Patreon Year 3 Collection REV

by Kameron Hurley

  The word rested on the tip of Narathas’s tongue as she watched the fiery brands dancing in front of her, making up the first row of her attack. A lot of people were going to die today. But she wanted to hold that girl’s head to the fire tonight herself. No time for regrets. “Attack!”

  Fifty arrows flew for the trees. From the right, the arrows from Tashina’s force also zipped skyward.

  And that's when Narathas saw the full extent of what waited for them across the river.

  #

  Lord Burla saw the first volley of fiery arrows streak overhead. Without a moment’s hesitation, knowing a second volley was soon to follow, she raised the cry. She threw open the tent she had been crouching in and burst forth in time to see the second volley streak by – well out of range of the camp. Her soldiers erupted from the tents with crossbows in hand, bolts loaded and ready to fire.

  As she whirled around to face the direction from which the attack came, a wide grin spread across her face. The third volley of arrows lay burning in long rows behind them, thudding into the snow at a force that was not hers!

  Another volley. But! The loud twang and snap of frozen bowstrings met her ears. Some arrows still flew true, their course re-directed to aim for the tents and out-of-range supply wagons. Those arrows still came far short, and most flew headlong into the snowy ground, landing with a loud hiss and thump.

  From behind, she heard her force advancing, and she glanced over his shoulder. A scant forty-eight soldiers poured out of the trees, or what was left of the trees. They were Narathas of Gaol’s third force, their numbers now damaged critically by Narathas’s own tarred arrows. She had, as Burla intended, attacked by her own stupid army.

  “Bless you, Aurora,” she murmured, because this was nothing but a warm up for the real show.

  Burla gazed across the river, to Narathas. She was easy to make out, a chunky mountain of a woman with a grim face that inspired epics. Their eyes met across the frozen river.

  Lord Burla leapt forward, and Narathas’s force surged to meet her.

  #

  Narathas realized her error too late. The girl… her soldiers poured forward from the tents, ready to engulf them. The last volley of arrows fell short, and Narathas knew that they would have to face Burla with swords.

  Narathas advanced, gripping the cool hilt of her sword with cold hands. The girl’s battle cry came first, and Narathas roared a challenge. Hundreds of voices echoed theirs, and then the world became lost in the sound of feet scuffling across snow and metal on metal. Narathas heard her own breath coming hard and fast, and the panting of those around her grew loud.

  She gutted a smooth-faced boy and glanced quickly over his shoulder. “Tashina!” she shouted, and turned around just in time to swing at the bearded face of an enemy soldier. The man cried out, let go of his sword. Narathas hacked at his shoulder, felt the bone tremble and snap, and the man fell.

  “Here, Narathas!”

  Narathas whirled to face Tashina. The woman bore a fresh red welt across her cheek, and blood soaked the sleeve of her tunic.

  “It was Aurora’s trickery, Narathas! An illusion, making us attack each other! I didn't know he was capable of –”

  “Where is he, Tashina? Find him! There is far worse waiting if we don’t find him!” All the old stories came rushing back to her about what the witch-children, the forest beasts, could do. Lightning from a clear sky. Peeling the skins off women with a look.

  Tashina pushed into the mass of men and bodies, sword blade dull with blood. Narathas paired off with another attacker. She stumbled over a groaning body and her opponent took advantage, brought down her blade onto Narathas’s collar. Narathas pulled away, shifted her weight, and deflected much of the blow. Still, a shudder wracked her body, and she heard something crackle inside. Thrusting forward with her sword point, she caught the woman in the belly and pushed her aside.

  There was the one she wanted, just there – she could see the girl’s red cape, the ends bloody and tattered, crusted with snow. Narathas slew two more attackers and yanked at the end of the cape.

  The girl whirled around. A spray of crystalizing blood marked one cheek. When her gaze met Narathas’s her eyes blazed. She fairly beamed, like a frozen sun come to fiery life.

  “We’re ending this, girl,” Narathas said.

  She raised her sword. “Lord Burla,” the girl said. “Use my name and my title. I live in your shadow no longer, mother.”

