Women of War

by Alexander Potter

  :Let him be,: agreed the sword in her hand. :He would not want to meet a legend.:

  No! she answered, seeing the long-woven trap at last. How many years since she’d taken her sword—god-sword, hell-sword, lover, and curse—and gone roving? There was always legend for idle hands to weave. But when all those years had worked on her, what was left to speak for humanity against the will of the gods? What was left of what she had been to do battle with the sword?

  “Nae this time, ye poxy piece ae glass!” Ruana raised Shadowkiss in her hand and ran down the hill toward the boy and the Paloe Cat.

  The boy was down but game, holding his sword in his off hand like a spear while blood rilled down the useless sword hand and pattered on the earth. The cat snarled when it saw Ruana. It would not charge in the face of this new thing.

  But neither would it flee.

  “Nae this time!” she shouted again, and ran at the crouching spotted shape.

  It was large, and savage, and not afraid of Man. It unsheathed talons longer than her fingers and slashed at Ruana, wailing.

  But Shadowkiss was there instead of living flesh.

  The blade did not bite deep, but the small pain it gave was enough. The beast doubled back on its haunches and sprang.

  And then the sword sheathed itself in the creature’s belly and slid out gaudily red behind the shoulder, sliding down through the beast’s vitals as it fought to get at her.

  And Ruana knew that despite all this it would not die before it killed her—for if she could not age, then she could surely die, if her guts were scattered upon the earth.

  There was crushing weight, and heat, and then cold.

  And then the dark.

  Mind returned, and before she had the sense of her body she groped with numb fingers until she encountered the checked bone hilt of Shadowkiss, laid across her as if for a lorder’s funeral.

  She was not dead.

  She grunted, and rolled to her knees.

  She was red with tiger blood, but its terrible hind claws had not done their mortal work, for the god-sword had severed the monster’s spine. Its foul weight had crushed the breath from her lungs as it had died atop her. That was all.

  And then someone had pulled it off.

  The boy—he had a man’s growth, perhaps, but he was still a boy to her—knelt in the blood-soaked leaves a few feet away, cradling his useless arm in his lap. His sword lay beside him on the ground. His hand was wet with the tiger’s blood.

  He looked up and met her eyes.

  She knew those eyes. They were a little darker than amber. She had seen them first in a room when Corchado was a power in the land, when the Gray Duke’s word was law.

  When the Gray Duke had sought to take Shadowkiss for himself, but trusted a hero instead.

  How many years, how many lives, between those eyes and these?

  “Ah kent tha braw eld granther, hinny,” she said, slipping into the tongue she had spoken as a child.

  The boy stared at her, his eyes glazed with pain and shock. Plainly, he had not understood. Well, they all spoke an uncouth tongue in the South.

  Carefully, Ruana got to her feet. “Whit ik tha nam?” she asked. She shook her head to clear it. “Thy name? How art tha called?”

  “Moonflute,” the boy said, a note of reluctant defiance in his voice. “I seek the Starharp.”

  And Ruana Rulane began to laugh, harshly, like a battlefield crow. For Shadowkiss was the Starharp, and always had been, and he had found what he sought.

  She cleaned the glass-green blade and sheathed it, then carried Moonflute up the hill. Along the way, they found his dagger.

  She cleaned and bound his wounds with bandages from her packs, and gave him water and wine from his own supplies. She found a level place to camp a little farther from the dead horse, where she could tie her own horse securely, and brought him there. She went back to his horse, and brought away all that could be usefully brought.

  Then she made a fire, and settled down to cook.

  She felt him watching her.

  She knew what he thought and what he guessed. Loyt had guessed. And she knew the boy’s name. Moonflute. Seeker of the Starharp.

  Seeker of Shadowkiss.

  He would know its legends. Most of the legends were even true.

  More or less.

  When the meat was roasted, she cut it into two portions and offered him one. If he knew he was eating his horse, Moonflute didn’t mention the fact.

  Day waned into evening, then into night. Ruana Rulane rolled herself into her blankets and slept.

