“Dyan sent Shann the same message.” Brenna touched Kyla’s knee. “And Cam sent you this wish, Ky.” She painted a gentle pattern with her fingers.
Kyla’s brow furrowed. “Peace?”
“Peace.” Brenna smoothed Kyla’s hair off her forehead. She knew that word held realms of meaning for her, beyond the immediate fate of their clan. It was what Shann had sought since Dyan’s death, and what Samantha desperately needed now. Inner peace was Camryn’s unselfish wish for an end to her adonai’s mourning.
“Listen.” Jess was suddenly alert as a feral cat, then Brenna heard it, an urgent trumpeting of hooves over the hard-packed earth.
Siirah appeared above them, reining in her plunging roan. “Jesstin! You’d best get to the village.”
Jess rose to her feet. “What’s happening, Siirah?”
“No enemy has been sighted, Jess. But there’s…you’d best see for yourself, adanin.”
Jess whistled acknowledgement, and Siirah wheeled her horse and cantered back down the rise. “Kyla, take Samantha to the elders’ cabin, then join us in the square. Dana, Brenna, with me.”
“Hey, wait.” Samantha touched Jess’s arm. “I don’t want to hide in some cabin. If Bree—if everybody’s going to be out there, I want to be too. I won’t get in the way.”
Jess glanced at Brenna, then nodded. “Just don’t make me tell you anything twice, lass.”
They gathered their things quickly and moved in one close unit toward the trail leading down to the village. Brenna paused before following the others into the thick of the trees and looked over her shoulder. She had felt its weak light on her back even before turning. It was still a mild sickle, rising over the far mountain crest. The first dawn of the Thesmophorian moon.
Brenna invoked any goddesses still listening and ran swiftly after her sisters.
*
She nearly smacked into Jess’s broad back when they slid to a stop.
They stood at the head of the narrow trail, looking down a low rise to the Amazon village below. It was a cold night, and twilight had surrendered to full darkness now. The stars glittered with uncommon brilliance, and the rising moon had started to bleed its own murky light, casting Tristaine in a dull silver glow.
“What in Hera’s left tit is that?” Dana stared down at the gathering of lodges.
“Fog,” Jess answered rhetorically, and Brenna wrapped her fingers around her forearm for reassurance.
Only an Amazon, who referred to mountains as hills and canyons as ditches, would consider this brackish mess fog. Brenna knew mountain fog now and welcomed the soft mists that graced many of their mornings. And her sense memory still carried the distinctly unpleasant chemical stench of the City’s air. If this stuff was fog, it was the kind only a City could generate.
Rivers of it drifted like curdled streams of liquid cheese through the cabins and trees below. It emitted a scent almost discernable from this distance, but it was no odor Brenna recognized, more a malign memory of mildew.
“This is Botesh’s herald, adanin.” Kyla drew in a long breath. “Remember the legend. The coming of the demon is signaled by a thick, strange mist.”
“Thick, strange, check.” Dana turned to Jess for instructions, but closed her mouth at the grim light in her eyes. Jess slipped the leather notch from her belt to free her sword, and Brenna felt a thrill of pride. She hadn’t seen Jesstin of Tristaine in full battle mode for three seasons, and the sight of her brought Dyan’s spectral grandeur to mind.
“Our wait’s over.” Jess’s upper lip curled. “We’ve a bully to spank.” She spun and jumped a dozen feet down the hill, and they exploded after her.
Dana’s war cry, a damn fine one for a debut, rattled the trees. Brenna reached back and touched Sammy’s chest as they ran, making sure she stayed close.
There was a definite stirring in the village, the ignition of a strategy set carefully in place. They passed running women, efficient bands of three and four, bound for sentry posts and defense positions. Voices shouted to each other, not in panic, but in a crisp cadence acknowledging orders. Shann had prepared her women well.
Brenna wanted to keep running. She had the wind to circle the mesa a dozen times. The adrenaline coursing through her might be enough to boost her to another flight above it. Some of the hot joy that ignited Jess’s expressive features heated Brenna’s blood as well, an alien but welcome energy. A healer to her core, she had never felt less conflicted going into a fight. Their enemy was anathema to generations of Amazons, and her reign would end here.
