A note from the author:
As someone who thinks about erotica for a large portion of his waking day, my biggest complaint on the subject is that in a lot of short stories the characters rarely earn the fuck the author describes in blow-by-blow detail. I'm all for anal fisting in the dirtiest bathroom in Scotland, I just want to feel some connection with the characters if the writer wants me to go along with the ride. That's why I enjoy historical fiction, it tends to anchor the wish-fulfillment fantasies ("Dear Penthouse Forum: I never thought this would happen to me") that plague a large portion of modern erotica. Plus,this allows me to write about powerful women warriors, a topic I hold near and dear. History is full of examples.
When Genghis Khan died in 1227 A.D., he left his hard-won empire in the hands of his trusted daughters. They were his generals and female khans, what are referred to as
Khatuns
in Mongolian, for he had found that his wastrel sons, like Kublai and Ogedei, were incompetent drunks, unfit as leaders on every level. What followed next was a bloody civil war as various male heirs attempted to usurp power from their mothers, aunts and sisters, to such an extent that by 1399 the entire empire stood on the brink of collapse. During these savage power struggles heroes arose, women trained in the art of war, who led colorful, if short and violent, lives.
The characters of Fatima and Lady Turakina (also spelled Toregene) are based on real women, though of course I've taken liberties with what I am having them do. Similarly, the legends of Lady Linshui began being told sometime in the 8th or 9th century, in the northern plateaus of what is now Inner Mongolia. She survives to this day mainly as a stock character in Chinese and Taiwanese shadow puppet plays that recount her various deeds. Depending on how the tale was told she could either be seen as a wise warrior-goddess by her followers, or a lustful ethereal-demon by her enemies. In either case, I use her because she would be the sort of archetype 13th century Mongols would be familiar with; a legend told and retold by traveling entertainers way back when the Great Khan, himself, was a child. Call it Saturday morning cartoons for the wild horsemen of the North. Cheers!
Suggested Reading:
Chen, FP. Chinese Shadow Theater: history, popular religion and women warriors. McGill-Queen's University Press. (2007)
Weatherford, J. The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: how the daughters of Genghis Khan rescued his empire. Crown Publishers. (2010)
* * *
Save for the sighs of the wounded and the gasps of the dying nothing rose into the air except the circling shadows of vultures whose black wing tips swept ever closer while the roar of battle died away. The sun hung, as it always did, a ball of frustration, glowering down upon the western hills. Across the trampled fields all was quiet, no war drums echoed. The screaming was over. Those who could had fled while the rest lay where they had fallen.
On her gangling mare, high above a hillside copse, Fatima the Tartar watched, as she had been doing ever since the first streaks of dawn had appeared, back when the hosts of the wild Kara-Khitan Mongols, with their flying forest of arrows, had moved out onto the plains of Xi Xia, there to meet the relentless hordes of Lady Linshui, the most trusted general of the debauched Kublai Khan.
Fatima had
tsk-tsked
in surprise and disapproval when she saw the glittering squadrons of mounted Chinese warriors draw out in front of the masses of their slow but loyal foot soldiers, leading a sloppy advance. They were the best Northern China had to offer: cavalries from the Tangut tribes, the Jin and the Jurchen and the Minyak. But to Fatima they seemed only amateurs and she shook her head. They were going up against the likes of old Qaidu Khan and his amazon daughter, Khutulun, a warrior who was, as the 13th century chronicler, Ghiyasud din Khwandamir of India, once put it,
"a superb general; one who could ride upon the enemy ranks and snatch a solider up, all the while on horseback and with one hand, as easily as a hawk snatches a sparrow."
This battle would determine much, for civil war was dividing the Mongolian tribes. Those who controlled China had now grown soft, turned their backs on Genghis Khan's inheritance and laws he left behind to guide his people. In the seven generations since they had dismounted and taken over the Forbidden City the only occupation these wastrels had learned was decadence and now they weren't even doing that well. They would be no match against their own countrymen, harden horse warriors of the steppe, who still kept the legacy of the Great Khan alive. Or so Fatima thought.
