Cold Steel (The Spiritwalker Trilogy)

by Kate Elliott

  We crept forward through the grounds of a little roadside temple dedicated to the patron of travelers, Mercury Cissonius with his rooster and goat. Not a single priest attended the altar. The basin for ablutions had been overturned. Six corpses sprawled on the road, buzzing with flies. Their pockets had been turned out and their weapons and kit ransacked. I found Lord Gwyn, quite dead. Worst, one man’s face was half ripped off as by the slashing bite of a big predator. A humble farmer’s cloth cap lay on the ground, pierced by a shard of glass.

  A thundering rumble rose and faded. A bird whistled in a waterfall of notes. Four trolls pushed out of the woods and onto the road. A fifth and sixth appeared on either side of the god’s statue in the temple. We were surrounded.

  No wonder no scouts or spies ever returned. Camjiata was using the feathered people as skirmishers to protect his lines and hide his army’s movements. I braced myself for their attack as Rory hissed beside me.

  A gust of wind rattled the branches. A drum rhythm paced through the woods. On its beat I heard a woman’s voice call out a verse, answered by a chorus of women singing the response.

  Man try to give yee money, what can he get?

  He can’t get nothing. Especially no kiss!

  “Wait!” I said, brandishing my sword. “Look!”

  They slewed their heads around. We all looked south to a bend in the road.

  A column of soldiers marched into view, although they were almost dancing, so proud and mighty were they, and every single one a woman.

  Four drummers led them while a fifth struck a bell, the drummers prancing and stepping on their way with every bit of flash and grin that any young man could muster. Their shakos were as jaunty as my own. All wore uniform jackets of dark green cloth piped with silver braid. Some wore trousers, while others preferred petticoat-less skirts tailored for striding. Most wore stout marching sandals laced along the length of the calf, brown legs and black legs and white legs flashing beneath skirts tied up to the knee. Four lancers walked in the first rank, tasseled spears held high, while the rest carried rifles and swords. A banner streamed on the wind: It depicted an antlered woman drawing a bow.

  Amazons.

  I took a step toward them before I knew I meant to. The rhythm beat right down into my heart. Was this not my inheritance as Tara Bell’s daughter?

  One of the djembe drums sang out a command. The other drums dropped to a waiting rhythm as the column halted in perfect precision. The woman holding the hand-bell caught sight of me, and she winked just as if she were flirting. Her smile had such a saucy cheer that I winked back.

  A sergeant strode out to confer in a perfectly natural way with the trolls. She was short and stocky, Taino in looks but an Expeditioner in speech. After a discussion, the trolls gave a last and perhaps regretful look at my sword and bounded away into the trees.

  The sergeant approached me, keeping her pistol leveled at the big cat. “What manner of traveler is yee, gal, for that shako give yee a bit of the look of an Amazon. Where came yee from? Yee cannot be local folk, for I never saw such a cat in these parts before this day.”

  “General Camjiata will give you a reward for bringing us to him.”

  She smiled. “Will he, now? Do yee mean to walk into headquarters carrying naked steel?”

  Reluctantly I sheathed my sword.

  “Cat! Rory!” A tall gal streaked out of the column and slammed into Rory so hard that he staggered. She turned from him to embrace me. Tears glistened in her eyes. “What happened to yee? Did yee find Vai? I thought sure we should never see yee again!”

  I gaped at her. “Luce? What are you doing here?”

  Her joyful expression turned wary as she drew herself up defiantly. “Yee’s not the only gal who can go adventuring. I enlisted with the general’s army. I’s an Amazon now.”

  “Trooper! Return to your place!”

  “Wait, I beg you, Sergeant,” I said. “This soldier can vouch for me and my… pet. She knew me in Expedition. I worked waiting tables at her grandmother’s boardinghouse. Then I had to leave Expedition in order to rescue my husband. Which I did,” I added with a glance at Luce.

  “Yee don’ say,” said the sergeant with a narrowing of the eyes. “Is yee by any chance that maku what punched a shark?”

  Luce laughed.

  It isn’t conceit if it’s true.

  “Why, yes. I am.”

  “Peradventure yee’s come to join the Amazons, is yee?” She nodded at my cane. “Which yee cannot do if yee has a husband. Tch! No call to go wasting yee own self on a man, if yee ask me. Trooper, commandeer a cadre and escort her to headquarters, if yee reckon the cat is tame.”

