Warmaidens

by Kelly Coon

  I prayed he would die quickly. Iltani was likely praying he wouldn’t.

  Uruku raised his hands. Next to him, Gudanna fanned herself, panting heavily, holding her belly. It visibly contracted under her filmy tunic, and she grunted.

  “Farmer and Guardsman,” Uruku commanded, his face twisted in pain, the gochala still at work in his blood. “You have not proven your innocence to me or to this city.” His face went white. “One of you must die!”

  The crowds began to chant for them to be released. One lone voice in the back, then everyone joining in.

  “Turn them loose! Turn them loose! Turn them loose! Turn them loose!”

  Uruku’s face contorted in rage. “Guardsmen! Start the trial again!”

  Rage welled up inside me like fire the louder the crowd yelled. The council members stood, conferring with one another, some confused, some angry. As the people below us chanted louder and louder, stronger and stronger, Uruku shook with fury.

  “Listen to the crowd, Uruku. Let them go!” I cried.

  “Yeah, you lice-infested donkey!” Iltani screeched.

  He turned to look at us, his eyes glittering.

  “They have proven themselves true, so let them go,” I demanded. Though it might cost me, I had to listen to my heart. And it was telling me to fight.

  “Tell me where the nin is, and I will,” Uruku said through gritted teeth, gripping the edge of the viewing box until his knuckles were white.

  And as soon as I did, we would all be dead.

  “No.” My voice wavered with anger.

  He slammed his hands down on the side of the box. “Tell me where she is, or you will join them in the Pit.”

  Iltani spoke up. “You’d never accept her word, anyway, so why don’t you just suckle Alani’s teat in the Netherworld.”

  A grin spread across Uruku’s sickly face as he stared at Iltani. “Then I’ll take your little healer friend to the party!”

  Iltani launched herself at him in a growl, but he punched her in the jaw to the floor.

  Roughly, he grabbed my arm and dragged me down the staircase. Iltani heaved herself up and tried to follow, but two burly guardsmen held her back. She screamed my name and kicked and clawed, but they held her fast. We tore through the crowds, them parting as he shoved me through. He pushed me down a side ladder into the Pit, where I crashed into the dirt. He followed and yanked me up by my hair, locking his arm around my throat.

  “Kammani!” Dagan yelled, panic flickering in his eyes as I came into view. Nasu raised a bloodied sicklesword.

  I gurgled, kicking at Uruku’s shins. I thrust my elbow into his breastplate and tried to wrench myself away, but he pressed a dagger to my rib cage.

  Dagan called to us. “Free her, Uruku, and I will kill Nasu right now to prove myself innocent! I swear!”

  Nasu squared off to him, anger rising on his face. “You’d never best me, and you know it.”

  “Why don’t we see how this plays out.” Uruku dragged me to the center of the ring, ten paces away from Dagan. Dagan’s hand twitched, his dagger poised to throw, but Uruku kept me in front of his body. Dagan had no clear shot!

  “Guardsmen! Finish the trial! Spare one of them. The other two must die!” Uruku screamed almost gleefully, his forearm firmly around my windpipe.

  Gasping for air, I felt the horror of what was to come rain down on our shoulders like fire as the gate creaked open, and more guardsmen than I could count poured out and encircled us, armed to their teeth, shields flashing in the sun.

  “Serve justice! We must have the truth!” Uruku cried in my ear, his voice heightened with malicious triumph.

  The guardsmen stood shoulder to shoulder, helmets pulled down over their brows. They carried battle-axes and maces. Sickleswords and spears. One accurate throw and we’d be done. Humusi’s writhing body as she’d been impaled spun through my mind in nauseating waves.

  So this is how we will die.

  Dagan and Nasu tensed together, chests heaving, blood spattered across their faces. Dagan’s emerald dagger glittered in his right hand, a sicklesword in his left. Nasu clutched one gory mace and his own sicklesword. No match for any of these men.

  “Dagan!” I screamed, my throat raw, as I wriggled under Uruku’s hold. My blood grew cold, and the Boatman flickered to life in front of me and ghosted away. I grabbed for his image with my mind, but Uruku’s forearm pressing, pressing, into my throat was making me see stars instead.

