The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2011 Edition

by Rich Horton (ed)

  I was distracted from my excuses by the sight of them building up a bonfire of old two-by-fours and plywood shards, while the rest of us stood around warming our hands. I heard laughter and conversation. People passed around bottles of liquor. They smoked cigarettes or joints. A woman uncovered a basket of corn muffins. A man had a bag of oranges, which he passed around. I could detect no sense of urgency, even though the eastern wind made the fire roar, while lightning licked the edges of the plain. The crack of thunder was like distant guns.

  “Here they come,” said the commander.

  BLOODSPORT

  GENE WOLFE

  Sit down and I’ll tell you.

  I was but a youth when I was offered for the Game. I would have refused had that been possible; it was not—those offered were made to play. As I was already large and strong, I became a knight. Our training was arduous; two of my fellows died as a result, and one was crippled for life. I had known and liked him, drank with him, and fought him once. Seeing him leave the school in a little cart drawn by his brothers, I did not envy him.

  After two years, I was knighted. I had feared that I would rank no higher than bowman; so it was a glad day for me. Later that same day I was given three stallions, the finest horses ever seen—swift golden chargers with manes and tails dark as the darkest shadows. Many an hour I spent tending and training them; and I stalled them apart, never letting them graze in the same meadow or even an adjoining meadow, lest they war. If I were refused that many meadows on a given day, one remained in his stall while the other two grazed; but I was never refused after my first Game.

  But I shall say here and say plainly that it was never my intention to slay my opponent. Never, or at least very seldom. It was my task to defeat my opponent—if I could. And his to defeat me. Well do I recall my first fight. It was with another knight, and those engagements are rarest of all. I had been ordered to a position in which a moon knight might attack me. It seemed safe enough, since our own dear queen would be sure to attack him if he triumphed. Yet attack he did.

  Under the rules, the attacker runs or rides to the defender’s position, a great advantage. I had been taught that; but never so well as I learned it then, when I did not know I was to be attacked until I heard the thunder of his charger’s hooves. That white charger cleared the lists with a leap that might have made mock of two, and he was upon me. The ax was his weapon, mine the mace. We fought furiously until some blow of mine struck the helm from his head and left him—still in the saddle—half-stunned. To yield, one must drop one’s weapon; so long as the weapon remains in hand, the fight continues. His eyes were empty, his flaccid hand scarce able to grasp his ax.

  Yet he did not drop it. I might have slain him then and there; I struck his gauntlet instead. A spike breached the steel, nailing his hand—for a moment only—to the haft of his ax. I jerked my mace away and watched him fall slowly from his game saddle. His head struck the wretched stony soil of the black square first, and I feared a broken neck. Yet he lived, and was mewing and moving when they bore him away. The spectators were not pleased with me, but I was pleased with myself; it is winning that matters, not slaying.

  My next was with a pawn. She was huge, as they all are; bred like chargers, some say. Others declare that it is only a thing the mages do to baby girls. As you are doubtless aware, pawn’s arms are the simplest of all: a long sword and a shield nearly as tall as the pawn herself, and wider. Other than those, sandals and a loincloth, for pawns wear no armor. I thought to ride her down, or else to slay her readily with my sword. One always employs the sword against pawns.

  It was not to be. She sprang to my left, my stroke came too late, and she stripped me from the saddle.

  A moment more and I lay upon the fair green grass of a sun square, with her sword’s point tickling my throat. “I yield!” I cried, and she grinned her triumph.

  I was taken from the game, and Dhorie, my trainer, found me sitting alone, my head in my hands. He slapped my back and told me he was proud of me.

  “I charged a pawn,” I mumbled.

  “Who bested you.”

  I nodded.

  “Could happen to anybody. Lurn is the best of the moon pawns, and you had been charged by a knight scarcely a hundred breaths before.” (This last was an exaggeration.) “You had given mighty blows and received them. Two moves and you were sent again. Do you know how often a knight is charged by another, but defeats him? The stands are still abuzz with your name.”

