0 comments/ 68087 views/ 52 favorites In The Land Of The Amazons By: fmcchris Troy had fallen. That once noble city, Pram's glory and the jewel of Troas, would no longer sing her proud songs under the gaze of Mt. Ida. Betrayed by a wooden gift, the invention of the cunning Odysseus, she now lay ashen and desolate, her spirit and her people vanquished by ten years of war and Greek treachery, bringing death and destruction upon all. I see them before me now, like specters arisen from the dead, these fallen warriors both Trojan and Hellene alike, in their aspect resplendent like gods, yet doomed to mortal weakness. Menelaus, Paris, Agamemnon, Aeneas, Deïphobus, Ajax, and the greatest of these, the valiant Hector and the haughty Achilles, stand yet opposed, their great shields held high and their spears anxious to draw blood. I see too the image of my ancestor, three generations now removed, the brave Penthesileia, queen of the Amazons, whose sword cut down the Greek host like a scythe separates wheat from the chaff. I see her now as she faces Achilles, whose life was never in jeopardy while Paris' bow remained unstrung, her beautiful face hidden to her enemy but her intent clear, challenging the mighty warrior to single combat and brought low by him with a spear thrust to her unprotected neck. Behold Amazons! Daughters of Artemis and Ares, goddess of the hunt and god of War! In remembrance of Hippolyta, our ancient queen, of pure Scythian blood, founder of Palus Maeotis, the birthplace of our race, it is I Xanthippe who records these events for those who will come after me. We who now make Themiscyra our home on the banks of the swift-flowing Thermodon, I beseech you by the blood of our sisters who lay buried in the earth in far away Troy, do not despair; for to despair is to turn our backs on the gods. Our proud and noble race shall endure. This I have read in the omens of the sky and of the earth and of the water. Soon the ancient prophecy will be fulfilled, and the name of the Amazons will become one with the immortal gods. I, Xanthippe, daughter of Andromache, high priestess of Artemis and keeper of the sacred texts, swear this to be true, or else may death be swift upon me. Xanthippe of Themiscyra, the Histories In The Land Of The Amazons "Chilon!" the girl screamed, her voice filled with all the fear and despondency of one who is helpless to act. He knew that those mournful cries could have come from none but Tethys herself, for the image of her beautiful face had never left him, even with the passage of so many years. "Tethys!" he screamed back at the distraught girl, as the ship's prow dipped once again into the brine. The Helios was now being pummeled on every side by the onslaught of wind, rain, and sea. Soon, another great wall of water crashed into the aft side of the distressed ship, forcing it further up the channel. Recovering from this last assault, the Helios had come dangerously close to the eastern coastline and would have run aground if not for the diligence of her crew who, at the last minute, steered her clear of the rocky shoals. When Chilon was once again able to open his eyes, he turned his head toward Megara only to find that it was now far behind him, its walls shrinking fast into the horizon as the ship was carried against its will into the open expanse of the Black Sea. Whether by an insensate act of nature, or by the will of some charitable god, the Helios had been spared the fate of many vessels that had met their doom on the rocky shores of Megara. Despite this, the ship had lost almost half its crew, including Demetrius, who Chilon had seen picked up and hoisted high into the air by a giant wave that took him, and several others, to their watery deaths. He looked at Polyphemus, still clinging desperately to the mainstay, his lamentations for his hapless friends lost in the deafening roar of the swell. "Demetrius! Aristocles! Hyperion! Pytheus!" the shipmaster wailed, cursing the ocean and the entire panoply of the Olympian gods for the senseless destruction of his companions. But his doleful cries were cut short as another great wave swept over the ship. To his horror, Chilon watched as the shipmaster was hauled up into the air with great force on the back of the giant wave and carried headfirst out into the black, raging waters, where he quickly disappeared from view. Chilon called out to him again and again, but to no avail. His friend was gone. A great feeling of despair now crept over him as he clung to the mast with the last remnants of his strength. The ship was now at the complete mercy of the winds and water, and those few men remaining to handle the oars could no longer prevail against the unrelenting storm. The Helios, now under the control of gale force winds coming from the west, skirted the southern shore of the sea in an easterly direction toward the coast of the land the Greeks called Paphlagonia. It was on these shores that the final blow to the Helios was delivered. It must have seemed to Chilon that the ship was now nothing more than a plaything in the hands of an angry and mischievous god. For without warning, the wind suddenly changed direction so that they were now proceeding from the northwest, and the tremendous power of the hurricane turned the ship hard about so that her bow was now facing west. Lightning