Today's guest content is a piece of short fiction from weblit author Karen Wehrstein. -- Gabriel

So I’m up on the hill with the sheep, just sitting in the sun and the breeze and dreaming of sexy men when my ma calls up, “Kala! Your brother’s spelling you, come down here ’n talk to me.”

Oh-oh, what have I done this time, I’m thinking. She looks pretty grave. She takes me inside the house, makes me sit down on the mat, sits down opposite. She says, “Kala. You climb the cliff?”

“Cliff?” I say. “What cliff? Mama, you always told me never to climb the cliff since your cousin’s shadow-daughter’s boyfriend fell down it and now has to be carried everywhere in a chair, I have not forgotten that.”

“I don’t hear a chalk or a charcoal,” she says.

“The cliff,” I say. “Climb the cliff, huh, hmm. Why are you asking, mama, I mean, why today, not yesterday? Someone fall?”

“No, no one fell. But I am still distinctly not hearing a chalk or a charcoal. Which I am thinking I should take as a chalk, and not a very honest chalk.”

“Well, em, uh,” I say, “I might have. Once or twice. In my younger days when I was not so wise and responsible as I am now.”

“Said like a true fourteen-year-old,” she says, snorting. “Bet it was last half-moon.” All-Spirit, how do mothers know these things? It was three days ago.

I brace myself. What’s it going to be this time, grounding? All the chamberpots for a moon? Maybe she’ll even take her comb to my hand, I think, like she hasn’t in three years. I wondered who ratted. I am going to kill them.

She says, “Kala, how good are you at climbing the cliff?”

“How—?” Am I hearing this right, my ma wants to know how good I am at climbing the cliff? Now I’m really brain-mussed. “Well. I don’t know, ma. Good as anyone else, I guess.” Oops, I just gave it away there, I’ve done it more than once or twice. As good as anyone else means as good as the crazy Amityirae boys who do it all the time. Well, I can’t make it up quite as fast as Tyera, but I can beat Rao. “Why, ma? Who wants to know?”

She leans in close, looking over her shoulder as if there might be an Arkan spy listening in the window, as if we ever talk about anything they’d be interested in, here.

“Fourth Chevenga, that’s who wants to know,” she whispers.

“Wha-a-a-at?”

“The demarch. You know he’s back home and with the army, right?” she says. “Looking to drive the Arkans out of here and make us all free again, right? Last night after you went to bed, this very... plain-looking woman, perfect stranger, whose name is obviously fake, comes to the door.

“She says ‘we’re looking for people who can climb the cliff really well. I have just visited the residence of the Amityirael. The sons of the house referred me here. ‘Go to the Shae-Faral,’ they said. ‘Their crazy daughter Kalalao can do it blindfolded, we’ve seen it.’”

Oh sweet Saint Mother, I think. Maybe the demarch will let me join his army when ma disowns me. Of course I can’t even squire if she combs my fingers off. Her asking me was just to find out how honest I’d be, I guess. Oh well.

“They want you to help with the war somehow, Kala. Fake-name Plain-woman is going to be back again today, asking for your chalk or charcoal.”

“Well, chalk, of course,” I say. Do something, against the Arkans? Like I’m going to say no? She hasn’t heard me cursing that she won’t let me do sword-training?

“Just like you,” she says, storm-clouds on her brow. “Not a thought in your windy little head of any danger or anything.”

“Ma, danger doesn’t matter, if it’s against the Arkans. You want to stay a slave to child-rapers? I’d rather be dead myself. Besides, if they’re looking for people who can climb the cliff, obviously they’re going to want us to climb the cliff, and, shit, that’s not dangerous. I can do it blindfolded.”

She just says, “Go watch the shit-eating sheep, go on, get, get out of my sight.”

They got twenty of us. That night we gathered together in the pine-grove like our mamas told us to.

About ten warriors come ghosting in, all cloaked and hooded, but you can hear their blades clinking against their armour softly underneath. Their leader gets us all to sit in a circle and lights one pole-torch so we can all see each other’s faces.

