To Battle The Gods

To Battle The Gods Sharon Green

1 An arrival—and a decision disputed

Mida’s light touched me strongly where I sat upon my kan, not so strongly as it had in the lands of Midanna, yet sufficiently warming in what was, in truth, the land of males. The skies were bright and clear of clouds, the land all about us open and green, and beyond the rise of ground we had halted behind lay the city of Bellinard. I had returned at last to the place where my sister clans awaited me, warriors who would follow me into battle against the coming strangers, and I would have rejoiced at my return—had my humor not been so foul.

“Now comes Ennat,” said Chaldrin from where he sat his own kan nearby; the rumble of his words did not intrude upon my thoughts. “As Wedin and Dotil accompany her, the wenches are likely all in their assigned places.”

“More quickly than the legions of Sigurr,” said S’Heernoh, amused, as he often was. The male who was called Walker sat his kan somewhat behind, his observation exceedingly soft, yet not so soft that I was unable to hear it. Few others would have had the courage to jest in my hearing just then, yet S’Heernoh always faced my displeasure with little more than innocent curiosity.

“Though the Sigurri are warriors, still they are no more than males,” said Ilvin to S’Heernoh, amused herself. “Midanna are true warriors, and take the field of battle more swiftly and with greater eagerness.”

“Not to speak of the fact that there are more than twice the number of Sigurri than Midanna,” said Chaldrin calmly. “The Sword will see them properly deployed, and then he and Aysayn will join us as agreed. They undoubtedly give thanks, as do we, that this journey is done at last.”

That this journey is done at last. Chaldrin’s words caused me to consider the journey just completed and the manner in which it had begun. I, Jalav, once war leader of the Hosta clan of Midanna, had set out with my Hosta warriors to retrieve the Crystal of our goddess, stolen from us by northern males. First had there been the city of Bellinard, ruled then by males, a place where I and a small number of my warriors had been enslaved. It was there that Ceralt and Telion had bought me, two males with unspoken purposes of their own; we all ended at last in the city of Ranistard. After much struggle, the lives of my warriors lost at the time of the theft of the Crystal had been avenged, yet had our Crystal, and the one which should have been guarded by the Silla clan, and a previously unknown third, all been irretrievably lost to the males of Ranistard. They had placed the Crystals within a device of evil, a device supposedly of the Ancients, and the device could not again be made to release them.

I sighed at the memory of that doing, for the males had thought to use the device to speak with the gods, yet they reached beings they had not envisioned. Strangers were they, who claimed kinship with us, who then spoke of coming to “civilize” us in a manner unspecified, yet one which disturbed all who listened. The males had retired to discuss the matter, paying no mind to the Midanna warriors who were about, for the Hosta had been taken as captives by them, to be held and used as mere city slave-women.

And yet Jalav had shown that she was not one to be dismissed! Despite the agony of a lashing, I had escaped over the wall of Ranistard with the burning need to bring others to help free the sister Hosta, had survived, with the aid of the goddess Mida, wounds which should well have been crippling or fatal, had withstood, with great difficulty, the capture of Ceralt and his Belsayah riders, only to be at last brought before the goddess Mida to learn that the Hosta might not be freed. Jalav was meant to be war leader to all nine of the other clans of sister Midanna, and could succeed only if the Hosta remained captives, leaving Jalav as one who would not favor any clan above the others.

I shivered with the memory of my time with Mida. I had been brought to her by Ceralt, High Rider to those village males called Belsayah, he who had attempted to claim and hold me as his own, and had not known he moved to the will of the goddess. Ceralt thought to seek the aid of Sigurr, dark god of males, against the coming strangers, and therefore we had all journeyed to Sigurr’s Peak and the altar which lay in the heart of it. Indeed we succeeded in finding the dark god, but his realm and Mida’s lay side by side, and both god and goddess wished me to lead their warriors against the coming strangers.

With heavy heart yet fierce determination, I had led the nine clans of sister Midanna against Bellinard and had taken the city, then had I ridden to the land of the Sigurri, those male warriors who worshipped Sigurr as Midanna did Mida. In Bellinard I freed four Sigurri captives, for I had been told by Sigurr and Mida, they might lead me to their city so that I might raise their host to ride and fight beside Mida’s. One of the four had been Mehrayn, a red-haired male of great strength and odd humor, who had proven to be a Prince of the Blood among the Sigurri, called Sigurr’s Sword for he led the dark god’s legions into battle. Again there had been difficulty, as well as capture and enslavement, during which Chaldrin had proven himself a true brother to me, yet we succeeded in returning Aysayn, the rightful Sigurr’s Shadow, to his proper place where he had gladly obeyed Sigurr’s will and pledged the city’s legions to stand against the coming strangers.

It was then that I had learned that all of Mida’s terms had not been met, that there was one additional task I must attend to before I might return to my own. I had often called myself war leader to all Midanna, but at the time, that was simply not so. Without the Silla, who lay in capture to the males of Ranistard along with the Hosta, the clans of enemy Midanna also numbered nine. It became my task to assume the leadership of these Midanna as well, yet I could not ride toward their lands alone as I had wished to do. Each time I had turned about I had found another in my path, among them Mehrayn and Chaldrin and S’Heernoh. Mehrayn desired me as Ceralt had, Chaldrin had pledged himself to stand beside me in battle, and S’Heernoh—S’Heernoh had appeared from out of the forests, had joined our traveling set, and had given more assistance than he, unarmed, should have been able to do. Also was S’Heernoh a Walker, one who was able to reach the White Land and walk the Snows of what-shall-occur, and therefore had been able to aid those of the then-enemy clans as well. At last I had accomplished the will of the goddess and had become war leader to those who were no longer enemies, and then had they and I and the Sigurri legions and the males who led them, all made the journey to Bellinard, where the balance of my warriors waited.

The journey had now been completed, though we could not have anticipated it.

“Had this journey continued for many feyd more, the numbers to reach this place would have been considerably fewer,” said Ilvin. “Never had I envisioned such difficulty as that which arose when Midanna and Sigurri attempted to ride beside one another. They are males, I know, and therefore as strange as all males, yet I had not expected their strangeness to engulf warriors as well.”

“It could not have occurred otherwise,” said S’Heernoh, with a sigh. “The wenches, never having had men in such numbers available to them, happily sought to avail themselves of the bounty, seeking all about for those who would please them most. The men, eager themselves for the taste of wenches who were also warriors, vied for their attention as though they were boys just become aware of their manhood. That two or more men would come to hard words over a single wench was inevitable, as inevitable as some men’s belief that they might take what wench they wished. That no more than two score were wounded or killed because of those hard words is truly the thing to be wondered at, for I would surely have expected more. What number were lost in attempts to use force, I have no idea.”

“Nearly two hands of males and four warriors,” said I in a growl. “All save three of the males were seen to by the warriors they considered no more than city slave-women; the rest ended by Mehrayn and Aysayn when they learned of the harm given the young warrior who was made to serve them. Three of the warriors who attempted to force the use of Sigurri were ended by those Sigurri, the fourth I saw to myself when I saw the deep humiliation and fury of the male, and the laughter of the warrior who cared naught that he could not bring himself to raise weapon to her even in vengeance. No other stood with her in her arrogance though she called upon them as sisters, and her efforts to keep my point from her flesh were equally unsuccessful. Go and see what those about the city do now, Ilvin.”