from Cowport and a hundred and ten from L&R. But a lot of Longkey families had their high-ground homes in Whiterock, so it was close enough to neutral ground. They got there five days before it was scheduled, and got to work.
Only way to score against that Equinox center was to go in close. So Raven worked with Born, and with Katy, and with Train over on left tower, trying to get in close enough to score without getting pinned.
Damn hard, though.
Damn hard to practice that without getting cuts and bruises; put a foot wrong, crack an ankle—well, they had three reserves, but they were better as runners than as wings, and damn if a reserve was going to beat Equinox. And damn if there wasn't a contract that meant every angry cock in Cowport was going to be plowing her raw for breaking that ankle. But she worked, and the towers worked, and she didn't break her ankles, though she came closer than anyone was happy with.
Then came game day.
Big crowd.
More people than Raven had seen in her entire life, all crammed into one pre-crunch stadium, with big gaps where the concrete had fallen in, and thinner crowds where it looked like it might. Ten thousand people? Twenty? It didn't . . . there were one hundred and eighty-seven people in Longacre. Eighty-six, now that she'd left, maybe one or two more if Werry'd carried her pregnancy to term, and the baby or babies were healthy. More than twice that was too many and didn't make sense.
It gave her pause, but then it was vest on, and helmet on, and game on, and once there was the clang of chains and the thump of feet on dirt, none of that mattered a good godammn.
This time, Equinox knew them, and they knew Equinox. Equinox's gold wing stuck on her ass like a pimple, and the blue wing was doubling up on her more often than not. So she shoveled the ball off to Pranah, whose side was left open, and he'd flick it to Chev, to Rache, back to Pranah, and even with Equinox's monster at Center Tower, he was scoring regular.
So was Equinox. Born was doing his best, and Katy got in some good hits, but the Equinox runners were damn tight, and when she wasn't dogging after Raven, their blue wing had a hell of an arm. So Raven took the ball when she could, went closer than was safe, and took tries that were worth trying.
47-51 in Equinox's favor at the half.
Serious faces at the half, and then coach laid it down. They were playing well; they had the rhythm, and were scoring more often than not. But Equinox was doing better. They kept playing the way they were, they were going to lose. Time to try something better, and seemed like the better that he'd come up with was letting Chev loose on the inside of the center tower's range. Could be he'd get pinned, could be not, but if he did, Chev was the weakest runner. Trading Chev for one of that tower's chains wasn't that bad a deal, and if he didn't, he'd be scoring a little higher.
It was up to 57-56 in Equinox's favor when Chev got pinned. He'd been doing well, but that was a solid pin, three rotations covering arms and legs before the prickle-catch bit. Chev squirmed a bit, tried to either get loose or convince the tower to waste another chain on him, but he wasn't getting loose, and Equinox's center wasn't going to be fooled by anything.
Score went up to 68-60 Equinox after that. So Raven decided to pick things up.
Just like she'd been practicing with Born and the other towers, just like she'd danced with Born when they'd been storming. Going into close range on their center tower, up and over and under and past and through the center's chains. When she got the ball that close in, she'd score; anyone could've scored that close. The trick was dancing well enough to keep from getting hit, not in scoring on tries.
Coach wasn't too happy with that. But he wasn't mad about it either. Just sat with his cane in his lap, and watched, and sometimes scratched notes on his pad. Raven only saw