The Warrior Moon

by K Arsenault Rivera

  “We will be all right,” Shizuka ventures, when it is only the two of them, riding with their armies like interlocked circles around them. “I promised you we would do this together, Shefali, and I am a woman of my word.”

  This earns her a green-and-steel glance, a muted nod, this reply a sort of resignation that is somehow more painful than if Shefali had said anything at all.

  “Can I help you?” she tries again, after it has been Two Bells and they have made only the normal amount of progress. If they are going to reach Iwa, they’ll need to be twice as far as they are now. But if they travel into the night …

  I won’t kill any horses.

  But what if they don’t use the horses? What if Shefali transforms herself into that massive wolf? She is large enough in that form to carry a rider, surely, and perhaps the two of them can sort out this issue all their own?

  But that is a child’s dream. Shizuka knows, on some level, how unlikely it was. What will the Traitor do? Walk down from his ivory towers and duel her? This is not a matter that can be settled with a single sword stroke. And even if they do kill him today—what, then, will happen at the end of the day?

  When will O-Akane rise from the caverns she calls home to claim Shefali?

  Shizuka is more nervous about it than she cares to admit. For the first time in all their travels, they are beginning to see birds. Each one that passes overhead—each shadow—puts her in mind of arrows. She finds herself flinching over and over in the saddle, finds herself wondering when the enemy will appear.

  For they will appear today; she is sure of it.

  That is the way of these things.

  Minami Shizuka rides through the lands beyond the Wall with one hand on her mother’s sword, waiting—just waiting—for the chance to slay her wife’s murderer. A serpent buried in the sand.

  But for all the pain she’s in, for all the stiffness and obvious agony, Shefali has not slowed one bit. To do so might kill her, Shizuka thinks, in a way more painful than having her heart stop in her chest. If the Qorin see her falter on horseback, she is lost to them.

  So, as the hour nears Fifth Bell, Shefali kicks her horse into a gallop.

  “Where are you going?” Shizuka asks her, but if Shefali hears her, she does not think to say a word. Off she goes—a lightning bolt on four legs.

  Should she follow? What if something were to happen to her? Could she bear the burden of having hung back? But perhaps Shefali simply wants to feel the wind through her hair, perhaps she will return.

  Shizuka half stands in her saddle.

  Just as she decides to go, Burqila Alshara and Dorbentei Otgar do, too. There is Dorbentei fully standing, beating her chest as she rides around the rest of the Qorin army. She starts to bellow a song. The melody is an ancient one—rising and falling like the lamented weep of a widow—and yet something of it cuts to the core of Shizuka’s being. She has heard many Qorin drinking songs and fighting songs and even songs for coupling—but never something like this.

  Never something so profoundly sorrowful.

  And it does not long remain Otgar’s song. The others pick it up, one by one—Alshara’s sisters first among them. Voices mesh but do not quite meld—some start at a different point in the song altogether, some sing a countermelody, lending the song yet more sorrow for all the contrast.

  Five thousand voices. Ten thousand.

  The Qorin army stand in their saddles as Barsalai Shefali pulls out in front of them.

  Yes, Shizuka is standing in her saddle now, though it does not lend her much in the way of a view. There is her wife, racing across the impossible landscape—there is her wife, a fleck of silver and black beneath the towers of the lost city.

  “General,” says Munenori. He’s ridden up to her side. “General, the Qorin—if the enemy are present, this singing will surely alert them. There might be some sort of trap up ahead.”

  She shakes her head, though she does not bother to look at him. “The scouts said no such thing.”

  “The scouts have been wrong before,” Munenori offers. “On today, of all days, should we not be exercising caution?”

  Does this not move him? How can he hear this swelling song and speak of such things? She has half a mind to tell him to milk a stallion until all of it is over with.

  And yet she is still a general, though she may no longer be an Empress—there’s a certain amount of decorum involved.

  “On today, of all days,” she says, “let my wife do exactly what she pleases.”

