Battle For Tristaine Part 24

Two seconds later she was. .h.i.t by what felt like a semitruck, and the ground came up and smacked her, hard. A bullet whistled above her * 181 *

head to careen off a far wall, and Brenna realized the semitruck was an angry Amazon.

"Brenna, you brainless dolt!" Vicar snarled in her ear. She was lying full-length on top of Brenna. "You do not race pell-mell onto a fl aming battlefi eld!"

"Well, excuse me, Vicar!" Brenna twisted over onto her back.

"This is only my second fl aming battle! I don't know all the rules yet. Where's Jess?"

"She sent me after you. Move with me, now!" Vicar clamped Brenna's wrist in one hand and hauled her to her feet. They ran together, in a half-crouch, toward the side wall of the stadium, and then Vicar hauled her bodily around a high log part.i.tion.

Brenna coughed dust and smoke out of her lungs; then she could see the fi ve women gathered in the shadow of the log wall.

Vicar patted her on the back until she recovered. She seemed a bit chagrined at her earlier roughness.

"Over here, Bren!"

Brenna saw Jess. "Ah, man." Her shoulders sagged in relief, and then she saw Shann and Kyla. "Ah, man," she repeated, and walked into Shann's open arms and hugged her, hard.

"You all right, Brenna?" Hakan was peering cautiously around the log wall, keeping a close eye on the still frenetic activity in the stadium.

"I'm fi ne." Brenna's pulse began to settle again as she went to Kyla and studied her face. She was still drawn and pale, but her eyes warmed for a moment as she took Brenna's hands.

Shann said, "Jesstin, report, please."

"Tristaine's high council is safe. They're under Amazon guard in the stables." Jess put her arm around Brenna's shoulders.

"Our warriors fi ght side by side with Theryn's. They're holding off Caster's mercenaries. We're still outnumbered and outgunned, but the soldiers are a mess. No organization."

"We need to blow the dam, lady." Vicar ducked as another shot whined through the air to strike solidly into the arena wall yards away. "But we need to get you out fi rst."

* 182 *

"Yes, well, here's the problem." Shann rummaged in a pocket of her robes. She held up a cracked plastic box and sprung wires.

With an unpleasant jolt, Brenna realized it was the remote detonator.

Jess's jaw dropped. "What happened to it?"

"I hit Caster with it." Shann sighed. "We're going to have to set off the timer by hand, Jesstin."

"You what?"

"I had to hit her with something."

Jess raked her hand through her dark hair, twice, before she could speak. "Shann, our detonator, the detonator you called Tristaine's greatest treasure, you used it as a club?"

"Caster went down like a sack of beets," Shann insisted.

"She's still out, for all I know."

"Lady, I'll start the timer," Vicar volunteered. "I can run faster than any of us."

"That's debatable, Vicar," Hakan said.

"Later," Jess broke in. "Vicar, I need you and Hakan to get Shann and our council out of the valley. Take as many of the others as possible. Where shall we meet, lady?"

"The large glade, south of the pa.s.s," Shann answered at once.

"Shann, we need to warn as many of the City soldiers as we can." Brenna felt compelled to say it. "A lot of them are just poorly paid kids. This isn't their fi ght."

"Agreed, Blades." Shann nodded. "Good point. Vicar, I want you to fi nd Theryn before we leave and have her spread the word.

Tell her they must use every minute to get out before Jesstin triggers the blast."

"Jess is blowing the dam?" It was the fi rst time Kyla had spoken. "Are you steady enough on your feet to do that, Jesstin?

You look like h.e.l.l."

"It won't be a matter of fi tness or speed, adanin." Hakan's immense hand was gentle on the girl's shoulder. "Once Ziwa is freed and her waters join Terme Cay, no Amazon on Gaia's earth could * 183 *

outrun them. Jess won't have to rely on her own spindly legs." She inserted two fi ngers in her mouth, and an amazingly sharp whistle cracked through the air.

Before Brenna could ask what they were whistling at now, Shann drew her aside. They stood close together, and that veil of privacy fell around them again.

"On the stand, Blades, when I said I had Tristaine's greatest treasure, I didn't mean the detonator."

"I know. It's right here." Brenna patted her inner pocket. "I'll keep it safe, I promise."

"Thank you." Shann smiled. "Now listen carefully, Bren. Go with Jesstin. I've already convinced her that it's vital you do. Leave your journal by the dam, out of reach of the fl ood, but protected and somewhere visible, adanin. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I do."

Shann's eyebrows lifted. "You're not going to argue with me?

No questions?"

"Probably, just not now." Brenna grinned. "We'll see you at the glade, lady."

Shann's smile acknowledged that Brenna had used her t.i.tle for the fi rst time. She kissed her forehead, then went to Kyla and took her hand. "Little sister. Do you want to bring Camryn with us?"

There was silence again in their small party. Even the war cries and shouts of the battle around them faded as they waited for Kyla's answer.

"Once we wash Caster off this mountain, our valley will be sacred again." Kyla's eyes were clear and tearless now. "Let Camryn rest here with the bones of Dyan and our other lost sisters."

Shann nodded. "As you wish, Ky."

"Omboleza, adanin," Hakan added.

"My sorrow," Jess translated softly for Brenna.

Brenna was startled by a drumming of hoofbeats, and then Hakan's beautiful warhorse, Valkyrie, loped into the arena. Another sharp whistle from Hakan turned the huge mare toward them.

"We're decided, then?" Shann waited to hear any dissent.

"We're ready, lady." Hakan steadied her big horse.

* 184 *

Shann looked at Jess and lifted one eyebrow.

