Minutegirls

by George Phillies

  Books by George Phillies include:

  Fiction

  This Shining Sea

  Nine Gees

  Minutegirls

  The One World

  Mistress of the Waves

  Game Design

  Contemporary Perspectives in Game Design (with Tom Vasel)

  Modern Perspectives in Game Design (Second Edition; with Tom Vasel)

  Design Elements of Contemporary Strategy Games (with Tom Vasel)

  Designing Modern Strategy Games (with Tom Vasel)

  Stalingrad for Beginners

  Stalingrad Replayed

  Designing Wargames - Introduction

  Politics

  Stand Up for Liberty!

  Funding Liberty

  Libertarian Renaissance

  Surely We Can Do Better?

  Physics

  Elementary Lectures in Statistical Mechanics (Springer Verlag)

  Phenomenology of Polymer Solution Dynamics (Cambridge University Press)

  Complete Tables for ‘Phenomenology of Polymer Solution Dynamics’ (Third Millennium)

  Chapter Samples from “The One World”

  A novel by George Phillies, military science fiction in which military action and violence only play a modest part. And now a few segments.

  Introduction

  “Amazon warriors against musketeer hordes!

  The Holy Musketeers have found another continent to loot. The opposition? The primitive natives have no muskets and no cannon. Their cowardly men send their women to fight.

  The people of The One World face invaders with incomprehensible weapons and inscrutable objectives. Spears? Swords? City walls? Nothing stops the invaders from beyond.

  Between the Musketeers and the One World stands a single woman. Evaine is an amazon warrior and a wily strategist. Can even she defeat the Musketeers, or is civilization doomed?

  Evaine must contend with political infighting, assassins, magicians, mistrust, and gross political corruption, not to mention being outnumbered three-to-one.”

  Gretchen (chapter at mid-text)

  The warmth of a Summertouch afternoon filled Saint Brenda's Way. Gretchen Threetowers strode happily along its deserted cobbles. The street was her logical path home, no matter that almost no one else used it. She was tired after pre-breakfast combat drill courtesy of Greatmistress Leona, full morning through dinner of lessons, and then until supper taking notes at the Archives of the Great Senate. When Greatmistress Roxanne returned, she would have something solid to report. Perhaps there would be time before supper to sneak off to the natatorium and do some laps. The two boys she'd met last quarter moon might be there, she hoped. They said that because they were boys their guild kept them on a totally rigid schedule. Fifth hand after second Recension, some days, they would for sure be there, because they both swam, lap after lap, until they were definitely not fat.

  "Threetowers?” The voice calling her last name brought her out of her reverie. Calling her by her last name was really uncouth—though some of the snottier new Acolytes were that low, at least in her direction. She faced three women dressed in rough-clothes, no colors showing. All three wore masks.

  Muscles tensed. Her breath cut at her nose. A glance over her shoulder revealed another trio of women, three hands of paces behind her, also masked, one with a knife, the others with swords.

  "Yes?" she answered uncertainly.

  "Kill her! Get the case!" She couldn't tell which of the women spoke. Two ran for her from the front. One had a club. The other had a short sword.

  Gretchen turned to run, recognizing as she did that she was trapped. An oft-repeated precept about keeping your face to the enemy came to mind. How did that work when you were surrounded? Unbidden, her right hand had gone to her shoulder, grasped the sword-pommel, and twisted. Peaceseal ruptured as she pulled her sword free.

  "Help! Help!" Gretchen screamed. Her voice echoed from building walls. Try to get away, that was the lesson. Fight purely defensively. One of the women to her rear, the one wielding a butcher knife, was almost on top of her. Gretchen's blade dropped into a two handed hold. Her intended parry almost missed. The assassin held her knife backwards. Gretchen instinctively extended and slashed. It was a weak blow, but her carefully sharpened sword sliced into the back of the woman's hand and laid open her opponent's arm. The assassin dropped her knife, wailing in pain. A low kick tripped a second opponent, sending her flying.

  Gretchen bolted down the cobbles. Why was she so clumsy on her feet? Shouts behind her showed opponents in each other's ways. "Help!" she screamed. The women behind her had sword, club, and dagger. The woman in front of her had a sword, and was trying to block her path. Blades met in a sharp ting of steel on steel. Gretchen cut sideways, her opponent following. She had to get around—at least she could face them all at once, not that that mattered at four and one. She continued her run, jumped at the wall, and pushed off into a rolling dive across the street. Tumble recovery left her on her feet facing opponent with club. Club swung. Gretchen jumped inside the swing, sword slashing down the club at its holder's wrists. The holder screeched and gave way. Gretchen's sword snapped forward, slicing across face and spilling the woman's mask, then recovered. The Inspectorate Swordmistress would have her hide tomorrow, if she had a tomorrow. She wasn't doing what she'd been taught. 'If you must draw your sword, fight purely defensively' didn't seem so easy in practice.

