“Use your heads,” Thomas said, pacing again. “I said I want you to find my Horde football. It was a special gift, and I have no intention of losing it.”

He faced Darsal. “Darsal, do you think the football has vanished? Plucked from us by a beast in the sky?”

“No, sir. It’s being hidden by someone along the side.”

“Then why are you standing in the middle of the field?” Thomas asked.

“Because as soon as your football is found, there will be another fight,” she said. “I’m resting.”

Thomas hesitated, then nodded. He looked at Billos. “And you?”

“I plan to retrieve the football for you, sir,” Billos replied.

“Is that so? By standing there in the middle with Darsal, resting?”

Billos glanced at Darsal but said nothing.

Thomas shifted his attention to Silvie, the short blond who’d reached the ball first. They said she was an intelligent one, given to schooling before she lost her mother and took up fighting. All Johnis could see was speed and power and a firm jaw. She was a quiet girl.

“And you, Silvie?” Thomas asked.

“If I thought stomping around the field like a spoiled child would get me the ball, I still wouldn’t bother,” she said.

“Then you don’t care about my football? I, your supreme leader, have offered you an extra horse if you can find it, and you stand as if you don’t care?”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” Silvie said, dipping her head. “But you’re right, I don’t care about your Horde football. In fact, I find it a bit disgusting. And I think there are a thousand boys who will offer me their horses after today.”

This was the most Johnis had heard her say in all the days he’d watched them spar. She was the loner on the field, like him in some ways.

“You’re not married yet?” Thomas asked.

“No.” Even though sixteen was an acceptable marrying age, marriage was discouraged among new recruits.

“Sixteen or seventeen?”

“Sixteen, sir,” Silvie said.

They all knew Thomas would make his selection as much on how they answered his questions as on how well they fought. He was obsessed with this thinking stuff. Head and heart, head and heart, head and heart, it was more head and heart than strength, he often said.

Thomas turned to Jackov, who was still scanning the sidelines and hunting for the ball. The only reason he hadn’t spotted the sphere of hair behind Johnis was because of Ramos’s larger boot blocking part of the view.

“Jackov?” Thomas demanded.

It has come down to these four, Johnis thought. Thomas had chosen two men and two women.

“I would have found your football, sir, but you stopped me,” Jackov said.

“I don’t remember stopping you,” Thomas said.

“You ordered me to stop,” Jackov protested.