Jess turned to Brenna and grasped her cold hands. "Hakan was right about the route we'll take, Bren. After I set the timer on the dynamite, we'll have twenty minutes to ride back through the village and get out of the valley. You've never been on a horse in your life.

This is going to be pretty high drama, querida. You ready?"

"Of course not, but you have the hard part, Jesstin. All I have to do is hang on." Brenna went up on her toes and quickly kissed Jess. "We'd better hurry."

Without further ceremony, Jess ran three steps across the ground and jumped gracefully up onto Valkyrie's back.

Brenna's mouth fell open.

"You can get up there like a normal person if you prefer, little sister." Hakan grinned and offered Brenna her arm.

Being lifted to the broad back of an Amazon warhorse felt like cresting a mountain. A warm, hairy mountain that breathed.

Even Vicar looked short from this height. Brenna wrapped her arms tightly around Jess's waist, careful to avoid the taser marks.

I could be in the Clinic's pharmacy fi lling out prescriptions for Caster, she reminded herself. She didn't know if her inner voice sounded relieved or incredulous. She thought she might be a bit hysterical.

"Remember, Jesstin." Shann's voice carried sure and certain command. "I consider both of you irreplaceable. Understood?"

"Aye, lady."

"Ride b.l.o.o.d.y fast, Stumpy." Vicar handed Jess a coiled rope and nodded at Brenna. "Find us at the glade tonight."

Jess leaned down to accept Shann's hand. "Your blessing, lady?"

Brenna watched the Amazon queen inhabit their elder sister again in the blink of an eye.

"Jesstin, Brenna, you ride for Tristaine. May Artemis shield you. Come home safe. Now hurry!"

Shann released Jess's arm as the big mare leapt forward.

Brenna had thought there'd be a need to kick a horse to make that happen. Luckily, she was stuck to Jess's back like a burr.

* 185 *

She looked over her shoulder, and just before Shann and their sisters disappeared behind the log part.i.tion, Brenna saw Kyla lift her hand in benediction.

As they rode out of the stadium, Brenna had time to notice that it was almost twilight. The short winter day had given way to the golden sunlit hour that sometimes blessed the mountains just before dusk. Tristaine's village square was beautiful in the honeyed light.

But in jarring contrast to nature's peace, the scene was anything but serene. Shrill cries and shouts still split the cold air, and fi gures ran everywhere, both Amazons and City soldiers.

"Jesstin, no! Go that way!" It was an Amazon Brenna didn't know, one who had fought on Theryn's side. She was crouched in the gra.s.s at the east corner of the neat log infi rmary, pointing.

"Toward the lodges of the trades guild! The barracks of the warriors is overrun!"

"My thanks, Frost!" Jess nudged Valkyrie with one knee, and the mare charged back around the stadium and past it.

Brenna adjusted quickly to Valkyrie's even gait. There was something both alien and familiar about the horse's rhythms beneath her. She loosened her arms around Jess and found it easier to balance sitting upright.

"You all right?" Jess called to her as she hitched the coiled rope higher over her shoulder.

"I'm having fun!" she called back and spit a fl ying tendril of Jess's hair out of her mouth.

She heard Jess laugh as they rounded the fi rst of the four long lodges used by Tristaine's tradeswomen.

Valkyrie was fast. They pounded down the gra.s.s strip that ran between the weavers' lodge and that of the woodworkers, heading toward the river that ran through Tristaine.

Toward Terme Cay, Brenna amended. It was beginning to look as if they would make it through the confusion unchallenged.

Then, as they rounded the last lodge, she realized she was looking down the barrel of a rifl e pointed right at them.

Rodriguez held it, the mercenary Brenna had introduced * 186 *

herself to with a punch to the genitals. She started to shout a warning to Jess, but the words died in her throat. A dagger appeared, as if by magic, buried to the hilt in the man's chest. Rodriquez dropped the rifl e, and blood exploded around the embedded blade. Brenna stopped watching.

"Briggs!" Jess saluted the warrior who had thrown the dagger, as Valkyrie carried them on a dead run past her.

"For Shann!" Briggs called, and Brenna heard several scattered Amazon voices echo her shout of fealty.

"Oh, lordy."

Brenna's stomach hadn't quite been ready to cross the footbridge. She trusted Tristaine's carpenters, but this was a half ton of horse carrying them across, and then Terme Cay was behind them, and Valkyrie churned up the low rise that led to the Amazons' private cabins. She felt for the journal in her pocket and was rea.s.sured by its solid presence.

They rode up the mountain now on the broad path that led to the dam. It was broad, at least, when you were walking on it alone.

But even alone, it had terrifi ed her only days ago. When riding an Amazon warhorse at top speed, possibly to your death, it was...

b.l.o.o.d.y harrowing, Brenna thought, narrating the action in her head to record later in her journal. For the fi rst time since she had left the City, Brenna barely noticed the natural beauty of her surroundings. There was little room in her mind for the colors of the rugged canyon off the path to their left, or even the dark blue glory of the lake that loomed ahead. Brenna could focus on only three things: following Jess's instructions, obeying Shann's command, and making sure they both got out of there alive.

When they reached the lake, Valkyrie slowed to a walk, steam puffi ng into the cold air. They studied the dam's shadowed surface and the small platform secured to its main support. The neatly wrapped bundle of dynamite looked undisturbed.

Jess lifted one knee over the horse's neck and dropped to the rocky ground. Brenna accepted her a.s.sistance with her own dismount, which felt like sliding off the roof of a building.

"Do you need me?" Brenna asked.

* 187 *