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“I’m gonna kill you!” Cal roars, thundering towards a scared-looking woman called Tieren. “I’ll rip your head off and use it as a grop!”
“Here! Have it!” Tieren shrieks as Cal’s about to grab her. She throws the grop – an oval, ball-shaped mushroom cap – at him and sinks to her knees.
Cal stops, astonished, the grop bouncing off his chest and splintering into dust. “What’s wrong?” he asks, kneeling beside her and gently patting her shoulder.
“I don’t want you to rip my head off,” Tieren moans.
“I’d never do that,” Cal protests.
“But you said you were going to,” Tieren says, peering at him with confusion.
“I was acting,” Cal laughs. “That’s the sort of thing the SubMerged players will yell, so you need to be ready for it.”
“Oh.” Tieren blushes. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry,” Cal says. “I should have warned you beforehand.”
Cal helps Tieren to her feet and brushes dirt off her clothes.
“Will the SubMerged really try to decapitate me?” Tieren asks.
“They might,” a man called Franz says, popping up beside them to hand Tieren another grop, “but with the Demolisher to protect you, they won’t succeed.”
The players laugh and fall in with the rest of their team to practise another move, while I happily watch from the side.
I’m in Cornan, the capital of Sapphire, where grop trials have been taking place over the last week. Grop’s the sport of choice in the Merge, a rougher, more testing version of rugby. Most games involve amateur teams from neighbouring zones, but there are more professional matches too.
I watched a grop match last year – I even ended up on the pitch for a while – but knew very little about the sport. I’ve taken a crash course over the past week, mostly tutored by Cal and Inez, though plenty of others have chipped in too, filling me in on its history and rules. I’m far from an expert, but reckon if I had to sit a test, I’d score a good, solid B. Well... maybe a B minus.
In the old days there used to be a tournament in which teams from all the realms competed. It was called the Tourney. It was held every six years, and a team from each realm would take part, comprised of their best players. The Tourney was the biggest draw in the Merge, the World Cup of this sphere.
Five hundred years ago, the Tourney was postponed because of the war between the Merged and SubMerged. After Old Man Reap fell and the war ended, the Tourney resumed, but things got nasty. It had always been fiercely contested, but it reached a stage where matches had to be played out over a few days because of all the fighting among players and supporters. The Tourney had become a way for warriors on both sides to avenge fallen friends. It had turned into a bloodbath, and both gropsters and fans were being killed.
A decision was taken to cancel the Tourney, and it never made a comeback. There was often talk of resurrecting it, but eventually it became a thing of the past, a relic that old-timers spoke of fondly but distantly.
That changed last year. The SubMerged thought they were going to win the vote of alignment in Sapphire, and had arranged a celebratory grop match. When the vote went against them, they called off the game. Fans were disappointed. Visitors from the various realms began to speculate on how it might have played out and who’d have won.
It wasn’t long before someone realised this was the perfect time to revive the Tourney. Things normally don’t happen quickly in the Merge, where they measure decades the way we measure months in the Born, but this proved an exception. The royals of Topaz asked the rulers of the other realms if they’d be interested in sending teams to take part, and vowed that the fighting on the pitch would be limited to the usual hurly-burly of grop, while any conflict on the terraces wouldn’t be tolerated.
The Family members all replied positively, and over the course of a few meetings it became clear that everyone wanted to push ahead swiftly. Rules were agreed and the Tourney ended up being set for the near future — just a few weeks from now.
Cal and Franz are putting Tieren and a few more hummingbirds and condors through their paces. The big men are blockers, and have already been confirmed as squad members for the team going to Topaz, but other places are up for grabs, and they’re testing a number of birds — smaller, lighter players who take the majority of shots. They’re looking for skilled birds, but also players who won’t tremble when faced with violent opponents. Hence Cal’s rough treatment of Tieren.
My gaze wanders as the blockers and birds engage again, and settles on a man in another group. These are chuckers, the players who throw the birds into the air, so that they can hurl the grops at whorls on the trees and score points. Most aren’t as sturdy as the blockers, since speed is important for a chucker, yet they have to be strong enough to launch the birds high overhead.
