SCARLETS DOMAIN

Five of us left the village on our quest to seek out
and assassinate Ritta. A small enough group to move
undetected towards the Amazon army, yet large enough
to carry out it's mission.

Karelia stayed behind. To continue training the women,
and those men who felt able to learn from her. And so,
Gudrun and I went forward accompanied by a girl called
Lia, and two of Gregory' men; Comerus and a man known
only by the nickname of Pinky.

I protested at the inclusion of two men, telling
Gregory that they would be difficult to conceal, but
he insisted. I wondered if he didn't trust us not to
join up with the Amazons.

We travelled eastwards, coming across fleeing refugees
who told us tales of Amazon atrocities, and I directed
them towards our village. Perhaps among the broken
spirited there could be found fighting men and women
who would swell our own meagre army.

Finally, the smell of smoke and death in the air, I
realised that we were getting close. I urged caution,
but Comerus he knew better.

"Antiope, we have nothing to fear," blustered Comerus.
"We will butcher them as they play!"

"No," I said, "they maybe unused to fighting men while
in their homeland, but these are marauders. They have
tasted blood, and what's more, Ritta will have trained
and drilled them!"

"Pah," said Comerus, "I will hear no more of your
mewling. Let's move on! Coming Pinky?"

Pinky shook his head. "I'll stay with these three!" he
said. "They need protection!"

He thought I hadn't caught his wink. If he thought he
was going to enjoy the sexual services of the three of
us, he had another think coming. I turned and smiled
at him. "Thank you so much, Pinky!" Then I watched his
eyes pop as I seized him by the balls and squeezed.

Comerus was moving off ahead of us, while Pinky
staggered in circles, trying hard to suppress his
agony. The danger in the air was almost palpable, and
I urged the rest of the band to move carefully.

Suddenly I saw Comerus throw his arms up and heard his
scream as he fell to the ground, the shaft of an arrow
protruding from between his shoulderblades.

"The fool!" I hissed, then urged everyone to drop to
the ground.

We lay still for ages, listening. There was nothing.

"The Amazons post guards in the trees as an early
warning in case of attack," I said. "I'd say this one
thinks she's bagged a lone mercenary, or the place
would be crawling with Amazons by now!"

"What are we going to do?" said Lia.

"Keep a watch. Let's see if we can save Comerus."

"But the Amazon will see us!" said Lia.

"Not if we see her first," said Gudrun, stringing her
bow. "Let's go!"

We circled the area cautiously, keeping sight of the
wounded Comerus.

"There!" hissed Lia suddenly, pointing.

Sure enough, standing on the bough of a tree was the
kilted form of an Amazon warrior. She was peering
through the leaves to satisfy herself that Comerus had
no comrades.

We approached as close as we dared. I felt the buzz of
the huntress as I stared up at our prey. I could see
the firm sweep of her thighs as they flexed for
balance, and the folds of her loincloth against her
crotch under her kilt.

Gudrun fired.

The arrow buried itself in her left buttock just above
the thigh, and drove upwards, deep into her bowel. She
shrieked, dropping her bow, it's arrow shooting
harmlessly into the undergrowth, and clutched
feverishly at her lower belly where the arrowpoint
point invaded the depths of her body.

She lost her balance and her arms pin-wheeled as she
toppled off the bough, falling heavily to the ground
where she lay writhing and screaming.

"Silence her!" I yelled to Pinky, who looked at me in
surprise.

He seemed unused to the idea of being instructed by a
woman to kill another.

I urged him forward and watched with relish as he
yanked her helmet off and forced her head back. His
knife slashed across her white throat and blood
spurted like red semen.

She gurgled, bucked and was still.

Pinky couldn't suppress the urge to stroke her
lustrous dark hair.

"Come on!" I said. "There'll be plenty of dead Amazon
warriors to slake your perverted lusts on soon, but in
the meantime, there's work to be done!"

Something made me stop in my tracks, and I turned,
looking down at the dead Amazon. Suddenly I felt the
weight of centuries on my shoulders, and I dropped to
my knees beside her, feeling as if a vast building had
come crashing down on me.

The gash in her throat exposed split sinews and veins
that had once kept her alive. Her flaccid lips, made
to kiss, dripped blood, reddening her white teeth. Her
eyes, which once sparkled with mirth, moistened with
tears, glowered with anger and smouldered with lust,
were no more than dead organs in bone sockets, fit
only as food for rats.

What blasphemy!

Was this, then, the lot of all of us, to suffer and
die horribly in the flower of our youth? I wondered if
there would ever come a time when we would learn to
live in peace. A time when everyone could expect to
live a long and happy life without fear and conflict,
and I shook my head in sadness.

Not in this world, I thought. Maybe a world did exist
where this could be true, but it wasn't the world I
lived in.

I lifted my head heavenwards and cried out to the
great creator in my pain and anguish.

My cries were met with a silence that reeked of guilt.

My comrades stood around me frozen in time, and I
stood drawing my sword.

"Why have you put me here? Why have you created this
evil world?" I cried.

I put the point of my sword to my breast. "I will end
it all now, but please give me a sign! Tell me! I must
know!"

There was still silence, and still my comrades
remained static.

I knew, in that moment, that those who watched over us
were only interested in our suffering. They
masturbated as we died, and it sickened me.

I knew also, that since I was their creation, that
cruel nature was also an essential part of me, and I
began to weep in despair. I needed a purpose,
something to give my cruel and pointless existence
meaning.

Like a pinprick of light in a cave, I found it. I
clung to it desperately, for there was nothing else.
If my suffering in this world might, in some small
measure alleviate the suffering in theirs, then wasn't
that a purpose?

I lowered my sword.

"All right," I murmured, "All right, I will live my
life for your pleasure, but..." and I turned my face
heavenwards, my eyes burning, "...I will not die for
it!"

I looked at Gudrun, with her flame red hair, and at
Lia with her lustrous dark mane, and at Pinky, and
their faces were turned away from me. I knew that I
had surrendered. I had yielded to the gods, I had
yielded to my nature and, in some measure, to theirs.
I was a coward.

"Come!" I clapped my hand on Lia's shoulder. "There is
killing to be done!"

"Yes," she said, turning to me with a smile, "and
dying too!"

"And dying too," I repeated. "You can be sure of
that!"

Will continue in chapter 6...