The Warrior Moon

by K Arsenault Rivera

  Dalaansuv catches her coming from the corner of her eye. She hops off the cannon she’s calibrating and runs, throwing her arms around Burqila in full view of the rest of the clan. Much as it pains Alshara, this isn’t the place or time for such displays—after sniffing her sister’s cheeks, she sets her back at arm’s length so she can sign.

  [[Barsalai, Dorbentei, Barsatoq, they’re all in the fucking pit,]] she signs. [[Any word from the northerners?]]

  Dalaansuv shakes her head. She hasn’t spent much time learning how to read Alshara’s signing—by the time she was old enough to talk, Alshara had already sworn her oath of silence. It takes her a few moments to process what’s being said.

  [[Fuck,]] Alshara signs.

  “Tell me about it,” says Dalaansuv.

  Again the ground rumbles beneath them. Warhorns go up from the back—now the front—of the Qorin array. Burqila draws the sword from her hip.

  [[I need an interpreter,]] she signs. [[Come with me.]]

  “I’ve got the cannons to work on,” says Dalaansuv. She’s speaking louder than she needs to. People often forget that Burqila is not deaf. Her own sister is not making that mistake—only shouting to overcome her own fear. “We’re going to need to recalibrate after each— Shit!”

  Burqila follows her sister’s pointing finger. A single li to the south, an army spreads across the horizon. Alshara cannot make out their banners from this distance, but she does not need to—only one army rides in a place like this.

  And they are riding. Cavalry make up the forward right and left flanks. In the center, pikemen; behind the pikemen, archers.

  All of them—every single one—a living shadow.

  What can be done? Again she asks herself the question, for if she allows herself to focus on what any of this means, then her people are lost.

  [[Keep your shit together,]] she signs to Dalaansuv. [[Barsalai blessed all of this. It should work against them.]]

  She wishes Dorbentei were with her so she wouldn’t have to actually say any of this. So often she is able to sign her own thoughts and let Dorbentei make them palatable to others. Alshara and Dalaansuv have always lived at a remove from each other—Kharsa and clanmate, not sisters. She probably could have phrased that better.

  But the trick to getting her family back is to live through this barrage. And for that—much as it pains her to admit—she’s going to need the Hokkarans.

  She runs to her horse and swings into the saddle. If she’s to reach them in time, she will need the horse. Her liver mare lets out a distressed sound as Alshara turns her around; she strokes her mane and thinks to her: You can cry later.

  But Burqila is not her daughter, and so her horse cannot hear her thoughts. Progress through the fallen is slow and, at times, painful. The civilians are doing all they can to pull the wounded out of the way, but they can do only so much. Alshara tries to avoid trampling over anyone, but …

  A wave of arrows shoots up from the enemy army. Within the confines of her own mind, Alshara curses as loud as she can. In reality, she ducks her head beneath one raised arm and hopes for the best. Grandmother Sky is kind to her this day—none finds her or her horse. Her clanmates are not so blessed. She watches as the earthbound Qorin scatter like ants around her. Howls of pain pierce the air as arrows pierce their skin.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  When Burqila looks up, she sees them: sanvaartains and elderly, running out along the battlefield to haul the fallen out of the way. One of the oldest women in the clan is limping her way to a wounded warrior, an arrow piercing her right through the calf.

  Another wave is coming—but how is she to warn anyone? Burqila swore she would never speak again, swore that her tongue would lie as silent as that of her old friend’s—but people are going to die if they aren’t warned. That old woman can’t possibly hope to find cover in time …

  A figure up ahead jumps up and down like a child, waving her hands above her head. Somehow, the arrows missed her. Burqila doesn’t recognize the armor—borrowed and cobbled together as it is—or the mask. A doe? On a battlefield?

  She’s of a mind to leave her in the dust—at least until the figure speaks.

  “Burqila! Burqila, you’re alive!”

  Barsatoq’s cousin. The Altanai. Burqila sniffs. The girl isn’t cut out for a battlefield—if she’s left to her own devices, she’s just going to end up getting herself killed. For the Sky’s sake! She can’t even ride on her own, can she? She’s fallen off every single horse Burqila has given her. If Barsatoq returns and her cousin is dead …

  Leave her. The practical thing to do is to leave her.

