But just as Brenna herself had not, at first, been welcomed by every Amazon in the clan, there were warriors who couldn’t forget Dana’s past. The part of Brenna that still felt like a newcomer ached at the lonely pride in the young City woman’s features.
“Tristaine lost nearly twenty daughters in the flood, adanin.” Jess lowered her voice, which had the effect of drawing the ring of Amazons closer to her.
“We saw sister turn against sister. The bond between kin severed. Amazons shedding Amazon blood.” Jess shook her head. “The waters cover that sad history now, and we’ll not relive it here. Understood?”
“I hear.” Sirius raised her eyes again, her dignity restored. “I do. It won’t happen again, Jess.”
Jess nodded and swept her gaze over the watching women. “Go on, you gawking horde. Join the storyfire before your butts freeze.”
The small group dispersed as quickly as it formed, talk and laughter rising among them again. Brenna wrapped an arm around Jess’s waist as she joined her.
Women and children, dressed warmly in soft skins and robes, were gathering in the center of the village square. The music of a dozen accents calling greetings to each other filled the night with a friendly warmth.
Brenna had learned to relish Tristaine’s diversity of race and language, a blending of ancestries unheard of in the sterile homogeneity of the City. The clan’s medley of ethnicities was matched by the complexity of the Amazons’ faith. They worshipped an array of deities, all unique manifestations of the Feminine. Tristaine’s culture blended the histories and folklore of a dozen nations, and her lifeblood was richer for it.
Women were spreading furs and thick rugs on the sparse grass around the storyfire, which crackled brightly in an open space near the ancient ebony altar. Kyla stood alone next to the shooting flames, and Brenna felt her throat tighten.
The Kyla she had met after escaping from the Clinic had still been very much a girl in her endless optimism and the buoyancy of her spirit. Kyla’s delicate features still carried an almost fey beauty that belied the new stiffness in her slender frame.
The first night Brenna entered Tristaine, Kyla had sung an Amazon dirge of such beauty, she still effortlessly recalled every note. The woman who waited for her sisters to gather tonight had aged far beyond her years.
Her voice hadn’t lifted in song since her wife Camryn died, and she wouldn’t sing tonight. She was a spinner of tales now, and apparently the crisp fall air called for something ghostly.
“Her ravenous spirit rose again from the dank and sour mists of the underworld,” Kyla began, her melodic tone quieting the square. “Called to profane life, the eater of Amazon souls…the Banshee’s dark and more sinister sister…the queen Botesh.”
Eager murmurs rose around the storyfire’s circle. This was one of the clan’s favorite ghostly legends.
Brenna settled against Jess with a sigh, her warmth welcome against her back. Like many of the Amazons around them, they sat on thick blankets that shielded them from the prickly grass of the square.
She turned her head on Jess’s breast and saw a toddler nestled in her mother’s arms a few blankets over. The little girl’s eyes widened as Kyla continued her recounting of the increasingly gruesome tale.
“Before her pitted soul joined the leagues of demons,” Kyla chanted, “Botesh walked the earth as ruler of an Amazon tribe. Queen of betrayals untold, she sucked the spirits of her own clan dry and left her sisters’ lives in ashes. She shed the blood of her warriors in torrents, all in service of her depthless craving for dark power.”
Brenna felt a chill trickle down her spine. Dyan’s blood sister was a natural storyteller, and the fanciful spell she wove scratched at the comforting shields of logic. Even Brenna’s City science-trained logic, which was formidable. Something in Kyla’s dreamlike expression disturbed her, and she glanced over at the toddler hiding her face against her mother’s arm.
“Hey, this is child abuse.” Brenna nudged Jess. “That poor kid’s gonna have nightmares for weeks.”
“Probably.” Jess nuzzled Brenna’s hair with her nose.
“Really, Jesstin, it’s not cool to scare little kids.” Brenna had firm opinions on this subject, sculpted from her own childhood in a City Youth Home.
“There are things in the world our little sisters need to fear, Bren, so we can teach them to defend themselves.” Jess stroked Brenna’s arm. “Maybe not demons, but there will always be enemies who seek their blood. Our young should learn about them here, in the safety of their mothers’ arms. Amazons have never had the luxury of pretending we offer our daughters a sane planet.”
