by Paula Guran
“What you mean to say is that you would have to try to prevent me from harming her.”
“Yes,” the sun-haired woman replied, and now she glanced nervously towards the mule and her unconscious companion.
“If, of course, I intended her harm.”
“Are you saying that you don’t?” the woman asked. “That you do not desire vengeance for your father’s death?”
Sæhildr licked her lips again, then stepped past the seated woman to stand above the mule. The animal rolled its eyes, neighed horribly, and kicked at the air, almost dislodging its load. But then the sea troll’s daughter gently laid a hand on its rump, and immediately the beast grew calm and silent once more. Sæhildr leaned forward and grasped the unconscious woman’s chin, lifting it, wishing to know the face of the one who’d defeated the brute who’d raped her mother and made of his daughter so shunned and misshapen a thing.
“This one is drunk,” Sæhildr said, sniffing the air.
“Very much so,” the sun-haired woman replied.
“A drunkard slew the troll?”
“She was sober that day,” said Dóta. “I think.”
Sæhildr snorted and said, “Know that there was no bond but blood between my father and I. Hence, what need have I to seek vengeance upon his executioner? Though, I will confess, I’d hoped she might bring me some measure of sport. But even that seems unlikely in her current state.” The troll’s daughter released the sleeping woman’s jaw, letting it bump roughly against the mule’s ribs, and stood upright again. “No, I think you need not fear for your lover’s life. Not this day. Besides, hasn’t the utter destruction of your village counted as a more appropriate reprisal?”
The sun-haired woman blinked and said, “Why do you say that, that she’s my lover?”
“Liquor is not the only stink on her,” answered the sea troll’s daughter. “Now, deny the truth of this, my lady, and I may yet grow angry.”
The woman from doomed Invergó didn’t reply, but only sighed and continued staring into the gravel at her feet.
“This one is practically naked,” Sæhildr said. “And you’re not much better. You’ll freeze, the both of you, before morning.”
“There was no time to find proper clothes,” the woman protested, and the wind shifted then, bringing with it the cloying reek of the burning village.
“Not very much farther along this path, you’ll come to a small cave,” the sea troll’s daughter said. “I will find you there, tonight, and bring what furs and provisions I can spare. Enough, perhaps, that you may yet have some slim chance of making your way through the mountains.”
“I don’t understand,” Dóta said, exhausted and near to tears, and when the troll’s daughter made no response, the barmaid discovered that she and the mule and Malmury were alone on the mountain ledge. She’d not heard the demon take its leave, so maybe the stories were true, and it could become a fog and float away whenever it so pleased. Dóta sat a moment longer, watching the raging fire spread out far below them. And then she got to her feet, took up the mule’s reins, and began searching for the shelter that the troll’s daughter had promised her she would discover. She did not spare a thought for the people of Invergó, not for her lost family, and not even for the kindly old man who’d owned the Cod’s Demise and had taken her in off the streets when she was hardly more than a babe. They were the past, and the past would keep neither her nor Malmury alive.
Twice, she lost her way among the boulders, and by the time Dóta stumbled upon the cave, a heavy snow had begun to fall, large wet flakes spiraling down from the darkness. But it was warm inside, out of the howling wind. And, what’s more, she found bundles of wolf and bear pelts, sealskins and mammoth hide, some sewn together into sturdy garments. And there was salted meat, a few potatoes, and a freshly killed rabbit spitted and roasting above a small fire. She would never again set eyes on the sea troll’s daughter, but in the long days ahead, as Dóta and the stranger named Malmury made their way through blizzards and across fields of ice, she would often sense someone nearby, watching over them. Or only watching.
Elaine Isaak’s Joenna, like Yolen’s anonymous princess, is driven by vengeance. Unlike the princess, though, her entire life has not been shaped by it. She becomes a warrior to find revenge for the loss of a beloved son. Her perspicacity and loyalty are weapons even sharper than her axe.
