Battle For Tristaine Part 8

"Brenna," Shann said quietly, "I'm sorry, adanin. I know this is hard for you. But things are moving quickly now. Even if you don't trust your own abilities, I'm asking you to trust me. These elders are leaving with the fi rst party tomorrow. They need to hear this in your own words."

* 68 *

"Okay. I'll try." Brenna met Jess's gaze again and cleared her throat. "I dream about horses. Horses aren't allowed within City limits, and I don't have a travel permit, so I've never seen a horse, except on fi lm. But I started dreaming about them when I met Jess, after she was transferred to the Clinic..."

Brenna recounted the series of nightmares that had plagued her for months. The night she fi rst tended Jess, she had dreamed of riding a black stallion and falling with it when its heart was pierced by a spear. Then there was a milling herd of horses, trumpeting panic as two stallions fought to the death. And the most recent, a foal shrilling in terror, trying to escape a blazing fi re hungrily consuming the forest.

Her throat was dry when she fi nished, and she gulped the cooling cider, feeling oddly depleted.

"Thank you, youngster." Dorothea patted Brenna's hand again. "You've done well. I'm sorry I won't get to know you better, Brenna."

"Maybe she could cough up something more specifi c tonight if we drugged her good?"

"Sarah." Jocelyn sighed and looked at Shann, her weathered face unreadable. "I agree, lady. Brenna follows Julia's star. But I don't know that she's helped us."

"We'll hold private council, Grandmother." Shann knelt beside Brenna and smiled into her dazed eyes. "Thank you, Blades. I'll see you and Jesstin later, after the Challenge." One blunt fi ngernail tapped the mug she held, and Shann whispered, "Slow down on these, little sister."

Brenna's face fl ushed with heat. She stood and found herself enveloped in Jocelyn's soft robes.

"Welcome to Tristaine, young Brenna." Jocelyn cupped her face in her hands. "Remember, we are an Amazon clan-not cabins in a mountain valley. Tristaine will rise again. We promise you that."

She released Brenna and winked at Jess. "Now go, widget, and show your adanin our Festival. We need to mutter wisely with our queen for a while."

* 69 *

Jess ushered Brenna out from under the canopy, and the happy chaos of the Festival descended again. Brenna fi lled her lungs with cold, pine-spiced air, overloaded with enough questions to keep Jess awake till dawn.

A laughing pack of children raced by, and she squeaked and dodged with relative deftness, she thought, given the amount of cider she'd imbibed. The Festival had transformed, with the return of Tristaine's queen, from a rather somber affair into the joyous celebration Kyla had described so lovingly. Everywhere Brenna looked, swarms of colorfully dressed Amazons gravitated to different gatherings.

Several circles of dancers had formed near the log meeting house, and the music was far more lilting and energized than the lonely woodwind notes they had heard outside the village.

Dozens of warriors decked in leather fi nery that weakened Brenna's knees were clapping and hooting around pairs of Amazons wrestling in an enclosed ring near the arena. The night was heady with music and noise and scented smoke.

"Brenna, I think it best you and Kyla leave with the fi rst wave tomorrow."

"What? Say again?" Brenna straightened and blinked at Jess.

"Are you drunk, too, widget?" She snorted laughter.

"I'm serious, Bren." There was a sadness in Jess's voice that aged her. "This battle will be b.l.o.o.d.y. Even when it's over, our last task here might prove just as dangerous."

"Wait a minute." Brenna tried not to slur her words. "What task, and what kind of dangerous?"

"We have to defeat Caster's soldiers, Bren, and then we must destroy the village."

"What?"

"Land is sacred to us." The tears glittering in Jess's eyes made them no less fi erce. "Leaving this valley to the City would be the desecration of a shrine. We'll not allow whoever follows Caster to profi t from Amazon lives, Brenna."

"Jesstin, slow down." Brenna frowned and waited for a wave of dizziness to pa.s.s. "First, with the Amazons gone, there's * 70 *

nothing here the City could want, and second, to repeat, what kind of dangerous?"

"Bren, it's nothing you can help with. There's no need for you to stay."

"Jesstin!" A cheerful voice hailed them from the small, sloping rise that led to the wrestling matches. "The ring awaits us, sister!"

Jess glanced over her shoulder. "A moment, Patana."

"Hey." Brenna's tone was ominously low. "You're awfully quick to dump me, Jess."

"You don't have much time to decide, la.s.s. I'll abide by your wishes, but-"

"d.a.m.n straight you'll abide my wishes!" She slurred that time, but she didn't care. She was mad. "d.a.m.n it, Jesstin, you don't just stroll up to a person and suggest she leave you, possibly forever, because-"

"Ah, Jessie, come on!" Patana's merry shout turned several heads. "You can bring your City girl!"

