Queens of Tristaine

by Cate Culpepper

  Jess heard the click and spun, and saw the soldier she had shot in the chest weaving on his knees, raising his rifle. Her hand rocketed to her belt, pulled her dagger, and threw it in one blinding motion.

  The split-second before Jess’s blade thudded home in his neck, the soldier fired, and Vicar staggered and fell.

  *

  “This is my fault.” Tears threatened to blind Brenna, and she dashed them away impatiently. She needed to be able to see to lay out her instruments. “I should have checked that soldier more carefully, Jess.”

  “Bren, it was a battle.” Jess was washing her cousin’s upper back, and Brenna could see the faint tremor in her hands. “If anyone’s to blame, I’m the one who botched that kill.”

  “I’ll take hush-money from ye both,” Vicar grumbled. She was stretched out between them on a folded blanket, naked to the waist, her hands loose on either side of her head. She hadn’t lost consciousness when the bullet smacked into the back of her shoulder, but the strong herbal sedative Brenna had given her was finally taking effect. Vicar’s words were slurred. “Just dig it out, healer.”

  “Brenna, can you tell us anything?” Kyla stood nearby, watching their preparations anxiously. “There isn’t much blood.”

  “No, we’re lucky there. It missed the subclavian artery.” Brenna summoned her will and silenced the sick guilt in her gut. “Vicar? I’m going to ask Jess to hold you. I don’t want you twitching at the wrong moment. Can you hear me?”

  “Aye,” Vic mumbled. “Cooties...”

  Jess draped herself carefully across Vicar’s back, and Hakan settled into the grass near her head and clasped her wrists, more for comfort than restraint. Brenna had seen it many times, the gentleness and love in the touch of Tristaine’s warriors when they helped tend one of their own, and it still moved her.

  “Here we go.” Dana spoke quietly, as if entering a church. She set their two brightest lamps near Brenna and Vicar, adding their light to the wan glow of the setting sun. “Is there anything else I can do, Bren?”

  “Watch our periphery, Dana.” Jess was watching Brenna closely as she measured Vicar’s pulse at the throat. “We don’t need more cougars or soldiers tonight.”

  “Will do, Jess.”

  Vicar’s pulse was slow and even, and her long body was relaxed. Brenna knew she was hurting by her deliberate, rhythmic breathing, but there were no signs of shock. Brenna was calming herself, now, as she lifted a slender probe from her instrument case. Healing was her home territory. She knew what to do here, how to help. She rested her hand on the blond hair curling around Vicar’s neck.

  “Vic, I’m going to take a look. Try not to move. It’s going to hurt a little, but nothing unbearable. Okay?”

  “I’m set.” Vicar closed her eyes.

  And so was Brenna, once she had positioned the probe in the wound and vision couldn’t guide her further. She advanced its slender length gradually, with meticulous care, her inner senses following its passage. The bullet had hit the trapezius on Vicar’s left side—on an Amazon warrior, a thick and powerful muscle. Judging by the trajectory, it had missed both the scapula and humerus. Brenna blew out a breath in relief.

  A soft grunt escaped Vicar.

  “Good, adanin, we’ve found it.” Brenna withdrew the probe smoothly, and selected a thin pair of forceps. These instruments had been a gift from Sammy when she became a medic, and they fit her grip like old friends. “I think the bullet’s intact, Vicar, it’s embedded in muscle. Keep breathing slow and deep. This is going to smart a bit.”

  “Just lie easy, adanin,” Hakan murmured at Vicar’s head. “We’ve got you.”

  Brenna found the bullet. Her forceps gripped it, and Vicar moaned. “I’m sorry, Vic, I’ll be as gentle as I can. We’re almost there.”

  Jess held on to her cousin more tightly as she stiffened, and then Brenna drew the small bloody bullet out into the light of the lamps. She heard the collective sighs of her sisters, and Vicar echoed them with a long, trembling exhalation.

  “Well done, lass.” Jess cradled the back of Brenna’s neck. Brenna returned her weary smile.

  “We’re far from home free.” Brenna patted the sluggishly bleeding hole with a dry cloth. “We have goldenseal to guard against infection, but this wound will take careful watching. How are you, Vicar?”

