Battle for Tristaine

by Cate Culpepper

  Amber shouted something back that sounded like agreement, but Brenna had already hit top speed on her run back toward the arena. The heart of the battle still centered there, though Amazons and soldiers alike had begun to branch out into the village itself.

  Brenna burst out of the stone archway leading into the stadium. Two seconds later she was hit by what felt like a semitruck, and the ground came up and smacked her, hard. A bullet whistled above her head to careen off a far wall, and Brenna realized the semitruck was an angry Amazon.

  “Brenna, you brainless dolt!” Vicar snarled in her ear. She was lying full-length on top of Brenna. “You do not race pell-mell onto a flaming battlefield!”

  “Well, excuse me, Vicar!” Brenna twisted over onto her back. “This is only my second flaming battle! I don’t know all the rules yet. Where’s Jess?”

  “She sent me after you. Move with me, now!” Vicar clamped Brenna’s wrist in one hand and hauled her to her feet. They ran together, in a half-crouch, toward the side wall of the stadium, and then Vicar hauled her bodily around a high log partition.

  Brenna coughed dust and smoke out of her lungs; then she could see the five women gathered in the shadow of the log wall. Vicar patted her on the back until she recovered. She seemed a bit chagrined at her earlier roughness.

  “Over here, Bren!”

  Brenna saw Jess. “Ah, man.” Her shoulders sagged in relief, and then she saw Shann and Kyla. “Ah, man,” she repeated, and walked into Shann’s open arms and hugged her, hard.

  “You all right, Brenna?” Hakan was peering cautiously around the log wall, keeping a close eye on the still frenetic activity in the stadium.

  “I’m fine.” Brenna’s pulse began to settle again as she went to Kyla and studied her face. She was still drawn and pale, but her eyes warmed for a moment as she took Brenna’s hands.

  Shann said, “Jesstin, report, please.”

  “Tristaine’s high council is safe. They’re under Amazon guard in the stables.” Jess put her arm around Brenna’s shoulders. “Our warriors fight side by side with Theryn’s. They’re holding off Caster’s mercenaries. We’re still outnumbered and outgunned, but the soldiers are a mess. No organization.”

  “We need to blow the dam, lady.” Vicar ducked as another shot whined through the air to strike solidly into the arena wall yards away. “But we need to get you out first.”

  “Yes, well, here’s the problem.” Shann rummaged in a pocket of her robes. She held up a cracked plastic box and sprung wires.

  With an unpleasant jolt, Brenna realized it was the remote detonator.

  Jess’s jaw dropped. “What happened to it?”

  “I hit Caster with it.” Shann sighed. “We’re going to have to set off the timer by hand, Jesstin.”

  “You what?”

  “I had to hit her with something.”

  Jess raked her hand through her dark hair, twice, before she could speak. “Shann, our detonator, the detonator you called Tristaine’s greatest treasure, you used it as a club?”

  “Caster went down like a sack of beets,” Shann insisted. “She’s still out, for all I know.”

  “Lady, I’ll start the timer,” Vicar volunteered. “I can run faster than any of us.”

  “That’s debatable, Vicar,” Hakan said.

  “Later,” Jess broke in. “Vicar, I need you and Hakan to get Shann and our council out of the valley. Take as many of the others as possible. Where shall we meet, lady?”

  “The large glade, south of the pass,” Shann answered at once.

  “Shann, we need to warn as many of the City soldiers as we can.” Brenna felt compelled to say it. “A lot of them are just poorly paid kids. This isn’t their fight.”

  “Agreed, Blades.” Shann nodded. “Good point. Vicar, I want you to find Theryn before we leave and have her spread the word. Tell her they must use every minute to get out before Jesstin triggers the blast.”

  “Jess is blowing the dam?” It was the first time Kyla had spoken. “Are you steady enough on your feet to do that, Jesstin? You look like hell.”

  “It won’t be a matter of fitness or speed, adanin.” Hakan’s immense hand was gentle on the girl’s shoulder. “Once Ziwa is freed and her waters join Terme Cay, no Amazon on Gaia’s earth could outrun them. Jess won’t have to rely on her own spindly legs.” She inserted two fingers in her mouth, and an amazingly sharp whistle cracked through the air.