  And it is then, of course, that the screaming begins.

  The screaming is not the first indication that something is wrong, although it is what draws Shizuka’s attention. Had she been watching only a moment earlier, she would have seen the cloud of dust rising up from the earth; she would have seen the horses tumbling down, down. Like a wave, she thinks—the sight of it is so like a wave. One moment the Qorin are there, and the next they are sinking farther, farther into the yawning mouth that has now opened up beneath them.

  Horror sets in. The pit’s as wide as the Jade Palace and perhaps just as deep—she cannot see where the Qorin are going, and more of them keep funneling in, like ants piling atop one another. She cannot see an end to it.

  And somewhere in that mass of people tumbling to what must be their deaths—somewhere in there is Shefali. Desperately her eyes scan the horror-struck faces of the Qorin. Where is she? Darker than the rest, her horse so bright—where is Shefali?

  Shizuka cannot see her.

  Shizuka’s body moves without her having to think; she raises an arm to halt the approach of the Phoenix Guard.

  “Munenori, you’re in command!” she says.

  The right thing to do—the just thing—would be to stay and watch over her army.

  And yet what is more right, more just, than saving a people who have suffered too much already?

  Shizuka kicks her horse into a gallop. She must find her wife.

  Up ahead the Qorin scramble to keep their horses under control. Some are lucky enough to skid to a halt just short of the pit; most are not. The pained cries of rider and horse alike assault her ears as she pushes forward, forward. She doesn’t want to think of how many of these animals will have to be put down; she does not want to acknowledge the woman screaming that she can no longer feel her legs. The Phoenix Guard will watch over them.

  Only Shizuka can save Shefali.

  Forward, forward, her horse’s hooves beating against the earth. She draws her mother’s sword though no enemies have made themselves known—if Shefali sees the familiar golden light, perhaps she will know which way to go. Sorrow sinks into Shizuka’s stomach as she approaches the pit itself: even holding the sword aloft, she cannot see the bottom.

  Where is she?

  The howling, the screaming, the cries of the fallen—all of these are a distraction. Deep in the darkness of that pit is her wife, if only she could get a better look. Shizuka dismounts, giving her horse two quick pats before walking closer, closer. A pebble by her foot tumbles into the black. She kneels down, her heart hammering in her head, and thrusts her lit sword into the darkness.

  But this is no ordinary darkness—it is a living thing. The moment her sword pierces its veil—and how awful it feels!—the darkness ignites. Like black cobwebs, the darkness as it burns, revealing the horrors concealed beneath: corpses piled high as a festival float. The stench of it! How far down are they? There is no way she can make her way down there without hurting herself, no way she can do anything but die if she falls—

  No.

  Shefali is down there.

  It is the first of Qurukai, but it is not the day her wife will die—Shizuka won’t let it be.

  “Shefali!” Shizuka screams. Everything she is, everything she will be—she throws all her focus into her mother’s sword. A blazing arc shoots up into the false sky. Daylight—true daylight—shines into the pit. She can see the narrow winding walls; she can see the things stuck to them.…

 
; It is customary for the Hokkaran royals to raise silkworms. Shizuka was no exception to the rule. She’s been around them for much of her life.

  The Phoenix Empress knows well what a cocoon looks like.

  And in front of her now are cocoons, lining these horrible walls. She is too far up to see what is contained within them, but the husks are tall and broad and plentiful and …

  “Shefali!” Shizuka screams again. There is some movement at the base of the pit, where all the others fell. Surely, Shefali is among them; surely, she will hear.

  But there is no answer from her wife—only the trapped Qorin.

  “Naisuran!” they scream. Her mother’s name. “Naisuran, something’s—”

  The ground beneath her rumbles, rumbles—cracks. Shizuka scrambles to keep upright as the two halves of the earth beneath her spread farther and farther apart. Her head is swimming with stress already—she is so close to the edge—

  She takes a steadying step.

  Her foot meets empty air.