Joenna’s Axe
Elaine Isaak
Killing a demon was almost as difficult as being a man, Joenna reflected as she jerked free her axe from the corpse. Crouching in its vast shadow, she scanned the battlefield, hoping to spot her captain or the banner of their company. The darting figures of men could be seen between the hulking figures of the demons. There! She saw the crimson banner held aloft, its bearer defended by three soldiers. A demon towered over them, smacking the feeble standard down before it sliced the bearer in two.
Joenna cried out, then cursed herself as a group of demons broke off from the mass and sprang to the attack, their tattered leather wings darkening her view.
Gritting her teeth against the throb of muscles too long abused, she fended off the first sword. With the backswing, she hacked the leg off the next demon, the huge creatures blocking each other in their eagerness for blood.
Momentum swung her around to face a third, the reek of its breath staggering her as she ducked the poisoned blade. With a sweep of its ragged wings, the demon sprang into the sky. It howled and a chorus of replies answered.
Joenna stumbled back from the waves of sound, both hands flying to cover her ears. The axe-haft she still gripped gave her a nasty knock. “Blue Lady smother me for a fool!”
Across the ruined field, warriors dropped to their knees, hands pressed to their ears. Like her captain, Joenna had stuffed hers with wads of wool, but the sound came on, rattling her teeth and aching her bones.
“Shut up, shut up,” she chanted through clenched teeth. As she swung wildly, she scanned the corpses and stones, searching for her company and hoping they fared better than the poor sots tossed on the points of demons swords. She had been doing this too long now to feel sick any more, or even to feel much sympathy.
Distantly a horn-blast called her back. The demon’s weak wings gave out and it dropped heavily, slamming to the earth in her path. The others shifted away, leaving her to face the shrieker. Its knobbed face split into the parody of a grin, the blood-spattered skin more red than brown.
Snarling, Joenna raised her axe and roared. She roared as if she were giving birth and this monster was the bastard who’d got her there.
For a moment, the beast hesitated, its dripping jaws gaping, and Joenna charged, swinging the axe for all she was worth and more. Short and quick, she ducked the demon blade and carved into its belly.
The creature gave a horrid scream, and Joenna said a prayer of thanksgiving for the wool that cut the sound. Dark viscera spilled out as the demon struggled backward and fell.
“Come on! Joseph, come!” shouted a hurrying figure.
Thank the Lady, it was the captain! Propping the axe on her shoulder, Joenna leapt the thrashing of the demon’s tail to join the retreat. Grabbing wounded comrades and stumbling over the dead, the scattered army fled. They flung themselves over the ridge of stone, a barrage of flaming arrows fending off the demons in pursuit, letting the soldiers burrow into tunnels too small for demons to follow.
Into the cavern where they had their camp, men straggled by twos and threes. Joenna bent over, hands on knees, catching her breath.
Beside her, the captain stopped to clap her on the shoulder. “Good work, Joseph—if we’d a few more like you, we’d rout those bastards, eh?”
Despite her exhaustion, Joenna snorted her laughter. “There aren’t any more like me, Gavin. You’ve got the original.” She plucked the wool from her ears and wiggled her jaw to clear out the stuffed-up feeling.
He laughed in reply, pushing a sandy shag of hair from his face, leaving it red with blood. “Aye, well, if m
ore men were inspired . . . ” he trailed off, his excitement fading. “Gods, I’m sorry, Joseph. I don’t mean . . . ”
She straightened and nodded once. “Aye, Gavin, I know. If every man who lost a son joined battle with us today, we’d be a mighty force indeed.”
He lowered his gaze. In a softer voice, he asked, “Have you made your mark yet?”
Grunting, Joenna lifted the axe once more and stroked the smooth wood of its handle. A dozen years ago, she taught her boy to hew logs with this very axe, the weapon she now used to avenge him. The head had none of the fancy work some smiths were prone to, but it kept a good edge and was not so large that a boy—or a woman—would have trouble wielding it. Just below the head, twelve notches chinked the wood. She wiped away the new sheen of blood already turning the notches to the dark, aged brown of the rest of the wood. Slipping a knife from her belt, Joenna hesitated. “Two for sure . . . and a leg wound.” Raising an eyebrow at Gavin she offered a smile. “To be honest, the morning’s a bit of a blur, isn’t it?”
