by Isobel Mackenzie
in Issue 158, March 2025
Mishai rode six days in bad weather to swear to the Stone Queen, and found, when she arrived, that no one cared.
The Stone Queen had raised her banner at the foot of the summer mountain pass, a flat plain that spent the winter as tundra and the summer as a wallow, stinking of rotting food and the leavings of the largest camp Mishai had ever seen. This dirty, muddy mass of humanity would march to war? Mishai didn’t understand how anyone could even hold this number of people in their mind. They said the Stone Queen had a heart of granite, that her spirit was made of flint, as cold and unbreakable as iron. They also said she was the ancient queens reborn. But those were only stories, and Mishai was sure she must still be human, with a human mind.
Mishai picketed her mare with the other horses, everything from ageing nags to huge armoured warhorses, and walked half an hour through churned dirt to the central tent, to give her name and swear her oath.
A part of her, the part that was the daughter of a lord, if only a middling one more occupied with sheep than soldiers, believed the Stone Queen would take her oath, that she would look the so-called terror of the world in the eye and swear her sword and the strength of her arm to the woman who had raised this huge army.
Instead, Mishai found that the central tent was filled with clerks and only one officer, a thin man with a nose like a knife, who looked her up and down and barked “Name?”
“Mishai, of the Glasslaw,” she said, automatically. The man did not even look at her again, just nudged one of the clerks.
“Are you a lord?” the clerk asked.
“My father is lord of the Glasslaw,” she said. “I swore to his emblem.”
“Yes was sufficient,” the clerk said, bored, making a mark on a piece of paper. “The tourney is in two days. Put your name in the lists.”
Both men turned to the next in line, an itinerant knight with no sword, only a knife and a crossbow, and Mishai didn’t understand that they were done with her until the man said “Move along now,” and she stumbled away, uncomfortable and surprised. She was the best sword in the Glasslaw. She had fostered in Longharbour, years of training and long tense winters defending from raids. She had ridden for days, through a countryside devastated by an army on the move, fields picked clean, the hunting poor, bread expensive, the people closed off and afraid and she had done it because her father could keep his oath to their queen only by sending her. Apparently, all of it counted for nothing in this dirty, smelly nest of vultures gathered to pick clean what they could from a war.
She found the driest part of the camp she could, and pitched her tent. One of the camp followers had porridge and said her name was Hagar when Mishai paid her in a skein of wool thread. The Glasslaw was a tiny backwater, without remarkable heroes or important harbours, but it made more wool than blades of grass in all the fields of the world, and everyone needed clothes to wear and thread to make it with.
“I spoke to the officer,” Mishai said. “He says the tourney is the day after tomorrow.”
“Aye,” Hagar said, handing Mishai her bowl. “My man’s entered the archery. If he does well, he’ll join the brigades.” She gave Mishai an assessing look. “But you’ll be trying your luck in the melee?”
Mishai nodded. “Is the story true?” She asked, feeling childish. News came slowly to the Glasslaw, so slowly the orders to muster with the army had been late, but she still knew the legends of ancient tourneys. “That the Stone Queen gives the winner anything they ask?”
“So they say,” Hagar said. “I don’t doubt the canny old rock won’t give away anything she wasn’t happy to give already, but all the heralds said it would be a tourney just like the great Stone Queens of time gone by, gifts and all.”
The camp was settling down for the night, and she could hear cards and dice starting up, men and women sharing stories. Children ran underfoot, carrying messages or playing games. No one voice stood out in the low sounds of a camp of thousands under the thick blanket of night. She crawled into her tent to lay down, able to see a sliver of the night sky through a gap in the canvas.
No one cared that she was here, but the Stone Queen herself would watch the tourney, and give the winner anything they wished for. She’d come all this way. She wouldn’t let it be a waste. The dream of it hardened in her heart, brittle but deep-rooted.
In the morning, she went to put her name in the lists. Only the melee, fighting on foot. Her horse was older than she was, and more likely to spontaneously become a unicorn than be successful in a joust. She would have to brave the dirt and blood herself. She went to watch some spars, in the field prepared for the melee, and chewed slowly at some dried meat, leaning on a fence post. There were fighters from every corner of the world. Tall men of the forest, and broad-shouldered mountain women. There was even an elf, teeth filed to sharp points like a shark, terrifyingly fast.