  I did not believe him but was comforted nonetheless. Soon I learned that he had been correct, for my bruises had not yet faded when I was put forward in a new game. That game I shall not describe. Nor the others.

  The Hunas swept down upon us, and the games were ended. There was talk of employing us in battle; and I believe—yes, I believe still—that we might have turned them back. Before it could be done, they rushed upon the city by night. We fought and fled as best we could, I on Flare, my finest charger. For four days and three nights he and I hid in the hills, where I bandaged our wounds and applied poultices of borage and the purple-flowered high-heal that none but a seventh son may find.

  The city had been put to the torch, but we returned to it. My father had been a mage of power, I knew, and I felt that his house might somehow have survived. In that I was mistaken; yet it had not been destroyed wholly. The south wing stood whole, and thus I was able to return to the very chamber I had called my own as a boy. My bed was there and waiting, and I felt an attraction to it by no means strange in a weary, wounded man. I saw to Flare as well as I could—water, a roof, and a little stale bread I found in the larder—and slept where I had slept for nights that had seemed endless so long ago. In the hills I had not dreamt; the imps and fiends that sought me out there had been those of waking. Returned to my own bed in the bedchamber that had been my own, I dreamt indeed.

  In dream, my father sat before me, his head cloven to the jaw. He could not speak, but wrote upon the ground for me to read: I blessed and I cursed you, Valorius, and my blessing and my curse are the same. You will inherit.

  I woke with his words ringing in through my thoughts, and I have never forgotten them. Whether they be so or no, who is to say? Perhaps I have inherited already, and know not of it. Perhaps they are as false as most dreams—false as most words, I ought to have said. For it is only those words that hold power over the thing they represent that are not false, and they are few and seldom found.

  A league beyond the Gate of Exile, I saw Lurn sleeping in the shade of a spreading chestnut.

  Dismounting, I went to her; I cannot say why. Seeing that she slept soundly and was not liable to waken soon, I unsaddled Flare and let him graze, which he was eager to do. After that I sat near her, my back propped by the bole of the tree, and thought upon many things.

  “What puzzles you so?”

  Hearing her voice for the first time, I knew it was hers, deeper than my own yet a woman’s. I smiled, I hope not impudently, and said, “Gaining your friendship. I fear that you will wish to engage, and that would be but folly as the world stands today.”

  “Folly indeed, for it stands not but circles the moon as both swim among stars.” She laughed like a river over stones. “As for engaging, Valorius, why, I bested you. I choose to stand upon my victory, for you might die were we to engage again.”

  “You would not see me dead.”

  “No,” she said; and when I did not speak, she said, “Would you see me so? You might have killed me while I slept.”

  “You would have sprung up and wrested the sword from my hand.”

  “Yes! Let us say that.” The river flowed again. “Let us say it, that I may be joyful.”

  “You would not see me dead,” I repeated, “and you troubled to learn my name, Lurn.”

  “And you mine.” She sat up.

  “I have seen sun and moon in the same sky,” I told her. “They did not engage.”

  “They do but rarely.” She smiled as she spoke, and there was something
in her smile of the maid no man has bussed. “When they do she bests him, as is only to be expected. Bests him, and brings darkness over the earth.”

  “Is that true?”

  “It is. She bests him, but having bested him she bids him rise. Someday—do you credit prophesy?”

  I do not, but said I did.

  “Someday he will best her and, besting her, take her life. So is it written. When the evil day comes, you men will walk in blind dark from twilight to dawn and much harm come of it.”

  “And what of women?”

  “Women will have no warning, so that they bleed in the market. Will you come and sit by me, Valorius?”

  “Gladly,” I said. I rose and did so.

  “Have the Hunas killed everyone save you and me?”

  “They have slain many,” I said, “but they can scarcely have slain everyone.”

  “When they have looted the towns and burned them, not many will remain. Those of our people who can still hold the hilt might be rallied to resist.”

