I heard the drums and was on my feet even before Achilles burst through the tent's flap. "My armor!" he demanded, but I was already holding it up for him, ready for him to slip it on. As I buckled on his greaves onto his shins, tapping his knees as he shifted impatiently, making my job harder, (and he knew it,) he looked down at me.

"Come on, aren't you done yet? We don't have the time. You're coming too."

My fingers stopped on the buckles. "What?" I asked, staring up at him. He moved his leg, and I subconsciously slapped at his leg, stopping him. "I'm going…out there…with you?"

"Yes. Don't look so surprised. You're my standard boy. Agamemnon would be an idiot to exclude you from the ranks. Now, hand me my weapons, and go get dressed for battle while I hitch the horses to the chariot."

He tried to walk away, stumbled, and glared down at me as I still clung to his leg, hugging it. He rolled his eyes to the heavens, and I hastily scrambled up. "Right sir."

"Boy, what am I going to do with you?"

He left, and I pawed through my piles of things, searching for the leather skirt, a thicker tunic, and an old helmet. Exchanging my sweat-stained linen tunic for the silk one lined with layers of linen, and topping it with the skirt, I jammed the helmet over my fair hair, adjusting it so it didn't rub against my pert nose. Trotting past my bed, I grabbed my father's dagger off it, and fetched one of the shields that hung near the tent flap.

I blinked in the sunlight, squinting at the shine of sun off moving bronze armor. I heard a whistle, and Achilles gestured where he stood near the chariot. Something flew through the air toward me as I walked toward him, and I grasped the sword in its sheath. Drawing it, I examined it closely, and nodded. A good smith had craft this, though it wasn't my father's mark that stamped it. "I hope you're as good with a sword as you said you were," Achilles warned me. "I don't feel like training another standard boy after all this."

Climbing up into the chariot after him, I gripped the side as the two gray horses leapt forward. Achilles held the reins, and gripped his spear beside him. "Ready?" he asked, cavalier. I nodded, smiling fiercely. This was what I had been waiting for.

We lined up on the side of the battlefield, at the end of a line of chariots that was rapidly expanding. I could pick out Odysseus and his black team, and Agamemnon and his fiery chestnuts that matched both his hair and temper. Further down was Nestor and his steel-grays, Giant Ajax and his bay team, Little Ajax and his matched whites, and more of our comrades. Foot soldiers from all of the provinces of Greece lined behind us, following the orders of their lords.

The Trojans were in formation on the other side of the great field from us, ready as we were for the bloodshed. The sun bore down harshly on both armies, sparing no one. The sun didn't pick sides like the gods.

On our side the figures of Hera, Athena, Artemis and a few of the lesser gods could be seen, and filed in with the Trojans stood Ares, mighty Archer, god of war, Dawn, mother of Memnon, and more. This had gone even beyond a war of mortals.

I chanced a look at my master, and a fierce grin settled over his mouth as he waited for the call. Shifting from foot to foot, as was his nervous habit, we both waited for Menelaus's call to battle.

Then, from the first ranks of our chariots came the sound of a golden horn. From the far Trojan side, another answered. This was it. A momentary chilling silence came over both sides, and you could hear leather shifting as men settled into their armor and horses muscles gathered and bunched. Then, as one, both sides spilled onto the field like crashing black waves.

The clash of metal on armor was deafening. Flashes of light caught on everything, spear, sword, armor, burnished chariot. Blood ran red under wheel and foot, and men were falling left and right, taken by spear or sword cut. Friend and foe fell, cut down by bronze and iron as the red wave overtook them.

Achilles thrust the reins at me, and I grabbed them before they dropped. "But I don't know how to drive a chariot!" I protested as he reached for his spears.

"Well, you better learn fast or we're both dead," came my master's answer, sent with a smile but in a blunt tone that didn't leave room for negotiation. I fisted the reins in my hands, and the horses swerved left, then right, then straight as I struggled to get a short grip on them.

