“Won’t bother you a bit, huh?”
“Not me.”
“Ah, sisters.” Dana bent down and lifted a glossy black feather from the trail. “I thank my lucky butt I’ve got no blood-kin in the clan. Where is Sammy, anyway? She was looking forward to watching us slide around in horse poop.”
“She still had a sore throat this morning, so I talked her into staying back.”
Brenna had to admit she still mothered Samantha, even now, well into their twenties. Her younger sister tolerated it reasonably well. Sammy was smart enough to realize she might still need some maternal care after the losses she’d suffered.
Brenna noticed that the dark, elongated shadow beside her was bouncing oddly. She glanced at Dana, whose gaze was pinned again on Jess. Dana had stuck the black feather in her chestnut hair and was walking with an overly long stride, her jaw clenched, her shoulders swinging in slow, brawny arcs.
Brenna snickered. Dana had an uncommon gift for physical mimicry, and she had Jess’s long-legged saunter down to a T. “You know she’s going to catch you doing that someday.”
“Doin’ whut?” Dana might be able to imitate Jess’s moves, but her rendition of her mild brogue was a miserable failure. “Doan worry, lassie. Yer warrior’s too dang tall ta see me from way up thar.”
“But she’s got uncommon hearing.” Jess turned and waited for them, her arms folded. Kyla stopped too, grinning.
Dana straightened quickly, and Brenna reached up to tousle her hair, almost dislodging the feather.
“How does she do that?” Dana muttered.
Brenna smiled at Jess. “Well...she’s uncommon.”
“Brenna, lady!” A husky Amazon, well past middle age, hustled up to them, beaming ear to ear. “Sorry to interrupt your council, sisters, but Brenna, Shann asks that you come to the healing lodge. Nothing urgent,” she added quickly. “She just wants you to check out some new herbs she found.”
“Thanks, adanin,” Brenna said. “I’ll be right there.”
“I’ll tell Shann, lady.” The woman turned, but Brenna touched her wrist gently.
“Carelle,” Brenna said kindly. “Tristaine has only one queen. We have only one lady.”
“Oh, Brenna.” The wrinkles bracketing Carelle’s mouth deepened with her smile. “I know that, dear girl. I honor Shann as the only ruler of my clan, we all do. Just forgive your adanin if we want to honor Shann’s daughter, and our next queen, as well!”
Brenna smiled and patted the big woman. Carelle waved a cheerful farewell and trotted back toward the mesa.
“Jesstin.” Brenna forced the words through clenched teeth. “Am I still smiling?”
Jess tipped Brenna’s chin up to check. “And a lovely grimace it is.”
Brenna hissed out a long breath and worked her stiff jaw back and forth.
Kyla slipped her arm through Brenna’s as they continued down the trail. “Carelle didn’t mean any harm, Bren.”
“Of course she didn’t. She’s a nice woman.” Brenna pulled open her collar and pointed to the colorful tattoo at the base of her throat. “But where on this glyph do you see a royal insignia, Ky? Hmm? Anywhere?”
“Let’s take a look.” Dana turned and walked backward, peering at Brenna’s throat. “I see some stars, a little hand with a whirlpool in it, and a pretty weed.”
“A weed,” Kyla groaned. “You wear the sigils of a healer and a mystic, Bren.”
“Nothing queenly,” Dana added.
“Thank you.” Brenna snapped her collar closed, mollified.
Jess draped her arm around Brenna’s shoulders. “No queen can be forced to rule, Brenna. All you have to do is decline Shann’s throne.”
“Which I’ve done, Jess, every way I know how.” Brenna kicked another black feather off the path, irritated. “I’m a good medic, but I won’t pretend to be anyone’s leader. Shann seems to hear me, but the word sure hasn’t filtered through the ranks yet. Lady they call me, for heaven’s sake.”
“Aye, you’re a fine healer,” Jess agreed. “And a talented seer.”
Brenna mumbled grumpily.
“You are, Brenna, you’re amazing!” Kyla squeezed her arm. “You see into the realm of spirit more clearly than any mystic Tristaine has ever known.”
Brenna sighed.
Dana nudged Kyla. “See, she’s learned not to argue with that.”
“Being called a seer bothered you at first.” Jess kissed Brenna’s hair. “You used to snap at me like a harpy whenever I mentioned your sight.”