She didn’t join the fighting. She had read the numbers in the lists, and thought the melee would last maybe six hours. She had fought for longer than that before, but only raid defenses, taking shifts on the beach at Longharbour, long grim days in a line from sunup to sundown, relieved only for long enough to sip water and rest in a grey imitation of sleep before called back to the line, sword still bloody in her hand, facing men as desperate to get up the beach as she was to keep them off it. If she had the chance to rest before a fight even half that length, she’d take it.
When the spar finished, the sun was high overhead, and most fighters broke for noonmeal. All except the elf, who sauntered over to Mishai, cool as a snowbank.
“You don’t fight,” he said, not a question, leaning on the fence an arm’s length from her. She raised her eyebrows.
“Not today,” she said carefully. She’d never met an elf before. Longharbour had sea-people, fish and seals that sometimes came to shore to trade or find lovers, but no elves. She didn’t want him to think she was a gawping country girl with nothing to show. She kept her mouth shut.
“But tomorrow, in the tourney?” he asked. His skin was ashy-grey, with hair the colour of steel. He seemed to have only hair on his head, for he had no eyebrows or stubble, and when she turned to look at him, the black centres of his hazel eyes were diamond shaped, slowly blinking back at her.
“Perhaps,” she said, not knowing what he wanted. “Will you?”
He nodded. It was hard to tell where his armour ended and his skin began. It was all painted with white, sharp branching patterns tracing down his forearms. He smiled at her, and his teeth were small and sharp, too many for a human mouth.
“Why did you come to the Stone Queen?” he asked. Mishai looked at him, trying to guess his intentions, but his face showed no emotion she knew how to read. Perhaps he was communicating something, but not in a language she understood.
“My family have protected the Glasslaw for ten generations,” she said, eventually, after considering her response, even though she wasn’t sure it was the right one. He didn’t rush her. “When the Stone Queen called, we were honour-bound to send someone. Why did you come?”
The story was that, generations ago, the first Stone Queen had married an elf, from the high mountains at the edge of world, and it was her that had brought everyone, from hill-people to the coast, under one kingdom. Her daughters had carried that drop of elf blood, claiming the elf-power as their right to rule men. Mishai supposed it made sense, that an elf would want to come and see the queen that claimed a pinprick of elf blood and said it gave her the right to rule from the sea to the mountains.
The elf shrugged. The strange bones of his shoulders seemed to make wings as they moved, stretching his ash-grey skin, his tattoos moving like snakes.
“They say she is the first queen reborn, that she has the elf-power. If it is true, maybe I will be part of another story told forever. Stories are not made hiding at the edge of the world,” he said, so casually that it took Mishai a moment to realise that his reason was neither honour, obligation nor need. Just curiosity.
“You came all the way from the edge of the world just to see?” she asked. He smiled again.
“I wanted to see the world,” he said. “If the Stone Queen means to march us over the mountains to conquer it all, that will certainly be a way to see it.”
“Does she?” Mishai asked. War was war; it began in spring and ended in autumn, before the last of the harvest came in and the passes froze. War claimed land or loot, but that was not conquest; it did not change the contours of the landscape. She had never considered it could be something else. The idea of it seemed monstrously huge, a war longer than the summer, the coast undefended, the harvest rotting in the fields and people starving in their homes.
“I don’t have her ear,” he said. “She picks her personal guard from the melee, after the winner makes their request.”
Mishai knew all the songs of the old tourneys, the heroes who had asked to serve their queen forever and been given magical long life or enchanted weapons. The Stone Queens didn’t have magic anymore, but wealth and power could still grant wishes. “What will you ask for, if you win?” she asked.
The elf considered it. “I believe to ask to serve her is traditional, and I am curious what I would learn at her side. We shall see who wins.”
Mishai shook her head. “It’ll be you. I saw you,” she said, lifting her chin at the empty training ground. “You’re so fast. Have you ever been beaten?”
“Fast is not invincible. I have been beaten before,” he said.
