World-Ripper War (Mad Tinker Chronicles Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

With a solid decade over the next oldest player in the plaza, his arrival signaled a change in the tone of the game. A few other hangers on slipped over the barrier of white paint that might as well have been a chain fence just moments earlier. Too young, too small, too timid, or too female, these others had found reason to steer clear of the miners, soldiers, and freight handlers who dominated most matches. Now they joined Hayfield and Rynn with the prospect of a gentler game.
    “C’mon, old timer,” one of the barrel-shaped lads complained. “We need to steam off a little. Can’t be havin’ kids and girls out here.”
    “There’s two pitches painted,” Rynn said. “We can have a game of each. We can play friendly here, and you boys can knock each other’s teeth out on the other.”
    A certain sort of lad never liked to be compromised with. There was a bit of a bully in many of them that liked when they could bull and bluster their way over obstacles, getting their own way. Such a lad might have been inclined to tell a girl of nineteen years and half his size that she could well clear off his pitch and take over the free one. A slightly smarter sort remembered that he would be arguing with his general, a woman who could order him to the fore of a charge, have him tossed off the ship, or just shoot him herself. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d done it.
    The lad nodded. “Awright.” He jerked his head toward the other pitch and led his goons to the other playing field.
    Her goons. As much as Rynn looked down on their oafish antics, those goons were soldiers of hers, the sort who could brawl with kuduks—knockers or militia—and win. If they haunted the plazas and the bars aboard the Jennai in their off hours, it was a small price to pay when it was time to raid.
    Someone tossed Rynn a crashball, and she juggled it before latching on and taking hold of it. It was an oblong leather-wrapped ovoid with a wood core and a layer of wool padding between. Rynn had only handled one a few times in her life. She was no athlete. The only serious attempt she’d made to play crashball was a children’s game in the tunnels of Eversall Deep when she was eight. She’d ended up with scraped knees, a twisted finger, and a bloody nose. Ever since then, she had steered clear of the game.
    They ended up with twenty-four players. Rynn and Hayfield took captaincy and chose sides. As they took turns picking, Rynn wondered just how late she would have been picked if she wasn’t on a team by default. She certainly wouldn’t have picked herself (or Madlin, had she been among the candidates) over anyone waiting to be selected.
    Once the two teams had been selected, they flipped a five-gorm to see who would take the ball first. Hayfield flipped, and Rynn called ‘sky’ before it landed—sky-side up. Hayfield’s squad huddled up in their half of the pitch and prepared to kick away to Rynn’s.
    Rynn and her team spread out in their half, ready for wherever the kicked crashball headed. “Let’s have a nice clean one, everyone. No broken bones. You might need one of theirs backing you up with a coil gun in hand someday soon. Keep that in mind when you’re tempted to tackle.”
    Hayfield handled the kick himself. There was a dull thud as his boot connected with the ball, sending it tumbling end over end into, arcing through the air into Rynn’s half. Rynn saw a parabolic arc in negligible wind. She figured its flight at landing somewhat shy of a symmetrical arc, accounting for wind resistance. It wasn’t heading her way but over her head and to her right. She bounced on her tinker’s legs to get ready to spring into action once someone fielded the kick.
    There was a slap and a thud as a skinny lad tried to catch the kick, and it bounced off his hands to the plaza. The oblong shape made predicting bounces nearly impossible. Four of Rynn’s players scrambled to corral the crashball as Hayfield’s team barreled down on