Read The Many-Coloured Land - 1 for Free Online Page A

dressage. The hideous beast, resembling a sI'llt-legged rhino with a ceratopsian neck frill and wicked glowing eyes, minced in and out of the bodies without stepping on a single one. Of an the players on the green-and-white sawdust grid, Landry was the only one still mounted and conscious.
    Other verruls in the sideline pens behind the burladero added their trumpeting to the crowd's applause. With casual skill, Felice had her mount pick up the scarlet ring with its nose horn. Then she sent the animal galloping toward the now undefended Whitewing goal, even though there was no longer any need for speed.
    "Lan-dree! Lan-dree!" screamed the spectators. It seemed that the young girl and the beast would crash into the cavernous scoop at the end of the field. But just before they were upon it, Landry gave the verrul a sharp crossrein and an unspoken command. The creature wheeled full about, tossing its monstrous head, which was nearly as long as the girl's body. The ring went sailing through the air and entered the scoop dead center. The goal signal lit up and blared in triumph. "Lan-DREEE!"
    She held her gun high and shouted back at the mob. Shock waves of orgasm surged through her. For a long minute she could not see, nor did she hear the single deep peal from the referee's ben that marked the end of the game.
    As her senses cleared, she condescended to smile at the leaping, gesticulating throng. Celebrate my victory, people-children-lovers. Call my name. But do not press. "Lan-dree! Lan-dree Lan-dree!"
    A ref came trotting up with the championship banner hanging at the end of a long lance. She bolstered the stun-gun, took the flag, and raised it up. She and the verrul made a slow circuit of the arena, both of them nodding to the deafening plaudits of Greenhammer and Whitewing fans alike.
    There had never been such a season. Never such a championship game. Never before the coming of Felice Landry.
    The sports-mad people of "Canadian" Acadie took their ring-hockey very seriously. At first, they had resented Landry for daring to play the dangerous game. Then they had devoured her. Short, slightly built but preternaturally strong of mind and body, with an uncanny ability to control the evil-tempered verrul mounts, Felice had vanquished male players of talent and experience to become a sports idol in her first professional season. She played both offense and defense; her lightning-fast stun coups became a legend; she herself had never fallen.
    In this, the last match of the championship series, she had scored eight goals, a new record. With all of her teammates downed in the final period, she had singlehandedly fought off Whitewing's last-ditch assault on the Greenhammer goal. Four stubborn giants of the Whitewing team had bitten the dust before she triumphed and went on to score that last go-to-hell goal.
    Applaud. Adore. Tell me I am your queen-mistress-victim. Only stay back.
    She guided the verrul toward the players' exit, fragile on the back of the monstrous animal. She wore an iridescent green kilt, and green head plumes on the back-I'llted helmet. The once buoyant frizz of her platinum hair now straggled in limp ropes against the shiny black leather of her skimpy hoplite-style cuir bodily armor.
    "Lan-dree! Lan-dree!"
    I have poured myself and discharged myself for you, slaves-eaters-violators. Now let me go.
    Small medical carts were scuttling through the passageway toward the arena to bring in the stunned. Felice had to keep firm control of the nervous verrul as she moved toward the Greenhammer ramp. Suddenly there were people all around her, assistants, trainers, verrul grooms, second-string bench-warmers, gofers, and hangers-on. They raised a ragged cheer of greeting and congratulation, tinged with over-familiarity. The heroine among her own.
    She gave a tight, regal smile. Someone took the bridle of the verrul and soothed it with a bucket of feed.
    "Felice! Felice, baby!" Coach Megowan, hot from the observation booth and