  “Don’ worry about the cat, Sergeant,” said Luce, rubbing Rory’s head as he purred most shamelessly. “He’s easy to please.”

  The sergeant considered this display. With a shrug she whistled sharply. The drums rolled back into marching mode. We stepped off the road to allow the Amazons to pass. How they strutted with us for an audience, or maybe because they always did. I might have marched with them! But a different life had burst like an exploding cannon in my face, with its shrapnel of complications. Their life was not meant for me, and as they marched north out of my sight, a part of me regretted it.

  39

  Five gals peeled off from the column to gather beside Luce. They were strapping young women who looked as if they’d gotten bored of working in the factories or out on the farm and fancied adventure over marriage. I dug Rory’s clothes out of my satchel and shook out a pagne as a screen. Behind the cotton cloth he changed and dressed, then stepped into view to the exclamations of the gals. He offered them his most promiscuous smiles.

  “Rory, you can’t just smile like that at strangers,” I muttered.

  “Why not? I saw you wink at that bell-playing woman!”

  With a brilliant grin Luce took hold of his hand. “Here is Cat and Rory, the ones I have spoken so much of. We’s to escort them to headquarters!”

  She told us their names. The way the gals enthusiastically greeted us recalled me to the free and easy manners of Expedition gals, and how much I had enjoyed their friendship. We left the dead behind as crows descended to investigate.

  Luce set a brisk pace as we walked along the verge, heading south. She had filled out, as tall as me now and with broader shoulders. With her black hair cropped short and a scar across one cheek, she had a piratical look that would have been at home on the airship with Nick Blade and the Hyena Queen. Carrying rifle and kit, she looked every bit the soldier, but I could not shake the girl from my mind. I could not stop myself from scolding her.

  “How could you break your family’s heart by running off?”

  “Yee reckon yee get to have a heartsome beloved and run off to rescue him while the rest of us shall bide at home waiting? And meanwhile yee tell yee brother not to touch me so he say no to me while he go off with other folk? I’s of age! Free to act as I wish! Especially after yee just left like that, just vanished, telling not a single person goodbye!”

  “The opia stole Rory! I had to go after him!”

  “’Tis always yee, Cat.” She punched me so hard on the shoulder I staggered sideways as her comrades laughed. I was startled by how strong she was. “Yee punch sharks. Yee escape from Salt Island. Yee have a fine man to court yee despite the two-faced way yee treated him. Yee attract the notice of the commissioner of the wardens and of the infamous general, too! Young men came to drink at the boardinghouse because yee was waiting tables and they all loved to flirt with yee, and women likewise, not that yee ever noticed Diantha’s attentions in that way, did yee? Always, ’tis about yee! What was left for the likes of me? Yee know I love yee, Cat. Yee know I love me family. But I reckon I wasn’ about to spend the rest of me life in me grandma’s boardinghouse! Now I shall not!”

  “Is this the sweetheart yee left behind?” asked one of the gals. To my surprise she indicated me.

  “I’m Luce’s sweetheart,” cried Rory indignantly. �
��Aren’t I, Luce?”

  Luce sighed as at an old jest. Her comrades laughed.

  “Rory,” I said, “I believe that when a woman signs up to join the Amazon Corps, she swears an oath to engage in no sexual congress with a man for the term of her service.”

  “Oh!” He favored Luce with a sad smile that made her laugh with her old girlish delight, but a bolder, wiser look creased her smile now. “Well, then, Cat, that means you can’t join the general’s army, can you? For I’m certain you are not willing to give up—”

  “Yes, yes, Rory. That’s enough of that.”

  “If yee got Vai back, where is he, Cat?”

  “He’s being held prisoner by his mage House.” I hated to lie to her, but I could not risk the truth. “That’s why we’ve come. But tell me your story, Luce!”

  The chance to tell her tale distracted her from my own. This grand and horrifying narrative beguiled me for several hours as we walked south. Files of infantry passed us in good order, mixed with cannon pulled by horses and the occasional baggage wagon. A column of Expeditioners called out to the gals in a familiar way. A company of Taino soldiers marched in silence. Iberians strode along with a fierce demeanor, armed with rifles and their famous falcatas, the short swords that had driven back the first Roman invasion of Iberia two thousand years ago. Many tipped their caps to Luce and her cadre as a sign of respect.