bolts pierced the heavens above, slicing through the pitch-black void to illuminate the hostile sea of which he was now a prisoner. And far away to the south he could see the rugged coastline with its ominous outcroppings of rock; silent, unfeeling monoliths that waited patiently as the luckless ship was being driven toward the shore and its destruction. Chilon saw that there were still a few men yet alive on deck, but they had long since abandoned their oars along with any chance of maneuvering their ship to safety. They clung now to any secure beam they could find, offering prayers to their gods in strident voices that sent a chill through Chilon's heart. The Helios now found herself in shallow waters and her hull was taking a beating. Suddenly, from the dark, swirling miasma a giant reef appeared as if out of nowhere, and the floundering vessel, now thrashing about in its final death throes, crashed into the rock on its port side. The great ship groaned in agony as its hull was ripped open, splitting the vessel in two just a few feet before the mainmast. The men in the forward section screamed in terror as they watched themselves slip away from Chilon, who was now all alone, clinging to the mast for his life. In a matter of seconds, the cries of the men were silenced as the forward part of the ship was dashed to pieces on the rocks and their bodies flung headlong into the ocean. Miraculously, the mast he was clinging to was still intact; the ship now being driven further up the coast in a southeasterly direction. But the Helios was sinking fast. With the shore only less than a half mile away, Chilon could no longer wait. As the vessel began to sink beneath the waves, he hurled himself into the black waters and started to swim toward the shore. He was exhausted. The toll taken upon his physical and mental energies had been tremendous, yet he swam on. Halfway to the shore he saw something like a man's face peering at him from the illumination provided by the intermittent lightning bolts. It was the face of the god, Helios. Chilon swam to the drifting piece of wood, once the proud figurehead that had protected the shipmaster and his crew, and wrapped his arms around it, gasping for breath. All around him floated bits and pieces of the ill-fated ship. It took all of his remaining strength to reach the shore. Too tired to stand, he crawled beyond the rock-strewn coastline and onto higher ground, where he found some protection by hiding in a small cove. He saw that both his hands and knees were raw and bleeding, and that there was blood dripping from his forehead. The awful tempest continued to rage as he laid shivering and sobbing upon the cold sand. He had long since lost his robe and sandals, his only protection being his sodden woolen tunic. The image of Tethys, her desperate pleas still ringing in his ears, and the thought that he might never see her again, filled his heart with great sorrow. He felt sorrow too for his friend Polyphemus and the rest of the unfortunate crew, who had done nothing to deserve the terrible fate meted out to them by the gods who ruled the sea. And as he lay there contemplating these things, his eyes began to dim as merciful oblivion overtook him. ************ Chilon awoke to the sound of gulls flying overhead. He opened his eyes slowly and saw a flock of them land about a hundred yards from where he lay, still in pain from the bruises he had received to his head and extremities the night before. The sun had not yet reached its highest point in the sky, and he reckoned it must have been mid-to-late morning. He was still feeling unsteady from the wound he had received to his head, but the sun's warmth had acted as a balm upon his weary and beaten body, and he slowly rose to his feet, embracing the healing rays as if embracing a long lost friend. The shelter of the cove had saved his life, and he silently thanked the unknown god or goddess who had led him to this place. As he looked out toward the beachhead, he saw that the gulls had congregated around one particular area, fighting and squabbling amongst each other for possession of some obscure artifact. He took a few steps towards them but fell down on one knee, grasping his head with both hands, dizzy and disoriented. In a short while the feeling passed, and when he looked up again he beheld a shimmering, blue-green sea, now quiet and serene. Its very placidity mocked him. For having expended its fury upon the Helios and its crew with vengeful exactitude the night before, it had satisfied the blood lust of its immortal, abyssal denizens--those sons and daughters of Poseidon who dwelled in the enigmatic submarine world that had now become the final resting place of Polyphemus, Demetrius, and the rest of the crew. He now understood why the shipmaster had been reluctant to sail these waters. For what seemed a calm and inviting ocean one moment, could abruptly change into a churning cauldron of death the next. The gulls were still fighting; their cries resounding off the rocky shoreline and echoing loudly in his ears. He rose to his feet again, this time unencumbered by any feeling of dizziness, and walked out from the protection of the cove into the direct sunlight. He had to shield his eyes from the glare of the white sand, which acted like a giant mirror of polished brass, reflecting