  “Are they really our people?” I inquired.

  “I was born among them. So were you, I think. I took shelter in this deep shade because my skin can’t bear your noonday sun. When your sun is low, I’ll walk again. Then we’ll see what a lone woman can accomplish.”

  I shrugged. “Much, perhaps, with a knight to assist her. We must get you a wide hat, however, and a gown with long sleeves.”

  When the sun declined, we journeyed on together, and very pleasant journeying it was, for her head was level with my own when I rode Flare. We chattered and joked, and in time—not that day, I think, but the next—I beheld something in Lurn’s eyes that I had never seen in the eyes of any woman.

  That day we discovered a crone who knew the weaving of hats; she made such hat as Lurn required, a hat woven of straw, with a crown like a sugar loaf and brim wide as a shield. She sent us to a little man with a crooked back, who for a silver piece made Lurn not one long gown but three, all of coarse white cloth. Of our rallying of the people, I shall say little or nothing. We armed them with whatever could be made or found, and ere long enlisted a forester. Bradan knew the longbow, and taught some youths how to make and use war-arrows, bows, bowcases, bracers, quivers, and all such things—a great blessing.

  That day we discovered a crone who knew the weaving of hats; she made such hat as Lurn required, a hat woven of straw, with a crown like a sugar loaf and brim wide as a shield. She sent us to a little man with a crooked back, who for a silver piece made Lurn not one long gown but three, all of coarse white cloth. Of our rallying of the people, I shall say little or nothing. We armed them with whatever could be made or found, and ere long enlisted a forester. Bradan knew the longbow, and taught some youths how to make and use war-arrows, bows, bowcases, bracers, quivers, and all such things—a great blessing.

  A mountain town called Scarp was besieged, and we marched to its relief. It lay in the valley of the Bright, and while one may go up that valley, or down it, a mounted man may not leave it for many a long league. Lurn and I flipped a crown; I lost and took two hundred or so of the rabble we tried to make foot soldiers, seventeen archers, and twenty-five horsemen upstream, skirting the town by night. Ere the sun was high, we found a place where the mountains pressed in on either side and the land on both sides of the road was rough and thickly wooded. I set out sentries, stationed my horsemen a thousand paces higher to prevent desertion, ordered the rest to get some sleep, and led by example.

  Flare stamped to wake me. When I sat up, I could hear, though but faintly, the sounds he had heard more clearly—our trumpets, the drums of the Hunas, and the shouts, clashing blades, and screams of war. Then I could picture Lurn as I had seen her so often, leading the half-armed men she alone made bold. She had held her attack until the sun declined. Now her wide hat and white gown had been laid aside, and she would be fighting in sandals and a loincloth as she had as a pawn, a woman who towered above every man as those men towered above children, and the target of every Hunas horse-bow.

  I knew the Hunas had broken when their drums fell silent. Lurn’s trumpets shrilled orders, call after call:

  “Form up!” “Give way for the horse!” “Canter!” And again, “Canter!”

  The Hunas had turned and fled. Our archers had the best of targets then, the riders’ backs. We wanted to capture uninjured horses almost as much as we wanted to slay Hunas. And that moment—the moment when they turned and fled—would be the best of all moments to do it. If our horsemen galloped after them, they would flee the faster, which we did not want. Besides, our horsemen would soon break up, the best mounted outdistancing the rest. Then the Hunas might rally and charge, and our best mounted would go down. We did not want that, either.

  “Here they come!”

  It was a sentry upon a rocky outcrop. He waved and yelled, and soon another was waving and yelling, too. I formed up my men, halberds in front and pikes behind the halberds. Archers on the flanks, half-protected by trees and stones.

  “I’ll be in front. Stand firm behind me when I stand. Advance behind me when I advance. I’ll not retreat. Come forward to take the place of those who fall. If the Hunas get past us, we’ve lost. If they don’t, we’ve won. Do we mean to win?”