Mishai scoffed. “Maybe another elf or one of the sea-people. Surely not a person.”
“I’ve lost to every kind of person, in my time. It is possible.”
“How?” she asked. “I could train for a hundred years and not do it.”
“It isn’t a question of strength,” he said, with his bird-like shrug. “If an enemy is fast, do not fight him where he is. Lead him to where you want him, and fight him there.”
Mishai raised her eyebrows. “Easier said than done.”
“All fights are easier said than done,” the elf said, stepping away from the fence and nodding to her. “Good wishes for your fight, friend.”
“Wait,” she said, as he turned away. “What’s your name? I am Mishai of the Glasslaw, my father is Taran Longthread.” She had no second name yet. The elf looked her up and down.
“My name is in the elf tongue,” he said. “You could not say or know it. I am sometimes called Far-Eyes, for my travel.”
“Thank you, Far-Eyes,” she said, as politely as she could. “For your good wishes. I wish the same to you.”
“Hmm,” he said thoughtfully. “Perhaps.” Before she could say anything to that strange response, he turned completely and walked away.
She did not see him for the rest of the day, but she turned his words over in her mind. This was the largest warcamp she had ever seen, and there were more soldiers than she thought existed in the whole kingdom. A war that marched them all over the mountain pass would mean months, maybe years, at war, so the Stone Queen could say she ruled the world.
Mishai had never fought in anything like that. She had killed before, but only because death had come to her door looking for loot or profit, not because she had sought it out. Even a single bad winter of raids could cripple the Glasslaw, leave people hungry and desperate, and she thought of the villages she had traveled through, people with the haunted look of those not sure how they’d eat through the winter.
She lay her sword next to her bedroll that night. She felt small in this crowded, noisy camp, so different from the dark, quiet nights of the Glasslaw. Tomorrow was the chance to prove she wasn’t small, that she was worth her own pride. Did she want to, if it meant a war like none before?
She slept soundly, and woke early, feeling readiness settle over her. It was the still place of action rather than thought, the centre of her that was quiet and empty. She wasn’t afraid, or confident. She felt nothing.
The melee was not just a thousand fighters in a pit. There would be skirmish fights, ten fighters forcing each other outside the chalk circle until one was left standing. Those left would fight single combat, pairing by pairing. The last fighter unbeaten would be the victor. There was no prize money, unlike other tourneys. The winner would make their request to the Stone Queen herself.
The chalk fight was a muddy maelstrom, and the advantage was to those who could keep their feet. She threw a man in heavy armour over the line by the neck of his mailshirt, tripped a spearman, and, finally, as the numbers dwindled, was forced to fight a hulk of a man toe-to-toe. He had a curved mountain knife and his sheer strength on his side, grinning as he tried to force her to the line.
There was a second of panic, fluttering in the back of her skull, because she couldn’t lose now, not at the first challenge, and then she caught her advantage, driving her sword up at his wrist, where he had no guard or armour. Her instincts were good. He twisted to avoid her blade, she pulled her shield and sword together, closing like a trap, and caught his wrist. He dropped the knife and she kicked it aside, over the chalk line out of reach. Their eyes caught for just a second, and she knew she had him. He knew he was beaten. The next few passes were a formality, and then he gave her an opening and she swept his feet out from under him and he fell over the line, defeated.
Then she was alone, the last standing in the chalk fight, the victor. She didn’t hear the cheering or furious betting of the watching audience, only stumbled to the sidelines and took a swallow of water and a mouthful of bread, no more because she was afraid she’d throw anything else up. She hadn’t fallen at the first block. Now the reality of it was hitting her, the fear, the desperation, everything she’d blocked out.
She didn’t watch the other chalkfights. She wouldn’t take in information like this, and she tried to recover her calm, find her way back to the cold, empty place inside of her. It was difficult. She’d fought on the beach at Longharbour for twelve hours, just an endless wave of men trying to kill her and everyone she cared about if she didn’t kill them. This was worse than that, people in the stands cheering, betting on their favourite, booing when someone ended the fight too quickly or cleanly. This was just a toy to them, even as a man with a huge double-headed axe landed a blow that would surely cripple his opponent for life.