Then she had been dumbfounded watching the Mongolians charge with a thunderous roar, had seen them attack the vanguard of Lady Linshui and then sweep up the long slope of a hill into the teeth of raking fire from Chinese archers hidden at the crest. Fatima had seen the Chinese launch their whole might against the oncoming cuirassiers, the Mongolian light cavalry. She had seen the cuirassiers turn, collapse and scatter, the horse-plumed riders toppling off backwards from their steeds, dead before they hit the ground. Fatima wondered: who was leading such a sloppy attack against an army that should be so easy to beat? Where was wise Qaidu Khan? Where was iron Khutulun?
She had watched, amazed, as the Kara-Khitan horsemen swept on, reckless of both their horses' endurance and of their own lives, blindly crossing the ridge where the enemy lay. From her vantage-point Fatima could see both sides of that ridge and she knew that there lay the main power of the Chinese army: forty-two thousand foot soldiers, the dreaded skirmishers, all in heavy armor, bearing spears and cruel, curved swords. As they crested the ridge the Kara-Khitans realized that the real battle still lay ahead of them. But by now their horses were all haggard, their bow strings broken, their hearts choked with grime and pain and the first hint of defeat.
Fatima had seen the Mongols waver and look back for their leaders. In desperation the horse warriors hurled themselves at the massed enemy, trying to break their ranks by stupid fury alone. That charge never reached the enemy's line. Instead, a storm of arrows that blackened the sun and sang as they sped through the sky broke their charge. The whole first rank of horses and riders went down, quilled like porcupines. In the spray of red ruin that leaped up the next line behind them stumbled and fell as well, their horses trampling the dead and wounded alike.
All this Fatima had seen in bewilderment. She had seen, too, the shameful retreat of certain Mongol warlords, the savage last-stand of others. On horseback, on foot, besieged, they all fell, one by one, while the storm of battle broke around them and the blood-drunk heavenly army -- for Lady Linshui was said to command a celestial army of shamanesses, tamed female demons, queens and their consorts -- all fell upon the Mongol invaders. Retreating, lords thundered through the ranks of their very own tribesmen. Whole cuirassiers units fled in confusion while others received the full force of the Chinese wrath. Men and women staggering backwards stubbornly, opposing every gained foot, but unable to check the unvanquishable foe.
Now, as Fatima scanned the field, the celestial army had paused and returned to loot the dead and cut up the dying. Those Mongolian lords who had not fallen had flung down their bows and surrendered. On the farther side of the dry valley, Fatima shivered at the screams which rose into the sky. Lady Linshui's warriors were butchering their prisoners.
"Tengri!"
muttered Fatima. "My mother's people bragged that they could hold up the sky forever on the tips of their arrows. Now the sky has fallen and the dead are meat for the vultures!"
Though a Mongol herself, Fatima was not part of the Kara-Khitan clan and had no wish to waste her life pointlessly. She reined her horse and went away through the copse of trees. The woman had come this way not to witness history, but rather because she was on a mission assigned to her by her own queen. However, even as she emerged out onto the rocky hillside she saw a prize that no Tartar could refuse. Red eyed and racing in a lather, a tall steppe horse sped by in a cloud of dust. Fatima spurred forward quickly, hoping to catch the flapping reins. Finally, having caught the high-strung warhorse, she trotted swiftly down the slope with her prize, away from the silence and stink of the battlefield.
Suddenly she stopped among a clump of stumps and burrs. Right in front of her Fatima beheld a small pack of men retreating. A tall, richly clad warlord stood in their middle. His helmet was gone. He was broad shouldered with skin an almond brown, as was the fashion at the time he sported a mustache and goatee. He was grunting and cursing as he attempted to hobble along using a broken spear as a crutch.
As Fatima watched, the big man stumbled and fell. The small band stopped and surrounded their lord. A strange feeling came over Fatima, as if she was being watched. She turned around, looking about the copse of trees. Nothing.
Then, out from the bush, emerged a girl, the likes of which Fatima had never seen before, even among the feral Tartars of her people. She was taller than Fatima by a good foot, her strides were like that of a mountain dog. Her long, braided hair framed an oval face with ludicrously long eyelashes; her disorderly, bushy eyebrow were the sort legends were made of. Her skin was the color of the moon. The bamboo staff that she held in one hand looked flimsy enough, though her dirty
deel
was torn and splattered. Her arm was stained red up to an elbow; blood dripped from a deep slash in her upper forearm.
"Boovu saa!"
