Read Copper Falcon for Free Online Page A

nodded, took my place, and cradled my stone. Stilling my thoughts and senses, I took a deep breath, then charged forward. Stopping short of the penalty line I watched my lance arc toward the slowing stone. When we reached my lance the youth measured it with his cord. Knots were tied at equal intervals, allowing precise measurements. He counted twenty-two knots and handed me the cord.
    Returning, he took his place, and cast. Trotting down, we measured his at twenty-four knots. My point. I got to twist a point stick into the ground.
    After that, things turned interesting. He took the next two points, and I began to worry. Taking turns, we set ourselves, charged forward, bowled our stones, and cast. It seemed that we were trading point for point. Despite the hour, a crowd was drawn by the intensity of our match.
    I had just taken my position, balancing my stance, every sense attuned and visualizing the cast I was about to make. Just then a worried voice, cried, “Lady! There you are!”
    My concentration shattered, I turned to see an older woman hurrying across the grass toward us. Two burly warriors followed her. Looking bored, they held war clubs casually in their hands and gave me no more than a dismissive glance.
    Lady?
    In the growing light, I really took a good look at my opponent, at the lines of … yes,
her
body.
    “You’re a woman?” I blurted stupidly.
    She fixed those large, dark eyes on mine, a wary smile on her lips. “Half of all people are, you know.”
    “But chunkey is a
man’s
game!”
    “It is thought so.” Her brow furrowed. “Probably because only men seem to play it.”
    “But I—”
    “Lady Night Shadow Star,” the older woman interrupted, “I’ve been looking all over for you. Tonka’tzi Red Warrior requests your presence. A messenger is coming. He carries word about Red Wing Town. Something important, something for the Tonka’tzi’s ears alone!”
    Lady Night Shadow Star?
I know I must have been gaping like an idiot, because the woman’s two warriors were laughing at me.
    “You know what this means, don’t you, Field Green? Makes Three has taken the town!” Night Shadow Star cried as she leaped into the air. “I just know it. He’s coming home to me.” Her face lit with such relief and joyous anticipation.
    She turned, tossing her stone to me. “I yield. It’s a fair Trade. Power is sending me my husband back!”
    I barely managed to catch the beautiful white disc before she’d spun and sprinted away like a desperate deer toward her palace where it rose in black silhouette against the rose-tinged dawn.
    The woman, the one called Field Green, gave me a weary smile. “The way that girl loves her husband …? It’s almost unnatural.”
    Then she turned, scurrying after her mistress, at the same time waving the guards ahead with the admonition, “Well, hurry up, will you!”
    *****
    For the next hand of time I lounged around, killing time at the foot of the Keeper’s mound and worrying. I saw the messenger’s party—twenty panting warriors dressed in finery, with feathers bobbing at each hammering impact of their sandal-clad feet, sweaty faces stern, polished wooden shields held before them—when they came down the Avenue of the Sun. In the middle ran the official courier, his pack of beaded message belts riding high on his back, the painted and copper-clad staff of office with its ruffling eagle feathers held before him.
    The people parted like water split by a canoe’s sharp bow. A ripple of curiosity flowed out in a human wake. And then the party was gone, vanishing into the crowds that milled at the base of the Morning Star’s great mound.
    I tossed Lady Night Shadow Star’s beautiful chunkey stone up and deftly caught it, feeling the heft and balance of a perfectly crafted gaming piece. In my part of the world, such a stone would tempt a man to gamble his life on the mere chance he might acquire it. Here, the lady had just tossed it to me, as if in