Ravens of Avalon Read Online Free PDF Page B

occurred to her before, but the widened tip made it look more like one of the big wooden spoons the cooks used to stir stew in a cauldron than a sword. She grinned suddenly. Why shouldn’t a girl play this game? They were using a woman’s weapon, after all!
    The ball flew upward and someone on the other side swung and sent it angling toward her own team’s goal. Stick poised, Boudica ran to intercept it, dodging the knot of boys racing forward with the same thing in mind. She heard the smack of wood against leather as someone whacked the ball, and the crowd of players surged after it in a confused mass, spinning off boys to either side. She glimpsed Cloto hurtling past, saw him turn and leap toward her instead, deliberately ramming the point of his shoulder into her breast. As she went sprawling she heard his laughter. Outraged, she opened her mouth to curse him—hurley was a rough sport, and the shoulder block a legal move, but only to stop an opponent from getting the ball—but pain robbed her of breath.
    I’ll kick his balls up between his ears! For a moment she could only lie curled around the agony as rage spread black wings across her vision, screaming for prey. When Boudica staggered to her feet, still hunched over, she saw Ardanos running toward her and waved him away. The scrimmage was dangerously close to her own team’s goal. Beyond it she glimpsed white robes and blue gowns among the spectators, but she no longer cared if the Druids were watching. One hand cupping her bruised breast, she scanned the heaving mass, trying to find Cloto, but what she saw was the ball hurtling toward her.
    The pressure behind her eyes eased. Winning would be an even better revenge.
    She darted sideways and swung, whacking the small sphere toward the enemy goal. Someone shouted behind her, but she was already in motion, her braid thumping her back as she galloped down the field. The opposing backfield had seen the danger. One of them scooped up the ball and sent it whizzing past Bendeigid, who managed to smack it sideways with his left hand, was spun around by the impact, and sat down hard on the grass. One of Cloto’s boys swung down his stick to stop it and the hurtling ball rebounded toward Boudica.
    For a moment, then, it seemed that she had all the time in the world to watch the ball spinning toward her. She set her feet, gripping the cumman stick two-handed like a sword, shoulders flexing as she swung, lips drawn back to release her rage in the Iceni war cry.
    The impact as stick and ball connected shocked through her body, and abruptly she was part of the world once more, still spinning with the follow-through of her blow as the ball soared over the heads of the backfielders and goalkeeper alike.
    All eyes fixed on the ball’s flight. Dust puffed as it hit the earth between the holly trees. And in the moment of amazement as they realized that the game was over, Coventa screamed.
    Boudica ran toward her friend, who was sitting bolt upright with staring eyes. As she reached her side, Coventa seized her arms.
    “The Red Queen! Blood on the fields and cities burning, blood flowing everywhere …” Coventa gasped and hiccupped. Her grip slackened and Boudica caught her. For a moment her wavering gaze focused on Boudica’s face. “It was you! You were swinging a sword …”
    “It was only a hurley stick,” Boudica protested, but Coventa’s eyes had rolled back in her head.
    “Let her go, girl. I will take her now—”
    Boudica looked up and recognized Helve, her dark hair bound around her head in precise coils. “I can lift her—” she began, but the priestess shouldered her aside, feeling for Coventa’s pulse and then signing to one of the priests to take the girl in his arms. Only then did she turn to Boudica.
    “Does she have these fits often?”
    Boudica shrugged. “She has nightmares, but this is the first time when she was awake. She hasn’t been strong since she had the fever after her … accident …