  Now she was one on one with a competent swordswoman. Your blade is longer, she thought. Use it! Her opponent's reach and strength more than compensated. Something hot swept across her cheek. Her left eye blurred. She could see her opponents gathering their wits. The second swordswoman was closing. She feinted a dive. The second swordswoman dropped low to block, leaving herself open for a crossways two-handed swing. Gretchen felt the swing connect, then barely managed to parry the first woman, who was now on all-out attack. "Mine," screamed the woman. "She's mine!” Gretchen backpedaled, fast as possible, her legs suddenly too short to get clear, wrists aching with every parry. 'Pure Defense' had seemed so easy against someone her own height and weight.

  A door slammed open. Four figures in anonymous grey cloaks and masks poured through it. Her opponents froze for half an instant. Gretchen saw an opening, swung in, then saw her opponent's fist closing on her eye.

  Brilliant pain. Stars clouded her field of vision. She was almost blind.

  The Musketeers Attack

  The Torinsdale riders reined in at the forward crest of Applewine Hill. Evaine dispersed pairs of women to watch the side and rear. "From here," Tomas announced, "all may be seen, without hazarding pointless injury.” He produced a farseer from his saddlebag. "These are the horses I specified?" he asked.

  "Yes, your Grace.” Evaine answered. "If I may ask? Why we spent every thunderstorm this past year exercising them?"

  "Perhaps for no reason," he answered quietly, peering through his farseer. Gull Harbor was a fair town astride a brook, with smoke rising from every other home. In front of the town stood six close-packed rows of men, liveried in deep blue with white undercoats and fanciful floppy hats. After every dozenth or so file of men was a gap, a rider in the gap. At the center of the lines were a half-hand of riders, gaudily dressed, and a quartet of marchers with flags and drums. There could be no doubt they were men, not when farseers clearly revealed neatly curled mustaches. Evaine wrinkled her nose. A man who could not be bothered to shave was loathsome, like some far-eastern tribesdaughter who bathed but twice a month. What sort of perverse vanity led them to grow and trim hair on their face?

  "Perhaps for the soundest of reasons," Tomas continued. "When Longbeachport died, the Summer before last, there came over the miles the distant sound of thunder. It would be best that our horses are not discomfited by noise.” The warning from Longbeachport, scrawled on a kitchen wall, had been 'beware thunders that slay'. The phrase sounded more fit for a tale of Nimue, but it made the hair rise on his neck.

  The Greathands of the Sor
ority drew up before the pirates, half-hands of daughters in loose diamonds, their formation sufficiently open that sixteen hands of women occupied more front than nearly twice their number of men. The women stopped, a solid fifty yards away from the pirates.

  "A storm?" Gail had slept through the event. Tomas was heartened that she had learned her lesson without sulking. For a man to instruct a woman in her duties required fabulous delicacy and tact.

  "May be. Yet something shattered a solid gate. Something drove a lead ball through a gate-guard's plate armor. Something hurled a tower from its foundations. Something. Perhaps something very loud," he answered.

  Evaine spent a half moment glancing at him. She did not believe tales that he hid talking mirrors in his tower, or that he offered Lord Hunter's Sacrifice to the New Moon. He did summon the Lightnings That Speak. He had formed a Circle-of-Two with Roxanne, he could even name his own daughter, and he had not been struck dead by Her Avenging Hand.

  A horse cart trotted forward from the Sisterhood line. The Priestess, clad in silver-grey, one hand at the reins, the other holding her moonstaff, rode to the center of the pirate line. At this distance, her voice did not carry, but Evaine had no difficulty guessing what was said. She was giving the ritual call to lay down arms and surrender to the Lady's Grace. Given the penalties the men faced, no surrender was expected. He had not expected a pair of men clad in sky blue robes and cowls with silver trim to step forth from behind the drummers and confront the Priestess.

  Evaine could tell her sister's thoughts. Gail wished the Priestess would get out of the way so the battle would start. Despite her past, Gail had never seen a real battle. Now one was happening right under her nose. To Gail it was wonderfully romantic, something out of a heroine-novel. Evaine wondered what sort of men would stand up to the Lady's Own Voice. She watched the fringes of the town. The last rank of men had been faced rearwards, as though someone feared a surprise from that quarter. That said to her that the entire force of pirates stood drawn up in close order.

  One of the blue-robes grabbed at the Priestess's pony, to be met with a slash of her moonstaff. Blue-robes stepped back, hands shaking in her direction. She rode off, moving toward safety behind the Sisterhood.

