Fight Like A Girl

by Juliet E. McKenna

  Brandon shook his head furiously. “No. Not at all. I haven’t seen her for many years, but I’m sure she is a loyal subject. For who would put themselves above the will of the High King?”

  Built on a sandstone outcrop over honeycomb caves, Stranglers’ Monastery was renowned. From those caves the Fladdermus had first emerged, crawling from their ancient hidey-holes to greet the coming of the High King. It will be politic to visit; the nuns grew fractious under the leadership of Cécile of Cragacre.

  The wind stirred the bones in the Wish Tree. His breath stirred the skeletons. The cold wind knows all secrets.

  Mother Commander will lead the party to the monastery. Cécile of Cragacre will open the gates herself and will welcome them.

  Cécile and Mother Commander greet each other warmly and talk pleasantly of inconsequential things. Cécile will invite the travellers to prayer in the High Chapel. With smiles she’ll lead them to the ornate sandstone room, lit with sunlight pouring through the famed chapel window showing the High King emerging from hidden celestial spheres. Cécile of Cragacre bows to the travellers and leaves them to their contemplation, closing the chapel door behind her. Mother Commander hears the twist of a key turning in the lock. Something is wrong.

  Underneath the chapel the party hear the sound of movement, the sound of many feet. Fladdermus? The party draw their weapons. Gwain bangs against the locked chapel door, demanding release, while Mother Commander scans the chapel for an escape route. There is none. The minor windows are high and narrow. The large altar window is made of ancient glass, unbreakable. The door is iron-solid strangler wood.

  At the north wall, two doors lead from the chapel crypts and the underground caves. “Guard the doors,” shouts Mother Commander.

  The soldiers divide and run to the two doors as the enemy emerges. It is not Fladdermus, nor Viking Fish Men. The Crab Men come, chitin feet clacking on the polished floor.

  “Abominations!” shouts Gwain.

  The Crab Men swarm forward, a dozen at each door, pushing back the soldiers, while Mother Commander and Gwain beat furiously at the chapel main door, demanding exit from this killing room. The soldiers attempt to contain the Crab Men at the doors to the crypt, but their efforts are futile. Mother Commander sees a soldier snipped clean in half by a massive claw. Mother Commander, Gwain and Brandon alone are left to battle. Mother Commander will have her fight, after all.

  Two dozen Crab Men clatter into the chapel, their heads flickering light in the language of their kind. Her sword unsheathed, Mother Commander steps to the right, in front of Gwain. Screaming she throws herself into the battle, her long sword slicing through the hard skin of the nearest Crab Man, severing its arm. There is no blood. Crab Men are not flesh.

  As she fights, Mother Commander’s mind is racing. Crab Men in the heart of Yellow England! It is unheard of! Cécile of Cragacre has made an audacious pact. But the High King is entrenched in this kingdom. It is a foolish ploy. Are the Cragacres seeking to convert Yellow England to a bastion of the Crab? Was this the Queen’s vision? The triumph of the Crab Men, the Mi-Go from the stars.

  Brandon is fighting hard. Gwain’s poison blade flashes silver. But this poison does not kill the spongey fungal flesh of the Crab Men. Mother Commander severs the cauliflower head of her opponent and turns to face the next Crab Man, but as she twists she feels the crushing weight of a claw around her leg. Beheaded but not dead, the fallen Crab Man still moves. Mother Commander stabs downwards, her sword seeking another brain. She wishes desperately for a flamethrower. She would burn Stranglers’ Monastery to the ground, if she had the chance. The crushing pain in her leg intensifies to white burning fire. The Crab Man is still not dead. Mother Commander glances up at the stained glass of the chapel, at the High King surrounded by stars, as he blows though the void and claims Yellow England as his dominion.

  The soldiers are dead. Brandon is dead.

  “Save yourself, Gwain,” shouts Mother Commander, although she does not know how that can be done, there are too many enemies.

  Mother Commander falls. The beheaded Crab Man’s claws leave her foot and close over her wrists, severing her hands. She never knew there could be so much blood. With her last sight Mother Commander will see a Crab Man looming over her, a metal canister held in its claw. In these canisters the Mi-Go take the living brains of their prey to their distant worlds. There are worse things than death.

