The Foretelling by Alice Hoffman

wearing the bear claws, pulled up to my elbows, so that my wrists were protected by Usha's claws and my hands were free.
    Even my own people looked at me differently in this battle, as though I were a sister to the bear. I aimed my arrows and felled two of the enemy. I saw the way they went down into the dust out of the corner of my eye, yet I kept on seeing it. An arm lifted into the air, a thud on the earth, a cry that rose and then disappeared like snow in a fire.
    But I was not proud of what I'd done. Usha's spirit must have entered me, and only I knew she was not a warrior, not truly a bear at all, but a horse. I hated what I saw before me and I felt sickened. I could not abide the hot scent of blood. In the midst of battle, I felt as though I were seeing what was happening, rather than being part of it, seeing for the very first time what had been around me all my life. Pain and grief and sorrow and loss. Brutality. What had happened to me? Was I under a spell? Weakened by the amulet of Usha's claws that should have made me stronger?
    One of our enemies tried to pull me from my mare, and I pushed him off, nothing more. I could have used Io's scythe, I could have spilled his blood, chopped him in two, but instead I watched him run, and I felt something I shouldn't have.
    Pity. Mercy.
    Those burning things.
    Our people captured six of their men, killed many, and chased whoever was left to the borders of our land. It didn't matter if they sneaked back for their tents and belongings; they would not bother us for a very long time. They would dream of bees and of women who were half-horse, and they would stay where they belonged: away from us.
    The nights were colder, and it was cold as we rode home. I heard my sisters’ war cries of victory, but I was silent. Tonight would be the night of the festival. No one who hadn't killed three men would be allowed go. I had killed at least the two I'd seen go down, and surely some others, but when Asteria rode up beside me to ask how many, I said I hadn't killed any.
    I didn't want to go to the festival. I wasn't interested in knowing anything about men. I knew enough already. More than enough.
    I knew Melek.
    Then you'll have to stay home with the children.
Asteria laughed.
Even if you do think you're fierce as a bear.
    I washed the dust from my mare when we got home. There was the single drop of blood on her forehead. I fed Sky and let her drink from the stream and then I asked her for guidance. She was quiet and calm, and I took that to mean
Do nothing. Say nothing. Not now.
    Io and I watched the women get ready. Our sisters bathed in the stream, then covered themselves with cinnabar and chalk. They combed their hair with honey. They wore bone jewelry, and the few who had beads wore them as well. Every girl who had recently become a woman and was at the festival for the first time was given more koumiss to drink than the others. The priestesses had their needles ready: Each girl, now turned a woman, was honored by a tattoo at the base of her neck, the blue line of our people.
    They let the men view the ritual bath. The fools were entranced by what they'd drank and what they'd smoked and what they saw. Did they not think that there were few men alive who would go on living after being allowed to witness such things? Did they think these women who'd fought so hard were about to become their wives? To cook their meals and sew their clothing and take them into their arms at night?
    Deborah was among the women at the stream, sitting by the fire as the others got ready. Those men would have never guessed that among all the women, Deborah had once been the most beautiful, even more so than my mother, her black hair reaching down to the ground. All the old women spoke of it: how no man could run when he saw her. How even on the battlefield they spoke to her as though she were the goddess who had taken human form.
    Deborah saw me with Io, watching our sisters become more and more beautiful.