582 - Spiking a Cleary

“Elsha… go in for Jorasa… she only needs a moment or two more.”  Elsha nodded and picked up her helmet, but didn’t get up.  They were still in the midst of mid-game.  The choir sang softly as the watching crowd spoke quietly, a sea-murmur of bets made and changed, and commentary on the first set play.  Servants moved between the seats, offering refreshements. 

Jorasa sat, helmet off, while Akminchaer finished wrapping her left forearm, face calm as any of the men having an injury attended to.

“It is not broken, Jorasa,” the Haian said.  “Is it too much to ask that you not play with it again today?”

“Thank you, Akminchaer,” Coach broke in.  “She may have to.”

Even as they spoke to the Haian, their eyes were on the faib bowl where the servants wiped up the spray from Amitza’s bloody nose.  Her uniform was no longer pure white but spattered red brown as well.  She'd been caught by Saras Trenas... his elbow, as she came down from opening their goal, just barely before the breaktime whistle.

It would be worth it, having him in the penalty cage, for the first two tenths of a tenth in the second half, though Jorasa thought it was a little light.  "He should have been called for spiking a cleary," she said. "That should have been a full half tenth penalty." Then she answered the Haian.

“I can play, if I must…”  Jorasa turned the hand over and hid the wince.  She’d taken a direct tackle from the heaviest Jammer the Dulis had and he’d knocked her tail over tip.  “But thank High Selinae for Elsha.”

“Indeed.  Having no second line is very very hard on you as a team.  You could not play the regular season, even if you were up to snuff for the High League. Your Thumpers need more muscle, though your focus is spectacular.”  Coach’s eye tracked along their line to an unseemly disturbance at the rail.

“If that card-pub tries to get that close again, Borasa and bothers you," he called.  "You have my permission to punch the man.”

“Coach Arenen, please!”  Denas Sharas, the premier publisher of faib trading cards, drew himself up from where he’d leaned over the railing above.  “At least consider the idea!”

“I shall consider the Mahid Women as a trading card line, Sharas, when that one apologizes for the lewd and horrendous idea of a bare-handed set!”  Jorasa and Amitza’s lips were tight for more than just suppression of pain.

The choir’s song rose to its ritual conclusion and Elsha checked that her hair was tied back hard before putting her helmet on.  “Zero all, my team,” Jorasa called softly.  “Zero all, let’s hold them to that.”

Both goals had been opened but no one managed to score and the Mahid were taking a pounding.  They’d been fast enough to slide under, around and past the Dulis, mostly.  What damage they'd taken had been glancing.  But the Dulis were finally taking them seriously enough. 

Coach caught everyone's eye on the bench, one after the other as he paced in front of them.  He seemed perfectly composed and his comb tapped slowly on the knuckles of his other hand.  Reminding them all.  Knuckles out. Knuckles out.

"Meet them with knuckles not your fan," he'd said in their ears immediately after first set.  The second set would be brutal.

The watching crowd settled, intent on the battle before them, wine glasses set aside as the red-shirt skated out with the new disc.

“Teams come, teams come now.” The referee’s call was echoed by the choir and the two lines poured over the lip of the bowl to take their places, the goal minders taking up their patterned, regular sweep across in front of their goal slots.   The broken paper in those slots started to flutter, just a little, as the air in the bowl began to move.

The crowd hushed as he raised the disk and paused. Elsha and the Duli crouched lower on their skates, eyes on the red-shirt, and each other.