Excerpt:

WHEREIN ANARATAN KICKS SOME SERIOUS ASS.

The misty dawn air was rife with the clattering noise of ten times ten score men on horseback, of guns being loaded with little clicks, with the stamping of hooves and the murmurs and the laughter of ten times ten score men, a sea of motion sloping upon a great hill. It stank of sweat and gunpowder and dung and the cool bite of metal; the rainy season was in full swing, and the sky was ominously overcast. It was a raging din, and almost audible in the background Anaratan could hear the murder of crows fluttering miles above them. She stood alone against the tide; the mountain pass was narrow enough that she simply had to defend a small radius. Earlier, the night before, she had shot the rocks down the mountainsides to pile up in a very solid, very effective block of the pass. If they manage to get past me… but they won’t. The bodies, she noted dully, would soon grow overwhelming; the tallies were running in the back of her mind as she focused her attention on the pure white dais in the center of the crushing river of men.

War stood there, as arrogant and charismatic as ever, his overcoat a pristine red and lined with dark fur from some nameless beast, the posture of his body a stance of absolute confidence. She could make out with perfect accuracy the pallor and youth of his face. Twenty winters? Twenty-one? No older than that – but Betsy had warned her that the demons would change, that War had shown himself as a child once – demons were tricky creatures. She remembered Valkyrie fondly – he had looked not a day older than fourteen winters when she met him, but he had been on mother earth for no less than twenty. Now Betsy and Kitiripiki and Melissa and Valkyrie were fighting to defend the house of Lords in Perrin’s capital against the dissenters, only some of whom had been planted by War himself; they were counting on Anaratan to keep War from entering the city.

The people’s general was too powerful, and his very presence would incite even the peace advocates to riots. He spoke of the pride of the people, appealed to them in a multitude of ingenuous and devious ways. No wonder, then, that Perrin fell. Who could resist a charming, beautiful young man offering them everything their bruised egos had ever dreamed to desire? Victory. Hope. The promise of an innate superiority. They forgot their place. Anaratan smiled bitterly, letting her fingers run over her arms in the cold air, feeling the chill, the goosebumps. It was miraculous – an avatar of God, and she still got goosebumps. That has to count for something, doesn’t it? I know my place in life. I haven’t… I haven’t forgotten my duty, or my humanity. Or my humility. I would never have volunteered for the task, but the gods found me worthy, didn’t they? This is my duty, the holy duty I was given in the Lake. There is no room for anything else.

Challenging and defiant to the last, Anaratan looked into the eyes of War, and her bitter smile was privately transformed into something a little more rueful, a little more hopeful. Let them come, she thought, refusing to show any sign of the doubt that raged just below the surface. I hate this lack of clarity. I must not doubt, but - I mustn’t take a life, her heart cried. Are they alive?

In her mind, Betsy Tayler stood, her smile small, her mind clear and her eyes filled with a certainty that Anaratan recognized. It was fundamental to Betsy’s character; she moved with it, she breathed it, she exuded it. Like Anaratan, Betsy was not quite human – Anaratan was an avatar of the gods, and Betsy was simply Betsy. It was comforting to know that Betsy had faith in Anaratan’s righteousness. I can’t forget that. She believes in me.

And yet… They seem so very mortal before me – they seem so alive – can I do this? It was fine when it was only the cargo ships. Can I really kill living creatures? In all good faith – can I? … I can and I must, she told herself grimly, readying the weapons that lurked below the surface of her skin – they hummed to life. This is my path, and I must live by it. God help them.

She could read War’s lips as he whispered something, almost inaudibly – silence – and at once the entire host, including the horses, obeyed. It was eerie and unsettling; her back stiffened and her left hand gave a reflexive jerk, the cannon ready to fire. She clenched her fist. So he’s controlling them. In the silence, his voice was clear like the ringing of temple bells, like the songs of her mother, like a flute of heaven.

“Look at the young jihadist,” he sang, his eyes dark with bloodlust. “She stands with a tall back like a soldier of Perrin, but she is a vile thing, an impurity, a deluded fool in the age where man himself reigns over all. Tell me, do you still believe in that God of yours?” Anaratan did not give him the benefit of an answer. He didn’t seem to be expecting one, either way; he laughed. “He’s not a very pleasant fellow! Trust me, I’ve met the bastard.”

Anaratan bristled. Liar, she decided. No one “met” God. God was everywhere and everything. Just like that, War no longer seemed charismatic to her, just a man child with the face of an angel and the eyes of a madman. He had probably dropped the glamour as soon as he had dropped the pretense that his soldiers were loyal to him by choice. There was literally no movement – no stamping of a single hoof, no rattling of a single shield. Squaring up, her muscles rippling under her skin, she gave War an arrogant look.

“You are about to commit a mortal sin,” she called, her powerful voice bridging the vast divide between the two of them. War’s sneer began to fade into a an ugly expression of hate; unconsciously his anger began to affect the soldiers, as she could see them all begin to scowl. Good. I would hate to fight an enemy that underestimated me. “Are you prepared for the consequences of that choice?”