  And the wind dies.

  “I’ve reconsidered,” said Mother Commander. “Brandon, you will take my respects to Cécile of Cragacre, and tell her that the Queen commands me to make no delay.”

  “As you wish.” Brandon looked pleased to be tasked with such responsibility.

  Good. There was no need to alert Cécile to the fact that Mother Commander knew of the treachery. Once she reached Titchmus, Mother Commander would send a hundred soldiers to clear out the nest of Crab Men and to retrieve Cécile of Cragacre for interrogation.

  *

  Mother Commander set a wild pace leaving Stranglers’ Wood. Once beyond the trees, they continued fast on the road, not stopping for sleep. The party arrived at Titchmus Castle as dawn broke on Sevenday.

  From there it was quick work for Mother Commander to send a hundred soldiers to Stranglers’ Monastery. Then she washed and dressed in yellow silk, and made her way to the Queen’s chamber.

  Mother Commander tapped her foot on the stone floor as she waited impatiently outside the Queen’s room. When she entered the chambers she saw Queen Ethelreld, lying listless on the bed.

  “You’ve come at last,” said Ethelreld.

  “At your command.”

  With a gesture, the Queen dismissed the servants and the leeches.

  Mother Commander looked around the room. It felt cold, despite the fire burning in the massive hearth. On the mantle the Sevenday candles burnt red.

  The servants left the room. The leech thought to say something, but seeing Mother Commander’s face he thought better of it; he hurried outside and closed the door softly behind him.

  “Come closer,” the Queen said. “I have much to tell you.”

  Mother Commander took the chair beside the bed. She leant close to the Queen. “What was your vision?”

  “I’m dying and I’m consumed by regrets, Mother Commander.”

  “You’ve been a good queen. You’ve been a good servant of the High King.” That much was true. Ethelreld had established garrisons on the borders, repaired the castle walls of Titchmus and converted it into a fortress that would not be taken easily. “When Lethreld of Davidbrethren was abducted by the Viking men and murdered, you avenged that death in full. You’ve formed alliance with the Seven Cities and bought the Viking Hauntminster into the kingdom. The common folk of Yellow England love you and pledge their loyalty to you. You’ve been a good Queen, and now you stand at the High King’s gate.” The yellow silk of Mother Commander’s veil clung to her face, as if her very skin was made of yellow fabric.

  “I have done what was expected,” said Ethelreld. “But as I stand at death’s gate, I’ve been touched by horror.”

  “Which is?”

  “Everything is a lie,” whispered the Queen. Her hand clutched convulsively at the bedclothes. “The first Queen, Laeigratha, came to me in vision, all dressed in yellow tatters. She spoke to me of the after world. It is no place of ease, Mother Commander. It is a strange place of enduring agonies, where the dead dance in pain to the High King’s pleasure.”

  “What else did she tell you?

  “Isn’t that enough? The High King’s realm is not joy, but an abyss. You must make this known to the people, Mother Commander. We worship malice.”

  “This is the bargain we have made,” said Mother Commander. “When the Fish God rose in the Northern lands, the Viking men threatened to drown England. And from the stars came the repugnant Crab Men, seeding the South with spreading fungus. I was young then, but ambitious. I made my way to the castle scriptorium and found old scrolls, written in
the Fladdermus tongue, and a priest who could still read the words. I said the High King’s words and pledged this land to Him. Then the Fladdermus emerged from their caves and strengthened us. And the High King rode the winds over this Yellow England, and we were pledged to enter his Kingdom. It was the only way, when enemies encroached from all sides.”

  “No!” said Queen Ethelfeld. “We must rid ourselves of the High King.”

  “And then what would happen?” asked Mother Commander. “We cannot fight our enemies without him. The gods are risen, the Fish of the Viking North, the Mi-Go Crabs of the South. They do not look to the welfare of our people. Would you see the people of Yellow England subjugated to the Fish Men, or to the Crabs? Would that be better?”

  “The price is too high,” said the Queen.

  “This life is but a pleasant interlude before the eternal,” said Mother Commander.

  “This cannot be. Everything is a lie.”

  “It can be and it is, and it will be forever.”