  Their blades met. Narathas’s shoulder protested, and a pang of pain ran down her spine. Burla thrust forward. Narathas found herself defending, forced backward toward Burla’s camp. Burla had yet to be injured, but Narathas’s shoulder ached even with the strain of holding up her sword.

  From the corner of her eye, Narathas saw the gray tents of Burla’s camp circling her on all sides. She tried to turn the fight around, switch her position with Burla, but the

  girl was quick of body and wit; always had been. Narathas was forced deeper into the camp. She slashed out with her weapon, tried to move to the left, and stumbled into a tent.

  Narathas fell forward and lost her footing – and her sword. Numb hands refused to respond, and she found herself face first on top of the tent. She pushed herself up to face Burla just as girl drove the point of her sword forward.

  Narathas rolled away, but Burla’s sword point caught her in the thigh, hard enough to pierce the armor, slid through clothing and flesh.

  Burla pulled her blade free. Narathas struggled to her feet. Her thigh burned. Narathas grappled for her blade resting in the snow. The sound behind her as she rolled in the snow… was Burla’s laughter.

  “You old woman,” Burla said. The intake of breath. The blow would come.

  Narathas rolled away. The sword thrust hard into the snow, all Burla’s weight behind it.

  Narathas snatched up her own blade just as Tashina appeared from the maze of tents. Tashina sliced at Burla, forced her back away from the blade.

  “Find Aurora!” Tashina said. “I can deal with her.”

  Narathas didn’t think Tashina could, but it was a fair swap.

  Narathas limped into the winding camp, trailing blood as she went. Where would you put a gifted, pampered boy? Narathas scanned the tents. One stood out; the only one with smoke coming from inside, barely visible against the gray sky. A pampered boy would not like the cold, even if his lord told him to bank the fire.

  The battle continued, quieter now, on either side of the camp, and no one stood in her path. She shuffled on. The cold seeped through the slash in her leggings, deadening the pain some by the time she reached the tent.

  Narathas pulled open the tent flap and peered inside. Dozens of thick embroidered pillows covered the floor, heaped atop a tapestry rug. At the center of the tent sat the crackling fire. A small oak chest sat against the far wall. Aside from that, the tent was empty.

  “Aurora!” Narathas called into the tent. “Your mother’s out there dying!” Nothing. “I said stop playing Aurora! Your mother and your little girlfriend are murdering each other outside and what are you doing? Cowering! Show yourself.”

  There, among a group of rose-colored pillows, the air shimmered, wavered, and became the slight, slender form of a pale young man. He raised his head from his spindly arms and stared at Narathas with mottled eyes, brown and green and violet. The stare unsettled. Surely, this couldn't be the boisterous Aurora, the plump little boy who once begged him for sweet treats? How long had it been since she last saw him? Three years? Longer?

  “What have you done here, Aurora?” she said.

  Aurora’s gaunt, pale face twisted into misery, and he put his hands again to his face.

  Narathas glanced outside, to her men. They would die here. Die here in the snow because of this boy. She hardened her jaw and walked into the tent, walked straight to Aurora and fell down beside him. Blood was slick on her leg; the throbbing of the wounds fell in time to the beating of
her heart.

  “Listen to me,” she said, taking hold of his bony shoulders. “Listen here, Aurora. Your Lord Burla is going to murder us all. Do you understand that? We have no chance to win this battle. No chance but you. Do you understand?”

  “I'm so sorry Narathas.”

  Narathas felt her patience waning. “Yes, yes, you're sorry. Help us win this and you can go home. I promise you. Help us, Aurora.”

  “Burla says—”

  “We don’t have time to talk about Burla!”

  “"But she’s your –”

  Narathas’s voice was tight, clipped. “Afflict Burla’s army in some way. Create an illusion. Or make them feel as if they're made of stone. I don't care what, boy. Do this thing and go home again. Your mother misses you. I’ll forgive your transgression. I know Burla can be persuasive. No one blames you for any of this."

  Aurora’s eyes looked empty. “Do you promise I’ll go home?”