  She’s set her mind on doing just that when—like a fool—Sakura tears off her war mask. Burqila nearly brings her liver mare to a halt.

  Barsatoq takes after her father, the poet.

  But this girl, she takes after …

  She is nineteen, barely a woman, already a mother. The two of them sit in a pit only a few li north of the Wall. Shizuru’s nose and mouth are streaked with red.

  My little brother … I can’t believe he’s gone, she’d said.

  And Burqila, who had killed her only two brothers, sat and listened and squeezed her shoulders. They were not fated, the two of them—but that did not mean she could not comfort her friend. In that cave, Burqila, for the first time in her entire life, broke her oath of silence.

  For Shizuru’s sake.

  This woman, this Altanai before her … She had failed Keichi in the fog. She could not fail him again. She could not fail Shizuru.

  What a woman, to hold such sway over Burqila Alshara even years after she’d died.

  Burqila holds out an arm. The Altanai takes it. The movement isn’t so smooth as it used to be, but Burqila scoops her up all the same. It feels dirty to have someone else on her horse, some pale-faced northerner who has no hope of understanding her, but she tells herself it is a favor to Shizuru.

  I hope you’re watching, she thinks, you pampered git.

  The Altanai cannot hold herself properly; by the horse’s third step, she is clinging to Alshara for dear life. Her fingers dig in at Alshara’s shoulders. Did she not think to trim her nails? Alshara can feel them even through the hide of her gloves. How did she get them on to begin with?

  “Fuck,” she says. “The earth just … they’re all…”

  Burqila nods. Isn’t she meant to be a scholar?

  But there’s no time to tease her about it, even if she had the words to do so. Another wave of arrows soars through the sky. Burqila raises her arm again, this time leaning forward, shielding the historian with her body. This time she is not so lucky—an arrow finds her forearm. She grunts, closes her eyes, hopes that her mare will know the way to the Phoenix Guard. In truth, she cannot feel much in the way of pain with all this blood rushing through her—only the imposition of a foreign object into her shooting hand.

  They’re going to need to do something about all those archers. About everything, really, but the archers are the foremost problem. They wouldn’t be if the Qorin were still around in large numbers—their bows can shoot farther than the Hokkaran ones the enemy are using, and they are stronger besides. Yet of the thousands of Qorin they’ve brought with them, only a few hundred remain aboveground. Most of them are too busy trying to soothe their horses, and rescue those who haven’t been as lucky.

  Dalaansuv, Burqila thinks, now would be a good time for the fucking cannons.

  But it is not a thing she can voice.

  “What’s the plan?” says the girl in her arms. Her helmet knocks against Alshara’s chin, a small sunburst of annoyance. “There’s a plan, right? Tell me there’s a plan. My cousin … Your daughter’s in there!”

  Is it the nature of scholars to state the obvious? If a bird shits on your head, complaining about it isn’t going to help. Burqila opens her eyes. Sakura’s gone pale.

  Calm down, she wants to say.

  But she cannot.

  And so she simply slaps her, and h
opes that is message enough.

  Sakura clutches her swelling cheek. Her eyes narrow in anger and disgust—but she says nothing more. Good. It’s hard enough to think amid the horns and the arrows and the wails of the dying.

  They pass Big Mongke trying to lift a horse off his younger brother. It isn’t going well—only Shefali can lift a Qorin horse with any ease. The boy trapped beneath—his lips are going blue. Ganzorig is slumped over a little ways away with an arrow in his gut. Tsetseg is bent over him, trying to spread a poultice on a wound they both know is going to go sour. He’s looking up at the old sanvaartain with a smile. Saying something. There’s no way for Alshara to know what.

  Her eyes see these things, but she does not allow herself to recognize them. The deaths of her people. Her family.

  Shefali …

  The Phoenix Guard is rising up ahead. They move like perfect toy soldiers into place, spreading out into two overlapping crescents. How the fuck is that meant to help? The arrows will get more of them this way. Anger roils in Alsahra’s gut; she’s going to crush that captain’s skull beneath her boot once this is all over.

