Battle for Tristaine

by Cate Culpepper

  Brenna’s own single unit in the City would have gone aesthetically barren if it hadn’t been for Sammy’s gifts. Politics were partially to blame. Once Homeland Security became more important than civil rights in the City, many forms of creative expression fell under Government regulation. There simply wasn’t a lot of art around, especially not to hang on walls.

  But Brenna had spent most of her City adulthood looking at her unit through the bottom of a wineglass, so she hadn’t been too inclined toward interior decoration anyway. Now, the richness and diversity of the designs in Jess’s lodge amazed her.

  Brenna yawned against her shoulder. “Let me take a look at you before we go?”

  “Nah. I’m creaky, but I’m all right.”

  Brenna looked up at her. “The migration’s today.”

  “Aye.” A sigh moved through Jess’s long form. “The first wave leaves in a few hours.”

  “Ah, Jesstin,” Brenna murmured.

  “I know.” Jess rested her lips in Brenna’s hair again. Then she dropped her hand and slapped her butt. “Meet Vic and me outside. Five minutes.”

  *

  Sometimes the craving for it had been a raw ache in the back of her throat, especially when she was tense or scared. The temptation to seek out the sweet, sick haze liquor provided might always haunt Brenna, but she wouldn’t give in to it again.

  Brenna was breathing a little hard when she reached Vicar. The other woman had her shoulder braced against a pine, her arms folded, and her long legs crossed at the ankle. She didn’t look up as Brenna reached her, but a muscle in her jaw flexed.

  “Hey,” Brenna panted, for lack of anything better to say.

  “You’ll feel easier with someone on your left.” Vicar pushed off the pine and walked between Brenna and the sheer ledge. She strolled with an insolent ease that mortified Brenna all the more.

  “Sorry about this.” Brenna scowled at her feet. “Someday, I’d like to talk to you when I’m not expecting to fall off a cliff. I’m not always such a nit, Vicar, I promise.”

  Vicar said nothing, which Brenna found disconcerting. She let it pass. It was a beautiful morning. When she could force herself to look into the canyon, she saw striations of colors in the rock walls, colors she didn’t even have names for.

  “So, Brenna. You’ve met Theryn.”

  Brenna glanced at Vicar. “Last night, yeah.”

  “You two going to be friends, then?”

  “I think Theryn’s fooling herself if she believes she can bargain with the City. I told her as much.” Brenna actually did feel safer having Vicar between her and the drop. And she preferred her questions to her silence.

  “You worked with Caster? At this Clinic?”

  “Right.”

  “And you made decent money in the City?”

  “For a Medical Technician, yeah.” Brenna was starting to pant again as the trail steepened. She waited.

  “A Government Medical Technician. You helped with Jesstin’s…experiment, then.”

  “Yes.” She looked up at Vicar again. “Ask me whatever you need to. I understand. But get around to asking if I love her, okay?”

  Vicar’s eyes were measuring. “Do you?”

  “With my whole heart.”

  They climbed silently for a while.

  “Jesstin’s my cousin,” Vicar said. “Our mothers were blood sisters.”

  “No wonder you two are so—”

  “I’d kill or die for her, Brenna. Our lady needs Jess, and so do Tristaine’s warriors. You might prove to be our true adanin. I’ll give ye every chance of that. And I’ll protect you from any threat, because you’re Jesstin’s lady. But I’ll be watchin’ you too, lass.”

  They were nearing Jess, who waited for them at the top of the trail. Brenna simply nodded at Vicar, then surprised them both by resting her hand on her corded forearm for a moment.

  “Were you able to counsel young Vicar on that regrettable bedwettin’ problem, Bren?” Jess called.

  Brenna didn’t dare smile, but Vicar emitted an amused snort. “Does she look sound, Stumpy?”

  “Aye, she does.”

  The “she” Jess and Vicar referred to, apparently, was the huge earthen dam, supported by both wooden beams and mortar, which walled off one end of a large mountain lake. The water lapped peacefully against it, confident of its solid support.

  Brenna stopped short, astonished by the unexpected majesty of the lake. It stretched beyond sight, curving behind a protruding islet of conifers in the distance. The glassy surface reflected the brilliant blue of the sky overhead like an inverted bowl, and Brenna was struck speechless again.