  As the guardsmen slowly advanced on Dagan and Nasu, who stood back to back, ready to meet their fates, Uruku hurled me forward onto my knees into the sand, and retreated with a guardsman out of the Pit. Dagan’s face was a mask of terror.

  “Run to the ladder!” he yelled to me as a guardsman swiped at Dagan’s head with his sicklesword while another stepped forward and lunged for Nasu. Another, his beard bigger than I was, advanced on me, a spear gripped in his mighty fist. My heart trembled in fear.

  I held up my empty hands. “Please sir.” I stayed on my knees, ready to dive should he throw it.

  “Kammani!” Dagan screamed. His sicklesword clanged against a guardsman’s shield on his right, and two more guardsmen advanced on his left. He was surrounded. “Go!”

  A cry tore from my throat as the big guardsman took another step toward me. Then another. But my scream was not as loud as the shriek that rose from the gate of the Pit. Nor was it as loud as the resulting cries of terror—of fascination, of triumph—that rose from the crowd around me.

  Startled, I whipped my head around to look, and sobs racked my shoulders as my eyes told my brain what I was seeing.

  Chariots. At least thirty of them.

  Thundering through the gates toward me. Toward the melee.

  All being driven by a band of female warriors too fierce, too powerful, to even believe. And they were led by Commander Ummi and Higal, who both wore vicious determination about their shoulders like they were born for exactly this kind of revenge.

  THE WARRIORS, COPPER helmets gleaming in the sun, mouths wide open in battle cry, would not stop coming through the gates with chariots and whips. Riding panting horses. Swinging battle-axes and firing arrows and throwing spears. Assata thundered by me astride a gleaming chestnut mare, a broken arm holding the reins. She swung a sicklesword into the guardsman advancing on me as she raced into the fray. He fell to his knees, blood spurting from his throat. I scrambled away, to the side of the Pit, fear, relief, choking me. The heavy trader’s tunic was sweltering, and I ripped it over my head and kicked it off, freeing my healing satchel. Terrified, I pressed myself against the Pit’s wall.

  The warriors clanged battle-axes, bloodying the sands with shrieking men. An arrow thunked into the shoulder of the man fighting Dagan, and Dagan swung his sicklesword and finished him with one jagged slice. His face was grim. Resolute. He spun around to help Nasu with another attack.

  And at once, my hair prickled on my neck. A whisper at first.

  Then a roar.

  A mighty rush of frigid wind descended on me as if I were caught up in a great storm, and from the center of the battle, over the horses kicking up sand, the warriors’ twisted, ruthless faces, a figure rose.

  The Boatman, casting stark light from his eyes, his mouth, his hands, ascended from the sand in his ragged cloak. He opened his cavernous mouth wide in dreadful terror and threw his hood from his head. As he raised his bony arms to the skies and shrieked, one word echoed through my head again, and again, and again.

  Beware!

  The same one I’d heard when I’d envisioned Dagan throwing his dagger at me!

  The sensation of spiders crawling down my arms made me shudder as he continued to scream above the warriors, his bony jaw opened wide. No one else stopped to stare. He must only be showing himself to me.

  The healer.

  Drea
d wrapped its long fingers around my throat, and I began to choke.

  But after a second, I realized that the fingers were real.

  Someone is choking me!

  Peeling brittle fingers away, I wrenched around to see the damp, sickly face of Uruku. He must have come down the ladder during the fracas! At once, he was on me again, choking me, thumbs pressing into my windpipe as his eyes bulged.

  “You have done all this! You! You stupid girl!” Spittle flew into my face as he raged.

  I wedged my thumbs into his eyes. When he thrashed but didn’t let go, I remembered Iltani’s well-placed kick with the young guardsman from the kitchens, and reared back and kicked Uruku as hard as I could between the legs. He dropped to his knees with a grunt and I bolted. But he reached forward and grabbed my foot, sending me sprawling on my face.

  He was on me in a flash. He straddled me from behind and once again put his hands around my windpipe, squeezing. Squeezing.