Brenna saw the muscles in Jess's jaw clench. She fought off her fogginess and touched her arm. "Look, this isn't the time for a wrestling match, even if we weren't having our fi rst fi ght. You're coming off a week-long hike with no sleep, and excuse me, but that Patana woman looks mean as a snake."

"She is. Don't worry about Patana." Jess's brogue was clipped, and she took Brenna's shoulders. "Adanin, no one expects you to risk yourself for a clan you've just seen. My warriors will join the rest of the clan in the southern meadows when it's over. It'll just be a few weeks."

"You're serious, aren't you?" Brenna stepped back, and Jess's hands fell from her shoulders. "You'd let me go, just like that."

"Bren-"

"Jess, you surprise me!" Patana taunted. "Dyan's fi nest, her right hand, surrenders without a fi ght?"

"I'll talk to you later, Jesstin. You better go. One of your warriors is calling you."

The crowd swallowed Brenna as she slipped between dancing Amazons and headed toward the river. The twisting fi gures moved * 71 *

around her in dizzying patterns. A few moments later, she heard a raucous cheer rise behind her as Patana's challenge was accepted.

O.

Brenna wandered aimlessly from one cheerful bonfi re to the next.

She felt curious stares as she moved through Tristaine's village square, but she was long accustomed to shutting out appraising looks, and no one bothered her. The numbing warmth of the hard cider in her blood helped.

Cheers rose periodically from the direction of the stadium, and she heard one woman yell to two others that the wrestling matches had moved to the arena. Dozens were thronging toward it, but there were still seas of milling, laughing women to be lost in.

Brenna reached a smooth wooden bench at the base of a huge oak tree and lowered herself to it gratefully. She pressed the tight muscles at the base of her neck, whispering invectives against tall blue-eyed Amazon warriors. A cold nose poked her thigh, and she yelped. Max yelped back.

Never having held a dog, Brenna found the furry white creature with pointed ears and quizzical brown eyes as exotic as a miniature unicorn. After a few moments, the little dog's questing black nose and inquisitive sniffs convinced her that Max wasn't going to rip out her throat.

"You're Max?" Brenna smiled, a bit sentimentally. "Kyla's doggie."

She scratched the mutt under the chin, and his eyes closed blissfully. Max extended his neck and tipped his furry head to direct her fi ngers to the best itchy spots. The campfi re glowed pink through his tufted ears. He growled softly in pleasure and Brenna laughed, delight breaking through her mild buzz.

"I'm glad to see you're making friends, Brenna." Myrine stood smiling at her from across the fi re, and the little mutt yapped happily and trotted over to greet her.

An imposing woman with silver-streaked black hair followed Myrine. When Max saw her, he changed course and bounded * 72 *

cheerfully toward another gathering. Brenna watched him go, a little wistfully.

"I trust we're making you welcome, adanin." The second woman smiled, and the fi relight glinted whitely off her sharp teeth.

She wore a cloak of charisma not unlike the aura surrounding Shann, Brenna thought, but hers was bolder, more vibrant. "Introductions, please, Myrine?"

"Brenna, this is Theryn, Tristaine's liaison with the City."

Myrine turned to Theryn with something like deference. "She's the reason we have any modern technology at all up here. Theryn makes an effort to welcome all new arrivals, and she especially wanted to meet you."

Brenna nodded. She could handle this. She was fi ne. Part of her registered the faint rumble of cheering coming from the stadium, but then she forced Jess out of her thoughts. She recognized this attractive woman's name. "You're on Tristaine's high council, is that right?"

"I have that honor." Theryn's shining cloak swirled as she sat on the bench close beside Brenna. "Myrine? Please go and fi nd out who claims victory in the ring-Patana or young Jesstin." She winked at Brenna. "I have a fi ne jade dagger riding on the outcome of the match."

"Of course, Theryn." Myrine handed Brenna the cup of cider she held, winked at her, and moved off into the crowd.

"No offense, my new friend, but I bet against your beloved."

Theryn's padded shoulder brushed Brenna's as she leaned into her confi dingly. "Patana is one of Tristaine's best in hand-to-hand.

Jesstin is good, but accepting Patana's challenge might have been a wee bit rash."

"Maybe." Brenna warmed her fi ngers around the mug. "But so is betting against Jess, so maybe you're a little rash, too, Theryn."

Theryn laughed softly, a melodic sound. "Your loyalty becomes you, Brenna! Please know I have nothing but affection for your brave warrior. I have great respect for Dyan's right hand. But Patana has become my own prodigy, and I have trained her well. I'm rather skilled in the martial arts."

* 73 *

"I see."

Theryn pursed her full lips. "But in all candor and truth, I can't claim to know either Patana or Jesstin well. Dyan and Shann were more my contemporaries, really, than Jess and her peers."

"Well, I guess Shann's still your contemporary then." Brenna drank deeply and shuddered. "She told me some Amazons here, mostly newer women from the City, believe Tristaine can make a deal with its Government."