the sun's dazzling brightness. He walked slowly, deliberately, toward the birds, feeling his way like a blind man, his eyes unaccustomed to the harsh light of day. But before he could get very far he became aware of another sound; this time coming not from the sea but from somewhere behind him, beyond the sets of dunes that ran parallel to the shoreline directly inland from the beach. The sounds were light-hearted, gay, and musical, like the sound of girlish laughter. They flitted on the winds like feathers floating on a gentle zephyr, titillating in their quaint, feminine undertones. Chilon turned his gaze toward the barrier of sand and, shielding his eyes from the glare, saw what he believed to be were three women on horseback, all wearing gray, short sleeve tunics and without sandals. He thought of hailing them, then thought the better of it and scrambled back into the cove. The laughter grew louder as the women approached, and the gulls, having become aware of the interlopers, abandoned their squabbling and took to the air. The women left their horses at the edge of the dunes and ran toward the exact area which the gulls had begrudgingly vacated. They seemed excited about something, for they shouted and clasped each other with joy at their discovery. "I saw it first!" one of them exclaimed as she danced around in a circle before the laughing girls. The other two women were in no mood to debate the issue as they fell to their knees and said a short prayer to the ocean gods who had favored them with this mysterious gift from the sea. It startled Chilon to hear them speaking Greek; not the semi-literate Greek often spoken by barbarians on the fringe of civilization, but the Ionic dialect spoken by people on the Greek mainland. Another thing that struck him was their coarse woolen tunics, which were not worn at ankle length, but cut short to end just above the knees like those of a man. But the most fascinating thing of all was their height. They were not like most Greek women who stood only a few inches above five feet. These three were considerably taller, possibly five to six inches taller than their Greek counterparts. And they were fairer in complexion, with blonde, red, or light-brown hair and light-colored eyes. All in all, they seemed to him quite beautiful. After the women had offered up their prayers to the sea gods, the one who had made the discovery ran toward the shoreline where she found a large rock, and returned to her friends cradling the heavy object in both hands. "I saw it first and I'm going to be the one to open it!" she declared. "You are such a silly fool, Anaea!" her friend with the tawny hair replied. "You may have seen it first, but it does not belong to you! It's a gift from the gods and it belongs to all of us!" "But I want to open it!" "Let her open it, Clymene," the blonde woman said. "What difference does it make?" Chilon's curiosity had now grown so great that he was prepared to risk detection rather than stay one moment longer protected by the darkness of the cove. He crawled out on his hands and knees toward the trio, making sure to use the rocks as a natural barrier between himself and the women. As he drew nearer, he discovered the source of their excitement. It was a wooden chest nine feet long and four feet wide, its entire surface covered over with pine tar resin, making it waterproof. The chest, whose front was facing toward him, was fastened by a huge iron padlock and was marked with the emblem of his father's house: the hideous, snarling image of the Medusa. His heart leapt for joy when he saw the ugly face of the Gorgon, but having no weapons, and still recovering from his ordeal, he could do little more than wait and assuage his curiosity. He watched as Anaea lifted the rock above her head and then brought it down hard upon the padlock, but the lock proved too formidable to break. She tried several times to dislodge it, but without success. Finally, seeing she was getting nowhere, she swallowed her pride and asked her two friends to help her. It took much effort to break the lock, but their combined efforts finally managed to do it. Tittering with a child's eagerness of opening an anticipated gift, she pushed the other two women away and gingerly lifted the lid. "By the immortal gods!" she cried. "Clymene! Xanthippe! Look!" The invitation hardly needed to be made since both women were already on their knees rummaging through the chest's contents. They found articles of clothing, a few papyrus scrolls, three pairs of sandals, several silk tunics dyed in various colors, and other assorted items, amongst which was an emerald necklace meant for Chilon's betrothed. "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?" Anaea exclaimed, as she placed the necklace around her neck and fastened the clasp. "I think I'll keep it for myself!" "No you won't!" Clymene said. "That is for Lysippe to decide." "Well, anyway, I want to wear it. At least until we get back to the city. I've never had any of my own jewelry." "Give it to me," Xanthippe said to the girl. "I want to look at it." Reluctantly, Anaea removed the necklace and gave it to her friend. "This is a very intricate design," Xanthippe said. "It couldn't have been made by our people." "Maybe, it's Persian," Clymene offered. "I don't think so. It's obviously a high