Confessor (Sword of Truth 11)

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.