Hey Lads and Lassies!!! Okay so thanxs a million for the review, i am incredibly glad you guys are enjoying the story : ) This chapter might be a bit strong because there is cursing i guess hence why it's rated T. I am thinking that perhaps i should have rated it M. I am sorry if i offended or disturbed anyone : )....Anyways i am gonna shut my trap now, and i hope you enjoy the chapter. Please click the little green button bellow and Review, Thanxs again : )
They had taken prisoners. But barely. Of our large army only about a dozen prisoners were taken. I was one of them. We were bound like cattle, stripped of our weapons, and armors, until we remained in all but tunics worn underneath our armors.
I had awoken in a tent to find that i was not the only one of my sisters held captive. We were all bruised, but alive and well. Or so to speak, if you call captivity 'well'.
The tents we were held in was large, and made of thick leather. But the leather didn't prevent the cold from sneaking through. The opening flapped at the strong wind, sending the cold night air inside. The tent was dark, and i could hear the unavoidable chatter of teethes even though with proper garments the cold wouldn't have been felt. I ground my teeth refusing to make any noise at all.
"Bring them out." The voice was rough and ugly. The highest rank soldier inside the tent took action immediately.
"Get up." He said.
Many said that the Amazons, Or man eaters how many of them called us where giant women, taller than even most men, but truth was that we weren't unnaturally tall. Many were indeed tall, and many were shorter. But we are not giants. I myself stand on the 'shorter' side. We amazons saw that it was not the height but the the determination, the skills, and the cunningness of a warrior that mattered.
I once saw how Anay, a frail, lithe woman, bring down a giant of a man warrior with a single calculated and deadly blow on the underside of his arm. The warrior bled to death in the count of sixty heartbeats. Fighting side by side with Anay has been a pleasure. Inside myself the thought of her dieing tightened my heart.
When many of us captives did not stand fast enough for his taste he said "Damn whores." I felt like punching him until all of his teeth had fallen from his mouth.
When we stood we were forced to walk outside. The chains at our ankles and wrists making a degrading rattling noise as we walked.
Outside the cold was worse. Bitter. A full moon adorned the sky, and i felt a tiny comfort that the goddess Artemis was watching.
Besides the moon torches lit the night.
We were forced to stand in a straight line, shoulder to shoulder. Soldiers surrounded us, making it difficult to look beyond the men. Many faces in the crowd, some young, scared and naive, something that would be robbed of them soon enough. Others older, cynical. Some had kind eyes, and others seem not to be men at all. There were some men still with their armors, yet some were in civilian clothes, and others were half naked, perhaps having drunk too much wine to feel the bitter cold.
I cursed under my breath when my eyes fell upon a tall god with red hair standing on the far left. The crowd had given him space. Outside the heat of battle i felt naught but fear for this demented god.
Next to Ares was another deity, by the internal glow of his skin. This one had short curling hair the color of the purest gold. And even at the distance his eyes shown as the bluest skies. Ares wore his armor, but this one wore just a toga, short and white.
My mind tried to name the god next to Ares but i failed to come up with an answer. The god was speaking to Ares in an urgent serious manner, His gestures becoming agitated as Ares simply ignored him. Ares was not even looking at this god, but at the spectacle that we, the captives were.
A man fell apart from the crowd and made his way towards us. The way he carried himself led me to believe that he was the top general. He walked in front of us, inspecting us, sizing us, all in disdain. The crowd was silent.
He then turned towards his men and addressed them.
"Warriors," His voice was loud and dangerous. "Behold the last remaining women warriors.... They are not warriors anymore lads. They are slaves. WHORES!" The crowds erupted in cheers. I could see that many soldiers did not cheer but retreated. Not everybody agreed with this savage.
"Any one of you interested in bedding one of them?" The men erupted in cheers again and my heart dropped. My eyes fell once again to the terrifying god of war. He seemed to sigh and as he spoke to the other deity. Then nodded his head. The other god sighted as well, but he did not seem relieved.
"I even know we have a virgin here." The General stood before me and pushed me forward. "A priestess of the temple of Athena."
Of course he would know of my chastity vow. I am a warrior first, but i am a priestess in our temple of Athena. The elaborate markings across my shoulder was proof of that. Every year when our women went to 'mingle' with the men of the neighboring city, the priestess of the temple of Athena went, but we did not lay with men. We celebrated without unions. I was one of the youngest to take the vow in the temple. I had seen twenty summers.
The general then stood at my back and grabbed my waist with one arm while the other hand was at my face holding me for the crowd of savages to see.
"Pretty upon the eyes, ain't she not?" His voice boomed in my ears. I grounded my teeth and attempted not to struggle. I wanted to elbow him in the stomach and knee him between his thighs. But he was still wearing wearing his armor, and my ankles and wrists were still bound. He pushed my then and i fell to the floor on my knees. Catching myself with my hands. The ground scraped my palms and knees. My long dark hair fell to my face as i struggled to stand.
"We are going to have duels tonight. Best fighters win their choice of whore!"
The crowd cheered yet again. When the crowd silenced the Ares moved forward. Again the crowd parted, but this time they also stared in wow and fear.
He also made his way towards the center. Towards us. The other god did so too.
Now that i could truly see the deity completely i couldn't miss the small wings in the back of his sandals. Hermes.
"You mistaken yourself Maximus," Ares voice broke through the night. I had an irritating urgency to hide behind anything or anybody. "The priestess is mine."
