Mickey Reichert - Flight of the Renshai

As usual, Calistin had no idea what was bothering his brother, nor did he waste much thought on wondering. Instead, he wandered out over the camp turned battlefield, glad that Treysind chose not to follow him. Apparently, the Erythanian no longer saw any danger to his hero in the situation and needed some time alone to process all that had happened. The truth never occurred to Calistin: Treysind remained seated on the deadfall, nostrils filled with the reek of blood and open bowel, mind saturated with death, and vomiting every scrap in his gut.

As Calistin wound his way between the corpses, his anger grew. He recognized colleagues and teachers amongst them; and even children had not been spared. They lay in gruesome poses, features locked into determined grimaces and, sometimes, even battle-mad smiles. Swords lay, dishonored, upon the ground, steeped in the entrails of enemies. Blood still oozed from the freshest wounds. At last, he found the one he sought, a young woman of sixteen named Sitari. She sprawled across two other bodies, both Northmen, the portion of scalp over her right ear torn open, trailing a gleaming white hunk of sinew and skull and exposing brain tissue purple with clots and dirt.

Calistin had heard her death cry as he tussled with seven opponents, too far away and too late to come to her aid. She had continued fighting surprisingly long after a wound that could have taken down a mountain lion. He had listened to her high-pitched battle calls in the distance, strange and determined. Now, he stared at her body, so lifelike in death, still shockingly desirable. He had never told her how he felt about her, though he hoped she had known. She had treated him with the same starry-eyed reverence as the others.Yet, there had been so much more to their relationship, at least in his mind. She was the one in most of his adolescent fantasies, though he did not yet have the development, or the social skills, to act on them.

"Good-bye Sitari," Calistin whispered, then looked up toward the heavens. In the morning, she would awaken in Valhalla to the first of an eternity of battles. All day, she would fight the other souls of the bravest and most worthy of the dead. In the evenings, the "survivors" feasted, and they all came back to life in the morning to battle again. It was the fate every Renshai desired. Someday, he knew, he would see her there.

Calistin glanced around for Sitari's sword, planning to honor it, only to find it partially jutting from the abdomen of a Northman. The man still had enough energy to paw at it aimlessly, like a turtle turned on its back so long its feet continue to paddle long after it already believes itself dead. With a single step, Calistin came to his side and jerked the blade free.

A rush of filthy-looking blood followed. The Northman hissed in agony.

Calistin pointed at Sitari with the blade. "Did you kill this woman?"

The Northman took a ragged breath, and scarlet trickled through his teeth. "I killed… her." He sucked in more air. "And the bitch… killed me. It would seem… we're even."

Calistin kicked him. Blood dripped from the blade in his hand to mingle with the stream leaking from the dying man. "You're not going to Valhalla."

"I believe…" A glaze covered the blue eyes, and he did not meet Calistin's gaze. "… I am."

"Not after I dismember you." It was a forbidden act, Calistin knew, the one that had first gotten the Renshai banished from the North. At the time, all Northmen believed only the soul of an intact corpse could ever reach Valhalla. The Renshai had cut apart enemies as a means to dishonor them as well as to demoralize their fellows. In the last century, however, it had become common knowledge that missing a body part did not bar a brave warrior from Valhalla.

"Do it, Renshai," the Northman gurgled. "End this."

Calistin hated the Northman's defiance. He wanted a show of cowardice, anything to prove the man unworthy of a warrior's greatest reward. "You'll scream like the craven you are. And, missing pieces, you won't find Valhalla."

The Northman gasped for his last breaths. "Not… true."

"Are you sure?" Calistin dropped to a crouch beside him. "Are you quite sure? Because you're risking your eternal soul." He preyed upon that last shred of doubt that exists in every mind. No matter how fervent a man's certainty about magic, about the supernatural, he always carried a shred of doubt buried somewhere deep in his psyche. There, and only there, be monsters. "I'm a Renshai, remember? Demons, you call us."

Something sparked briefly through the dying man's eyes.

Was that a hint of fear? Calistin allowed himself a smile. "And demons know how to damn."

The Northman's lids slid closed, and he managed only four more words: "I am not afraid." As the last left his lips, his entire body suddenly relaxed, releasing a wash of blood.

Abruptly angrier than he could ever remember, Calistin hacked at the corpse's neck until bone cracked beneath the blows. He did not quit until every last tendon and shred of flesh separated, and the head rolled free of the body. Only then, he felt a presence behind him and whirled, still clutching Sitari's sword. A Valkyrie stood in front of him.

The figure towered over Calistin, enormous, swathed in armor, yet still oddly and desirably feminine. A shield lay strapped across her left arm, a sword swung at her hip, and a spear lay thrust through her belt. She stepped uncomfortably close, seeming not to notice Calistin at all.

"No!" Calistin shouted.

The Valkyrie stopped, glanced around them, then back at Calistin. Then, apparently believing he addressed someone else, she started toward the corpse again.

Calistin stepped solidly between them, stuffing Sitari's sword into his belt near the left sheath that held the weapon his mother had given him. The gesture smeared fresh Northman's blood across his tunic, but he would not allow Sitari's blade to touch the ground again, to further dishonor it. "You cannot have him."

The Valkyrie blinked. She stared at Calistin.

Calistin met her gaze directly and with level violence.

"Human child, you have no right to interfere with Valkyries. The battlefield souls are ours to take as we see fit."

"This one," Calistin said firmly, "you may not have."

The Valkyrie roared, "Get out of my way!" She tried to step around him, but Calistin moved with her. In a blink, he had freed both of his swords and held them at her throat.

Surprise flashed through her eyes, then disappeared. She seemed not to notice the bared steel at her neck. "Little man, you have pluck. But you are braver than you are wise." She studied him over his swords, ignoring them as she might twigs in a child's grubby fists. She raised a hand to bat them away, but Calistin only tightened his attack and hoped she would not force him to draw blood. "What a pity and a waste you have no soul."

Calistin had no idea what she meant, but it sounded like an insult. "You cannot have him," the Renshai repeated.

Apparently, the blades finally bothered the Valkyrie, because she back stepped and drew her own enormous sword.

Excitement rushed through Calistin. Even tired from his recent battles, even enraged by her taunts, he relished the chance to fight a creature of such stature. He withdrew just enough to make the battle a fair one, to give her a chance to strike first.

The Valkyrie obliged, taking a sweep that showed remarkable speed for such an oversized blade. Calistin dodged it gracefully, then bore in for an attack of his own. To his surprise, size seemed not to hamper her at all. She moved with the dexterity of a Renshai, avoiding his attack and returning one of her own with lightning speed.

Calistin laughed, thrilled to finally find an opponent with skill rivaling his own. He caught the attack on one blade, only to find it stronger than he anticipated. Driven a step backward, he twisted to bring himself out of line with the corpse. Bad footing had turned many a battle tide.