She took another mouthful of water, and then the master of ceremonies called her name, and she walked back on to the tourney field. Her leg was paining her, but she didn’t let herself limp. It was still early.
She saw Far-Eyes, at the end of the row of victors, but they weren’t paired together. She faced off against a tall woman in a golden helm fighting with a spear and sword. Mishai wore her down, staying inside her savagely long reach, until she yielded with Mishai’s sword at her throat, both of them breathing hard. Then it was a man, a sword and shield like her. They circled each other for a while. He was too uncertain to make a move; she could see it in his eyes. This was no time for hesitation, and it was the soldier in her, the part that felt nothing, that she brought him in, feinting to seem overextended, and he yielded, her blade up against his belly.
She faced two more matches, both unexciting. They both yielded. She tried not to feel. Not fear, not success. Nothing existed outside the field, not the jeering crowd, not past with its memories of injuries or old wounds, not the future with a war that could kill every one of them, victor or not.
The sun was high and she was getting tired now, sweat pooling under her armour. She wiped her forehead, pulling off a thick layer of sweat. The tiredness would lead to mistakes, mistakes to injuries, injuries potentially to loss.
The next opponent was Far-Eyes. She walked out to the centre of the arena slowly, her calm already gone. Between her match-ups, she’d watched him destroy three opponents, none of them even touching him. He was too fast, his every blow devastating. Her heart sank. There was no way she could win. At least, she could try not to embarrass herself.
Far-Eyes walked out to stand across from her. He was close enough she could see the texture of his tattoos, the slightly ragged edges. She wondered how they’d been done, and then let the thought float away, a distraction she didn’t need. Far-Eyes squared up. He had a sword longer than any she’d seen before, though he lifted it easily one-handed. She swallowed. She faced an unbeatable enemy. The decision was in front of her, the same decision every time she held a sword. Fight, or surrender, taking the consequences.
There was a wooden stand overlooking the field. A few lords or officers watched, too distant for Mishai to make out their faces, but in the centre, on the only chair surrounded by benches, sat a figure dressed all in grey. Mishai could not see if she wore a crown. The Stone Queen was watching, waiting to see which fighters might serve her well and who would last to the end, the victor whose final request she was honour-bound to reward. She was watching Mishai.
Mishai spat out some of the blood pooling in her mouth, turning her head to the side, and then squared up, meeting Far-Eyes’ gaze. He smiled, without malice.
“Do you still wish me well in the fight?” he asked, quietly. Mishai frowned, not understanding.
“Yes,” she said, because it was true. “May the match be fair, and your sword be true,” she added, the same words the herald had said when the melee began. Far-Eyes nodded, and then straightened, out of fighting stance. It surprised Mishai, and her own stance unravelled, confused
“Honour to you, Mishai of the Glasslaw,” Far-Eyes said, in a voice that carried over the field, taking a step back. “I regret I must withdraw. Good wishes for your future matches.”
Mishai gaped at him. They had barely exchanged a handful of words, which was not enough to give up a match for friendship. What was he doing? She caught herself gawking, and scrambled to bow, still holding her sword awkwardly.
“Honour to you, Far-Eyes,” she said, not sure what else to say. The heralds on the side of the field were looking at each other in surprise, but Mishai, extemporising, saluted Far-Eyes with her sword, and then they both quit the field at the same time. A new match began not long after, but when she looked at the stand, the queen’s distant face was not watching the fight. She was watching Mishai.
“Why did you do that?” Mishai asked, when Far-Eyes stopped next to her, hands behind his back, to all appearances completely relaxed.
He shrugged. “I have come all this way for curiosity,” he said. “I have some more to satisfy. I wish to see what you will do, Mishai of the Glasslaw.”
That clarified nothing, but the match after them finished brutally. The blood in Mishai’s mouth tasted sour as she watched the loser be carried from the field. If he was lucky, he would die quickly. The gore on the field, the waste of a man’s life for fun, it all tasted sour. The songs hadn’t included the part where crowds ate pies and exchanged bets when a man died.