  Some part of her spirit mourned for the residents of the City, most of whom would grow old without ever crossing its electrified fences. She thought of the child Sammy carried, who would never see such a lake.

  “Did Amazons build this?” Brenna was awestruck, and for a moment, Jess just looked at her, smiling a little. Then she nodded.

  “Our grandmothers built it, generations ago. It was the work of the first thirty years we lived on this land.”

  “Where—?” Brenna kept looking from the dam to the ponderous lake it contained. “Where did they learn engineering?”

  “Amazons helped design the pyramids,” Vicar muttered. “We’ve never needed City men to build our beds. Or anything else.”

  The scorn in her tone was hard to ignore, and Jess threw her cousin a quizzical look. “Did the bairn keep you up last night? What’s the matter with you?”

  Vicar shrugged an apology at Brenna.

  “Bren?” Jess held out her hand and she took it, gingerly stepping closer to the outcropping that became the walkway formed by the top of the structure. “We don’t have to go far out. Look there.”

  She stopped in front of Jess and followed her long arm as she pointed over her shoulder. She spotted a particularly nasty bruise on Jess’s wrist and frowned at her, then squinted at the dam.

  “Not there. The hill next to the dam, near the base of that rock shelf.”

  “You mean that hole down there?” Brenna crouched, more to grip the walkway for balance than to see more clearly. “What is it? A cave?”

  “A mine, lass,” Jess corrected, steadying Brenna with one hand. “It leads to the richest vein of silver and lead ore our cavers have ever found.”

  “A silver mine.” Brenna pivoted to stare up at Jess, the dizzying drop forgotten. “Tristaine has a silver mine? Does Caster know about this?”

  Vicar smiled without mirth. “And you thought the City was after Tristaine because of our progressive politics.”

  “The allure Tristaine holds for an oppressed people does threaten the City, Vicar.” Jess’s tone was more formal as she helped Brenna stand. “But the Government also wants Amazon silver to fill its coffers. Even if Artemis herself descended now and vanquished Caster’s troops, the Federal Military would keep targeting this village.”

  Jess took Brenna’s hands. “Do you understand why we couldn’t tell you this, Bren, before you came to Tristaine?”

  “Sure,” Brenna responded, still trying to file this revelation in her head. “You don’t owe me any explanations, Jess. I’m learning this stuff when I should. The mine is the reason we have to destroy the village, right?”

  “Aye, we want to keep Tristaine’s wealth from enriching City tyrants.” Jess turned Brenna gently back toward the dam. “Take a look at the center section, about two-thirds of the way up.”

  “I see it, but what am I looking at?”

  “We’ll be building a small platform there tomorrow. Against the main support post.”

  “A platform to hold what?”

  “Enough dynamite to take out the dam.”

  Brenna looked at Jess. “I’m sorry?”

  “Several mountain streams drain into Ziwa, as we call this lake,” Jess explained. “In turn, she feeds Terme Cay, the river that runs through our village. When the dam breaks, they will empty into the valley and fill it. Tristaine
’s mine and its lodges will vanish beneath their waters.”

  Brenna released a long breath. She could see it happening in her mind.

  “Jocelyn safeguarded the box, Jess,” Vicar said behind them. “She’ll turn it over to Shann before the first wave leaves.”

  “The only piece of City high technology we’ve found a use for, Bren.” Jess’s smile was grim. “The explosives can be detonated by a remote transmitter. There are lots of safeguards. It would be hard to throw it without meaning to, but Shann can trigger the blast from Tristaine if necessary.”

  “It would move so fast.” Brenna knelt and stared at the implacable lake, then at the dam, which seemed suddenly fragile to an extreme. “Just seconds to reach the—”

  “The flood wouldn’t hit Tristaine straight on,” Vicar cut in. “The flow would follow the riverbed at first. It feeds east into the canyon, before curving down through the valley. Trees and other debris will slow it a bit, but not much. Dyan estimated it would reach us in about ten minutes.”

  “Or less,” Jess added. “And anyone who can’t get out of the valley in time would die. It wouldn’t be like drowning in a City swimming pool, Brenna. Women would be crushed in the debris carried by the flood. They would suffocate among dead animals, logs, branches, mutilated bodies. Ugly deaths.”