  She is falling—

  And then she is saved. A strong arm grabs her by the back of her jacket and yanks her to safety. She falls backwards; the air’s knocked out of her as she hits the ground. A shadow looms over her. She reaches for her sword, ready to cut—

  But when she looks up, Shizuka sees only her mother-in-law.

  Burqila Alshara, wan, her viper green eyes wide in the holes of her scowling war mask.

  Burqila Alshara, who has just watched her sisters, her niece, her daughter, her people—all of them—tumble into the pit.

  There is a half-mad fear to her.

  Shizuka swallows. “Aaj,” she says, getting to her feet. “Aaj, I have to—”

  Burqila shakes her head. Even now she will not shatter her oath, even now she would rather shove Shizuka further toward safety without having to speak. The shove is enough to almost send Shizuka tumbling back again, but—but can’t she see they don’t have time for this?

  “Let me go!” Shizuka shouts. It is the only time in her life she has ever raised her voice to Burqila Alshara. The backhand that meets her is expected; it does not daunt her even as she feels the bruise beginning to form. Burqila signals to two of the survivors. They rush forward and seize Shizuka around the shoulders.

  But Shefali is at the bottom of that pit and the ground keeps rumbling and—

  “Naisuran! Burqila! Whoever—there’s a spider—!”

  The abject fear, the hopelessness of that cry! She has not heard its like since Nishikomi. And to be audible from so far down—the speaker’s lungs must be burning. Trapped, with no way to climb up—

  Shizuka rushes forward as much as she can. One of the Qorin holding her staggers.

  “I’m going!” she shouts. “You can’t keep me—! She needs me!”

  Now it is Burqila who has her by the shoulders; now it is Burqila who pushes her back and back and back. The fear is still there in her eyes, but there is something more besides, something deeper. Recognition, perhaps—realization? Love?

  Shizuka does not have time for it, whatever it might be. Her wife’s life hangs in the balance.

  She tries to push forward.

  Burqila digs in her heels. Taller than even her daughter, Burqila is a wall of flesh and muscle.

  The ground rumbles, rumbles; Shizuka looks beneath Burqila’s armpit to see a nightmare approach.

  To name it a spider is to name a dragon a dragonfly. The demon emerging from the dark is ten times the size of the Qorin before it. A thing that size defies nature. Look! The cruel angles of its legs as it skitters down the tunnel! The mandibles chittering as it nears its prey! Hear the laughter—the throaty joy of a woman who has found some new entertainment. Watch as the spider crosses the line into the light—see the woman’s body growing out from where its head should be! Its hair wild and unbound, black as the night they’ve long since left behind. Eight eyes gleam blood red on its face; its grin is unnaturally wide and lined with sharp teeth.

  “My, oh my,” says the spider woman. “What have we here?” Its deep voice climbs up the pit; the surviving Qorin freeze in place at the sound.

  Yet what controls the others only galvanizes Shizuka. Fear and determination lend her limbs the strength she needs—she shoves Burqila out of the way. Her feet beat against the earth. Two steps, three—she’s at the very edge of the mouth—

  Arrows are flying through the air. The Qorin at the bottom of the pit, broken though they may not be, are not going out without a fight. They sink into the flesh of the spider woman, though they do not slow its movement. Careful, careful, like plucking a fallen eyelash from a sleeping lover’s face—the spider plucks a body from the wreckage.

  A woman in a tiger-striped deel.

  Before Shizuka, a fall that left even proud Qorin horses crippled; before her, a mound of bodies and flesh and dying and dead; before her, a fall that will kill her. But there—her wife, too.

  Heart like a war drum, Shizuka launches herself.

  Falling is not difficult. No one in the history of the Empire has ever claimed as much. Any child might fall, any dying man, any lovers in the dead of night. It is the landing that is the problem.

  And so as Empress Yui, the Daughter of Heaven, Light of the Empire, Celestial Flame, The Phoenix Empress herself falls—as this worthy woman tumbles, as her jacket flaps in the air above her, she tries to think of some way she might save herself.