“Vicar!” Jess reached up and snatched the bridle of her cousin’s horse as she reined in beside them. “Where’s our lady?”
“Shann awaits you in the square, Jesstin. We’re ready. I join Hakan on the west flank.”
Jess clapped her horse’s rump in reply, and Vicar cantered off into the trees.
Brenna sensed Jess’s urgency to reach Shann, and she more than shared it. The five women moved as quickly as they could toward the square. The odious fog curling about their knees made for uneasy footing.
They found Shann easily. Closely guarded by a small phalanx of warriors, she waited near the roaring bonfire that cast red shadows across the stone altar. She pushed back the hood of her elegant winter robe and smiled when she sighted them.
“Thank you, adanin,” Shann touched the back of one of the warriors guarding her. “My family is here now. Please go see to the safety of yours.”
Jess issued quiet orders to two of the Amazons as they passed, then nodded respectfully to Shann. “Lady, our lines are well set.”
“Of course they are, Jesstin. Nicely done.” Shann rose on her toes to kiss Jess’s cheek. She looked exhausted to Brenna, but she still managed to exude an unmistakable aura of regality. “Sisters, join me, please.”
They moved with Shann to the altar and grouped loosely around it. Tristaine’s labrys rested on the black stone’s surface, and Brenna brushed her fingers across one rough blade, a comforting genuflection.
“As our warriors take up arms on their field of battle, we make our stand here.” Shann’s voice was low, but it reached Brenna clearly. “Call on your Mothers, dear ones, and prepare yourselves for whatever comes.”
The square was quieting around them as the last Amazons reached their assigned stations. The slick fog swirled wetly around their knees, and Brenna had to resist the persistent urge to scrub her feet against her calves.
Sammy stepped closer to Brenna. “Who said that?” she whispered.
Brenna looked at her, puzzled.
“Lady? Shann?” Dana’s voice was hushed. “Sorry, but shouldn’t we be calling in our allies? The Crone and the Mother and the Maiden?”
“They’re here, Dana.” Shann looked grim. “But they can’t materialize until Botesh herself enters this plane.”
Brenna touched her sister’s wrist. “Who said what, Sammy?”
J’heika, rise.
Brenna froze.
“Who said that?” Sammy frowned. “And who’s J’heika?”
Brenna couldn’t move. Jess threw her a quick look, her expression darkening. She drew her sword.
And the dead came to life around them.
*
A sinister growl filled the air, like the rending of snarled roots from blasted earth.
“Shann?” Brenna’s throat was dry as ash. “She’s coming.”
Strident whistles broke out almost simultaneously from three different directions. Brenna’s blood chilled as she recognized the identical signals of imminent attack. The ripping, groaning sounds resounded through the village, and, close by, Brenna heard a metallic clatter. She stepped back from the altar and pulled Samantha with her. The heavy labrys was vibrating violently, its twin blades beating a rapid-fire tattoo against the ancient rock.
“Sweet Gaia, lady.” Kyla’s voice was breathless. “The trees!”
Brenna spun, and the breath punched out of her lungs.
The inner ring of uniform trees t
hat encircled the village was encased in a gray light that began to pulse and shimmer. Human figures were emerging through the gnarled bark of each tree. All women—heavily armed Amazon warriors, their bodies convulsing in apparent agony. The tortured moans rose from their fight to wrench themselves free of their dense wood prisons, leaving the trees unscathed. Seeming fully human, the warriors’ faces were contorted in pain, their teeth bared in rage, and their eyes utterly insane.
“Jesstin, go.” Shann’s command came fast and clear. “The rest of you, hold here with me.”
“Lady.” Jess snapped her sword to point straight at Dana. “Dana, Brenna, you guard our queen’s life.” She paused on the brink of flight and faced Brenna, and her fingers moved in the subtle twirl that signaled an adonai’s love. Then Jess whirled and was gone, the rising fog swallowing her with unsettling abruptness.
The spectral invaders were moving out of the trees now and closing in around the village. That they were Amazon was evident at first sight. The glyphs marking their faces were foreign to Brenna, but she recognized their distinctive weapons, and the cut of their armor was an old guild design.
