Women of War

by Alexander Potter

  Jun-li stifled a yawn. The square was dark; the new moon gave little light. All around, girls whispered, and the silver bangles on their arms chimed softly. She’d never seen any difference between getting a rabbit token and getting a fish or a rat or a rollerbug. There was only one token that changed anything.

  “I just want the porridge. I’m hungry.” She rubbed her fingers across the grain of her wooden bowl, feeling her stomach growl.

  “Mm. Grandmother says in her day the priests sometimes put dried meat in the porridge.”

  Jun-li shook her head. She hadn’t seen dried meat since before the star festival. “I don’t think they do that anymore.”

  “Grandmother says in her day, none of the girls were ever chosen.”

  Annele shuddered, and Jun-li rubbed the back of her neck. “That was before the Rasika came across the mountains. There was no war.”

  “Well, no one was chosen last year. Grandmother says—” Annele broke off as Sus-qa elbowed her. All the girls grew quiet as they came closer to the priests.

  Jun-li held her bowl out when it was her turn, and got a glob of porridge, already half congealed in the cool night air. She bowed her thanks without looking at the priest and turned away, joining her cousins on the blanket they’d spread under one of the shofu trees. Annele was digging through the porridge with her spoon, frowning. “I don’t think I got anything.”

  “Everyone gets something.” Sus-qa went through her porridge slowly and carefully. “Just eat it and mind your teeth, or you’ll look like a Rasika beast.”

  Annele smacked her sister’s arm. “I do not have green skin!” she said. “Or a nose like a dog, or—”

  “You have a voice like a monkey. Chatter, chatter, chatter.”

  “Oh, shut up.” Annele crushed shofu needles in her hand and threw them at Sus-qa. The sharp smell tickled Jun-li’s nose.

  The last girl got her porridge, scraped from the bottom of the largest kettle, and the priests drew together in a watchful group as acolytes came to drag the kettles back into the temple. Jun-li ate her porridge. It was as tasty as salt could make it, but it could have used some butter. Probably not even the priests had butter any more.

  “I got a rabbit! Look, Sus!”

  “That’s not a rabbit, that’s a dog with big ears. Mine’s a rabbit, look.”

  “Mine is too a rabbit! It’s the best kind of luck. Jun, what did you get?”

  Jun-li put the last spoonful in her mouth and shook her head. Then she felt something hard against her palate. She spat it out in her palm. It was an ax blade, small as the first joint of her thumb, made of smooth grayish-green stone, and wickedly sharp.

  Sus-qa gasped. “You—you got—”

  Jun-li stared. The blade looked so small. In the paintings of Holy Defender on the temple walls, it was always big, bigger than a real ax even. Though of course a real ax blade would not have fit in her porridge bowl.

  “Jun,” Annele said, clutching her arm. “Jun, I don’t want it to be you, I don’t want anyone to be chosen this year, hide it, throw it away!”

  “She can’t do that.” Sus-qa smacked her sister’s hand, pulling her away. “The priests would know.”

  “But I don’t want it to be her! Maybe they can’t tell.”

  “Holy Defender can tell.”

  Jun-li closed her hand about the blade, feeling the edge bite into her palm. She looked at Sus-qa. “Tell my mother,” she said, and then she couldn’t think of any more words.

  She got up, and the bowl fell from her lap onto the blanket. Across the square she could see the priests, dark-faced and silent, watching the girls and waiting. Jun stepped off the blanket and onto the smooth earth, walked to the temple steps, and held her hand out. The blade had blooded her palm.

  Jun-li expected the priests to say something to her, words of greeting and explanation, but they didn’t. They grabbed her arms and twisted her around to face the square again. “One is chosen!” the oldest priest shouted, and all the girls hushed. “One is chosen!” An acolyte beat the great iron bell by the temple door, and it rang out so low Jun-li could feel it in the soles of her feet.

  She thought she could see Annele crying under the shofu tree.

  “You have the weapon,” the youngest priest said, pointing at the blade in her hand.

  “You have been chosen,” the oldest priest said, gesturing at the temple behind them.

  “You will go before our warriors in the sacred places.”

