"She isn't ready."
The room was silent, which was extremely unusual given that the assembled people were in the debate room. Kelli stood before a panel of the Elder Amazons of the Fury, her arms crossed in defiance and a scowl across her face.
"To be honest, my dear jangler, none of us quite cares what you think." Said one of the elders. "Your job is to find them and bring them here. Everything else is our business."
"I can't do my job if I have to worry whether the girls I bring here will be sacrificed to a fiery death!"
"They all know the risks-" The same elder began.
"Bull cock to your excuses." Snapped Kelli. "Each one of those girls that I have brought before you thought that she was going to be the one to walk out of that door transformed into an instrument of the Goddess."
The room was silent once again.
"And each time they were transformed into nothing more than charred bones and ash. You tell me who should know better by now." Kelli said softly. "Amanda, Fier, Helena and Imi all gone. You may not have to spend time to them and get to know them, but each time I bring one here my heart breaks because I never know which ones become Amazons and which get the funeral pyre."
Tears ran down the jangler's face as she said this. Whispers began to crowd in the room like unwanted insects. Then one of the Elders raised her hand and the whispers stopped.
"I believe you know me well, Kelli. But since we have never met. I am Sister Erin. I am the one who found Jolie." The old woman croaked.
"Sister Erin, I know of you." Said Kelli. "You of all people know how I feel."
"Yes I do. There were forty six girls that went into the room before yours. 45 were removed as metal statues and one walked out as the second greatest warrior the world has ever seen." Erin paused. "And now that she is gone, we need another to replace her."
"You weather-beaten witch. You cared nothing for those girls that you led to slaughter. You can't tell me their names and I bet those statues are collecting dust in some dungeon to make sure you never have to face the women you killed."
Silence again filled the room. The elders glared at Kelli. She stood her ground though, like the true Amazon woman she was.
"I can tell you the name of every single one of those girls." Said Erin softly. "Right now their remains are sealed in the altar of the Goddess on top of the mesa. Along with the bones and ashes of your girls. Every generation has made the sacrifice of offering girls to the God to be his wife's champion. Just be glad that we all think that it will end for you with only losing four."
"Then we have no need to rush. We can wait until she is ready, until she has had some training in the Valkyrie ways. We don't have to send her in there with less than a horrible chance to come back out." Pleaded Kelli.
"We will have to go through with the test in three days. I fear we have less time than anyone has predicted. The death records say we have only months until it begins. Samantha cannot champion us on her own. The prediction of our theorists says that only fire and ice can save us. My girl, Jolie was sacrificed to bring yours into readiness. Do not let her sacrifice go to waste." Said Erin.
"And what did they find of Jolie?" Asked Kelli. "I knew her, we were friends and... I want to make sure she died well."
"She did not die well. She fell with her wings ripped from her. Her every opening was punctured and ruined. She died blind, deaf, dumb and alone." Erin said with anguish as Kelli's eyes widened in shock. "Do not mock my pain you silly girl. I had to put that woman I loved in a box so light it felt like I was carrying feathers."
Kelli opened her mouth to say something, but Erin cut her short.
"You must think us unfeeling, sitting up here in our ivory tower and unable to feel the feelings that you, a mere mortal could feel. Our hearts ache for every woman who passes in our sisterhood. Each time a Valkyrie falls it is because we failed to anticipate or plan something."
"She is still not ready." Said Kelli after a moment of silence.
"We understand you feel for the child, but time is short and every candidate must be put inside that room as quickly as possible. We all sacrifice for the sisterhood and for the entire realm. You forget, there is a small chance that she could walk out."
Lora looked up as Kelli came out from the debate room.
"What did they say? Did you tell them about my dream?" Said the girl nervously.
"I did no such thing Lora. If I told them your dream they would piss themselves in excitement. It is a duplicate of the dreams that Jolie and Samantha had the night before they turned., except they were freezing and turning everything to metal." said Kelli glumly.
"Well, then there is a good chance I will come out, right?" Asked Lora timidly.
"Helena had the same dream. Her ashes are now in an urn in the mausoleum."
Lora began to feel the prickle of fear again along her skin. She had never thought that she would ever be so terrified in the center of the Valkyrie fortress.
"How much time to I have?" Lora asked, her throat tightening in fear.
"They will put you in three days from now." Kelli whispered.
Lora set her jaw and attempted to banish the fear and dread from her heart. If this was what the God and Goddess wished for her, then by them she was going to do it to the best of her ability or die trying. She owed that much to her sister.
"How much can you teach me in three days?"
