Battle For Tristaine Part 3

Brenna still openly gawked at the bird, transfi xed by its alien, prehistoric beauty. Both Shann and Jess handled the exotic creature as naturally as Brenna had once punched numbers into a cell phone.

"Blades?" Shann shook out her arm. "How soon do you think we can have Kyla ready for hard travel?"

"Wait, I need to sum up." Brenna ducked slightly as the bird fl apped its wings, presumably for balance. Its talons looked wickedly sharp. "This big messenger pigeon is named Talfryn, and she was sent here from Tristaine. She somehow found us in this one little fi eld, in the middle of a huge mountain range. And she's carrying a message in her beak from your village that says, 'Come home, there's trouble.' We don't know what kind of trouble. That's where we are, right?"

"The scroll was tied in Talfryn's jesses, but otherwise, well done." Shann smiled. "I love watching your eyes when you're learning something new, little sister. There's such life in them."

"Thank you," Brenna sighed. "And that's all the parchment says?"

"Yes, that's all this glyph tells us." Shann nodded. "Tristaine is endangered and we're needed. It's a matter of leaving a bit earlier than we hoped. We'll not be able to spare Kyla the recovery time she * 32 *

needs, but we can rig a pallet to carry her."

"At least," Brenna said faintly. "If we're going to be climbing mountains."

Shann's voice was working its usual calming magic on Brenna's nerves, but she thought she could detect a subtle tension in the lines of Shann's body. She couldn't read the language of her movements as easily as she read Jess's, but Brenna had learned to trust her clinical eye.

Shann turned to her second. "Jesstin? What's your counsel on the urgency of Tristaine's message?"

"We can break camp in the morning. I'll rig a stretcher for Ky tonight." Jess stared into the falcon's gold eyes, an odd smile lifting the corner of her mouth. Then she glanced around. "We make fi ne targets out here, sisters. Let's fi nd some shade."

Maybe it was just an adrenaline- and falcon-fueled energy surge, but the moment Jess spoke, Brenna's upper arms p.r.i.c.kled.

She felt vulnerable in the wide expanse of the pasture, and she quickly closed ranks with the three Amazons as they moved toward the trees containing their camp.

Brenna felt Shann's hand on her arm. "How much time does Tristaine have, adanin?"

"At least a week, I think." Brenna blinked. "Wait. How much time before what?"

"It's all right, Brenna. You answered me." Shann smiled at her, then wound her arm around Camryn's waist. "Let's show Talfryn's message to your adonai, Cam."

Jess had turned to wait for Brenna several yards up the muddy path. The powerful falcon rested easily on her raised forearm, and the muscles in Jess's shoulders stood out in stark relief beneath the last red rays of the sun. The trees overhead sent dappled shadows across the strong lines of her face, and Brenna felt that small, secret muscle in her s.e.x relax.

Brenna's City friends would say she avoided fanciful thinking, but in her eyes, Jess was rendered an engraving out of myth, gold-edged and timeless.

* 33 *

Jess lifted an eyebrow, and then her smile turned roguish. As her insolent gaze slid slowly down Brenna's throat to fasten on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Brenna felt her nipples stiffen and rise. She strode past Jess, muttering invectives, and they returned to the fragile safety of their camp.

* 34 *

CHAPTER TWO.

Brenna ignored the dampness of the soaked earth seeping into the seat of her jeans. She was almost too tired to register her discomfort or do much else besides sit, slumped on the muddy hill and nodding inside her musty poncho. The rain had let up ten minutes before, but she had yet to muster the energy to push back her hood.

The incessant rain that had plagued them for three days had fi nally stopped, a blessing the Amazons attributed to a benevolent G.o.ddess. This was fi ne with Brenna. She was willing to wors.h.i.+p anything that could turn off the maddening drizzle for a few hours.

At least she had pleasant scenery to enjoy, stupefi ed or not.

Jess had found high ground to lay their holdings for this brief rest, out of the worst of the runoff from the storm.

Brenna sat on a moonlit hill, the ghostly globe the Amazons called Selene visible overhead as scudding wisps of cloud swam across its surface. A silvery vista of treetops lay below her, a deep gray-green blanket stretching back unbroken miles.

Brenna set the softly glowing lantern behind a stump, blocking its meager light from the valley. She took such precautions automatically now. Living among mountain women was helping her adapt to the wild through osmosis.

She lifted the edge of the heavy spiral notebook in her lap and stifl ed a s.h.i.+vering yawn. Her body was exhausted, but her nerves were stretched taut. Sleep was not impossible, but felt unlikely.

When it did come, it was too fi lled with chaotic dreams of battling and dying horses to bring true rest. If she couldn't sleep, she might as well try to write.