I looked at Maximus and he looked like he wanted to defy the god, even if that cost him his life. If he wasn't about to offer me to his best fighters i would have looked upon him with respect for wanting to defy the god.
Perhaps Ares caught the glimpse of defiance that went through the eyes of the General, for he cocked his head to the side, and stared at Maximus, unblinking, like a jaguar ready to pounce. All animalistic and not an ounce of humanity.
Unconsciously i took a step back.
"The war was won, the Amazon army annihilated. There is no need for captivity. You will let them go." This came from Hermes.
Two deity's in one day is more than i can bare. While Ares was like a volcano that could errupt unexpectedly, Hermes was like a storm. It could be harmless, but it could also shift to devastate.
"With all due respect your grace, they are our war prizes." Maximus said as if that explained all. The crowd was silent as if it felt something coming.
"Maximus, Maximus, Maximus," Ares stood close to the general. Too close. My breathing became fast, almost panting, as if i was running through the mountain. "I said no prisoners. Yet you disobeyed."
"I thought...you...when you...the girl, when you spared the girl, i thought-" The general was reduce to an incoherent child in less than a minute. Where was the fierce warrior now?
"No. I spared the girl for something other than your spoils. Yet you bound her as if she was yours." I didn't like this one bit. What was going through the head of this crazy god.
Hermes though seemed completely sane, angry, but sane. I moved away from Ares and closer to him. I wanted to put a strong somebody between me and Ares, who's words seemed just too soft and slow to be normal. Hermes eyed me as i moved towards him. But he didn't protest.
Ares then reached towards me and in one swift motion pulled me between him and Maximus.
"Unbind her." He said. For the first time in my life i felt incredibly frail between a man and a god.
The man did unbind me. Letting the metal fall to the ground with a thump.
"Now unbind them." Hermes added in.
"No, they are our spoils of war." Hermes didn't take this kindly.
"We are not going home until he sees them freed." Ares whispered in my ear. His breath sending chills down my spine. "He has an irritating heroic tendency."
I am a warrior, i am prepare for the blood and gore of battles. But what Ares did surprised me more than anything. In one swift motion he unsheathed his sword, and in a movement so incredibly graceful and primal he moved from behind me and stood behind Maximus. Then he grabbed the general's hair and pulled his head back and slashed his neck open. Blood flowed out of the men incredibly fast, staining his robe and mines too. I have seem the light of life fade from the eyes of many, but it has always been in the heat of war. It has always been expected, for every warrior understands that every battle could be deadly. But this man wasn't expecting it. His eyes had widened and his lips parted slightly in his last act.
Ares let the body fall to the floor. He looked at it with a coldness that only a god of war could hold. There myths about him being a passionate lover, but despite his beauty and his graceful body, i could not see how a God of War was capable of anything but fighting.
I stared at him my lips parted and my eyes wide. I was still in shock. The blood of Maximus sparkled across my face and body. Making my tunic sticky and filthy across my skin.
"Hermes, free the women if you want. I am going."
I wanted to run, to maybe even hide behind Hermes who seemed much more humane and civilized than Ares, but my feet felt rooted to the ground. When i finally had collected myself enough to move, i took a few steps back. Ares took a step forward.
He grabbed my upper arm in an unbreakable force and started walking to a large black horse with bronze saddle that stood at the distance. I grounded my feet to the ground, and tried shrugging him off, pushing, pulling, i felt like a trapped wolf who was willing to bite its own paw off to be free. But of course nothing worked.
The crowd was silent in a shock, or perhaps mourning the passing of their leader. The once again parted for the god. Nobody wanted to have a demented god against them. But it seemed like i had no to choose, for the choice was already made for me.
Even though Ares could pull me to his horse without a glisten of sweat upon his brow he stopped and looked at me. There was no emotion upon his fierce face. I thought that perhaps he would let me stay with the remaining few of my people, but he didn't. In one swift motion he lifted me over his shoulder, my hip upon his shoulder a strong arm around the back of my knees. His other hand on my arse. My face was dangerously close to hitting the armor on his back with every step he made. Of all the humiliating things that could have happened this was perhaps the most humiliating of all.
He set me down in front of his horse. at a distance the horse seemed large, but up close it was so much larger than i initially thought. He climbed unto his horse and together they made an even more majestic and terrifying image. Stubborn as I am my legs automatically set into a sprint running the direction opposite to him. It wasn't but twenty seconds till he came at me head on, caught me by the arm and in one swift motion raised me onto his horse with him. The impact of his armor was hard against my own chest. He had sat me on the opposite direction, his hands move to accomodate my thighs over his.
"Wrap your arms around my neck and hold tight." He said in my ear.
I did not intend to do as he instructed. That would only put me much closer to him than i intended to. It would aligned too many parts of out bodies. I would be...straddling him. But as the horse urged forward my arms automatically went around his neck and my cheek on his neck. So close this god smelled of the forest, violence and male.
My eyes fell upon Hermes freeing my sisters. I could only hope they would remain safe. The horse broke into a gallop incredibly fast, unfamiliar and as reckless as its owner. I did not break my eyes from my remaining sisters and we moved farther away. The strangest thing happened then. My eyes did not cease to see them because they were too far away, but they became a blur as if i was seeing them underwater or something of that matter. Then they faded completely. That's when i realize the air was no longer cold, and that the leaves of trees now shone a true green not achieved even in the best of summers. The air smelled different.
"Where are we?" I said against his neck.
"Olympus." He simply said.
I hope you like it : ) R&R porfavor