She was tempted to ask where the hell they’d all been last night, but decided it wasn’t worth reminding him of what she’d done.
“More like a sport,” he went on. He kept his eyes on the Zane, who walked in front of them a good thirty or so feet away, too far to overhear. “There are two teams, with six members on each. Every player rides his own ung.”
“What’s an ung?”
“Do you know what an emu is?”
“Like the bird?”
“Yes. Ungs are similar, except that along with their feathers, they also have scales and tusks.”
“Tusks?”
“Big ones. And very sharp, which makes it easy for them to crack the jewbie egg.”
“The what?” She got a little too loud there, and pulled back, dropping her arms to her sides. She thought she saw Trystan slow a bit and cock his head to the side as if trying to listen, but she must have been wrong, because Ruckus carried on.
“The players toss the egg backward to their teammates while riding the ungs. There are several obstacle courses, and they lose points and have to start an obstacle over every time a team member drops an egg. Or if it gets cracked by one of the ung tusks.”
“This is seriously the weirdest game I have ever heard of.” She couldn’t believe these people were more technologically advanced than hers. Seriously? A sport where you rode animals and tried to catch an egg without breaking it? Sounded like something someone would do before the written word, let alone the Internet.
“Olena would agree, though she wouldn’t put it so nicely.” He reached out and rested the tips of his fingers against her arm. “The Zane insisted on this, otherwise we wouldn’t be risking it.”
She filled in the blanks. “Make sure I’m careful. Got it.”
They were coming to the end of the wide hall now, and she tilted her head to hear better when pounding sounds started drifting their way. The closer they got, the louder the sounds, and mingled with them was a cacophony of voices and cheers.
“Ruckus?” she said, a bad feeling starting to settle in the pit of her stomach. “Just how big of an event is this, exactly?”
Up ahead, Trystan made it to the doors. The two guards at the sides opened them for him, exposing bright sunlight and a field of green. That, and a massive tentlike fixture set up to the right and already crowded with people.
It didn’t take them long to get there, and the second she stepped outside, she wanted to turn around and run back in.
Ruckus leaned down and whispered into her ear, “Relax.” His hand went to her lower back. “You might actually enjoy it, Delaney.”
At his touch, her body settled some, most of the tension in her shoulders dissipating. Surprised by her reaction to him, she momentarily allowed herself to be distracted before she felt brave enough to continue.
She took a deep, steadying breath and nodded, determined to get on with it before she lost her newfound nerve. The tented area was actually on the other side of what she assumed was the playing field. While she could make out most of their faces already staring, it was somewhat comforting to know she wouldn’t need to get too close to any of them.
“The main event is held there.” Ruckus pointed ahead where an area had been boarded off with a thin golden wire. It stretched up and over a brilliant green hill and disappeared out of sight. “It starts here, at the first obstacle, and makes its way down. Sort of like … golf. You do know golf, correct?”
She nodded again, a bit distracted now by the sights.
The sky was a frothy light green, but the ground was the same as it was back on Earth, with healthy green grass and trees. There weren’t a lot of them, more like one or two planted sporadically, probably because the space was used as a Tandem course.
They happened by one of the trees, and upon closer inspection she realized there were minor differences. The leaves, for one, were all veined yellow, and ribbons of cerulean blue shot up the trunks and through the bark like lightning bolts.
She couldn’t see an end to the property from where they were, as she was so focused on the crowd. A large tent had been positioned a ways away from the mass of people, and was sectioned off with more gold wire and even a few guards. The yellow tent flaps had been pulled back to expose the inside, and she came to a halt when she caught her first sight of what must have been an ung.
Ruckus had made a good comparison when he’d mentioned emus, though she imagined the ung would be the result of an emu falling into a vat of toxic waste and coming out a mutant. It was at least four times the size of one of the birds back home, more around that of a Clydesdale horse.
One of the riders shot out from beneath the tent, clearly doing a warm-up, and brought the ung closer to them. Its skin was covered in gray scales of various shades, so that it looked like an odd shadow twisting in the light. There were feathers, green ones, poofing out of the sides of its narrow head in place of ears, and large wings were tucked into its sides. From the bottom of its five-inch pointy black beak, two daggerlike tusks jutted upward.
The creature’s legs were as thick as bowling balls, with massive three-toed feet that had Delaney picturing the Velociraptors from Jurassic Park. The same gray scales covered each foot, and when they hit the ground, they actually left behind footprints in the otherwise pristine grass.
“The footprints add an extra layer of difficulty,” Ruckus said, noticing what she was paying attention to. Five other riders came out to join the first. “It’s about to start.”
The first obstacle wasn’t much of one. There were a few thin poles that they needed to steer their ungs around, as well as a flat black object that stood three feet off the ground. The course wasn’t cordoned off into two sections, but there was a clear split, with one team on the side nearest her and the other closer to the crowd.
“Do you want to sit?” Ruckus tapped the side of her arm.
“No, I’m fine here.” She watched in fascination as the teams got in order, one rider positioned in front of the other, with two feet of empty space between them.
On this side, there weren’t many people, and she got the impression that only those trusted by the Basileus and those who worked in the castle were allowed. It gave her the perfect view of the course without making her feel squished or crowded by anyone. Because of it, she was able to let her guard down a bit. Let some of her amazement show. Which was good, seeing as how she didn’t think she’d have been able to hide it.
The players all wore uniforms similar to jockeys back on Earth, though their shirts had octagons on them and not triangles or diamonds. On some, the shape was painted yellow; on others, it was green. Their tight riding pants alternated as well, with the lead player in green, the one behind him in yellow, and so on.
On the other side, the other team’s colors were different. They were all dressed in navy blue and light gray.