  We passed a lively column of pale Celts with lime-whitened short-spiked hair and their cousins and brothers of mixed and Mande blood wearing their dark hair in the same spiky style. “Here’s to the heroines of Burdigala!” they called. “The drink’s on us next time! And Rufus here wants his balls back!”

  “We ate them already!” retorted one of the gals, to general shouts of laughter.

  “Cooked or raw?” asked Rory, and they hooted and whistled in approval.

  “What happened at Burdigala?” I asked.

  “I must tell the tale in the order it happened so yee can comprehend the whole!” Luce said with a laugh, enjoying my rapt attention.

  At a humble crossroads we turned east. Luce was finally telling me about the tumultuous siege of Burdigala. She had just related the thrilling episode of how Elephant Barca’s skirmishers had arrived in the dark of night to take the Coalition from the rear—a source of crude joking among the gals that even made Rory blush—when we came into sight of the town of Stampae.

  The town crawled with soldiers. What a flood of cannon and rifles and troops! A large encampment was coming down even though it was very late afternoon. Out beyond the camp lay freshly dug graves. Wounded soldiers leaning on crutches or with bandages wrapped around chests or heads waited stoically outside canvas tents marked with a caduceus.

  Luce led us past an inn crowded with soldiers taking a drink or a piss, for the smell of urine penetrated everywhere. The town market hall had a marble façade and Roman-style pillars, while a low wall set off a dusty area where an outdoor market could be held. This expanse boiled with young women at exercises conducted with sticks the length of rifles.

  Local men loitered at the fence. No one uttered a single teasing word or taunting call, although now and again a comment brushed up between them.

  “Look at those shoulders! She must have wrestled bulls back on the farm!”

  “Everyone knows women are a cursed sight meaner than men. I heard at Lemovis they plowed down a division of the crack Arverni militia, just crushed ’em. Cut their balls right off.”

  “We go around back,” said Luce, rolling her eyes as her cadre hurried ahead. “If I shall have to hear one more idiot babbling about Amazons cutting off men’s balls, I shall cut off his eggs just to prove ’tis no empty tale! I have heard that story a hundred times since I joined up! I wish they would just leave it be.”

  “It sounds very painful,” observed Rory.

  “’Tis not true!” she cried.

  He frowned. “You don’t love me like you used to, Luce. You used to purr at the sight of me.”

  She patted his arm. “That was a long time ago, Rory, and don’ think yee kisses weren’t delicious. But I’ve a sweetheart now, and anyway no time for men.”

  “How can anyone have no time for men?” he muttered, looking a bit peevish.

  “Where is the general?” I asked.

  “Why, this is the headquarters. The Amazon Corps is seconded to the command division. We’s not regular army like the rest.”

  A woman dressed in the Amazon uniform and armed with sword and pistol emerged from the market hall with a brisk gait I recognized. Captain Tira changed course to intercept us. Luce and her cadre halted to salute.

  “Washed up, did yee?” Captain Tira looked me up and down. She was a maku even by Europan standards, with sun-worn skin, hair as black as my own, and eyes that spoke of ancestors in far Cathay where, legend had it, a dragon emperor ruled. Maybe the stories were true! Whatever her origins, she was Camjiata’s loyal soldier through and through. “Is the gal brought as a prisoner, or of she own wish?” she said to Luce.

  “Of my own wish,” I said.

  “Yee shall come with me, then. Trooper, yee lot shall return to yee company. Dismissed.”

  Just like that, we were parted. Under Captain Tira’s stern eye we dared not even embrace.

  “Take care, Luce,” I said, hoping my look spoke my heart.

  “I shall find yee,” she promised. They loped off, settling into a brisk jog.

  The captain led us into the long, lofty market hall. By a tiled stove, the general sat in a chair receiving reports and visitors. Five clerks occupied a table, writing busily without looking up. A striking group they were: a Taino woman, a feathered person, an old Iberian man, a thin Celt, and a curly-haired Kena’ani scribe.

