Raven paused for half a second to tuck her good-luck piece into the back of her helmet. A curse-marker with her face on it—they’d printed those up in Miracle, after Raven had scored twenty-one goals against their team in the Harvest Games. Final score, 84-80 Longacre, which had won Raven’s hometown three hides of disputed land and shared use of Miracle’s white spring. No question, against locals, Raven was damned good. Weren’t playing locals now, though. She had to jog to catch up with the rest of the team; they all walked out onto the field together, and a cheer rose up from the bleachers. Just about the whole town had turned out to watch the game. It wasn’t often you saw stormers in a sleepy backwater like Longacre, and the stormers’d bet fifteen gallons of whisky and an automatic pistol against two sheep and three-fifty pounds of cornmeal that they'd be able to beat the home team by thirty goals. Damned if they would.