“Well, stuff just kept happening.” Brenna fingered the coarse fabric of Jess’s vest. “You can only have so many visions, and so many out-of-body strolls, before denying that you’re having them starts to sound psychotic.”
“Confidence in your powers came to you slowly, but with certainty, over time.” Jess’s rough palm caressed Brenna’s upper arm. “Just as all our gifts take root and grow.”
“Jesstin.” Brenna peered up at her suspiciously. “Please tell me you’re not implying I’ll simply get used to being an Amazon queen.”
Jess chuckled. “I don’t presume to know what our Grandmothers intend for you, adonai. I’m just enjoying the journey.”
Jess stopped walking and trained her cobalt eyes on the sky, and then Brenna heard it—a dry, cawing sound overhead. She focused on its source just as the large bird made a clumsy landing on a thin branch high in a pine by the side of their trail.
“Crow?” Dana squinted up at the black creature as it pecked slowly at the branch.
“Not this far from the City,” Jess said. “A raven.”
The bird seemed unsteady, rocking slightly on its narrow perch.
“A drunk raven,” Dana added.
Jess crouched, resting her elbows on her knees, and studied the ground. Brenna saw two more long black feathers in the grass, and another further along into the trees. She looked up and spotted a raven balancing awkwardly on a thin branch. It rose with an angry snap of wings and flew in a slow, ragged arc toward the east.
Jess rose. “Something’s up.”
Brenna noted they all stepped closer to Jess, an instinctive raising of their shields. Jess nodded toward the trees and started toward them, and they fell in behind her with the ease of long seasons of drills. They wove quickly and silently through a stand of aspen, following the bird’s lurching progress overhead.
J’heika, rise.
Brenna came to a dead halt, and Kyla very nearly smacked into her back.
“What is it, Bren?” Kyla steadied herself against her.
“Nothing,” Brenna murmured. She touched Kyla in reassurance, then turned and followed Jess.
She didn’t recognize this new voice. In the past, the voices that had whispered those two words in Brenna’s mind had all sounded elderly. Shann said it was the Grandmothers calling her. This voice was someone new, someone young. Brenna hadn’t heard this particular command in years, and a thrill of misgiving went through her.
*
Jess hadn’t felt this kind of prickling at the back of her neck in many seasons. She had learned to respect this rising of her inner hackles, as Dyan had called Jess’s keen instincts for danger. Shann’s adonai and the leader of Tristaine’s warriors, Dyan had died beneath a hail of City bullets shortly after naming Jess her second. Now Jess carried the burden of her clan’s protection alone, and she relied on her gut. One addled bird didn’t mean disaster, but any disruption in the natural world was worrisome.
She couldn’t keep sight of the black bird’s path through the canopy of green branches above them, but visual tracking wasn’t necessary. Jess heard the discordant chorus of dying ravens before she saw them.
They emerged from the trees into a small, circular enclosure, a patch of sparse grass all but carpeted with dusty black feathers and droppings. Jess put out a hand to stop Brenna, a chill working up her back.
There were fifty or more birds milling in the clearing, staggering, flapping frayed wings without gaining flight.
Mountain ravens were big creatures, with wingspans nearly four feet across, but these birds looked shrunken, diminished. Their cawing, usually a crisp, sharp cracking sound, was reduced to throaty rattles. Several were already dead, on their backs in the grass, their stick-like legs stiffened, their black eyes milky and vacant.
“Sweet Gaia.” Kyla stepped carefully into the circle. “Jess, what’s happening to them?”
“I don’t know, lass.”
“Could they be poisoned?” Dana nudged a dead bird cautiously with one foot. “What do these things eat?”
“Insects, carrion.” Jess watched another bird convulse in the grass, then lie still, and an odd shiver coursed through her. “I can’t see this many feeding off any one source.”
“And they don’t travel in big groups like this, do they?” Kyla hugged herself. “They’re suffering, Jesstin. Is there anything we can—”
“Brenna?” Jess frowned and took her wife’s arm. Brenna’s posture was rigid, and she stared at the ravens intently. The color was draining from her face.
Brenna heard the sharpness in Jess’s tone, but she couldn’t respond. Even if she hadn’t been gripped by the paralysis of sudden trance, she was too filled with horror to summon any sound.