Far-Eyes, intentionally or not, had disturbed the centre of her concentration, and the next match was a mess, burning energy she didn’t have. The man, fighting with two swords, seemed to feel the same, and they ended at blows, weapons tangled underneath each other. He landed a solid punch to her face that half-blinded her, but she was stronger, and she rolled him, putting the dagger from her thigh sheath to his neck.
“I yield,” he croaked. Mishai had punched him in the throat, and her knees were pressing on his lungs.
“Honour to you,” Mishai said, and climbed off him. Her legs were shaking. She had no idea how many bouts were left. Counting them would have made it worse. She thought of the dying man carried from the field, the ways she could be injured, and missed the calm she’d felt, the emptiness. She wanted it back, feeling nothing.
The sun dipped towards the horizon, as Mishai fought twice more. She had to be careful to avoid the sun blinding her and constant use had turned the dirt into thick, sucking mud, capable of taking a whole boot. She was aware of Far-Eyes watching her, not leaving as other losers had, and, distantly, the Stone Queen. As the evening drew in, more camp followers came to watch, and there was a festive atmosphere, smells of food and beer, more jeers and boos. She took more blows, tired and less able to dodge. Her eye swelled, every blow to her head staggeringly painful. Hand to hand, rolling in the dirt, she took a staff to the ribs, and the pain when she breathed made her afraid. If something was broken, she could be in serious danger and not know it.
After winning the next bout, she had a moment to limp to the side. Far-Eyes held a waterskin for her to take a mouthful of water. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to pick up her sword if she put it down.
“How many more fights?” she asked, after a long moment of trying to find the moisture in her mouth.
“One,” Far-Eyes said. “Only you and one other remain.”
Mishai swallowed, and then nodded. “Who?” she asked, when she trusted her voice not to shake. She was so close. Only this stranger stood between her and The Stone Queen, and what she could give Mishai.
Far-Eyes nodded across the field. A knight in gleaming full plate was taking a swallow of water, her sword at her hip.
“I don’t know them,” Mishai said. They had no shield, and no emblem. Who needed a shield, with a full set of plate. Mishai wore quilted felt and mail, all she could afford and usually all she needed.
“I watched them,” Far-Eyes said. “Happy to let others do their work before the final blow. Not fast, but very strong.”
Mishai swallowed, tasting blood. “Anything helpful?” she asked, trying to smile. She was so close. Far-Eyes raised his eyebrows.
“They were injured in the bouts,” he said. “A spear in the left shouldergap. The right hand is dominant.”
That was actually useful. Mishai nodded. “Thank you,” she said. The herald was walking out to call the bout. The audience had ballooned, gathered around the stand. More of the officers were around the queen, and she was talking with one, leaned over. A trumpet blew, and Mishai straightened.
“Luck to you,” Far-Eyes said, and Mishai barely heard him. She was walking out to the centre of the field, sword drawn. She dug her feet in, finding purchase, and raised her shield into guard.
She had made a pact with herself – win the melee. Prove that coming all this way, all the waste and pain, was worth it, all for the final prize of her heart’s desire.
The knight walked out onto the field with misleadingly slow steps. Knights in plate could move fast, especially if they had trained well, and were more agile than they seemed. The knight did not raise her helm, and Mishai could see nothing of her face, only dark shadows under the visor.
The herald’s trumpet blew, and the knight was on her, faster even than Mishai had thought, swinging her sword with terrifying force. Mishai took a blow to her shield and then decided not to do that again, teeth still rattling in her jaw. But the woman was fast, her footwork excellent, and she had Mishai on the back foot, dodging blows but without time to counter-attack. In the stands, people were jeering. They wanted a real fight, not Mishai chased around the field.
Mishai knew she couldn’t dodge and weave forever. Her entire left side was screaming in pain, overworked and bruised, and she was slowing down. Her window of opportunity was narrowing, and she was going to start making stupid mistakes. She couldn’t throw the moment away, not when she was so close.
She twisted away from a vicious swing, catching a glimpse of Far-Eyes at the edge of the field watching her. He’d come all this way for nothing but curiosity and he’d been kind to her, a stranger with nothing to offer him. He’d yielded, when he could have beaten her easily, she thought to give her a chance at victory, and now he was going to see her beaten, chased around like a dog.
