Fight Like A Girl

by Juliet E. McKenna

  Chi lay on the bed. Megumi was brushing his hair back off his face and whispering soothingly. The Nana stood at the foot of the bed, rock pistol held in a quivering hand. Akihiro had paused halfway across the room.

  “You stay there, Lady Killer,” said Akihiro softly. He knocked the pistol out of the Nana’s grip with the flat of his short sword and pointed the tip at the woman’s chest. He spoke over a shoulder. “I have the right to appeal to my wife to come back to me. I have the right to say hello to my son.”

  Asenath wasn’t so sure but it wouldn’t pay to sacrifice the Nana’s life needlessly. She shut the door, dulling the noise of the fight outside.

  Akihiro nodded. He gave his attention to Megumi.

  “How is a husband meant to fix problems in his marriage if his wife won’t talk? Come now. Let’s work this out.”

  Megumi rolled the boy behind her and slashed at Akihiro’s outstretched hand with a kitchen knife. Akihiro roared as blood dripped from the wound onto the carpet. He rammed his sword home into the Nana’s chest while Chi hid his head in the folds of his mother’s kimono. In spite of the Nana’s terrible wheezing, the child stayed silent. Perhaps he was accustomed to violence. Or perhaps he sensed that he too would be put to the sword.

  “So that is the way of it?” Akihiro stared at his hand.

  “Leave us alone, Akihiro.” Megumi’s eyes crystallised. Her face twitched with fear as she looked past her husband. “Asenath?”

  “Lady Killer knows her place when it comes to relations between a husband and a wife, don’t you, Lady Killer?”

  Asenath heard the sneer in the overlord’s voice.

  “I fucked your wife,” she said simply.

  Later, Asenath would question her decision to distract Akihiro and have him spin around to face her. She would wonder if her method had been too crude, if she had made Megumi distrust her bodyguard and take action. With the full knowledge of how it would end, she saw Megumi take her knife and drive it into Akihiro’s shoulder. As the overlord’s features pulled in and set hard, Asenath raced across the room, arms pumping. Inside she knew it was too late. Akihiro turned and slid his sword between Megumi’s ribs. Chi kicked backwards and worked his way up the bed, breath coming fast like a panting desert dog.

  Megumi stared past Akihiro’s shoulder at Asenath. Her eyes softened and became incredibly sad. “Chi,” she mouthed.

  Asenath didn’t pay attention after that. Akihiro dragged his blade free of his wife’s chest in time to block the scimitar’s descent. Asenath circled the blade in repeating figures of eight. The Showmaniese blocked her every time, his face slick with sweat. He risked wiping a hand down his face to keep the salt water from his eyes; Asenath saw the opportunity and nipped the tip of her blade across the wrist of his hurt hand.

  “Red bitch!” The overlord tore into her. From somewhere Asenath heard Megumi’s last rasping breaths. There was no time to reminiscence or regret. As her Commodore had instructed, she needed to focus on the now.

  A child was crying. A blur of voices and violence came from beyond the door. Amid the relentless smash and fall of blades, Asenath knew she had to use her opponent’s strength against him. Akihiro – Showmaniese overlord, husband, father, collector of paupers’ debts . . . Her mind backtracked. Father. Whether Megumi had been truthful about Akihiro’s intent towards his son or not, Chi was still a precious commodity.

  The thought cost her. Akihiro broke through her defences to slice into her collarbone. Asenath hissed, more out of indignation than agony. With no time to process the depth of the wound, she used the glee on Akihiro’s face to fuel her reactions. Ducking beneath his arm, she ran up alongside the bed and directed her scimitar towards the crying child.

  “No!” Akihiro’s hands flew out in front of him.

  Her gaze flicking between the two, Asenath saw crushing fear in the young boy’s eyes and the oval shape of his father’s mouth. Within the second, she called Akihiro’s bluff and sent her scimitar flick-flacking through the air. It struck the overlord in the chest – the same lethal wound he had inflicted on Megumi.

  Asenath forgot the overlord and looked down at the boy. Chi appeared to have fainted. “Poor child.” She laid a hand on his head. The kindest thing would be to end his life too – now while he was unconscious and protected from the reality that, within the space of minutes, he had become an orphan. The moral part of her knew she would not do it. Instead, she waited for him to come to.