Dying Amazons, dropping in drifts at her feet. Young women, older ones, children, clothed in tattered gray shrouds, staggering, falling to their knees. Their faces were ghostly white, and contorted with the futile agony of trying to draw breath in vain. Other Amazons knelt at their sides, and the harsh cawing of the ravens sounded in Brenna’s ears like the grief-filled shrieks of the bereaved. Then those who comforted the afflicted fell ill too, their hands clawing at their throats in terror.
“Kyla, back away!” Brenna’s tone rang with command, and Jess started and reached for the dagger in her vest.
Kyla obeyed at once, stepping around the stumbling ravens until she reached clear grass.
Brenna went to Dana in three fast strides and snatched the black feather out of her hair. “Keep your hands away from your faces, all of you. Let’s get out of here.”
“Brenna, what the—” Dana began.
“Move,” Brenna ordered, and they moved.
Jess ushered Kyla quickly out of the circle. She took Brenna’s arm as they weaved through the trees and felt her trembling.
“Head for the stream.” The fingers Brenna wrapped around Jess’s wrist were cold. “We need to wash our hands.”
Jess swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “You’re thinking plague, Bren?”
“Maybe I’m wrong. I pray I am.” Brenna closed her eyes. “I have a sister with a sore throat.”
Chapter Two
The night was fragrant with the light scents of sandalwood and lavender.
Brenna asked Sammy to move from the cottage she shared with three other women to Tristaine’s healing lodge until her symptoms cleared. It was a comfortable log cabin, scrupulously clean, but far more warm and friendly than any hospital unit in the City. Colorful arrangements of dried wildflowers brightened each corner, and the white pine walls were adorned with paintings from the artists’ guild and drawings by the clan’s children.
“This is overkill.” Samantha sat propped up in bed against a thick sheaf of furs. Her arms were folded, but her gaze on Brenna was affectionate. “You used to do this at the Youth Home, Bree. You’d threaten bloody mayhem if they tried to make me go to school when you thought I was sick.”
“I had to go by my instincts. You claimed to be sick every single Friday when you had a math test.” Brenna frowned as she palpated the base of Samantha’s jaw. “Does this hurt?”
“Yes, a cold claw digging into my throat hurts.” Samantha gave Brenna’s hand a playful slap. “Brenna, I have a head cold.”
“Well, then you and your head need to stay under these blankets.” Brenna pulled the furs up to her sister’s waist. “I don’t want you out spreading your phlegm all over the village.”
“You’re so uncouth. Hey.” Sammy tapped Brenna’s arm. “You look worried. Should I be?”
Brenna hesitated, studying Sammy’s delicate features. Her color was good and her green eyes focused and alert. The circles beneath them might be a little more pronounced. Sammy, who used to hit their shared pillow in the Youth Home fast asleep, hadn’t slept a night through in three years. Brenna wondered if any woman ever truly recovered from the deaths of her husband and child. But physically, Sammy seemed no worse than she’d been that morning. There was still no fever.
Brenna brushed Samantha’s wrist with her thumb. “We don’t know enough yet, Sam. But, yeah, this might be more than a cold. I’ll want to watch you carefully for a while. I promise you’ll know everything as soon as I do.”
“Okay. That’s fair.” Samantha sighed. “So, am I quarantined? To keep my phlegm to myself?”
“I’m afraid so, honey. For now at least.” Brenna bent and kissed her sister’s forehead, then stood up. “Try to get some rest.”
“This might help.” Shanendra, daughter of Elaine and queen of the last great Amazon tribe, smiled at Samantha with a sweet maternity as natural to her spirit as royal command. She carried a cup of steaming tea to Samantha and sat at the side of her bed. “This concoction is more wild honey than herb, to mask its bitterness. Sip it slowly, dear one.”
Brenna breathed in the mild fragrance of the tea, puzzled. “Echinacea?”
“Astragalus.” Shann patted Samantha’s leg sympathetically when she grimaced at the taste. “I had no idea we could find it this high in the hills.”
“Astragalus?” Brenna blinked. “You’re feeding your daughter, and my sister, a tea made of locoweed?”
Samantha pretended to choke, and Shann laughed.
“Luckily, my daughter, and your sister, is not livestock, Brenna. There’s no harm in this root as an infusion.” Shann brushed Samantha’s auburn hair off her forehead. “And it might help clear this foggy young head.”
