I miss my sisters. And my dog. And if we can get there by the full moon, we'll be in time for the Festival of Thesmophoria, and I'll get to sing the Challenge, rather than that tone-deaf, immature, lame little toad Deidre. So shut it, Camryn. We're going home!"

Brenna blinked. Shann looked up at Jess, who stood over them with crossed arms, one shoulder braced against an aged cedar.

Jess shrugged.

"We're decided then," Shann said pleasantly. She tucked the blankets around Kyla again. "If you rest tonight, Kyla, we'll face the ridge tomorrow. And the night after, we'll warm our feet at Tristaine's hearth."

She leaned forward and kissed Kyla's forehead, then laid a hand on Camryn's bony wrist. "Try to sleep, adanin. That means you too, Brenna, and take Jesstin with you. I have fi rst watch."

O.

Brenna lay still while Shann fi nished feeding the small fi re that warmed their circle. She tied her cloak around her shoulders and settled again on a moss-shrouded stone to begin her watch.

Brenna turned onto her back and scanned the star-spangled sky overhead. She could now pick out the Seven Sisters easily. Tristaine believed that particular star fi eld composed the small campfi res of the clan's seven founders, the women who fi rst carved a crude camp above the City seven generations ago. Their names ticked through her mind like music: Kimba, Jade, Beatrice, Julia, Constance, Wai Yau, Killian.

According to Shann, the star representing Julia's campfi re guided her, Tristaine's fi rst-and only-seer and prophet. I'll follow any star that gets us up that ridge tomorrow, Brenna promised silently, not realizing she was praying. If that star can wipe out a few zillion of those gnats, that's gravy on the meat loaf.

* 41 *

She looked across the camp and studied Shann's austere beauty in the moonlight, made more poignant by the lines of grief that bracketed her mouth. She was studying the colorful glyph etched on her wrist, which identifi ed her as an Amazon queen. Along with the design, the symbol of royalty, Shann's glyph consisted of the fi gures of three women-Amazons, presumably-and her fi ngers moved slowly over them now.

Not for the fi rst time, Brenna wondered at the emotional burden carried by the leader and guardian of an endangered tribe of warrior women. One who had recently lost her own adonai-her wife and closest adviser-to violent death.

Brenna clasped Jess's forearm, which rested lightly beneath her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She turned on her side, and Jess stirred and moved closer, warming her back.

"Ye haven't relaxed since ye were fi ve," Jess teased in a sleep-thickened voice that turned her brogue to malt.

"I'm sorry, Jesstin," Brenna whispered, stroking the muscled arm holding her. "I fi nally got you to sleep. Don't let me undo my own good work."

Jess let the soft slide of Brenna's palm on her skin coax her awake. She breathed in the light scent of her lover's hair and rubbed her tense shoulder.

"You're tight as wire, Bren." Jess worked her left hand gently between Brenna's thighs. "How do City girls unwind after a long day?"

"Uh, not that way." Brenna grinned, then tapped Jess's arm.

"Hey, listen. Kyla's snoring. Good. At least she's sleeping deeply enough to...Jesstin?"

"Darlin'?" Jess slid one leg over Brenna's and laid her arm beneath her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to hold her in place. Her fi ngers had moved beneath the waistband of Brenna's pants and softly stroked the furred mound between her legs.

"Jesssss." Brenna squirmed. "Excuse the h.e.l.l out of me, but this is not the way to relax me, all right?"

"You're wrong, la.s.s." Jess's breath brushed warmly across the side of her neck. "This works every time. It's an old Amazon * 42 *

remedy for easing tension and summoning pleasant dreams." Brenna could feel faint tremors coursing down her back.

She suppressed a gasp as the long fi ngers slid home, gliding among her suddenly liquid folds with insolent confi dence. Her spine wanted to melt, but she was acutely aware that they were not alone.

"Jess! We're at a slumber party here!"

"We're going home, my Brenna." Jess's voice and fi ngers stroked her skillfully, patiently, in a pattern proven to reduce her to shivering fragments. "In Tristaine, you and I will have a lodge of our own at last, and privacy. But we'll not do anything, then or now, that would shame us to have our sisters hear."

"d.a.m.n it, Jess, you know I can't-" Brenna bit her lip and tried to slow her breathing. "I can't just...whoa...do this quietly...

this is the second time you've-"

"Shhhh, Bren, aye, you can be quiet, if I ask it," Jess whispered as her fi ngers moved faster now, with a tighter urgency. "Silent as a breeze..."

