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Yugoslavia had accounted for some of the locals . . . the locals . . .
. . . from whom these Amazons had drawn their breeding stock.Maybe the gene pool's getting a little
shallow.
The girls had flushed when Demetria had assured her the queen would not return alone. "I've bagged
another one!" Demetria had called when she'd found Kyria. So that was what the queen was hunting.
Kyria suppressed a grin.Guess who's coming for dinner?
If she'd just wandered into an Amazonian version of the Dating Game . . .
My God, talk about fraternization.
* * *
Light was glinting off the mountains when a brighter light erupted into the center of the camp. A
heliograph?
"The queen's coming." One of the younger women started smoothing her hair. Another bit her lips to
redden them.
Kyria raised an eyebrow at Demetria. "Do we dress for dinner around here?" she asked. Her project for
the day had been washing out her flight suit. She'd had to shoo away a number of eager helpers, all with
that same family resemblance. If she had to meet a foreign dignitary, she preferred to do so in some
semblance of uniform.
"Five . . . six . . . seven . . ." came a cry from the outskirts of the camp. "The guards are bringing up the
rear."
"Only seven?" asked a girl slightly taller and darker than the others.
Demetria shrugged. "We take what the fates send, little sister," she said. "Now, run along." The girl
wavered visibly. "Go on! They won't bite . . . I think . . ."
She made shooing motions. Finally, the girl ran off, laughter trailing after her like a bright scarf.
A child ran to Demetria and whispered in her ear.
"The queen has summoned you."
No time to change, then. She followed Demetria past the campfire, where only children and
older meaning more than twenty women sat efficiently butchering something a deer? A sheep? A
goat while another roast sizzled on a spit. Her nose wrinkled at the scent of rough wine. A feast,
Amazon-style. Might be fun. She heard a skirl of flute music, a clash of chords and drumbeats interrupted
by a shout that sounded like a bawling-out.
She'd hoped to get a look at the queen's . . . trophy males? She managed not to grin. If, as she
suspected, these mists let the warrior women reach through time, they'd probably be drawn from a
number of times and places. Genetic diversity, after a fashion, but judging from the look-alikes, the
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system was breaking down, had been breaking down for generations.
She glanced around, but Demetria led her and her guards walked past a number of shelters, their doors
already firmly tied shut (Demetria chuckled), and toward a cave. Stuck into the earth outside it was a
spear, a helmet and plumes swaying on its point.The equivalent of a flag over Buckingham Palace.
Her Majesty is At Home, Kyria determined. A red fire one of her flares burned outside it in a brazier.
So they'd seen flares before.
Demetria and the wannabes great name for a rock band led her into the cave toward another fire. A
tall figure, her head covered in a huge mask, reclined on a pile of furs that would have given PETA
spasms. Half-covering them was some of the fabric from Kyria's parachute. Fastened to the rock walls,
glinting with crystals, were an M-16, a Lee-Enfield, a scimitar that had to be four hundred years old,
and a collection of helmets and other trophies she couldn't identify.
The mists had obviously been going on for a long time.
Demetria came to what clearly passed fortenn-HUTamong the Amazons.
If this woman says her name is Gabrielle, I'm dead. No way I won't crack up.
The queen removed her heavy mask. She was taller than Demetria. Her hair, before the gray streaked it,
had been as black as Kyria's own. "Greetings, sister," said the queen. "I am Hippolyta."
You are not going to say you are Lieutenant DianaPrince, Kyria told herself.This isn't a comic
book. Andyou'd better come up with a matronymic damn fast.
She drew herself up and inclined her head formally like British soldiers did in all the movies. Field-grades
got charm school; lieutenants made do with movies and TV.
"I am Kyria," she said. "Daughter of Eleni." Her mother had preferred to call herself Elly, but that didn't
sound Greek. Or regal.
The queen gestured Kyria to another pile of furs. She gestured, and one of the girls poured wine into . . .
that wasn't a beaker, Kyria's mind gabbled. A rhyton. Did that mean these Amazons had trade with
Scythia or the equivalent at some point in the past? The cups that the girls handed her and Demetria were
heavy silver; she would have bet that Hippolyta's was gold.
Kyria sank down onto the furs, which felt surprisingly comfortable after a day of goatskins, stumps, and
rocks, and took a cautious sip of acharming little wine with overtones of violence and delusions of
grandeur.
"We saw you," said the queen. "You leapt in fire from a chariot that flew across the sky. You grew
wings, easing your fall. And then your chariot fell with a noise like unto Hephaestus' anvil . . . One of my
huntresses found me and brought me this!"
She handed Kyria a scorched, torn metal shard to which fragments of paint still clung. What had ever
possessed their squad leader to pick a sea lion as insignia anyhow? Scott always had had a weird sense
of humor. Maybe she could say she was under Poseidon's protection or something and they'd take her to
the sea. Right.
The woman leaned forward, expectantly. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]