Warrior Women Read online

  WARRIOR WOMEN

  Edited by Paula Guran

  Copyright © 2015 by Paula Guran.

  Cover art by Julie Dillon.

  Cover design by Jason Gurley.

  Ebook design by Neil Clarke.

  All stories are copyrighted to their respective authors, and used here with their permission.

  ISBN: 978-1-60701-468-3 (ebook)

  ISBN: 978-1-60701-458-4 (trade paperback)

  PRIME BOOKS

  Germantown, MD, USA

  www.prime-books.com

  No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means, mechanical, electronic, or otherwise, without first obtaining the permission of the copyright holder.

  For more information, contact Prime Books at [email protected].

  Contents

  Introduction by Paula Guran

  Swords (& Spears & Arrows & Axes) and Sorcery

  Northern Chess by Tanith Lee

  Anukazi’s Daughter by Mary Gentle

  Become a Warrior by Jane Yolen

  The Sea Troll’s Daughter by Caitlín R. Kiernan

  Joenna’s Axe by Elaine Isaak

  Love Among the Talus by Elizabeth Bear

  Soul Case by Nalo Hopkinson

  Just Yesterday & Perhaps Just Beyond Tomorrow

  The Girls From Avenger by Carrie Vaughn

  In the Loop by Ken Liu

  Dying With Her Cheer Pants On by Seanan McGuire

  Prayer by Robert Reed

  Somewhere Between Myth & Possibility

  England Under the White Witch by Theodora Goss

  The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr by George R. R. Martin

  The Knight of Chains, the Deuce of Stars by Yoon Ha Lee

  Space Aria

  Boy Twelve by Jessica Reisman

  The Application of Hope by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Not That Kind of a War by Tanya Huff

  Naratha’s Shadow by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

  Will No War End All War?

  Eaters by Nancy Kress

  And Wash Out by Tides of War by An Owomoyela

  Hand to Hand by Elizabeth Moon

  They Tell Me There Will Be No Pain by Rachael Acks

  Wonder Maul Doll by Kameron Hurley

  The Days of the War, as Red as Blood, as Dark as Bile by Aliette de Bodard

  About the Authors

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  Paula Guran

  What is Not Within

  If you are looking for stories of warrior women wearing chain-mail bikinis, brass bras, tight leather bodices, “boob-plate” armor, skin-tight spacesuits, or latex bodysuits . . . move along. Warrior Women offers no women battling while showing obvious cleavage, toned midriffs, exposed booty, bare or booted thighs, or even tank tops that showcase nipples. Nor will you find long unbound hair that has never known a split end, flapping fringe, or flowing robes to get in the way while fighting. Three prisoners excluded, there’s no nudity.

  As much as I appreciate the fantasy women portrayed by Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell, and others; glorious old pulp pin-ups; the work of many gaming and comic artists; and the astounding engineering (and challenge of wearing) costumes like Seven of Nine’s silver catsuit—the women in these stories have no need of enhanced anatomy or sexy costumes. Like all viable warriors they wear functional clothing and/or protective gear.

  The very fact I am addressing physical appearance first says something about the history of female fantasy and science fiction characters. They were once seldom found doing much more than being supportive, sexy, in need of rescue, victims, or an occasionally a sidekick who screamed before she remembered to draw her sword or push the right button on the starship console. She could also be inhumanly evil, overwhelmingly immoral, a man-eating maniac, or turned from her wicked ways by the love of a good man.

  To be fair: until recently, many male fantasy and science fiction characters have not been overly realistic either. These guys oozed virility, looked like they were pumped up on steroids, had far more testosterone than any human could manage, displayed manly thews in nothing more than a loincloth, or wore spandex as they held off the invaders with a single ray-gun. Despite being prone to risk-taking, more eager to fight than philosophize, allowed to be roguish yet redeemable, and tending to self-serving ambition but turning out to be unselfishly brave after all—they still got to be the heroic protagonist. (If they served the darkside, they also got to be the most dreaded and brilliant of villains.)

