Queens of themiscyra, p.1
Queens of Themiscyra, page 1
QUEENS OF THEMISCYRA
HANNAH LYNN
This story is a work of fiction. All names, characters, organisations, places, events and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any persons, alive or dead, events or locals is entirely coincidental unless referring to commonly recognised mythological figures.
Text copyright © 2022 Hannah Lynn
First published 2022
Imprint: Paper Cat Publishing
Edited by Carol Worwood and Joel Hames-Clark
Cover design by Books Covered
All rights reserved.
No part of this book should be reproduced in any way without the express permission of the author.
ALSO BY HANNAH LYNN
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Peas, Carrots and Panic at the Plot
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The Holly Berry Sweet Shop Series
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Romance Blooms at the Second Chances Sweet Shop
Family Ties at the Second Chances Sweet Shop
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The Grecian Women Series
Athena’s Child
A Spartan’s Sorrow
Queens of Themiscyra
CONTENTS
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part II
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part III
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Part IV
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Part V
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Part VI
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Coming soon
Also by Hannah Lynn
About the Author
Stay in touch
Review
To Laura and Stephie,
Two warrior women.
PART I
CHAPTER 1
Her blade whistled through the air, sure and unwavering, first through the warrior’s leather armour, then through the soft flesh of his belly. A spray of blood arced upwards as he toppled from his horse. Already racing away, Hippolyte paid him no heed. Her mare’s hooves churned the dry earth beneath them, sending up clouds of dust as the Queen locked her aim on her next victim. Within moments, he too lay face down in the dirt.
From all around came the clang of metal—swords against shields, arrow heads against breastplates—and the stench of blood, bitter and cloying, hung densely in the arid air. The aroma was one she knew well. One of battle. Of sweat and pain. Burning skin under the glare of Helios’s sun. Of horses slick with perspiration. But above all else, it was the stench of victory.
Their adversaries, who only an hour ago had been screaming in rage and fervour, were now crying in fear, begging for mercy, choking as they drowned in their own blood. If they were fortunate, her women would offer them a swift death. Flies had already arrived in their droves, settling on open wounds, buzzing on the corpses already greying in the dirt.
By the time the last scream had faded, and the sun had reached its zenith, the earth was crimson with the blood of the fallen.
Hippolyte cast her gaze across the scene. These were young men. Some barely in their teens. It was a weak king who thought to send such boys to face her and her warriors.
“Back home to Pontus and Themiscyra, my Queen?”
Hippolyte turned to face Penthesilea. Her sister sat upright upon her horse, her embroidered tunic, leather trousers, and boots—the traditional warriors’ garb—possibly even more stained with the colour of battle than Hippolyte’s own. The Princess’s bow was stowed in a sling on her back, an elegant weapon with its double curve, smaller than those their enemies favoured. Smaller than those that littered the ground around them.
The bow had been carved, planed and strung by Penthesilea’s own hand. Wood and bone, shaved off in the finest of slivers, imperceptible to some yet enough to shift the weapon’s balance and ensure the truest aim. Hippolyte could not imagine how many arrows had been loosed from it that day, how many bronze tips had met their target, piercing hearts or skulls. Penthesilea’s arrows did not miss.
“Back home to Themiscyra, Sister,” the Queen replied. “Although first we must collect our payment.”
It was a handsome settlement, the largest they had received in some months. The bulk was in metals—gold, iron, bronze—that would be hammered out or melted down, but there were other items too. There were jewels, both raw stones and those already cut and polished. There was pottery. There was even a lyre, and although she herself did not play, Hippolyte knew many of her women would strike a fine tune from it.
Within the city walls, the King had thanked them profusely, bowing low to the ground in the awkward, angular movements of one unaccustomed to such humility, even more so towards women. Hippolyte was almost as uncomfortable with the display as he was. After, settled into a more reposeful posture, he asked if they wished to stay the night. Most kings prayed she would refuse and offered only out of courtesy, and this was the case today. She could not help but note a flash of relief dart across his face when she declined his offer and found herself feeling a pang of sympathy for the man. This was unlikely to be the last battle they fought for him.