“I saw you take one by the river, early on, then we were hard-pressed for a while. I lost track of you.“ He sighed. “We’re down four men today, that’s only six of us from our troop remaining.” Again, he scrubbed a hand over his face. More red streaked his ruddy cheeks and trailed down into his beard.
Joenna frowned, then turned back to her axe. “Makes three, then.” Carefully, she cut three new notches. Fifteen. Seven more to go to make the total of his years, her son’s life cut short in this damnable war. “That your own blood, Cap’n?” The urge to care for his wound prodded at her conscience but four months of playing her role kept her still.
Gavin stared into his hand. “Aye, it may be. I keep wiping it off, but I feel only the dirtier for it.” He stiffened, his glance sharpening. “Oh, Gods.” He turned abruptly, striding away.
Tracking his gaze, Joenna found a small party approaching. Dressed in the dull camouflage of scouts, they walked stooped over, black hair sticking out in tufts from misshapen heads. Heavy swords that would have reached her breast were strapped across their backs. Her stomach knotted when she saw them, but she merely nodded acknowledgment, seeing the slant of exhaustion in their long limbs.
The leader stopped and blinked at her, then gave a queer grin, wide open to show his snagged teeth. “Don’t you run with your captain when the orcs come calling?” His guttural voice grated on her ears, but she stood her ground.
When the orcs come calling. Joenna shuddered and swallowed hard, her eyes dropping for a moment, then she shook her head. “Your mother was no orc, was she?”
“Doesn’t matter to your kind, does it?”
Growling, his two companions trotted off, their long arms dangling dangerous fists.
Joenna gave them a sidelong glance, then faced the half-orc before her. “What’s your name, then?”
“Are we playing at questions?” He shook back his hair—longer than her own, and more comely since she had hacked hers off without a thought to appearance. The face revealed, once he closed his mouth, looked nearly human. To be sure, his nose was over-large and flat, and his eyes a curious dull black, like two cauldrons freshly scrubbed.
Now that she stood still, the aches returned with full ferocity and Joenna groaned, dropping the axe to put her hands at her back. She was too old for this. “Get on with you—if you can’t have a civil conversation, I’ve done with it.”
The half-orc’s fingers twitched and his big nostrils flared as if he smelled magic. His eyes narrowed, then widened over another grin. “Valanor, like the hero of old. My mother read the classics.” He hissed the last word, drawing it out. His mother was a lady, then, and if he had been another son, he would have been a knight riding with the king’s men rather than a scout derided by the very men he served.
Joenna nodded her understanding. “Mine’s Joseph. You know a lad named Loref?”
Pulling himself up almost straight and a good deal taller than she, Valanor replied, “Aye. He rode with the ones who went after the dragon, and died there, I’m told.”
“He was a friend of mine.”
Valanor regarded her, his black eyes unblinking, then he tossed back his head and laughed, the sound raucous and brutal in its bitterness. “Cor—I didn’t think you full-bloods could turn your spite so subtle. A friend of yours? What’s that make me, your brother?” His cackling broke off and he spat on the ground at her feet. With a snarl low in his throat, he spun away and caught up with his kin in long, loping strides.
“What’d they have to say to you, eh? Nothing good, I’ll warrant,” Gavin rumbled, returning with a fresh bandage wrapped around his forehead.
Joenna opened her mouth to answer from her anger and exhaustion, then clamped it shut again when the general stomped up. She dropped a short bow, gasping against the confines of the breastplate, which held her too tightly. Breastplate—now there was an irony!
“Captain, Joseph.” The general nodded to each in turn. “Good work out there.”
“Thank you, sir,” Gavin replied, then hesitated until the general prompted, “What is it?”
“Had a thought just now, sir.” He looked off where the half-orcs had gone, a little enclave surrounding a grubby pond where they set about their compulsive bathing. “Demons don’t care for that sort any more than we do, do they?”
The general gave a noncommittal whuff through his graying mustache.