Brenna crested hard, and Jess was d.a.m.nably right; the effort to keep silent only prolonged her pleasure. She timed Brenna sweetly and well, stroking her down slowly from shuddering climax to liquid peace.

Jess chuckled, gloating, and Brenna nudged her with a reproving elbow. She woofed into her soft hair. "Are you worried about tomorrow's ridge, la.s.s?"

"Nope," Brenna sighed, melting back against Jess at last.

"Piece of cake...sleep, Jess, now."

"Yes'm."

Across the camp, Shann smiled up at her seven Grandmothers, as tears traced the lines of her face.

O.

"Did you get hit?"

There was gruff concern in Camryn's tone, and Brenna made herself lower her hand from her eyes. "No, Camryn, I'm fi ne."

"Don't look down unless you have to," Cam advised her again.

* 43 *

"It's not looking down that gets me, at the moment."

Jess's ascent was kicking down enough small gravel to warrant proper eye protection for the women waiting on the ledge below. But apparently basic Amazon climbing gear did not include safety goggles. Or anything even faintly resembling a net.

They had one nylon rope they had smuggled out of the City, and Shann had brought another from Tristaine, made of some tough, sinewy fi ber that seemed equally durable. But this high off the forest fl oor, Brenna found the twined vines that made up the rest of their suspension anchors woefully inadequate. She shaded her eyes to look up at Jess, then covered them again in spite of herself.

"She's climbing well, Blades." Shann patted her arm rea.s.suringly. "Jesstin grew up in these mountains. She scaled heights like this when she was just a-whoops."

"What?" Brenna cried.

"Nothing," Shann said, steadying her quickly. "That outcropping there juts out too far to manage Kyla's sling, that's all.

Jesstin's marking the second route for us."

Brenna looked for herself. She appreciated Shann's kindness, but refused to take comfort in anything she said. After all, it was Shann who had referred to this harrowing cliff as "a bit daunting."

She peered skyward through her spiky bangs and sighted Jess again, working her way steadily toward the crest. Her movements were smooth and unhurried as she pa.s.sed from one hold to the next.

Jess was climbing unanch.o.r.ed, laying rope and vine for the rest of them to use as she went. The lines would offer marginal security as they moved up the rock face, but if Jess slipped, nothing would stop her from plummeting down to the granite ledge where they waited, or beyond it to the valley below.

"She'll be fi ne, Bren." At Brenna's feet, Kyla managed a wan smile. Camryn tied off the last of the vines that would secure the makeshift sling designed to carry her over this treacherous stretch.

"Jess is half mountain goat."

"More than that," Camryn muttered.

Brenna crouched cautiously on the narrow ledge and helped Camryn slide Kyla's bandaged leg into the folded blankets that * 44 *

comprised the sling. It was a clever contraption, strong enough to bear her weight, but leaving her uninjured leg free so she could distance herself from the rock.

"I wouldn't mind hitching a ride in this thing myself." Brenna eyed the sling with some envy as she checked the dressings on Kyla's thigh.

"It's how we carry babies and little kids," Kyla grumbled.

"And injured, sulking Amazons," Shann added. "Look, adanin." She pointed to a dizzyingly high spot up the cliff. "Our goat has triumphed."

Brenna craned her neck and saw Jess rise to her feet at the top of the ledge and slap dirt off her legs with her hands. She rested her fi sts on her hips and stood still a moment, scanning the forest below.

The G.o.ddesses who guarded Tristaine had granted them fair weather for the climb, which made Brenna weak-kneed with grat.i.tude. She couldn't imagine scaling all this loose rock in a downpour. She tried to focus on anything other than imminent death and concentrated instead on the goal. She would glory in the sunshine and the soul-satisfying view that Jess, after her months of captivity, was sure to be soaking up at the crest.

"Blades." Shann laid a hand on her shoulder, and Brenna rose carefully.

"I'll get started." Shann steadied herself against the rock and looked down at Brenna, her eyes warm. "You're strong and agile, little sister. You'll be fi ne."

"I will be," Brenna confi rmed, "if no queens fall on my head."

She smiled up at Shann with more bravery than she felt.

"I'll swan dive past you, I promise." Shann bent and kissed her cheek, then gripped the nylon rope. She pulled herself up to the fi rst long shelf that marked the route Jess had set for the climb. "Camryn, Kyla, move with care, please," she called over her shoulder.

