Read Online The Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradley - Free Book Online Page B

blinked away the tears that were forming in her eyes. Priam was frowning, but Kassandra was accustomed to her father’s disapproval. She defiantly took the hand Penthesilea held out to her. Her mother’s sister could not be too unlike her mother, after all.
    When the Amazons reclaimed their horses in the lower courtyard, Kassandra was disappointed to be lifted to Racer’s back behind Penthesilea. “I thought I was to ride a horse by myself,” she said, her lip quivering.
    “You will when you learn, my child, but we have no time to teach you at this minute. We want to be far from this city by nightfall; it does not please us to sleep within walls, and we do not want to camp in the lands ruled by men.”
    That made sense to Kassandra; her arms gripped hard around the woman’s narrow waist, and they were off.
    For the first few minutes it took all her strength and attention to hold on, rocked up and down by the bumpy gait of the horse on the stones. Then she began to get the feel of letting her body sway and adjust itself to the motion, and began to look around and see the city from her new perspective. She had time for one brief look backward at the Temple atop the heights of the city; then they were outside the walls and descending toward the green waters of the Scamander.
    “How will we get across the river, Lady?” she asked, leaning her head forward, close to Penthesilea’s ear. “Can the horses swim?”
    The woman turned her head slightly. “To be sure they can; but they will not need to swim today; there is a ford an hour’s journey upriver.” She touched her heels lightly to the horse’s sides, and the animal began to run so swiftly that Kassandra had to hold on with all her strength. The other women were racing alongside, and Kassandra felt a kind of elation through her whole body. Behind Penthesilea she was a little sheltered from the wind, but her long hair blew about so wildly that for a moment she wondered how she would ever manage to comb and tidy it again. It didn’t matter; in the excitement of the ride she forgot it at once.
    They had ridden for some time when Penthesilea pulled her horse to a stop and whistled, a shrill cry of some strange bird.
    From a little thicket up ahead, three horses, ridden by Amazon women, emerged.
    “Greetings,” one of the newcomers called. “I see you are come safe from Priam’s house; you were so long gone, we were beginning to wonder! How is it with our sister?”
    “Well, but she grows fat and old and worn with child-bearing in the King’s house,” said Penthesilea.
    “Is this our fosterling—Hecuba’s daughter?” asked one of the newcomers.
    “It is,” said Penthesilea, turning her head toward Kassandra. “And if she is truly her mother’s daughter, she will be more than welcome among us.”
    Kassandra smiled shyly at the newcomers, one of whom held out her arms and leaned over to embrace her.
    “I was your mother’s closest friend when we were girls,” she said.
    They rode on, toward the gleam of the river Scamander. Dusk was falling as they drew their horses up at the ford; in the last glow of sunlight Kassandra could see the rapid flicker of the sun on the shallow ripples, the sharp stones in the streambed where the river ran fast and shallow. She gasped as the horse stepped over the steep edge down into the water, and was again admonished to hold on tight. “If you fall off, it will be hard to get you again before you are bashed about.”
    Having no desire whatever to fall on those sharp rocks, Kassandra held on very tightly, and soon the horse was scrambling up at the far edge. They galloped during the few minutes of light remaining; then they pulled to a stop, gathered their horses in a circle and dismounted.
    Kassandra watched with fascination as without discussion one of the women built a fire, and another, from her saddlebags, pulled a tent and began unfolding it and setting it up. Soon dried meat was bubbling in a caldron and smelled