  Fiction—especially science fiction and fantasy—certainly does not need to adhere to reality. But science fiction does need to be plausible and at least rational enough to be considered possible. As for fantasy, it follows its own rules; to be effective fiction, those rules should be logical and thus internally cohesive. So, the role of women as warriors must also be credible within the context of the world the writer has built.

  In every era of human history (and, no doubt, prehistory), women—as with every other task a human can perform—have fought. This is no longer an arguable point. We may have lost a great deal of the evidence of women in history, but examples still abound. Modern historians are expanding our knowledge of the real women warriors of the past.

  Despite women performing in an increasingly wide range of military duties, war—particularly combat—is still perceived as being primarily the prerogative of men. Our culture assumes women are physically weaker and psychologically less aggressive—therefore less likely to kill—than men. Beyond that generalization, the specific pros and cons of women serving in combat positions are currently being, maybe for the first time, seriously debated. Slowly but surely, women are proving—again—they are physically, mentally, and morally capable of being warriors.

  There is no theoretical consensus on why we wage war. Some see it as a ubiquitous and even genetic facet of human nature. Others feel warfare is the result of specific circumstances: the interaction of the social and the cultural; battles over ideology, resources, or territory; a response to ecological challenges.

  Whatever the reasons, humans fight. Although we supposedly yearn for peace rather than war, I doubt humanity will ever completely abandon warfare. But, perhaps, we eventually will at least realize that war—and the role of the warrior—is equally the province of some men and some women, but that it is the preserve of neither.

  Science fiction and fantasy's inclusion of women warriors—and women in general, as both characters and writers—has progressed in some ways in the last forty or fifty years. In other ways, it hasn’t. I have a lot to say about the subject, but that is not a topic that I’m commenting on here

  Ursula K. Le Guin wrote: “Science fiction is not prescriptive; it’s descriptive.” It’s a commentary on the present that allows the reader to examine current issues.

  Fantasy? Le Guin again: “ . . . fantasy is true, of course. It isn’t factual, but it is true. Children know that. Adults know it too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy. They know that its truth challenges, even threatens, all that is false, all that is phony, unnecessary, and trivial in the life they have let themselves be forced into living. They are afraid of dragons because they are afraid of freedom . . . ”

  What (I Hope) Is Within

  In gathering stories for this theme, I wanted (of course) top quality and entertainment value, but I also wanted a wide range of styles and subject matter. A “woman warrior” can be many things. As I discovered stories and authors submitted stories or recommended the stories of others, I realized the definition could be even broader than I’d initially envisioned. Not only did I want both science fiction and fantasy, but stories that blurred the lines between (one is neither) . . . stories of adventure as well as deeper contemplation
. . . some lightness scattered amongst the inevitable dark . . . new voices and esteemed authors . . . diverse points of view . . . plus, I wanted some surprises.

  Although these stories are reprints, the overall tone, if there is just one, was shaped by what the writers had written rather than any editorial agenda. If this anthology had come together when it was first proposed (about ten years ago), I think it would have been a very different book. As far as I know, there has not been an original trade anthology with this theme since 2005 (Women of War, edited by Tanya Huff and Alexander Potter from DAW Books). One wonders what a volume of original stories on this theme would be like now.

  Putting pondering aside and returning to the present pages . . . I wound up sorting the stories into five very loose categories so as not to jar the reader too abruptly (if reading in order) as they journey from one story to another. The titles of each section, I hope, provide guidance to . . . or at least enticement to try . . . the content:

  I. Swords (& Spears & Arrows & Axes) and Sorcery

  II. Just Yesterday & Perhaps Just Beyond Tomorrow

  III. Somewhere Between Myth & Possibility

  IV. Space Aria

  V. Will No War End All War?

  Enough preamble. Onward!