A harrowing wail rose from the ghost warriors, an ancient battle cry corrupted by their unholy resurrection. Their bloody screams were met at once by the rising tide of Tristaine’s vocal fury, as the cries of Shann’s Amazons rang their answering challenge. Brenna alone heard another sound—the monotonous, grieving undertone of an elderly woman’s weeping.
Battle broke fast, and it was intense and vicious. The illumination provided by the fire and the eerily luminous fog allowed Brenna to discern shapes, and she followed Jess’s streaking form with fierce concentration. Clashes broke out in rapid succession just outside the square, punishing hand-to-hand combat, and the undead Amazons matched Tristaine’s warriors in both ferocity and skill.
Jess was everywhere, and for whole minutes at a time Brenna’s fear for her surrendered to awe at the brutal grace of her dance. She fought with murderous precision, spinning from one opponent to the next, her sword cutting sizzling arcs. Brenna shuddered as Jess’s blade plunged deep into the chest of one phantom enemy, and Samantha clenched her arm.
They watched the ghost-warrior spasm on Jess’s sword, her arms splayed, and her eyes rolling whitely toward the night sky. Then the woman’s body crumbled to dust, solid bulk melting to powder in less than a second. Jess staggered, thrown by the sudden lack of resistance at the end of her blade. She stepped back from the pile of sand at her boots, stunned, then turned and raced toward her next prey.
“Did you see—?” Samantha stammered.
“Shann!” Brenna peeled Sammy’s fingers off her forearm.
“Yes, Brenna, these slaves of Botesh are mortal enough.” Shann had both hands on the altar, as if to contain its power. Her calm voice helped steady Brenna through the rising chaos around them. “It seems our ghoul is content to hide behind her slaves. She’ll not show her wretched face tonight.”
“Lady!” Kyla’s screamed warning came almost too late. The ghost-warrior roaring down on their right might have reached Shann, had Kyla not bolted past her and met the attack herself head-on.
The undead Amazon’s dozen braids whipped around her head, and her dark skin gleamed with sweat in spite of the night’s chill. She brandished two long daggers, and Brenna’s heart almost stopped as Kyla flew at the warrior and tackled her around the waist. Her momentum slammed them both to the ground, but the alien woman recovered quickly, twisting free of Kyla and kneeling for a strike to her unprotected back.
There was a rush of motion at Brenna’s side as Dana launched into the air, kicking off the altar for purchase and crashing bodily into the crouching Amazon. The two rolled free of Kyla, who scrambled to her feet, and Shann snatched her back out of harm’s way.
Dana’s features were fixed in a rictus as she twisted the leather thong of her sling around her enemy’s neck. The maniacal light faded slowly from the struggling warrior’s face, and in the dying moment before she shriveled to dust beneath Dana’s hands, Brenna saw her eyes fill with a pathetic gratitude.
Kyla shook off Shann’s concern and ran to kneel beside Dana. “Did she cut you?”
“No.” Dana sat back on her heels, staring at her empty hands. Kyla touched her face.
The fighting was well contained outside the perimeter of the square. No other attacker came close to breaching that boundary. War cries blended with clashing steel and the screams of the wounded in the trees beyond them. A distant, spiraling whistle sounded.
“The first wounded are being brought in.” Shann had to shout to be heard. “We’ll be needed in the healing lodge. It looks like clear passage, sisters, but move with care.”
“Shann, I want to join our healers in the field.” Brenna’s blood thrummed with an urgency to reach Jess. “I’ll see you and Sam safely there.”
“No, Brenna, you’re with me. Our most gravely injured will be brought to the lodge.”
“But, lady—”
“I said you’re with me. Dana, hold.” Shann caught Dana’s arm as she started to lift the double-headed labrys from the altar. “That stays here, adanin. Dyan’s blades will seal the lid of this vile creature’s tomb.” She swept off her white outer robe and wrapped it around a shivering Samantha. “We move, now!”
*
Her nearly human ears heard the guardian’s puling commands. Botesh fought to contain her ravenous fury.
It had been centuries. She could wait for one more dawn and the second rising of Thesmophoria’s moon.