Kimao nudges me, and whispers in my ear, “That’s him. The demarch. Chevenga. I know, we were up in Terera to visit my aunt back when I was a kid and we saw him in the market.” I nudge her to shut up, and wonder if he is married. Underneath the scars he’s as beautiful as people say. You want to kiss them better, then move on to those tender lips, that lean chin, that muscle-rippled neck, all the while running your hands through those black warrior-cut curls. We’re all so close, I’m thinking, he’s got to look at me sooner or later, and if I sparkle my eyes just right... oh, I’m supposed to be listening to what he’s saying, aren’t I?

“...to lead us down by night,” he’s saying. He’s all business but you can’t miss how sexy that voice is, so quiet and soft-accented. “There we stay for the rest of the night, hidden. In the morning, not too long after sun-up, we do the mission, while you stay hidden at the bottom of the cliff. We will have to run back and then climb the cliff as fast as we can; to do that, we will follow the twenty of you, placing our hands where you put your hands, our feet where you put your feet. Any questions so far?”

“Demarch,” I say, all proper. Sweet Saint Mother, those eyes are on me. They are big and dark and they shine full of... I am not sure what to call it. Full of him. Whatever it is, it gives me quivers. “Uhh... how many warriors are doing this?”

“As I said at the start, seventy,” he says.

“Oh, Kala wasn’t listening, demarch,” says Rao. “She was too busy looking, ha ha!”

The little rat! Everyone breaks out laughing, and I want to sink under the earth. I am going to kill him. But Fourth Chevenga just smiles, and says, “Pay attention, that’s all I ask.”

“I’m sorry, demarch,” I say, hoping the red on my face doesn’t show too much in the torch-light. “I have another question.” I’m going to try to save my name in his eyes. “Arkans will be chasing us, right?” He signs chalk. “Up the cliff? Or at least they’ll try?”

The other nineteen all say, “Ha ha, try.”

“They will,” he says.

“Well, there’s rocks and dead trees and stuff at the top. Once we’re all up, can we throw some of that down on top of them? Maybe that’d stop them. At least slow them down. Maybe bash in their heads.”

“Good idea, Kalalao,” he says. I preen in Rao’s direction, think at him maybe I won’t kill you after all. Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e, our demarch, Yeola-e’s last hope, has told me, Kalalao Shae-Fara, that I had a good idea.

We all talk about it a while longer, and I pick up what I missed. He tells us we have to choose a leader for ourselves, so we elect Tyera Amityirae. He tells us we shouldn’t say anything to anyone about what we’re going to do, even our mamas. He tells us we should all dress a dark, and put some dried fruit or tack or bread in our pockets for a bite to eat in the morning. He tells us it will be tomorrow night.

As we’re sneaking back to the village, I say, “Hey, he never said what the mission they’re going to do is. Or, I mean, did he?” The sheep-diddlers all laugh.

“No, he didn’t,” says Tyera, finally. “He didn’t tell us anything more than we need to know to do our part of it. It’s a war thing.” Oh, listen to him, the big general, now he’s in command, I think. I guess I will see what happens.

My parents and my brother ask me the plan and of course I say I can’t tell them. “Chevenga’s orders.”

“Oh, you call the demarch his given name now, do you?” says ma.

“And he me,” I say smiling, All-spirit’s truth. “Ma, is he married?”

“Very,” she says, looking like she’d bitten into a sour cherry. “Besides, he’s a grown-up. Get to bed, you big-footed puppy, you might not get so much sleep tomorrow night.”

We met in the same place. Lots more warriors, but they all moved so quietly you wouldn’t know their number. It was a half-moon that night, so there was at least a little light to see the footholds by. I don’t know when and how, but Chevenga had picked the place already, for having cover at the bottom.

Climbing down the cliff, we’re leading the way, but none of the warriors seem like they’d have any trouble on their own, and they’re carrying swords and shields and stuff, while we’ve just got bedrolls in knapsacks. I’m thinking, what are the chances of seventy people, even warriors, and every single one of them climbs like he’s climbed a thousand cliffs, and not one is the slightest afraid of heights? Once we’re at the bottom, scrambling over the talus, I whisper that to Asanga. He says, “They been picked for being good at it out of the whole army, stupid.”