  But only when this is all over.

  The ranks of the Phoenix Guard do not give way for the Kharsa on her liver mare. She cannot shout for them to leave, and so she must slow—at least until the Altanai decides to make herself useful. Sakura cups her hands over her mouth and starts screaming.

  “General Burqila seeks Captain Munenori!” she says. “Get us Captain Munenori!”

  She is no general, but now is not the time for correction. Enough of them get out of the way to allow her something like a path between the ranks. Why do they insist on flying those banners even here? The enemy army knows whom they are facing. They’re almost here. What use does a banner have save to stoke the fires of its owner’s glory?

  Honor and glory are going to get them all eaten by fucking demons.

  All around them, the Phoenix Guard sink into their readied stances. The forward army—most likely to face the rain of arrows—carry long tower shields. These they raise overhead, that they might save their companions from the onslaught. It’s worked for them so far—there are fewer dead Hokkarans in the ranks than there are dead Qorin farther back. Maybe they’re going to have to look into this shield business.

  Captains shout; companies echo. Burqila’s ears ring with it: positions, ready spears, brace …

  They cannot mean to field only lancers. Hokkarans favor them when dealing with the enemy, and favor them in dealing with the Qorin—but lancers are slow. You plant them in one place and hope for the best, while your infantry cleans up whatever makes it over the line. They’re going to break the cavalry charge, but what then?

  “Oshiro-zur!”

  The name does not register as her own—it takes three tries and Sakura tugging on her deel for Burqila to realize she is being called. Oshiro-zur. All this traveling, and they have not learned to properly address her.

  It is the captain who is calling her—Munenori. He’s astride a stout brindle, his war mask clamped on tight. Despite the hopelessness of the situation, his eyes are clear and fearless. Good. At least Barsatoq knew well enough whom to leave in charge.

  “What’s going on?” says Sakura. Is she trying to interpret? Let her.

  Shadow passes over them as another wave of arrows takes to the sky. Two of the shields shift so that they block Alshara and Sakura from the onslaught. Sure enough, thunk thunk thunk—arrows find wood and steel instead of flesh.

  “I’d think what’s going on would be self-evident,” says Munenori. “They’re coming.”

  “Right, but what are we going to do about it?” says Sakura. “There’s a plan, right? I was just telling Burqila, there’s got to be some sort of plan.”

  They cannot see his face beneath the mask, and can see little of his eyes as he turns to glance at the oncoming army. By now the ground beneath them trembles more often than not.

  “Crane’s Wing will blunt their charge,” he says. “We’ll close in around them. With blessed weaponry, we’ll have a chance.”

  He sounds as if he is trying to convince himself more than Alshara.

  She does not like that. A general must be absolute; a general must be iron. For him to waver even the slightest bit speaks ill of the whole affair—

  The shrill notes of a flute cut across the din of war. Though there is no way she should be able to hear it so clearly, Alshara can hear every note, every swell.

  There it is at the head of the enemy army: the Demon General Rikuto. It is impossible to mistake it. An antiquarian would consider that armor outdated: the massive helmet adorned with a radiant sun; the laminae that cover it in panes of gold and leather. It wears no war mask, for it has no need of one. It’s the one playing the music—the flute’s held to its mouth, just beneath its bulbous nose. Trails of smoke rise from its burning eyes.

  Burqila’s seen that look before. Her elder brother gave it to her after she’d killed their younger brother. Hatred is a simple thing; you cannot varnish it or adorn it. You know it the instant you make contact with it.

  And that look—yes, Rikuto hates them.

  “You have a plan to deal with that, too, right?” says Sakura.

  Captain Munenori does not answer. He stays turned away from the two of them, surveying his army—the war fans rising to signal readiness or the lack thereof. Though there is no fear in his eyes, he is breathing quickly.

  How old is he? Thirty, thirty-five? Was he of fighting age when Alshara invaded? She does not think so, and she does not remember any captain by his name. Is this his first true war, then?