  “Right. Got it, thanks.” Brenna stood and brushed the dirt from her palms. She looked past Jess and smiled. “Vicar? Would you excuse us for a moment?”

  Vicar arched one eyebrow, bringing home her familial resemblance to Jess again, in spite of her fair coloring. Then she nodded, offered a vague salute, and started back down the trail.

  “Jesstin.”

  “Yes’m.”

  Brenna folded her arms. So did Jess, and somehow it looked more impressive when she did it.

  “I’m not leaving with the migration today. I’m staying with you.”

  “I see.”

  “Want to hear why?”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “Are you listening, really?”

  “I am, Bren.”

  She drew a deep breath. “Because I take this adonai stuff seriously. Because I’m in love for the first and last time in my life. And because the wife of an Amazon warrior watches her back. Is any part of that unclear at all?”

  Jess swallowed.

  Brenna smiled.

  Tears filled Jess’s eyes, and she dropped her arms in exasperation. “Well, shit.”

  “Jesstin. Amazon obscenities are so much better than Cit—”

  “What am I supposed to say to that?” Jess scrubbed her forearm across her eyes, then set her hands on her hips and studied the lake. “If Shann orders it, will you go?”

  “No. Shann isn’t my queen yet. I haven’t taken the Amazon pledge of allegiance, or whatever.”

  “The what?”

  “I’m staying with you, Jesstin.”

  Jess touched Brenna’s face. “It rips me up, lass, thinking of you getting hurt.”

  “Hah,” Brenna said. “Welcome to my world, warrior! That’s the same fear I feel for you every time you fight.” She pressed Jess’s hand to her cheek. “Jess, you know this is my decision.”

  “Aye, I do. You know I had to try.”

  “Aye, I do, lassie.” Brenna took Jess’s arm and wound it through her own. “Walk on my right, please.”

  They started back down the trail leading to the village where the women, children, and warriors leaving in the first wave had already begun to assemble.

  *

  Tristaine’s square thronged with women again, but this morning the activity was as orderly as it had been clamorous the night before. Perhaps some Amazons struggled with the same alcoholic aftermath that plagued Brenna, or, more likely, the sadness of the coming parting weighted their hearts. No singing or friendly shouts were heard in the efficient assembly.

  A long caravan of women and children was forming in the center of the village square. Brenna saw Patana, moving as stiffly as Jess, barking orders at the warriors preparing to escort the first party of refugees to the southern meadows. There was a new aroma in the air, strong but not unpleasant, and Brenna looked around for its source.

  “Adanin, good morning!”

  Brenna whirled and nearly fell into Jess, as Hakan rode up to them on a towering horse. Brenna gasped a curse that was certainly less creative than Amazon obscenities. “Don’t you women ever get sick of sneaking up on people?”

  “My apologies, Brenna.” Hakan’s teeth flashed in her ebony face, and the silver glyph webbing her high cheekbone shimmered. “Jesstin, you found the dam sound?”

  “It’s been ably tended, sister. Well done.” Jess shaded her eyes against the rising sun and rested her hand on the horse’s muscular neck. “And how is Val?”

  “Valkyrie thrives, thanks very much.” With the touch of one knee, Hakan sent the mare erect, her iron-shod hooves pawing the air once before clattering down again. Brenna nervously nudged Jess back. This looming beast looked like the horses in her dreams.

  “These things are huge. And beautiful.” Brenna gathered her courage and squinted up at Hakan. “May I?”

  “Go ahead, Brenna. She’s gentle as a half-ton lamb.” Hakan moved her mount closer, and Brenna stroked the powerful jaw. Brenna grinned, surprised at its softness, like satin over steel.

  During their climb to the dam, Jess had pointed out the pasture housing Tristaine’s herd. The mustangs had looked mild and tame in the distance, cropping grass and puffing steam in the chill morning air. They all looked alike to Brenna, sturdy little beasts with flaxen manes and tails.

  The huge horse before her was almost twice their size with a beautiful reddish gold coat and a white mane. The star on Valkyrie’s forehead looked like a child had painted it, with white stripes dripping down from the lower points.

  Jess nodded toward the caravan that gathered in the square. “They look about set.”

