Daoud's teammates chattered excitedly. They loved mall, and to play before the sultan was a special honor. Kassar, the captain of their team, boasted that he would make ten goals that day. Theirs was to be the second match. Hefting his mallet, Daoud watched the first match, also between two teams of fifth-year trainees. Each team of eight riders tried to drive the wooden ball between a pair of stone pillars painted with red and yellow stripes, defended by the other team. With every crack of a mallet against the ball, a roar went up from the watching Mamelukes. A judge with an hourglass called time halfway through the match, to let the field be watered again and the teams change ponies. By the end of the match, the dust was so thick Daoud could not see who had won. But he did not care. He felt utterly calm. He was past anger and past fear. He thought only of watching for the right moment. Now it was time for their team. Kassar, Daoud, and the other six riders lined up on the east side of the field, the eight members of the troop they were playing against forming on the other side. The judge set the wooden ball, yellow with a bright red stripe around its middle, in the center of the field. The sultan held out a blue silk scarf and dropped it. Kassar and the captain of the other team raced at the ball from opposite goals, screaming their war cries. Kassar whirled his mallet over his head, and his pony's legs were a blur in the dust. He reached the ball an instant before his opponent. His mallet slammed into the ball with a crack like the splitting of a board, and the ball flew halfway toward the enemy goal. The ball was in play, and now the other riders could join in. _You will make not even one goal today, Kassar_, Daoud thought as he galloped across the field with his team. The players on the other side were trying to hit the ball away from their goal. Kassar had ridden into their midst, his pony nimbly following the ball. He held his mallet low to hit through the legs of the opposing team's ponies. Two of the opponents had stayed back by their goalposts to deflect the ball should Kassar hit it. Kassar was on top of the ball. Daoud kicked his pony's ribs hard and galloped after him. As Kassar swung low from his saddle to hit the ball, Daoud drove in on him. Kassar glanced up, fear flashing across his broad face. Whatever passed through his mind was his last thought. Daoud swung his mallet up from the ground, smashing it into Kassar's jaw. The force of the blow knocked the white cap from his head. His pony ran free of the melee. Kassar reeled, unconscious, but his horse nomad's instinct held him in the saddle. Daoud jerked his pony around to race after Kassar. In an instant he was beside his enemy. He was about to kill a khushdashiyin, a barracks comrade, in open defiance of the code of the Mamelukes and in front of his emir and his sultan. _I am a dead man_, he thought as he swung the mallet high.