Tsornin was backing up, mostly on his hind legs. Then he spun round, came down - one more whack with her wretched wooden blade; the hilt gave an ominous creak, but it didn't matter; she was ... out.
The red man gave a shout. It was over.
The crowd dispersed instantly, as if the red man's shout had broken a cord that tied them all together. There were several loose horses standing clear, looking embarrassed for having behaved so poorly as to lose their riders; and several limping figures separated themselves from the others and went toward them. Harry sat where she was, the hot tide ebbing, leaving just a trace of headache behind, watching the others pass around her like grains of sand sifting around a boulder. She saw Mathin from a distance; he carried a pole across Windrider's withers and there was a shallow cut over one eye that had bled down his cheek. She saw none of the other Riders.
She squinted up at the sky. The Hills were black with shadows, but the sky was hard blue and she could feel the heat beating up again from underfoot. In the quiet - for, as it had been this morning, no one spoke and even the horses seemed to step softly - the heat seemed almost audible. She set Tsornin to walk himself as cool as possible. She patted his neck and dismounted, that they might walk together; he was sweating but not distressed, and he shook his head at her. She reclaimed her sword from the kysin, who saluted her. He had not saluted the laprun rider just before her.
Mathin reappeared and told her she could rest awhile. His cheek was washed clean and a bit of white cloth bound over his eyebrow. "The individual matches will go on all afternoon; you will be called late."
They found a spot of shade at the edge of the plain and pulled the saddles off the horses. Mathin gave her some bread and some wet white tasteless cheese. She sucked it slowly and let it trickle down her dry throat. She felt quite calm, and wondered what was the matter with her. "Mathin, are all the trials the same? Did you gallop and bash people with a wooden stick at your trials?"
"No and yes. They test your horsemanship in different ways; those who watch always have some chance to help - or hinder; and weapons of wood are safer. But the afternoon's matches are always the same, one rider against another, each with his own sword. If a kysin declares that a trials rider did badly in the general trials, he will not be permitted to ride in the individual sets."
They watched the dust clouds from the matches and the bright notches of color spinning in them; but Mathin made no move to return to that end of the plain, and Harry waited beside him, leaning on her elbows in spite of her sore shoulder.
The sun was halfway down the sky when they mounted again. Sungold, for the first time since she'd known him, refused to walk, and jigged along sideways, tossing his head. "Stop that, idiot," she hissed at him in Homelander, and he halted in surprise. Mathin turned his head and looked at her impassively.
They stood at the edge of the crowd now, and watched the combatants. There were five pairs, each the center of a private war; the red man had divided into ten red men on grey or black horses. There were two red men for each pair of fighters, and one man of each pair carried a small brass bell; when the bell rang out, that conflict was ended, and the horses fell apart, and riders and mounts panted the hot air. All the laprun riders were dressed in bright colors; there was very little white and no dreary dun or grey; with the scarlet kysin, it was a very vivid scene.
A bell sang out, a long gay peal, and she looked over at the finished pair. One of the riders held his sword up and shook it so the sunlight nickered on it. The other rider sat quietly, his sword on the ground at his horse's forefeet and, she noticed with a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach, his sash neatly sliced from around his waist and lying, part on his horse's croup and part on the ground.
Mathin said: "It is best to take your opponent's sash. The kysin mark each blow dealt, but