  Before Brenna could ask what they were whistling at now, Shann drew her aside. They stood close together, and that veil of privacy fell around them again.

  “On the stand, Blades, when I said I had Tristaine’s greatest treasure, I didn’t mean the detonator.”

  “I know. It’s right here.” Brenna patted her inner pocket. “I’ll keep it safe, I promise.”

  “Thank you.” Shann smiled. “Now listen carefully, Bren. Go with Jesstin. I’ve already convinced her that it’s vital you do. Leave your journal by the dam, out of reach of the flood, but protected and somewhere visible, adanin. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Shann’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re not going to argue with me? No questions?”

  “Probably, just not now.” Brenna grinned. “We’ll see you at the glade, lady.”

  Shann’s smile acknowledged that Brenna had used her title for the first time. She kissed her forehead, then went to Kyla and took her hand. “Little sister. Do you want to bring Camryn with us?”

  There was silence again in their small party. Even the war cries and shouts of the battle around them faded as they waited for Kyla’s answer.

  “Once we wash Caster off this mountain, our valley will be sacred again.” Kyla’s eyes were clear and tearless now. “Let Camryn rest here with the bones of Dyan and our other lost sisters.”

  Shann nodded. “As you wish, Ky.”

  “Omboleza, adanin,” Hakan added.

  “My sorrow,” Jess translated softly for Brenna.

  Brenna was startled by a drumming of hoofbeats, and then Hakan’s beautiful warhorse, Valkyrie, loped into the arena. Another sharp whistle from Hakan turned the huge mare toward them.

  “We’re decided, then?” Shann waited to hear any dissent.

  “We’re ready, lady.” Hakan steadied her big horse.

  Shann looked at Jess and lifted one eyebrow.

  Jess turned to Brenna and grasped her cold hands. “Hakan was right about the route we’ll take, Bren. After I set the timer on the dynamite, we’ll have twenty minutes to ride back through the village and get out of the valley. You’ve never been on a horse in your life. This is going to be pretty high drama, querida. You ready?”

  “Of course not, but you have the hard part, Jesstin. All I have to do is hang on.” Brenna went up on her toes and quickly kissed Jess. “We’d better hurry.”

  Without further ceremony, Jess ran three steps across the ground and jumped gracefully up onto Valkyrie’s back.

  Brenna’s mouth fell open.

  “You can get up there like a normal person if you prefer, little sister.” Hakan grinned and offered Brenna her arm.

  Being lifted to the broad back of an Amazon warhorse felt like cresting a mountain. A warm, hairy mountain that breathed. Even Vicar looked short from this height. Brenna wrapped her arms tightly around Jess’s waist, careful to avoid the taser marks.

  I could be in the Clinic’s pharmacy filling out prescriptions for Caster, she reminded herself. She didn’t know if her inner voice sounded relieved or incredulous. She thought she might be a bit hysterical.

  “Remember, Jesstin.” Shann’s voice carried sure and certain command. “I consider both of you irreplaceable. Understood?”

  “Aye, lady.”

  “Ride bloody fast, Stumpy.” Vicar handed Jess a coiled rope and nodded at Brenna. “Find us at the glade tonight.”

  Jess leaned down to accept Shann’s hand. “Your blessing, lady?”

  Brenna watched the Amazon queen inhabit their elder sister again
in the blink of an eye.

  “Jesstin, Brenna, you ride for Tristaine. May Artemis shield you. Come home safe. Now hurry!”

  Shann released Jess’s arm as the big mare leapt forward. Brenna had thought there’d be a need to kick a horse to make that happen. Luckily, she was stuck to Jess’s back like a burr.

  She looked over her shoulder, and just before Shann and their sisters disappeared behind the log partition, Brenna saw Kyla lift her hand in benediction.

  As they rode out of the stadium, Brenna had time to notice that it was almost twilight. The short winter day had given way to the golden sunlit hour that sometimes blessed the mountains just before dusk. Tristaine’s village square was beautiful in the honeyed light.

  But in jarring contrast to nature’s peace, the scene was anything but serene. Shrill cries and shouts still split the cold air, and figures ran everywhere, both Amazons and City soldiers.

  “Jesstin, no! Go that way!” It was an Amazon Brenna didn’t know, one who had fought on Theryn’s side. She was crouched in the grass at the east corner of the neat log infirmary, pointing. “Toward the lodges of the trades guild! The barracks of the warriors is overrun!”