War began to laugh, the howling of a mad dog. “Are you?” he screamed, tears running down his face as he cackled, bent double in his convulsions. Anaratan glared at him impassively. “I’m just doing the duty that the gods have given me – are you prepared to murder for yours?!” He didn’t wait for Anaratan to answer. Instead, he straightened, grinning hugely, and, with an air of decorum, raised his left arm, extending his gloved index finger to point directly at her. The legions before him stiffened, bristling with blades and guns. For a moment, War seemed almost calm; then his eyes bulged, and his chest swelled, and Anaratan knew he had become a berserker.

“DEATH TO THE INFIDEL!” he bellowed, his voice echoing harshly off of the stone mountain face. Anaratan didn’t move, or blink, even as the multitudes roared. Instead, she moved into a ready stance, and when War called the charge, she ran at full tilt into the fray.

No regrets. No hesitation.

Her mouth was stretched wide with the force of her own battle cry, a terrible roar that shook her bones at the core. Ducking beneath the first horse to reach her, arms upward, fire one – two – the bluish light glowing as it raced out of her palms, the recoil a welcome jolt. The horse was speared on the first shot – the second was for the rider, and he flew to pieces with a faint gurgle, and she was the only one to hear him, to see the look of startled surprise in his dead eyes, and Anaratan howled.

They’ve all got War’s face – that bastard son of a bitch –

Leaping up, the gattling gunfire and the poison tipped arrows flying at her from all directions, darkening the sky – bare feet, the rockets at full flare as they jutted out of her arches – the tiny little plates of indestructible metal slipping out from under her skin and taking the shots – it would bruise, it would bruise later – cut the rockets, keep shooting in all directions from her palms and – good, the elbow guns were fully functional – locking her arms in right angles, swiveling the barrels and spinning like a hurricane as she fell upon the closest foot soldier, the weight of her body crushing his head, the stench of blood and bile – no time to pray for him, no time to mind the blood spray hitting her legs, just roll, hit the ground, make them hit each other –

Friendly fire. Can’t hit me if War can’t see me –there’ll be a delay for the soldiers further away from me – go, move, an opening –

Six, seven men down in the last barrage. Run, run faster, run harder – weaving, ducking, in and out of the crowd, War was nowhere to be seen – leap, brief flare of the rockets, an aerial flip over three rows of men and their horses, raining down blasts of unstoppable heat from her hands – damn, damn, damn! Legs hitting the ground with a terrible crash, the sharp blades whipping out of her arms, diamond-hard, cutting into the flanks of two horses and taking off the legs of their riders – get up, get up, feet, balanced, quickly quickly get the arm cannon on line, submerge the weaker gun on the left side, submerge the blade – jump, jump, spin – while the cannon’s loading, keep them busy, whirling like death in the air, the blade on her right arm fully extended, beheading the three men on horseback surrounding her and as she fell back to the ground cutting viciously into the flanks of the horses – damn cannon, taking too long, it was taking too long, there were warhorses trying to trample her –

Horses can’t move without legs!

The bullets were getting less and less frequent but she could feel where they’d hit her, feel where the iron arrowheads had hit her, all of them useless against the skin armor. Another volley coming – the air was whistling – she cut off the forelegs of a warhorse, dodged as it fell, gutted the rider, ducked to the side, the volley hit the dying horse, it screamed like a man in pain –

Cannon’s loaded!

She jumped up, golden braids whipping out behind her as she flew through the air, levying her left arm – the hand was completely gone, the forearm was huge and cylindrical, the wiring like bulging veins under the armored skin, the barrel was – aiming the barrel at the thickest patch of soldiers, trying to force her to land on their spears. The cannon blast shot into a man and continued right on through him, a solid beam of energy that went at least twenty men deep, she was gouging lives out of War’s army like tearing a limb from a body. Forty men down at that one.

Run. It’s reloading.

So Anaratan ran. Friendly fire had taken out about fifty men already – War was keeping her under as steady a barrage as he could manage – her skirt was punctured with a dozen holes already – divert extraneous power to the legs, come on, ignore the red uniforms, ignore the faces, where is the unnatural one? Another hail of shots from her right hand, quick as lightning, cutting down the men around her in an ever-widening circle as she spun, keeping her cannon arm facing the torn earth. One line mowed down – a second, she had to spin faster to precipitate their movements – starting in on the third, her right hand flying up and down as she precisely targeted opponents of every height.

I should be about halfway through them by now – that bastard, the dais is gone – damn, need to get out of this open circle, I’m an easy target!