level of workmanship, but it's not ornate like Persian jewelry." "It's definitely not Persian," Anaea said, her face looking down into the chest. "How do you know?" Clymene asked her. Without answering, Anaea reached down into the chest, her fingers struggling to clutch the rim of a giant bronze shield whose size was easily over three feet in diameter. "I can barely lift it," she complained. "Help me." Chilon watched eagerly as the three women removed the shield from the chest. The great weight of it was more than any one of them could handle effectively, and they simply let it fall onto the sand, its embossed side face up. "I've never seen a Persian shield made of bronze," Anaea said, running her hands over the polished surface. "It looks like a Greek shield." Clymene said, staring at it in wonderment. "Actually, it's a hoplon," Xanthippe replied. She pointed to the inverted "V" on the front of it. "Only the Spartans use this symbol on their shields." "The Spartans?" Anaea's voice suddenly sounded less musical. "Don't you remember the stories? Our ancient ones describe such a shield used by the Spartans when they fought at Troy." "What would a Spartan shield be doing in a chest given to us by the sea god?" "It is not a gift of the sea god, Anaea. It's someone's personal belongings whose ship must have gone down at sea. The only reason it didn't sink is because of the pine tar. It kept it watertight." "It was a terrible storm last night." Clymene reflected. "The gods were angry." Xanthippe nodded. "Very angry." The three women returned to removing the remaining contents of the chest, briefly examining each item before flinging them onto the sand. What they found was a bronze, muscled cuirass, a helmet with its horsehair plume dyed red, bronze greaves, a nine-foot-long spear, and a thick, curved iron sword, which Chilon recognized as his kopis, a vicious hacking weapon. Resting on the bottom of the chest was a long crimson cloak and a crimson tunic made of combed wool. Xanthippe held the cloak in her hands and rubbed the fabric against her cheek. "Maybe this is a gift from the sea god after all," she said wistfully. "What do you mean, Xanthippe?" Clymene asked. "If these are the weapons of a Spartan warrior, then Poseidon did us a great favor by drowning him at sea." "But what if he didn't drown?" Anaea asked, her eyes anxiously searching the coastline. "What if he still lives?" "I doubt very much that anyone foolish enough to sail our great sea last night would now be alive to tell of it. Come. Let us take these things back to the city. They will make a worthy offering to Artemis." "I don't care what you offer her," Anaea said, as she placed her hand on the precious green jewel around her neck, "as long as I get to keep the necklace." "By rights, all of these things belong to the goddess. But if you insist, you'll have to take the matter up with Lysippe." Chilon found himself in a quandary. He could not let them rob him of his possessions, but he had no desire to hurt the women in order to regain them. He was tired and thirsty, with no weapons to bear, and these three strong women could easily kill him with his own weapons if they so chose. And he believed they would. They obviously did not like Spartans very much, as the one named Xanthippe had clearly intimated. But why? Why should she hate the Spartans? Why had she wished he were dead? "This is too much for us to carry," Clymene said. "We'll have to load up the horses and walk home." As the women turned to leave, Chilon breathed a little easier. He knew that their departure, although brief, would buy him enough time to put on his armor. And once armed, they would think twice about stealing his goods. Once the women were out of sight, he quickly made his way to the chest and threw off his bloody and damaged tunic, replacing it with his crimson military one. He then donned his armor, with the exception of the cuirass, which he found to be too heavy to bear, and armed himself with his kopis and spear. The shield, once so light and maneuverable, now seemed almost too much of a burden, but it had saved his life on more than one occasion and he refused to abandon it. While in the midst of his exertions, he kept an eye on their movements toward the dunes. At one point, one of them, Xanthippe, looked back, and she might have seen him, but the powerful glare of the sun, and the relative distance between them, acted in his favor. Suddenly he heard one of them shout. He recognized it as Anaea's voice, the one wearing Tethys' necklace. "Mariandyni! Mariandyni!" she cried, pointing toward the west where six armed men on horses were approaching quickly from behind the dunes, not far from where the women's horses had been left. "In our haste we left our weapons with the horses!" Clymene wailed. "We are fools!" The three women rushed up the dunes toward their horses just as the Mariandyni fell upon them. Seeing the women were unarmed, the men laughed, dismounted, and threw their spears on the ground, believing they had come upon easy prey. Anaea, the youngest and least swift of the three, was the first to be captured, held down by two of the warriors as another removed his tunic in preparation to mounting her. She screamed for help but her two friends were busy fighting off the other three men, trying in vain to reach their