Men fell under their hooves, and the chariot's wheels rolled over mounds. Achilles grinned at me. "Well, that's one way to do it. Running them over is just as good as bringing them down with bronze." I shook my head without looking at him, concentrating fiercely ahead of me. I could see where Hector of Troy, son of King Priam was fighting.

We hit a rut, and the chariot tipped sideways. The horses surged forward, and I lost my grip on both reins and chariot side. Tumbling from the bronze vehicle, I saw Achilles grab for the flapping reins and throw his weight all to one side to right the carriage. Not stopping, the horses raced on. I was on my own for the first time.

Stumbling up, I drew the sword from its sheath, and looked up over the field. Chaos reigned as men, horses, chariots, weapons and armor fell. From the colors of armor, and tunics, the colors of their households, you could tell whose side who was on.

I had lost sight of Achilles and his chariot, so I started forward, sword held ready at my side. So busy fighting with each other, no one noticed a thin slip in armor weaving through the battlefield. Running through the melee, I ducked as weapons flashed overhead me. I was swiftly running, as the daughter of a silver-footed sea nymph should, the feet of my mother's blood bringing me through the battle with minimal scrapes. Achilles was the swift sprinter, and that came from his own sea nymph mother's blood. The silver coursed through our veins, and no one without help of the gods could keep up with us.

A spear whizzed past my head, and I stopped sharply, turning. A Trojan foot soldier stood behind me, leveling another spear at me. My eyes widened as he let go, and I dropped to the ground, rolling as instinct took over. Crouching, I looked up at him as he started forward, drawing his sword. That wouldn't do. He was far taller and heavier then I, and a battle between us would end poorly for me.

Before he had a chance to recover his sword from his side, I had leapt up and was running at him, my own sword out. Jumping, I landed on his chest as I stabbed down, and the man fell, his dark blood pooling over my hands in river as it coursed out of his body, over the sword's hilt. I stared at it, transfixed. My first kill, the first man I had brought down in battle. I retched, and threw up.

Standing as I swiped at my mouth, I ran my sword over his tunic quickly, cleaning it partially, as best I could for now. I wasn't a treasure-hunter like most of these men; I didn't care to strip the armor of my fallen opponents. It seemed too low, too much like desecrating the bodies of the dead. I left him there, where he had fallen, in a pool of his own blood.

The ground had turned from brown and green to red below my feet, staining my sandals and feet as I ran. I lashed out with my sword at those in the "wrong" armor as they ran past me, screaming in fury. The innocence of the child was gone, raped from me by these men of blood and glory.

I found Achilles fighting near Troy's walls. Leave it to him to get the farthest. A bloody swath of bodies lay in a path behind him, marking where the invincible killer had come through. I stood, running back my free hair from my face, the helmet gone now, watching him hack away at the shield of a Trojan, fighting him until the other man fell.

Leaning on my sword's hilt, point driven into the ground, I cheered with the rest of the Greek soldiers, but felt a deep sense of disgust with myself as I did. Here I was, only seventeen, and I was congratulating a man for ending the life of another. Did he have a wife back inside the city's walls? Children? Were they waiting, praying, hoping they would see their father and husband again?

Even worse, I thought back on all the men I had killed in my flight across the battlefield. No river of red like Achilles', but a smaller, neater killing job marked my passage. Those men I had killed, with these hands, with my dearly loved father's steel, they had lives too. But war was war. It was their life, or mine. And personally, I would rather keep mine. I had become a killer, ruthless and efficient. In one day. In one day, the giggling girl that had rode onto the battlefield had turned into the grim-eyed and blood-stained warrior woman who hated herself. Was this what it felt like to be a soldier? A warrior? A legend?

I turned away from the scene in disgust. Men were fleeing into Troy's walls, and men were fleeing back to the Greek's camps by their black-hulled ships. This day's battle was over.

Achilles stripped his opponent's armor. I didn't watch it, but instead heard it, the sick dull sound of a dead body slumping out of his armor, the thunk as he hit the ground, naked. The clang as Achilles waved the fallen soldier's gear in the air above his head at his people. I shook my head, walking away, my naked sword still clutched in my bloody and sweaty hand.