  “Just keen,” Vicar muttered. “Jesstin, give me an hour. I can ride.”

  “Aye, then you ride,” Jess answered easily. “The rest of us will catch up later. We camp here tonight.”

  They laid their holdings near the field of their battle. Dana and Hakan had stripped the dead soldiers of their weapons and arranged them respectfully side by side. The branches laid over their bodies would help protect them from small predators until they were recovered.

  “This surgical wizardry is how you got your nickname, Bren.” Kyla knelt beside Vicar and helped her drink from her canteen, smiling at Brenna. “Shann started calling you ‘Blades’ after you cut a bullet out of Camryn’s leg.”

  “Ah, poor Cam.” Brenna smiled sadly at the memory. “She must have thought Shann had lost her mind, letting a Clinic medic waving a scalpel anywhere near an Amazon.”

  “Our lady was showing her trust in you, adonai.” Jess patted her cousin’s bare back and climbed to her feet. “That helped Cam trust you, too.”

  Brenna saw Jess grow still and turn slowly toward the thick grove of trees that bordered their camp.

  “Jesstin?” Dana called from her post across the clearing.

  “I hear it, adanin.” Jess turned and looked at Hakan, who nodded.

  “Do we have company, Jess?” Kyla asked. Her stance over Vicar was suddenly protective.

  “Aye,” Jess replied, checking the dagger sheathed in her belt. “Not many—two or three.”

  Vicar started to lift herself on one arm, and Brenna stilled her quickly. “Absolutely not, Vicar, you lie still. Let us handle this.” Vicar grumbled and lowered herself again.

  Brenna got to her feet and went to Jess. “What exactly are your freakishly sharp ears hearing, dearest?”

  “Our guests’ blundering passage.” Jess smiled apologetically at her. “Sorry, lass, but whoever they are, they’re crashing through the far brush like mules. These aren’t trained troops.” She went to the soldiers’ rifles they had stacked near their packs and took one, then tossed a second to Dana. “Hakan, stay with Vic. The rest of you, fast and quiet. Stay behind me.”

  Jess broke into a sprint through the trees and the others ran with her, shadow-close. Strident cricket-song helped cover the sound of their steps. Brenna kept up pretty well, she thought, given the fact that her knees were jelly again. This long, harrowing day just refused to end.

  Jess sailed over a bush everyone else had to veer around, and in spite of her fear, Brenna was swept by a moment of breathless appreciation for Jess’s sheer physicality. She shook herself mentally as they neared the base of a large oak that split their path, its branches heavy and thick with leaves.

  Brenna, balancing lightly on her feet and ready to launch toward any threat, looked hard into the shadowy depths of the oak. She spotted two separate patches of oddly shivering twigs about halfway up the gnarled trunk.

  “How many, Bren?” Jess’s voice was a low burr from a nearby shadow.

  Brenna gulped. She was sure. “Two, Jesstin.”

  “Kyla, are they armed?”

  “Not with anything that threatens us at this distance.” Kyla stood close behind Jess, panting lightly. “They would have taken potshots by now.”

  Jess lowered her rifle and rested her hand on her hip, looking thoughtful. “Come down!” she bellowed.

  Brenna actually ducked, as did Dana. When Jess wanted to roar, she could flatten the grass for a mile in any direction. Complete silence followed the command. Even the crickets had the sense to shut up.

  Then there was a sudden, frantic rustling of branches and leaves, a breathless yell, and a body plummeted from the tree and thum
ped to the ground at their feet.

  “Oh shit!”

  Brenna heard a feminine cry from the figure above them, still clinging to the oak’s trunk.

  “Don’t you hurt her!” There was an immense crashing of boughs as she descended.

  Brenna knelt beside Jess and helped her steady the woman lying on the ground. She looked to be in her forties, reasonably fit. The breath had been knocked out of her, but she seemed basically unhurt. She lay gasping with her hands raised protectively, a pair of dark-framed glasses askew on her face.

  Moving carefully, Brenna adjusted the frames so the woman could see them clearly. She rested her palm gently at the base of her throat and measured her thrumming pulse. “I think you’re all right,” she told her. “Just lie still a moment and catch your breath.”