  “You will take defeat from them and give them victory.”

  “The Rasika beasts will fall before you.”

  “You are our Holy Defender.”

  “You walk with the spirits from this moment.”

  They turned her again and walked her up the temple steps before she could even draw breath to speak. The youngest priest held out a small cup to her. “Drink.”

  Jun-li drank. It tasted bitter, and for a moment she felt dizzy.

  The oldest priest put his hand on the door and whispered low, and the door opened a crack. A cold wind blew from the darkness inside. “You walk with the spirits. Go.”

  Jun-li breathed in, smelling porridge and dusty earth and people, and the dry air of the spirit world. The oldest priest put his hands on her shoulders and pushed, and she stumbled inside.

  The door closed behind her, and Jun-li stood alone in the dark. The cold wind licked at her calves. She knew what the temple looked like inside. It was a long narrow building with painted walls, and at one end the altar with the stone figure of a woman with an ax, Holy Defender ready to protect her people. Jun-li took a step backward to press her shoulders against the door and get her bearings, but the door wasn’t there, and she nearly fell. The cold wind grew stronger, fluttering the edges of her wrap against her legs.

  Jun-li crouched down and touched the floor. That was the same, at least, worn blocks of stone joined so tightly her fingertips could barely feel the cracks. The wind blew toward her, into her face, and it smelled strange and wrong. Jun-li stood up and walked into it.

  The stone blade was a tiny sharp weight in her right hand. She knew that other girls had walked here before her, holding a blade like this one, or perhaps this very one.

  She knew they had never come back.

  Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, louder than the wind. After a hundred steps, twice as long as the length of the temple in the world of people, Jun-li saw a light. She slowed down, but the light grew brighter. It showed her the stone floor, but no walls, no ceiling. Jun-li stopped.

  A woman stepped into the light. She was tall and heavy, with strong arms, and her hair curled without moving as though carved from stone. In her right hand, she carried an ax. Jun-li felt her legs quiver. She locked her knees and straightened her back.

  “So,” the woman said, and her voice was like stone, also, dusty and hard. “They have sent another child.”

  Jun-li breathed dust and tried not to sneeze. “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.” The woman’s eyes were grayish-green, the color of the ax blade. “You are chosen. You have the token. You know the weapon.”

  Jun-li looked at the ax blade in her palm. “It is very small,” she said. It didn’t seem enough to protect everyone.

  The stone woman looked at her. “You cannot pass me without the weapon.”

  Jun-li frowned. She took a step forward, and the stone woman hefted her ax, raising it a little. “But you have the weapon.”

  “You cannot pass me without the weapon.” The light had brought shadows, and Jun-li thought she saw them move at the sound of the stone woman’s voice. They rose up around Jun-li, and there was no way but forward, where the woman stood.

  Jun-li held her hand out as she had done to eldest priest, the stone blade cutting across the lines in her palm. “Here,” she said. “Here is the token.”

  “That is my blade,” the stone woman said and nodded. “You have given it to me. And this is yours.” The stone woman took the token and put the ax into Jun-li’
s hands. “It is a fair exchange.”

  The ax was heavy, but at the same time, it weighed nothing at all. Jun-li bowed. “Thank you.”

  The stone woman shook her head. She looked sad. “It’s yours now. You must use it.”

  “Oh.” Jun-li gripped the ax handle harder.

  “You must go before the warriors. This is what you were chosen for. To walk with the spirits and meet the enemy.”

  Jun-li looked at the stone woman, who was tall and strong and clothed for battle. “I’m afraid.”

  “Yes.” The stone woman stepped closer and kissed Jun-li’s forehead, and her lips were hard and cold. “Go now, my warrior.”

  “Holy Defender,” Jun-li whispered, and then she was alone in the darkness. She held the ax in both hands and walked forward.

  The stones were smooth and even under her bare feet, but she still went slowly, wary of walking into some unseen obstacle. Dust and grit stirred at her passing. The chill wind grew stronger, blowing against her, and it brought a strange smell, like lightning and rotting meat. After a while, the darkness grew less absolute. Jun-li looked down and saw her own hands on the ax handle and a faint golden glow about them.

