A church rose up on one side of the square, and ranks of Yllar students, dressed in deep green uniforms, gathered there. Kiram guessed that there were nearly two hundred of them, forming a veritable wall of armed men and glossy warhorses. A gnawing anxiety clutched at his stomach and he had to look away from them.
The last students from both schools filed into the square. Like Kiram and Nestor, they each took their positions as they had drilled countless times in the months earlier.
Master Ignacio rode his stallion from the front of the Sagrada Academy ranks to the fountain where he met the war master of the Yllar Academy. Ignacio was the younger of the two and far more serious in appearance. The Yillar war master was plump with a big white beard. He smiled like an indulgent grandfather at Master Ignacio's grim salute and returned the gesture as if it were nothing more than a wave.
Once the salutes of engagement were exchanged, riders from both schools surged into action all around Kiram.
"Good luck!" Nestor shouted, and then his roan stallion lunged ahead into the fray of riders and horses.
First-year riders forced their way forward and suddenly strangers surrounded Kiram. One rider attempted to force Kiram into the wall of a guild building. Firaj snorted angrily and sprang ahead. Kiram clung to his reins. He lost sight of Nestor. Then suddenly Yllar riders surged up from behind him. Kiram spurred Firaj forward to keep from being trampled in their charge.
Though Kiram had hated every moment he had spent with Master Ignacio, he was suddenly glad for the practice. Without it he would already have fallen.
Now his heart pounded madly in his chest but he urged Firaj ahead faster and the big gelding responded. His hands shook, but he kept his grip on his reins and focused himself on staying in his saddle.
Somewhere in the crush of uniforms and horses, Kiram heard shouts of pain and animal screams. Firaj bounded between two other horses and a big student in Yllar green swore at Kiram and swung his riding crop. Firaj suddenly bared his teeth at the man's mount and the other horse reared back, nearly throwing its rider. Firaj and Kiram raced ahead.
Kiram completed his circle of the fountain just behind the bulk of other riders and took the nearest of the six avenues leading out of the town. Stone buildings rose up on either side of him like walls and dust churned up from the street in choking clouds. From the balconies above, spectators screamed other men's names and hurled flowers.
Suddenly the closeness of the crowd and the constant downpour of flower petals became unbearable. Kiram swatted rose blossoms away from his face as if they were flies. He couldn't slow, much less stop, without being trampled by the riders behind him. They drove Kiram ahead faster but could not pass him. The street was too narrow. All of them raced to escape the confines of the town walls and tight streets.
The sight of harvested fields and wide open tracts of fallow land came as an overwhelming relief.
Even in the fields there were spectators. Groups of young boys sat atop stone walls and waved. Milkmaids and farmers leaned against fences watching. Ahead, an entire fairground of tents and bright flags spilled out from behind a huge yellow pavilion.
The open field allowed him the space to slow. Other riders urged their mounts ahead and Kiram let them pass. Firaj seemed to hate the sight of another horse racing past him and each time another rider sped by, he made an attempt to give chase. Kiram always reined him back to a reasonable pace.
He just wanted to reach the gold pavilion in one piece; he had no interest in risking his life to be counted among the finest riders, though he could tell that Firaj would have liked to be among the finest horses.
As he neared the huge gold pavilion Kiram caught sight of Nestor, racing across the field on his roan stallion. Kiram slowed Firaj further to allow Nestor to catch up.
Kiram waved. But Nestor didn't respond and Kiram guessed it was because Nestor couldn't see him. He'd obviously lost his spectacles somewhere earlier in the race.
However as they both drew closer to the gold pavilion, Nestor squinted at him and then waved ecstatically. Kiram rode up next to him. Nestor's face was streaked with road dust and the bridge of his nose appeared to be bruised.
He shouted, "It's madness this year!" by way of greeting.
Then they both passed beneath the yellow silk ropes decorating the entry to the tournament grounds and they were done. Grooms wearing blue armbands took their horses and told them what place they had taken in the race. Kiram was the hundred and forty-eighth rider. Nestor was the hundred and forty-ninth.
"I don't see why anyone keeps count after fifth, except to embarrass us," Nestor commented. Kiram wondered briefly how Javier had fared in the race. He hurried after Nestor into the gold pavilion.
Inside, sunlight glowed through the luminous yellow silk walls, lending a gold cast to the hundreds of onlookers gathered in the wooden stands. The center of the silk tent, however, was open and hard morning light poured down over the dirt floor of the arena, illuminating every detail of the filthy students gathered there.
Two men with silver horns blew out sharp notes as Kiram and Nestor walked in. A young man shouted both their names. When Nestor was announced a roar of cheers went up from the stands and Kiram realized that most of Nestor's family had to be here. The Grunito crest of a red bull on a blue field hung from ten raised box seats where dozens of big Cadeleonians waved and shouted out Nestor's name. A tall woman with shoulders as broad as Kiram's and a nose like a hawk's beak hurled a bouquet of red and blue ribbons to Nestor. It slapped into Nestor's chest and he gripped it tightly. His dirty cheeks took on an embarrassed flush.
"God save me," Nestor whispered as he squinted up at the box seats. "I'm never going to hear the end of this. I come in one hundred and forty-ninth and then get a bouquet from my mother."
"It's not so bad." Kiram said. "There are plenty of riders behind us."
"Yes, but my mother isn't going to throw them bouquets."
"Your mother isn't the only one who threw you a favor, though," Kiram reminded him.
"That's true." Nestor smiled slightly. "She really was pretty, wasn't she?"
"She was," Kiram assured him.
The two of them joined the other Sagrada Academy students in the center of the arena. Elezar was the easiest to pick out in the crowd, simply because of his size. The vestiges of a bloody nose stained his upper lip and mud spattered the entire front of his shirt. Almost immediately after finding Elezar, Kiram caught sight of Javier.
He wasn't with the rest of the Sagrada students but instead he leaned up against wall of the stands with his neck craned back. He shouted something up to a group of people in a box seat on the second level. A green and yellow banner hung from the box. Fedeles was up there, along with half a dozen other very well-dressed people. None of them resembled Fedeles as much as Javier did but Kiram still guessed that they were Fedeles' family, the Quemanors. One elderly woman gazed at him with that particularly adoring expression that Kiram always associated with grandmothers. When her gaze shifted to Javier, however, her expression was one of undisguised hatred.
Fedeles bounced in his seat and appeared to be singing something. Kiram couldn't hear him over the pressing roar of hundreds of surrounding conversations. Elezar was recounting his own worst failure in a race to Nestor, but Kiram was only half listening. Every now and then a trumpet blast announced more riders and cheers went up through the crowd.
A giddy feeling of joy and relief washed through Kiram. It had been a mad ride but he had survived it. Briefly, he thought that he would do it all again just for this rush of happiness at the end. The notion was crazy, but it filled him with a strange kind of joy. Kiram thought he might be grinning as wildly as Fedeles right now.