  Gurgling, trying to peel his fingers from my throat, my eyes stinging and watering, I pinched both of his hands in the tender part between thumb and forefinger, the place my abum had always told me would take a man to his knees.

  Howling, Uruku let go. I scrambled to my feet and ran, but he caught up to me and grabbed me again, pinning his forearm against my throat. I couldn’t breathe! The memory of being shoved from the window in the Palace all those moons ago, of falling and breaking my leg, of everything that came after, swam into my head. All of a sudden, coldness descended on me as the rotten stench of rivergrass flooded my nose. Straining toward Dagan, my eyes stinging, throat closed, I felt swept away, underwater, and heard, as if it were whispered in my ear, “Arammu” in Dagan’s voice.

  In the center of the Pit, Dagan stilled, staring at us as the war was waged around him. His emerald dagger was in his hand, his face filled with rage. Behind him, the Boatman, his cloak billowing, the stench radiating from him in waves, whispered in Dagan’s ear. In one practiced move, as I’d witnessed him do a thousand times behind our house in Manzazu, Dagan reared his arm back and hurled his dagger toward Uruku with more force than I’d ever seen him wield.

  But as it flew through the air with the grace of a fired arrow, Dagan’s eyes widened in horror. For the path it was on was not in line with Uruku, its intended recipient.

  The dagger was sailing directly toward me.

  * * *

  Drop. Twist. Throw!

  The memory of Ummi’s training in Wussuru sprang to life in my body, and I jerked my left arm up, knocking Uruku’s hand off my throat. At once, I dropped, twisted, and launched him over my shoulder. When I did, a wet thunk, followed by a strangled, burbling shriek, came from Uruku as he flew overhead and landed on his back with a whump.

  He writhed on his back, kicking.

  Panic buzzed through me, and I scrambled away from him—Run! Run!—but when I took stock of myself, I realized there was no need. Not anymore. Dagan’s dagger was sunk to the hilt in Uruku’s throat, and blood streamed from the wound.

  He was down and wouldn’t be getting up again.

  I was safe. I was safe!

  Uruku jerked in the sand, thrashing, hands wild and frantic around the blade. My body quivering, I crawled closer to the man who had caused me so much pain. He and Gudanna had murdered my father. Lugal Marus. Had killed so many others in their quest for power, but now he lay lurching in the filthy Pit, dying miserably.

  Do no harm.

  I reached for my satchel, my brain barely even registering what I was doing, as he opened and closed his mouth like a fish, searching for air that would not come. Rattling through my tinctures quickly, I found what I wanted: the nerium.

  It would ease him into death so he did not suffer. The powder I’d put on Dagan’s blade had likely all wiped off at this point, so Uruku would need the dose that I had left. My hands shook as I held the little red bottle in my palm.

  Does a murderer like him deserve mercy?

  My abum would say yes. He’d give the tonic and say vengeance was for Alani, not for us humans. We forgive and we move forward. We offer mercy to the evil and the good.

  But what did I want? His slimy lips on my mouth. Hands on my body. The thought that he’d bashed the teeth from that woman so many moons ago, and murdered innocent people, filled me up with sorrow. With rage.

  Tears sprang to my eyes, and I pressed a hand to my mouth, processing it all. He deserved no kindness, especially from anyone he’d hurt—but that had very little to do with me. I was a healer. I kept my feelings out of it. The Boatman had pressed this tincture into my hand time and time again, and I would show mercy because it was right and it was whole and it was the only thing separating me from this evil man.

  My hand trembling, I reached toward his mouth, which was desperately sucking in his last breaths, and sprinkled some of the tincture on his tongue to ease him into his death. As his eyelids began to droop, he slid Dagan’s dagger free from his throat, sealing his fate with the move. The blade had at least been blocking some of the flow, but now he’d bleed out within seconds. The Boatman would come. And quickly.

  Kneeling at his head, my knees covered in the gore of this dying man, I looked into his brown eyes, hoping for something.

  An apology. Remorse.

  But there was nothing but a sort of bewilderment as if, in all his years, he’d never imagined anything like this could happen to someone like him.