  The men stiffened, their front ranks dropping to one knee. Spears came out, sharply ready. Evaine asked herself what the men proposed to do next. Squatting was no position from which to begin a charge. The men could see a double-hand of bows to their front. Even allowing that the Sisterhood had dreadful archers, if the men sat on their bottoms they'd be shot to pieces, then swarmed by sworddaughters. What were the men doing? The archers came to the ready, bolts in one hand, strings ready to be drawn taut.

  A puff of dark smoke, then another and another, covered the front of the formation. The offshore breeze blew the smoke back across the men. More puffs of smoke appeared, seemingly from the men's peculiar spears. A loud clatter, like truly loud drumming, assailed her ears. Tomas's horse started, forcing him to draw sharply at the reins. Her own mount moved nervously, but responded to leg pressure to stay still.

  Another burst of smoke made visibility even worse. Daughters were falling in their tracks, while archers stood awaiting orders. Something was causing women to fall to the ground, sometimes with great jets of blood spurting from severed arteries. That had to be the plumbati, she allowed, slingers who could bury a lead shot deep in a wall. But where were the slingers? She couldn't see them.

  A third cloud of haze appeared, traveling swiftly down the pirate lines from one end to the other. Sorority Greathands stood in place, waiting for some unheard order. Unhearable, corrected Evaine quietly, unhearable; that noise is so loud that command whistles cannot be heard. Alternatively, the Greatmistress is so startled that she must collect her thoughts, when rapid advance or retreat would have been more advantageous. And when I am in the same predicament, Evaine thought, I hope that I will not do so badly.

  Pirate spearmen were rotating through their ranks, standing spears on the ground, and doing something strange. The gestures looked vaguely obscene. Perhaps by evening she would remember what lurked at the back of her mind. She had seen these clouds of smoke before. Pirate books had engravings of battles. The engravers showed masses of opaque smoke. Now she had seen the same smoke. Whatever the men were doing, it appeared to have nothing to do with battle craft. She told himself that they could not possibly be spending their time making indecent gestures at the Sorority, which was still awaiting orders. That was nonetheless what they appeared to be doing. There came additional crashes; yet more clouds of smoke appeared.

  Finally the sorority acted. Bowdaughters, those still standing, began to draw and shoot. Evaine noted that spearmen struck with arrows behaved as would other mortals. Some dropped their spears to clutch at shafts. The rider with an arrow through his head looked quite satisfyingly dead as he fell off his horse. More crashes, and more again. The swordsisters began an advance at the walk, swords beating on shields. She could not hear the Paean, not with the wind at her back, but they were undoubtedly singing it at the top of their lungs. The Sorority Greatmistress had decided that the men would take panic when threatened. Her guess seemed to be in error. An immediate charge at the run would have been a better choice of tactics. Evaine counted Sorority losses. An immediate retreat might have been a better choice, too.

  Evaine forced herself to see the battle as a whole. At least half the Sisters had fallen. As she watched, further clouds of smoke and thunderous crashes rose. The women who closed on the spearmen faced a heavy line that fought purely defensively, the men in the front ranks seeking only to hold the Sorority back from their rear. Swords, she noted, many in the front row of men dropped their spears in favor of swords when a woman closed. At least something here made sense. The spears might scare a horse, but when women closed, the men had the sense to draw a real woman's weapon.

  Sorority swordsmastery was impressively effective. Where a woman actually reached the pirate line, you could see great gushes of blood. The men were clearly not wearing any armor. So far as she could see, the men barely knew how to wield their blades. They were still too numerous and close-packed for single combatants to make a rapid impression. A few women did penetrate the pirate lines, leaving bodies stacked around them before they were dragged down. The ranks of the attacking Greathands grew thinner and thinner.

  Then all ended. There was a final thunderous drumroll. Healer and Priestess and ponies fell in their tracks. Two Greathands of the Sorority lay on the field, strewn like rose petals fallen from the last flower of a warm autumn. Distant screams could now be heard. The spearmen advanced at a slow-march, carefully dressing their ranks, prodding at bodies, occasionally piercing one through with a spear. No survivors would remain on the field. Evaine offered the Lady thanks that her women had not had lunch yet. A third of them were losing their breakfast.

  Evaine counted two dozen men lying on the ground. From the actions of their comrades, some were only wounded and might perhaps recover from their hurts. Blue-cowls appeared and stood over each of the pirate dead. Why?

  On the bright side, the Swordsisters had not disgraced themselves. No member of the Sorority had abandoned her sisters and fled. What had happened to them was so eldritch that they had not recognized their danger before they died.

  # # # # # The Very End # # # # #

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Cha
pter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter about George Phillies

  Chapter Samples from “The One World ”

  Introduction