Spiritwalker 3: Cold Steel (66 page)

Blessed Tanit! I knew I was too late even as I ran for her. She spun tumbling into
the underbrush, keening and moaning and then abruptly silent. The rushlight guttered
out. The flames in the branches died, but the smoky taste of her death lingered, for
she was quite dead, killed by the backlash of her own untrained magic.

“Lord Gwyn sent us after you, Maestra,” said one of the soldiers, grasping my arm.
“You’re not to leave camp ever, on Lord Marius’s orders, unless the commander says
so. Cursed little witch got what was coming to her, didn’t she? Ragno’s got a burn
on his chin now.”

“Let me go!”

He hesitated, grasp tightening, then looked past me. A black shape stalked the trees.
It yawned to display saber teeth. The soldiers retreated hastily, and so did I, for
there was nothing I could do for the dead girl.

She was dead because she had no catch-fire, no training, no chance
of a normal life. No wonder she had hoped to run away to the general’s army.

Rory stayed in cat form all that night. At dawn he gifted me with a dead rabbit. In
its own small way, the gesture was rather sweet, and seared over the campfire the
meat was tasty.

Our troop moved south with skirmishers’ haste, changing out horses, stopping at a
village to commandeer sacks of grain from unhappy villagers before riding on. The
soldiers treated me with propriety but their stares made me uncomfortable and Rory
was in a constant state of half-leashed snarl. Lord Gwyn frequently halted to interview
the locals. More than once he called a file of laborers out of the field and cracked
questions over them as they stood with heads bowed, their surly anger like a cloud.
They never had anything to say.

Another few miles south an old woman appeared, trudging with a bundle of reeds atop
her head. She stopped stock-still, seeing the thirty soldiers and their horses. Then
she saw the big cat.

“Salve, domine,” she said with remarkable aplomb. “Lord of cats, what brings you here
to this lonely community, riding with the prince’s men?” With a wise smile she dropped
her voice to a murmur. “Forty years too late if you chanced to wish to seduce me in
your human body. For if you are as beautiful in your other form as in this one, I
think I just might have let you.”

Purring, Rory approached her cautiously and licked her hands. She smiled, then sobered
as she eyed the soldiers and, with a frown, considered me alone among them.

“Do not fear us, old aunt,” said Lord Gwyn. “Be on your way.”

Rory escorted her past the troop and waited until she was out of sight before he loped
after us as we rode on.

The blissful scent of summer lay everywhere. Ahead a tower and roofs marked the town
of Castra. We clattered into town past well-tended buildings. People hurried inside
and closed their doors. A small river ran through the middle of the town. After we
crossed the bridge the soldiers led the horses to water. I walked downstream along
the grassy bank, whacking at leaves. Birds warbled. An object spinning past on the
silty green water caught my eye. I fished out a tricornered hat. One peak had been
crushed. A badge in the shape of a lion’s head was pinned on the felt.

With a shiver of misgiving I scanned the river. A white tassel flowed past, too far
away to reach. A little farther downstream something had gotten caught in a bush that
hung over the river: a sleeve trimmed with gold braid. I walked down and prodded at
it.

An arm was still inside, although the hand had been blasted off, ragged bone shining.
A dead man was caught in the branches. His face was bloated, his left eye was a gaping
hole, and half his teeth were missing. Tendrils of black hair streamed out from his
head, and he wore a white sash embroidered with the twin lions of Numantia.

I reeled back, gasping. Noble Ba’al! Death lay at hand, ugly and violent.

Yet my mind grasped the whole: Camjiata’s army was somewhere upstream.

Lord Gwyn’s shout carried from the bridge. “Can you cursed men not keep your eye on
the girl?”

With no warning, volleys of rifle fire shook the air. Gouts of smoke rose all about
the bridge as Lord Gwyn’s skirmishers were attacked so suddenly that I stood in gaping
confusion. Had the day not been peaceful just one breath ago, even the quiet corpse
in its watery grave?

The battle raged in plumes of smoke, in the ragged cries of men hit and fallen, in
the rumble of horses’ hooves as survivors tried to escape the ambush. Rory raced up
still in cat shape and shoved me with his head. Several men appeared on the other
side of the river with rifles pointed right at me. They wore the same uniform as the
dead man: Iberians! I pulled the shadows around me. Shot peppering behind us, Rory
and I bolted through the dirt paths and fenced gardens of the outskirts of town. A
cart track lay empty but for a solitary bird hunting for bugs. The shooting ceased.
Crows flocked overhead, heading for the battleground.

We broke onto an empty pasture recently mown. Drying grass lay in raked strips along
the uneven ground. A bird whistled in a lovely waterfall of song. Another bird chirruped
four discordant notes. The skin of my neck prickled. Rory halted, ears forward. I
slipped my cane from its loop.

We trotted across the pasture toward a towering shrub riddled with orange flowers.
All was peaceful until a brightly plumaged body burst out of its branches, as tall
as me, talons gleaming.

I leaped forward to whack the creature on the head. With a clicking stutter, it fell
back as I fell back. We panted, at a momentary standstill, staring at each other.

A dancing spin of tiny mirrors and shards of polished metal flashed in my eyes. The
feathered person stood clothed in a mimicry of a soldier’s uniform weighted with shards
of all the shiny things its kind loved. It flashed a bold yellow-and-red crest as
it opened its muzzle to grin with predator’s teeth, like a shark giving you a moment
to accept that you’ve been honored by being chosen for its next meal.

Blessed Tanit protect me! Gracious Melqart give me strength! Noble Ba’al grant me
wisdom!

It lunged for me.

Rory leaped. He smashed right into the troll, and they rolled, crashing through the
brush. Orange petals spun in a cloud of color. I pulled shadows around me and ran
after them. The troll snapped at Rory, who dodged aside to rake at the troll’s flanks
with his wicked claws. It stumbled. Its fluid whistle pierced the air, answered by
a click and whistle. Blessed Tanit! Of course they never went anywhere alone.

As the troll whipped around to slash at Rory, I smacked it right over the eyes. Staggering
back, it retreated with nostrils flaring, momentarily blinded.

A stab of reflected light cut across my face. Rory faded into the brush as two feathered
people crept out of the trees about twenty paces apart, in hunting formation. The
way they had of bobbing their heads as they swept the scene crawled a shiver down
my skin. The blinded one whistled and clicked to them, blinking as it recovered. I
held steady. Even in daylight and entirely exposed, my shadows hid me from them, and
right now the wind was behind them so they could not smell me either.

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.

“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.