Foot rockets setting the ground on fire as she kicked off, headfirst, spinning through the air so she could keep shooting at the ones she could see aiming at her – the bullets stung like hell, maybe some of the plates were denting – whipping her right hand blade out again, swiveling it in its socket and making it spin, shearing through the foot soldiers, the spray of arteries in the legs and necks coating her from head to toe – landing on her feet at a dead run. Hurry, hurry – cutting back in a half-crescent, spinning around on one foot, as a three-man team cornered her – the cannon was ready – shooting the rockets on her foot into one man’s face, gutting one man across the stomach, angled upwards – good, she hit the spine from the amount he was bleeding – and the third man got a cannon blast through the chest, the arc of light mowing down a wide swath as Anaratan pulled it to the right. It stopped; she ducked the twin spears that had been trying to flank her, kicking through the throat of one of their mounts and jerking her right arm backwards to shear away the head of the other’s. The fallen man on her right she ended with a quick, backwards blast of the palm-gun – she was running over the one on her left, her foot crushing through the poor bastard’s skull.

Hours went by. She didn’t know how much time had passed. Time was immaterial to her. Everything was blood and crunching bones and the recoil of her guns and the resistance under her blade, the smell of death and fear and bloodlust, the taste of sweat and dry adrenaline in her mouth. She could tell it had been some time, indeed. Spin, kick, cut, leap – yes, it had been some time indeed, if she could see the edge of War’s forces as they surrounded her. She was thinning them out. Ten times she’d fired the cannon – she was running low on power now, and soon her weapons would be useless, she would only have her armor.

Damn it… at least…

Spin-kick, shattering the skull of a foot soldier, leaping over the bullets that had fallen to the ground, her feet punching right through the dead bodies and hitting the earth as she ran, firing a final blast with the cannon and cutting down another row of twenty, maybe thirty. Her face, her legs, her tattered leather clothing – everything was spattered with blood, and it was beginning to crust on the hilt of her blades. Cannon was useless now – she rolled under a warhorse, planting her blade into the soil and using it as leverage as she kicked upwards, through the horse’s chest, letting the dying rockets on her feet burn away its heart and burn through the groin artery of the rider. He bled to death as she kicked both of them off of her.

At least, I managed to take out his personal guard…

Archers, now – the arrows thumped against her legs and torso, some of them catching in the fabric, some of them managing to hit her faster than the armor could shield her She bled and it felt like sweating. War was… ah.

Finally.

He was on the outskirts of the battle, using the remaining nine hundred or so soldiers – mostly foot soldiers and artillery archers – to shield himself. With a final battle cry of sheer rage, a deafening howl that spooked the three horses riding up behind her and caused them to trip over the fallen bodies, Anaratan set her sights on War himself, and began her final, bloody run.

The cannon was retracted and her fist re-formed itself; she forced out the blade, and, like its twin on her right arm, locked it in place. No more rockets; she was running on adrenaline and fumes, heedless of the damage she was taking to her unguarded back as she made a linear charge. Bullets bounced off, but the thinnest of spear blades managed to slide under the armor, which was rapidly becoming useless. They stung her, three angry red buzzing lines in her flesh; like an enraged animal, she only roared louder, continuing to plow mercilessly through the men in her path. No horses left; she’d taken them all down. Blades flashed in the light of the midmorning sun as it finally crested the jagged mountaintops. She couldn’t see it; her peripheral vision was dissolving into red and black smears, her arms swinging the blades on instinct alone as she bent sideways, leaned forwards, bent back a little – all the while picking up speed. Speed – her increasing momentum – was almost the only thing keeping her going. War was watching her, his eyes shining, still laughing like the world was ending and he’d been given front-row seats. He was, as always, immaculate, but Anaratan could see now that the red of his coat was damp, and blood fell from his limply-curled hands as he waited for her.

In a magnificent leap, she cleared his last line of defense, ejecting the left blade entirely and using her left hand to grasp the collar of his clothing. No armor – maybe I clipped him once or twice – and his hair was as clean, his skin as spotless, his clothes immaculate as ever. He gave her a level look, charming and knowing.

“Hello, little warrior,” he whispered, flecking his face with a fine spray of blood. His voice was a croak; she tightened her grip, and readied the blade on her left arm, drawing it up across her body in preparation for the backhanded slice. War laughed, then, and his voice was like the noise of crows. A few more arrows thumped into her back and her flanks; Anaratan was shuddering, but she ignored it. “I’m immortal, dear,” he added, giving her a consoling look, his voice suddenly as clear and sweet as the finest of honeys. It rippled through her like a wave; she didn’t falter. “You can’t kill me because I –“

In a brutal movement, Anaratan whipped out the back of her hand, the blade that jutted on struts from her left arm beheading him in a clean, easy movement. It fell quietly to the ground.

Slowly, she loosened her grip on his collar, and his headless body fell to the ground in a heap, like a puppet without strings. She stared at the blank, glassy eyes in his head as her vision grew spotted with circles of black. “Yes, I can,” she whispered. Her voice was hoarse; behind her, the arrows and bullets came to an abrupt halt, and she heard the unmistakable thud of weapons hitting the ground.

“Yes, I can,” she repeated, growing dizzy, and fell to her knees, shivering. Strange. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this cold…

Unconscious, Anaratan crumpled forwards, her hands and face softly hitting the dirt.