Kameron Hurley - Gods War

GOD'S

WAR

KAMERON HURLEY

NIGHT SHADE BOOKS

SAN FRANCISCO

Gods War 2011 by Kameron Hurley

This edition of Gods War 2011 by Night Shade Books

Cover art by David Palumbo

Cover design by Rebecca Silvers

Interior layout and design by Ross E. Lockhart

All rights reserved

First Edition

ISBN: 978-1-59780-214-7

For Jenn and Patrick

Listen to me, you islands;

hear this, you distant nations:

Before I was born God called me;

from my birth he has made mention of my name.

He made my mouth like a sharpened sword,

in the shadow of his hand he hid me;

he made me into a polished arrow

and concealed me in his quiver.

He said to me, You are my servant,

Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.

But I said, I have labored to no purpose;

I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing.

Yet what is due me is in the Lords hand,

and my reward is with my God.

(Bible, Isaiah 49:1-4)

Say: My prayer and my sacrifice and my life and my death aresurely for Allah, the Lord of the worlds

(Quran, 6.162)

BEL DAME

Nyx sold her womb somewhere betweenPunjai and Faleen, on the edge of the desert.

Drunk, but no longer bleeding, shepushed into a smoky cantina just after dark and ordered a pinch of morphine anda whiskey chaser. She bet all of her money on a boxer named Jaks, and lost ittwo rounds later when Jaks hit the floor like an antique harem girl.

Nyx lost every coin, a wad of opium,and the wine shed gotten from the butchers as a bonus for her womb. But shedid get Jaks into bed, andloser or notin the desert after dark, that wassomething.

What are you after? Jaks murmuredin her good ear.

They lay tangled in the sheets likeold lovers: a losing boxer with a poor right hook and a tendency to drop herleft, and a wombless hunter bereft of money, weapons, food, and most of herclothing.

Im looking for my sister, Nyxsaid. It was partly the truth. She was looking for something else too,something worth a lot more, and Jaks was going to help her get it.

The midnight call to prayer rolledout over the desert. It started somewhere out in Faleen and moved in a slowwave from mosque muezzin to village mullah to town crier, certain as a swarm oflocusts, ubiquitous as the name of God.

Dont tell anyone, Nyx said, whatIm about to tell you

Nyx woke sometime after dawn prayerwith a hangover and what felt like a wad of cotton in her belly. Dropping thewomb had bought her some timea day, maybe more if the butchers were smartenough to sell it before her bloody sisters sniffed her out. Shed shaken themin Punjai when she dumped the womb, along with the rest of her coin.

Jaks was long gone, off to catch aride to Faleen with the agricultural traffic. Nyx was headed that way too, butshe hadnt said a word of that to Jaks. She wanted her next meeting with Jaksto be a pleasant surprise. Mysterious women were attractivestalkers andgroupies were not. Nyx had tracked this woman too long to lose it all by beingoverly familiar.

Some days, Nyx was a bel dameanhonored, respected, and deadly government-funded assassin. Other days, she wasjust a butcher, a huntera woman with nothing to lose. And the butcher had abounty to bring in.

The sun bled across the big angrysky. The call box at the cantina was busted, so Nyx walked. The way was unpaved,mostly sand and gravel. Her feet were bruised, bleeding, and bare, but shehadnt felt much of anything down there in a good long while. Back at thebutchers, she had traded her good sandals for directions out of the fleshpots,too dopey to figure the way out on her own. Under the burnous, she wore littlemore than a dhoti and breast binding. She had an old baldric, tooher deadpartners. All the sheaths were empty, and had been for some time. Sheremembered some proverb about meeting God empty-handed, but her knees werentcalloused anymorenot from praying, anyway. She had already been to hell. Oneprayer more or less wouldnt make any difference.

She hitched a ride on the back of acat-pulled cart that afternoon. The cats were as tall as her shoulder. Theirlong, coarse fur was matted and tangled, and they stank. The cats turnedleaking, bloodshot eyes to her. One of them was blind.

The woman driving the cart was acancerous old crone with a bubbling gash that clove the left half of her facein two. She offered Nyx a ride in exchange for a fingers length of blood tofeed the enormous silk beetle she kept in a covered cage next to her left hip,pressed against her battered pistol.

Nyx had the hood of her burnous upto keep off the sun; traveling this time of day was dangerous. The crones skinwas rough and pitted with old scars from cancer digs. Fresh, virulent melanomasspotted her forearms and the back of her neck. Most of her nose was gone.

You coming from the front, mywoman? the crone asked. Nyx shook her head, but the old woman was nearly blindand did not see.

I fought at the front, the cronesaid. It brought me much honor. You, too, could find honor.

Nyx had left her partner, and a lotmore at the fronta long time ago.

Id rather find a call box, Nyxsaid.

God does not answer the phone.

Nyx couldnt argue with that.

She jumped off the cart an hourlater as they approached a bodega with a call box and a sign telling her shewas fifty kilometers from Faleen. The old woman nattered on about the wisdom ofmaking phone calls to God.

Nyx made a call.

Two hours later, at fourteen in theafternoon on a day that clocked in at twenty-seven hours, her sister Kinepulled up in a bakkie belching red roaches from its back end.

Kine leaned over and pushed out thedoor. Youre lucky the office picked up, she said. I had to get some samplesat the war front for the breeding compounds. You headed to the coast? I need toget these back there.

Youve got a leak in your exhaust,Nyx said. Unlock the hood.

Its been leaking since the front,Kine said. She popped the hood.

The bakkies front end hissed open.Waves of yeasty steam rolled off the innards. Nyx wiped the moisture from herface and peered into the guts of the bakkie. The bug cistern was covered in athin film of organic tissue, healthy and functioning, best Nyx could tell bythe color. The hoses were in worse shapesemi-organic, just like the cistern,but patched and replaced in at least a half-dozen places she could see withoutbringing in a speculum. In places, the healthy amber tissue had blistered andturned black.

She was no bug-blessed magiciannoteven a standard tissue mechanicbut she knew how to find a leak and patch it upwith organic salve. Every woman worth her weight in blood knew how to do that.

Wheres your tissue kit? Nyx said.

Kine got out of the bakkie andwalked over. She was shorter than Nyx by a headaverage height, for aNasheenian womanbut they shared the same wide hips. She wore an embroideredhousecoat and a hijab over her dark hair. Nyx remembered seeing her with herhair unbound and her skirt hiked up, knee deep in mud back in Mushirah. In hermemory, Kine was twelve and laughing at some joke about conservative women whoworked for the government. Rigid crones, shed call them, half dead or dying ina world God made for pleasure. A farmers daughter, just like Nyx. A bloodsister in a country where blood and bugs and currency were synonymous.

I dont have a tissue kit, Kinesaid. I gave it to one of the boys at the front. Theyre low on supplies.

Nyx snorted. They were low on a lotmore than tissue kits at the front these days.

Youre the only organic technicianI know whod ever be short a tissue kit, Nyx said.

Kine looked her over. Are you asdesperately poor as you look? I know a good magician who can scrape you forcancers.