  The crashing finally ended as the second woman leapt from the tree. She darted toward them, long brown hair whipping around her face, but Dana caught her around the waist and hauled her back. She performed a quick search, then nodded at Jess and released her.

  The woman skidded to a halt on her knees beside her friend. “Hey! You’re okay, right?”

  “Right,” the second woman gasped. She lifted her hand, and it was taken with a tenderness that didn’t escape Brenna. “Get me up.”

  They struggled to their feet, and Brenna rose with them. The women clung to each other, still a bit wild-eyed. They were dressed for travel, but their clothing was torn and muddy.

  “I’m Brenna.” She smiled in a way she hoped was reassuring. “Who are you?”

  The first woman opened her mouth to answer, but then Jess rose from her crouch to stand beside Brenna, and her voice faded. It was obviously not unlike watching a tree sprout slowly before her eyes.

  “I’m Je-Je-Jen—” she stammered, and Brenna bit her lip in sympathy and nodded encouragement. “I’m Jennifer,” she finished at last, still ogling Jess. She squeezed her friend’s arm. “This is Evelyn.”

  “I’m Eva,” the second woman corrected, pushing wisps of her abundant silver hair off her forehead. “This is Jenny.”

  “We’re Jenny and Eva,” Jenny confirmed. “You’re very tall,” she said to Jess.

  “This colossus is Jesstin. Our sisters there are Kyla and Dana.” Brenna wound her arm through Jess’s to humanize her. Her adanin seemed willing to let her develop this first contact. “Tell us what brought you here.”

  “We escaped from the City, and we’re going to find Tristaine.” Now that Jenny knew her partner—the women were obviously adonai—was unhurt, she spoke with calm precision. Her lively green eyes studied them curiously. “We didn’t get very far. That Army unit you guys tackled was looking for us.”

  “We heard you take them out.” Eva had almost caught her breath. She swallowed, eyeing Jess’s rifle. “We wanted to try to get closer to you, to be sure. You’re Amazons, right?”

  “Aye, we’re Amazons.” Jess extended her hand to shake Eva’s, but Brenna stopped her quickly, and she stepped back at once.

  “Listen, this is important.” Brenna half-lifted one hand to hold their attention, and realized she was mirroring Shann. “We’ve all been exposed to a sickness. If you stay around us, you might catch it, and it’s serious. Have you had all the City inoculations?”

  “Oh.” Jenny looked at Eva, and an unspoken communication passed between them. “Well, our boosters are up to date. And even if they weren’t, we decided a long time ago we would throw in our lot with Tristaine, if we could find it.”

  “We decided your lot would be our lot,” Eva agreed. She stuck out her hand, smiling, and Jess grinned and shook it firmly. “Tell us how we can help.”

  Chapter Seven

  Brenna turned her head on Jess’s thigh and peered sleepily at the four women clustered on the other side of their small campfire. Dana and Kyla had drawn second winds with the knowledge Eva and Jenny carried of the ways in which the City had changed since they had last seen it. They were revising their map of City streets, whispering and pointing out new routes.

  Vicar was resting well. Jess’s cousin had one of the highest pain thresholds Brenna had ever seen. She just wished she’d stop having opportunities to marvel at it. Hakan was stretched out on a blanket beside her, deeply asleep. Like most of Tristaine’s warriors, she had mastered the art of finding sleep fast in the few hours of rest allowed them. Brenna noted one stubborn holdout had refused to submit.

  She gazed pensively at Jess’s still profile above her. The heavy muscle of the thigh beneath her head still thrummed with energy. She could see the outline of Jess’s clenched jaw in the firelight. Brenna reached up and popped her lightly on the chin.

  “Yesssss?” Jess turned half-shuttered eyes on her.

  “I was looking for your off-button.” Brenna caressed Jess’s thigh with her knuckles. “Why so tense, Jesstin?”

  “I’ll be ready for sleep soon.” Jess stroked Brenna’s hair gently, and she struggled to keep her eyes open. “I like our new friends.”

  “I like them too.” Brenna turned her head, enjoying the mild scratch of denim against her cheek. She saw Jenny’s and Eva’s heads huddled next to Dana’s and Kyla’s, looking as if they had joined their clan’s planning sessions for years. “They love each other; they survived meeting you. My Amazon flags are flying.”