Their saddlebags full and their horses rested, they began the ride east, back to the region of Pontus and their citadel home, Themiscyra.
The journey to the edge of the Black Sea would take two days at a leisurely pace. If needed, they could ride at a gallop and without stopping unless it was unavoidable—that was the way they had ridden to reach here—but the women and the horses had earned a little respite.
Blue skies, littered with feather-like clouds that hovered motionless in the still air, stretched above them as they rode. On a clear day like today, from its southernmost point, they could see all of Anatolia. To the north, beyond the Sea of Marmara, was Thrace, and west, across the Aegean, lay Thessaly and Athens. They had travelled to these places and further still. They had travelled to Thebes and the Peloponnese, called to fight for kings who might otherwise have lost their lands. Called to rain their arrows on armies with whom they had no quarrel. And they had been paid handsomely for it. Sometimes the battles would come one after another, and they would race from one beleaguered land to the next, always ready, always victorious. But for now, they were headed home to rest, basking in the scent of the ferns that littered the hillsides around them.
The women chattered as they rode. There was always a rush that came after battle. The adrenaline that had lent them such force and ferocity now drew words from their lips as quickly as the blood had spilled from their enemies. Such exuberant conversation between her women might endure for miles, over plains and through valleys, across rivers and around grand lakes. Yet inevitably, at some point before the sun set on that first day after a battle, a quiet would descend, in which they recalled those they had lost. Those that had been granted the most honourable of deaths. A warrior’s death. An Amazon’s death.
“Four women made their first kill today.”
It was Antiope who spoke to the Queen through the quiet.
“Four who can ride with us to the Gargareans next spring.”
“That is good news. I will meet with them personally upon our arrival home.”
Shortly after they halted at a shallow lake that had survived the droughts of summer. Shingle shimmered beneath the surface as the women knelt to wash the blood and grime from their skin and watched as swirls of red eddied from their palms.
While Hippolyte and her sisters considered Themiscyra their home, this was not the case for all Amazons. Certainly, most dwelt within the city walls, with the luxuries and protection provided by so many warriors living in close proximity, but there were those who found such a life constrictive and claustrophobic. These noma ds spent their time outside of battle wandering the steppes and camping out beneath the stars. They hunted with bow or spear, preferring to make small fires and pick the meat from the bones of the birds and beasts they had caught. They craved solitude, returning to join the rest of the warriors only on those occasions that required them to do so. At festivals, or to fight or to embark upon the annual springtime trek south to the Gargareans. There was no enmity between the two groups of women. The Queen had no preference in how they lived and did not judge one way of life more favourably than another. Each woman could choose to spend her days living as she preferred, and would therefore fight with all the more determination to preserve that way of life when the time came.
By the time they had pitched their bivouacs, the sun had long since sunk below the horizon, and streams of stars glimmered above them. A chorus of cicadas hummed and buzzed, a counterpoint to the chatter of the women. Lying on her back in the grass, her sword by her side, Hippolyte listened. This was her favourite time—the night after a battle had been fought and won. The women would regale their comrades with stories: how their opponents had fought, how close those enemy blades had come, boasting of the mounted attacks they had mastered. The Queen would seal it all away in the back of her mind.
They had lost a dozen women that day. Nothing, when set against the hundreds of deaths their opponents had suffered but more than was acceptable. They had brought the bodies with them, wrapped tightly in linen, to be returned to their homes in Pontus. They would perform a proper burial there, committing the women to the land, along with their weapons and all the honour they deserved.
Next time, Hippolyte told herself as the fire sizzled and spat, she would not lose any. And she would offer a greater sacrifice to her father. Her immortal father, Ares, the God of War.
On the second day, the sky had brightened to the point of brilliance, Helios’s glow so radiant they were forced to pull their caps lower on their heads and squint so much their eyes were mere slits. The grass was short, brittle and brown, and the horses flicked their tails, agitated by a heat that caused the flies to buzz in swarms and their coats to darken with sweat. Spring was a swift season in these parts, with lush green turning dusty and arid almost overnight. Heat rippled from the ground, blurring the air immediately above it. This part of the journey would end soon enough, though. The further northwest they travelled, the cooler it would become. And by nightfall, Pontus, and perhaps even Themiscyra, would be in view.