"Loyal and direct." Theryn appraised Brenna. "Which is fortunate, because the migration begins tomorrow, and there's precious little time to prepare for a truce. I'm convinced we can negotiate with the City, Brenna, but I'll need your help."

Brenna blinked. Theryn's handsome face was blurring around the edges. "My help?"

"I know, from what little Myrine has told me, that Jesstin suffered a great deal in the City." Theryn's shoulder brushed hers again, a slower and more intimate caress. "Shann has always given Jesstin's counsel more...credence than mine. And Jess was stubborn before her arrest when it came to holding Dyan's word as gospel.

Now I imagine she'll prove quite infl exible."

"Quite." Brenna concentrated on focusing on Theryn's intense gaze and speaking clearly. "Theryn, you've never met Caster. She's the Clinic's top scientist in Military Research. I know her really well. I worked with her. You have no chance of negotiating with her, I promise you."

"Ah, but you've just met me." Theryn lifted one of Brenna's cold hands and warmed it in her own. "Don't underestimate my persuasiveness, young Brenna. I'm no stranger to halls of power, and I carry considerable infl uence in Tristaine's council. With luck, I might fi nd a workable alternative to the apocalypse Dyan had in mind for our village."

"Apoca? Lips?"

"If you'll trust me, Brenna, together we might be able to save Amazon lives. Perhaps even that stubborn warrior of yours." Theryn lifted one gloved hand and caressed Brenna's face. "You're truly not interested in hearing more?"

* 74 *

Brenna frowned again, fl ipping through her mental fi ling cabinet in search of Theryn's chart. This was one of the few Amazons Jess had spoken of without warmth, but her initial argument sounded pretty d.a.m.n compelling. Besides, Brenna was ticked at Jess and didn't give her opinion much weight at the moment.

"But what could Tristaine offer Caster, Theryn? When she can just take anything she wants?"

"This Caster must be highly educated, of course, as am I.

She's a woman of science, and I believe we can approach her on a purely logical basis."

"But spe...specifi cally-"

"Ah, Brenna. There is such beauty in this valley." Theryn's gaze moved from Brenna's eyes to her lips and back. She lifted her hand and pressed it to her breast earnestly. "Help me fi ght for our village, sister! Let your fi rst contribution to Tristaine, to your new home, be its salvation!"

Brenna heard another distant cheer from the stadium.

"I see we're both right about Jesstin's obstinance." Theryn chuckled. Then her full lips parted, and she moved closer to Brenna.

"All I'm asking of you is to keep an open mind in the days to come, young one, and an open heart."

"Jess's obstinance?" Brenna blinked, and Theryn came into focus again. "You mean that cheering's for her? That b.l.o.o.d.y stupid wrestling match is still going on?"

"Evidently." Theryn brushed two fi ngers down the side of Brenna's face again. "We badly need your fresh perspective, my lovely young friend. You have such wisdom and such-Brenna?"

Theryn's voice faded behind Brenna as she moved swiftly through the crowd. Irritation burned off some of her alcoholic haze, and she targeted the log stadium with swift certainty.

She crossed the footbridge over the river, not glancing at the women who walked with her in laughing groups of mixed races.

Brenna kept her eyes fi xed on the arched pines that marked the entrance to Tristaine's arena.

It seemed most of the village had crowded up on the log risers that surrounded the fi ghting fi eld, a rectangle of hard-packed dirt.

* 75 *

Dozens of Amazons formed a large circle that marked the boundaries of the wrestling ring. Most held torches, fl ooding the fi ghters in gold light.

Brenna slipped quietly through the crowd, her annoyance increasing as she heard a thud of bodies and another raucous cheer split the chill night air. She spied two familiar forms, Vicar and Hakan, and tapped her way in between them to see into the ring. It was unfortunate timing.

The last cheer had come from this side of the circle, among Jess's friends. Now Brenna heard a burst of shouting from the far end, just as her lover fl ew bodily through the air to crash hard into a watching throng of warriors at ringside.

Jess was helped to her feet with an edge of urgency as well as revelry. The crowded stadium fell almost silent between bouts of cheering. There was a tension in the air that Brenna felt clearly, even through the dazing effects of the cider.

Jess grinned at the warriors who righted her and shrugged off their hands, her eyes still locked on the opponent waiting across the ring. Patana had her hands braced on her knees, head lowered, pulling for breath. In spite of the chill in the night air, her short-cropped skull gleamed with sweat in the torchlight.

Jess's face was just as damp, and Brenna saw a trembling fatigue in the long muscles of her legs. Her throat and shoulders were patched with angry red marks, and other harbingers of bruising stood out on her bare forearms. More alarming, Jess's slow walk to the center of the ring revealed the minute limp that surfaced only when her old back injury was fl aring.