Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Hiding his face was one thing, but this was altogether something else. He was putting himself and his team at great risk by making such a proclamation in paint. It almost seemed that the lightning bolts were meant to insure that no one could miss that he was the point man, as if he meant to direct the other team's focus and attention to him. She couldn't imagine why he would do such a thing.

Following their point man's lead, the team that wasn't painted had all started laughing. The crowd, too, had joined in, laughing, hooting, and calling the painted men, and in particular the point man with the lightning bolts, names.

Kahlan knew without a doubt that there was no more dangerous mistake to be made than to laugh at this man.

The painted team stood as still as stone, waiting while the crowd went into a riot of laughter and mockery. The other team shouted insults and taunts. Some of the women camp followers threw small things-chicken bones, rotten food, and even dirt when nothing else could be found.

The players on the other team called the man with lightning bolts the kind of names that caused Kahlan to absently cover Jillian's ear with a hand, pressing her head to Kahlan's chest. She wrapped her cloak around Jillian. She didn't know what was going to happen, but she knew for sure that this game was not going to be a place for a girl.

The point man with the twin lightning bolts stood with an expressionless look that showed nothing of what he might be feeling. It reminded Kahlan of herself when she put on a blank expression when facing certain kinds of terrible challenges, a blank look that betrayed nothing of what was building inside her.

And yet, in this man's calm demeanor Kahlan saw coiled fury.

He never looked her way-his gaze was fixed on his counterpart-but just seeing him standing there, seeing all of him, seeing his face, even though it was covered in painted lines, seeing the way he held himself, seeing him at length without having to quickly look away . . . made Kahlan's knees weak.

Commander Karg nudged his way in through the wall of guards to join Emperor Jagang at the side of the field. He folded his muscled arms, apparently not at all concerned about the uproar his team was causing. Kahlan noticed that Jagang was not laughing along with everyone else. He didn't even smile. The commander and the emperor tipped their heads close together and spoke in words Kahlan couldn't hear over the jeering, laughing, and vulgar insults being shouted by the crowd.

As Jagang and Commander Karg spoke at length, the other team took to dancing around the field, arms raised, the recipients of the mob's esteem even though they had yet to score a point. They had become heroes without having done anything.

These soldiers, devoted to dogmatic beliefs, were motivated by hate. They saw any individual's quiet confidence as arrogance, his competence as unjust, and such inequity as oppression. Kahlan recalled Jagang's words: "The Fellowship of Order teaches us that to be better than someone is to be worse than everyone."

The men watching believed in that creed and so they hated men for appearing to proclaim with paint that they were better. At the same time, they were there to see a team triumph, to see men best other men. It was unavoidable that beliefs as irrational as those taught by the Fellowship of Order would produce endless tangles of contradictions, desires, and emotions. Shortcomings made evident by even the most basic common sense were plastered over with a liberal application of faith. Anyone who questioned matters of faith was held to be a sinner.

These men were here in the New World to eliminate sinners.

Order was finally restored by the referee calling for the crowd to settle down so that the game could start. As the spectators quieted, to a degree at least, the man with the gray eyes gestured to the referee's fistful of straws, inviting his opponent to draw first. The man drew a straw, smiling at his choice when it came out looking like it surely had to be a winning length.

The man with the gray eyes drew a straw that was longer.

As the crowd hooted their disapproval, the referee gave the broc to the point man with the painted face.

Instead of going to his side of the field to start his charge, he waited a moment until the crowd quieted a little and then graciously handed the broc to the other point man, forfeiting the first turn at an attempt to score. The crowd erupted in wild laughter at such an unexpected turn of events. They clearly thought the painted point man was a fool who had just handed victory to the other team. They cheered as if their team had just been victorious.

None of the painted team showed any reaction to what their point man had just done. Instead, they moved off in a businesslike manner, taking up their places on the left side of the field, ready to defend against the first attack.