  Lies were very easy, this long into Narathas’s career. “I promise, Aurora.”

  “You promise, as Matron, that I will go home?”

  “I swear my country on it.”

  He crawled away from Narathas, to the tent flap. Went outside. Narathas followed, ignoring the dull throbbing in her thigh, the ache in her shoulder.

  Aurora stood a few yards from the tent, the filthy hem of his trousers dragging on the cold ground. Narathas expected him to raise his arms to the sky or mutter some secret words. But he did not move. His eyes remained closed. Narathas cursed herself for a fool. The boy wasn’t going to turn on Burla. They had known each other since they were children. He didn’t have the heart for it, the fool.

  Narathas gritted her teeth. Took the hilt of her sword in her hand.

  Someone screamed. More than a death scream, or a scream of pain. The sound was one of agony – and fear.

  Aurora remained still, eyes shut tightly.

  Narathas saw them, then. The screams erupted all around her, from both sides. Orange-yellow light lit up the snowy battlefield. Narathas watched as Burla’s soldiers each went up in a burst of flame. The amber glow turned bright blue, and the bodies fell to the ground, sizzling and crackling.

  For a moment more, Narathas watched, and then she heard the cries of bewilderment from her own soldiers. They were terrified. As was she.

  “To me! To me!” Narathas shouted, and raised her fist in the air. “To me, Gaol!”

  A scant one hundred soldiers ran to Narathas’s side, spread out behind her, their swords raised, eyes wide. Together they watched Burla’s men burn, their swords and chain mail melting into hideous puddles, stirring with their ashes, making a pasty mixture of bone and metal that popped and hissed as it melted through the layers of snow. Smoke and steam filled the air. The thick stench of burning bodies assaulted Narathas’s senses, but she made no move to shield her nose. No, this was a thing she had to remember.

  Lord Burla stood amidst the chaos, some fifty yards from Narathas. Tashina stood with her. As Narathas watched, Tashina dropped her blade and came forward. Her face looked drawn, pale, as she gazed not at Narathas, but at Aurora.

  Aurora opened his eyes. Stared at his mother. His knees gave out. Narathas watched him fall, but made no move to help him. She looked for Itague in the mass of still-living soldiers, and found the thick man nursing a split shoulder.

  “Take charge of the men, Itague,” Narathas said, laying a hand on the man’s good shoulder. “I have to speak with the girl.”

  Itague’s dark eyes were wide. “Trickery, Narathas. He made a deal with the dark. This is not a clean win. This will bring us nothing but evil!”

  “Let me deal with him, Itague. Get yourself looked after.” She started walking toward the girl. Tashina greeted her halfway and gripped Narathas’s arm tightly.

  “I didn’t know she could do something like this,"” Tashina said, voice trembling.

  “But you know what comes next?”

  Tashina gazed at the ground, then behind Narathas to Aurora’s still form. “Aye, Narathas.”

  #

  Lord Burla watched Narathas approach. All around Narathas, pools of bone dust and metal that were once Burla’s army hissed and steamed. Narathas halted several yards from her, face unreadable. Burla thought briefly of running her through, but the thought fled. Narathas’s men would tear Burla apart, and death had a way of limiting one’s future choices. She had a whole little country to look after. If she was dead, they would go under her mother’s boot forever.

  “What did you offer him, Narathas?” Burla asked. She choked on her words, and cursed herself. “What did you offer him that I could not?”

  “I told him his mother would take him home.”

  Burla felt a cold hollow in her chest. “His will, but not mine?” Burla threw down her sword.

  “Are you surrendering, Burla?” Narathas asked. Her face became somber.

  “What choice do you give me?”

  “Death is always a choice. He cared for you didn’t he? He spared your life. He could have burned you up with the others.”

  “Aye, he cared for me. Cared for me more than my own family ever did, clearly. He was too soft for the life you and Tashina wanted for him. With me he could be as he was. I liked him just as he was. Cursed and all.”

  “You fought well, Burla.”

  ‘You fought dirty.”

  “Aye, I did.”