  She walked on, and the glow grew brighter around her, limning her arms and legs, shining off the edge of the ax blade. Jun-li felt faint inside. Her bones weren’t made for this. She was no Holy Defender.

  A gust of wind made her eyes tear up, and she drew a deep breath of the strange smell and sneezed. Jun-li blinked her eyes clear and saw, up ahead, a green light. It wavered, it flickered, and it grew stronger. Jun-li felt cold inside. She needed to pass water. Her palms sweated against the smooth handle of the ax.

  “Holy Defender, help me,” she whispered under her breath. “Help me be strong.”

  Something was standing in the green light, and Jun-li swallowed hard. Something tall and monstrous, a beast walking on two legs, with long thin arms and green skin and sharp jagged teeth. A Rasika warrior-beast, and it wore strange clothes, and it smelled horrible, and Jun-li’s throat was too dry for her to scream. She lifted the ax, and the beast saw her and cried out in a terrible voice.

  The air grew thick about her. Jun-li felt her bones quake within her flesh. The Rasika beast thrust its spear at her, and she jumped aside, slowly, but the beast was slower still. The point of the spear glowed green and poisonous. Jun-li drew back, and the muscles in her arms moved in new ways. She swung the ax and hit the Rasika beast in the shoulder, and it cried out like thunder and stabbed with the spear.

  The stone floor was even and smooth under her feet, and all the same it felt to Jun-li as though she stood on a plain where the grass was trampled down into mud. There was no sound but her own breathing and the Rasika beast’s cruel wail, and yet she heard warriors shouting in anger and pain. There was nothing but darkness beyond the green and golden light, but she felt herself stand at the head of an army under a sky high with stars.

  A growl from the Rasika beast warned her. It thrust the spear at her again, and she danced aside, but this time it was faster and she was slower, and the point of the spear scored her hip. Jun-li clenched her teeth. Perhaps the beast had poisoned her now. Her heart beat faster.

  Warriors shouted battle cries in her ears, and she squared her shoulders. When the beast came at her, she raised the ax and swung it, like chopping wood, like cutting saplings. The beast roared. Jun-li swung the ax again and again, and the army rushed forward.

  The beast fell, and everything was silent.

  Jun-li gasped for breath. The ax was heavy in her hands, and the blade was dull with blood. She bent forward with the weight of it and panted and shook. Her heart pounded in her throat. She had not fallen to the enemy.

  At her feet, the Rasika beast glowed green, but the glow was dimming. Jun-li blinked. It was difficult to look at the beast; the air shifted around it, shadows jumped and twisted. It seemed as though the beast’s limbs were moving, and Jun-li lifted her ax again. The green glow flared and disappeared.

  Jun-li sucked in a sharp breath and shook her head. She had seen the beast, she had fought the beast, the beast had wounded her with its spear. Yet the beast was gone, and at her feet lay a girl with pale skin and terrible wounds, with her copper hair spread out in a pool of blood. The girl looked up at Jun-li with sorrowful dark eyes and said something in a strange language, and then blood ran from the corner of her mouth, and she died.

  Jun-li shuddered. She fell to her knees, leaning on the ax. She could smell the blood now, and it made her sick. The golden glow clung to her skin, and she slapped at it, but only hurt herself. The beast had fallen into the mud, but Jun-li knelt next to the dead girl on the hard stone floor.

  “Rasika,” she whispered, stretching her hand out and touching the tips of her fingers to the girl’s undamaged cheek, naming her. “Rasika.”

  The cut on Jun-li’s hip was painful, and she had to struggle to get to her feet again. Jun-li turned around and went back into the darkness, one slow limping step at a time. The ax seemed to grow heavier and heavier, but she would not let go of it. There was no army at her back anymore. The shadows shifted and moved, but did not rise up to stop her.

  She had to stop after a while and breathe and rest. Blood trickled down from her hip along her leg. She pressed her wrap against the wound and held it there as she started to walk again.

  Counting her steps, she walked on and on, only to realize that she was counting one, two, one, two. The golden glow wavered around her like a candle flame. Far ahead, she saw another light, and walked toward it.