  All the brief years of his life he’d intended to become a hero, a legend. Now Moonflute was confronted with legend in the flesh: this silent woman who had—so simply!—saved him from death.

  And who carried in her hand a thing out of singer’s tales, a glass-green blade set with rubies, a blade that had slain ghosts and dragons, the sword that Chayol Rising Star had once carried into battle.

  He knew what it was: the god-sword Shadowkiss, ornate legend from the Eastern Kingdoms. His heart’s desire and suicide, all in one hawk’s wing sweep of shimmering ocean blade.

  A blade carried by an immortal queen—Ruana Rulane, the Twiceborn.

  She did not look like an immortal queen.

  She spoke like a peasant—when she spoke at all. Her leathers were worn and scarred with use, and her boots were shabby. Her cloak was dusty and mended. Her horse was little better than a mountain pony, a beast he’d be ashamed to ride.

  It should be mine! Shadowkiss should be mine!

  A hurt too deep to name ate at him until sleep pulled him deep.

  She woke an hour before dawn, as the fire guttered to embers. Ruana quickly added wood to waken it. They could cook the rest of the meat for breakfast; if she put Moonflute on her horse they would reach Paloe by midday....

  Or she could saddle up and ride away now.

  He wanted Shadowkiss. She had seen it in his eyes last night. If she left him at Paloe, he would follow her. He would follow her until he died.

  Or until the moment he touched the sword.

  She sighed, shaking her head sadly. She’d expected to feel amusement from the sword—saving the boy had been futile after all—but instead all she sensed was a faint flicker of—regret?

  And a sense that Shadowkiss was gathering its energies in a way that the god-sword had never gathered them before.

  If she had saved Moonflute from the tiger, she had also doomed him. One man in ten thousand looked upon what she carried with lust, yet none could claim Shadowkiss while she lived, for the god-sword had chosen her, and their partnership would endure until the end of the world.

  :Let him choose,: the sword whispered to her. :Let him choose.:

  Leave now, and he would die here, alone, for his ankle was yet too tender to bear his weight. Take him to Paloe, and he would follow her—and die.

  :He has a choice,: the sword urged. :He still has a choice.:

  He’s young, Ruana thought, with something close to despair. She thought of years squandered like water poured out upon parched earth, as Moonflute chased a dream that fled forever just out of reach.

  Unable to stop.

  Unable to choose.

  She unsheathed Shadowkiss and struck the blade into the earth.

  The smell of roasting meat roused Moonflute to wakefulness. He startled up all at once, the pain of bruised muscles reminding him of where he was.

  But he had eyes only for the sword.

  Shadowkiss stood quivering in the earth where Ruana Rulane had sheathed it, green-glowing and jeweled red.

  Death to touch.

  “Take it,” Ruana said evenly. “An’ tha wilt.”

  He stared at her, wondering if this were a trick.

  “You ... you’re giving it to me?” he asked.

  “Nay. I canna do that. An’ tha take it, that’s thy choice to make. Tha kens what will happen an’ tha try, Moonflute.”

  He knew. He knew what she wa
s offering him. And the only choice he had to make was: die or change.

  Choose life instead of legend, and carry the memory of the choice with him forever, to taint and twist and moderate every heroic act for the rest of his life.

  Or usurp the sword. Its touch would kill him instantly. But every choice he had ever made had led him here, and legends did not turn back.

  A morning-bird called, and suddenly life was sweet, and every momentary physical pleasure he had ever tasted came back to him, warm and vivid and repeatable, if only he lived.

  Slowly, he levered himself to his feet with his own scab-barded sword. He reached out his hand.

  And the sword spoke to him.

  :It’s a glorious thing to kill yourself to keep from looking silly.:

  “I won’t!” said Moonflute, stung. And before he knew he had chosen he drew back.

  Ruana took up the sword again, sheathed it, and the look she gave Shadowkiss made Moonflute feel he was seeing what he was not meant to see.

  “Thy leg is nae hale enough for standing. Sit,” she said, squatting again before the fire.

