Starrlings 1: House of Fire

chapter 86

The first round of the championships was complete, and there was more food and wine being served all around Lumi, but she wanted to stay focussed on the arena, even while everyone else was distracted.

Behind her, the King seemed to be getting merrier and merrier with the alcohol he was consuming.

"Maybe nothing will happen," Katja dared to say, quietly.

Lumi wanted Katja's words to be true, but she couldn't believe them.

"I wonder how Ari's doing," Sanna mused. "I wish I'd stayed with her."

Lumi glanced at Sanna, surprised to hear a moment of weakness in the girl's voice. Sanna was always so deliberate with her words.

Sanna raised her chin slightly, and her tone became defensive. "It's just that I don't know if she can fly a wolf. If something goes wrong, she might not get here in time to warn us. And then Katja won't have Helvig."

"I trust Ari," Katja said.

Raphael was distracted by conversation with politicians, but after a while he took another glass of wine and then came back to sit with the girls. "Well, I've won a few guilders on Tom's match, but now I'm betting double that he'll win his second match. I've just spoken to the gamerunner and Tom's to go up against that wolfrider next."

Raphael's gaze lingered on Katja as he spoke, and Katja returned his smile with one of her own.

They took their seats again as the second round of matches began. Raphael won more money when Tom won his second match. The Water Dancer won his second match too, which meant the final round would be Tom against the legendary dragon rider.

"I can't believe Tom's through to the end, and against the Water Dancer, too!" Katja cried.

The brass band was louder now, and so was the crowd, who were merry on the cheap beer that was being sold in the grandstand. The King and all those around him were uproariously drunk on expensive wine and gorging on more and more food. The atmosphere was jubilant, but Lumi was still tense, as if she was the one who would be fighting in the final battle.

They watched two more matches, but the crowd immediately around Lumi was so interested in food and wine and conversation now that they weren't interested in the matches between the light lions, fire tiger, and winter wolf. They were only interested in the upcoming final battle, which would decide the victor of the day.

It was the Water Dancer against Tom.

The suns, over the ocean behind Lumi, were getting lower in the grey winter sky, and as she watched, the light starrlings dotted around the periphery of the arena shone brilliant beams of golden light onto the pitch. The pitch glowed brilliantly as Tom emerged from the tunnel on the far side of the arena. He and Kobuk were nothing but a black silhouette, with their long shadow projected onto the pitch.

Tom stood up in his saddle and raised both arms to wave to the crowd. And then he created a magnificent flurry of snow around him. The light from the light starrlings hit the snowflakes and turned them gold, so it almost seemed that Tom was surrounded by a flurry of stars.

Then the Water Dancer emerged from the opposite tunnel. The light from the starrlings made his dragon shine silver.

"He's got no chance," Katja said. She sounded nervous.

"Of course not," Raphael said. "But I've just put down an unspeakable amount of guilders on Tom, so he had better try."

Lumi was scanning the top of the arena, where the light starrlings, astride lions, were dotted along the edges. They each wore the uniform of the Garde. The King's Garde was made up almost exclusively of light starrlings. Lumi had read that when Lombardia was first colonised, the light starrlings had been employed to keep the slaves restrained.