  Paula Guran

  Women’s Equality Day 2015

  — Part One —

  Swords (& Spears & Arrows

  & Axes) & Sorcery

  Tanith Lee wrote “Northern Chess”—featuring Jaisel, a woman warrior—for Amazons!, a World Fantasy Award-winning anthology edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson and published in 1979. Another Jaisel story, “Southern Lights,” appeared in Amazons II in 1982. Published during the heyday of feminist Sword and Sorcery, I think this story is one of the best examples of the sub-genre.

  Northern Chess

  Tanith Lee

  Sky and land had the same sallow bluish tinge, soaked in cold light from a vague white sun. It was late summer, but summer might never have come here. The few trees were bare of leaves and birds. The cindery grass-less hills rolled up and down monotonously. Their peaks gleamed dully, their dips were full of mist. It was a land for sad songs and dismal rememberings, and, when the night came, for nightmares and hallucinations.

  Fifteen miles back, Jaisel’s horse had died. Not for any apparent cause. It had been healthy and active when she rode from the south on it, the best the dealer had offered her, though he had tried to cheat her in the beginning. She was aiming to reach a city in the far north, on the seacoast there, but not for any particular reason. She had fallen into the casual habit of the wandering adventurer. Destination was an excuse, never a goal. And when she saw the women at their looms or in their greasy kitchens, or tangled with babies, or broken with field work, or leering out of painted masks from shadowy town doorways, Jaisel’s urge to travel, to ride, to fly, to run away, increased. Generally she was running from something in fact as well as in the metaphysical. The last city she had vacated abruptly, having killed two footpads who had jumped her in the street. One had turned out to be a lordling, who had taken up robbery and rape as a hobby. In those parts, to kill a lord, with whatever justice, meant hanging and quartering. So Jaisel departed on her new horse, aiming for a city in the north. And in between had come this bleak northern empty land where her mount collapsed slowly under her and died without warning. Where the streams tasted bitter and the weather looked as if it wished to snow in summer.

  She had seen only ruins. Only a flock of grayish wild sheep materialized from mist on one hand and plunged away into mist on the other. Once she heard a raven cawing. She was footsore and growing angry—with the country, with herself, and with God. While her saddle and pack gained weight on her shoulders with every mile.

  Then she reached the top of one of the endless slopes, looked over and saw something new.

  Down in a pool of the yellowish-bluish mist lay a village. Primitive and melancholy it was, but alive, for smokes spiraled from roof-holes, drifting into the cloudless sky. Mournful and faint, too, there came the lowing of cattle. Beyond the warren of cots, a sinister unleafed spider web of trees. Beyond them, barely seen, transparent in mist, something some distance away, a mile perhaps—a tall piled hill, or maybe a stony building of bizarre and crooked shape . . .

  Jaisel started and her eyes refocused on the closer vantage of the village and the slope below.

  The fresh sound was unmistakable: jingle-jangle of bells on the bridles of war horses. The sight was exotic, also, unexpected here. Two riders on steel-blue mounts, the scarlet caparisons flaming up through the quarter-tone atmosphere like bloody blades. And the shine of mail, the blink of gems.

  “Render your name!” one of the two knights shouted, She half smiled, visualizing what they would see, what they would assume, the surprise in store.

  “My name is Jaisel,” she shouted back.

  And heard them curse.

  “What sort of a name is that, boy?”

  Boy. Yes, and neither the first nor the only time.

  She started to walk down the slope toward them.

  And what they had supposed to be a boy from the top of the incline, gradually resolved itself into the surprise. Her fine flaxen hair was certainly short as a boy’s, somewhat shorter.

  A great deal shorter than the curled manes of knights. Slender in her tarnished chain mail, with slender strong hands dripping with frayed frosty lace at the wrists. The white lace collar lying out over the mail with dangling drawstrings each ornamented by a black pearl. The left earlobe pierced and a gold sickle moon flickering sparks from it under the palely electric hair. The sword belt was gray leather, worn and stained. Dagger on right hip with a fancy gilt handle, thin sword on left hip, pommel burnished by much use. A girl knight with intimations of the reaver, the showman, and, (for what it was worth), the prince.