The man I’m looking at is tall and muscular, but lean and athletic. He’s Indian-looking, dark hair, a thin moustache. His name’s Logu, and he’s a good player from what I’ve seen, but he wasn’t chosen on merit. The coaches were asked by someone highly placed in the palace to pick him. They weren’t told why, and didn’t ask any questions — when a royal envoy begs a favour, it’s as good as a command.
Of all the people who’ve turned out to watch the trials today – there must be several hundred milling around – I’m the only one who knows that Logu isn’t Indian. He’s been remoulded. The colour of his skin, hair and eyes has been altered by a deviser, and his face has been changed. Remoulding is common in the Merge, but this is a particularly cunning piece of work. Even his height has been tweaked, and his vocal cords have been pinched to change his voice.
In addition to all that, his aura has been dampened. I can’t see them, because I’m Born, but every royal has a unique, all-encompassing aura, which identifies them as clearly as their facial features. It’s very difficult to hide an aura, but a few devisers have mastered the craft, and one is based in Cornan — he’s the person who masked Ghita’s aura when she went on the run last year, so that she could slip without notice across zones while searching for a reliable camel to hide her.
The reason Logu needed to hide his aura is that in reality he’s pale-skinned and has fair hair, and although he’s clearly played a lot of grop, he prefers motorbikes, because Logu is actually Hugo, and while he genuinely wants to do well for the team in their matches, his real goal is to sneak into Topaz and kidnap Prince Hiroto.
The other thing nobody else knows is that Malina is the one who set the Tourney ball rolling. She dropped a subtle hint in King Oki’s ear, which got him thinking it might be a good idea to reinstate the competition. He thinks it was his brainwave, and has taken the credit for it, but he was manipulated by the clever queen.
As important as it is to millions of fans across the Merge, the Tourney is primarily a con job, sneakily set up by Malina in order to provide Hugo with a good chance of making a clean getaway with the prince.
That’s what you call scheming big!
When we crossed to Cornan, we discussed remoulding Inez and me. We’d been seen by lots of SubMerged nobles at the vote of alignment, and if they spotted us in Topaz they might wonder what we were doing travelling with the grop team. But in the end we decided against it.
“There’ll be lots of unravellers at large,” Inez said. “As a player, Hugo will be shielded from them, but you or I could brush against one at any time. If we remoulded ourselves and were revealed, the SubMerged would guess that we were there on other business. Sometimes it’s better to hide in the open.”
So they found roles for us instead, cover stories that gave us a reason to travel as part of the squad. It was easy with Inez. She’s going as a team-appointed camel. Although every player has to be presented to the gropmeisters for registration and inspection, they don’t have to be openly identified ahead of the matches. It wasn’t unusual in the past for a camel to smuggle in a few players and produce them during a game, to surprise their opponents.
It was harder finding a role for me, but lots of volunteers form a backroom team, which accompanies the players. Luckily we had a contact among the medics who was willing to add me to their ranks. Although given her fiery temperament, I’m not sure that lucky is quite the right word...
With a shiver, I turn my back on Cal, Hugo and the others, and head for an area behind the grop pitch that’s been set aside for the backroom team, a place where we can be trained and drilled.
“There he is,” someone growls as I turn up at a tent at least half an hour before I was meant to. “Good of you to grace us with your presence. I hope we’re not keeping you from anything important.”
I gulp and stutter, “I th-thought I was early.”
“If I’m here before you, you’re never early,” the girl in front of me snarls. She’s no more than five years old in appearance. She usually tours with a group of thesps, but is also a trained medic, and put the acting on hold in order to tag along with the gropsters. She’s short-tempered and foul-mouthed, and on the days when she’s cursing me for making even a tiny mistake (which is most days), I fear her almost as much as I fear the SubMerged.
“Sorry, Baba Jen,” I mutter.
“Sorry my backside,” Baba Jen grunts, and tosses a sack full of bandages my way. “Work on your knots, dumb-head, and if they aren’t better than they were yesterday, I’ll hang you up by the ankles for an hour to teach you a lesson.”
From anyone else, it would be a colourful but idle threat. From Baba Jen, it’s not only a genuine threat, but judging by a body that I spy dangling high overhead, I wouldn’t even be the first one she’s strung up today.
“Thanks for lumping me in with the cruellest taskmaster in the Merge, Inez,” I grumble beneath my breath.
“What was that?” Baba Jen snaps.
“Nothing,” I sigh, then start pulling out bandages and knotting them sullenly.