  “I will make this known,” said the Queen, struggling to rise from her bed. She coughed, staining the sheets with a splatter of blood. “This cannot remain a secret.”

  “There are no secrets from the cold wind,” said Mother Commander. “Or from me.” She took a pillow from the bed and held it over Ethelred’s face. A matter of minutes only before the frail Queen was dead. She was not the first sovereign that Mother Commander had murdered. They waited for her in the High King’s realm.

  Mother Commander sat watching the dead Queen, considering politics. A new ruler must be selected from the five families. The Cragacres had moved against the Kingdom. How should they be controlled? Mother Commander reached for a vision of the future, but it did not come. The cold wind knew all, but it did not always share its secrets.

  She would discuss the matter with Gwain.

  She considered the options, but sitting in the room with the dead Queen, Mother Commander’s thoughts turned inexorably to the time she would enter the High King’s realm. Thousands would be waiting for her. They would tear off her silks, and she would scream for a thousand years. This the cold wind knows, and it has shown her many times.

  Yet, in those long years of after death in the High King’s realm, she will from time to time be sustained by hope. The cold wind does not know all. There is Gwain, who the cold wind cannot touch. In the cold aeons of the High Kingdom, Mother Commander will think of Gwain, and she will know that all things pass, and that some things are not touched by His breath.

  And that even to the cold wind, there are secrets.

  Sword-Dancer of Azmai

  Roz Clarke

  I. The Whale

  I hunker into myself as I edge through the crowd, into the cavernous circus tent. It’s futile: I stand head and shoulders above most of the people of Amitsa. Glances shoot my way; all miss their mark. I keep my gaze inward. She is near, or has been. Like a hound reading the past and the present in scent, I smell magic. Skylla’s trace is unmistakeable – freshly turned earth, coppery blood, and the tang of bonemarrow.

  It’s too warm in the tent. There must be six hundred people here. They’ve come from all over Amitsa: from Craego, Ygodaygh . . . none from Azmai, but that’s no surprise. I was the only one coming down that mountain pass, and along the road I met no-one making the journey from the dragon-god’s realm onto the plains. No-one going the other way, either. Trade that once was lively and lucrative has dried almost to nothing.

  I take a seat as the lights come up. Plumes of smoke jet from around the edge of the arena. My hand goes to the amulet at my throat. The crowd falls silent.

  The show is a re-enactment of the Empire’s conquest of the plains, once called Lim Ren Azmai o Zental’a, then the Southern Amitsan Plains, and now simply Amitsa,, as if those nomads had never existed and the Empire never reached beyond, from here in the dry south to the Drana’p’an, the isles of the ice-witches that float at the top of the world.

  I have to wait almost until the interval before she appears. Flickering corpse-lights dance above the heads of the crowd. Dancers appear between the tiers of benches and fling themselves into the arena. With white feathers in their headdresses and bells around their ankles, they caper obscenely. The crowd whoops with laughter.

  What have we become? I wonder. Once we made ships that carried our warriors and traders wherever they wished to go, no matter which way the wind blew. Now, our glory is an empty spectacle.

  I was a sea-singer in those days, a living embodiment of Mystececia. I can still hear vir voice in my dreams, but can no longer answer. Amitsa-that-is sits landlocked between the volcanic ridge of Azmai, claimed by the Hostis but yet denied to them, and the black marshlands of the Wettite tribe.

  A figure descends from the dark heights, arms and legs entwined in red ribbons. She flicks and twists, and suddenly she’s free. It’s her: few have such absolute grace, such muscular poise. She stands perfectly still. In the air above her head appear five glowing swords. The mob attacks. She draws two short-swords, and, with seven blades at her command, fights. Skylla is magnificent, but I have no interest in this pantomime.

  When the crowd rushes to the bar for interval drinks, I make my way to the conjoined tent where the circus performers prepare. Nobody challenges me. I eventually find Skylla outside, where the full moon hangs heavy and the air is sweet with the scent of trisk shit.

  Close up, she looks tired. “The spangles don’t suit you, Skylla.” Her eyes widen. “And your grandmother would never’ve shown so much leg.”