“Well, what if we put them in a vanguard attack, get the demons so bent on ripping them up that we might get an edge on them?”
“You can’t do that,” Joenna blurted, drawing the officers’ keen eyes to her. She floundered, then finally said, “They’re our scouts, sir. Without their noses, we’d not know where the demons are.”
The general snapped, “But we know where the damn things are—” he thrust his arm toward the roof—“they’re at our very doorstep!”
“Just so!” Gavin matched the general’s fervor.
“And we need a change of tactics. This may be the very thing. Good thinking, Gavin.” He gave the captain an approving smile, tight-lipped and regal, then ruffled his mustache, staring toward the scouts and nodding to himself.
Across the cave, Valanor hitched a thumb in their direction, gesturing to his comrades as he told his tale, the new joke some full-blood had tried on him. Joenna, despite her age and uniform, felt her cheeks flush. She gritted her teeth, then said, “Sir?”
“Mmm?” A gray eyebrow arched at her.
She took a deep breath. “These half-breeds—they’ll need a leader, someone brighter than they are to bring this thing off.”
“Mmm.” The general frowned, flicking his glance to Gavin, then around the cavern to the other commanders minding the battered remnants of the army.
Joenna, too, looked to Gavin, noting the sudden pallor of his wounded face. “I was thinking, sir, that you’ll not like to waste a good officer on this, and I know I’m no officer at all—and not like to be—” she chuckled, hoping to strike a note of humor, and failing, she plunged ahead “—but I’ll do it, sir, if that’s your will.” For her son’s sake she stood firm.
“Joseph,” Gavin muttered, “it’s suicide,” but the general focused down his long nose at her, mustaches bristling.
“You raise a point, though,” the general mused. “You do raise a point.”
“Please, sir,” she glanced toward the scouts. “What better way to avenge my son?”
“Yes, yes.” He looked her up and down, frowning at the top of her head, but nodding at the heft of her axe. “Good lad, your boy. Keep the rabble together, eh, Joseph, and if you win through, there might be a commission in it for you.” He slapped her shoulder and she hid her wince. “Meantime,” he drawled, “Get some rest, we’ll work out the details. Come, Captain.”
She bowed again as they drew away, Gavin looking back at her for a moment. The general leaned over to him and whispered, “What’s the name of Joseph’s son?” as they left earshot.
At
last, Joenna flopped on her aching buttocks and loosened the breastplate. Her breasts underneath seemed to protest their freedom almost as much as they had protested the close-quarters. She drew a long, shaky breath and lay back, pillowing her head on her sack of worthless belongings. They’d tell her the plan some time, and probably tell her troops when they kicked them out of bed for the assault—why bother to warn the rabble? Her mouth tasted sour, and the backs of her eyes throbbed to the pulse of her heart. Tomorrow, she would lead the half-orcs in a feint against the demons, hoping to kill her seven, even if she never again notched her axe. Tomorrow, she would die.
The thought was still in her mind as Gavin introduced her to the company she would lead, with the general looking down his nose at the lot of them. The half-orcs, awakened early to this news, glared at her from their kettle-black eyes. They squatted on their haunches, long arms dangling, long fingers working into fists and back again as if they sought a throat to close over.
“And if we don’t?” said Valanor. “If we refuse to follow that—” a sharp gesture at Joenna “—to this slaughter?”
“You shall be ignoring a direct order and I shall have you slaughtered by your own army. They may be only too happy to comply. Have I made myself clear?” the general said, the three feathers of his golden helmet bobbing over his shoulders. “I am giving you the unprecedented opportunity to die with an honor you do not deserve, and to see that our forces win out.” He pivoted on his heel to give Joenna the benefit of his regard. “This charge shall be known as Joseph’s Charge. Best of luck. We’ll be an hour behind you.” He gave a stiff nod and left them.
“You’re a brave man, and a good soldier,” Gavin murmured close to her ear. “Lady be with you.”
Straightening, Joenna found thirty glaring half-orcs shifting before her. A few glanced toward the archers whose job it was to be sure they followed orders, then back to her, baring their sharp teeth.