Recruits (Keeper of the Water Book 2) (13 page)

“Are you trying to get us killed?” Anne yells at her.

“Me?” the former Russian empress yells back. “Look at the mess
you’ve
created. How dare you blame others for – ”

“You threw rocks at
our
tree so the soldiers would spot us,” I interrupt, blurting out the words without thinking.

For a moment, all Amazonian eyes are on me. My face flushes. My goal was to keep a low-profile long enough to prove my worth to the tribe but that strategy is gone once I open my mouth. I’m not as eager to make enemies as my mentor is but when I see Cassie glaring angrily at me, I realize that’s exactly what I’ve done.

“Only speak when you are spoken to, foolish recruit,” Cassie chides me before turning to the rest of the tribe. “She is obviously a savage and a liar. No wonder the
pirate
wanted her to be part of our group…”

Anne turns to Cassie and I can tell my mentor is thinking the same thing I am: Catherine wouldn’t have done something so drastic on her own. And there’s only one member of the Queen Clan with enough clout to convince her to do that.

“It was
you
,” Anne says, turning toward Cassie.

My mentor rushes toward the leader of the Queen Clan but an unexpected person intervenes. When the Keeper steps in front of Cassie, Anne immediately comes to a halt, as does any conversation among the rest of the tribe.

“This ends now,” the Keeper says simply, her voice dreamy and quiet. “We can not fight with each other when there is such danger out there. The water is the most important thing and we must…”

I listen to the Keeper as intently as the rest of the women but my ears are extra sensitive. With only the Keeper’s soft whispering to distract me, I pick up on the distant sound of rumbling,
feel
the footsteps of hundreds of running soldiers. The noise becomes deeper and louder with every passing second.

“They’re coming,” I say, blurting for the second time in minutes.

The Keeper stops talking and I feel the eyes of every Amazon turn toward me again. This time, the Queen Clan isn’t alone in their disapproval. The Keeper and Anne are the only two women not glaring in my direction. I’ve never been told that interrupting the Keeper is a big no-no but it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out now.

“How dare you talk over our leader when she’s addressing the tribe?” Cassie snaps. She seems appalled by my intrusion but I wonder how much of that is genuine and how much is an act.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that I hear – ”

“Don’t you get it?” Cassie interrupts. “When the Keeper talks, you shut your mouth and listen. Are you
trying
to distance yourself from the tribe like your mentor has done?”

“Let the girl speak,” the Keeper says, instantly silencing Cassie. “I’m sure she has something important to say.”

This earns me an extra long scowl from the Queen Clan. With everyone watching, my mind goes blank for a moment but the Keeper’s gentle smile eases my tension. I close my eyes and focus on the footsteps, focus on the slight vibrations of the Earth that I feel beneath my feet. I wonder how the other, more powerful Amazons can’t sense it and hope my mind isn’t playing tricks on me. But I’ve always been attuned with the world around me, tapped into nature when others weren’t, even before I took my first sip of special water. Now that
all
of my senses are heightened, I feel an even greater connection with the world around me.

“Soldiers, a lot of them,” I say once I’m totally certain. “They’re coming our way – quickly.”

The Amazons look worried but most of them snap into action, forming a protective circle around the Keeper. An arsenal of primitive weapons – spears, blades, clubs – are raised, ready to defend the holder of the precious water. Cassie appears concerned but she doesn’t move.

“I don’t hear anything,” she says.

“As we all know, Sacajawea was a skillful hunter for many years,” the Keeper says. “She can hear and feel things the rest of us can’t. We would be wise to trust her now.”

I point in the same direction where the other soldiers came from, the same vicinity as the river where we traveled.

“They’re coming from that way,” I say. “The Army must’ve been moving along the river, too.”

“If we didn’t stop
here
, we would’ve floated right by them with the darkness of night for cover,” Cassie complains. “Now we can’t even go back that way, can’t return to our canoes. Do you know how much longer this trip will take on foot instead of on water?”

“If we travel as far south as expected, adding a little more time shouldn’t matter,” Anne counters.

I still hear the footsteps running closer but I lose focus long enough to listen to the arguing between Anne and Cassie. By the time it’s decided that we’ll flee in the opposite direction of the Army, I listen for the soldiers again. But their footsteps sound different this time, fragmented. I can no longer pinpoint exactly where they’re coming from.

We move away from the Army, the Keeper walking a bit faster than on the first part of our trip. But with most of the Amazons so closely encircling her, our progress is slow. We travel no more than a few minutes when I hear
rustling
in the forest to the side of us. A regiment of gray-uniformed soldiers emerges, successfully flanking us. I stay by Anne’s side as we form another layer of defense in front of the Keeper.

“Hold it right there!” the commanding officer yells.

His troops don’t fire but they appear ready to at the first sign of danger. Many of the soldiers look just as young as the runner…
and
just as nervous.

“Lower your weapons,” their leader commands.

It doesn’t matter to him that we’re women or that our weapons are primitive compared to their guns. He views us as the enemy and it’s clear he’s willing to deal with us accordingly. I wonder if it might be smarter to lay our weapons down and try to talk our way out of this mess but not a single woman makes a move to do this. We are Amazons and taking
any
chance of the water ending up in the wrong hands – especially the hands of
men
– is not an option.

And compromising with the enemy is not an option for the soldiers. One of the nervous troops positioned at the front of the regiment squeezes his trigger, the sound of which causes the rest of the soldiers to open fire. We’re outnumbered three-to-one and the first volley of gunfire strikes several women. I don’t expect those Amazons to survive but they’re tougher than any humans I’ve ever known and quickly scatter, dragging the Keeper with them.