Brenna’s eyes burned a little from the smoke, and she closed them for a moment. At least half of Tristaine had gathered in the circle of the storyfire, and the comforting presence of other Amazons was proving Jess’s point. An assembled clan offered safety.
She looked sleepily from one face to the next as Kyla’s melodic voice washed over her. The names came easily to her now, after a year among these women. She made a mental note to tell Dana that she once thought she’d never match histories and faces.
She saw Hakan, who had trained beside Jess under Dyan’s tutelage. Hakan sat across the circle holding the hand of her wife, Kas, both of them obviously entranced by Kyla’s tale.
Closer to their blanket, Vicar’s handsome head rested in the lap of her adonai, Wai Li. Brenna remembered Wai had chosen the name of one of Tristaine’s seven founders, a common practice among Amazons. The spirits of those ancient grandmothers lived on in the seven stars of the clan’s constellation, just becoming visible overhead now, as the sun faded behind the western ridge.
The first Wai Li had founded Tristaine’s guild of mothers, and Brenna smiled at the infant in the arms of Vicar’s wife, who slept with the peace of one who knew he’d chosen his parents wisely. Both Vic and Wai Li would probably choose to leave the clan for a period of years when their son entered puberty. He would go with his parents to a rural settlement or a small town open to peaceful neighbors. The City was no longer an option for resettlement, so they would scout the mountain regions for smaller colonies.
“She rises still, when the ghost fog creeps over an Amazon village, blanketing it in silence. Dozens of clans have vanished down the insatiable maw of Botesh,” Kyla droned to an utterly silent audience. “She who betrayed her Goddess, she who thirsts for the blood of the adanin, lingers yet. Look for Botesh in the sudden shadows across your path...in the brief chill that sweeps through a fire-warmed lodge, the thick, foul fog swirling fast through a sleeping village...”
Brenna shifted against Jess and picked out Dana’s pale features across the fire circle. Her dark eyes were rapt on Kyla’s face, in an unguarded moment of longing. Brenna honestly didn’t know if Kyla returned Dana’s yearning, or was even aware of it. Or much else, besides her grief for Camryn.
Kyla used to sing beautiful songs from Tristaine’s past , Brenna thought. Now she told horror tales of phantom Amazon blood drinkers.
As always when wanting reassurance, Brenna pulled Jess’s arms tighter around her and sought out Shann’s face. She saw their queen seated gracefully among the older children of the clan, her eyes sparkling as she savored Kyla’s tale. In the week of craziness settling on the mesa, there hadn’t been time to see much of their lady, and it was good to know she was near.
Brenna felt a small nudge of misgiving. Shann’s refined features seemed sallow, even in the rich gold light of the storyfire. There were fine lines bracketing the queen’s extraordinary eyes that Brenna had never noticed before, even in times of high crisis. She should waylay Shann when this was over and see if she was on another of her weird ritual fasts.
Jess’s breasts pressed against her back, her nipples rising into hard nubs Brenna could feel even through her cloak, and she smiled. In spite of her inherent modesty, Brenna took a certain pride in her ability to arouse Jess at unexpected times. Then Brenna realized Jess was probably responding to the compelling m
usic of Kyla’s voice as she reached the climax of her tale.
“Botesh strikes,” the girl hissed, her auburn hair shim-mering in the firelight. “Sharp tongue, sharp talons, sharp fangs, sharp—”
Jess goosed Brenna in the ribs, and she shrieked like a crazed harpy. Heads whipped toward them, and a few of the younger children yelled too, enjoying their fright.
The Amazons snorted laughter into the warm circle. Kyla’s look of surprise dissolved, and she grinned and applauded with the others, recognizing the perfect cap to a ghost story when she heard one.
“Spontaneous human combustion.” Brenna twisted to glare at Jess, who had one hand plastered over her mouth to stifle her grin. Another theory disproved, she thought, and later wrote in her journal, If people were actually capable of bursting into flames, I would be doing it. And then I would do it to Jesstin.
*
As the storyfire was allowed to burn down to embers in the village square, Dana and Hakan walked home with Brenna and Jess. Dana had elected to bunk with the rest of the guild of warriors in one of the larger lodges on the southern rim of the mesa, and the cabin Hakan shared with her mate lay in the forest beyond it.
