(Story competition entry for Sydney Morning Herald comp. 2006)
“Any sign of them yet?”
The call was passed down the lines, but when it was my turn to call, a reply was already being voiced back from the strategically placed watchtowers. Nothing.
“This isn’t good,” I muttered, staring at the taunting suns, slowly rising.
“Maybe they lured us out here and are attacking the Queendom from behind?” suggested a girl six ranks below me. She was still basically a child – and this was probably her first battle. I didn’t know her name. I hadn’t even seen her before, and yet I was fighting alongside her. This same situation had occurred many times.
“No,” I replied, keeping my eyes trained on the dust-swirled horizon. “They are too stupid to think that logically. Their tactics would be more typical of leaving us standing out here to burn to our deaths as the sand heats up.” That wasn’t a suggestion. If we stayed too long, we would die. The girl swallowed hard and set her eyes forward like she was trained.
Suddenly a shrill shout – the cry of sighting – was yelled form the first one watchtower, and then a second and a third. Almost as though we were one entity, the soldiers of the Queendom raised our voices shamelessly in a cry of the Dead Tongue that rang across the xeric landscape. The males of the Yliesos echoed our shout but at a level many octaves deeper.
“Hyr’ka, get your girls at the ready!” My call came, right from the Defender herself who sat at the Tower of Eyes.
“At the ready!” I commanded. My fore-line platoon drew forth their standardised weapons with a strong ‘kii!’. The next legion echoed our movement. There was no more time for second thoughts now as the Yliesos rushed forward with no order at all.
This was the part where I was meant to say something heroic, but my mouth was as dry as the desert world we all fought for. Vastly outnumbered, the Queendom females stood against more primitive yet stronger and fiercer opponent that could have just mown us over if we did not have intel of their attack.
The first Yliesos washed against our defense, falling shamelessly for a cause they thought worthy, and was reasonable to an extent. Our pike-like swords of the First Defense skewered them like animals. I watched the sheer pain of the one who was unfortunate to rush onto my weapon, and felt a stab of fear and regret. All the Yliesos wanted to do is survive, and we were denying them that right. While we lived in the luxury of the Queendom and basked in the glory of our Dolthyan Queen, these scavenging cannibals lived in the caves buried under the barren shell of this world, close to her ice heart. The first row of Yliesos pulled back to rejoin with the more hesitant ones, forming a solid mass of men.
“This is when the real fighting begins,” I told the girls and women around me with a sigh. A few of the younger ones looked disgusted at the sight of the bodies of the men.
“Why are they doing this?” one exclaimed with sheer disgust and shock.
“They war or they lose,” a woman said as she moved up to my side. I felt more at ease now I had a seasoned soldier beside me. “It’s a fact of life.” I agreed with this woman.
“War is our life – we as females of the Queendom were born soldiers and we shall die soldiers,” I added. The girls looked as though they were about to be ill, but kept their stomachs and chided their tongues, waiting for the second attack.
An hour later, it came.
We were all thoroughly burnt by the potency of the suns by the time the Yliesos were organised enough to combat our defenses. Despite my training, I was thoroughly nervous. They ran forward, brandishing their crude weapons modified from our own, as well as anything else the Yliesos could get their hands on. They hit the first line; we fell, and I along with them. A sudden shock – a moment of confusing pain, and my opponent moved on. The wooden spear in my stomach felt as cold as metal dipped in the heart of the world as I collapsed, fighting continuing. A wound like this would keep me alive till the suns reached the zenith. I wasn’t afraid.
Hearing a coughing at my ear I turned. An Yliesos was lying next to me, suffering a similar wound from one of our weapons. He turned to face me, and we were looking eye to eye. He smiled slightly. “You have no chance Dolth,” he whispered. “You are too outnumbered.”
“Don’t be cocky Yliesos,” I snapped. “We have a second defense back at the Queendom.” He rolled his eyes, coughing.
“Sure you do. We’ll slaughter them like we’ve slaughtered you. Have a look.” He raised a hand, then let it flop back down. I clenched my teeth and sat up, looking around. Everything was desecrated… but that didn’t send chills to my stomach. The watchtowers were burning; the Tower of Eyes was nowhere to be seen. The Yliesos was telling the truth.
We had failed. I had failed.
Lying back down the Yliesos started laughing. I didn’t hear him. My patriotic side was taking over and I felt a cold, shaking feeling, but not from the injury. Soon, the Queendom would be ransacked, the men and children slaughtered or recruited. Some of the females too young to fight would be kept to repopulate. But now the men would dominate the armies, taking over. Our girls would never know what it would be like in the heat of a battle. As though a battle of the sexes, the barbaric men of the Yliesos had won. They were the stronger race, and we had underestimated them.
Then again, we brought it upon ourselves. We hadn’t trusted the men of the Dolthyan to fight. We had lost.
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