  As she did so, she homed in on the silence. Had Akihiro’s men taken victory? Had her gang destroyed the threat and retired downstairs, knowing better than to interrupt her in one-on-one combat?

  “Sleep,” she told the boy and crossed the room to Akihiro’s body. Putting both hands on the hilt of her blade, she pulled it free and froze. Footsteps sounded out on the landing. She watched the door handle turn. The door opened to reveal five rock pistols trained on her. One shooter might miss. Five guaranteed a strike.

  She straightened up as a man strode into the room. Western, tall, and dressed in a government Blues’ uniform.

  The man put his chin near his shoulder. “Fetch the boy.”

  Two Showmaniese filed inside. They approached her with caution.

  “Don’t mind the woman. She knows there are too many guns pointed her way to object.” The man’s accent had a rough edge; he was a dogsbody as opposed to someone of higher rank. Asenath heard the sound of bedsprings and a grunt of exertion. The men walked back past her. One held Chi in his arms. They disappeared through the door.

  Reaching over her shoulder, Asenath slid her scimitar into the sheath at her back. There was no action to be taken. Her fellow gang members were either dead or held at gunpoint. The Akademja had taught her to know when she was outnumbered.

  “How much will you make on him, Blood Worm?” she muttered.

  The government man lit a smoke stick. He exhaled a stream of smoke. “Enough to risk going up against Akihiro. But you’ve only gone and saved me the bother, Lady Killer.” He knocked the flat of a hand against his brow in mock salute.

  Turning his back, the man walked away. The last gunmen shut the door after him, leaving Asenath alone in the room except for the dead.

  *

  Moonlight streamed in at the large windows. Asenath had extinguished the lamps. The priestess brought her own candles, six wads of brown tallow, each fat as a man’s arm. The tools of her trade lay on the table: hacksaw, thread, curved needles, scoops, paring knives, skewers, and similar apparatus. The carpet bag sat open on a chair; every so often Tadinanefer dug around in it for some new herb.

  “Had a sticky feeling about that bodyguard job. Gave me cramps just thinking about it. But sometimes it ain’t up to an old hag like me to interfere. Sometimes the young have to do what they will, even if it kills them.” Tadinanefer paused in her ministrations, holding the severed head by its hair. A sigh escaped her papery lips. “Ebo was a good “un. I didn’t care for that Lizzie-Anne much, but it’s not like she deserved to get belly-sliced.” She scooped out the head as she talked. “And you say Ragorne bore the worst of it too? Bruiser like him’ll pull through. I got the knowledge in my bones about that much.”

  “And what about the kid, Chi? Do you have knowledge in your bones about his whereabouts?” muttered Asenath from the couch. She took a long drag off a smoke stick. Her shoulder and collarbone ached where Tadinanefer had stitched up wounds.

  “Yes, I have that too, but what do you need it for, hmm?” Hobbling to the back of the room, the old woman lowered the head into a pot of boiling water on the stove. She didn’t bother to rinse her bloody hands, just returned to the table and bent over to retrieve a fresh head from the sack, bones crackling as she moved.

  Asenath exhaled heavily. “I failed in my duties as bodyguard. If the boy is still alive, I will make good on the grounds of my employment.”

  “Employment? Paah! Little need for honour code when your employer is dead, the poor bit.” Tadinanefer touched the evil eye symbo
l at her forehead.

  Asenath took a fresh drag and let the smoke sit in her lungs. “I am tired,” she said quietly. Smoke bled from her lips.

  “Of course you are.” Tadinanefer put the head on the table. It was Akihiro. The overlord had died with the expression of hate he wore so well.

  “The others have the sense to lay up a while. Ragorne is letting Arlene tend to him.” Tadinanefer winked. “There’ll be a babe born from that arrangement, mark my words.”

  Asenath watched the priestess take a scalpel to Akihiro’s eyes, plop them out of the sockets like ruby fruit from the pod. “I need to honour the dead before I rest,” said the warrior. She nodded towards the head.

  “Of course you do! But it’s a few hours since the killing. These heads could have gone another day or so.”