  “I thought perhaps you would be the one.”

  The stone woman stood with her arms crossed, tall and unmoving in her own circle of light. Around her neck, the ax blade token hung on a chain of plaited straw.

  “I killed her,” Jun-li said.

  The stone woman nodded. “You have slain the Rasika beast. You have led the warriors to victory.”

  Jun-li shook her head. “I killed her.” She felt her stomach turn over. “I want to go home.”

  “This is your home now,” the stone woman said.

  “No.” Jun-li looked around, and there was nothing but darkness. This wasn’t anyone’s home. “No, I want to go back. Annele and Sus-qa will be waiting. And my mother.”

  “You cannot go back. There is no way open for you. The door was only opened for you to come here.”

  Jun-li lifted her palm from her wounded hip. The bleeding had stopped. “It was the temple door,” she said. “They just opened the door. They can do it again.”

  The stone woman looked sad, and her voice was like sand trickling down on a rock, more gentle than Jun-li had heard it before. “It was more than that. They gave you pisara and hallowroot to drink. You walk with the spirits now. You are the Holy Defender.”

  Jun-li looked at her hands, limned in golden light, with blood streaked across the knuckles. “Do the spirits always walk in darkness?”

  “Yes,” the stone woman said, “we do.” Her light began to dim. She turned away, and faded like a star at dawn.

  Darkness stood all around, and Jun-li bit her lip. The wound on her hip looked deep, but there was no longer any pain. She knelt down and pressed her hand against the stone again, the grit and sand, willing herself to feel it. The stone was cold, and the cold wind stirred her hair against her neck. Her hands felt cold, too. There was no warmth in the golden light.

  Jun-li got to her feet and settled the ax handle over her shoulder as though she were going out for firewood on a day like any other. She turned around and went forward again, taking her direction from the wind blowing against her face. With every step, her strides grew smoother and easier, and when she had walked five times a hundred steps, she no longer limped.

  She walked on, though the darkness stretched unchanging before and behind her. She walked on, though the smooth stones underfoot looked the same with every step. She walked on, wrapped in golden light, waiting for the next battle, looking for the place where a girl lay dead an
d spirits crossed over, the place where the stone floor turned into a trampled field of mud and blood, and she could see the sky again.

  ELITES

  by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Kristine Kathryn Rusch is an award-winning mystery, romance, science fiction, and fantasy writer. She has written many novels under various names, including Kristine Grayson for romance and Kris Nelscott for mystery. Her novels have made the bestseller lists—even in London—and have been published in fourteen countries and thirteen different languages. Her awards range from the Ellery Queen Readers Choice Award to the John W. Campbell Award. She is the only person ever to have won a Hugo Award for editing and a Hugo Award for fiction. Her short work has been reprinted in seven Year’s Best fantasy collections, and also in three World’s Finest Mystery and Crime story collections.

  THE FIGHT STARTED over cleaning the toilet.

  It’s an old-fashioned porcelain job, swirling water, environmentally unsound. Grandfathered in because the building’s ancient, kept in place because we’re poor, we’re a nonprofit, and we get the government to look the other way.

  A self-cleaner costs twice our monthly budget. A self-cleaner that doesn’t use water costs four times that.

  I don’t know how often I have to explain that to the troops. Not quite every day, even though someone has toilet duty every day, but damn close. Every time a new recruit stumbles into the House, I find myself discussing toilets, old-fashioned plumbing, and even older stoves.

  I lead this group of misfits. I’m a vet myself. Two tours each in two different wars. Sixteen medals, give or take, all lost or tossed, and at least that many wounds.

  The scars remain.

  I found that even though the military gives you memory blocks for the post-traumatic stress, PTSD still finds a way to rear its ugly head. Only worse than the olden days.

  Now you don’t know what it is you’re reliving.

  It’s scary as hell.

  The House is a remodeled Victorian monstrosity. Once upon a time, it housed a single family. A single, very wealthy family. Then it became a duplex, then a series of apartments, then college housing, then an abandoned mess. It had been condemned when I found it about fifteen years ago.