The pain in her head was excruciating, her vision was doubled and she could barely hold her staff. Lora shook her head to clear it and the doubled image of Loreline, her close combat instructor drifted into focus.
"That is what getting hit on the head feels like." The older woman taunted. "You care for a repeat experience?"
"No ma'am." Whispered Lora as she regained her footing into the ready stance, her left foot forward, her right leg back, tensed and ready and her arms in front, with the long staff gripped in the center.
"They always say that." Loreline grinned, her sharpened teeth showing.
The grizzled Loreline was long limbed, with short white hair and toned muscles. She wore a short leather skirt and a tight leather wrap around her small breasts. That left no clothing to snag on ravenous demon claws. White scars crossed her body, evidence of her victories over the monsters of the night.
The more experienced Valkyrie gripped the end of her staff with her right hand and used her left hand as a guide, almost as if she were going to throw a spear.
"Demon's are smart." Loreline said. "They will attempt to use any method to distract you. This includes sexual attacks, mouthing off or even insults. But you must pay attention. Lose focus and you are a raped sack of meat."
After she said this, she leaped into the air and thrust her right arm forward, using the left to guide the staff end towards Lora's face. The younger woman reacted without thinking. Years of dodging drunken fists had allowed her to escape the black eyes that were so often a death sentence in the whore house.
She leaned her left shoulder into the attack, so that the end merely glanced off of her right and then brought her own staff up to smack the other woman in the ribs. But Lora's opponent wasn't there.
Loreline had rolled to her right and now brought her right arm down, smacking Lora in the head, again. This time, the younger woman was knocked off of her feet and did not get back up.
Clapping could be be heard now that the action was over. Loreline turned and glared at the woman who had dared to interrupt her.
"She almost got the drop on you." Said Kelli, amusement all over her face.
"She was quicker than I gave her credit for." Admitted Loreline, a frown creasing her hardened face.
"Just imagine what we could do with her if we didn't have to send her to the flame room in a few days."
"I can say that if we had gotten to her when she was younger, she wouldn't have been ready." Said Loreline.
"Why do you say that?" Asked Kelli.
"She was hardened by her past and sharpened. Like any good spear a warrior must first be forged. She must experience heartbreak, love, betrayal and redemption. She is already very close to being a weapon, all she needs is an extra nudge."
"The others were all like that too. But I think I see what makes her different. I saw it in Samantha and Jolie when I was training here." Whispered Kelli.
"I saw it too." Said Loreline. "Samantha is cold and distant, calculating in the way she destroys her opponent. Her emotion is almost absent. Jolie was stubborn and resilient. Unmovable as a mountain of steel. But I do not understand what you all see in this one."
Kelli glared at Loreline.
"She is gifted, yes. She is strong. She is smart. I think she has all the makings of a great warrior. But as a hero of the Goddess and a champion against evil? This one has too little control." Said Loreline.
Kelli crouched down next to the now unconscious girl.
"That is what sets her apart. She is not wood, nor metal and certainly not ice. She is fire. She is rage and pain and fury and the willingness to let it loose upon the world." Said Kelli. "All she has to do is let loose and I doubt any one of us could stand against her."
Both warrior women were quiet for a moment.
"You know that if she doesn't walk out of there tomorrow night we are pretty much all doomed." Said Loreline simply.
"We all know it." Kellie stood up and kicked the girl laying in the dirt.
Lora grunted and moaned, coming to consciousness like a man who has gotten too drunk the night before.
"Wake up. Your nap is over. Time for your next tutor." Kelli said.
Lora groaned as she fell into her cot in Kelli's room. She was bruised and beaten and not even marrow-root tea could relieve the headache that had invaded her head. She wanted to sleep, but the pain kept her awake, so she whispered to herself.
"There was the armorer Taly who taught me how to repair armor and make a wooden spear." She whispered to the room. "There was the staff-mistress Loreline, who taught me to fight with a staff or spear. There was the sword-mistress Alena who taught me to fight with my body and use the sword as an afterthought. There was the political adviser Marylin who taught me to win allies while on the road."
She thought back to all of her lessons. They had each taught her only the smallest shred of what they had to give and already she felt so much more powerful than she had before. She felt important and knowledgeable. She was afraid.
Each lesson taught her how much she didn't know. Each lesson made her wary of walking into the room with the fire on the door. She shifted from her back to her side on the cot. She knew she should be afraid, not feeling that would only be foolish.
"What is she looking for." Lora asked the room. "What can I give the Goddess that women who were actually trained for it could not give her."
The room was silent and Lora's thoughts turned to despair and hopelessness.