bows and arrows that they had thoughtlessly left behind. But the men were too powerful for them and knocked both women to the ground, preparing them for a similar fate to that of their hapless friend. Both Xanthippe and Clymene fought bravely against their vicious attackers, using their teeth and nails to inflict serious wounds upon the men's exposed flesh. But their tactics only served to incite the men further, and both women were savagely beaten until they were almost unconscious. Chilon knew little of these lands and its inhabitants. But Polyphemus had told him stories about two particularly savage tribes, the Thyni and the Bithyni, the latter of which had been conquered by a fierce warrior race, the Mariandyni, of Thracian origin. These warriors had made incursions into Paphlagonia from their homeland of Bithynia in the northwest of Asia Minor. Their preferred tactic was to pirate those few Greek coastal cities along the southern area of the Black Sea, but they did not limit their rapacity to those colonies on the shore. Occasionally they would send contingents of cavalry to invade from inland routes through the mountains, reconnoitering the area prior to launching a full-scale attack. What he was now seeing was one such contingent. Their round wicker shields, leather body armor, and bronze helmets with their high and forward-inclined apex, had been adequately described by Polyphemus, who claimed that these Thracian warriors were completely barbaric and bloodthirsty, showing mercy to no one, which was the very reason he had shunned that part of the world despite the fact that several Greek colonies had established themselves there a hundred years before. In The Land Of The Amazons From what he had learned from the crew, these barbarians often raped and then killed their women victims, sometimes cutting off their breasts in a final act of spite. Seeing Anaea and the other two women fighting desperately for their lives, and knowing that they would suffer such degradation and death, drove him to action. With little thought for his own weakened condition, he lifted his heavy shield before him and ran as fast as he could over the hot sand toward the screaming women. The six men were so occupied with their victims that they did not see Chilon approaching swiftly from their rear. Anaea, however, did see him, and she cried out at the sight of the terrifying and formidable-looking warrior, who had seemed to appear miraculously from the ether. Her attackers drew back in fear at the sight of the young Spartan, standing boldly before them with his shield and spear held high. His bronze, red-crested helmet with its long, sharp cheek guards, which hid his face from their view, frightened them, and they were temporarily paralyzed in thought and action. "If you are a god," Anaea cried, reaching out her hand to Chilon, "help us! Save us from these evil men!" It was the great bronze shield, of such length that it covered him from chin to ankle, which struck the greatest fear into the hearts of the men. Its highly polished surface reflected the sunlight directly into their faces so that they were blinded, and it was at that moment that Chilon hurled his nine-foot spear at the man whose lower body was now fully exposed. The point of the weapon pierced through his unprotected soft belly and ran straight through the vital organs, exiting just above his pelvis. He was already dead before his body collapsed on the ground. The other two men, seeing their friend fall before them, seemed to suddenly wake up as if out of a dream, and rushed at him with their swords drawn, their spears too far away for them to reach. Chilon drew his kopis, using his shield to keep the two men off balance. They attacked him from both sides, looking for an opening. But the massive shield would not allow them to come close enough to land a blow. Finally, Chilon managed to knock one of the men to his knees, and as the latter stabbed futilely at his shield, Chilon lifted his kopis high and brought the blade down upon the man's wrist, severing his hand. The Mariandyni warrior screamed in pain and crawled away on his knees clutching his bloody stump. The other soldier, now overcome with bloodlust, threw himself at Chilon, slashing away at the Spartan's huge shield with demonic fury. Having become aware of the plight of their comrades, the other three soldiers ceased their attack upon Xanthippe and Clymene, who were now slowly regaining consciousness, and rushed to get their spears. Now freed of their predators' grasp, both women crawled toward their horses. Xanthippe was bleeding from her mouth and her left eye was swollen, while Clymene had suffered a deep cut on her arm. But the cries of their young friend compelled them to action despite their great pain, and they managed to reach their weapons just as the soldiers were bearing down upon Chilon. Xanthippe was the first to release her arrow at the backs of the fleeing men, striking one of them in the upper torso. He fell forward with a hideous scream and breathed his last into the soft, wet sand. Another fell to Clymene's arrow, which pierced his upper leg, forcing him to drop his spear. Her second arrow struck him in the chest, and he cried piteously as he died, only a few feet from his dead friend. The third man, having found his shield, and with his spear