  “Whale.” She grinds her cigarillo out beneath her heel. “What are you doing here? And don’t—” she looks around, on edge. “Don’t use that name. That’s not who I am, here.”

  “You’re going by Madame De La Morta, Mistress of the Blades – even on your smoke breaks?”

  “Of course not. That’s just for the posters.”

  She leans against the rail around the mounts’ enclosure. Her face is impassive, but her hands tighten around the wood, knuckles pale through dark skin.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “I won’t go with you, old vellaw. Nothing has changed. I won’t go to war.”

  I laugh. Her eyes flash with anger.

  “Get out of here, maiyar deathmonger!” she yells. “Go on!”

  “Deathmonger,” I repeat. “You always had such a temper.”

  Her raised voice draws the attention of a knot of performers at the entrance to the tents. One of them lopes over. His face is painted into a grinning skull, but his mouth scowls.

  Skylla turns her anger on him. “Why the frown, Kodju? You should be covered in smiles. Here’s my mother’s guardian, come to lead me to my destiny. Just as you prayed for, to every Laoram who would listen, and every one who would not!”

  The young man’s face contorts. Stung by Skylla’s sarcasm, but strangely hopeful.

  “We’ll ride to Azmai?” he asks, in an unmistakable accent.

  Skylla wrenches around to face the grazing trisk. “You go if you want. Go home, I won’t cry for you. I will never fight for this fat sea-monster, or for that little puppet who calls herself Empress.”

  She turns back and fixes me with a glare. “I am not my grandmother.”

  “Will you stamp your foot, preshka? You wear Osalma’s life for this ridiculous show, but you’re mad at me? Oh, my Skylla. Sometimes I do wonder what the world has come to.”

  They go back inside for the second half. I stay outside with the trisk and the ripe yellow moon.

  II. Osalma

  Our point rider tore down a loose-floored arroyo, trisk bellowing, huge feet skidding, its feathered mane erect, as if the treacherous mountain slope could be intimidated by a fan of iridescent eyes.

  Beyond the rider, red streaks from the volcano glowed fiercely against the mid-morning sky. A fearsome shape coalesced out of the glare and arrowed towards us. Azmai. The trembling of the Amitsan warriors was one with the trembling of the mountain.

  “On!” cried
the Empress. “Can savages and their lizard-lord frighten the Swords of the Eternal Empire?”

  We readied ourselves and rode on. When we crested the arroyo and emerged onto the plateau we saw an army of Azmai Hostis before us. Above, the dragon-god flew like a red-gold pennant hung upon the heavens.

  I wasn’t afraid. I was a Sword-arm of the Empress. A blood-mage, like my grandmothers before me. I’d come across the marshes, and before that the awful sea and the northern plains beyond.

  Beside me rode the Whale. Our eyes met. “This is your battlefield, Osalma. Mysticecia can help us little here. I will fight at your back. Courage and victory!”

  “Courage and victory!” I yelled. “Let there be a sea of blood, monk-fish, so wide that your Loaram may find us yet!” Then the runners were around us and instinct took over. I gripped my swords in each hand, and the claws of my gauntlets pierced my palms. I raised my arms above my head and the spikes on the inside of my pauldrons drove into the muscles of my shoulders. Enough blood spilled to release my power, I forced the runners forward. They scattered to either side, to press the enemy’s flanks.

  Trusting my trisk to run straight, I focussed inwards, summoning the Swords of Light. They shimmered into the air, come over from Ap’da: the world-beside. The armies faded and blurred. The Whale beside me grew massive, reeking of seaweed and emanating drowning.

  Across the plateau, Loaram Azmai’s wings spread wide. The volcano’s glow looked like a city, sacked and burning. A reminder of who we were. I clenched my teeth and my fists, driving the spikes in further. I would slaughter our enemies and bind the lizard-god down against the stones.

  III. Kodju

  We ride the next day for the capital. The big grey vellaw had a word with Bralue, and he came back and said the troupe could decide: come to Craego and perform for the Empress, or stay here and work on a new show. I guess money changed hands, because Bralue stopped whining about how the troupe would eat for the next month. He is a deceitful old suck pump. We’ve been selling out for months, but nobody I know has been eating duck in wine.