  “Yes. And the second wave will assemble at noon.” Hakan patted her mount’s neck. “I’m riding escort for the first, as far as the pass. I’ll be back by dusk.”

  “Need one more, for escort?” Jess eyed the horse hungrily, and Brenna knew she was itching to ride again.

  “Sorry, my friend.” Hakan’s grin flashed. “I’m afraid you’ve got warriors to command. You’d best get over there and muzzle Patana before she bullies someone into a fistfight.”

  “Me?” Jess hooted. “I spanked Patana last night. Let Shann muzzle her.”

  “Sorry, my friend. You were Dyan’s second. Tristaine’s warriors follow you, Jesstin.” Hakan nodded to them both, then gave Valkyrie some unseen signal and trotted toward the caravan.

  Brenna studied Jess’s face. “You’re in command of Tristaine’s warriors?”

  “Technically,” Jess sighed.

  “Hoo! Poor Caster.”

  Jess rolled her eyes, then leaned down and kissed her forehead and tousled her hair. Brenna combed her bangs with her fingers, muttering, and followed her into the crowded square.

  Brenna blinked as little as possible, so as not to miss anything. Tristaine by day was a different world than the mystical realm of last night’s festival, but it was no less intriguing. She was struck by the many shades of coloring among the Amazons, both in skin tone and clothing, and the proliferation of children, both male and female.

  A beautiful, curvaceous young woman threw herself into Jess’s arms, squealing, “It’s Jesstin!”

  “Hello, Monique.” Jess grinned, patting the girl’s back. “This is—”

  “Oh, Jesstin, it’s you!”

  “Aye, it is,” Jesstin agreed. She gently worked Monique’s arms from around her neck and straightened, wincing. “Brenna, this is Kyla’s friend, Moni—”

  “Oh, Jesstin, we feared we’d never see you again!” Dark eyelashes fluttered up at Jess. “Thanks be to sweet Aphrodite you returned before we left!”

  “Love that Ditey,” Brenna said politely to Monique’s back.

  The young woma
n whirled. “Oh, you must be Brenna!”

  Brenna found herself engulfed in her arms.

  “Kyla just adores you, Brenna! Welcome to Tristaine!” Monique laid a smacking kiss on Brenna’s cheek, then released her, beaming. “Ky needs me, so I gotta run, but I am just so, so glad we got to meet! Good-bye, Jesstin, you ravishing warrior! Gaia preserve you both!”

  Brenna watched Monique scurry toward a cluster of young Amazons.

  “Monique is in the guild of the artists,” Jess explained.

  Brenna spied Kyla and Camryn among Monique’s friends, and she smiled with an unexpected blend of relief and pleasure. She and Jess had slept within arm’s reach of these sisters for months, and she had missed them.

  Cam stood over Kyla as she sat cradling a wriggling Max.

  “Good-bye, my furry little burrito,” Kyla crooned. “Be good. Behave yourself. Stay out from under the horses. Keep the mice out of the oat bins.” Tearing up, Kyla kissed the small dog’s black nose. “Here, Mon, take him, quick.”

  “C’mere, you adorable coconut.” Monique scooped Max into her arms and giggled as he licked her nose. “Okay, we’re gone! Bye, Kyla, and dear Camryn. Let me just say again you two are so, so great together. May Gaia preserve you both—”

  “Thanks. Walk with Jade, Moni. Walk, walk.” Camryn waved her on urgently, patting Kyla’s shoulder.

  Kyla watched her friend carry little Max to the wide column of women forming in the square, and her shoulders lifted with another deep sigh. She smiled weakly at Brenna and Jess. “Hey. Morning, you guys.”

  “I’m glad you got to see wee Max before the migration, adanin.” Jess bent and kissed Kyla’s cheek. “You know our sisters love him too. They’ll keep him fed and happy.”

  “Yeah. I wouldn’t want him here. It’s too dangerous.” Kyla swallowed, then looked past them. “We all have hard good-byes to say.”

  Brenna turned and saw Vicar standing close to a lovely woman with oriental features. She wore a beautiful red and silver glyph on her forehead, and she carried a small bundle wrapped warmly in a quilt. Vicar lifted a corner of the blanket and rested her large palm lightly on the baby’s dark, fuzzy head. Her lips moved in prayer.