held high in his hand, was able to dodge the arrows, and came upon Anaea, whom he threatened to kill if they did not cease to fire. At spear point, he forced the terrified girl to walk toward the seacoast where the man with the severed hand had found shelter in the cove recently occupied by Chilon. Xanthippe and Clymene jumped onto their horses and followed him at a distance, afraid to shoot at him lest they hit Anaea. Meanwhile, Chilon, was being hard pressed by his adversary, who seemed to care not one bit about the dire fate of his friends. Enraged beyond reason, he continued to hack away at the massive bronze shield, flinging curses at his opponent in his guttural, barbaric tongue. Chilon felt the taste of blood in his mouth. The cut in his forehead, never fully healed, had begun to bleed again, and he felt himself becoming weak and disoriented. In a careless moment, he let his shield drop, and his opponent's sword thrust sliced into the flesh of his lower arm, forcing him to drop his armor. The Mariandyni now flung himself at Chilon in mindless fury, thirsting for blood. Chilon fell down onto his back, his left arm in great pain and his shield beyond reach. With great effort he threw his head forward into the man's face, turning his head to one side as he did so, forcing the pointed tip of his cheek guard up under his enemy's chin, piercing the soft underside. The man howled in pain and drew away, stanching the wound with the back of his hand. Wielding the kopis like an axe, Chilon charged at the man, directing the blow at his right shoulder. But the blade was easily deflected by the hard, leather cuirass, and the careless downward thrust threw Chilon off-balance, giving his enemy the advantage. Seeing his chance, the Mariandyni kicked the sword out Chilon's hand and thrust his own sword at Chilon's exposed midsection. Chilon moved his body just in time, suffering only a minor wound to his left flank. Undaunted, the man struck again, this time inflicting another wound to Chilon's left breast. The Spartan clutched his chest and groaned in agony as he reeled back from the blow. With the surety of imminent victory at hand, and heedless of his own life, the Mariandyni again pounced upon the wounded Spartan, seeking to bury his sword in his enemy's throat. But Chilon's eye caught something glimmering in the sand. It was his shield, and it was lying only inches away. As the man flung his body down upon Chilon, the Spartan reached down for his shield and raised it up just in time to counter the attack. The shield took the full force of the sword thrust, and Chilon staggered back under the impact. The man came at him again, his eyes wild like those of a vicious animal, and this time Chilon met him head-on, bringing his shield to bear upon the man's head, knocking him to the ground. For a few moments the man appeared dazed as his body tried to regain its equilibrium. At that moment, Anaea, who in her struggles with her attacker was thrown to the ground, picked up a conch shell and flung herself at the man in a dash of maddened frenzy, driving the sharp end of shell into his left eye. He screamed in pain and bellowed curses at the girl as he stumbled blindly around the cave in search of her, blood running down his face. His wounded companion could offer no help as she ran out onto the beach in search of a Mariandyni spear. "There are two of them in there!" she shouted to her friends as she ran past them. "Don't let them escape or they will bring the others!" "Anaea! Anaea!" Xanthippe and Clymene called after her. "Come back!" But the willful young girl did not hear their pleas. All she was interested in was helping the god who had saved her life. Now armed with her own spear, she rushed across the beach head as fast as her legs would carry her, and coming upon Chilon, and seeing him in great difficulty, she threw her spear at the Thracian, the point settling deep into his thigh. "Mariandyni pig!" she rasped, as she jumped upon him, forcing the spearhead deeper into his flesh. He cried out in great pain and fell back onto the sand, blood gushing from the ghastly wound. But her anger prevented her from thinking rationally, and she stubbornly clung onto the spear shaft in the hopes of doing more damage. In doing so, she succeeded only in losing her balance, and collapsed in the sand next to her enemy. The look of his dark, ugly, scar-ridden face, made her shrink back, and as she did so, he stabbed at her, managing to inflict a wound to her upper arm. Chilon had little time to waste. Placing himself between the girl and her attacker, he lifted his shield high and brought it down forcefully upon the man's helmet, splitting it in two. The Mariandyni groaned loudly at the sight of his own blood trickling down his face and rocked back and forth as if drunk. Despite this, and in spite of his horrific wounds, he made one final attempt to kill the girl. But the point of his sword, meant to pierce her lovely and inviting neck, never reached its destination. As he looked up at the spreading shadow above his head, the great bronze shield rim impacted upon his naked skull with terrible force, smashing into the brain, killing him instantly. Chilon knelt down beside the girl, who was struggling to catch her breath. In between her sobs and incoherent utterances she turned her eyes