The knight grunted as she pulled back from her swing and Mishai remembered Far-Eyes’ help, the injury on the left side, and in the split-second she countered, lunging at the knight’s shoulder, forcing her to take the blow on her armour. It was hardly anything, not really a victory, but Mishai heard a grunt of real pain and felt her blood come up. She wasn’t beaten yet.
She chased the advantage, trying to stay on the left, but the knight knew what she was doing and forced her back, both of them slipping in the mud. Mishai kept her feet, and the knight only stayed upright by spinning into a parry. Far-Eyes had said to lead the enemy to where she wanted to fight them. She didn’t want to fight this woman anywhere, she hit like a blacksmith’s hammer and Mishai didn’t enjoy being hit by hammers. She nearly slipped dodging one of those vicious blows, the crowd booing, Mishai struggling to stay up. Where they’d carried the man off the field, they’d churned it up into a wet, sucking mess. Mishai had good leather boots, but her opponent had sabatons, the iron shoes worn by knights on horseback. She was afraid, she was beaten and bruised, but she hadn’t learned to fight for show. She’d learned to fight in wet, bloody sand, the last line between people she’d sworn to protect and death. She wouldn’t give up for something small like pain.
Mishai stopped dodging. She took a hit square on her shield, feeling like she was going to spit up her lungs, but it gave her a split second to push back, keeping her shield against the knight’s sword and forcing her to turn, right into the wallow of sucking blood and mud. Mishai could have cheered.
For a second, the knight kept her footing, but Mishai had guessed right. The sabtons were heavier and sunk faster than Mishai did, trapping the knight in place. She’d only bought herself time. The mud wouldn’t hold the knight forever, she was already starting to free herself.
“Mud? Is that a way of honour to win?” The knight shouted, echoing from inside the dark recesses of her helmet. Mishai nearly laughed. Everyone wanted to shout about honour when they stopped winning. She didn’t shout back. Even if she’d wanted to, she didn’t think she could get the air into her lungs. She charged, knocking the knight’s sword aside and bringing them both to the ground, grappling for a few dangerous seconds and then Mishai got her knee on the knight’s sword-arm and her other knee on the knight’s chest, her own sword pointing at her throat.
She had to take a second to spit over her shoulder before she could speak.
“You yield?” she said, garbled through blood. The inside of her cheek was bleeding, and the details of the knight’s helmet were blurry through her swollen eye.
The knight reached up with her free arm, slowly, to lift the front plate of her helmet. She looked a lot better than Mishai felt, her helmet had protected her face. She has pale skin, like fine-strained milk, and deep brown eyes looking seriously back at Mishai.
“The Stone Queen yields to you,” she said. Mishai gaped at her.
“What?” she said, but then one of the stewards put a hand to her shoulder and was helping her to stand, raising her arm to cheers in the crowd. Far-Eyes had come with them, and took her shield when it looked like she might drop it.
“Well fought,” he said. Mishai blinked at him in shock.
“Is that the queen? Did I just knock the queen into the mud?” she asked. Far-Eyes glanced over to where stewards were bringing the queen her wooden chair, her banners, even water in a golden cup. They seem unsurprised. Had only Mishai not known?
“It appears so,” he said. Mishai thought she was going to fall over. Someone gently steered her to stand in front of the queen, safely seated in a drier part of the ring, near the crowd.
“You do not have a banner, champion,” the queen said. She’d removed her helmet, and a long braid of stone-grey hair hung over one shoulder, her sword over her lap. The image of dignity was a little marred by her armour-clad legs covered in mud. “Tell me your name.”
Mishai swayed a little, all of her hurts coming through in maximum volume now that the adrenaline was fading. Far-Eyes nudged her gently.
“I–” she had to spit blood, and try again. “I am Mishai of the Glasslaw.”
“Well fought, Mishai of the Glasslaw,” the queen said. “You may ask your queen for your wish, as long as it is in my power to satisfy it.”
