Queens of Tristaine

by Cate Culpepper

  “Our queen grows weaker, j’heika.” A tear wended its way down Elise’s high cheek and dropped into the basin between them. “See our home.”

  The clear water swirled, and suddenly Brenna stood in the center of Tristaine’s village square.

  It seemed to be a full clan gathering, and somehow Brenna knew it was happening now, as she slept in Jess’s arms. Perhaps not a full meeting—Brenna saw about two-thirds of Tristaine’s number sitting on the log benches lining the square. Her stomach gave a nasty lurch, and then she realized the missing Amazons couldn’t all be sick—those who were ill needed caretakers.

  Brenna’s sleeping senses were overwhelmed. Here, in this corridor between spiritual planes, she could feel every emotion coursing through the four hundred hearts around her. There was ragged tension in the women’s silence, and Brenna saw armed warriors standing at intervals throughout the benches. That sight shriveled her soul more than the coming of the plague. Amazons prepared to lift arms against their sisters.

  She sought out Shann with something like desperation and found her, seated on an elevated, high-backed chair at one end of their circle. The fact that Shann didn’t stand before her Amazons told Brenna all she needed to know about her mother’s health. Oisin and Jackson, the warriors Jess had praised, stood protectively on either side of her throne.

  “The force used last night was unforgivable, lady!” Bethany was not addressing the queen, but the clan. Outrage sparked her eyes as she turned in a slow circle to include all present. “When did Tristaine become an accursed police state?”

  “We suffered one broken ankle, Bethany, when Martine wouldn’t stop running and Jackson had to sling her legs.” Shann’s complexion looked gray to Brenna, but she sat with graceful posture and apparent ease, her hands folded in her lap. There was a slight threadiness to her voice, and she had to work hard to produce the volume needed to reach all ears. “Don’t portray last night’s foolish skirmish as a bloodbath, sister. You and your guild had clear warning not to try to leave the mesa.”

  “You’re lucky you weren’t all skewered on Dyan’s labrys, Bethany!” Sara’s cracked snarl sounded behind Brenna, and she slumped in relief. Shann’s eldest Councilor was still hearty and hale. “And I’ll gouge out your liver myself if you pull such a mutton-brained stunt again!”

  “Your warriors can’t be everywhere, Shann, not with so many of them down with this fever.” Bethany was treading dangerous ground now, Brenna could see it in the stiffness of the women watching her. “We’ll get our children out. By one’s and two’s, if we have to. You can’t stop—”

  “All right, I’ve heard enough of this codswallop.” Shasa stood on the other side of the circle, one of Kyla’s close friends in the artists’ guild. “You can’t just defy the word of the Queen of Tristaine, Bethany, Shann guides us all. And you definitely bloody hell can’t address our lady with such blatant disrespect, not in my hearing!”

  Shouts of agreement rose, many of them. But Brenna heard other voices too, some pleading, some angry. She saw three women arguing with Aria, whose smiling, crossed-arm charm budged not an inch. Thank Gaia their lady had these strong sisters to back her.

  Shann waited until the noise subsided, biding her time. Brenna realized she needed it to gather her strength.

  “Amazons have walked the earth for centuries, adanin.” Shann rose smoothly, showing no sign of infirmity, her voice strong and clear. “Tristaine is the last of Artemis’s daughters, Her last Amazon clan. We will not implode from within after defeating generations of powerful enemies!”

  The gathering was quiet, watching Shann avidly, and Brenna saw Oisin and Jackson exchange looks of relief.

  “Sisters, believe me when I tell you the medicine from the City offers our children, and all of us, our greatest hope. We must give Jess and our sisters time.” Shann’s expression darkened again. “And they will bring the cure home to a family of Amazons, strong and united, not a gaggle of frightened, vicious alley cats. Do you hear me, adanin?”

  “We hear, Shann!” A hundred women roared in answer—not all or nearly all, but enough for now, Brenna hoped.

  “While we prattle here, our orchards go untended.” Shann wisely turned them to practicalities. “We still have animals to feed and crops to tend and ill to nurse. Our council here is finished. Let’s be about Tristaine’s business.”

  Shann made her way back to her throne as her clan began to rise and filter from the square. She lowered herself to the chair’s cushioned seat, her eyes closing. The usual small crowd of Amazons gathered around her, hoping for a moment of private council.