In the middle of the plain, beyond the fringe of forest we’re going to sleep under, we can see a hundred winking fires through the leaves. The Arkan camp. Oh, sweet Saint Mother. I’m thinking, I’ve signed up for this, no sneaking away now. But it is so scary. The warriors all seem nothing but calm, and they’re going to do the really dangerous thing, whatever it is; our job is just to flee, and with them between us and Arkans. But still. All-Spirit.

All day while I watched the sheep, I was thinking, I’ll be a whole night sleeping in the same place as Chevenga, and though my middle-time, when I’m going to have a baby if I get laid, is coming close, we could always just, well, kiss and fondle each other. And now here I am, and I can’t even think of sex. I can hardly look at him. He is so shit-eating casual, smiling, talking, laughing, like he does this sort of thing every day. Because he does. If I’m getting close to him it’s to lean on him like a baby, not face him like a woman. The warriors are calling us “the hotheads,” but I don’t feel like a hothead.

We can’t light any fires, we just have to freeze in our wrappings. Kimao and I decide to share rolls for warmth, and, well, to have someone’s arms around us. All us hotheads end up curled up close like a big litter of kittens. Do the warriors know, none of us is older than seventeen? Maybe Chevenga does, because he orders us to go to sleep, like a parent when it’s your bedtime. The warriors go on quietly talking, with the occasional chuckle. I hear two of them making love. I am thinking I am never going to sleep, with the nervousness, but then I hear a song ma used to sing me to sleep with when I was little, with a word or two changed.

It’s Chevenga singing.

It’s weird to wake up under trees, wonder where on the Earthsphere you are, and realize, “Oh yeah, I’m in the middle of a war-mission.” I guess warriors get used to it. It was near dawn. They were waking us up, saying, “Shh, don’t yell or cough or anything.”

Oh, sweet Saint Mother. Now, if I find a space between the leaves, I can really see the Arkan camp, what looks like about a thousand tents, teeming with the warriors in their apple-red armour, and I get really nervous. They conquered all but a shred of Yeola-e, and we’re going to do something against them? But our warriors all seem fine, if anything, cheerful. Maybe he’s told them the whole plan.

We get quietly called into a circle, to eat the bites of food we’ve brought (though Miri forgot his, so his sister Sengala has to share hers with him) and run over our part of it again. Now in rising daylight I really see the warriors. Their chain-mail and wristlets and helmets, the polished things that might catch moon or sunlight, are all rubbed dull with soot. They all have hawk-faces, sharp cheekbones, fast-moving eyes. I really see Chevenga. He has more scars on his face than I could see last night. On a strap around his neck he wears this thing that looks like two brass tubes fastened together.

All through the run-through he’s got this dark, fiery grin, and his eyes are flashing. He isn’t just not-nervous, he’s happy, I realize, like he loves this. It’s the most reassuring thing. You figure, if he’s so into whatever we’re doing, it’s an all right thing to do, it’ll work, I guess.

He has us hotheads take our positions, spread out in a line along the edge of the talus, with Tyera in the middle, some of us still nibbling. He puts on his helmet, and reaches back over his shoulder to unclip his sword, draw it a little way out to loosen it in the scabbard. The other warriors all do the same. My heart is suddenly pounding in my throat, and I’m glad I just ate because I couldn’t now. What are they going to do? Then he tells everyone to sit, and wait, though he himself stays standing.

The first red fire of sunlight hits the highest peaks. From the Arkan camp we hear a commotion, a lot of yelling, the clear notes of trumpets. Chevenga picks up the double brass tubes he’s wearing, looks into the ends of them, as if he’s looking through them, at the Arkan camp. “Look up in the pass,” Kimao hiss-whispers, like the Arkans could hear us while they’re all yelling. I see a steel and brown mass, a Yeoli army, charging downslope. Oh, Saint Mother help us. It seems like there’s a lot more Arkans than Yeolis, if you ask me. What is the plan here? Shouldn’t Chevenga be up there? I remind myself all I have to do is my part, which I could do blindfolded.

We all watch two armies, steel and dark against apple-red, crash into each other up on the slope, watch the red try to curl around and wrap all around the steel and dark. It goes on for a bit, then it all moves back up the slope, back into the pass. Why? Doesn’t that mean we’re losing?