  “My thanks, Frost!” Jess nudged Valkyrie with one knee, and the mare charged back around the stadium and past it.

  Brenna adjusted quickly to Valkyrie’s even gait. There was something both alien and familiar about the horse’s rhythms beneath her. She loosened her arms around Jess and found it easier to balance sitting upright.

  “You all right?” Jess called to her as she hitched the coiled rope higher over her shoulder.

  “I’m having fun!” she called back and spit a flying tendril of Jess’s hair out of her mouth.

  She heard Jess laugh as they rounded the first of the four long lodges used by Tristaine’s tradeswomen.

  Valkyrie was fast. They pounded down the grass strip that ran between the weavers’ lodge and that of the woodworkers, heading toward the river that ran through Tristaine.

  Toward Terme Cay, Brenna amended. It was beginning to look as if they would make it through the confusion unchallenged. Then, as they rounded the last lodge, she realized she was looking down the barrel of a rifle pointed right at them.

  Rodriguez held it, the mercenary Brenna had introduced herself to with a punch to the genitals. She started to shout a warning to Jess, but the words died in her throat. A dagger appeared, as if by magic, buried to the hilt in the man’s chest. Rodriquez dropped the rifle, and blood exploded around the embedded blade. Brenna stopped watching.

  “Briggs!” Jess saluted the warrior who had thrown the dagger, as Valkyrie carried them on a dead run past her.

  “For Shann!” Briggs called, and Brenna heard several scattered Amazon voices echo her shout of fealty.

  “Oh, lordy.”

  Brenna’s stomach hadn’t quite been ready to cross the footbridge. She trusted Tristaine’s carpenters, but this was a half ton of horse carrying them across, and then Terme Cay was behind them, and Valkyrie churned up the low rise that led to the Amazons’ private cabins. She felt for the journal in her pocket and was reassured by its solid presence.

  They rode up the mountain now on the broad path that led to the dam. It was broad, at least, when you were walking on it alone. But even alone, it had terrified her only days ago. When riding an Amazon warhorse at top speed, possibly to your death, it was…

  Bloody harrowing, Brenna thought, narrating the action in her head to record later in her journal. For the first time since she had left the City, Brenna barely noticed the natural beauty of her surroundings. There was little room in her mind for the colors of the rugged canyon off the path to their left, or even the dark blue glory of the lake that loomed ahead. Brenna could focus on only three things: following Jess’s instructions, obeying Shann’s command, and making sure they both got out of there alive.

  When they reached the lake, Valkyrie slowed to a walk, steam puffing into the cold air. They studied the dam’s shadowed surface and the small platform secured to its main support. The neatly wrapped bundle of dynamite looked undisturbed.

  Jess lifted one knee over the horse’s neck and dropped to the rocky ground. Brenna accepted her assistance with her own dismount, which felt like sliding off the roof of a building.

  “Do you need me?” Brenna asked.

  “Always.” Jess’s eyes sparkled at her. “But do I need you immediately? No, not until I’m finished on the platform. I’ll make it back up faster with your help.”

  “I’ll be there in five minutes. Jesstin, do not get hurt!” Brenna ordered.

  “Yes’m.” Jess shouldered the rope again and jogged toward the catwalk that topped the dam.

  Then she turned around and jogged back. “Lass?”

  “What, is anything wro—?”

  Jess bent Brenna over one arm and kissed her, long and sweet and deep. Then she set her on her feet again and tapped her nose with one finger, gently.

  “Wanted to make sure we took time for that,” Jess explained, and jogged back toward the catwalk.

  “Good. Thanks. Yes. Good idea. Okay.” Brenna closed her mouth, unzipped her inner pocket, and scanned the rocky area around her. “Somewhere safe,” she muttered.

  She looked out over the lake, an ominous blue expanse in the twilight, then at the dam. This ground where she and the horse stood now was out of the projected path of the flood. Brenna spotted a sapling that seemed pretty well anchored to the bank.

  She opened her journal and checked the last page to read Shann’s note again, then scanned the map below. She made sure the folded paper was carefully inserted and wrapped the notebook in Jess’s waterproof jacket. The bright red color would be eye-catching. Brenna fit the bundle securely in a “V” of branches and tied the sleeves tightly around the strongest one.

