Cold Steel (Spiritwalker 3)

At a humble crossroads we turned east. Luce was finally telling me about the tumultuous siege of Burdigala. She had just related the thrilling episode of how Elephant Barca’s skirmishers had arrived in the dark of night to take the Coalition from the rear—a source of crude joking among the gals that even made Rory blush—when we came into sight of the town of Stampae.

The town crawled with soldiers. What a flood of cannon and rifles and troops! A large encampment was coming down even though it was very late afternoon. Out beyond the camp lay freshly dug graves. Wounded soldiers leaning on crutches or with bandages wrapped around chests or heads waited stoically outside canvas tents marked with a caduceus.

Luce led us past an inn crowded with soldiers taking a drink or a piss, for the smell of urine penetrated everywhere. The town market hall had a marble façade and Roman-style pillars, while a low wall set off a dusty area where an outdoor market could be held. This expanse boiled with young women at exercises conducted with sticks the length of rifles.

Local men loitered at the fence. No one uttered a single teasing word or taunting call, although now and again a comment brushed up between them.

“Look at those shoulders! She must have wrestled bulls back on the farm!”

“Everyone knows women are a cursed sight meaner than men. I heard at Lemovis they plowed down a division of the crack Arverni militia, just crushed ’em. Cut their balls right off.”

“We go around back,” said Luce, rolling her eyes as her cadre hurried ahead. “If I shall have to hear one more idiot babbling about Amazons cutting off men’s balls, I shall cut off his eggs just to prove ’tis no empty tale! I have heard that story a hundred times since I joined up! I wish they would just leave it be.”

“It sounds very painful,” observed Rory.

“’Tis not true!” she cried.

He frowned. “You don’t love me like you used to, Luce. You used to purr at the sight of me.”

She patted his arm. “That was a long time ago, Rory, and don’ think yee kisses weren’t delicious. But I’ve a sweetheart now, and anyway no time for men.”

“How can anyone have no time for men?” he muttered, looking a bit peevish.

“Where is the general?” I asked.

“Why, this is the headquarters. The Amazon Corps is seconded to the command division. We’s not regular army like the rest.”

A woman dressed in the Amazon uniform and armed with sword and pistol emerged from the market hall with a brisk gait I recognized. Captain Tira changed course to intercept us. Luce and her cadre halted to salute.

“Washed up, did yee?” Captain Tira looked me up and down. She was a maku even by Europan standards, with sun-worn skin, hair as black as my own, and eyes that spoke of ancestors in far Cathay where, legend had it, a dragon emperor ruled. Maybe the stories were true! Whatever her origins, she was Camjiata’s loyal soldier through and through. “Is the gal brought as a prisoner, or of she own wish?” she said to Luce.

“Of my own wish,” I said.

“Yee shall come with me, then. Trooper, yee lot shall return to yee company. Dismissed.”

Just like that, we were parted. Under Captain Tira’s stern eye we dared not even embrace.

“Take care, Luce,” I said, hoping my look spoke my heart.

“I shall find yee,” she promised. They loped off, settling into a brisk jog.

The captain led us into the long, lofty market hall. By a tiled stove, the general sat in a chair receiving reports and visitors. Five clerks occupied a table, writing busily without looking up. A striking group they were: a Taino woman, a feathered person, an old Iberian man, a thin Celt, and a curly-haired Kena’ani scribe.

Seeing me, Camjiata rose in surprise. “Catherine Bell Barahal! One account had you eaten by wolves, while another said the opia had stolen you. Yet here you are, looking hale and hearty and in company with your mysterious brother. I am glad of it, for I would be sorry to know you were gone. But I see no cold mage, as I had thought to do. Nor is Beatrice with you.” He examined me with a compassionate gaze that made me want to punch him. “Be sure you will always have a home with me if you are lost or bereaved or abandoned.”

I had never met a man who could speak in such sentimental platitudes and yet have it sound so genuine and unforced. It was one of the most irritating things about him. Indeed, it irritated me so much that all the clever, cunning wiles I’d meant to weave fled straight out of my mind. “Do you have my father’s journals? You stole them, just as you stole Bee’s sketchbook!”

He dropped his gaze to the floor with a smile that made me instantly suspicious, as if he guessed the entirety of my plan. Then he looked up. “Have you come to demand them back? Or were you captured by my soldiers? What scheme have you in mind?”

“My husband has been taken prisoner by his own mage House. Rory and I escaped and have fled in the hope you will take us in and help us rescue him.” As I spoke the words, I felt how false they sounded.

“What of Beatrice?”

“Her honeyed voice is raised on your behalf among the radicals.”

“Raised on my behalf, but not in my presence. You would think she no longer trusts me with her dreams.”

led us past an inn crowded with soldiers taking a drink or a piss, for the smell of urine penetrated everywhere. The town market hall had a marble façade and Roman-style pillars, while a low wall set off a dusty area where an outdoor market could be held. This expanse boiled with young women at exercises conducted with sticks the length of rifles.