"Lady," they chorused in a.s.sent, and all watched Shann's progress closely.

The order they ascended made sense to Brenna, at least after Jess had explained it. The strongest climber, Jess, went fi rst to * 45 *

set anchoring points and chart the safest route to the crest. Shann climbed second to help guide Kyla's sling up the rock, while Brenna and Camryn shared Kyla's weight with Jess, who pulled the vines that raised the sling up the cliff's face.

"We're set." Camryn leaned in and kissed Kyla solemnly. She and Brenna would have to climb evenly up the rise to keep Kyla level. Jess had prioritized that necessity as she marked their path.

"Hokay," Brenna said to the stone wall before her. "I could be fi lling in requisition forms for Caster right now." That perspective helped her begin.

At fi rst the climb was not the wet-palmed horror she feared it would be. Shann was right. She was up to this. Brenna had been an athlete even in the City, and long weeks without alcohol, with regular workouts and fresh air, had strengthened her. She moved slowly up the steep grade, fi nding holds where her hands and feet expected them, keeping her center of gravity in easy balance. She and Camryn watched each other carefully, glancing down to monitor Kyla's progress.

"Slowly, sisters." Jess's faint, low voice sounded above them like a benediction from one of the Seven. "This isn't a race."

"Watch the patch of loose shale here, Cam," Shann called down, panting a little as she lifted herself to the next hold. Camryn whistled acknowledgment.

Kyla was weathering the climb well. She used her free leg to kick off from the rock face, but otherwise moved as little as possible to keep the sling steady. Brenna heard a lilting melody below her as she pulled herself, gasping, over a snarl of roots.

"Oh, great, Ky's being funny." Camryn's breath was coming a bit harder too. "That's an old Amazon love chant she's singing.

The words are 'don't let me go.'"

"Amazons have love chants?" Brenna squinted dust out of her eyes and peered upward for her next hold. She could see Jess, taking in line carefully as Shann eased herself around a tangle of brush.

She and Camryn were better than halfway up the cliff's face, and she was beginning to believe she would live to see the sun set. "The * 46 *

City has Reproduction Clinics. I think Tristaine is more romantic."

"We have reproduction clinics too," Kyla piped up, "but I bet they're a h.e.l.l of a lot more fun than the City's."

"Save your breath down there!" Jess called.

A gritty scrambling of stone drowned out her voice, then Shann's sounded, sharp and clear. "Rock!"

Luckily for Brenna the instinctive thing was also the only thing she could do. Her forearm shot up over her head, and she braced herself against the cliff's face, making herself as small a target as possible.

Shann's foot had struck a loose shelf of shale, which broke off and hurtled toward them in dangerous chunks. For a moment, all Brenna heard was the impact of stone ricocheting off rock, and she hissed in fear for Kyla, swinging unprotected below them. An ugly thud and a m.u.f.fl ed cry reached her scant moments later, and her eyes fl ew open to see Camryn reeling against her line, a hand pressed to her head and blood welling between her fi ngers.

"Shann!" Jess called.

"I'm secure, Jess!" Shann answered immediately, breathless but anch.o.r.ed again to the cliff wall.

"Brenna, Cam?"

Jess was answered when Camryn's line went slack and she sagged senseless in the halter securing her to the guide rope. Brenna lunged to the side and reached for her, but couldn't span the distance between them without losing her hold and snarling the rope that held the sling.

"Brenna, stay there!"

She heard Jess's shout through the tympani of her heart in her ears and craned her neck to search for Kyla.

"I'm okay, Bren!" Kyla had been able to shift her body so that most of her weight was taken from Camryn's line. Brenna felt the increased pull in her arms and legs.

"Cam, you talk to me!" Jess barked.

Camryn spun in a slow half circle, her hands trailing limply.

A thin line of blood wended its way down her face.

* 47 *

"She's unconscious!" Brenna called to the group at large. She clenched both rock and line so tightly that the tendons in her wrists stood out like wires.

"It's all right, Bren. I've got her." Jess stood braced on the lip of the ridge, the nylon rope secured around a stone pillar. "You're tied off, all of you. Now keep your heads! Shann! Lady, can you reach me without my help?"

"I can, Jesstin."

"Then come." Jess gripped the rope and the woven vines that secured the sling.

"Brenna? Shann and I will help you lift Kyla and Cam.