* 35 *

Brenna glanced over her shoulder as she fumbled through the journal to the fi rst clear page. Shann boiled some kind of root mixture over the remnants of their fi re. Jess was a silent shadow several yards above their camp, sitting watch on a high rock formation that looked out over the valley. The two blanketed forms that were Camryn and Kyla were motionless, and Brenna hoped that meant they slept. Shann caught her eye and smiled as she stirred the small pot. Brenna smiled back, with more a.s.surance than she felt, and turned back to her journal.

What we thought was a three-day hike might take twice that. The terrain we're covering isn't brutal, but carrying injured, it's treacherous and hard to navigate in this b.l.o.o.d.y downpour. At least the rain cuts down on those tiny, demon-bred, buzzing gnats that target my eyes and drive me to psychosis when the sun is out.

May each and every one of them fry forever in some horrifi c little bug h.e.l.l.

Kyla gets more and more quiet as we travel. At fi rst, she griped about being treated like an invalid, but lately she just closes her eyes, grips the wooden poles bracketing her pallet, and hangs on. She worries me.

We trade off litter-bearing duties. Shann and I try to make sure Camryn and Jess don't push themselves too far, but there's precious little we can do to spare them. Cam's limp is p.r.o.nounced at the end of a night's travel, and Jess has got to be simply worn out.

She's everywhere, laying traps to catch enough protein to keep us on our feet, hacking out trails through snarled vines, moving swiftly ahead of us to scout out our next route. The d.a.m.n woman either refuses to sleep or honestly can't. It seems whenever I open my eyes I see hers, shadowed but alert, moving restlessly over the camp. Keeping watch.

We'll reach the ridge tomorrow.

This time Brenna did hear when Shann walked up behind her. She scuffed her feet with such earnest warning, Brenna had to smile. Shann spread her poncho on the wet gra.s.s beside Brenna and * 36 *

pointed sternly. Brenna lifted herself with an effort and sat on it as Shann lowered herself beside her.

"Oof," Shann groaned and snugged her jacket over her knees.

"Sweet Artemis, when did I become an old woman?"

It seemed a rhetorical question, so Brenna grunted something sympathetic and accepted the steaming bowl Shann handed her. She sniffed it curiously.

"a.r.s.enic root," Shann said quietly. "It'll give us enough strength to make Tristaine. But it will alter our gene structure. We'll all have t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es when we arrive." She gazed out over the valley, then looked at Brenna again and snorted with laughter. "Brenna, it's onion soup!"

"Oh." Brenna blushed again, grateful for the dark. "Sorry, Shann. But a.r.s.enic soup would be fi ne with me right now, if I could sit down while I drink it."

"Poor Blades." She swept her fi ngers gently across Brenna's forehead. "You're never one to complain, but I know how tired you must be."

"We're all pretty spent." Brenna warmed her hands around the bowl. "Kyla's hurting."

"Yes. There's not much more we can do for her tonight.

Tristaine's infi rmary will have stronger a.n.a.lgesics than we can risk in herbal remedies." Shann rested her elbows on her knees as she absorbed the moonlit view. "Though I believe we pa.s.sed a patch of dynamite hallucinogenic mushrooms, about half a league back.

They'll do in a pinch."

Half a league, fi ve minutes, I'm there, Brenna thought. The prospect of fading out for a while on a gentle, drugged wave held strong appeal at the moment. She wondered if the craving for a drink would ever leave her entirely. She had made no reference to that desire in her notebook, but it still occupied her thoughts daily.

She drained the bowl of fragrant soup in one swallow.

Shann regarded her for a moment. "You have questions, I think."

Brenna readjusted her stiff legs on the poncho to give herself time to focus. She realized she still looked for Caster's mind-twisting * 37 *

in Shann's quiet authority, and still felt a wave of disorientation when she couldn't detect it. In their weeks together, Shann often sought Brenna for private counsel and usually began their talks with that same gentle invitation.

"Yeah. Several dozen." Brenna fl ipped through her journal for a clean page to take notes. Then she relaxed her fi ngers around the pen and looked up at Shann. "Jess said something, weeks ago, about Tristaine being divided since Dyan's death. What's that about?"

"There was division even before we lost Dyan." Shann folded her hands in her lap and almost visibly ordered her thoughts. "The City has always feared us, Brenna, for the many generations of Tristaine's existence in these mountains. And now there are those among us who believe that cooperation with its Government is the only way to ensure our survival."

"Cooperation?" Brenna was puzzled. "How can anyone in Tristaine believe that? You guys scare the c.r.a.p out of the Government, Shann. That's why the Military hired Caster in the fi rst place-to wipe out Tristaine. Amazons are legendary in the City. Women keep defecting to your village in droves."