A shout made me turn. Achilles was looking after me, grinning. "Boy! You, Chrysaor! You leave so soon? Will you not stop to celebrate with your allies and master, who fought so gloriously today?"

I stared at him, at the blood that caked him as it did everyone else, even myself. I had never had someone else's blood on me before, but I knew it was nothing new for my master. No, he would come back to the tents, where I would have drawn up a basin of hot water, and wash it off him as he stood and told me the tales of the battle, the war he fought. As I had for the past year. And what a fool I was, this past year, to listen in awe and total worship, and think how strong he was, how brave.

There was no braveness about him, this immortal man who fought these mortal soldiers. I knew that now. I knew what it felt like to have someone die under you hand, to have their blood spill onto you, in your face, and into your mouth, open and gasping for breath in the heat. I knew the tangy and metal-sweet taste a man's hot blood had, and I knew the ache in my very bones that came from lifting a sword over, and over, and over again, to raise it over someone's head or neck. To stab through thin armor, and feel sorry for a man that was too poor to have had thick armor made for him.

I shook my head at Achilles, favorite of the gods, my eyes hollow. His face creased in concern. He walked over to me and tilted my head up so he could look at my face, smeared with sweat and blood and gods know what else. My hair was clumped with the same stuff, my helmet long discarded when it became a heat-trap on my head, and making my neck heavy. I met his eyes for a second, let him see all the hate and disappointment I held there, and then turned my head away. "I'll go back to the tents now, milord, and heat your water."

He let me go, and I turned and walked away again, the mutters of the men gathered behind me filling my ears in a consistent and annoying buzz. Let them talk. Let them gossip like lazy and noble women at the bathhouses. I would not be swayed. I would go back, alone, and mourn the death of a maid none of them had ever known, or would know. A maid none of them had ever seen, but looked right at everyday.

The horses were still with Achilles, so I didn't have to tend to them. I drew two basins of warm water, one for Achilles, and one for me. Hidden in the back of one of the smaller tents, I washed the gore off of myself and my clothing, watching the water turn a weak and sickly red as I dunked the cloth back into it again. I took my quiet alone time to breathe deep and set back everything I had seen and done this day, and push it into the farthest corner of my mind. A killer I might be, but one who gloried in it, I was not.

Re-dressed in my tunic I had worn before the battle that morning, I hauled the bigger basin into the great tent for my master to wash himself in. Once everything was in place, from the water and basin to a fresh tunic and robe, I stood at the doorway and watched for him to come, lit by the flickers of various camp and cooking fires. Finally, the glint off the bronze chariot and gray horses caught my eye, and I ran forward to take the bridles from Achilles. He let them go for me to take, and walked into his tent.

Hitching the horses to their ties, I untacked them and rubbed them down, making sure they weren't too warm to eat. Once they were cared for to my satisfaction, I enlisted the help of a few of the soldiers Achilles had brought from his provinces of Myrmidon to roll the chariot and cover it safely.

Once my other tasks were done, I entered the tent to help Achilles himself. He sat slumped over on a chair, his head in his hands. Looking up, he groaned as he lifted his arms above his head so I could pull his breastplate off. He flexed his arms as I bent down and unbuckled his greaves and sandals.

He stood up, unfastening the pin of his tunic from his shoulder and dropping it. Keeping my eyes adverted, I picked up the filthy garment that fairly dripped and took the pin out of it. Fastening it, I laid it next to the clean tunic that lay out for him once he was finished washing.

Achilles was in the brass basin, leaning against the side, eyes closed. He looked at peace for the first time today, and I felt some of my hostility towards him melt away. I could forget that he was a kind master and a fair man so easily when confronted with his harsh combat. I took another cloth from a stack and dipped it in the water, slowly cleaning the layers of sweat, dirt and blood off his muscled shoulders. They flexed under my fingers as I scrubbed, and he leaned back into the cloth.

