it remained, and grew, and was limned in purple and blue here and there.
It became a floating curtain, drifting fabric folds of shimmering green undulating in waves, as if the bottom half of a rainbow had torn free on hurricane winds to hang here at the top of Toril. On rare occasions, she had seen this as a green glow, she believed, from Icewind Dale, but never had she imagined anything of this magnitude and magic.
For it was more than the sight of the waving colored sheets of light. Catti-brie could feel the tingles of magic in the air. In her gut and in her mind, she knew that there was magic all about her, energizing her. She broke her gaze from the beauty and turned it upon Zak.
She thought his breathing seemed steadier, maybe, just a bit.
“The healers expected that the Alle’Balleri would be good for him,” Ilina confirmed. “It helps with injuries, though only marginally. Still, it might bring him some relief here, at least, that he can better enjoy these final hours of his life.”
The last few words shook Catti-brie, but still the name Ilina had used, Alle’Balleri or “Merry Dancers,” struck her as perfect for the windy ribbons above her.
The singing transformed then into “Ahhhhhhhhhh!” climbing explosively, and then the thump sent the ball high into the air, beginning the Battle Finale between Biancorso and Boscaille.
It was hard to tear her eyes from the sky, but the action on the rink demanded it of her. The players were surely tired, and battered—their uniforms were all stained with blood. But from the moment the ball descended, the intensity of the battle made the previous three Catti-brie had witnessed seem gentle. She thought she was watching a fight to the death.
Bodies flew and crashed together. A scrambling swarm of guards and warriors turned the middle of the rink into respective battlements, shield walls without the shields, burying anyone passing through one line or the other, whether that person was carrying the ball or not.
The crowd cheered and gasped with every shift, every punch, every throw that got anywhere near one of the window goals. Catti-brie couldn’t tell which team the Mona Chess or Ardin fans cheered—it didn’t seem to matter. The volume itself was all-encompassing and never diminished.
Above the rink, the Merry Dancers swayed and intensified, as if drinking the rising noise and drawing energy from it.
It seemed to be reciprocal, for the minutes wore on and the game did not slow. As one, the crowd cheered a Boscaille guard who remained and fought, even though his forearm was clearly broken—Catti-brie could see the weird bend in the limb even from this distance!
But he didn’t stop, even throwing himself in a cross-body block to take down two Biancorso soldiers, including Vessi, who was trying to break free around the end of the line to get behind the Boscaille defenders.
Ilina and Emilian cheered the valiant guard from the other army, then went right back to urging Biancorso to punish and vanquish the “lumberjack blockheads.”
Catti-brie thought she knew all of the swear words in the language of the drow, but she learned many more that first polar night.
Back and forth it went, a purely defensive battle. At one point, all fifty soldiers were entangled in a vast melee, the ball lost somewhere beneath them, and not a one even looking for it. When finally the scrum relaxed, a Biancorso dasher scooping the ball and sprinting out toward the goal, it looked almost as if a third line, a bloody red one, had been drawn in between the two black central lines.
The cheering reached volumes not heard earlier in the day, the players ran harder, fought harder than they had earlier in the day, and Catti-brie began to understand when she, too, started to scream. It was the sky above urging them on. The Merry Dancers were lending power to the soldiers and the fans alike, lifting them with energy as sure as any empowering spell.
She couldn’t believe it. She looked to Zak, to see him panting with excitement, to see that yes, his pain had seemingly diminished and he, too, was caught up in the moment.
She knew that he wished he could be down there, fighting, competing. She closed her eyes with that thought, knowing she would miss him, fearing that she would have to tell Drizzt that he had lost his father yet again, sad that Brie would never know this wonderful man.
She shook it away. “Enjoy the night,” she determinedly whispered under her breath.
“What happens if no one scores?” she asked Ilina, and that seemed more and more likely, for they were certainly nearing the end time of the battle.
“Then there is no champion.”
“They won’t play on?”
Emilian and Ilina both laughed at that. “Even on this magical night, there is only so much to give,” Ilina said. “Glory shared, glory diminished.” She shrugged.
Catti-brie focused again on the battle. Certainly it seemed to be going toward that scoreless end, as no soldier from either team was getting anywhere near the opposite goal. The game went into a lull then, with both sides shifting and moving formations as if trying to plot one last chance to steal victory.
Biancorso possessed the ball, though, and that gave them the advantage. Suddenly the whole team swerved to the left, moving near the far wall. A pair of Biancorso dashers broke away just as suddenly, running hard across the rink, along the wall below Catti-brie.
But Boscaille caught on to the ruse, and defenders angled to intercept the breaking dashers.
But that was the feint-within-a-feint, Catti-brie suddenly realized as Vessi ran up full speed into the scrum across the way, and the Biancorso allies parted the defenders enough for him to s
lide through. He popped up and seemed to be running free as a Biancorso warrior heaved the ball through the air toward him.
But no, a Boscaille dasher, half kneeling, was only faking injury along that far wall, and she came out low, where the hurling Biancorso warrior couldn’t even see her, and undercut the angle, rushing right behind the reaching Vessi to pluck the ball from the air, and in full stride toward the near wall, running free before Vessi could react, before any of the Biancorso soldiers even realized what had happened.
Except for one.
Azzudonna broke from the scrum when the ball went into the air, angling across the rink, and now was the only one with a chance to stop the speedy Boscaille dasher. The crowd gasped and cheered as the two neared, Azzudonna desperately trying to find an angle to intercept, the dasher sprinting harder—if she could get by this lone defender, no one could catch her all the way to the window goal.
The Merry Dancers swirled above, the crowd roared, the dasher put her head down, and Azzudonna, at the last moment, pumped her legs furiously, driving forward, then threw herself to the ice in a slide.
She clipped the legs of the dasher, sending her flying head over heels to crash awkwardly to the ice, then slide fast to slam into the wall below the companions. Azzudonna couldn’t slow her desperate dive, either, and slammed into the wall as well, and the Scellobel fans groaned as one.
Catti-brie couldn’t see her, but thought from the impact and the groans from those onlookers who could that she might be terribly injured—or even dead!
But no. She climbed to her feet and dove upon the fallen dasher, grabbing the ball, fighting for it, tugging the dasher along until the battered Boscaille woman finally fell free.
On ran Azzudonna across the center lines, blood pouring from her nose.
And yet she had nowhere to go, as the defenders who had chased after Vessi and the other dasher were moving to block, and all the others were now swarming across the ice.
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