  When she was close enough for the surprise to have commenced, she stopped and regarded the two mounted knights.

  She appeared gravely amused, but really the joke had palled by now. She had had twelve years to get bored with it. And she was tired, and still angry with God.

  “Well,” one of the knights said at last, “it takes all kinds to fill the world. But I think you’ve mistaken your road, lady.” He might mean an actual direction. He might mean her mode of living.

  Jaisel kept quiet, and waited. Presently the second knight said chillily: “Do you know of this place? Understand where you are?”

  “No,” she said. “It would be a courteous kindness if you told me.”

  The first knight frowned. “It would be a courteous kindness to send you home to your father, your husband, and your children.”

  Jaisel fixed her eyes on him. One eye was a little narrower than the other. This gave her face a mocking, witty slant.

  “Then, sir,” she said, “send me. Come. I invite you.” The first knight gesticulated theatrically.

  “I am Renier of Towers,” he said. “I don’t fight women.”

  “You do,” she said. “You are doing it now. Not successfully.”

  The second knight grinned; she had not anticipated that.

  “She has you, Renier. Let her be. No girl travels alone like this one, and dressed as she is, without skills to back it. Listen, Jaisel. This land is cursed. You’ve seen, the life’s sucked out of it. The village here. Women and beasts birth monsters. The people fall sick without cause. Or with some cause. There was an alchemist who claimed possession of this region. Maudras. A necromancer, a worshipper of old unholy gods. Three castles of his scabbed the countryside between here and Towers in the west. Those three are no more—taken and razed. The final castle is here, a mile off to the northeast. If the mist would lift, you might see it. The Prince of Towers means to expunge all trace of Maudras from the earth. We are the prince’s knights, sent here to deal with the fourth castle as with the rest.”

  “And the castle remains untaken,” said Renier. “Months we’ve sat here in this unwholesome plague-ridden wilderness.”
/>
  “Who defends the castle?” Jaisel asked. “Maudras himself?”

  “Maudras was burned in Towers a year ago,” the second knight said. “His familiar, or his curse, holds the castle against God’s knights.” His face was pale and grim. Both knights indeed were alike in that. But Renier stretched his mouth and said to her sweetly: “Not a spot for a maid. A camp of men. A haunted caste in a blighted country. Better get home.”

  “I have no horse,” said Jaisel levelly. “But coins to buy one.”

  “We’ve horses and to spare,” said the other knight. “Dead men don’t require mounts. I am called Cassant. Vault up behind me and I’ll bring you to the camp.”

  She swung up lightly, despite the saddle and pack on her shoulders.

  Renier watched her, sneering, fascinated.

  As they turned the horses’ heads into the lake of mist, he rode near and murmured: “Beware, lady. The women in the village are sickly and revolting. A knight’s honor may be forgotten. But probably you have been raped frequently.”

  “Once,” she said, “ten years back. I was his last pleasure. I dug his grave myself, being respectful of the dead.” She met Renier’s eyes again and added gently, “and when I am in the district I visit his grave and spit on it.”

  The mist was denser below than Jaisel had judged from the slope. In the village a lot was hidden, which was maybe as well. At a turning among the cots she thought she spied a forlorn hunched-over woman, leading by a tether a shadowy animal, which seemed to be a cow with two heads.

  They rode between the trees and out the other side, and piecemeal the war camp of Towers evolved through the mist.

  Blood-blotch red banners hung lankly; the ghosts of tents clawed with bright heraldics that penetrated the obscurity. Horses puffed breath like dragon-smoke at their pickets. A couple of Javelot-cannon emplacements, the bronze tubes sweating on their wheels, the javelins stacked by, the powder casks wrapped in sharkskin but probably damp.

  At this juncture, suddenly the mist unraveled. A vista opened away from the camp for two hundred yards northeast, revealing the castle of the necromancer-alchemist, Maudras.