  He did as he was told, and when they had finished their breakfasts, she helped him to mount her horse, and they rode toward Paloe.

  “Happen it be there’s a horse to spare in Paloe for the siller,” she said, walking beside him, “an’ the villagers will want to see that yon cat is dead. Tha can bring thy saddle along then. ’Tis a fine brave thing, an’ tha would not wish to see it lost.”

  “It’s all I own,” Moonflute said bleakly. His saddlebags were slung over the pony’s withers, and his saddle blanket was lashed behind the saddle. It’s all I am.

  It had never occurred to him to wonder if there might be an end to his story that was not death. He had been offered that ending, pat as a verse in a singer’s tale, and refused it. He did not want to be an aside in the Song of the Twiceborn, a joke tossed off across the strings of the loyt to make men laugh into their cups.

  He still wanted to be a hero.

  They reached Paloe at midday, as Ruana had thought they would. She told them the beast was dead.

  She left Moonflute behind in the village and took a couple of the villagers and several horses back with her to where the tiger lay. They returned at dusk with the remains of Paloe’s monster lashed to two of the horses and Moonflute’s saddle upon another.

  The villagers spiked the tiger’s head on a post at the gateway of the village; in a few weeks there would be nothing left but a clean-picked skull and a story to frighten the children. Perhaps in the spring Loyt would come to hear it, and make another song.

  There was feasting that night. Ruana would rather have been upon the road, but it would have been unkind to blight their pleasure, and in feasting, they reassured themselves that there was reason to feast. And in truth, it was late in the day to set out, for one who wandered where the road took her.

  When the feast was done and the fire burned low, the villagers asked her, over and over, for the tale of the monster’s death, and from this Ruana knew that Moonflute had said nothing to them, though he could have told the tale in her absence and said what he wished.

  She could give them safety. She could give them their lives. But she could not give them the words they hungered for.

  “Hear me and heed me, villagers of Paloe, and I will tell a tale like no tale you have ever heard, and more: the tale of a true thing. I will tell the tale of how Ruana Rulane, the Twiceborn, came to the village of Paloe and slew the Death that comes in the night—yes, took into her immortal hand the god-sword Shadowkiss, forged before the world was forged, and slew a monster out of legend.” Moonflute moved closer to the fire and held out his cup to be filled, in the way that tale-singers did when they began a tale.

  He spoke of terror in the night, of a creature with burning eyes birthed by Darkness Itself, a monster that fed on man-flesh and would not be slaked.

  He spoke of a hero who rode out of the East, a hero who carried a sword forged by gods, who slew the monster in a mighty battle, though it screamed and fought and called upon unholy powers to aid it.

  Of himself, he did not speak.

  And the eyes of the folk of Paloe grew round with wonder and satisfaction, and their lips moved silently as they told over the best parts of the tale to themselves.

  “And so it was that with one great blow the Twiceborn clove the monster of Paloe in two, and the light of Evil departed from its eyes, and the shadow of darkness departed from its heart, and its black blood poured out upon the earth in a steaming gush, and it lay dead. And Ruana Rulane leaped to her feet with a great cry of triumph, and brandished the god-sword Shadowkiss above her head, and the droplets of the monster’s blood fell upon the earth like rain, and she shouted aloud with joy at her victory. And now is my tale told, the tale which is no tale, but the true account of the slaying of the monster of Paloe,” Moonflute finished.

  Now the villagers were satisfied, and the ale-jug went around one last time. The women gathered sleeping babes into their aprons, and the husbandmen lifted larger children onto their shoulders, and all moved slowly toward their beds.

  Ruana lingered before the fire, watching Moonflute stare into it.

  “Art a tale-singer, then, hinny?” she asked, when the silence had stretched long enough.

  “No,” Moonflute said wearily. “But I was a pot-boy in an alehouse in Corchado. I heard them often enough. I know how a tale should go. I told the people what they wanted to hear. If ... it wasn’t all the truth, I know their lives. They don’t have time for more truth than this.”