  They shouted their determination; and not long after, when the first Hunas rode into sight, someone struck up the battle hymn. They were farmers and farriers, tinkers, tailors, and trades-men, not soldiers and certainly not Game pieces. Would they run? They will not run, I told myself, if I do not run.

  Not all the Hunas carry lances, but a good many do. Their lances are shorter than ours, thus easier to control. Lighter, too, and thus quick to aim. Now they positioned five lancers in front—enough to fill the road side-to-side. There were more behind, and I was glad to see them there, sensing that if the first were stopped (and I meant to stop them) they might be ridden down by those pressing forward.

  My shield slipped the too-high lance-head, sending it over my left shoulder, and my point took his knee. Perhaps he yowled; if so, it could not be heard above the thudding drums and thundering hooves.

  No more could the singing of our bows, but I saw the lancer next to him fall with an arrow in his throat. I had warned our pikemen to spare the horses. A horse screamed nonetheless, screamed and reared with the pike still in his vitals.

  Then all was silence.

  Though I did not dare look behind me, I glanced to right and left and counted the five—five lancers and one charger. Four lay still. One lancer writhed until a halberd-blade split his skull. The charger struggled to regain its feet; it would never succeed, but it would not cease to try until it died.

  I waited for the next five lancers, but they did not charge. They must have known, as I did, that Lurn was behind them, strengthened by whatever troops had joined her from the town. And knowing that, known that they were caught between jaws. But they did not charge. We received a shower of arrows from their horse-bows; a few men cried out, and it may be that some died. Still, they did not charge.

  Our battle hymn had ceased. I waved my sword above my head and began the hymn again myself.

  When I advanced, I heard the rest behind me, advancing as I did.

  The road was no wider here, but its shoulders were clearer.

  More Hunas could front us now. They were more likely to attack, and we more likely to scatter. I wanted the first, and felt sure the last was little risk enough. They dismounted and came for us on foot; I knew the gods fought beside us then.

  They had light horse-axes and serpent swords. Both were more dangerous than they appeared. They had helmets, too, and seeing them I hoped my own men would have sense enough to strip them from the dead Hunas—and wear them. There were pikes to either side of me; those Hunas who came straight at me died, unable to parry my thrusts. Again and again I stepped forward over the bodies of our foes. In a hundred Games, no knight would ever slay half so many. It ought to have sickened me. It did not because I thought only of Lurn; each Hunas w
ho fell to me was one who would never shed her blood.

  I have never liked slaying men, and slaying women—I have done that, too—is worse. No doubt slaying children would be worse still. I have never done it and am glad, though I have met children who should be slain. Slaying animals is, for me, the worst of all. A stag fell to my bow yesterday; and I was glad, for I (I had almost said “we”) needed the meat. That stag has haunted me ever since. What a fine, bold beast he was! It was not until now, when I have already told so much, that I kenned why I feel as I do.

  Animals have no evil in them. Men have much, women (I think) half as much or less. Children have still less. Yet all humanity is touched by evil. Possibly there are men who have never been cruel. I have tried to be such a man, but is there a man above grass who would say I have succeeded? Certainly I will not say it.

  Yonder stands my stag. I see him each time I look up, standing motionless where the shadows are thickest. He watches me with innocent eyes. There are always ghosts in a forest. My father taught me that a year, perhaps, before he gave me over to the games. Ghosts in forests, and few demons. In a desert, he said, that situation is reversed. Deserts call to demons and not to ghosts. (Yet not to demons only.) Among hills and mountains, their numbers are about equal—but who shall count them?

  Yonder stands my stag. I see him each time I look up, standing motionless where the shadows are thickest. He watches me with innocent eyes. There are always ghosts in a forest. My father taught me that a year, perhaps, before he gave me over to the games. Ghosts in forests, and few demons. In a desert, he said, that situation is reversed. Deserts call to demons and not to ghosts. (Yet not to demons only.) Among hills and mountains, their numbers are about equal—but who shall count them?

  Let me gather more wood.