Cold Steel

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.

Luce set a brisk pace as we walked along the verge, heading south. She had filled out, as tall as me now and with broader shoulders. With her black hair cropped short and a scar across one cheek, she had a piratical look that would have been at home on the airship with Nick Blade and the Hyena Queen. Carrying rifle and kit, she looked every bit the soldier, but I could not shake the girl from my mind. I could not stop myself from scolding her.

“How could you break your family’s heart by running off?”

“Yee reckon yee get to have a heartsome beloved and run off to rescue him while the rest of us shall bide at home waiting? And meanwhile yee tell yee brother not to touch me so he say no to me while he go off with other folk? I’s of age! Free to act as I wish! Especially after yee just left like that, just vanished, telling not a single person goodbye!”

“The opia stole Rory! I had to go after him!”

“’Tis always yee, Cat.” She punched me so hard on the shoulder I staggered sideways as her comrades laughed. I was startled by how strong she was. “Yee punch sharks. Yee escape from Salt Island. Yee have a fine man to court yee despite the two-faced way yee treated him. Yee attract the notice of the commissioner of the wardens and of the infamous general, too! Young men came to drink at the boardinghouse because yee was waiting tables and they all loved to flirt with yee, and women likewise, not that yee ever noticed Diantha’s attentions in that way, did yee? Always, ’tis about yee! What was left for the likes of me? Yee know I love yee, Cat. Yee know I love me family. But I reckon I wasn’ about to spend the rest of me life in me grandma’s boardinghouse! Now I shall not!”

“Is this the sweetheart yee left behind?” asked one of the gals. To my surprise she indicated me.

“I’m Luce’s sweetheart,” cried Rory indignantly. “Aren’t I, Luce?”

Luce sighed as at an old jest. Her comrades laughed.

“Rory,” I said, “I believe that when a woman signs up to join the Amazon Corps, she swears an oath to engage in no sexual congress with a man for the term of her service.”

“Oh!” He favored Luce with a sad smile that made her laugh with her old girlish delight, but a bolder, wiser look creased her smile now. “Well, then, Cat, that means you can’t join the general’s army, can you? For I’m certain you are not willing to give up—”

“Yes, yes, Rory. That’s enough of that.”

“If yee got Vai back, where is he, Cat?”

“He’s being held prisoner by his mage House.” I hated to lie to her, but I could not risk the truth. “That’s why we’ve come. But tell me your story, Luce!”

The chance to tell her tale distracted her from my own. This grand and horrifying narrative beguiled me for several hours as we walked south. Files of infantry passed us in good order, mixed with cannon pulled by horses and the occasional baggage wagon. A column of Expeditioners called out to the gals in a familiar way. A company of Taino soldiers marched in silence. Iberians strode along with a fierce demeanor, armed with rifles and their famous falcatas, the short swords that had driven back the first Roman invasion of Iberia two thousand years ago. Many tipped their caps to Luce and her cadre as a sign of respect.

We passed a lively column of pale Celts with lime-whitened short-spiked hair and their cousins and brothers of mixed and Mande blood wearing their dark hair in the same spiky style. “Here’s to the heroines of Burdigala!” they called. “The drink’s on us next time! And Rufus here wants his balls back!”