  The bodies—they could break her fall. Yet what blasphemy, what desecration, for the Empress of Hokkaro to break her fall on the bodies of Qorin—Shizuka refuses to be anything like her ancestors.

  Then perhaps a flower might save her? Flowers are her dominion, and to call on them would hurt no one—yet what flower can save her here?

  If only she were a true phoenix, if only—

  It’s a matter of will, isn’t it? Whether or not she is a phoenix?

  I am, she tells herself. I am, and my wings shall save me.

  And yet Shizuka knows that she is no shape-shifter, knows that it has never been among her talents. No matter how hard she focuses on the image, wings do not come to her. Today shall not be the day she takes flight.

  Even the gods can be slain—and even the gods are beholden to gravity. The ground rises to meet her.

  In the moment before she slams against the earth, she thinks: I won’t die today.

  But the black takes her, and she thinks nothing more.

  BURQILA ALSHARA

  ONE

  Burqila Alshara is a symbol. In times of distress—which, for the Qorin, means all the time—her people look to her for guidance. For strength. For answers.

  She has none to offer them now—only her own guilt.

  She knows what the lands beyond the Wall are like. She knows how pits can open up at any moment. She should have told the girls about it, should have broken up the army better, or made sure they were not all charging at once.

  All of this is her fault. She stands at the lip of the pit and looks down on her slaughtered people, their limbs rising at unnatural angles—and she thinks: This is my fault.

  This land took her first horse from her—and in the end, it had also taken the only woman Alshara had ever loved. Now it is trying to claim her daughters. She should have known.

  Shizuru had asked her to take care of her daughter, and what did Burqila do? Let Shizuka run off to war and get herself traumatized, let her mourn alone while the Qorin were away, let her go on this suicide mission. And what of Shefali? After so many years apart, after she at last earned back her name—the day has come, and the Mother is going to get her due.

  Shit.

  She hates this.

  But the trouble with being a symbol is that you cannot indulge these thoughts. The Qorin do not expect to see Burqila Alshara, grieving mother; they hardly know that woman. They expect only Burqila Alshara, the Wall-Breaker, leader of her people since she was old enough to know they needed leading.

  And they need it now. All the clan riders have
scattered in wake of the horror before them. Moments after Shizuka leaped to her— No, she won’t think of the word, that’s bad luck. Moments after Shizuka landed, the spider woman had dragged much of the mound of bodies away, setting them on its back as if it were carrying its own young. There’s been no further sign of the enemy, but there doesn’t need to be—the idea of dying in a pit so far from the sky is enough to strike fear into the hearts of the Qorin.

  What needs doing? Burqila forces herself to think on the practical questions; they can figure out how to save the girls later. They have each other, now. If the armies remaining above do not keep themselves united, the enemy is going to trample them into the ground. She forces herself to look away from the pit. What needs doing?

  There. Dalaansuv is shouting for her company to set up the cannons in case they’re attacked. Trust her to have her head on straight—Burqila breathes a sigh of relief, knowing she’s safe. Khadiyya is missing, Zurgaanqar and Dorbentei, too—but at least she has Dalaansuv.

  And it is a good thing that she does—there aren’t many people she’d trust to translate for her.

  Burqila runs to her youngest sister; it’s no use getting her horse when she’d only be trampling her own people. Easier to avoid them on foot, easier to tug up the fallen and give them the stern slap on the back they need to keep going. Qorin are hardy; they will survive nearly anything given the proper motivation.

  Knowing that Burqila Alshara has taken the time to get you back to your feet—that is proper enough for most of them.

  The ground shakes again beneath them. Has the spider woman left? Burqila does not look over her shoulder to find out. Dalaansuv’s weaving between the cannons, shouting directions. She’s got some Surian contraption hanging from her hands, something that helps her measure distances. It’s as foreign to Burqila as anything the sanvaartains have ever crafted; she knows better than to question how it works.