A white glaze of frost was already beginning to form on the hard-packed dirt path. The mountains at night held a quality of deep silence Brenna had never experienced in the City. The void of sound could be harrowing, comforting, or awe-inducing, depending on her mood, which was pensive at the moment. Jess’s arm felt good around her shoulders, as naturally balanced and relaxed there now as an extension of her own body. The pine scents around her were fresh and tantalizing, and her belly was full of a savory broth. The air was fresh and crisp on her face after the warmth of the storyfire. Perhaps it was just Kyla’s ghostly tale that kept the nape of Brenna’s neck prickling.
“Is this, like, a royal command?” Dana’s voice drifted to them. “Shann says I have to be on this high council or, what, I get sold to slavers?”
“Shann requested your presence at our next council. She didn’t command it,” Hakan corrected. She strolled easily beside Dana, her large hands clasped behind her. “And Tristaine never barters with slave traders. Slaughters them, but never barters.”
Brenna smiled. Like Shann, the courteous Hakan always answered every question thoroughly, regardless of ironic overtones.
Dana had stopped walking and was staring at Hakan’s broad back as she continued down the path with Jesstin and Brenna. Then she ran a few steps to catch up.
“Slavers? I was kidding. These mountains have slavers?”
“Shann means to honor you, Dana, by naming you to her council.” Jess glanced at her over Brenna’s head. “She wants to add a fresh voice from outside our clan. A new perspective.”
“And she sees something in you she trusts,” Brenna added.
“Sheesh.” Dana scowled, slapping at the underbrush with the long stick she carried. “Either you guys...sheesh.”
“What?” Brenna prompted before they parted briefly to walk around a towering pine.
“Nothing,” Dana grumbled. “Just trying to keep my status straight, here. Either you Amazons trust me too much, like your queen, or no one trusts me at all, like Sirius and everyone else around here. And none of you know me from jack, either way.”
“Stop sulking, youngster.” Hakan gave Dana’s shoulder a friendly tap, which would have spun her face-first into a tree if Brenna hadn’t steadied her. “Keep in mind that the first time most of our sistren saw you, you were tasering Jesstin in the gut.”
Jess’s hand brushed unconsciously across her lower side, and Dana dropped her gaze. Brenna frowned at Hakan and touched Dana’s forearm.
“The first time Hakan and Vicar met me,” Brenna confided, “I was about to pitch fanny-first off the side of a sheer cliff and take Kyla and Camryn down with me. This will be written up in the annals of Tristaine history as the worst introduction any woman ever made to her sisters. Yours is a close second, though.” Brenna smiled. “I’m just saying give it some time, Dana. Settling in can be tough.”
Jess caught Dana’s eye for a moment and winked. Dana’s grin restored her to the handsome young woman she was, and she jogged to catch up with Hakan.
After Hakan and Dana disappeared into the trees, Brenna and Jess angled toward their small cabin, which stood in a thick copse of pines to the right of the path.
Brenna leaned into Jess’s warmth. Selene flew in full ghostly glory above them, bathing the quiet woods in cool blue light.
“Shann looks tired, Jesstin.”
“She does?” Jess guided her around a snarl of shrubs in the path. “Ah, lass, Shann’s got the strength of ten.”
“Maybe.” Brenna shrugged. “Maybe I just can’t remember that Shann’s almost fifty, when she looks and moves like she’s half that. But she does seem tired these days.” She tapped Jess’s side. “And so do you, my tough friend.”
Jess stopped midyawn and rubbed the back of her neck. “It was a long migration, Bren. Getting this village set up took a lot out of all of us.”
“Not really. What did we have to set up? There were almost a hundred empty cabins here, ready for us to just walk into. And a half-dozen bigger lodges to house our guilds. Jesstin, that’s another thing.”
Brenna hopped in front of Jess, then turned to face her, walking backwards. “This still seems way too perfect to me. I mean, how often does an exiled Amazon clan just stumble onto a ready-made village, way the heck up in the boondocks?”