toward him, saddened to see all the injuries he had suffered for her sake. She showed him her bleeding arm, as if to let him know that she had been willing to suffer for his sake as well. "Let me help you," he said to her as he inspected her wound. The voice was tender, consoling; something she least expected from a terrible warrior god. "Father Zeus sent you, didn't he?" she said, watching him intently. "You are his son, Ares." "It's not a mortal wound," he replied, ignoring her reference to the god. Suddenly, the terrified cries of the two remaining soldiers forced both Chilon and Anaea to turn their gaze toward the shoreline, where both men were being pursued toward open water by Xanthippe and Clymene, who were on horseback. It was pitiful to see them hunted down like so much wild prey, but no more pitiful than what they themselves had done to Anaea and her companions. The man with the bloody eye dashed toward the shoreline like a madman, hoping to escape death by running out into the ocean beyond the reach of their arrows. But he had only taken one step into the water when Clymene shot an arrow into his neck. He fell down dead as the waves broke over his still body. They found the other man, the one with the severed hand, still nursing his mangled stump, entreating them to take mercy upon him. But Xanthippe and Clymene were in no mood to be generous to one who would have gleefully and callously taken their own lives only moments before. Even as he pleaded with them, they raised their bows and shot him full of arrows, putting his pathetic existence to an end. The two women rode at full gallop toward Chilon, their bows drawn, coming to a halt only several feet from where he stood. "Move away from her!" Xanthippe commanded. Chilon rose and took a few steps back. "Your friend has been wounded," he said to them. Anaea held out her bleeding arm as if to confirm what he said. "He saved my life, Xanthippe," she said. "The god saved my life." Xanthippe dropped her bow and dismounted. She removed a small, tin flask and some cloth from her saddle bag and knelt down before Anaea. "Why must you always be so headstrong?" she said, as she uncorked the flask and ran water over the wound. Once it had been cleansed, she placed some coarse woolen fabric over the torn flesh and tied the ends into a knot. "You should have waited for us." "But then I wouldn't have been able to help him." Xanthippe looked up at Chilon and offered him the flask. He thanked her and put the flask to his lips, drinking greedily. "You should let me attend to your wound," she said, noticing the cut above his breast. "I am practiced in the healing arts." Ordinarily, Chilon would have been loath to admit that he needed help, since most Spartans regarded it as a sign of weakness. But the pain was too great to ignore. Swallowing his pride, he handed the flask back to her and gave her permission to tend to his injury, which she did by first cleansing the wound and then wrapping a bandage around it. He stood silently as she finished her ministrations, wondering how such a beautiful woman, who only moments before had ended the lives of her attackers with such ferocity, should now show him so much compassion. "This will suffice for now," she told him as she drew her hands away. He looked into her eyes, eyes as green as the emerald that still hung around Anaea's neck, and nodded his head in thanks. "Who are you?" Clymene asked, eyeing him furtively. "I am Chilon, son of Damagetus." "A Greek." She said the word as a disparagement. "Put your bow down, Clymene," Xanthippe ordered. "I think it is obvious by now that he is not our enemy." "With Greeks you can never be sure." "Shut up, Clymene," Anaea said, looking up admiringly at Chilon. "He's not a Greek. He's a god." Clymene laughed scornfully at the idea that the two terms might be considered mutually exclusive and brought the weapon to her side. "He is a Spartan and therefore a Greek." "No, he is a god," the girl insisted. "Take off your helmet," Xanthippe said to him. Not accustomed to taking orders from women, Chilon hesitated a moment before removing it. As he drew the helmet over his head, Anaea gasped aloud. "By the gods!" she exclaimed, unable to hide her admiration. "Is that not the most fair face you have ever seen?" The three women stared at him open-mouthed, astonished by his incredibly good looks. "The gods have blessed you with great courage—and great beauty," Xanthippe said to him, equally enthralled by his sublimely handsome features. "Help me up," Anaea said to her friends. "It is unbecoming for me to lie down in the presence of a god." Clutching her wounded arm close to her chest, Xanthippe and Clymene helped the girl to her feet. She moved slowly toward Chilon, eyeing him carefully, fascinated by his seemingly divine demeanor. "You are a god, aren't you?" she asked him, not thoroughly convinced of his mortality. "Tell me, truly." "Gods don't bleed, Anaea," Clymene said roughly, noting the many wounds on his body. Unlike her two friends, she was not as enraptured with the young Spartan. "He is just a man." "A man far away from home," Xanthippe replied. "I saw some of the wreckage from your ship, just before we killed those Thracian dogs. Out there on the rocks...food, articles of clothing...all washed up on the shore. Where was your vessel