  “Can you hear me, Brenna?” Shann whispered.

  Startled, knowing she was invisible, Brenna leaned closer to Shann’s lowered head. “Come back to us soon, Blades. Your sisters are frightened, and this rebellion is far from over.”

  Brenna wanted desperately to touch her mother’s hand, but knew she could not. She murmured reassurance she knew Shann couldn’t hear. “We’re coming, lady. Please hang on.”

  *

  Selene was just beginning her fading descent into sunrise when Jess shook Brenna gently awake. The twittering music of morning larks reached her as she fought off sleep and sat up, wincing at the painful bruise on her hip.

  “Bren? Have a look at Vicar.”

  Jess sounded calm, but Brenna’s eyes flew fully open. Vicar was sitting up, braced by Hakan’s arm. Brenna could see her shaking from ten feet away. She went quickly to Vicar and knelt beside her.

  “How are you, Vic?” Brenna felt Vicar’s forehead, which was clammy and cool.

  “She woke a moment ago, cold as Hera’s tit.” Hakan’s usually courtly language had deserted her. She shifted to keep from brushing Vicar’s bandaged shoulder.

  “Vicar?” Brenna said softly, measuring her rapid pulse.

  “It’s just the shakes.” Vicar successfully quelled any trembling in her voice.

  Brenna looked up at Jess, her hands prickling with dread. Fever would follow, if the pattern in Tristaine held true. Vicar’s eyes were already hollow and glassy. “This might be more serious than chills, Vic.”

  Vicar cursed, but didn’t try to refute her. “Jesstin, I have to be able to ride. Brenna can dose me with what remedies we have to keep me upright.”

  “No, cousin.” Jess knelt and touched Vicar’s leg. “You can’t ride with us. Between the bullet and the flu, you’ll lose strength fast.”

  “Jesstin—” But Vicar broke off, and she and Jess locked eyes. Brenna sensed an intense communication pass between them, the same kind of silent exchange she often shared with Jess. She watched Vicar absorb the knowledge that she had to stay back. It must be killing her to accept it.

  “She can’t stay up here alone, Jesstin,” Hakan said.

  Jess turned, and Brenna followed her gaze to Jenny and Eva, who sat quietly talking with Kyla near their packs. “Eva is a nurse. She and Jenny can tend Vic here.”

  Kyla nodded, and she and Jenny and Eva got up and joined them. None of them looked as if they’d slept much.

  “Vicar, I’m so sorry you’re ill.” Eva crouched and patted Vicar’s foot. “I’ll do everything I can to help Brenna make you comfortable. But Jenny and I think we should go with the rest of you down to the City.”

  “What?” Brenna was sure she hadn’t heard correctly.

  “We can help.” Jenny folded her arms against the dawn’s chill. “We know the City’s layout, and where guard stations are posted much better than any of you, Jess. Really, your map’s almost useless. We can help you reach your friend’s trailer safely.” Jenny looked a little pale, but when she smiled her eyes lit up. “To put it plainly, we want to be Amazons. This is our chance to earn our stripes.”

  “Jenny, you guys just escaped from that madhouse!” Dana draped her jacket around Kyla’s shoulders. “Honest, you don’t have to pass an entrance exam to join Tristaine. They didn’t make me.”

  “Your sister, Jen,” Kyla urged quietly.

&n
bsp; “Oh, right,” Jenny said. “Brenna, Kyla told us you need to try to find your niece, who might have been placed in a Youth Home. My sister is a social worker in the City. Maybe she can help find this little girl.”

  “But…” Brenna trailed off as she felt Jess’s touch on her arm.

  Jess was studying their faces, and then she nodded. “Hakan, you’ll stay here with Vicar. Jenny and Eva will come with us.”

  Hakan’s mouth fell open. “Jesstin!”

  “You know enough about tending to watch over Vic, adanin. And a much better chance of fighting off any attack than Jenny and Eva would have. We’re close enough to the City that we risk another patrol. You can defend her if one comes this way.”

  Vicar made a withering spitting noise, which Hakan ignored. When she spoke, her tone was respectful. “But you’ll need backup, Jess.”

  “That’s still you.” Jess checked the position of the sun. “If we find that transport, we should be back by tomorrow’s dawn. If two days pass, consider us captured or lost, Hakan. That would mean leaving Vicar, and going down alone. You’d be our last hope of getting that cure to Tristaine.”

