They raised mirrors. Where these glances of light lanced across the field, they cut the threads of magic that bind the worlds. My shadows shredded into fraying ribbons whose ends I could not furl about myself. Whistling, the hunters stripped me of my concealment as they fanned out. One lashed its paddle of a tail as in a prelude to attack.
Yet the mirrors also cut right through the binding that made my sword appear as a cane in daylight. Freed from its net of shadow, the ghost hilt flowered into solidity. I grasped the hilt and drew my cold steel blade out of the spirit world and into the mortal world.
All three stopped dead in their tracks. Judging by their feathering and size, two were female and one male. They looked me over first with one eye, then the other, and then full on. My throat tingled, anticipating their bite.
“It’s very shiny,” I said, raising the blade as in salute. Their heads swayed as their gazes raptly followed the movement of the sword. “But don’t think you can take me easily. The spirit of my mother is bound into this sword.”
I turned and raced into the trees, thrashing through undergrowth in a rattle of noise, then stumbling unexpectedly onto a bushy verge along a major road. I was pretty sure we had found our way back to the main road to Cena, but I could not be sure. Rory nudged up beside me. He had a shallow graze on his right flank but nothing serious.
We crept forward through the grounds of a little roadside temple dedicated to the patron of travelers, Mercury Cissonius with his rooster and goat. Not a single priest attended the altar. The basin for ablutions had been overturned. Six corpses sprawled on the road, buzzing with flies. Their pockets had been turned out and their weapons and kit ransacked. I found Lord Gwyn, quite dead. Worst, one man’s face was half ripped off as by the slashing bite of a big predator. A humble farmer’s cloth cap lay on the ground, pierced by a shard of glass.
A thundering rumble rose and faded. A bird whistled in a waterfall of notes. Four trolls pushed out of the woods and onto the road. A fifth and sixth appeared on either side of the god’s statue in the temple. We were surrounded.
No wonder no scouts or spies ever returned. Camjiata was using the feathered people as skirmishers to protect his lines and hide his army’s movements. I braced myself for their attack as Rory hissed beside me.
A gust of wind rattled the branches. A drum rhythm paced through the woods. On its beat I heard a woman’s voice call out a verse, answered by a chorus of women singing the response.
Man try to give yee money, what can he get?
He can’t get nothing. Especially no kiss!
“Wait!” I said, brandishing my sword. “Look!”
They slewed their heads around. We all looked south to a bend in the road.
A column of soldiers marched into view, although they were almost dancing, so proud and mighty were they, and every single one a woman.
Four drummers led them while a fifth struck a bell, the drummers prancing and stepping on their way with every bit of flash and grin that any young man could muster. Their shakos were as jaunty as my own. All wore uniform jackets of dark green cloth piped with silver braid. Some wore trousers, while others preferred petticoat-less skirts tailored for striding. Most wore stout marching sandals laced along the length of the calf, brown legs and black legs and white legs flashing beneath skirts tied up to the knee. Four lancers walked in the first rank, tasseled spears held high, while the rest carried rifles and swords. A banner streamed on the wind: It depicted an antlered woman drawing a bow.
Amazons.
I took a step toward them before I knew I meant to. The rhythm beat right down into my heart. Was this not my inheritance as Tara Bell’s daughter?
One of the djembe drums sang out a command. The other drums dropped to a waiting rhythm as the column halted in perfect precision. The woman holding the hand-bell caught sight of me, and she winked just as if she were flirting. Her smile had such a saucy cheer that I winked back.
A sergeant strode out to confer in a perfectly natural way with the trolls. She was short and stocky, Taino in looks but an Expeditioner in speech. After a discussion, the trolls gave a last and perhaps regretful look at my sword and bounded away into the trees.
The sergeant approached me, keeping her pistol leveled at the big cat. “What manner of traveler is yee, gal, for that shako give yee a bit of the look of an Amazon. Where came yee from? Yee cannot be local folk, for I never saw such a cat in these parts before this day.”
“General Camjiata will give you a reward for bringing us to him.”
She smiled. “Will he, now? Do yee mean to walk into headquarters carrying naked steel?”
Reluctantly I sheathed my sword.
“Cat! Rory!” A tall gal streaked out of the column and slammed into Rory so hard that he staggered. She turned from him to embrace me. Tears glistened in her eyes. “What happened to yee? Did yee find Vai? I thought sure we should never see yee again!”
I gaped at her. “Luce? What are you doing here?”
Her joyful expression turned wary as she drew herself up defiantly. “Yee’s not the only gal who can go adventuring. I enlisted with the general’s army. I’s an Amazon now.”
“Trooper! Return to your place!”
“Wait, I beg you, Sergeant,” I said. “This soldier can vouch for me and my… pet. She knew me in Expedition. I worked waiting tables at her grandmother’s boardinghouse. Then I had to leave Expedition in order to rescue my husband. Which I did,” I added with a glance at Luce.
“Yee don’ say,” said the sergeant with a narrowing of the eyes. “Is yee by any chance that maku what punched a shark?”
Luce laughed.
It isn’t conceit if it’s true.
“Why, yes. I am.”
“Peradventure yee’s come to join the Amazons, is yee?” She nodded at my cane. “Which yee cannot do if yee has a husband. Tch! No call to go wasting yee own self on a man, if yee ask me. Trooper, commandeer a cadre and escort her to headquarters, if yee reckon the cat is tame.”
“Don’ worry about the cat, Sergeant,” said Luce, rubbing Rory’s head as he purred most shamelessly. “He’s easy to please.”
The sergeant considered this display. With a shrug she whistled sharply. The drums rolled back into marching mode. We stepped off the road to allow the Amazons to pass. How they strutted with us for an audience, or maybe because they always did. I might have marched with them! But a different life had burst like an exploding cannon in my face, with its shrapnel of complications. Their life was not meant for me, and as they marched north out of my sight, a part of me regretted it.
39
Five gals peeled off from the column to gather beside Luce. They were strapping young women who looked as if they’d gotten bored of working in the factories or out on the farm and fancied adventure over marriage. I dug Rory’s clothes out of my satchel and shook out a pagne as a screen. Behind the cotton cloth he changed and dressed, then stepped into view to the exclamations of the gals. He offered them his most promiscuous smiles.
“Rory, you can’t just smile like that at strangers,” I muttered.
“Why not? I saw you wink at that bell-playing woman!”
With a brilliant grin Luce took hold of his hand. “Here is Cat and Rory, the ones I have spoken so much of. We’s to escort them to headquarters!”
She told us their names. The way the gals enthusiastically greeted us recalled me to the free and easy manners of Expedition gals, and how much I had enjoyed their friendship. We left the dead behind as crows descended to investigate.