Mishai blinked. Far-Eyes leaned forward. “It’s traditional to ask to join the queen’s personal guard,” he said, low enough she didn’t think anyone else heard him. Mishai nodded, but couldn’t find the words.
“Uh, your grace, may I come closer?” she asked, after a moment. The Stone Queen blinked, and then nodded. Mishai stumbled forward, her ribs on fire. Up close, she could see the fine lines around the queen’s eyes, redness where her helmet had chafed. So she was human after all.
“What do you want to ask me, champion?” she asked. Mishai paused, and then went on. She’d come this far.
“Is it true you want to go to war against the world? To conquer it?” she asked.
The Stone Queen nodded. “I intend to try, from the sea to the edge of the world where the elves live.”
“You said I could ask for anything that was in your power,” Mishai said.
“As far as I am able, yes.”
Mishai swallowed some blood. She’d been beaten black and blue, her eye swollen nearly shut, her ribs maybe broken. She knew what she wanted to ask, because it was the only thing she could think was worth it.
“I’d like to ask you to not,” Mishai said. “Not go to war, not cross the mountains with the army, not go down into the plains and forests killing and burning and taking. That is the favour I’d ask for.”
The Stone Queen’s mouth closed audibly. “You are a soldier. You fought well in each of the bouts,” she said. “You don’t want to fight?”
Mishai tried to choose her words carefully. “I can fight,” she said. “I’ve killed men before, and I’m not ashamed to have done it. But those men came to me first, and I killed them to protect people. I didn’t go looking for it. I didn’t try to take what was theirs, or make them bow to me. Why start a war if there is none, if not to kill for your own gain?”
It wasn’t the most eloquent thing she’d ever said, and if she was any less injured she might have been afraid of the queen’s response. But in the crystal clarity of pain, she knew she was right.
The queen looked at her for a long moment, her banners flapping in the wind, the sounds of the crowd falling away.
“Tell me, Mishai of the Glasslaw, why would I agree to this request?” she asked, without anger. “I have the chance to go to my death called queen of the world, a title not even the first Stone Queen can claim.”
Mishai wished she had something to lean on. Her leg was screaming from where she’d been kicked during one of the fights, and she was still bloody and dirty, bruised all over.
“I’m not a queen, your grace,” she said. “I’m just a soldier. I can’t know what you want, why you called this camp together. I only know that if you ordered us, we would go. We would march over the mountain and most of us would die in pain far from home. Maybe, at the end of it all, you would be called Queen of the World. But it would be poison in the mouth of everyone who said it, poisoned with the blood of all the dead and suffering that had bought you that name.”
Maybe the Stone Queen would kill her now. Mishai certainly wasn’t strong enough to defend herself. She could only half-see the queen watching her, expression as still as a cliff-face.
“If I agree to your request,” the queen said, after a long moment. “Will you join my personal guard, Mishai of the Glasslaw?”
Mishai blinked. “Uh, yes?” she said, and then with more surety: “If you’d have me.”
“You fought for six hours, and you still had the sense at the end to tell me the truth,” the Stone Queen said, smiling slowly, like a satisfied cat. “It will be a shame to send this army home, but war can wait for me. It is a greater victory to find a true soldier. I have work for someone like you, if you will stand at my side.”
Mishai felt the last of the adrenaline leaving her body and nearly stumbled, before Far-Eyes, moving unnaturally fast, caught her elbow.
“I accept,” Mishai said. The Stone Queen stood, raising her sword. The crowd cheered. Mishai had almost forgotten they were there.
“Mishai of the Glasslaw stands now as my champion,” she shouted, in a parade officer voice that rolled out like a crashing wave. “In recognition of her honour and skill, all those who fought in our tourney will be rewarded before they begin their journey home. The Stone Queen seeks no war that does not come to her door.”
Mishai didn’t watch everyone’s reaction, although it sounded positive, because Far Eyes was helping her limp off the field.
“Was it worth it?” she asked, looking up at Far Eyes’ square pupils. “To come all this way for curiosity?”
“I believe it was,” he said, and she smiled. It had been worth it.
©March 2025, Isobel Mackenzie
Isobel Mackenzie is a Scottish writer based in London, and has previously been published in Hexagon Magazine.
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