“It may not be as miraculous as you’d think, lass.” Jess grinned and took Brenna’s arm, turning her so she could see where they walked. “The City has always bred defectors. Who knows how many little castoff communities have settled in these hills in the last hundred years?”
“But this mesa is old, Jesstin. Shann said this village is much older than the City, and it’s definitely Amazon. But even she doesn’t recognize those markings all over that creepy altar.”
“What’s your point, Bren?” Jess’s tone had taken on a slight edge, and Brenna blinked up at her.
“I also notice that some of our warriors are growing a wee bit testy.” Brenna smiled. “Kyla’s seeing it too. She mentioned it the other—”
“You and our little sister Kyla worry too much, young Brenna.” A roguish smile touched Jess’s lips, and she pressed Brenna back against the smooth trunk of a white aspen. “About our adanin. About a queen’s weariness and a toddler’s nightmares…”
Brenna’s eyebrows quirked through her spiky bangs. “What are we doing?”
“I am reassurin’ you, so you will not worry no more.” Jess pressed against Brenna’s softness and untied the laces that held her cloak closed at her throat.
“Aha. This is why you’re tired. Our serial ravishings.” Brenna smirked and tapped her fingers lightly. “What is it with you these days, Jesstin? You’re insatiable.”
“Ye drive me mad with desire, wench.” Jess nibbled on Brenna’s throat, and her hands began taking liberties, rubbing over the fabric covering the taut mounds of her breasts.
“Jess.” Brenna pushed her back. “Hearth and home are only about twenty yards, thataway.”
“I want ye here.” A familiar growl roughened Jess’s low voice, one Brenna usually welcomed in the privacy of their blankets. She liked it less under a tree on a cold night. After ghost stories about evil spirit cannibals. “I’ll take ye here and now.”
“Well, sorry. Flattered, but sorry.” Brenna felt her smile fade as Jess’s touch grew harsh. One callused palm snuck into the opening of her shirt and scrubbed across one breast, then squeezed it. “Jess, hey. Stop it.”
“You talk too much, City girl.” Jess didn’t ease Brenna back against the tree; she pushed her against it and ripped her shirt open with one brutal yank.
“Hey! Jesstin!” Brenna slapped her, hard. Her palm cracked against the side of her face like a rifle shot, and the force of the blow actually forced Jess back a step.
Jess glared at her, and, for a mo
ment, a frightening tinge of silver entered her eyes. Then the silver light faded, and she was Jess again.
“What? Crikey, you have my attention.” Jess rubbed the side of her face, scowling. Then she blinked and stared at Brenna. “You all right, Bren? You’re half-naked out here in front of Gaia and everyone! Did I do that?”
“Yeah.” Brenna tied her shirt closed, her heart hammering. “Are you all right? Tell me how you feel, Jess.”
“Cold,” Jess answered promptly. She took a step and rubbed Brenna’s arms briskly, and this time the strength in those hands comforted, as it always had. “You’re shaking, Bren.”
“Of course I’m shaking. You’ve never touched me like that before.” She stilled Jess’s hands and studied her face. “You really don’t remember, do you?”
“What’s to remember? Kyla’s tale has you seeing ghosts, lass.” Jess slid an arm around Brenna’s waist. “Let’s get you home and warm, querida. I’ll not bed an icicle tonight, no matter how cute.”
Brenna cast one last look over her shoulder toward the village square. The rings of trees that separated their cabin from the storyfire pit were spaced, with odd perfection, to allow a clear view of the altar in its center.
She shivered again and tightened her arm around Jess.
Chapter Three
Far from her Celtic homeland
She sleeps bereft of hope
Goddess grant her peace
Brenna studied the odd inscription on the gravestone as Hakan read the words aloud. She was grateful for Hakan’s solid warmth on her left and Kyla’s on her right. The wind on this desolate hill blew in cold, fitful gusts. Winter was coming, Brenna remembered, and graveyards made such random thoughts feel ominous.
Tristaine’s scouting party had come across the old cemetery just as the sun crested midday. The large yard, encircled by a low rock fence, lay almost a full league from their mesa, on a barren slope deep in the forest. Flat oval stones of every shape and size canted at angles all over the burial ground. Every grave held an epitaph and, apparently, the earthly remains of an Amazon warrior.
Tristaine Rises Page 3