Chevenga turns to face everyone, with a big grin. “There he is,” he says. “Triadas Teleken, perhaps the greatest living Arkan general, architect of the almost-conquest of Yeola-e, from the beginning until now. In his command post with a guard of seventy regulars in camp, at most, right there.” We peer through the trees, though we aren’t sure what we’re looking for, until we see a small clutch of Arkans around a table and chair under a canopy, one of them sitting, a little out of the camp. Chevenga looks at Tyera, at Rao, at me. “Feeling safe, because to his Arkan eyes this cliff is unclimbable.”

Oh, sweet Saint Mother. I see what we’re going to do.

He says, “Hotheads, stay here, don’t climb, don’t move until I say climb. Our lives will all soon be in your hands.” He says this without that grin fading, like he’d want it no other way in the world. My heart skips a beat. Maybe I don’t just lust after him, shit, maybe I’m in love with him. “Warriors!” he shouts. “To me, wedge-form.”

I see what that means as they charge out. They form into a huge wedge, pointed at that clutch of Arkans.

Some Arkans run out, yelling, sort of forming a line. Our point cuts through them like through water, not even slowing down. Then things get mixed up enough I can’t see what’s going on, just fighting, I guess. “Oh shit,” says Norai. “I just peed my kilt, whaddoIdo?” Asanga starts giggling, really high. —“Forget your kilt, shut up and climb when he says climb, and don’t drip, that’s what you do!” yells Tyera. My heart is banging so loud in my ears I can’t hear myself think. I’m afraid I’m going to pee my kilt, too.

I see an Arkan running away towards the battle who’s a little thick in the middle for a warrior and is wearing a big scarlet cape with a gold border. He’s going like the Death-bird is chasing him upwards towards the Arkan army, and right on his tail are about ten of us, all with their swords drawn. Is that the Arkan general? Ha ha, the Death-bird is chasing him. We’re gaining, especially one who’s out ahead of the others. I think I know who that is.

I’ve never seen someone kill someone else before, I’m thinking, and now I’m about to. It happens so fast I hardly know it—one moment the Arkan is running with his long thin blond hair trailing out behind, Chevenga reaching for it with his empty hand, his sword wound up way back, and the next, his head is gone. His body with no head, just a bit of a neck-stump, keeps running for a couple of steps spraying blood upwards, and then falls over as if he tripped. And there’s Chevenga, standing there with a child-raping head, holding it way up by the hair.

He’s yelling up towards the battle up on the pass, and I see some of the Arkans are running back down towards him. Hundreds of them. That’s who we’re going to run away from, I see. He’s laughing at them, making fun of them like a kid sticking out his tongue, but waving this sheep-diddling head. How long is he going to wait? Some of the other warriors pull him, and he drops it and sheathes the sword and they come dashing all together towards... us.

“We can climb now, right?” says Miri.

“No, you moron, we climb when he says climb!” roars Tyera.

“All right, how about now? Now, right?” Miri keeps saying, and everyone else tells him to shut up, and Tyera bellows, “All of you idiots, shut up!”

The warriors come crashing through the trees, and we hear Chevenga’s yell. “Hotheads, climb!”

I climb. I climb like my arms and legs are on fire. I don’t feel anything, the rock on my hands, on my feet, the effort, it’s nothing, it’s the easiest climbing I’ve ever done, it’s like I’ve got wings. The warrior behind me says, “Slow down, girl, you’re losing me!” I wait to let him catch up, thinking, their lives are all in our hands.

No way those Arkans will catch us. It all feels so good I start giggling. Everyone else feels the same, I guess, because next thing I know all the hotheads are giggling, and then all the warriors are, too, like we’re all a bunch of kids who’ve pulled off some amazing prank. Even Chevenga is giggling. “Let’s see who you can get to replace him, you piece of shit,” he’s saying, “some inbred Aitzas snot-for-brains bum-boy of yours who doesn’t know one end of a sword from the other, ha ha ha!” I realize it’s the Imperator of Arko he’s talking to.

How close are the Arkans behind us? Because of the way the cliff curves outward we can’t see, but no one says slow down. We scramble over the top, and finally I feel slightly tired, realize my breaths are tearing in and out of me and my arms and legs want to fall off. The first warriors up turn back to haul their buddies up the last little bit by the hand. Chevenga looks like he ran through a rainstorm of blood, drops all over him, and it’s smeared all over his face where he’s done a too-fast job of wiping it off. A few of the others have red on them, too.