  Hmph. He has good instincts, but …

  The music’s swelling. She takes a breath to assure herself she still can—that it has not taken hold of them the way it did on the mountain. For now, they’ve been granted their freedom.

  “Munenori-zul,” says Sakura. Panic strains her voice. “We know his real name. If we can sever his head as we name him, he’ll be dead. You’re going to send your finest straight for him, right?”

  He does not hear her.

  Munenori, Alshara, the entirety of the Phoenix Guard—they watch the demon with the flute. Anticipation settles like miasma over the army.

  The music stops. They are fifty horselengths away from the enemy at most. How insulting their armor! All Hokkaran-styled shadows, all armed to the teeth. Every one of them is practically bristling with weaponry. It will make them slow—but will it truly? There are no laws in this place other than the ones the Traitor imposes.

  “Errant children,” it calls. “This is your only opportunity for surrender. You have lost your gods; what hope do you have against me and mine? The tacticians among you know that this battle is not winnable. Lay down your weapons, and the Eternal King, in his mercy, may find use for you.” Its voice is clear and deep; it sounds every bit the old General.

  Alshara expects to hear more murmuring from the army—but they are for the most part silent. Only their breathing, only the gentle rattling of their armor and weapons, fills the air. No one speaks of acceptance. No one considers it.

  Perhaps there is something to be said for honor and glory.

  “We haven’t lost them,” says Sakura quietly. For the first time, Alshara’s inclined to agree with her. They haven’t lost Barsalai and Barsatoq—not yet. She will believe that her daughters have died only when the sky cracks open like an egg.

  But they will need time. Her daughters—if they are facing the spider, they will need time to deal with it. They can hardly deal with Rikuto’s army and it at once.

  And that means they will have to hold out here for as long as possible.

  Send your finest, Sakura said. Is there sense in that, too?

  Ten thousand Hokkarans, a couple hundred cannons, whatever horses and riders the Qorin can scrape together at the very last moment. Last time, she’d had to do this alone. If she were either of her daughters, she might still consider dealing with it alone. Dueling it.


  But Burqila Alshara knows better than to attempt a thing like that—at least outright. She is going to go straight for it once the battle is joined, but only once the battle is joined. If she has any hope of taking its head, it will be in the din and chaos of a melee.

  Burqila reaches into her deel. To survive is Qorin, and to be prepared is near to it—she’s got a roll of gauze tucked away for emergencies. An arrow through the forearm hardly qualifies as an emergency, but it might if she’s going to be wading into battle with those things.

  She shoves the roll into Sakura’s hands and stands in the saddle. The burning eyes of the demon threaten to consume her, but she stands fast. Only when she is sure that it and its army are watching does she make her move.

  Burqila Alshara snaps off the arrow embedded in her forearm. She tosses it, like a drumstick of meat, onto the ground. Then, after clamping her mask into place, she gestures as if milking a stallion.

  Steam comes out of the demon’s ears as she sinks back into the saddle. Sakura’s caught somewhere between flush admiration and flush confusion; either way, she’s as pink as her namesake.

  “What the—? Did you just—?”

  Burqila nods. She points to the roll and then to her forearm. Much as she’s satisfied that her act of bravado had the desired effect—the demons are preparing to charge—she does not want to waste any time. Thankfully, Sakura gets the hint; she rolls up Burqila’s sleeve and gets to clumsily dressing the wound. A scholar, a painter, an Altanai—but no surgeon, this girl.

  “I can’t believe— I thought my cousin was a fucking idiot, but you’re—”

  I’m Burqila Alshara, she wants to say, the Terror of the Steppes.

  But she swore her oath of silence. Instead, she points down at the saddle twice and tilts her head.

  “Are you asking if I want to stay?” says Sakura. Her hair’s shaking from the coming assault.

  Another nod. At least she isn’t stupid.

  Sakura looks from Burqila to the coming army. Thousands of them—shadows swirling with gleaming weapons in hand. They’ve no feet to speak of, and so they do not trample the flowers as they pass. A small mercy. Burqila’s never been fond of flowers, but Shizuru …