  “No, they couldn’t. There’s no let up in the heat these nights. No ice to store them either.” She ground the nub of the smoke stick into a cup by her feet. “I need to make my peace with these spirits so I can focus on the living – by which I mean, find Chi.”

  “And what if you find him? Do you play happy families? You killed the boy’s father in front of him!” Tadinanefer started to muddle the brains with a skewer poked through an eye socket. “No mama, no papa. Maybe the boy is better off dying on a surgeon’s table.”

  The words were harsh, but Asenath heard the sadness that underpinned them. “I just need to know where to look for him,” she murmured. Rising from the couch, she walked over to the table and stood watching the priestess pack the eyelids with seeds. Candles flickered. Shadows played over the walls.

  The old woman sighed. “So you won’t let it rest, hmm? Well, I can only tell you what I’ve heard. The boy is being transported to Zan City. Some high and mighty surgeon is willing to pay a hefty price for his creed and blood type.” She brushed her hands off one another, scattering seeds over the gored table.

  Asenath narrowed her eyes. “My family live in Zan City.”

  “There you are! Kill two birds with one stone.” The priestess chuckled to herself. The laughter trailed off and she stared across the table at Asenath. “That enough for you to go on?”

  Asenath nodded stiffly. Zan City was an island of stone in a solar strip. A place to get lost in. It was also three thousand miles away in the vast dry country of West. On one hand, that kind of distance gave her the chance to catch up with the Blood Worms. On the other, there was no single route to the city; her best bet would be to reach Zan City ahead of them.

  “Know how I can get there quickly?”

  Tadinanefer snorted. “The hell if I know! Jump aboard one of them wagon trains shifting dust. Join a circus!” She threw up her wrinkled hands and hobbled off to the boiling pot. Akihiro’s head was set bubbling alongside the others.

  Asenath crossed her arms. The Tai Mowa gang were loyal but weakening. It was time to leave her colleagues to their own devices in Santa Spišské and set out on a new adventure.

  Tadinanefer rooted around in the sack again. Asenath knew it contained one last head. Megumi’s long black hair gave the old woman something to grip onto; it flowed around the bloodstained face like thickened shadows. The doctor’s enticing eyes were closed, the finality of death the more acute for her beheading.

  “Wait.” Asenath put a hand out as if to protect Megumi from the priestess’s butchering.

  Tadinanefer squinted across the table.

  “I did not kill this one. I took the head to keep her safe from Blood Worms and their flesh dealing.” Asenath faltered and then added, “She meant something.”

  It was difficult to sum up what, if anything, she had felt for the doctor in the short time they had known each other. Physical longing, yes, and a sense of liking. Emotion enough for a Jeridian warrior to want to honour a lover in death. What she did know was that she owed Megumi a debt.

  She picked up a paring knife. “This one I do. Teach me how.”

  The Coyote

  K R Green

  Once, someone had tried to kill Kai. She smiled, remembering the attempt.

  She’d heard his footsteps from two floors above; the stairwell’s gentle echoes the loudest sound in the flat. She’d never taken her hearing for granted; she was trained to pick out individual sounds that others ignored.

  But, in this place, the ability could bring on a headache if she let it get to her. Between the roars of laughter, bottles clinking and percussive footsteps, it was impossible not to know where people were and what they were doing. The city’s sirens wailed in the background, and her captor’s dingy flooring creaked underfoot.

  She opened her eyes and stretched her back, uncurling her legs from underneath her. Many thought meditation impossible in a loud and cramped space, but she found the rhythms of voices comforting, when she wasn’t fighting to tune them out. Most things were manageable if you didn’t fight them.

  Kai glanced out of the small window, her eyes adjusting to the sunset. A couple of street lamps had begun to glow. Not long now. She would get there in time, and she would find it. They would make it home.

  Her room was clearly a holding pen; just an empty chest of drawers and a bed with blankets. The wallpaper was peeling and it stank of mould. How many Circlet members had they held in this place?

  A door slammed, cutting off the laughter outside. Heels clacked against the wooden floor, striding closer to her room. She focused her hearing, groping around under the bed for her weapon. She would only get one shot.