  Hakan swallowed visibly. “I hear, Jesstin.”

  Brenna tried to reel in her chaotic thoughts, still fogged with her sleeping vision of Shann and the village. As always when she needed to center herself, she reached for Jess’s hand. We look to her with such trust, Brenna thought. We all count on this one brave warrior to lead us safely through this nightmare. It’s just the salvation of her clan. And I wonder why she can’t sleep.

  Jess smiled down at her, then went to Eva and Jenny. “In our queen’s name, we thank you both for your help. You show great courage in taking on this quest.”

  “Now, please don’t let us fuck up.” Jenny sighed, and Eva chuckled nervous agreement.

  “Let’s break camp.” Jess bent and tossed a folded blanket to Dana. “Leave two rifles and our food stock here with our sisters.”

  Brenna went to her satchel and took out several packets, then sat beside Hakan and Vicar. “Here, Hakan. Make a tea of this, using about this much. Vicar, I want you to drink a cup every six hours.” Vic was still shaking, and Brenna helped Hakan adjust a blanket around her. “We’ll bring you your own personal dose of that remedy very soon, Vic.”

  “Aye, Bigfoot.” Jess knelt at Vicar’s other side. “We’ll test the cure out on you, to ensure it’s not poison.”

  “Jesstin.” There was no humor in Vicar’s voice, and her brogue was low and grating. She clasped Jess’s wrist, and in that moment, Brenna thought the two warriors were alone together in these high wilds.

  “They raped our mothers, Jess.” Vicar jutted her chin toward the City. “Them, down there. For generations, they’ve hunted us. They murdered our sisters, and they murder them still. They took Dyan from us. And young Camryn.”

  Brenna shivered. Jess’s features were growing as stony and feral as Vicar’s.

  “Strike without mercy, Jesstin, if they try to stop you.” Vic grasped Jess’s collar. “With a righteous heart and a vengeful arm that seeks only the Goddess’s justice. Bring down the rage of Artemis on the enemies of Tristaine if they bar your path.”

  Jess’s hand covered Vicar’s, still clenching her collar, and Brenna saw the words run deep in her. Then Jess looked at Hakan.

  “Our Mothers grant your safety, adanin. You’ll see us again soon.”

  *

  “What is that?” Dana sniffed the air, then held her injured nose. “What’s that bloody stench?”

  “The City,” Jess replied tersely. She’d been smelling it since they emerged from the forest. Shann was right. Memories were revived more vividly by smells than by sight, and she was not enjoying hers.

  “Man, you really can smell it all the way from here.” Jenny’s nose crinkled. “I didn’t realize the City air had gotten that bad.”

  Dana took another cautious whiff, then spat on the ground. “What’d they do down there, bomb all the smelters?”

  “The City stank just like this the whole time you lived there, Dana m’dear.” Kyla slipped the green army jacket over Dana’s shoulders and buttoned it shut. “You’ve just had a few years of pure mountain air to blow the poison out of your lungs. I remember it smelling this bad the first time Cam and I got close.”

  “It’s auto exhaust and pollution and chemical waste. And fear.” Brenna was lacing her boot closed with quick, tense snaps. “You don’t notice it if you’re breathing it in every day. I’d forgotten too, Dana.”

  Jess saw that the sun had cleared the eastern ridge behind them. “Let’s finish this, adanin. We need to get on the road.”

  They had found the Army transport easily enough. The boot tracks of the soldiers were clearly marked on the dusty trail. Rather than jeeps, the patrol had ridden into the hills in a large, canopied Army truck, a dark muddy green, with white stars painted on each door. The set of keys they had taken from a dead officer cranked its engine to life.

  They had taken the soldiers’ light jackets, too—the ones not too visibly darkened with blood—and Jess’s broad shoulders strained against the scratchy fabric. She helped Brenna button her own jacket, knowing she shared her discomfort wearing clothing so recently owned by the dead.

  “Eva, Jenny, one of you should ride in front to guide us.” Jess went to the back of the truck, figured out the latch, and lowered the rear gate. The bed was lined with two short metal benches. “The rest of us will stow away here.”

  She whistled to Dana and lofted the keys to her. Dana snatched them out of the air with one hand, grinning. “You might be able to outrun me on a mustang, Jesstin, but I’m a maniac behind a wheel!”