“Ready things to drop!” he orders, and we all grab everything we can, rocks, sticks, whatever, and start throwing even before the last of ours are up, making sure it goes over them. The warriors go for the biggest things they can find, big rocks, dead trees, anything they can pry out of the ground with their strong arms. Three of them gang together to push a small boulder over the edge, that’s going to mash Arkans like bugs.

After a while, Chevenga says we can stop. He’s seen the Arkans crawl off back towards their camp, giving up. We lost one who got wounded too badly to run, and there’s a few little wounds, he tells, but it’s still total victory. Everyone’s going to get decorated in front of the whole army, he says, including us hotheads. We all hug each other and the warriors clash wristlets. I get to hug Chevenga. Who cares what he’s covered with?

Oh, he has a beautiful hug, even through a breastplate. Big and deep and solid and warm, like your dad’s or your brother’s, but maybe better because it is so full of feeling, of triumph and gratitude, not just an everyday hug. And I had his life in my hands and he was happy with it there, and oh, Saint Mother, do you feel that.

And he is so sexy, of course. I am not nervous any more.

I let my hand slip down his back. Onto his bum. No armour there. I don’t care, I’m going to tell mama I did this.

He draws back, and looks down at me, trying sternly to stifle his smile, but can’t do it.

“Hothead,” he says.

The last of Clare's poems. -- Gabriel

Her sister hands her a bobbin, freshly spun.
She finds a spot and works it in,
mingling the colors around it.
Her needles click, gently ticking:
each stitch a year,
each strand a soul.

Her sister gives yarn almost faster than she can use it.
Green, brown, blue, red;
every color that exists is here,
each has its right place.

She only stops when the needles catch nothing.
Some strands are long. Some are short.
Each touches many others
in its stretching, slippery, grasping
lifetime.

The second of Clare's poems. -- Gabriel

Seven years old, not yet bleeding,
and already more beautiful than I.
What unknown power will come into you
when you are a woman, grown and ripe?
I must call my huntsman, bid him bring me
your lungs and liver
(breath and blood).

And perhaps when you are gone,
no longer a distraction or a man’s lust,
the king and I may turn
our looks to one another and beget a son.

You run from me, but I know the vanity of women,
the laces and the comb; I know the uses
of my own red lips and white skin.
And when my son is born, my husband
with an heir and satisfied, I may have an apple
for him.

This piece is the first of three poems by Clare K. R. Miller, author of the weblit Chatoyant College. -- Gabriel

What are you carrying under your apron?
Cake and wine
and new, strange blood:
but I know that
for your grandmother
has draped you in its velvet sign,
declaring to the world that you are taboo.
Unclean. Holy. Set apart.
But the healing food you bring
is tainted with your touch.
What was her intent?
Can it now be consumed?

Out in the woods
we do not know these laws.
Your scarlet color shines through the trees,
your new fecund scent draws me to you,
your young, virgin flesh is temptation
that I feel no need to resist.
Your mortal food becomes irrelevant
when I swallow you down.

The old crone is a matter of convenience:
her sewing and her illness
bring you to me.
My, what a big—

You are consumed. The wolf,
now heavy with your fresh bleeding self
laden onto the crone’s dry husk,
is satisfied.

Today's guest content is a villanelle by weblit author Capriox Bovidae. -- Gabriel

Oh how we love all things porcine,
Especially their light white meat.
In fact they just might be divine.

For their ribs in sauce we’ll stand in line.
Thoroughly pickled, we’ll even try their feet.
We can’t but help loving things porcine.

For haute cuisine, young suckling swine,
Can anything else taste so sweet?
Roasted, it could well be divine.

But we thank them for more than just pork rinds,
When their skins are used by the football elite.
Oh how we love all things porcine.

For their bristles too, and pets quite fine
And smart as dogs, yes pigs are neat!
You might even say they are divine.

And being hairless except along the spine,
They think getting scratched is quite a treat.
Yes, how we love all things porcine.
They are, in fact, in truth, divine.