"Battle didn't agree with you?" he asked quietly, not looking back at me, with his eyes still closed, voice sleepy.

"…It's not so much that it didn't agree with me. I understand that you must kill or be killed," I started carefully. "But I still believe that the life of a person is a precious thing and should be respected."

"But when it comes down to the final matter, would you die for a cause?"

"Not this cause. What type of woman would send her country into battle because of a sordid affair?" I asked indignantly. "I surely wouldn't- be involved in this if it weren't for my country's honor."

"One like Helen."

"Yes."

There was a brief pause as Achilles submerged his head under the water, and then resurfaced. "Why were you so hateful earlier? You know about war, even before you fought today. You know the things I do. So why the distaste?"

I thought for a moment, not wanting to sound brash or petulant. "Because I had never experienced the blood-lust or triumph that comes when you defeat someone, and I had thought that killing was a sacred honor, not something that the rashest recruit can accomplish."

"Those are wise words for one so green and young."

"My father taught me that."

"Your father must be a smart man."

"He…is? Was? I don't know. I don't know if my father is alive, or dead, or even if he's moved."

"You miss him."

My hands stopped moving as I thought. "I guess I do. He raised me, because my mother wasn't around. Synae is…different."

"Your mother's a sea nymph, like mine."

His sure tone shocked me. "And how or why do you think that?" I asked quietly. He rapped my knuckles, and pointed to his back. I resumed the cleaning, listening to the words he said.

"You run fast and light, and don't get winded easily. Your hair is fine but thick, and light. But your eyes are green, the green of a pale sea at daybreak. Odd color for eyes around here."

"But your eyes are blue," I protested. "So not that different from mine. And I know you're of a nymph and mortal king."

"And you?"

I looked down at my hands, and not at my master, who had turned to watch me. "I'm born of a sea nymph and a master smith."

"There's nothing to be ashamed about that," Achilles told me, ducking his head to make sure that he caught my eye.

"I'm not ashamed," I told him, backing myself up a bit so he could see my entire face to know I wasn't lying. "I'm not ashamed at all about my blood. But I just wish…May I ask you something?" He nodded ascent.

"As a child of a nymph…Is your mother never there either?"

Achilles thought before answering. "If I need her, she's there," he said cautiously. "Sometimes she's even there before I call for her. But when it comes to being an active mother, no, I don't suppose nymphs are strong at that. You still bear a slight grudge at your mother?" he asked me.

Shamed, I could only nod. Even as a grown maid, of an age to be married and have a family of my own, (not that I wanted one, obviously,) I still bore the slight scars on my soul of a child who had grown without her mother's love. Surely, I had my mother's admiration and joy, but she had always been, was, and would always be such a different creature in her beauty and sea-life that we would never be able to see eye-to-eye. Where my mother was grace and femininity, I was my father's helper and soldier. No wonder she had farmed off the responsibilities of me to two other goddesses.

"For what it's worth," Achilles said, turning back around, his back toward me so I could wash it more easily, "I think that if you still need to resolve issues with your mother, you should do it."

I dashed from the tent, looking for something, anything to help me get to the battlefields before the battle started. My eyes rested on Achilles' chariot horses. Ride them there? I snorted. I knew the tale. They had been given to Achilles from the gods, a set of matching stallion like no others. And only Achilles alone could control them. Only an idiot would try to ride them. I'm many things, an imposter and a sneak among them, but on my good days I'm not an idiot. I turned away from the team, and started down the tent row.

"Horses?" I shouted, looking back and forth to passing soldiers. "Does anyone have a horse for me?" They shook their heads, and I kept running, looking for even the oldest of nags.

Finally, down by Odysseus' tents, a man came forward with a dark horse. "Where you the one calling for a horse? Chrysaor?" he asked, and I nodded, out of breath. "Here," he said, handing the bridle to me. "From his lordship Odysseus. Bring him back when you're through with him is all he requests." I nodded my thanks, swinging up onto the bay's high back. Settling on the lion pelt on his back, I turned the stallion and took off for the fields.