  She took a step back, whiffing her bangs off her forehead, and studied the parcel that contained Tristaine’s greatest treasure. It looked safe, and it was the best she could do. Brenna whispered a benediction of her own as she turned toward the lake.

  The catwalk that spanned the top of the dam looked perilously narrow, and Brenna found, to her displeasure, that the urgency of their mission hadn’t zapped her hatred of heights. Hatred, she reminded herself, as she trotted toward the center of the dam, not fear. She just didn’t understand why Amazons who could design pyramids couldn’t build a simple railing on a catwalk.

  Jess was crouching on the platform halfway down the dam’s face. She shaded her eyes to see Brenna above her. Brenna knelt and checked the rope that tethered her to the catwalk.

  “We’re set, Bren,” Jess’s voice echoed strangely in the silence. “Say a prayer, please.”

  “What? What prayer?”

  “Doesn’t matter. We’re drowning our land, lass.” Jess knelt and touched the switch of the timer. Then she looked into the canyon before her—the channel of the flood to come—and beyond it. They couldn’t see Tristaine from here, but Jess gazed in that direction.

  Brenna waited, in case any spectral voice wanted to whisper the right words to her. She couldn’t hear what Jess was saying to the valley and to the village that was her childhood home. No words sounded in her mind, but she found she didn’t need coaching.

  “Thank you,” Brenna whispered, “for Jesstin and for giving me this life with her.”

  Jess flicked the timer’s switch. She climbed to the top of the dam in record time and without incident with Brenna’s help. Jess still looked like she hadn’t slept in a week, but she moved as efficiently and gracefully as ever.

  “Twenty minutes until the blast?” Brenna took Jess’s hand as they started back for the bank. “Then ten more before the flood hits the village?”

  “More or less,” Jess replied, and Brenna almost throttled her.

  They walked the dam’s catwalk quickly but carefully.

  “Are you sure you can’t be just a wee bit more specific about that timer?” Brenna asked.

  “Shann and the others s
hould be out of Tristaine by now,” Jess said. “But not out of the valley. So aye, querida, we’re counting on a solid twenty minutes.”

  Brenna didn’t see the quarrel from Patana’s crossbow, but she heard it. It fell short, shattering the edge of the beam an inch from Jess’s boot. Jess stiffened instinctively and lost her balance.

  Jess barely had time to shake Brenna’s desperate fingers loose before she toppled off the dam and fell fifteen feet, to hit the cold water of the lake below.

  “Jesstin!” Brenna almost followed her off the catwalk.

  The deep lake swallowed Jess whole for a horrifically long time. Then she burst up heaving for air, and Brenna remembered winter, and mountain lakes, and hypothermia—

  Another crossbow quarrel ricocheted off the face of the dam, yards from Jess’s right arm. Brenna whirled and saw Patana at the other end of the catwalk, already inserting a fresh bolt into place. Her small eyes were pinned on Jess, her square jaw clenched.

  Jess surged up out of the water; her hands scrabbled for any purchase on the smooth surface of the dam.

  J’heika, rise!

  Brenna swiftly tied the rope to one of the brackets on the side of the catwalk and tossed the other end down to Jess. She would become too weak to climb if she stayed in that water another second. She could be too weak even now, but Brenna had to stop Patana before she could worry about that. Once the rope left her hands, she shot to her feet and ran.

  Patana didn’t even glance Brenna’s way at first. She fired another quarrel, then finally looked up. A wave of shock passed over her flushed face, and she flipped the crossbow into the sling on her back and faced her.

  A calm voice whispered to Brenna. Don’t worry about Jesstin now, lass. You’ve achieved your first goal. Your enemy stopped shooting. Now, listen well.

  Brenna ran, staying to the center of the narrow catwalk, and listened. Take her down. You can’t win standing. She’ll knock you off your feet. She’ll fight to keep from falling off the dam. You fight to get her down and hold on to her until Jess can reach you.

  It wasn’t the same inner voice that kept calling for J’heika, but it offered the sanest, most thorough advice she had received from Wherever yet, and Brenna intended to follow it. She adjusted her speed, aimed for Patana, and just kept going until she plowed into her.