November 2, 330
My dream began when we woke up. Horses surrounded my bed, but they all had the faces of my father and mother mutated into one horrific core head. I asked them why they were clustered around my bed. As one, they began to sing the national anthem. Then one of them said he was a Sabrefell Moths fan and that I should've accepted their transfer offer at the start of last year and then he bit me and I woke up.
It was well horrible.
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It was 6.30am, late spring in Treason. Gethin Ramsey had been awake for some time, but the soft, plush body of his vastly younger girlfriend, Angela, was proving too strong a reason to stay. Yes, just to lie here on her soft, warm stomach as she breathed in and out in blissful sleep...
There was a rapping on the door. Quick, staccato and efficient.
Gethin dealt with it by pretending it didn't exist.
His clock clicked over to 6.31. There was another knocking at the door.
Angela stirred beneath him. He swore under his breath.
"You'd better answer that," said Angela, trying to rub life into her eyes. She was a model for New Sideburn's only fashion designers, Bear Wrestler, who tailored exclusively for tall, strapping lads and lasses who ate meat and drank beer for breakfast. Other clothing designers for 'plus-size' people tend to hide it under wankery names like 'Big and Tall', or 'My Size'. Only in New Sideburn would an entrepreneur attempt to attach a heroic spin to it.
Gethin swore again, slid out of bed gracelessly and answered the door. While it was his custom to sleep in tracksuit pants, he wasn't feeling particularly inclined to dig around on the floor for a shirt.
At 6.32, they knocked on the door again, just as Gethin was about to open it. The manager gritted his teeth, inhaled and exhaled deeply, then ripped open the door.
"Yes?" he said, expectantly.
A small, cheerful-looking blonde smiled up at him, and extended a hand. "Hello? My name's Escher Speare, we talked over the phone?"
Gethin's resolve hardened. "Right. You said you'd be here at 6.30 without actually waiting for me to answer."
"Er," said Escher, before deciding to go for truth. "Well, yes?"
Gethin shrugged. "Well, whatever. Now I'm awake, now my girlfriend's awake, and I've got nothing else better to do. Lemme fetch a shirt and you can shout me a coffee."
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"So you have the group draw already?" said Gethin, incredulous.
"It was 3am, but I made it anyway!" Escher did, in fact, have the slightly manic look of someone who had probably drunk too much coffee as a result of waking early, and was about to drink another at that. Escher handed Gethin a piece of paper.
The Archregimancy (12)
United Gordonopia (28)
Khytenna (68)
New Sideburn (86)
Backyard Sports (104)
Homelands Our (195)
Nandezia (222)
Neu Engollon (281)
Mr Creeper (315)
Phing Phong (350)
"Oh," said Gethin, blandly. He recognised some of those names. That was generally a bad sign. "Do you know much about-"
"The Archregimancy is an order of monks, I believe, and they will be easy to find footage of. United Gordonopia I believe you are familiar with, Khytenna is quite strong as well... but the bookies have us as dark horses for the playoffs and I think we can, too. Backyard are the only other competition we need to worry about - their style was converted from street football, I believe, and they lack much of a stadium but I think we should still be able to defeat them twice. Nandezia are our next opponents, I've done some statistics on them in their Baptism of Fire matches, they were expected to do better than the round of sixteen. They won't be pushovers, but again, we should still beat them twice. Everyone else I don't think we need to worry about."
"Oh," said Gethin. "Good. Um, so you've done this quite thoroughly, Ms... ?"
"Speare, Escher Speare," said Escher, helpfully adding "I told you at the door."
"Right. Yeah. Well, I guess this is your first day on the job."
"Quite. I was surprised when you called me up, hahahahaha! Ha."
"Nobody else wanted the job," said the gaffer. "C'mon, let's take our coffees."
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A hundred and six thousand, eight hundred and forty-one people packed into the Farham Arena to watch their beloved Cormorants. Or their beloved Canaries, as the case may be. The outgoing Baptism of Fire champions were uncomfortably aware that the precedent of Baptism sides proving a thorn in the side of more established sides was one they'd helped set just two years ago. This time, Nandezia was the heroic underdogs, and the Cormorants were collectively The Man. There was nothing for it, then, except to mercilessly jump up and down on the Canaries until there was nothing left, then move onto the next target.
Brutality and ruthlessness would be their watchwords, Gethin had said, drilling into the team the message that they couldn't afford to be nearly as leaky at the back as they had been last time. They couldn't afford to waste shots, drop points... they may have been dark horses to reach the playoffs, but Gethin expected nothing less of them.
It was sink or swim.
Fortunately, cormorants are seabirds.