  “We’re counting on it.” Jess helped Brenna take the high step up into the truck’s bed, then assisted Kyla and Jenny before jumping in herself. Immediately it felt like the canopy-shrouded interior was closing in on her. It took more effort than it should have to pull up the gate, latch it, and tie the canvas covering over its bolts. Jess settled on a hard bench next to Brenna, facing Jenny and Kyla, and started the breathing exercises Dyan had taught her to ground herself.

  Dana slid open the panel that separated the front seats from the bed of the truck. “Listen, there are no seatbelts back there, and we’ll be going over rough terrain. Hold on to what you can.”

  The truck’s engine sputtered to life, and Jess braced herself for a lurch. But Dana backed the transport around smoothly and then accelerated down a small hill. In spite of their driver’s skill, the women in the back had to brace themselves as they gained speed, and Jess slid her arm around Brenna’s waist to anchor her.

  Dana drove all out. The greenery of the foothills gave way quickly to the sandy, gently sloping terrain that lay between the mountains and the City. They covered ground in minutes that had taken Jenny and Eva long, laborious hours to cross on foot. Jess closed her eyes and thanked the Goddess for smiling on Tristaine at last. This truck would save them entire days of travel.

  Brenna’s fingers curled around hers, her touch as welcome as warm water on her hands after a cold night’s hunt. Her adonai’s lovely smile was tired, but soft with affection. “Good morning, Jesstin. We never got around to saying that.” Brenna had to raise her voice to be heard over the clattering of the transport. “I’d kiss you, but I’m afraid we’d hit a ravine and I’d knock out your teeth.”

  “I might want to risk it.” Jess blew a tuft of hair gently out of Brenna’s eyes. “Good morning, querida.”

  “So, we’re hoping a bunch of rabid Amazons can pass for City soldiers for ten seconds?” Brenna asked. “Long enough to get past that guard post?”

  “That’s what we’re hoping.” Jess braced Brenna as the truck took a jarring bounce. Jenny and Kyla steadied each other quickly. “Dana has a fair shot at it. She knows the Army’s lingo. With Gaia’s luck, we’ll be taken for yesterday’s patrol, checking back in.”

  “And if there’s trouble,” Jenny said gravely, looking at the rifle tucked behind Je
ss’s feet, “we’ll shoot it out, if we have to.”

  “We’ll be fine, Jen.” Kyla slipped a companionable arm around her. “If anything happens, just do whatever Jess says. Like, right away.”

  The landscape flew past the small, plastic-shielded windows near the bed’s roof. They had a good hour of this rocky ride ahead, and Jess shifted to ease her lower back. Brenna sat with her eyes closed, and Jess figured she was still so spent after last night’s scant rest, she might doze off in spite of the rattling truck.

  A quiet urgency rose suddenly in Jess. She frowned a moment, puzzled. She wasn’t usually prone to phantom impulses, but she decided to abide this one. “Brenna.”

  “Hmm?” Brenna opened her eyes at once.

  “You own my whole heart, Bren.” Jess turned on the bench, needing to see her face. “I love you more than my life.”

  “Jesstin.” Brenna smiled and drew her head back a bit, as if to see Jess more clearly. “Thank you, adonai. But where did that—”

  “Just needed to be said, I guess.”

  Jenny was looking politely away, but Kyla smiled at them openly.

  “You guys are so great.” There was a sweet poignancy in Kyla’s tone that Jess heard even over the rumbling of the engine. Her little sister’s features were soft and sad. “You two have the love every Amazon ever born dreams about, you know that?”

  “You’ve felt that kind of love, Ky.” Brenna touched Kyla’s knee. “You know if you find a woman worthy of it, she’ll change your life forever.”

  “Jesstin?” Dana knocked on the front panel, and Jess saw Kyla start. “Eva has us headed toward the entrance by the north access road, the one with the smallest guard post. We should pick it up pretty soon.”

  “Aye, Dana.” Jess swallowed past a rawness in her throat, missing the canteen she’d left at their base camp. “Signal when we’re close.”

  *

  Army units patrolled the outer perimeter of the City limits constantly. The vast bureaucracy of Homeland Security had achieved what its shortsighted Citizens thought they wanted—all possible protection against foreign terrorists. But even their willingness to sacrifice basic human rights in the name of safety hadn’t rendered the City immune to penetration.