  “Sire, we have the last one.”

  “Then your work is done.”

  “I . . . Yes Sire.” The voice faltered, clearly worried. “She was very tricky.”

  “That is why you were hired. Now be silent.”

  So it had been the Royalists. Trust the Royal Buddhist Sect to place the environment above the deaths of millions in war. They wanted the flame to save the bees, and would harm anyone who got in the way of that. Brighton held it for healing the sick in the city. If she could find it, the Circlets could re-shape the third world: fix the things humanity had brought to collapse, and heal the millions harmed in the wars over oil and weapons.

  Each sect felt justified, and only her past with the Brighton Sect would give her this opportunity to find it. At least they weren’t ignoring the needs of their people.

  Of course the Royalists were hiring thugs, often using tricksters like the very old or young to deceive their enemy. She hadn’t expected the old man at the bus stop to fight her, and yet here she was, locked up in a first floor bedroom.

  But she could remedy that.

  The click of footsteps grew louder, and the visitor halted by her door as jangling keys scraped the lock. Kai clenched her teeth against the noise, fists curling, willing it away.

  The bolt on her door echoed as it moved, and Kai rolled her shoulders, her long sleeves ruffling.

  Her visitor was short, only a teen, definitely not a seasoned fighter. The striking thing, beyond the high-pitched voice and heels, was the line of fluffy stubble attempting to grow on his face. His cloak bore an insignia she vaguely recognised but could not place. He looked as imposing as a duckling.

  “I hear you’ve given my people a lot of trouble.”

  How could a teenager have people? “I’m not trying to cause any trouble,” Kai said. “You brought me here. Any moves I’ve made in self-defence have been your own fault. Left alone, I could continue on my way.”

  “I’m not about to let you leave.”

  Kai narrowed her eyes. “I have things to do.”

  “Then it seems we have a conflict of interest.”

  “People resolve conflicts all the time.” Behind her back, Kai tightened her grip on the shiv she’d crafted and tensed her legs.

  He looked her up and down. “You are in no position to fight.”

  Perfect. People underestimated her, because looks were deceptive. That had kept her alive more than once. She made a mental note not to make the same mistake with this boy.

  Kai lunged forwar
d, shiv in hand, aiming for the boy’s neck. It wasn’t much, but it was amazing the damage a scissor blade could do.

  He spun around lightly, one hand seizing her wrist, twisting the shiv away from him so it lightly scratched his neck. But he bled. She landed a kick in his stomach as the shiv clattered on the floor. He grunted, but kept his balance, bracing himself against the doorway. She slammed her fist into his face.

  She heard feet running, a bottle smashing in a distant room. Using the wall as an anchor, the teen pushed himself at her, grappling her torso and throwing her down. She twisted as she fell, fists flying wide as she crashed onto her hip.

  Footsteps. Two men ran in from the adjoining room, one of them clearly drunk. They pulled the boy from the doorway.

  “This isn’t over.” The boy spat as the guards hustled him from the room. Her door slammed, and Kai heard the bolt slide home.

  She shoved the boy’s keys in her pocket, grabbed the shiv, and pulled her satchel from under the bed.

  Taking a deep breath, she rolled the blanket around her arm, pulled a hat down over her forehead, and looked back at the room. She had everything of use, including the remaining scissor blade for a second shiv. It was a good job they no longer carried guns, else she’d have had no chance. But the police had seized many gangs’ weapons, and supplies were short. Still, she was tired, and they knew she had a weapon. Now was her best chance to escape.

  She wrenched the little set of drawers across the door, and turned to face the setting sun.

  She wouldn’t look down. It would be simple. People did this all the time.

  Kai forced her cushioned fist through the window, wincing at the sound of shattering glass. Not risking second thoughts, she pulled herself over the edge, flattening the blanket over the bottom sill, where sharp glass poked up, and rolled through the gap. Then the bile hit her throat. She swallowed it back, trying to keep her breathing steady as her stomach contemplated injury. Death is worse than a few bruises.

  Ignoring the pain in her hip as she twisted to get a solid grasp, Kai clung on with both hands until her body lay flat against the brick. Death could bring peace, but a crippled body was the worst possible fate.