  #

  Narathas led Burla back to the camp and ordered her bound and secured. She found that Itague had ordered the bodies of their dead comrades burned, the swords and mail taken for those who had none. The commander also ordered the tents brought from their camp, and by nightfall, Narathas found herself sitting in her own tent, lying back onto the cold ground as a surgeon tended to the wound in her thigh and her wrecked shoulder.

  “Better the cold than the heat for a battle such as this,” the surgeon remarked as she finished wrapping the bandaging.

  Narathas entertained the idea of calling Itague and Tashina into the tent to discuss the battle, but decided against it. She needed to decide what to do with Burla. As her consciousness began to dip into sleep, she heard a voice at the tent flap.

  “May I come in, Narathas?”

  She startled awake. “Aye, Tashina, come in.”

  Tashina entered, right arm bandaged. The right side of her face was turning a deep blue-black. “Do you have anything to drink?”

  Narathas gestured to an oaken chest across from the fire. “There’s some mead. Burla didn’t keep much drink.”

  Tashina helped herself and offered Narathas a glass.

  As Tashina sat, Narathas asked, “Did the boy come through and tell you to aim for the trees? It seems he got through, even if the other didn’t.”

  “Aye, he did. Calik, wasn’t it? I just threw his body into the fire. Good boy, that. Itague said he never received the new orders from the other runner. His group were assaulted just before we shot off our arrows. Burla had another force in wait. Burla is a good leader, I’ll give her that. She was clever.”

  Narathas drank another swallow of mead. “And what of Aurora?”

  “I’m sorry about all of this.”

  “We’re not the world’s best mothers.”

  “No.”

  “Did you take care of him, Tashina?”

  “I sang him to sleep. I’ve never sung one of my children to sleep before. I didn’t think I knew any lullabies. When he was asleep, I held him close. Took out my dagger. Made a clean cut to the throat.”

  “I'm sorry, Tashina.”

  “How could I let him live, knowing that tomorrow it might be Gaol that he burns to dust? How Burla thought she could control him... I don’t know.”

  “It had to be done.”

  “What of Burla?”

  “I expect I’ll need to do the same.”

  Tashina nodded over her glass. Finished the mead. Stood.

  Narathas sa
id, “We march tomorrow to meet our main force. We enter the heart of the province in three days’ time. With Burla’s province back in our grasp, we are one step closer to dominating the continent. We are very near, Tashina.”

  Tashina shook her head. "When will it be enough? When will it all be enough for you? After the country… the continent. After the continent… the world… and then?”

  Narathas gazed into the fire. She did not answer.

  Tashina left her in the silence of her tent. For hours, Narathas did nothing but watch the fire’s wispy smoke escape through the smoke hole, out and up into the cold night air.

  When would it be enough?

  One may as well ask when there would be enough smoke, enough heat, enough fire. When one was sated, spent, one could no longer burn.

  And she burned, she burned, she burned.

  Narathas burned.

  END

  The Woman’s Art of War

  BEFORE:

  Neith walked into the belly of the fighter to watch her sons die. She watched until their bodies lay with the others in her hold, their eyes glazed over, skin rent and oozing.

  Only then did she turn away and walk back to the lift that would take her into the light.

  The tube took her from the watchful silence of her hold full of dead men and delivered her back into the presence of the women who condemned them to die.

  NOW:

  President Nabirye contacted Neith after the infected silos in the hold were jettisoned.

  “You’ve made a noble sacrifice for the cause,” the president said. “But now I need you planetside. I need you to act as one of our good-faith ambassadors. We have an off-worlder from the Consortium who has… concerns about how we wage war. I’d like you to communicate our position to him.”

  Neith bowed her head to the projection. “Of course,” she said. “With pleasure.”

  On the long journey back to her home world, Neith tried to forget her son’s names. When she arrived, she did not put on civilian clothing until her fighter was docked at the station orbiting Akil, her crew safely on their own transports, and the impassive casualty Observers transferred to an outgoing fighter. She dressed for home: the city of Tauret was eighty degrees today, hot and humid. The satellite reports promised thundershowers.