Brenna leaned against the pine wall and studied her only living blood-kin. Jess claimed there was a familial resemblance between Brenna and Shann, but she had never been able to see it herself. There was no missing the likeness between Shann and her sister, though. Their profiles were similar, with high cheekbones tapering to strong chins. Brenna shared a lighter version of Shann’s fawn-colored hair, but Samantha’s curling tresses were the dark reddish-brown of their father, David.
Brenna had no conscious memory of him. He died when Sammy was still an infant. David and Shann had been fighting in an underground cell of the Resistance when the City Government launched a vicious campaign to crush the movement’s leaders. David had been killed in an ambush of City soldiers and Shann had been imprisoned, and their two daughters placed in a spartan City Youth Home. Brenna and Samantha had only discovered their blood relation to Shann as adults, after fate reunited them in Tristaine.
Shann asked, “Will you feel abandoned, Samantha, if I take our wise seer away for a quick council?”
“Your seer, my sister, take her, take her.” Sammy waved at them both vaguely. “But, Brenna, I have to meet your new horse, so don’t let me die before you haul her up here to say hello.”
“I’m not going to let you die.” Brenna managed a smile. “I’ll check you later.”
*
Jess stared at the beautiful oak carving of a winged woman in flight that graced an entire wall of the healing lodge’s anteroom. The serene figure depicted was Gaia Herself to some of Tristaine’s women, Artemis or gold-winged Isis to others. To Jess, She was simply one of the Mothers, and she had spoken to Her on a regular basis since she was a child. Jess reminded Her now that She promised centuries ago to protect Tristaine, Her last Amazon clan.
She listened to the low murmur of voices in the next room. Shann’s soft laughter, a sound that had charmed and soothed Jess through her turbulent adolescence, helped calm her nerves now. The curtain of bead-strings parted, and her queen and her adonai joined her.
Jess measured Brenna silently, reading
a dozen subtle clues to her mood that only long seasons together taught her to interpret. Brenna’s gaze was direct and warm, but there was a new stiffness in the usually flowing lines of her body. Jess touched her wrist, offering a brief comforting connection, and Brenna smiled her thanks.
“Have you eaten, Jesstin?” Shann tapped Jess’s chin, then settled on a cushioned bench. “You’re wearing your old rock-jawed glower again, my young friend. Stop it. We don’t know what we’re facing yet. Brenna, tell me your thoughts.”
Brenna sat next to her mother. “I’m afraid we might be facing an epidemic, lady. Has Tristaine ever been through one?”
“Our journals tell us our clan has weathered many fevers over the centuries,” Shann replied, “but we’ve read of no killing plagues.”
Jess recognized Shann’s intent focus on her elder daughter. Jess was awarded the same respectful attention whenever she spoke to the queen on important matters.
“Have you seen any signs other than the ravens?” Shann asked.
“No, but that was a pretty chilling sign.” Brenna looked at Jess, who nodded grim agreement. She was acquainted with the forms death could take in Gaia’s wild creatures, but the mortal throes of those dying birds had been eerie, gruesome in a way Jess couldn’t explain.
“Jess and the others saw dying birds, lady.” Brenna seemed to read Jess’s mind. “I saw dying Amazons. I couldn’t make out faces, just women weeping on their knees beside their dead sisters.”
“Sweet Cybele.” Shann swallowed visibly. “But can a pestilence of ravens truly threaten us, Blades? We’ve never known disease to jump from bird to human.”
“They’ve known it.” Brenna nodded toward the south. “Down in the City. It happened in one of the outer Burroughs about five years ago. Some form of influenza, fast and virulent.”
“Fatal?”
“The mortality rate was almost sixty percent.”
Jess drew in a sharp breath. “Lady. Should we call a clan council?”
“No, Jesstin.” Shann regarded Brenna thoughtfully. “If this strain is infectious, it wouldn’t be wise to call a full gathering of our sisters. Let’s do this.” She extended her hand to Jess, who stepped closer to take it. “In the morning, Jess, form a contingent of your most trusted warriors. Send them in pairs to each lodge and cabin to see if there’s illness. Remind everyone, especially those with children and grandmothers, to take precautions.”
Queens of Tristaine Page 2