  “Aye,” Ruana said. “I know them too.” Once she had been one of them. A very long time ago.

  “I wanted all the tales to be true,” Moonflute said. “Not more. Not less. Heroes, and justice, and glory at the sword’s point. I wanted ...” he stopped.

  There was only one thing in her gift, and Ruana gave it.

  “I knew ...” Ruana thought hard. “Not thy sire. He’d have left no bye-bairn of his to rot. Nor yet thy gran’ther. But a laird of thy blood, so I reckon. ’Twas he who trusted me to keep the sword.”

  Moonflute smiled, and his smile was painful to see. “He was a hero, then.”

  “Aye,” Ruana said. It was the truth. “Precious little glory in it, d’ye ken. Glory is for kings and priests and the dead.”

  There was no more to say, and so she got to her feet, and walked to the headman’s house where she would sleep that night.

  The birds that called before the dawn woke her. In the darkness, Ruana got to her feet and dressed, picked up her sword and her saddlebags, and headed for the stable.

  Moonflute was there waiting for her.

  His injured arm was in a sling—it would be many days before the bruised shoulder was well again—but he stood beside a new-bought horse with his saddle upon its back.

  Waiting for her.

  She saddled her horse in silence. There was nothing to say. She knew what he wanted, and would not ask her for.

  Would it indeed be such a bad thing, to have a companion upon the road?

  He will tire of it, she thought, and knew he wouldn’t.

  He will die, she thought, and knew he would.

  It will hurt when he dies, Ruana thought with an inward sigh.

  But pain was life, was being human—and a moment in the brush on the side of a hill had shown her the peril that could come of forgetting to be human.

  She swung into the saddle and looked down at him.

  “Well, come on then, my hinny; an’ tha want to be uncomfortable, I’d best show thee the easiest way of it.”

  “I will,” said Moonflute.

  SHE’S SUCH A NASTY MORSEL: A Web Shifters Story

  by Julie E. Czerneda

  Julie E. Czerneda, a former biologist, has been writing and editing science texts for almost two decades. A regular presenter on issues in science and science in society, she’s also an internationally best-selling and award-winning science fiction author and edit
or, with seven novels published by DAW Books Inc. (including two series: the Trade Pact Universe and the Web-shifters) and her latest, Species Imperative. Her editorial debut for DAW was Space Inc. Her short fiction and novels have been nominated for several awards, including as a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, the Philip K. Dick Award for Distinguished Science Fiction, and won two Prix Aurora Awards, as well as being on the preliminary Nebula Ballot. She currently serves as science fiction consultant to Science News.

  LIKE MANY YOUNG BEINGS, it came as something of a revelation to me that my elders had been young once themselves. Or at least younger, with all that implied about having made choices—or mistakes.

  It was the latter that intrigued me most. Or formed the single defining aspect of my own life—whichever way you preferred to look at it.

  Me? I’m Esen-alit-Quar, Esen for short, Es in a hurry or from a friend. During my first few centuries of life, however, I was almost always “Esen-alit-Quar! Where’s that little troublemaker?”

  Not that I ever intended to cause trouble. In truth, I went to great lengths to avoid causing anything at all, understanding that anything that attracted the attention of my elders was not going to end well.

  Unfortunately, I possess a curiosity equal to any hunger of my flesh. Half answers, hints, suggestions of “you’ll know when you’re as old as we” only fanned that curiosity, particularly as I found it hard to believe I’d ever be as old as any of my Web. The Web of Ersh. We were six, led by the oldest and thus first among us, Ersh herself. Unimaginably ancient. Different. The center of all things. And the most likely individual to find fault with me at any given moment.

  Or the secondmost. For Ersh had younger sisters, daughters of her flesh: Ansky, Lesy, Mixs, and Skalet. It was Skalet who took my occasional missteps as her duty to announce—or even better, cause.

  Me? Oh, I sprang from Ansky’s flesh, not Ersh’s. Worse still, I wasn’t a sister/daughter—or whatever one called a relationship in which being given life was more like amputation. I’d been born.