  Seeing me, Camjiata rose in surprise. “Catherine Bell Barahal! One account had you eaten by wolves, while another said the opia had stolen you. Yet here you are, looking hale and hearty and in company with your mysterious brother. I am glad of it, for I would be sorry to know you were gone. But I see no cold mage, as I had thought to do. Nor is Beatrice with you.” He examined me with a compassionate gaze that made me want to punch him. “Be sure you will always have a home with me if you are lost or bereaved or abandoned.”

  I had never met a man who could speak in such sentimental platitudes and yet have it sound so genuine and unforced. It was one of the most irritating things about him. Indeed, it irritated me so much that all the clever, cunning wiles I’d meant to weave fled straight out of my mind. “Do you have my father’s journals? You stole them, just as you stole Bee’s sketchbook!”

  He dropped his gaze to the floor with a smile that made me instantly suspicious, as if he guessed the entirety of my plan. Then he looked up. “Have you come to demand them back? Or were you captured by my soldiers? What scheme have you in mind?”

  “My husband has been taken prisoner by his own mage House. Rory and I escaped and have fled in the hope you will take us in and help us rescue him.” As I spoke the words, I felt how false they sounded.

  “What of Beatrice?”

  “Her honeyed voice is raised on your behalf among the radicals.”

  “Raised on my behalf, but not in my presence. You would think she no longer trusts me with her dreams.”

  Never let it be said I could not think on my feet! “Her words prepare the way for you better than dreams!”

  “It’s true the Gallic towns and villages have proven more amenable than I had dared hope. I am sure it is due to the efforts of my radical allies agitating among the farmers and craftsmen and householders who will benefit the most once my legal code is proclaimed.”

  “To say laws are in place is not the same as having them enforced.”

  “Indeed, and thus our current conflict, no?” His Iberian lilt had gotten stronger.

  “And another thing,” I added. “Is Prince Haübey with you?”

  “I would prefer to continue this conversation in a more private setting before—too late.”

  A
frown darkened his face so quickly that as it smoothed into a neutral expression I wondered if I had mistaken it. I turned. Rory put a hand on my arm to hold me back as James Drake sauntered up the center of the hall.

  “I couldn’t believe what I just heard, and yet it is true. Cat Barahal! Washed up where she’s not wanted.”

  He had a lovely woman on his arm. She wore a lemon-yellow gown trimmed with ribbons that looked fabulously well on her voluptuous figure, for she had the same sort of curves as Bee. Six soldiers wearing uniforms marked with the ship’s mast of Armorica attended as an honor guard. Behind them swaggered four youths garbed in red dash jackets meant to look bold; two were girls, wearing skirts, reminding me of the girl who had died in the forest. Behind them shuffled six men weighted with heavy iron cuffs; they were uniformed in ugly jackets tailored out of a ghastly red-and-white fabric so ill cut that they made Drake look like quite the most fashionable man in the hall. Which of course he was, because he was wearing one of Vai’s dash jackets, a gold damask that shone like flame. It was one of the garments Bee had been forced to leave behind when she’d fled the general’s fleet in Sharagua.

  I only realized I had taken a step forward when Rory yanked me to a halt.

  In a murmur Camjiata said, “Not for that, Cat. Choose your blows wisely.”

  “That’s an exceptionally lovely dash jacket, Drake,” I said. “Too bad it doesn’t fit you.”

  “This isn’t the last thing that belongs to him I’ll soon be slipping inside.” He released his inamorata without a backward glance and had the gall to pace once around us, looking me over as if I were livestock for sale in the market. “You didn’t appear at the standing inquiry in Expedition. So you were found guilty in absentia of the murder of the honored cacica. The sentence for murderers is life servitude in the cane fields or as a catch-fire.”

  A glamour of light pulsed as the unlit lamps along the walls flared. Folk murmured in awe and fear. They would have been even more frightened had they seen what I could see. A mist-like glamour writhed around Drake’s body. Wisps like threads of spun light poured off him and created a lacework pattern through the lofty hall and into the six iron-cuffed men. One flinched, one cowered, one wept, and three stared with dull resentment. They all glowed as they channeled the backlash of his fire magic and poured it out of harm’s way. In truth it was impressive to see how skillfully Drake parted the flood of his magic into six smaller streams, no one of them strong enough to overwhelm any single man.