The only Amazon that doesn’t move is the one shot in the head, a woman I had yet to introduce myself to. I don’t even know her name but feel terrible at the sight of her lifeless body, a lost sister. I don’t mourn for long. While most of the Queen Clan protects the Keeper and ushers her away, I join Anne and the other Amazons who fight back. The women move like a blur, faster than anything the men could possibly imagine. The soldiers try to hold their ranks but they shoot at blurs, hitting nothing but each other in the crossfire. I’ve never fought as an Amazon before but I follow Anne’s lead of attacking and moving, attacking and moving, never giving the soldiers a stationary target to aim for.

The soldier I shot earlier was my first even human target. Now, I take aim for target after target. I run behind trees, peeking out just long enough to shoot arrows at the men threatening our water. I don’t miss with a single shot and it’s not long before I run out of arrows. I guess I
could
head for the Keeper and be one more bodyguard for her but I’m sure Cassie and the Queen Clan would tell me that’s not my place. Besides, I don’t know if I’ll face more danger being unarmed around Cassie or the soldiers.

“Don’t just stand there! Go
do
something to help!” a voice yells at me when I remain hidden behind a tree for the few seconds it takes to consider my next move.

Okay, so not
all
of the Queen Clan hides from the battle. Catherine the Great moves so quick that I hardly see the glint of her twin short swords flashing by. She’s still new enough to the tribe that she must fight alongside the rest of the newcomers but she’s certainly capable with her deadly blades. With the soldiers being sliced and hacked and speared and clubbed from all sides, their formation soon breaks down and men scatter across the bloody battlefield. They’re easy pickings for Catherine and Anne, who sprint toward the men and slice them apart while hardly being seen.

I follow their lead but focus on the dead soldiers for now instead of the living. In less than a minute, I dance around the carnage, refilling my quiver of arrows. I try not to think about the blood and chunks of flesh that now stain the tips of my arrowheads. I take aim at a few more targets but the action dies down after only a few minutes. The soldiers stood very little chance.

Cassie takes this time to show back up, a crossbow in hand. It’s the first time I’ve seen her with such a weapon, which is similar to my bow but much easier to use. She appears ready to fight but I’m sure that’s just an act. But she sure picks a bad time. A second regiment appears from the opposite side of the first and a hail of bullets is fired in our direction. A second Amazon goes down in the surprise attack but those that remain regroup in the small shelter behind a group of trees.

I’m glad to see Anne and the others still alive. My mentor’s eyes are wide like the other Amazons’ but she seems more excited than frightened. She even winks at me though she resists the urge to smile. Despite the tension among our tribe, we’re all united at the moment. I’m sure Cassie has no problems with
anyone
willing to help protect her. The Amazons don’t need to discuss attack strategy; our actions are innate. In unison, we circle around the trees and attack, Cassie and I providing covering fire for the women with handheld weapons to get close enough to the soldiers.

The second wave of soldiers has just as little success as the first. They scatter even sooner, making it more time-consuming for us to hunt them down. Strangely enough, I remain close to Cassie, as the two of us shoot side-by-side. Cassie is also a very good shot, not that it’s difficult when the crossbow does most of the work for her. It’s not long before I run out of arrows again and it couldn’t come at a worse time.

A dozen soldiers remain clustered together and Anne somehow ends up in the middle of the pack. She cuts her way through most of the danger but a soldier slowly sneaks up from behind as she’s busy hacking away at the others. I reach into my quiver for an arrow but find none, forgetting in this moment of panic that I’ve already shot every one. I turn to Cassie to borrow one but her crossbow is already loaded and aimed.

But she doesn’t fire, at least not right away. Anne’s attack is fast but the entire scene moves slower for me, her deadly blade slicing through enemies while the men try to either fight back or escape, neither tactic proving successful. My mentor is still too focused on what’s in front of her to notice the soldier behind, raising his gun toward the back of her head.

“Shoot him!” I yell at Cassie.

I’ve seen her make plenty of perfect shots without the benefit of aiming for this long. I try to grab an arrow from her quiver but find that hers is also empty.

“What are you
doing?
Help her!” I urge.

But Cassie won’t be told what to do. My instinct is to wrestle away the crossbow from her to shoot it myself but there’s no time for that, no matter how slow mortal men may move. Instead, I sprint in Anne’s direction, willing my legs to move fast enough to reach the soldier even though I know I’ll never get there in time to stop him.

Anne kills the final soldier and begins to turn just as the soldier pulls the trigger. I see her flinch from the sound as an arrow zips by me and impales the soldier, killing him instantly. But he’s not the only one who hits the ground.

“No!” I yell, unable to think of anything else to say as my mentor falls.

I reach Anne and kneel by her side, cradling her head in my arms, trying not to focus on the bleeding hole in her skull. Her hair is already so red that the blood staining it now doesn’t make it any brighter. I expect her eyes to be lifeless like the rest of the dead around us but there’s still a spark, fading though it may be.

“You hesitated long enough so he’d shoot her!” I yell at Cassie.

With the fighting over, the forest is deathly quiet. The rest of the Amazons turn to Cassie, who sneers at me momentarily until turning to the other women.

“I didn’t have a clear shot,” Cassie lies, though her performance is good enough that I can’t blame the others for believing her. Her voice has just the right mixture of desperation and sadness, as though she’s anguished about what just happened. But she and I know differently, and the only Amazon who would ever believe my side of the story lay bleeding to death in my arms.

“Mentor, stay with me,” I plead with Anne, whose eyes begin to flutter. “What about the water? Give her some water to heal her.”

Anne shakes her head. “There’s not enough now, no time for more. Wouldn’t help anyway,” she whispers weakly.

A hand rests on my shoulder and I flinch. I’m about to smack it away out of anger until I see the woman with the short curly hair, Jane. Unlike Cassie and the other women of the Queen Clan, Jane’s grief appears genuine.