bound?" "To Megara and to my betrothed," he replied. "Are you the only one to survive?" "Yes, as far as I know." She pointed to the wounds on his chest and head. "Those injuries are going to need further treatment, more than I can do here. We will take you back to the city with us." "I'm sure Lysippe will want to question him," Clymene said to Xanthippe. "Who is Lysippe?" Chilon asked. "Our queen." "And your city?" "Themiscyra." Themiscyra. The words of the Spartan elders came back to him. The stories they told of the all-female warrior race that had fought at Troy almost a century ago had been true after all. It seemed almost too incredible to believe. "Then are you...are you...Amazons?" Xanthippe smiled as she picked up her bow. "We are the children of Ares and Artemis; Scythians from the northern lands across the sea." "I always believed you were a myth." "We are no myth," Clymene said impassively. "We are the Oiorpata." "It's a Scythian word," Xanthippe explained, "meaning 'killers of men'." "A name well deserved," Chilon noted wryly. Suddenly, without warning, he dropped his head down onto his chest and fell onto one knee, the sense of disorientation overtaking him once again. "Chilon!" Anaea exclaimed, laying her hands on his. "What's wrong?" "He has lost a lot of blood," Xanthippe said, concernedly. "Are you well enough to walk, Chilon?" "I think so," he replied feebly. "Come, let us help you." To accept their aid was no easy thing for Chilon. As a Spartan, he had been taught to eschew comfort and endure great hardships. But after all he had been through, he was in no mood to deny assistance from the beautiful strangers—these Amazons, these killers of men. After the women had despoiled the bodies of their enemies, they rounded up the soldiers' horses and fastened their reins together. Chilon was too weak to do much. He sat atop the lead horse as he watched the Amazons convey whatever possessions he had to the backs of the horses. The Mariandyni's bodies had been left where they fell, the gulls already circling overhead, attracted by the smell of blood. Anaea was unusually quiet as they made their way through the open country and toward the mouth of the river, the one they called, "Thermodon". She had spoken only once to him, and that was to apologize for taking his emerald necklace, which she had returned to him prior to making their journey. She seemed quite content to steal glances at him every now and then, happy just to be in the presence of the handsome young man. Clymene was even more taciturn, riding just slightly ahead of everyone else, keeping her eye fixed on the horizon. "This woman you are to marry," Xanthippe said to Chilon. "Is she beautiful?" "Yes, very beautiful." "How long have you known her?" "We met once long ago as children. I have not seen her since." "Then how do you know you love her? Or that she loves you?" Chilon laughed. "I don't. The marriage was arranged by my parents a long time ago. I am bound to honor their wishes." "But what about your wishes? Don't they matter?" "A Spartan is honor-bound to do his duty, regardless of his own personal feelings." "We Amazons also understand the meaning of duty. But I could never wed a man I did not love." "I've heard that Amazon's don't marry." "That's another myth," she said genially. "It is true that we once forbade marriage and men weren't even allowed within the walls of our city. But that was long ago." Along the way, Chilon had questioned her about many things relating to the history of the Amazons. He learned that the phrase "killers of men" had no reference to killing men in battle, but that they used to kill male children born to them, allowing only the females to survive. Nowadays, she told him, male children were sent back to their villages with their fathers, the brutal practice of infanticide having been abolished once they had left their home in Scythia to live in Themiscyra, where they had fallen under powerful Greek influences. Chilon wondered about this, and how they had come to speak his language. "During the ten years the Trojans fought against your people," she began, "many Greek warriors fled from Troy and settled in this land. They intermarried with our people and we adopted many of their customs. To this day, almost every Amazon speaks both Scythian and Greek." "Your own name, Xanthippe, is Greek." "My paternal grandfather was a Greek warrior from Delphi who fought at Troy." "Clymene and Anaea are Greek names too. Are they like you?" "Yes. They are both part Greek." Chilon pondered this revelation for a moment, reflecting back upon Xanthippe's hope that he had died at sea. "You know, when I was spying on you at the beach, I overheard you say something about wishing me dead. If you have Greek blood in you, why would you wish such a thing?" "Many of our people detest the Greeks to this day because of what they did at Troy. They have never forgotten that our queen, Penthesileia, was killed by Achilles." "From what I understand, she had challenged him to single combat." "He did not need to kill her. He was invincible. He could have refused the challenge." "It would have been dishonorable for him to do so. It was not his way." "No. His way was to murder her. And I call it murder because his courage derived from the fact that he could not be killed. Where is the honor in that?"