One broadcast called my entry a revolution that could change the stagnant scene in phoenix racing. Others described it as a doomed sideshow. I’m too big, or too blunt, or too slow to matter. Some channels were crude enough to link footage of the last Longhand who entered the Races. He was beaten to death just before the second leg began. A team of Ashlords took their time killing him. Murder’s not legal, even in the Races, but only one of them ever got put on trial for it. According to reporters, that rider spent the last twelve years in prison. The newscaster was kind enough to predict I’d make it out alive, but whether or not I’d be in one piece at the end was another question altogether. Daddy says they’re blowing enough smoke to call it a fire.
His war depends on the attention, on me. I try not to think about how much it all weighs as I take another sip and the two teams line up below us. Crossing is a simple and brutal sport. Two teams of seven. The court is fifty paces wide and three hundred paces in length. When the gun fires, both teams release. The first team to get one of their players across the opposite line wins that round. Teams are made up of quicklings and bruisers, sometimes a few hybrids. It’s easy to tell the big boys from the fast ones.
My eyes settle on the Panhandle runner Antonio mentioned. He’s short and lighter-skinned, with legs as wide as doors. Daddy raises his glass and toasts with Antonio as both of the teams settle into racing positions. The arena is narrow, but the starting block’s even tighter. All seven members hunch shoulder to shoulder, waiting for the burst, their minds racing through practiced formations and counterformations. Their only weapons are their bodies and how fast they move them.
A gunshot thunders out. The crowd erupts as both teams launch into motion.
Panhandle’s team swings five right, two left, an overloaded formation. Sanctuary’s formation is a reaction to theirs. A classic balanced set. Two on the right, two down the middle, and three to the left. At least one bruiser runs in each pack.
It takes two seconds for both teams to get up to a full sprint, and two more seconds to collide in a crunch of bone and body at center court. Panhandle’s quickling darts out from behind a veil of bruisers, cutting center and bursting through the gap in Sanctuary’s defense. Antonio’s right. He’s the fastest person I’ve ever seen. He highsteps the first lunging tackle, avoids a second swipe, and looks like he’s going to break free.
But a desperate shoestring tackle catches him by the ankle, staggering his strides. On the opposite side, two of Sanctuary’s sprinters have broken free, and they race to cross the finish line, chased by Panhandle’s too-slow bruisers. The horn blows and the first point goes to Sanctuary. Match attendants pull the weak and wounded away as substitutes step in to replace them. “Didn’t I tell you?” Antonio asks. “Sanctuary is brutal.”
The remaining rounds play out the same way. Panhandle steals a few points, but they can’t keep up with Sanctuary’s athleticism. I find myself half watching the collisions and the sprints and half watching the crowd around us. A few rows beneath our booth, a couple’s enjoying the game. They’re about my age, and it looks like a first date. He’s nodding a lot, talking too fast, laughing too loud. She’s nervous, too, though. Every now and again something he says has her blushing like a desert rose.
Down a few rows, a father sits with his three boys. He orders them a bag of salted hardpans and shows them how to crack the outer shells with their teeth. They laugh at a face he makes, and watching them, it’s like they’ll live forever. The crowd’s full of similar moments.
Something about the whole scene has my stomach turning.
The match ends. Antonio heads off to collect his winnings. Daddy tells him to come by around dinnertime. We walk together, matching each other’s quiet. He leads us away from the stadium, but doesn’t take us home. I follow him—the way I always have—and figure out where we’re heading as we reach the outskirts of town.
I frown. “This is your pitch?”
“It’s more of a plea than a pitch, Adrian.”
We wind through the dusty streets until they widen out, dumping us into a red-dusted desert that’s empty of houses but full of ghosts. The graveyard waits at the edge of the city.
“You saw that couple?” he asks. “Right in front of us?”
I nod to him. “Looked like a first date.”
He laughs. “I suspected as much. You know, the two of them are old enough to fight in our revolution. More than old enough. What else did you see?”
My stomach turns again, but Daddy is waiting for an answer. I take my time with the details. I talk about the father and his three sons. Daddy points out that they’re too young, but the father wasn’t too old. I describe a few of the vendors moving through the grandstands. The crowd of university students who were off to our right, laughing and drinking loudly enough to annoy everyone but each other. He nods and listens. I know he saw those details, too.
“We start this war,” he says, “and they march with you. I wanted you to see the cost, Adrian. Sons will lose fathers. Husbands will lose wives. Friends will watch their comrades take their final breaths. I took you to that game so that you never forget the cost of what we’re about to do. But you needed to see this, too. There’s another side to every coin.”
There’s no fence to mark the area. Just stones rising up unnaturally from the sand. Some are wreathed in flowers, others long cracked and faded. An attendant patrols the opposite side, hunting rifle settled against his shoulder. Daddy lifts a hand in greeting and the man nods back.
“Our ancestors came north after the Dividian were defeated. That was the first division. Our people didn’t like the sudden reliance on the gods. We valued freedom too much. And while the Ashlord gods offer many things, freedom is not one of them. It is a relationship of bondage. It always has been. That’s why we separated from the Ashlords. That’s how the Reach was born.”
It’s not hard to see where he’s heading. The truth of this story is in my bones. I keep walking at his side, thinking about our history. I’ve heard him tell the story he’s about to tell hundreds of times, but I’ve always felt like there was more. Truths he kept quiet because I was only a child. I have a feeling this time will be different.
“Early treaties failed. The Ashlords—and their gods—didn’t like the idea of a group of people unwilling to bow. They tried to take all that from us. The Rebellion happened. It’s been forty-eight years since our war with them ended.” Daddy starts down the familiar graveyard rows. “As you know, we failed. We lost. Most of the Purge happened in the years that followed. Every first son and first daughter from the Reach was rounded up and executed. Some escaped. Sailed north and never came back. Others took new names and went back to new villages. But the Ashlords had our inscription lists. They knew who fought. How many children they had. Where they lived.