Hippolyte considered the harshness of life in a place such as this, for there could be little to hunt, nothing to fish and no prospect of farming such lands. She had seen mules, grey and hunched, long eyelashes drooped and blinking, but no horses. The leaves were already browning on what few trees there were, whose brittle twigs were too weak to bear the meanest of fruit.
As was often the way when she passed through such lands, Hippolyte thanked the gods for all they had been given in Pontus and Themiscyra and vowed once again to present a sacrifice to her father upon her arrival home.
Hour after hour, they rode without stopping, even when the sun reached its apex. There was nowhere to stop, no shade to be found at this time of day. On they went, until clouds began to form above them. Thick and white, like freshly plucked down, they cast thick shadows on the earth. Small at first, they ripened as she watched. Swelling with water, their edges glimmered as they muted the sun’s rage.
They would burst soon, Hippolyte thought, staring up at them, and bring water in great sheets, bridging the void between sky and earth. As a child, she had loved to race ahead of a downpour, and if she failed to outrun it, would stop and lift her head to greet the refreshing rain and let it flow across her face, its coolness replenishing her. Her memory stirred with more moments from her childhood, she and Penthesilea riding out for days, living only on the rabbits that they caught or the berries they could forage. This was before Ares had chosen her instead of her sister to rule the Amazons, despite Hippolyte not being the eldest. Only once had Hippolyte succeeded in drawing blood against Penthesilea in battle. A nick. Nothing more. But that had been enough for Ares to name her Queen.
But now she dwelt on the times before that, when they would train and spar and ride from dawn until dusk, unburdened by the cares of leadership. They spent their time learning about their land. Practising on horseback those acrobatics that would one day be put to use in battle. But this had been one of their favourite games: to watch clouds thicken, to stand completely motionless beneath them. There they would wait while they grew greyer and greyer until they had swollen so fat, they could no longer contain all the moisture within them. At that point, the instant when the clouds cracked apart and unleashed a deluge, the girls would squeeze their thighs into their horses’ flanks and fly in an attempt to outride the rain.
Sometimes they made it. Sometimes they would reach shelter before the storm caught them, or else keep riding at such pace that the clouds would, in time, lose their weight and have nothing left to drown them with. But more often than not they ended the game drenched. Soaked to the skin by the downpour. Hair plastered to their heads. Their horses sodden from ear to hoof. And they would laugh as the icy water ran down their spines. Afterwards, they would build a fire and dry their leathers before riding back to Themiscyra and their mother, to continue their training.
Noting again how the clouds were burgeoning above them, Hippolyte signalled to the women to pick up their pace, urging her own bay mare into a soft canter and then faster still, until she was galloping. Slicing through the grass.
The air drew through her hair like a comb as she closed her eyes and lifted her head to the sky. Not even the thrill of battle could compare to this, to the thunder of hooves on the earth beneath her and the cold blast of air needling her skin. The laughter of the women as they rode was more melodious than any lyre. More tuneful than any flute. All were now following her lead. Galloping as if their very lives depended on it.
A glance behind her brought a smile to her lips. Several of the women were taking advantage of the opportunity to practise their horseback combat positioning, twisting to face behind them or else balancing on their knees as their horses sprinted across the ground, their feet barely grazing the short stubble beneath their hooves. Some, however, Hippolyte saw were grieving, remembering those who had been lost: daughters, sisters, mothers. She would let the mourners ride out first in the next battle. Let them drown their pain in the blood of others.
As they approached the coast, the rain came, but rather than the downpour she had hoped for, it fell as a light shower that formed perfect droplets on her skin and clothes, before evaporating into nothing.
It was here, where the foaming waves crashed against jagged cliff edges, that the horses picked up the scent of home. Their pace quickened without instruction from their riders. Their nostrils flared as they turned in unison like a flock of birds, the pull of home upon them, the certainty that there was nowhere else on Earth quite like it.
