It's almost sunset when they meet again on the Troad. Achilles has kept an eye out, but hasn't seen her; he figures she must have learnt something from the other day. (Or has she? He's already starting to second-guess himself.) The fray is not so thick and fierce as it might once have been, but there's enough work for him, and the endless round of killing and stripping armor and killing again keeps him occupied.
There are too many thoughts that Achilles would rather not think. This is his element: here only he is free.
Here and there, he can see Amazons, though none are her, and this gladdens him (and disappoints him). The Trojan in front of him goes down easily, spewing blood, and Achilles turns his hand to the next. It's the same old story with all of them; there has been nothing new since Hector. (Except for Memnon, and now for her. And if he killed Memnon…well, Memnon was stronger than she is.)
The Trojan might be a young man, or a boy; he lifts his visor, and Achilles almost steps back in surprise. "You!"
"You!" Penthesilea says, and laughs; the sound is not altogether disagreeable.
"Didn't I tell you to stay the fuck away?"
"You're only man. I don't listen." She shrugs.
"Yeah, well, I can see that. Am I gonna have to fucking kill you?"
Another shrug. "Maybe. Or I kill you."
"Do it, then," Achilles says, and draws his sword. He doesn't even know whether or not he's joking.
They join like gods, like lovers, like enemies; she was expecting this. He can no more keep away from a battlefield than she can.
Penthesilea fights as hard as she ever has; she might miss Hippolyta, but it would be base and weak to go without putting up a fight. No Achaian will say that the Amazons were easy opponents, least of all this one. She is the best they have to offer; she'd better fight like it. She gives him no quarter, feints and blocks when he moves in towards her, blade seeking her weaknesses.
Her weaknesses aren't for him.
Something's changed; Achilles can feel it. He wouldn't have described their previous encounters as friendly sparring – the woman is stronger than he gave her credit for – but there's something raw and desperate in the air, and she comes at him harder than she ever has before. He has no objection; if this is how she wants to play it, he's game.
He lunges in, surprised at how ferociously she parries his thrusts, how fiercely she blocks him. It's more than a game now. Maybe it was never a game, and he just didn't know it.
She ceases to be her, the Amazon woman, and becomes just another adversary. This is known and sure and right; this, Achilles can do. It's awkward, with the height difference, but the Trojans have fielded boys before. He comes at her harder than he ever has before, sparing her nothing, giving her his all; she responds in kind, and he's surprised at how tough this little creature is, at how strong she is. He didn't give her enough credit. He's never given her enough credit.
Why has he not realized this until now?
There's a change in the air, a change in their positions; they clash, separate, clash again, and he lunges at her, naked blade on a collision course with her vitals.
The blade bites deep. Penthesilea crumples forward, one hand over her wound, and withdraws from his sword; it doesn't hurt at all while she's being stabbed, but once the blade is out, it's agonizing. She sinks to her knees.
This time, she will not get up.
The first thing that pops into Achilles' head is, Shit! I didn't mean to kill her! I'm sorry!, which he immediately recognizes as ridiculous: he did mean to kill her, and she obviously knew that she might die when she set foot on the battlefield. Nobody comes here for their health.
But still…some part of him would undo that last thrust, if he could.
All things are, now, as they should be.
She rolls away, gushing blood, all dumb desire and animal instinct to preserve the body from harm. Achilles is on the verge of speaking the words that could end this, save her: Get up. I don't kill unarmed women.
She is Penthesilea. There is something in her that is more than instinct, and she checks herself; remembering her training despite the pain, she brings her shield up to cover her exposed body, reaches for her sword. Her fingers scrabble in the dust and curve reassuringly around the hilt of her sword, the comforting map of her known world; the rhythmic rasp of her own labored breathing sounds in her ears. She lifts her arm, offering Achilles her naked blade, and in that moment becomes again the enemy. Her face is pale and her jaw set, and her eyes follow the line of her arm and her blade without fear or shame, until they meet the red crest of horsehair waving like the grasses on the Scythian steppe, the shining bronze helmet, the terrible, implacable eyes underneath.
Through dry lips, Penthesilea says, "Please, you do kill me now." Her voice sounds weak and raspy, and it takes everything in her to speak; she can feel the blood pumping out with every beat of her heart, and is dimly amazed that she has lasted this long.
"What?" The voice is muffled by the helmet, but she understands the scorn there—and the surprise, too.
"You do kill me, please," Penthesilea says again, raising her voice as much as she can. "You are most—most good of all Greeks. I like you should kill me. I can to bear death, if from you."
Achilles has seen a lot of death scenes, and after a while, they've all started to run together in his memory: the look on King Tenes' face when he choked the fuck out of him back there on Tenedos (practically another lifetime ago now), Protesilaus hit and dropping to his knees, Lykaon begging, Hector begging, Antilochus struck in the back…He could go on, but there's something that almost makes him sad about this, something that almost makes him want to pick her up and carry her to the tents, have Machaon staunch her wound and fix her up, and send her back into the wilds of Scythia.
It's not fair. It's not right.
Almost isn't the same thing as exactly. And she's so small, and she's lost so much blood—he can't let her live. She would never take the field again. It would be cruel. He knows what he would feel if he were stuck indoors, and what everyone would say.
So Achilles bows his head, bends, spear in hand, and pushes up under her shield, seeking the stew of her vitals, where death will come quickly. She does not resist, and the force of that last thrust is enough to lift her off the ground, run clean through, her arms flung wide as a lover's—for a moment, he has the strangest illusion that he's fucking her, but when he blinks in surprise, it dissipates. He opens his eyes and looks into hers; there is no rancor or recrimination there, and she smiles at him in sudden, shared understanding.
Why—it's you!
Achilles smiles back—really smiles, with his whole face, as he hasn't done since Patroclus died—and opens his mouth to say something, but that brief spark has already flickered out. She's gone, and he lowers her gently to the ground, gingerly setting a foot on her to get his spear out.
That night, when the fire is banked and he is alone with his thoughts in the dark, he opens the tent flap and looks out over the plain. At first, on seeing the conflagration, Achilles thinks they've actually managed to take Troy, but then the wind carries the distant swell of women's voices, and he realizes it's her funeral pyre.
If I could have it exactly the way I wanted, I'd have Patroclus back again. Achilles watches the fire move through narrowed lines; he's too far away to really see anything, but he's been to enough funerals, and he can imagine how this one will go, if Skythian customs are like Achaian. The flames will catch the edge first, crackle up to where her body lies; the embers will fizz and pop, sparks flying here and there, and one will lick her long hair into flame. Soon enough, she'll be robed in fire, burning up towards the heavens and the gods who made her, and when it all dies down, the women will brush her ashes and the last fine shreds of bone into the urn.
For a moment, his sight blurs. It's nothing, of course; thinking about Patroclus always does this to him.
It's nothing at all.
I'd have Patroclus back again. And maybe, if you could be there with us, that'd be all right.