"Hardly droves." Shann smiled. "But we've had a small, steady stream of City women join us through the years. And it's our newest sisters, those who've come to us in the last decade or so, who seem most willing to trust the Government's offer of peaceful a.s.similation."

"They really think they'll be allowed to keep their culture intact under City rule?"

"They believe cooperating with the City is our only hope if we're to keep Tristaine intact, period." Shann's velvet voice was troubled. "Our sisters aren't evil or stupid women, Brenna, but I fear they're dangerously deluded. And one of them, Theryn, sits on our high council. Dyan's reputation was enough to keep her faction in check while she lived-"

"And now Dyan's gone." Brenna softened her voice. "You've been away from Tristaine for months. Are you afraid this Theryn is trying to take over? Is that why they sent for you?"

* 38 *

"The glyph Talfryn brought us means rising tensions, yes."

Shann turned her mild eyes on Brenna. It seemed there was no one else in the world more worthy of the queen's respect and attention at that moment.

"This will be the Tristaine we bring you to, little sister," she continued. "I wish we could offer you the feminist utopia that was our grandmothers' dream, but Amazons have learned that fi nding sanctuary must always be a process, rather than an achievement. Do you understand, Blades?"

"Yeah." Brenna nodded. "I do. But I have to admit, the stories you guys tell me about Tristaine, it really does sound like some kind of paradise sometimes. Hearing that it has its problems is probably a good thing, right? It'll help me keep some perspective."

"Tristaine is a paradise, peopled by very human women."

Shann smiled and covered Brenna's hand with her own. "With all the joy and angst inherent in that simple phrase."

"Ooh, I like that," Brenna murmured, scribbling neat notes in her journal. "'A-n-g-s-t.' But, yeah, Shann, I see what you're saying.

I've always known we're not through with the City. Or with Caster.

And I realize I might not be universally welcome in Tristaine. Don't worry. I never sugarcoat my prospects. I know what to expect."

"You've had to, I imagine." Shann studied her silently for a moment. "What's going to happen in Tristaine in three days, Blades?"

Brenna looked up at her, puzzled, then closed her journal with a rueful sigh. "Shann, I don't know why I said anything about a timeline. I didn't even realize you were asking me about the village."

"And you didn't know what was happening to Camryn before the boars attacked, only that she was in danger." Brenna grimaced, and Shann smiled at her. "Don't try to force it, adanin.

Our Grandmothers are slow to share their secrets."

"I'm sorry, Shann, but your Grandmothers, being dead for umpteen generations-"

"Shann, Brenna?"

* 39 *

They both turned as Jess's low voice reached them. They couldn't see her, crouched as she was on the rock overhang above the camp, until she moved. Brenna followed her raised arm to the blankets where Camryn and Kyla lay. Camryn had lifted herself on an elbow and bent over her partner.

"Help an old lady." Shann took Brenna's arm.

Brenna's own knees creaked as they hurried toward the small fi re that still burned near their bedrolls.

"She hasn't slept." Concern roughened Camryn's voice and emerged as irritation. "I've been trying to keep her covered, lady, but she's-"

"Been changing my own diapers for years now," Kyla cut in and tugged the blanket from Camryn's grip. "I'm fi ne, people. You can stop hovering over me like wasps every time I twitch."

"Manners, little sister." Shann knelt beside Kyla. "Can we blame your foul mood on the pain in your leg?"

"Oh, Shann, I'm two days from my moons," Kyla grumbled, "and that's as close to an apology as you'll get from me. b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!"

Shann's eyes darkened as Kyla's hand tightened in her own, and Camryn stroked Kyla's hair until the spasm pa.s.sed. Brenna managed a sympathetic smile for Cam. She knew all too well the helplessness she had to be feeling.

"We scale the ridge tomorrow, lady." In the s.h.i.+fting fi relight, Camryn looked as if she'd aged ten years. "Do you think Ky can make it?"

"I'll be riding in that sling thing," Kyla mumbled.

"Blades?" Shann looked at Brenna. "Your thoughts?"

Brenna hoped the tsunami that roared through her stomach at the thought of the climb ahead didn't sway her clinical judgment.

Another look at Kyla's ashen features convinced her. "Ky, you're hurting a lot as it is, and you haven't slept well. We might want to talk about taking just one day here to rest."

A stubborn line formed between Kyla's brows in a way Brenna now recognized as reminiscent of her blood sister Dyan.

* 40 *

"I'm crazy to get home too, adonai." Camryn cradled Kyla's free hand in her own. "But if Shann and Brenna both think we-"

"Look, I should get to decide this!" Kyla clenched her wife's hand with sudden strength. "I haven't seen Tristaine in half a season.