  He held a bloodied hand out to me, grasping the front of my tunic. I put my hand over his.

  “My abum was a good, kind man,” I whispered. “And I miss him every day. But you know what?” I leaned close so he could hear the last words anyone would ever say to him: “No one will mourn you once you’re dead. Not your wife. Not your child. Not this city. No one.”

  In a few seconds, his hand fell away, and his drooping eyes strayed from me to the battle. Finally, while he twitched and kicked, his eyes dimmed, and his dark soul slithered away to its doom in the Netherworld.

  A sob rose from my gut and lurched from my chest in agony—in joy.

  He was gone.

  It was over. I covered my face with my hands and cried. For though I might have plotted to end his life, a fact that did not make me proud, I had shown him mercy in the end, and that was something.

  That was something.

  * * *

  The battle was ending, when I was calm enough to stand.

  Light-headed and woozy, I stumbled away from Uruku’s body, Dagan’s dagger wiped clean and stowed in my satchel. A few warriors finished off the last of the fighting guardsmen who hadn’t dropped their weapons and surrendered. I took in the carnage on every side as the women pulled their whinnying horses to a stop and the chariots stilled. A mess of twisted limbs here. A dying man there. Discarded sickleswords and helmets everywhere.

  I’d need to help tend the wounded—and soon—but for now, I wanted only him. Dagan.

  Where is he?

  As I tromped through remnants of the battle to find him, one final white horse galloped into the arena, kicking up sand. I turned, lifting my eyes to see the rider.

  It was Linaza, the goddess of love and war.

  And she looked a lot like Arwia.

  Streaming from her long black hair were red ribbons that shimmered as if they’d captured the sun. Atop her head was a crown of hammered gold, with what appeared to be fire inside.

  She carried a flashing copper shield and wore a silver breastplate over a blood-red tunic that flowed from her shoulders long past her hands. Feathers had been sewn from shoulder to tip. On her back were gold wings that spread to the sky. Her horse was similarly arrayed, its mane woven with red roses and ribbons, its back draped in a long white sheet on which was painted a scorpion with its tail poised to strike.

  The crowd stilled and horses reared in the arena as the women got down from their c
hariots and swept off their helmets one by one.

  “Citizens of Alu!” Arwia yelled, her face painted to make her features look formidable. Slashes of eyebrows. Carved cheekbones. A red, dangerous mouth. “I am the daughter of Lugal Marus, Arwia, the Sarratum of Alu!” She raised her shield in the air and the crowds shifted uneasily, their cries of awe echoing across the large expanse of the bloody Pit.

  “The goddess of war, Linaza, has freed me from the tomb! She gave me the power of her shield. The power of the Koru and the great Manzazu army! She commanded that I rid you of the torment from Lugal Uruku, who took this kingdom falsely.”

  The ensis on the council sat on their bench, mouths agape. Ensi Puzu stood and cheered, one fist in the air, and four other members joined him to support Arwia. But Ensi Adda and Ensi Mudutu remained quiet and seated with the other councilmen, observing. Perhaps they wanted someone else on the throne?

  The crowd was hushed, but a man shouted in joy from the back. Shielding my eyes from the sun, I picked through the crowds to see who it was. The man jumped up and down, the set of his shoulders similar to a particular smart-mouthed friend of mine. Iltani’s father. He raised his fist and Arwia answered with one of her own.

  “He has starved you! Punished you! Torn your families apart! I have come to tell you today that we are finished with torment! You will work an honest day and receive a living wage. We will help those who cannot afford food. We will protect our city with our band of warriors who are loyal to the citizens of Alu, not their own coffers.

  “I promise you that I will restore your faith in this crown!” she cried, holding her hands up high overhead. “No one will suffer under my rule!”

  “All hail Sarratum Arwia!” Iltani’s abum yelled hoarsely. “All hail Sarratum Arwia!”

  And the crowd joined in. One after another after another. Standing in exultation. Arms overhead. Hands clasped together in prayer. Raised to the sky. The guardsmen standing in the Pit who had not been killed sank to one knee, their heads bowed.