She would savor the juices of this woman’s liver by its crimson light.
*
The fog lifted in the fading hours of the night, as did the smoke from a dozen small fires set by thrown torches. The air was clean and clear again, and the sky was lush with stars only beginning to fade in the predawn light.
Brenna sat beside Samantha on a log bench several yards from the healing lodge. The fighting was largely over now. They still heard whistles signaling brief skirmishes at the far reaches of the mesa, but they were few and scattered. The night’s battle was decided, and the sun would rise over a victorious Tristaine.
But at a horrendous price. Brenna rested her aching head in her hands and released a shaking sigh. There would be thirteen funeral pyres to build when this was over, if any in their clan lived to light them. And the final tally wasn’t in. Dozens more were terribly wounded. She had never seen such carnage.
Jess had not returned yet.
Beside her, Sammy made a distressed gulping sound, and Brenna sat up and laid a sympathetic hand on her sister’s leg. “You need to go again?”
“I might.” Sammy swallowed convulsively.
“It’s okay. Let fly. Just not on my boots, please.”
“No. No.” Samantha lifted a hand, her eyes closed. “I’m okay.”
Brenna rubbed small circles on Samantha’s back. “You sure?”
“Yeah. Just don’t burp me.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“A cigarette. God, Brenna. I’m sorry I made such a scene.”
“Sammy, no. You were amazing. You saw stuff in there that would choke a buzzard, and you hung in there with us all night. You really helped.”
“And I threw up,” Samantha sighed. “And fainted. Then I woke up and threw up again.”
“Sorry, the vomiting’s genetic.” Brenna checked Sammy’s color. She was glad Shann had signaled to take her outside during this lull in casualties. Her own fear and fatigue were receding enough to allow real concern for her sister. Sammy had seen more than the gruesome butchery of combat tonight. The sterile and secular worldview of the City they had grown up in didn’t allow for things like Amazon zombies. Brenna could only hope her own ability to absorb the bizarre without losing her sanity ran in the family too.
“Bree?” As if reading her mind, Samantha turned to her with a plaintive look. “Is it always so…intense around here?”
A bubble of laughter rose in Brenna�
��s throat and died there.
Jess was walking toward them, weaving slowly through a stand of poplars across from the lodge.
Brenna shot to her feet. Even by fading moonlight, Jess was covered in an appalling amount of gore. But she was upright and mobile and gazing at Brenna with weary relief.
“Jesstin!” Vicar’s shout was distant and ragged. “Bloody hell, Jess, stop!”
Jess lifted one blood-streaked arm toward Brenna and dropped to her knees.
Brenna’s heart staggered in her chest. She ran hard, but she wasn’t fast enough to catch Jess before she crumpled to the ground.
Chapter Ten
“Bloody half-wit.” Vicar paced the small cabin, her long step marred by a pronounced limp. “She wouldn’t stop, lady. I saw the damned cretin take a dozen strikes. She was gushing like a geyser.”
“Peace, Vicar.”
Brenna appreciated Shann’s stern tone. She already had too many faint-inducing images of Jess going down in her mind. She didn’t need to add geysers to her nightmares. She helped Shann shake out a thick fur and spread it over their patient, who was still trembling like an aspen.
At least she had Jess home. Tristaine’s healing lodge was crowded with wounded warriors, and the less critical cases were being taken to surrounding cabins. Brenna knew Jess would rest more easily here, in the oak bed fashioned by her own hands. And thanks to all the goddesses guiding Tristaine, her injuries didn’t require their healers’ constant care.
Jess was coming around again now, and Brenna sat on the bed and rested her hand against her bruised face. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Jess croaked. She started to sit up, and her eyes closed abruptly.
“Whoa, slow down, hotshot.” Brenna eased Jess back down and smoothed the warm pelt across her chest. “You’re home, Jess.”
Jess squinted up at her, and her face softened. “Aye, that I am.” She cleared her throat. “How long was I out?”
“It’s just after dawn, Jesstin.” Shann sat on the bed’s other side. “Can you stay with us a while? I know you’re in pain. We can give you some tea to help you sleep soon. But I need a brief council before we let you rest.”
Tristaine Rises Page 13