  “Aye, Eva and Jenny are both Tristaine.” Jess spoke with a certainty rare for her on first meeting, but Brenna agreed with her. Some women were born Amazon, destined for Tristaine from their first breath. Others were not.

  “No, the entire downtown district has changed.” Eva polished her glasses with her shirttail, then slipped them back on and pointed at the map Dana held. “There’s construction going on here, so none of these streets will get you through.”

  “Right,” Jenny said and pointed to another section. “And both of these rural roads are guarded by Army details now, twenty-four-seven. There’s usually only two guards posted here, though, at the City Line.”

  “Damn, Tristaine’s lucky we ran into you, sisters.” Kyla scratched her head. They all desperately needed baths. “Our map of City streets is at least two years old.”

  “Yeah, so much has changed since I was stationed down there.” Dana frowned down at the map. “Your good intel is going to come in real handy, ladies, thank you.”

  “Well, we researched it enough.” Eva looked at Jenny with rueful affection. “We planned this field trip to Tristaine so carefully for months!”

  “Yes, and we still managed to attract the attention of an Army patrol three days out.” Jenny leaned into Eva briefly, the laugh lines around her eyes deepening. “Scared the holy screaming hell out of us both.”

  “Were they looking for you in particular?” Brenna turned on her side and rested her head again on Jess’s leg. “Are there warrants out for you in the City?”

  “Not any we know of. These are excellent, by the way.” Jenny peered at the nuts cradled in her palm. “Much better than those mealy peanuts the City dares to call trail mix. Anyway, we don’t think the patrol was sent specifically after us, Brenna. I teach Public School, Eva’s a psychiatric nurse. We’re not really on the Government’s radar. There’s no reason the Army would be tipped off if we went missing for a few days.”

  “Jenny’s theory is we got sloppy covering our tracks at our first two campsites.” Eva accepted a nut Jenny held to her lips and chomped it thoughtfully for a moment. “Those guys were probably on a routine patrol of the outskirts, and they picked up our trail. We moved as fast as we could.” Eva’s friendly face sobered. “We heard the gunshots behind us, and those yells. It was pretty terrifying.”

  “Yeah. They were unlucky.” Dana folded the roadmap of the City, her jaw set. Brenna realized the clash with the soldiers must have hit close to home for Dana. She had been one of their kind before coming to Tristaine. And no matter how many of their clan’s enemies Dana killed, her inherent decency would always quail at the visceral horror of punching a knife into a human being. “They
were all pretty young. Brave enough, but not well trained. And they weren’t a clan. They didn’t fight together like one.”

  “I’m sorry they had to die.” Kyla looked at Jess with a compassion that told Brenna she understood the necessity of the command to draw lifeblood. “Amazons don’t kill unless we must, Jenny. We just couldn’t avoid it this time.”

  “We’ve heard that—that Amazon warriors honor all life. We’ve heard so many stories about you.” Jenny patted Kyla’s knee. “Rumors about Amazons still swamp all the women’s bars in the Boroughs. Tristaine is very real to a lot of our friends down there.”

  I never heard those rumors, Brenna thought. And I spent more nights in those bars than I can count. A shiver of sadness worked through her, and she hunched closer to Jess. She had been single-minded in her City years. She went to bars to get drunk, as efficiently and quickly as possible, not to listen to gossip.

  Dana snorted in disgust and gave up folding the roadmap, handing the snarled parchment to Kyla. “Well, at least we know the army’s training is still no match for Tristaine’s. There’s not a single soldier in my old outfit I’d lay money on against any of Jess’s warriors.”

  “Don’t underrate the City’s Army, Dana.” Jess’s low brogue was a pleasant burr against Brenna’s cheek. “Some of the best Amazon warriors I’ve known have come to Tristaine from their ranks.”

  Dana looked startled. Then she smiled and began feeding twigs to their fire. Kyla bopped Dana gently on the head with her neatly rolled roadmap and then kissed her cheek.

  Brenna closed her burning eyes, Jess’s soothing touch in her hair lulling her toward sleep. She tried to listen to what Jenny was saying, but her voice kept changing, growing younger.

  *

  This transition to the spirit plane felt disjointed, almost chaotic, and Elise’s first words told Brenna why.